Since leaving CNN to make room for Piers Morgan, Larry King has been hosting two shows distributed through Ora TV: Larry King Now and Politicking. Last night, after an exhausting day, I watched a few episodes of both shows. The most recent installment of Politicking was an engaging interview with Errol Morris. Morris has been making the rounds in support of his upcoming documentary on former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/614498
I rarely watched Larry King Live during its long CNN run, but I appreciated him revealing his opinion on this program, acting more like a commentator than an observer. He revealed his skepticism about invading Iraq at the time, which he did not do on his CNN show, and he was self-reflexive on how Rumsfeld’s charisma and double-talk was both deceptive and convincing.
As far The Unknown Known, it’s easy to see this as a sequel to The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003), as both are films about secretaries of defense responsible for two long, calamitous wars. Based on the snippets in this interview, both films also trace how each man arrived at these positions of power and how they reflect on their decisions. But it looks like both men reflect on their decisions in different ways. Perhaps regret is that “unknown known,” whatever that really means.
Watch the whole interview. It’s funny and infuriating at the same time. Also, not since The Fog of War have I been looking forward to watching a Morris film: Standard Operating Procedure was too depressing for me to watch at the time.
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For as long as I can remember, the American film-history canon lists Florence Lawrence as the first movie star and that she was first featured as a star in the 1910 film, The Broken Oath. It’s a great story because it reveals that the established dominant players in the film business were too busy maintaining the status quo in the early 1910s and missed that film audiences wanted more than a generic motion picture. They wanted something different.
Florence Lawrence, in 1908, when she was the “Biograph Girl.”
Film companies in the nickelodeon era, prior to 1910, would not promote their actors. The film manufacturing companies preferred to sell films as commodities, pricing them by the foot, and didn’t want to promote the actors for fear that they would demand higher salaries.[1] Instead, a foot of film was like a barrel of oil, a bushel of corn, or a pound of cotton.[2]
However, film audiences began to recognize certain actors and developed an affinity with them. One such actor was Florence Lawrence, who appeared in the dozens of films produced by American Mutoscope and Biograph. Audiences clamored for more films with the “Biograph Girl,” although they did not know her name, and pressured theater operators to book her films.[3]
Biograph was part of a dominant film-making cartel in the first decade of the 20th century called the Motion Picture Patents Company, but there were competitors who often broke the law to make films in violation of patent laws. One such intellectual-property scofflaw was Carl Laemmle, who lured the Biograph Girl to this company, Independent Motion Pictures (IMP).
Laemmle didn’t just stick Lawrence in his movies: he used her for the first movie publicity stunt. Laemmle had newspapers report a story that Lawrence, the Biograph Girl, had been killed in a streetcar accident. It was a tragic story. Shortly afterward, Laemmle bought space in those newspapers to report that the rumors of Lawrence’s demise were greatly exaggerated: she was, in fact, alive and well. You can see that in this ad, where they “nail a lie.” Oh, yes, and by the way, she will starring in the upcoming IMP film The Broken Oath.[4]
The IMP Girl stars in The Broken Oath or is it The Broken Bath?
The one part of this story that doesn’t make sense to me is the name of the film in the ad. The ad for the 1910 film, where they “nail a lie,” names the film The Broken Bath, not The Broken Oath, as every source I’ve read lists it. That raises a couple of questions:
Is this ad a fake? No, you can see the ad in the March 12, 1910 issue of Moving Picture World on page 365.
Did the name of the film change? Possibly, but in that same issue, on page 400, you can see the film listed as the The Broken Oath. Also, in subsequent issues of Moving Picture World, the film summary describes the film as follows:
To break a secret society oath requires a good deal of nerve, and there are certain situations connected with a sweetheart which also require nerve. Where these two come together it is quite likely to be doubly interesting.[5]
Clearly, the film is about an oath, not a bath. Besides, a “broken bath” makes little sense unless it refers to a broken bath tub.
Did I nail a lie? Or could the name just have a typesetting error?
Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction, 3rd. ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010, pp. 30. ↩
Film companies were called “film manufacturing companies,” not studios, suggesting that they were similar to a company that manufactures a good like rubber or cotton, not the content on the films. ↩
The Cinema One is a set-top box[1] that allows you to rip your entire movie collection—DVDs and Blu-ray disks—so that you can watch it instantly on your big TV. But because the Cinema One bypasses the copy protection on those disks, Kaleidescape had to seek the blessings from the Hollywood studio cartel. And boy did they make it unusable. Pogue writes:
When you want to play a Blu-ray movie off the Cinema One, you have to hunt down the original disc you own, insert it into the Cinema One’s slot, and wait for it to load. You’re not playing the disc; you’re just confirming that you own it. But you’re also losing 80 percent of the value of having a Cinema One! What happened to “any movie in your collection, instantly”?
If you’re not dissuaded by the fact that the Cinema One doesn’t work any better than playing a Blu-ray, the price tag might. It costs $4,000.
Doesn’t BitTorrent seem easier?
Pogue is right in pointing out that this term is antiquated, but we still call it a computer mouse, long after it’s lost its “tail,” and we still “dial” phone numbers. ↩
With Sunday’s Academy Awards marking the end of the award season, Brandcameo announced its 2014 Product Placement Awards.
I used to find product placements tasteless, but my thinking has evolved. Years ago I read an interview with a respected TV writer and producer[1] who said that if done properly product placements can add to the character and setting of the story. If memory serves, he said something like “if there’s a character who drinks whiskey, and Bushmill will pay us for placement, let’s monetize that.”
There’s a nuanced difference between a Johnny Walker drinker (someone who tries too hard) and a Bulleit rye drinker (a straight-shooter). That changed my thinking. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of bean counters in media studies for whom each time a logo or product appears on screen, creativity has died by one point.
Free as in beer signs.
Winning and placing in this year’s Brandcameo Awards are Budweiser and Apple, respectively. I’ve always hated when a character ask for a generic “beer” on television or in a movie so I guess it’s a little more realistic that someone asks for a “Bud.” It’s the same number of syllables as “beer,” and the set designer will probably get a neon sign or painted mirror to hang in the bar set.
As for computers, according to worlds of films and TV shows I watch, seemingly everyone uses a Mac or an iPhone. Apparently, Apple products also appear on movies or TV shows I don’t watch:
Between 2001 and 2011, 129 of the 374 No. 1 films (34.4 percent) had Apple product placement. But Apple is still a product placement power, with 2013 films like Drinking Buddies and We’re the Millers both featuring the brand, as did China’s Midnight Weibo. Then there is TV, where Apple has upped its presence in hit series like House of Cards and Ray Donovan and overseas in the BBC’s Sherlock Holmes and China’s knock-off of The Apprentice.
Speaking of House of Cards, the product placement of computers and smartphones in that series is pretty systematic. The government apparatchiks use Blackberry phones, presumably for their rock solid security, and a unremarkable brand of desktop computers. But everyone’s personal phone is an iPhone. Men usually carry a black phone, and women sport a white one. The rich and powerful Frank and Claire Underwood both carry gleamingly new iPhones, in the new iPhone 5/5S form factor. By contrast, Zoe Barnes, a symbol of youthful enthusiasm and early–20s poverty, is still using a stumpy iPhone 4/4S. I’m surprised it doesn’t have a cracked screen.
Zoe Barnes has apparently not finished her contract and is still stuck with an iPhone 4 in 2013
And speaking of personal computing, does anyone take a computer, that is not a MacBook Pro or Air, to bed?
It’s hard not to get caught up in the Apple vs. Google debate, and the Brandcameo Awards also fall prey to this polemic. They point to a film that is entirely about Google:
More than one movie plot this year was knitted together with a brand name…. The Internship is the clear winner in the category with nearly the entire film’s shenanigans set inside the search engine behemoth’s campus and revolving around Google.
The Internship had its moments, but I really preferred House of Cards.
I’m pretty certain that it was David Simon, the creative force behind Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire, but I didn’t bookmark the article nor did I find it through a bunch of web searches. Maybe it was Matthew Weiner. ↩
Light Industry in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, will be screening an early film by Jon Jost, one of the most under-appreciated filmmakers of American Independent cinema.
The screening is on Tuesday, February 18, at 7:30 PM.
The Los Angeles Conservancy has just announced the lineup for this year’s Last Remaining Seats film series. This annual festival takes place in June with movie screenings at historically significant movie theaters throughout Los Angeles, mostly in downtown Los Angeles. This year, the entire festival will be downtown.
I’m a dues-paying member but have only attended once because, you know, I live 2,500 miles away. You can probably see these films on video at home, but that would be missing the whole point of seeing a film in a movie palace or midcentury music hall. Sure, you can rent these and watch your big TV at home, but I’ll bet you that their screens are bigger. And you’ll miss out and having a bunch of strangers laugh and cry with you.
Although I’ve never seen this film, reading the description seems like it’s one of those 1940s films noir where some helpless schmuck (Henry Fonda) gets taken by a cunning and relentless femme fatale (Barbara Stanwyck). Poor guy!
The Lady Eve has her clutches on Adam Henry Fonda. PARAMOUNT/The Kobal Collection.
The front-of-house card depicts a leggy Stanwyck clutching and practically choking Fonda against a background of an apple with a bite taken from it. An apple? A bite? A lady named “Eve?” Oh, I get it.
Of all the venues in the series, the Los Angeles Theater is probably the hardest one to get into. Go!
The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (1964)
The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, an icon of modern architecture and revitalization in downtown Los Angeles, is turning fifty this year. It will also host the Robert Wise-and-Jerome Robbins–directed version of the venerable stage musical by Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein (yikes!). The film features a young Natalie Wood and launched the career of Rita Moreno, one of the few Latina actresses to play complex (i.e., non-maid) roles in Hollywood.
This musical (yes, another one) is emblematic of the Warner Brothers musicals choreographed by some guy named Busby Berkeley. Along with 42nd Street and Golddiggers of 1933, it is part of the trilogy of film musicals about stage musicals.
Footlight Parade (1933). WARNER BROS/The Kobal Collection.
By the way, those films were all released in 1933 and feature dazzling dance numbers that boggle the mind in their uniform execution. It made for a great distraction during the depths of the Great Depression.
The Theatre at Ace Hotel (former United Artists Theatre, 1927)
This theater has just been renovated as part of the new Ace Hotel. They will host the first film from this triology (yes, another one) about time travel and saving yourself family from being “erased from existence.” One could argue that the Ace Hotel saved the United Artist theater from the same fate facing the McFlys in this treasured film from my childhood.
Palace Theatre (1911), Co-presented with the Latin American Cinemateca of Los Angeles
This movie I haven’t seen (yes, another one) was Luis Buñuels first dramatic film since L’Age d’Or in 1930, a film that was banned for, among other things, comparing Jesus Christ to the Marquis de Sade. Buñuel came to Mexico at an opportune time as the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema was underway. Buñuel thrived there for the next three decades, making over a dozen films, before returning to Europe in the late 1960s.
The second greatest film ever made closes out the series at the Orpheum Theater. With the newly renovated Ace Hotel theater getting all the buzz, I’m going to call The Orpheum the second cleanest picture palace on Broadway. Kudos to the curators for pairing the two!
If you haven’t seen the film, or even if you have, you might wonder what all the fuss is about. Why is this the second greatest film ever? I didn’t get it either because I thought the ending was unsatisfying. After a few viewings, though, you realize that the whole point of the film isn’t the great reveal of “Rosebud,” but the way you see a man’s life from the perspective of various people. Whenever one of us leaves this mortal coil, how do others speak of us? What would they say? Would that be who each of us really is? Get to know Charles Foster Kane those who loved and hated him, those who knew him best.
If you don’t appreciate that, then you won’t appreciate this: it’s a sled!
Rosebud from Citizen Kane (1941). RKO/The Kobal Collection.
What Happened to… ?
Three things strike me as I look over the list:
The Million Dollar Theater? This storied movie palace, which has served as the site for many Spanish-language films and Mexican vaudeville shows, is not participating in this year’s festival. In the past, it has hosted a Spanish-language film during past Last Remaining Seats. However, the programmers did schedule a Spanish film, El Gran Calavera at the Palace Theater.
The Saban Theater? The recently renovated theater in Beverly Hills is also missing from the list. My parents saw The Wizard of Oz a couple of years ago as part of this series. Do the Beverly Hills types not appreciate the unwashed DTLA masses?
Silent films? All of the films are talkies. Not too long ago, there was at least one silent film screened at Last Remaining Seats with live musical accompaniment.
Putting on a festival like this can be a lot of work, especially for a volunteer-run, not-for-profit organization that has a lot on its plate. The logistical challenges of continuing to use the Million Dollar or scheduling a silent film with live accompaniment must have been difficult to overcome. But it looks like another worthwhile series. Hopefully, I can make it out there for a screening or two.
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Currently on view and for sale at Bottleneck Gallery in Brooklyn are works inspired by movies released in 1984. There are sculptures, drawings, and a lot of prints derived from films that twenty- to thirty- year olds, including yours truly, remember fondly.
Artist PJ McQuade examines one of his pieces in the “It Came from 1984” show.
Trying to escape from rampant marketing is especially tough right now because of the all-consuming Christmas season and the impending release of Anchorman 2 on Christmas Day. It’s everywhere.
We discussed movie marketing and trailer in my American Film Industry class this last week. One example of clever marketing was the Ron Burgundy phenomenon. If you’re not keeping track, he’s been on…
The Japan Society in New York is celebrating Yasujiro Ozu’s 110th birthday by screening his 1960 film Late Autumn. They are hosting a raffle of great Ozu prizes for all ticketholders, including exclusive commemorative materials from Shochiku, as well as a special reception afterwards.
