Offscreen Notes
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David Bordwell (1947-Feb 29, 2024)
One of the most important educators, teachers, and film academics of his generation, David Bordwell, has died at the age of 76. Along with being a great and motivational teacher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he taught in one of the most influential film studies departments in North America from 1973 to 2004, Bordwell wrote some of the most important film studies books in the field. Beginning with his seminal Film Art: An Introduction (1st ed., 1979), which he co-wrote with his wife Kristen Thompson, and in later editions, Jeff Smith. The latter book is probably the most widely adopted university textbook in the world and has shaped the way film is taught and thought about for generations (and I would add, for better or worse, as the book’s formalist approach has its virulent and in some cases excessively so, detractors). Many of his best books were fruits of exhaustive secondary research but his writing never steered far from a deep analysis of film at the historical, aesthetic, and contextual level (he innovated in the field of industry analysis with his groundbreaking 1985 The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960). Perhaps Bordwell was most passionate when he wrote about questions of film style, in such books as Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (1988’s), Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging (2005); On the History of Film Style (1997), and The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies (2006).
Though Bordwell seemed to move farther away from film theory as he got older, he did write at least three key works of film theory, Narration in Fiction Film (1985), and his controversial Making Meaning Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema (1991), and its sequel in spirit, Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, co-written with Noël Carroll in 1996. Collectively these two works challenged the then widespread approach to film modelled on what he and Carroll labelled as ‘Grand Theories’ , a school of interpretative approaches to film based on mainly Continental theory and philosophy (German Idealism, phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism, Marxism, etc.). As you might expect, the books stirred endless debate and venom.
In terms of his own methodological approach to film Bordwell is perhaps best remembered for his promotion of neoformalism, a return to the roots of Russian Formalism applied to cinema, most forcefully in Narration in Fiction Film, which he researched and practised along with his wife Kristen Thompson; and his notion of ‘historical poetics’, an approach which analyzes how broad cultural patterns influence the way films look and sound.
I was lucky enough to have met Bordwell on a few occasions and was struck by his boyish enthusiasm and boundless energy. He seemed like the kind of bloke that you would enjoy sitting down and chatting with about film. And from people who knew him much better than I, the one thing that Bordwell lived for more than anything, was watching and listening to film. Let’s hope wherever he is there is a projector or big screen TV not far away.
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Norman Jewison: 1926-January 20, 2024
A Canadian legend of countless Canadian and American productions, Norman Jewison, dies at age 97. Jewison will be remembered for a few key films but I will remember him as one of those old school Hollywood directors who was able to apply himself to any kind of script or genre, like drama (In the Heat of the Night, And Justice for All, Agnes of God, The Cincinnati Kid), musicals (Jesus Christ Superstar, Fiddler on the Roof), comedy (Moonstruck, The Russians Are Coming The Russiands Are Coming, The Art of Love, Send Me No Flowers), bio-pics (The Hurricane, F.I.S.T.) and science-fiction (Rollerball).
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David J. Skal (RIP, 1952-2024)
Very sad to hear about the passing of film critic, historian and writer David J. Skal, who died on January 1, 2024, at the age of 71 (b. 1952). Skal was best remembered by those who knew him as a classic Monster Kid, someone who grew up watching broadcasts of the classic Universal horror films on television in the 1960s. Skal nurtured this love and passion of these films into a career as one of the most intelligent historians of this period. I still rate his second non-ficiton work The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror (1993) as one of the best books on the horror genre. Across his written works and frequent appearances on documentaries and physical media commentaries Skal helped us to realize how important fear in its artistic manifestations is to our understanding of human psychology and culture in general.
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Amir Naderi’s The Runner
Nice to see Amir Naderi's important post-Revolution Iranian film The Runner (1984) get the Criterion Blu Ray treatment.
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Mario Monicelli Retrospective During December 2023 in Montreal
The great Mario Monicelli is the subject of this December 2023 retrospective at The Cinematheque Quebecoise.
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New Blu Ray of Three Films by Experimental filmmaker Richard Kerr
Stephen Broomer through his series Art & Trash, and blu ray label Black Zero has been one of Canada’s most vocal and articulate supporters of experimental cinema. His latest Blu Ray release is a package of three films by Canadian filmmaker/teacher Richard Kerr, entitled Field Trips. The disc includes Last Days of Contrition, Cruel Rhythm and Field Trip.
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Daruish Mehrjui (1939-2023)
I can not believe or understand this latest tragedy, and I am frankly shocked. The great Iranian filmmaker Daruish Mehrjui and his wife Vahideh brutally stabbed to death in their apartment on October 14. Mehrjui was a favorite at Offscreen and I encourage you to read some of the essays and articles we have published on Mehrjui over the years.
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Terence Davies: 1945-October 7, 2023
One of England’s most respected directors, Terence Davies, died on October 7, 2023 at age 77. Davies ‘only’ made about 15 feature films but managed to instill a quiet visual intensity and narrative complexity (often concerned with issues of temporality, memory and the relationship between the personal and the historical) to all his films. His final two films were bio-pics, one about 20th Century poet Siegfried Sassoon, Benediction, and the other about write Emily Dickenson, A Quiet Passion (2016) [read review here). Perhaps his greatest works were more autobiographical in nature, dealing with his working class, Catholic upbringing (in the city of Liverpool) as a gay man in a time when homosexuality was not socially accepted. Three shorts that formed The Terence Davies Trilogy (1983), Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), The Long Day Closes (1992), The Neon Bible (1995) and Of Time and the City (2008), a documentary on his hometown of Liverpool.
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Yes! Film Festival
The Montreal Yes! Film Festival has a focus on local talent and is showcasing the 2023 crop of new talent this Saturday August 26 at the Leonardo Da Vinci Center. There are three programs of films:
Horror shorts 11:00 am-3:30 pm
Local Competition 3:30 pm-6:00 pm
International Films 6:30 pm-9:00 pmPlease note due to programming time restrictions, not all films listed are being screened. Filmmakers have already been notified of official selections.
NOMINATION FOR BEST ACTOR
Cedrick Mainville in PEANUT BUTTER
Alexis Deziel in LE MONSTER
Giuseppe Calvinisti in ELEVEN LINES
Mhohamad Ali Jawad in PINK TORERO KUSH
Shawn Baichoo in WRAITH
Nir Guzinski in BITTER SUN
NOMINATION FOR BEST ACTRESS
Tina Mancini in BITTER SUN
Lesly Velazquez in ISABELLE WALKS WITH ANGELS
Anne-Julie Proulx in HEALTH CHECK
Myriam Lopez in ELEVN LINES
Anne-Sophie Millette in LE MONSTER
Jen Viens in WRAITHNOMINATION FOR BEST DIRECTOR
Gabriel Despre for LE MONSTER
Maxime Divier for PEANUT BUTTER
Giuseppe Calvinisti for ELEVEN LINES
Naomi Silver-Vezina for ISABELLE WALKS WITH ANGELS
Samuel Edward Mac for WRAITH
Tommy Harvey for HEALTH CHECKNOMINATION FOR BEST SOUND
ISABELLE WALKS WITH ANGELS
WRAITH
ELEVEN LINES
PEANUT BUTTER
TEARS OF METAL
LE MONSTERNOMINATION FOR BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
ELEVEN LINES
PEANUT BUTTER
LE MONSTER
PINK TORERO KUSH
ISABELLE WALKS WITH ANGELS
WRAITH
HORROR NOMINATIONSNOMINATION FOR BEST ACTRESS
Moika Perreault in THE ILL FATED
Micheline Chartier in RED TILES
Charlotte Gagne in THE ILL FATED
Laurianne Dupuis in THE ILL-FATED
Charlotte Poitras in DIVA
Kochar Ababkir in AN ANGRY KNOCKNOMINATION FOR BEST ACTOR
Niwar Amin in AN ANGRY KNOCK
Gabriel Caron in GALATEA
Rizgar Hama in AN ANGRY KNOCK
Jonathan Asselin in SERIAL ENCOUNTERS
Dareen Smile in AN ANGRY KNOCK
Cedric Mainville in DIVANOMINATION FOR BEST DIRECTOR
Remi Frechette for DIVA
Philippe Bourret for RED TILES
Stephane Turgeon for THE SCREAM
Sarbast Raza Carmiany for AN ANGRY KNOCK
Daniel Rodriquez for THE ILL-FATED
Catherine Cote-Moisescu and Jeremy Glavac for SERIAL ENCOUNTERNOMINATION FOR BEST SOUND
THE ILL-FATED
RED TILES
THE SCREAM
GALATEA
DIVA
FUELNOMINATION FOR BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
GALATEA
AN ANGRY KNOCK
THE ILL-FATED
RED TILES
FUEL
THE SCREAM -
William Friedkin RIP 1935-August 7, 2023
William Friedkkn’s 1973 The Exorcist was a horror blockbuster as much from a cultural standpoint as box-office or genre film standpoint. No other film made as much of an emotional impact on me than seeing The Exorcist with a packed audience at the huge Loew’s theatre in Montreal. So packed that my friend and I (who were both under age I should add) had to sit in the only available seats right in the front row of the large Loew’s theatre screen. The anticipation my friend and I felt after the media frenzy around the film was palpable and the genius prologue in Iraq —a scene not in the novel so entirely Friedkin and Blatty’s design— was so unexpected its length felt interminable (“When is the scary stuff going to start, we thought to ourselves!”). But the way the sequence so eloquently set up many of the film’s themes without any obvious scares to set up the audience for the film’s slow burn horror was an aesthetic masterclass of narrative build-up. From 1968-1980 Friedkin had an enviable run of unique films each different in tone or subject yet remarkable personal reflections of how art can reflect social anxiety: The Birthday Party, 1968 (an engrossing Harold Pinter adaptation with a fantastic pre-1975 Jaws Robert Shaw performance, The Night They Raided Minsky’s, 1968 (show business musical comedy starring Jason Robards and Britt Ekland), The Boys in the Band, 1970 (bitchy, ahead of its time gay comedy drama), The French Connection, 1971 (multiple academy award winning police drug crime thriller with an all-star cast including Gene Hackman as unrelenting detective Popeye Doyle, Roy Scheider and Fernando Rey), The Exorcist, 1973 (arguably the greatest horror film ever made), Sorcerer, 1977 (on its day overlooked but now recognized as a masterful remake of Clouzet’s taut as a clothes line thriller The Wages of Fear, 1957), Cruising, 1980 (Friedkin’s second gay themed film, a detective-serial killer cat n’ mouse thriller set in the New York city underground gay S & M nightclub scene, which caused shock and controversy on its initial release. Post 1980 Friedkin would only sporadically scale these same artistic heights with To Live and Die in LA (1985), Bug (2006), and Killer Joe (2011), but his own legacy as a cantankerous old school director as dictator was cemented and endorsed by his own many on screen testaments and interviews (such as Alexandre O. Philippe’s elucidating documentary Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist, 2019).
