Table of Contents
Introduction ix
I Position Papers
Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia 3
In Defense of Spoilers 10
Potential Perils of the Director's Cut 12
Southern Movies, Actual and Fanciful: A Personal Survey 25
À la recherche de Luc Moullet 25
Propositions 31
Bushwhacked Cinema 44
What Dope Does to Movies 51
Fever Dreams in Bologna: II Cinema Ritrovato 58
From Playtime to The World: The Expansion and Depletion of Space within Global Economies 62
II Actors, Actors-Writers-Directors, Filmmakers
Kim Novak as Midwestern Independent 71
Marilyn Monroe's Brains 75
A Free Man: White Hunter, Black Heart 78
Bit Actors 82
Rediscovering Charlie Chaplin 86
Second Thoughts on Stroheim 97
Sweet and Sour: Lubitsch and Wilder in Old Hollywood 114
Ritwik Ghatak: Reinventing the Cinema 123
Introducing Pere Portabella 127
Portabella and Continuity 131
Two Neglected Filmmakers: Eduardo de Gregorio and Sara Driver 136
Vietnam in Fragments: William Klein in 1967-68: A Radical Reevaluation 141
Movie Heaven: Defending Your Life 146
The World as a Circus: Tati's Parade 152
The Sun Also Sets: The Films of Nagisa Oshima 160
III Films
Inside the Vault [on Spione] 169
Family Plot 177
"The Doddering Relics of a Lost Cause": John Ford's The Sun Shines Bright 181
Prisoners of War: Bitter Victory 192
Art of Darkenss: Wichita 199
Cinema of the Future: Still Lives: The Films of Pedro Costa 204
A Few Eruptions in the House of Lava 207
Unsatisfied Men: Beau travail 213
Viridiana on DVD 219
Doing the California Split 224
Mise en Scène as Miracle in Dreyer's Ordet 229
David Holzman's Diary/My Girlfriend's Wedding: Historical Artifacts of the Past and Present 240
Two Early Long-Take Climaxes: The Magnificent Ambersons and A Star Is Born 245
Wrinkles in Time: Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy 246
Martha: Fassbinder's Uneasy Testament 251
India Matri Buhmi 256
Radical Humanism and the Coexistence of Film and Poetry in The House Is Black 260
WR, Sex, and the Art of Radical Juxtaposition 266
Revisiting The Godfather 271
IV Criticism
Film Writing on the Web: Some Personal Reflections 277
Goodbye, Susan, Goodbye: Sontag and Movies 285
Daney in English: A Letter to Trafic 292
Trailer for Godard's Histoire(s) du cinéma 305
Moullet retrouvé (2006/2009) 320
The Farber Mystery 325
The American Cinema Revisited 331
Raymond Durgnat 337
Surviving the Sixties 351
L.A. Existential 361
Index 369