You know what you need to do with that Vichy Water!

Posted on January 21, 2025 by sheila

Captain Renault: Well, Rick, you’re not only a sentimentalist, but you’ve become a patriot.

Rick: It seemed like a good time to start.

Captain Renault: Perhaps you’re right.

Rick is always right!

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Happy Birthday, Leadbelly

Posted on January 20, 2025 by sheila

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From Tennessee Williams’ play Orpheus Descending:

LADY: What’s all that writing on it?

VAL: Autographs of musicians I run into here and there.

LADY: Can I see it?

VAL: Turn on that light above you. [She switches on green-shaded bulb over counter. VAL holds the guitar tenderly between them as if it were a child; his voice is soft, intimate, tender.] See this name? Leadbelly?

LADY: Leadbelly?

VAL: Greatest man ever lived on the twelve-string guitar! Played it so good he broke the stone heart of a Texas governor with it and won himself a pardon out of jail …

Huddie William Ledbetter was born on this day in 1888, in Louisiana. Some of the details are lost to history, but what is known is that he was already “playing out” at the turn of the 20th century, in and around Shreveport. He was in and out of jail starting in the teens, for owning a gun, for killing a relative. One time, he escaped from a chain gang. While in prison, he continued to sing and make music. John and Alan Lomax (whose names come up again and again in the stories of legendary blues figures in the early years of the 20th century) discovered him in prison in the 1930s. The Lomaxes were determined to capture the sound of these so-called forgotten figures, and they put Leadbelly on tape. They may have been instrumental in getting Leadbelly an early release. Alan Lomax interviewed Leadbelly extensively for his 1936 book Negro Folk Songs As Sung by Lead Belly . (You’ll see his nickname spelled both ways.) As technology developed, these 19th-century blues singers – if they were still around – found a whole new world opening up to them in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Folk music was on the rise. Much of it was watered-down but a lot wasn’t. The past moved into the present. These inspirations along with them, playing folk festivals, making television appearances. (See: Furry Lewis, but there are so many more.) Ledbetter, born on a plantation in 1888, ended up touring Europe. He traveled a long long way.

More after the jump:

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Posted in Music, On This Day | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

“I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.” — Dolly Parton

Posted on January 19, 2025 by sheila

An American original. Born on this day. A living legend. A national treasure. I have too many favorite Dolly Parton songs to list, and I love her stuff with Porter Wagoner. Speaking of which, have you seen the episode of Drunk History where an adorable wasted man describes Dolly’s break with Porter Wagoner? If you haven’t …

He loves her so much! The slam on the table at the end.

More after the jump.

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Posted in Actors, Movies, Music, On This Day, Television | Tagged | 31 Comments

“I don’t think my books should be in prison libraries.” — Patricia Highsmith, 1966

Posted on January 19, 2025 by sheila

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It’s Patricia Highsmith’s birthday today.

He wouldn’t have killed someone just to save Derwatt Ltd. or even Bernard, Tom supposed. Tom had killed Murchison because Murchison had realized, in the cellar, that he had impersonated Derwatt. Tom had killed Murchison to save himself. And yet, Tom tried to ask himself, had he intended to kill Murchison anyway when they went down to the cellar together? Had he not intended to kill him? Tom simply could not answer that. And did it matter much?

– from Ripley Under Ground, by Patricia Highsmith

“Tom simply could not answer that.” In this one chilling sentence is the key to Patricia Highsmith’s style. There’s nothing else there except what it expresses. It’s as chilly as Johnny Cash’s unforgettable line: “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” Unlike Cash’s narrator, Tom Ripley does not kill to see someone die. He kills to survive and keep his true nature concealed. Anyone who is in his way or onto him must go. Tom is almost confused by who he is and why he does what he does. But he’s not worried about it. Above all else, he is logical. The way a lion is logical when it camouflages itself before pouncing on the gazelle.

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Posted in Books, On This Day, writers | Tagged | 21 Comments

“I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me.” — Archie Leach

Posted on January 18, 2025 by sheila

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As my friend Mitchell observed:

To this day, people say, “Oh so-and-so’s the new Cary Grant.” Cary Grant was acting in 1930. We’re talking 70 years ago. Almost 80 years ago, and we’re still referring to people as the “new Cary Grant”. Well, guess what, there’s no such thing. If 80 years later, you’re still trying to find someone to be the next so-and-so, there is nobody. It’s only him.

He created the mould for what it means to be a modern male Movie Star. But the mould was so totally in his own shape that nobody else could ever fit into it. They try. And marketing departments try to convince us: “Look. It’s the new Cary Grant.” But it’s the Uncanny Valley. Nobody buys it.

There’s talent, which he had. There’s versatility (ibid.). There’s career and money smarts (ibid. idem.) There’s beauty (ad nauseum, exeunt). He had it all. But what he really had is difficult to talk about or even define: Magic.

All movie stars are not created equal.

Here are some of the things I have written about him over the years:

First up:

1. It was an honor to write the booklet essay for Criterion’s release of Bringing Up Baby. I am particularly fond of the title of the essay: Bringing Up Baby: Bones, Balls, and Butterflies.

2. an enormous essay on one of his best performances in Hitchcock’s Notorious:
The Fat-Headed Guy Full of Pain: Cary Grant in Notorious

3. Mitchell and I discuss Cary Grant. We get INTO IT.
On Cary Grant

4. For Bright Wall/Dark Room:
You Are What You Do: His Girl Friday

5. On Sylvia Scarlett, the extremely strange film that represented Cary Grant’s real “break” although he had been in films for a while:
The Wonderful Weird WTF-ness of Sylvia Scarlett

6. Because of course:
Anatomy of Two Pratfalls: Cary Grant and Elvis Presley

The rest of the stuff I’ve written on Cary Grant can be found here.

P6ToO

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

Posted in Actors, On This Day | Tagged | 54 Comments

“I never told a joke in my life.” — Andy Kaufman

Posted on January 17, 2025 by sheila

How could you describe Andy Kaufman (who was born on this day) to a generation who did not grow up seeing him on late-night talk shows, cameos on Saturday Night Live, his own TV specials?

How on earth could you pass on an idea of what it was that he did?

I mean, nobody understood it THEN either.

He was a comedian. Sure. Yeah. But that doesn’t quite cover it, now does it.

Continue reading →

Posted in Actors, On This Day, Television | 19 Comments

“In France, I’m an auteur; in Germany, a filmmaker; in Britain; a genre film director; and, in the USA, a bum.” — John Carpenter

Posted on January 16, 2025 by sheila

“An Elvis movie is always worth watching because of Elvis.” – Kurt Russell

John Carpenter, director:

In dealing with Elvis, I’m bringing a lot of my own feelings to it and how I feel about him, and how I interpret the script, how I interpret his life. And in that sense, from my point, it’s a personal film. I really love Elvis a lot. I’ve always been a fan of his. I love his music. I have a strong feeling for him, it means something to me, I care a lot about the character, I care about his story. And in some senses I feel lucky to be able to direct a film about Elvis, this kind of a film which I don’t feel is exploiting him but I feel is trying to tell his story, trying to tell a story about a man who is bigger than life which is very interesting because he really was a human being, but somewhere in his life I think he transcended that and became mythical.

I am thankful this movie exists. Carpenter’s 1979 film was the first attempt to “deal with” Elvis after his death in 1977. So many horrible details came out following Elvis’ death (as well as right before his death, with the tell-all book by the Betraying Bodyguards) and Carpenter already felt that an Act of Redress was necessary. (Same with Dave Marsh, whose spectacular 1981 book Elvis! served a similar function.)

John Carpenter’s Elvis deals compassionately with Elvis’ rise to the top: it is an act of almost aggressive positivity. This might drive some people crazy but the surrounding context is important.

Kurt Russell, as a child actor, kicked the actual Elvis’ shins in It Happened at the World’s Fair …

Normally I have a hard time watching actors being Elvis (and so Austin Butler has my deepest gratitude), and I can’t stand Elvis impersonators. But Russell captures a flame of the original. Shelley Winters plays Elvis’ beloved Mama, Gladys, a perfect choice.

One of the things I like about the film – making it distinct from much of the commentary on Elvis – is that it doesn’t pathologize Elvis’ relationship with his mother. Yes, they were close. Yes, he was a total and unashamed Mama’s Boy. But … Can’t he have just loved her more than anyone else in the world? Can’t he have just seen her as a focal point of sanity and unconditional love in the middle of a whirlwind? Can’t they have just been so close because poverty and hardship can do that to families, creating a We’re in this together kind of thing?

Things are left out of the film. Mainly: drugs. Elvis was introduced to amphetamines in the Army, in 1958!, so he could stay up all night on his patrols. The addiction worked by stealth (the pills were seen as harmless, and were prescribed by a doctor), and everyone was on speed then. This wasn’t about “getting high” for fun, another important distinction since he never drank, didn’t “party” and hated being around drunkenness. Fun for Elvis involved football, roller coasters, movies and hamburgers. Carpenter made a choice to leave the drugs out. So watching the film can be a weird experience. The film ends not with Elvis’ death, but with Elvis taking the stage, resplendent in a white jumpsuit, for his nerve-wracking live comeback at the International Hotel in 1969. The film ends in triumph.

But again, in the face of all of the revelations about Elvis, and the tell-all books by people who barely knew him, Carpenter – whose comment above is eloquent -shows the Presley mythology (the dead twin, the Mama’s Boy thing, Elvis’ vulnerability – crying from Nashville to Tennessee after the disastrous Grand Ole Opry audition, etc.) in a positive and yet honest way. The film is mainly focused on the unnatural isolation of fame.

Stylistically, Carpenter makes some bold choices. Elvis is often seen through doorways, or at the end of hallways. There, but not really there. He’s surrounded by space, while also being hemmed in. There’s a sense of moody dread in some of the framings – (more typical of, hmmmm, a horror movie, perhaps?) – even though the script pushes towards golden-hued nostalgia and frank myth-making. To the well-known myth, Carpenter adds strangeness. Elvis casts shadows on the wall, his head looming in black silhouette behind him. This is a visual motif throughout, and Carpenter pushes it into a truly poetic realm.

The shadow he casts is much larger than his actual self. The shadow he casts is practically separated from the actual man casting the shadow. Fame is what he wanted, but fame is DARK.

There’s a great scene where Elvis stands in his backyard, surrounded by his entourage. He takes out a cigarette and – as one – they all whip out their lighters. Elvis does not demand that kind of devotion, and Russell plays the moment as one of deep and almost moral and ethical unease, accepting a light from one of them, but showing that in the heart of the character of Elvis, he knows that this is not normal, this is not right, this is not good for him.

It’s a subtle moment and it has the ring of truth.

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Thank you, John Carpenter! I know he’s known for other things now, but this is the one I treasure. And remember whose site you are on.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

Posted in Directors, Movies, On This Day | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Shadow and pools of light

Posted on January 15, 2025 by sheila

Look at this stunning shot from Desire (1936), directed by the swooningly romantic Frank Borzage.

The specificity of where the light falls, there’s full-on head-on light, and then there are little pools of light, surrounded by deep shadows … Marlene Dietrich’s face is entirely in shadow, but light falls on her stunning creamy outfit (designed by the great Travis Banton). The whole effect for this one shot, which lasts about five seconds, takes real artistry to pull off. (Charles Lang, a legend, was the cinematographer).

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“Precision and accuracy are necessary for both white and black writers. ‘A black aesthetic’ should not be an excuse for sloppy writing.” — poet and publisher Dudley Randall

Posted on January 14, 2025 by sheila

“How else can a black writer write than out of his black experience? Yet what we tend to overlook is that our common humanity makes it possible to write a love poem, for instance, without a word of race, or to write a nationalistic poem that will be valid for all humanity.” — Dudley Randall

It’s his birthday today.

Dudley Randall’s sense of mission was a guiding star. He wanted to create opportunities for Black writers, he wanted to create a platform for them. And he did. What Randall created still exists today. Extraordinary.

Randall was the son of a preacher and a teacher. These professions stood as powerful examples to him, infusing everything he did – his sense of mission, again. He started writing poetry very young, and was published very young (13 years old and a published author!). He graduated from high school early. He got his degree at Wayne State, and then went on to get a Master’s in library science. (As the daughter of a librarian, let’s hear it for librarians.) He served in the South Pacific in WWII. He learned many languages and traveled widely. Since he was fluent in Russian, he translated many Russian works into English, and often it was the first time these poems/books appeared in English translation. Randall held down a job as a librarian all this time. He wrote poetry about the Detroit world he saw around him, the auto workers, the bag ladies, churchgoers, the downtrodden, the flashy.

Randall’s most long-lasting legacy came out of his own poetry, at first, but expanded into something much bigger. In 1963, he founded Broadside Press. He ran the press out of his own home, with limited to no funds, and he ran it for 20 years before selling it. Broadside continues in existence today. (You can read the story of Broadside Press – and look at the archives – here.) Randall’s Broadside Press – similar to Harriet Monroe’s Poetry magazine – was the first to publish many poets who couldn’t get published elsewhere because their work didn’t “fit” with the mainstream. Many of the poets first published by Broadside would go on to become legends. The late Nikki Giovanni called Broadside a “midwife” to the Black poetry movement.

Over the course of Randall’s tenure, Broadside published over 60 books: poetry volumes, criticism, memoirs, you name it. Authors who got their start at Broadside did not forget what Randall had done. When Gwendolyn Brooks wrote her autobiography, she chose Broadside as her publisher (even though she would have gotten much more money from bigger publishing houses).

Randall was Detroit’s first poet laureate. There are scholarships issued under his name, buildings are named for him.

Here are two of Randall’s poems. The first is a heart-breaker about the assassination of President Kennedy. The second is about the bombing of the church in Birmingham, Alabama. Randall felt strongly about the importance of Black experience but he also felt strongly about the universality of art, and how those things were not mutually exclusive.

Dressed All in Pink

It was a wet and cloudy day
When the Prince took his last ride
The Prince rode with the governor
And his Princess rode beside.

“And would you like to ride inside
For shelter from the rain?”
“No, I’ll ride outside
Where I can wave and speak to my friends again.”

The Prince rides with the governor
His Princess rides beside
Dressed all in pink
As delicate as roses of a bride

Pink as a rose the princess rides
But bullets from a gun
Turn that pink to as deep a red
As red red blood can run

For she stoops to where the Prince lies still
And cradles his shattered head
And there that pink so delicate
Is stained a deep deep red

The Prince rides with the governor
The Princess rides beside
And her dress of pink so delicate
A deep deep red is dyed.

Ballad of Birmingham

(On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963)

“Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?”

“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren’t good for a little child.”

“But, mother, I won’t be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free.”

“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children’s choir.”

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
“O, here’s the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?”

“My strongest motivations have been to get good black poets published, to produce beautiful books, help create and define the soul of black folk, and to know the joy of discovering new poets.” – Dudley Randall

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

Posted in Books, On This Day, writers | Tagged | 2 Comments

“When I was discovered, everything happened like dominos. I don’t know how to talk about it now because it’s too mindblowing. It’s so unreal, and yet it’s real.” — Faye Dunaway

Posted on January 14, 2025 by sheila


Bonnie and Clyde

It’s her birthday today.

I haven’t written all that much about Faye Dunaway – at least in a concentrated way – although I’ve seen all of her big and rightfully iconic performances many times. I think she’s a fascinating actress, in her courage and precision, in her absolute don’t-give-a-shit-about-being-likable bravery, very very rare in today’s younger generation of actors. Now we all want to SYMPATHIZE with Diana Christensen in Network, we want to know her BACKSTORY, we want to FEEL for her, poor woman making it in a sexist world. Okay, okay, that’s part of it. But we see Diana at the END of all that. She’s sacrificed her humanity, her capacity to feel for other people (if she ever had that capability to begin with. Maybe the point is: In order to make it like Diana has made it, you have to be that ruthless. No other options. People like Diana – truncated emotionally, limited, single-minded – are the ones who “make it”). Faye Dunaway didn’t care about sentimental-shmoopy backstory. Diana Christensen is a symptom of a large societal problem, but she is also its AVATAR.


Network

And Dunaway did not shy away from that. She loved Diana, she loved her strength and creativity. But she understood the woman’s ugliness too. Having an orgasm as she imagines the good TV ratings in her future – having an orgasm BECAUSE of good ratings (a moment “stolen” in an homage in Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis – is one of the most bizarre and disturbing sex scenes in American cinema, and to have a gorgeous movie star play such a scene was evidence of how everything changed in 1970s film. It was Dunaway’s era. The 60s discovered her, the 70s let her LOOSE. Stanwyck could have played such a scene, would have played such a scene if she came up in another era. She and Dunaway have similar qualities. With all Dunaway’s beauty, she was drawn to ugliness.


Chinatown

I do want to take a moment to shout out a lesser-known film of hers, Puzzle of a Downfall Child, directed by Jerry Schatzberg and written by Carole Eastman (who also co-wrote Five Easy Pieces with Bob Rafelson – they were nominated for an Academy Award). There are some similarities between Five Easy Pieces and Puzzle of a Downfall Child, but Puzzle doesn’t have the cache of Five Easy Pieces because …. why. Dunaway is more remote than Jack Nicholson? No. That doesn’t hold water. Nicholson’s character in Five Easy Pieces is more “relatable” than Dunaway’s in Puzzle? “Relatable” to whom? I relate to BOTH. There are many many many women who can relate to Puzzle of a Downfall Child, so why should it be considered LESS relatable, just because it’s about a woman? At this point in our cultural history, we can not allow the male point-of-view to be considered the DEFAULT. Combat that attitude whenever you see it.


Puzzle of a Downfall Child

When I interviewed Dan Callahan about his book The Art of American Screen Acting: Volume 2, we discussed his chapter on Faye Dunaway (among other things), and he specifically referenced Puzzle of a Downfall Child, which capitalized on Dunaway’s very unique strengths: her otherworldly beauty (the character is a high-fashion model) and her strange dissociated quality.

The only other thing I’ve written about her is very close to my heart: I devoted one of my Film Comment columns to Emir Kusturica’s Arizona Dream , a nearly-lost film – and carelessly chopped up for its US DVD release – a film that has haunted my dreams for 20+ years, ever since I saw it during its 5-day run at the Chicago Art Institute. The film stars Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis, Lili Taylor and Faye Dunaway, with Vincent Gallo in a smaller but crucial role. Faye Dunaway got to utilize parts of herself in this film – her whimsy, her humor (Dunaway is not known for her humor!) – and also got to use the things she’s known for – glamour, on-the-edge emotional frenzies, repression, madness, sexuality.


Arizona Dream

It’s one of Dunaway’s best performances, and it’s a disgrace how this gorgeous film was treated – mis-read by critics – butchered by the studio – and still, to this day, nearly un-see-able in its original form (you have to keep an eye out for it on YouTube, sometimes the original version shows up there).


Arizona Dream

Faye Dunaway plays a lunatic matriarch obsessed with building a flying machine. She has a passionate love affair with the much-younger Johnny Depp. One of the thrills of my time in grad school was getting to ask Dunaway about this film. This film that almost nobody else has even seen. She got so excited when I asked the question. She literally bounced in her chair, and moved forward to the edge of her seat. (I wrote about our interaction in my piece.) She LOVED doing the film and was very upset about its failure.


Arizona Dream

It’s a dream of a movie, and Dunaway is a dream IN it.


Bonnie and Clyde

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments