Mood:  chatty
Topic: Scenografia


I am tired today. The movie last night was forgettable, though Downey and Kilmer belong together. Perhaps they are the next Matthau and Lemmon together.

I finally found out about Val's weird elbow:

"While filming The Doors in 1991, Val Kilmer broke his arm badly when he performed a jump from the stage into the crowd and the stuntman failed to catch him, leaving Kilmer with an abnormal growth on his right elbow. The abnormal growth can clearly be seen many times in Heat."

Mood:  rushed
Topic: Scenografia

Several Englishmen


The concierge is James Mason, whose voice I have often mistaken for Sebastian Cabot.
It would be remiss not to ask someone about it.

And George Sanders? He plays Sher Khan.
He had quite a singing voice. It is possible
to see this casting as the precursor of
Peter Ustinov's inspired turn as the voice of
Prince John, who happens to be a lion, the animal of English royalty. Oh the animation of reasoning.

Voice talent. If you happen to know the actor
beforehand or if you happen to be unaware
of the actor. The effects of the actor's appearance
on the appearance of the animation. So we have Andy Devine in Disney's animated Robin Hood. Secondly, we have Andy Devine in John Ford's "The Man who Shot Liberty Valance." So that Robin Hood imposes itself on John Ford. It becomes, "Friar tuck is driving that buggy!"

Latter Spaces
Mood:  on fire
Topic: Scenografia

Bees. Clock. Recessed window. Stone room. Rafters. Bureau. Dense with envelopes. Wall, pheasant. Another window, front-facing. Ostrich egg. Mock lanterns. Fireplace. Poker.

Beata Wehr
Mood:  silly
Now Playing: Book Artist & Painter
Topic: Scenografia

Beata Wehr

Born: Warsaw, Poland

Came to the US in 1985.

Warsaw University: M.A., art history
University of Arizona, M.F.A.,painting

Favorite Painter: Paul Klee

Artist Statement:

IN MY MIXED MEDIA BOOKS I focus on issues related to my experience as a Pole living in the U.S. I came here 13 years ago with no intention to stay, but I am still here. Since my connection with Poland is very strong, I feel I am in between the two cultures. In my work, I address the problems of emigration with a view to both verbal and non-verbal communication, issues of adaptation, nostalgia, isolation, dislocation and identity. I have moved many times - I've had 11 homes - so I started to redefine for myself the idea and the meaning of the home, examining my own nomadic life. It is very hard to feel a part of the local culture if you move so often; life feels even more unstable; you experience transience much more strongly.

Bertrand Tavernier: Coup de Torchon (1981)
Mood:  suave
Now Playing: Clean Slate (inspired by Pop. 1280, Jim Thompson)
Topic: Scenografia


Feels very good, watching it. Feels very good seeing the dead in the river floating by (dysentery). At that distance. To know they will never get close enough to infect the camera. To know there is someone smarter than that out there behind a camera, letting them float by, letting you feel the discipline of passivity.

This makes a movie like Taxi Driver seem very easy. Because the music in this movie comes in to provide the leisure , a sort of cane or walker for the policeman as he gets around. Makes him feel choreographed, doing the rounds, despite the steadicam's constant unwinding / deconstruction of the little town (Boukassa).

this is probably its greatest affinity with a novel like The Third Policemen, the photography never latches / catches / snags. It produces no object even its lingering slips over everything. Nothing to hold onto. Production values, not many props.

I like one moment when a casket is being carried on the street and a man passing by, carrying a table on his head, lifts his hat, which sets on the upside of the table. He lifts it and sets it back down. This is the image of the film's attitude towards drama. It can go through those motions because it is so disconnected from accessible images. French Africa is drab x drab. Bleached, yes, but we know that filters and various exposures can soak a place. This place is so stark, its dimensions so suspect...the trees O'Brien uses in 3rdPoliceman. Simply circumscribing an area, taping off the world.

The trailer did not know how to advertise this film. It's understandable. Doesn't fit easily into noir. The direct asserts that it's noir. If this is noir, then The Third Policemen is noir. The trailer had to amplify the deaths, the shootings. It plays these like an early music video.

I don't think noir can be this religious. I think noir has to be irreligious. I don't know if style
can be proved as ligature. Anyways, the evenness of the main character, the chief po of Boukassa, the absence of any transformation other than the reactions of those around him (to what he performs, apparently unsurprised at the turn he has taken).

Flann O'Brien might have directed this movie, if a Frenchman hadn't. Its visual feeling registers very close to Altman's The Long Goodbye.