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“Were There Any Paintings In The Collection There That Influenced You?”

September 11, 2014 in Excerpts, Film | Permalink

bluevelvetdrink

David Lynch has a brilliant, painter-esque sensibility as a filmmaker–and also, unsurprisingly, as a painter—but according to a new interview he did with Art in America’s Edward Epstein, it’s not a learned talent. An excerpt:

“Question:

Your films read as a series of carefully composed frames, which are each much like individual paintings. In Blue Velvet [1986], the darks and lights on the actors’ flesh are particularly striking. The drama is reminiscent of Caravaggio. Were you influenced by Baroque painting?

David Lynch:

No. I’m not an art buff at all. I just wanted to be a painter. And that’s all I wanted to do starting in the ninth grade. I’m not a studier. Even in film, I’m the worst film buff.

Question:

When you were at the PAFA [Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts], were there any paintings in the collection there that influenced you?

David Lynch:

No. I never went up to the gallery. I don’t know what they had up there. I was thrilled at the Academy because of the students primarily—we inspired one another. And there were a couple of great teachers. But, I really only went in to school a couple of times a week and painted where I lived. …

Question:

The grotesque bodies in both your film and painting—I’m thinking of the film Eraserhead or the painting Pete Goes to His Girlfriend’s House—look like medical oddities. When you were in Philadelphia, did you ever visit the Mütter museum, which has a huge collection of such oddities on display?

David Lynch:

No, but I have heard of it. I did see many oddities in Philly on the street.

Question:

Can you talk more about that?

David Lynch:

I lived in Philly from ’65 to ’70, and it was a different place then. When I visited a couple of years ago it seemed much more normal, much more like every other city. One of the things that got added since I was there is graffiti. For me, graffiti has pretty much ruined every city. Every bit of beauty of the patina of coal dust or acid rain—all of these things that age these buildings so beautifully, and made a mood of the city, were completely taken away by cheap aluminum storm windows and graffiti. And for cinema, if there wasn’t graffiti, you could go to places and see them as if you’d gone back in time and you could see the beauty of those old buildings and get the mood.”

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“We Have More Stories, Pictures And Arguments Than We Know What To Do With”

September 11, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Film, Urban Studies | Permalink

I have no interest in comic-book blockbusters or most of the contemporary culture aimed at aging fanboys (and girls) longing for YA comfort, but in his long-form New York Times Magazine essay, “The Death of Adulthood in American Culture,” A.O. Scott finds solace in this regression. An excerpt:

“It is now possible to conceive of adulthood as the state of being forever young. Childhood, once a condition of limited autonomy and deferred pleasure (‘wait until you’re older’), is now a zone of perpetual freedom and delight. Grown people feel no compulsion to put away childish things: We can live with our parents, go to summer camp, play dodge ball, collect dolls and action figures and watch cartoons to our hearts’ content. These symptoms of arrested development will also be signs that we are freer, more honest and happier than the uptight fools who let go of such pastimes.

I do feel the loss of something here, but bemoaning the general immaturity of contemporary culture would be as obtuse as declaring it the coolest thing ever. A crisis of authority is not for the faint of heart. It can be scary and weird and ambiguous. But it can be a lot of fun, too. The best and most authentic cultural products of our time manage to be all of those things. They imagine a world where no one is in charge and no one necessarily knows what’s going on, where identities are in perpetual flux. Mothers and fathers act like teenagers; little children are wise beyond their years. Girls light out for the territory and boys cloister themselves in secret gardens. We have more stories, pictures and arguments than we know what to do with, and each one of them presses on our attention with a claim of uniqueness, a demand to be recognized as special. The world is our playground, without a dad or a mom in sight.”

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“I Plan To Make A Big Splash In Film Someday As A Cinematographer”

September 9, 2014 in Film, Videos | Permalink

Speaking of model Gia Carangi, here’s an interview from 1982, four years before she died from AIDS-related complications, in which she discusses her dream of becoming a cinematographer. The name of the Director of Photography she’s torturing over is Vittorio Storaro.

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“It Was The Fever Dream Of My Adolescence”

September 7, 2014 in Excerpts, Film, Sports, Videos | Permalink

From James Camp’s Guardian grab bag of notes about a Werner Herzog appearance in Brooklyn:

“To his audience at the opera house, he described film-making as a ‘pilgrimage.’ In person, as on screen or page, he is off the wall and over the top and beyond the pale. He is a pilgrim on his way to a place that is really an idea: too far.

‘Ski-jumping,’ Herzog said. ‘It was the fever dream of my adolescence.’

He played clips of airborne jumpers in slow motion and commanded Brooklyn to scrutinise their faces.

Their lips rippled in alpine winds.

Herzog said: ‘The ecstasy of solitude!’

Holdengräber reminded him of the dictum, attributed to Blaise Pascal, that opens Lessons of Darkness, Herzog’s 1992 documentary: ‘The collapse of the stellar universe will occur – like creation – in grandiose splendour.’

Herzog repeated it. He said, ‘Actually, Pascal didn’t write that. I wrote that.’

Holdengräber said: ‘But it sounds so very like Pascal.’

‘Pascal should have written it,’ Herzog said, of the 17th-century philosopher. ‘That’s why I signed his name.'”

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Herzog’s original German-language 1974 profile of ski-jumper Walter Steiner:

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“Don’t Go Work On TV, It’ll Kill Your Soul”

August 28, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Film, Videos | Permalink

Saturday Night Live alumnus Tom Schiller, who specialized in short films during his two stints on the venerable show, is an odd and fascinating guy. He made one of my favorite movies ever, the 35-minute “Henry Miller Asleep & Awake,” which may be the best profile of a writer in any format ever. I also had the odd joy of waiting on him two or three times when I was younger and working in service jobs. During each encounter, Schiller affected an extremely phony Russian accent, acting the part of a caricature of a recent immigrant. It was like he wanted me to know how fake the situation was because I was in a position where I had to be polite and play along. And so I did.

As part of Grantland’s coverage of SNL’s 40th anniversary, Alex Pappademas has an excellent interview with Schiller, in which he sifts through his own late-night career and weighs in on Lonely Island. The opening:

“Question:

How did you first meet Lorne Michaels?

Tom Schiller”

When I was about 17, I was already working for a documentary filmmaker in the Pacific Palisades and working on documentary films. I made my own film on Henry Miller. My father was a writer on I Love Lucy. I grew up on the set of I Love Lucy. I was actually there for the grape-stomping sequence when I was 6. And one day my father said, ‘You’ve got to meet this guy — he’s this Canadian writer, but he knows all the great restaurants in L.A.’ I thought, I don’t really care about the great restaurants in L.A., but OK. So Lorne came over to the house, and he seemed like a nice enough guy. The surprising thing was, he lit a joint in my room, which I would never do in my father’s house. I thought, Hmm — interesting, and I started hanging out with him at the Chateau Marmont, which had a lot of colorful regulars, some of whom would become the nucleus of Saturday Night Live.

Lorne kept talking about this late-night show, this comedy show he wanted to do. Like 24/7 he would talk about it, to the point of boredom. He kept asking me if I’d like to come work on it, and I was conflicted, because my then-pal Henry Miller said, ‘Don’t go work on TV, it’ll kill your soul.’ But Lorne kept painting this picture of New York, and being a writer, and working on a late-night show, and it sounded kind of interesting. Since I wanted to be a foreign-film director, L.A. didn’t seem like the place to be, and I finally succumbed and took his invitation. In the summer of 1975, I was in a little office at 30 Rockefeller Plaza with Lorne. I was sitting there with him as he started hiring all the writers and cast.

Question:

You were there for the big bang!

Tom Schiller:

Yeah. We used to go to Catch a Rising Star and the Improv to watch performers. I remember seeing Chevy Chase and Richard Belzer. There were auditions, and John Belushi came and auditioned as the Samurai, which led me later to write ‘Samurai Hotel’ for him.”

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“A place where I knew only starvation, humiliation, despair, frustration”:

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“It’s Harder To Get The Big Screens”

August 28, 2014 in Excerpts, Film | Permalink

It seemed unlikely that a filmmaker as daring as David Lynch would ever find himself at the center of popular culture, but there he was. Not so today. Movies now are tiny or tentpole, and that sweet spot in the middle that gave us Blue Velvet is all but gone. An exchange about the new math from Marlow Stern’s Daily Beast interview with the director:

“Question:

Speaking of the ‘tough sell’ aspect, what’s your take on the state of Hollywood? The sweet spot for independent films, the $4 million to $20 million area where most of your films lie, seems to be disappearing, and now there are just microbudgeted flicks and tentpoles.

David Lynch:

Exactly. And it’s harder to get the big screens. It’s a strange time. There’s not a whole lot that any of us can do about it. You’ve seen waves of things go up and down, but maybe the arthouse will be back in vogue, and they’ll reappear all over the place again. I don’t know. It would be beautiful. Cable television is the new arthouse, so it’s there, but it’s not the big screen. If people have a big screen at home, great sound, and they turn the lights down and turn their phones off, they can get into the world and have an experience. But most people don’t watch films that way anymore.”

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“Sometimes You Can’t Help But Be Depressed”

August 22, 2014 in Film, Videos | Permalink

Two more Robin Williams interviews, the first one with Dick Cavett in 1979, the second with David Frost in 1991. At the beginning of the Frost piece, the comic flawlessly recreates an early Shakespeare stand-up bit, “Two Dudes From Santa Monica.”

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“Ross Hunts For Available Brands To Mine”

August 20, 2014 in Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech | Permalink

Global box office explains why Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which underperformed in the U.S., warranted a sequel, but why on earth would there be a Jarhead 2 nine years after the original, with none of the original principals attached? Matt Patches of Grantland breaks down the strategy and economics of such a move, which is not so different than reviving a ghost brand of cereal. An excerpt:

“There are blunt and nuanced answers to the inevitable ‘Why!?’ The obvious: money. Less obvious: A potential to serve audiences hungry for stories with budget-sensible vehicles. That’s Glenn Ross’s prerogative. As general manager and executive vice-president of Universal 1440 Entertainment, the production arm of Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Ross hunts for available brands to mine. It’s not unlike a typical movie studio, though Ross doesn’t have the time to work like the theatrical side. He works quickly and aggressively. He caters to fans and creates results. Judging from Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s history, he’s doing something right.

The officially sanctioned Jarhead sequel joins a swarm of thought-dead brands revived through cunning straight-to-DVD strategy. Universal Home Entertainment, which is releasing Jarhead 2: Field of Fire on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD platforms, has ‘non-theatrical’ (‘direct-to-DVD’ being the archaic term) production down to a science. The company releases five to seven titles a year. The annual slates are eclectic: In the past four years, Universal has released The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption,Saige Paints the Sky, Death Race 3: Inferno, Honey 2,Blue Crush 2, Curse of Chucky (the franchise’s sixth installment), and The Little Rascals Save the Day (a quasi-continuation of the studio’s 1994 remake). Competitive studios keep their own plates spinning, with Fox Home Entertainment (Marley & Me: The Puppy Years, Tooth Fairy 2, Flicka: Country Pride, Wrong Turn 5 & 6, and Joy Ride 3), Paramount Famous Productions (Mean Girls 2), and Warner Premiere (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Jr.; House Party: Tonight’s the Night; and DC Comics’ animated output) producing new titles for streaming platforms and Redbox kiosks.

Ross looks at Jarhead 2 and sees an entirely new face to the non-theatrical business.”

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“They Good-Naturedly Addressed Whether They’d Been Brainwashed”

August 19, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Father Yod had 14 wives, but it’s not polite to count.

Before he was an oddly named cult leader, Yod was James Edward Baker, a Marine and stuntman who in 1969 opened a Sunset Strip health-food restaurant, the Source, and founded a cult, the Source Family, a group of beautiful young people housed in a Los Angeles mansion. Oh, and he fronted an improvisational psychedelic band called YaHoWa 13. Yod was killed almost immediately after moving his improvised family to Hawaii, believing he could hang glide from a 1,000 foot peak even though he had no experience in the sport. 

I suppose it’s because the commune never blew up into any kind of Manson-ish mayhem that it’s looked back upon (from a distance) almost fondly. But insular societies are always just a couple of steps from madness. Of course, I guess you could say the same of nations, though it’s easier to find refuge in a larger world.

The opening of Steffie Nelson’s 2007 Los Angeles Times article about the guru and his group:

Earlier this summer, almost 100 psychedelic music fans, subculture aficionados, students of the occult and local literati climbed the flower-petal-strewn steps of publisher couple Jodi Wille and Adam Parfrey’s Silver Lake home for a salon celebrating the upcoming publication of The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, YaHoWa 13 and the Source Family (Process), the definitive history of a mystical cult that thrived in Los Angeles between 1970 and 1974. The book’s author, Isis Aquarian (formerly Charlene Peters), had flown in from Hawaii, and Family members Omne, Magus, Electra and Orbit, all of whom are now in their 50s and 60s, had also come to share stories.

During a Q&A session, they good-naturedly addressed whether they’d been brainwashed (‘Absolutely!’ said Orbit, who now goes by David) and answered questions about Dionysm, the form of tantric sex they’d practiced.

‘I’m ready to join right now!’ announced one attendee, no doubt echoing the sentiments of many who wistfully longed for a time when Utopia was, if not entirely feasible, at least on the agenda.

Imagine your fantasy commune, the one you’d find only in the movies, where everyone is young and beautiful; the clothes are fabulous; the leader benign; and home is a mansion in the Hollywood Hills. Chances are it probably looks a lot like the Source Family, whose 140 members “dropped out” right in the middle of Los Angeles. Led by a bearded, hunky, 6-foot-3 former war hero who called himself Father Yod and, later, YaHoWha, this vibrant group of men and women embarked on a wild social experiment, turning all their material possessions over to the group and supporting themselves serving gourmet vegetarian cuisine at their popular Sunset Strip restaurant, the Source. Living communally in a Los Feliz mansion owned by the Chandler family (former owners of this newspaper) and then in a house built by Catherine Deneuve, many of them formed polyamorous relationships; not surprisingly, the most extreme example was Father Yod, who took 14 “spiritual wives.”

Notwithstanding the group’s visible presence in Hollywood (brothers and sisters could often be seen strolling en masse down Sunset, Atlantean robes and hair a-flowing), extensive media coverage, and the catalog of music they recorded as YaHoWa 13 — legendary among connoisseurs of psychedelic rock — the Source story has remained untold for 30 years. This is partly because of a vow of secrecy taken by all members, but more likely it’s a reflection of their confusion and even shame about the communal experience, for which American society gave them only one place to file: in the freaky hippie bin.•

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The trailer for the 2013 documentary, The Source Family, available on Netflix:

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“It’s Very Possible That Record Is About To Be Broken”

August 17, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Film, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

On a 1977 Mike Douglas Show episode, comic-book collector Phil Seuling showed off an original Superman, revealing that it was worth $1,500. The audience gasped. But that was before a globalized world needed simple dialogue and action-hero antics to sell blockbusters all over the world. Today an exceptionally clean copy of that inaugural issue, currently at auction on eBay, has seen early bids reach $1.75 million, heading toward the stratosphere faster than a speeding bullet. From Graeme McMillan at the Hollywood Reporter:

 “In a video released to promote the auction, Pristine Comics owner Darren Adams explained how the auction copy remained in such good edition. ‘There was a gentleman in 1938, buys a copy … off the newsstand. And he lived in a fairly high altitude area of West Virginia and kept the book in a cedar chest,’ Adams said. The quality of the issue — the pages of which, thanks to being kept in a dark, dry space for decades, haven’t yellowed with time — makes the copy ‘not just a copy of Action Comics No. 1 [but] the copy of Action Comics No. 1,’ according to the dealer.

Back in 2011, another edition of the issue raised $2.1 million in auction, becoming the most expensive comic ever sold in the process. With nine days remaining on the current Action Comics auction and bidding currently at $1.6 million, it’s very possible that record is about to be broken.”

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“The superheroes caught everybody’s fancy”:

 

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“I Never Thought I Was A Tough Cookie At All”

August 15, 2014 in Excerpts, Film | Permalink

I’d be remiss if I closed the week without posting something about the recently departed Lauren Bacall. After that beautiful published her memoirs at the end of 1978, she sat for an interview with Christopher P. Andersen of People. An excerpt:

“Question:

You were brought up to be a ‘nice Jewish girl,’ as you put it, but in Hollywood you hid that fact. Why? 

Lauren Bacall:

So much more was made of my concealing it because I didn’t ‘look’ Jewish. There was anti-Semitism in Hollywood and I was terribly frightened. Remember, I was 19 and wasn’t exactly swimming in self-confidence. It’s one area of my life I am not proud of. 

Question:

When you were going with Bogart, did you tell him you were Jewish? 

Lauren Bacall:

Yes. I had once been asked out by a West Point cadet and the subject of religion came up. He never called back, and I was sure it was because I was a Jew. So when I fell in love with Bogie, I knew I had to damn well get it straight. Of course, he was the last man on earth it would have bothered. 

Question:

Were you a great fan of Bogie’s before you met him? 

Lauren Bacall:

Howard Hawks said he’d like to put me in a film with Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart. I thought, ‘Cary Grant—terrific! Humphrey Bogart—yucch.’ 

Question:

Didn’t Howard Hawks help create your famous voice? 

Lauren Bacall:

You can’t acquire a voice. Either you have it or you don’t. But Howard wanted me to be insolent with men on the screen, and that meant training my voice so it would remain low. I would park on Mulholland Drive—so as not to disturb the neighbors—and read The Robe aloud in a low, low voice. I was never much of a screecher anyway. 

Question:

How did the Bacall ‘look’ come about? 

Lauren Bacall:

I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of the Look. I still get the shakes from time to time. 

Question:

Are you the tough cookie most people think you are? 

Lauren Bacall:

I never thought I was a tough cookie at all. When I was making To Have and Have Not Howard Hawks wanted an attitude of worldliness. At the time I was trying to figure out how a kid with absolutely no sexual experience could convey worldliness. The biggest misconception people have about me is that I’m in control of every situation. I’m rarely in control of any situation.

…

Question:

After Bogie’s death your brief engagement to Frank Sinatra ended abruptly. How do you view Sinatra today? 

Lauren Bacall:

Frank did me a great favor. He saved me from the complete disaster our marriage would have been. But the truth is that he behaved like a complete shit. Still, that was over 20 years ago. When I run into him now, we give each other a nice hello.”

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“It Is Too Gigantic, Pedantic, Tedious”

August 13, 2014 in Excerpts, Film, Videos | Permalink

Jorge Luis Borges penned a perplexing review of Citizen Kane in 1941, and Orson Welles had a perfect riposte for it: “Borges is half-blind,” the director pointed out. “Never forget that.” Here’s the ending of the critique, which can be read in full at the Interrelevant:

“I venture to guess, nonetheless, that Citizen Kane will endure as a certain Griffith or Pudovkin films have ‘endured’—films whose historical value is undeniable but which no one cares to see again. It is too gigantic, pedantic, tedious. It is not intelligent, though it is the work of genius—in the most nocturnal and Germanic sense of that bad word.”

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“Now he can live his dreams with less distraction”:

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“I Was Going To Do A Thing Called Saturday Night Führer“

August 11, 2014 in Film, Videos | Permalink

I’m never surprised when somebody dies except when it’s by their own hand. Why not stay a little longer? Come here. Stay with us.

Terrible news about Robin Williams passing away. Here he is on a Canadian chat show in 1978, in the first blush of his fame, brilliantly disarming an awkward line of questioning about the stereotypical characters he would often use in his stream-of-conscious stand-up act, which for him were like the members of a company of stock characters in his head.

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“Sporting A Gold Star Of David Around His Neck And Another On His Pinky, Lindsey Zips Around Southern California In A Mercedes 450 SL”

August 10, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Film, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The world is ending, eventually.

One who sees the curtain coming down sooner than later is the Christian evangelist Hal Lindsey, co-author with Carole C. Carlson of the meshuganah 1970 bestseller, The Late Great Planet Earth, which estimated 1988 as the Judgement Day. Missed by that much. Lindsey, who is still alive as are many of the rest of us, spends his dotage accusing President Obama of being “the Antichrist.” Whatever.

In 1979, when the batshit book had been made into a film–with Orson Welles picking up late-life wine-and-bullfight money for handling the narration–Lindsey was profiled in a People piece by Lucretia Marmon. The opening:

In 1938 Orson Welles terrified radio listeners with War of the Worlds, an imaginative report of a Martian invasion. Now Welles, as gloomy-voiced narrator of a film, The Late Great Planet Earth, out this fall, tells another frightening tale. This time it is a movie version of the end of the world, based on a scenario by evangelist-author Hal Lindsey. The script, claims Lindsey, really isn’t his. It’s all in the Scriptures.

Lindsey’s book Earth, published in 1970, has been translated into 31 languages and 10 million copies have been sold. The public also snapped up five subsequent Lindsey books on the same subject, running his sales total to over 14 million.

Thus Lindsey, 47, may now be the foremost modern-day Jeremiah. ‘If I had been writing 15 years ago I wouldn’t have had an audience,’ he concedes. ‘But a tremendous number of people are worried about the future. I’m just part of that phenomenon.’

Lindsey splices Bible prophecies of doom with contemporary signs. For instance, he says the Bible pinpoints Israel’s rebirth as a nation as the catalyst to Judgment Day, which will probably occur by 1988. The intervening years will see the emergence of a 10-nation confederacy (prophet Daniel’s dreadful 10-horned beast) or, as Lindsey sees it, the European Common Market. Eventually Russia (biblical Magog) will attack Israel and precipitate a global nuclear war. Only Jesus’ followers will be spared. Hence, Lindsey advises, “the only thing you need to understand is that God offers you in Jesus Christ a full pardon.”

Meanwhile, is Lindsey cowering in his fallout shelter? Not at all. Sporting a gold Star of David around his neck and another on his pinky (‘After all, Jesus was a Jew’), Lindsey zips around Southern California in a Mercedes 450 SL. He conducts services on the beach and indulges in his hobbies of photography and surfing.•

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“This was a prophet–a false prophet”:

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“Today Famous Figures Endure The Galella Treatment On A Regular Basis”

August 8, 2014 in Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

There was a time when paparazzi and stars were predator and prey, but it’s more complicated now.

Deals are struck, contracts signed, and a paparazzo is hired to “stalk” a star to assure a Q rating remains copacetic. Sometimes a tabloid photographer does get a scoop, an embarrassing one, but these are free-marketers, not muckrakers, and they’ll gladly sell the photos back to the celebrity if they’re willing to pay more than the press. The two sides are in predetermined cahoots or open to such an ad-hoc arrangement, the idea that famous people can’t get away with what they used to, overstated. Those who get caught with their pants down are mostly pols and celebs dense enough to text their own incriminating images to strangers.

Alex Mayyasi of Priceonomics acknowledges some of these points but has a different take. The opening:

Before John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, the handsome, young president had a public image as a doting father and as the man who called Americans to public service. In his private life, he was a serial adulterer. Historians have all but confirmed Kennedy’s involvement with women ranging from Marilyn Monroe to two White House interns who skinny dipped in the presidential pool and flew on Air Force One so that, as Caitlin Flanagan puts it in The Atlantic, “the president could always get laid if there was any trouble scaring up local talent.”

If a current president acted like Kennedy, reporters from every paper would seize on rumors until his presidency ended in shame. But the early 1960s were a different time; the American public remained ignorant of Kennedy’s affairs because no one reported on them. In his biography of Kennedy, Robert Dallek writes that Kennedy “remained confident that the mainstream press would not publicize his womanizing.” Even more incredible than the press’s self-imposed censorship is Dallek’s observation that when gossip columns began speculating about JFK and Marilyn, he sent a friend and former journalist to “tell the editors… that it’s just not true.” Apparently it got results.

After the JFK assassination, Jackie Kennedy lived in New York. She remained in the public eye as a fashion icon and as the widow of the fallen president, but she harbored no great secrets. Nevertheless, a Bronx resident by the name of Ron Galella would not leave her alone. Galella followed Jackie Kennedy Onassis incessantly, snapping pictures of her around the city and leading the former first lady to go to court to win a (largely ineffective) restraining order against Galella. 

‘Today famous figures endure the Galella treatment on a regular basis. Galella is the progenitor of the modern paparazzo who takes pictures of celebrities “doing things,” as he puts it, which is now so common that photographers struggle to get a good picture of Brad Pitt grabbing takeout because so many other paparazzi are crowding him to get a shot.

The proliferation of media devoted to covering famous figures, omnipresent paparazzi, and a change in the culture of how we treat celebrities — from adoring them from a distance to seeking both familiarity and the exposure of all their secrets — has led to an increase in the price of fame. Whereas Kennedy could trust the press not to expose his affairs, modern celebrities must design their lifestyle around avoiding cameras whenever they eat out. Over time, the public has come to expect a certain amount of transparency around famous people’s personal lives. We are all paparazzi now.•

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“The Future Of The Car As Personal Transport Will Morph Into Time/Use Formats”

August 4, 2014 in Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Earlier this year, Jonathan Moore of Speedhunters did an excellent interview with artist and visual futurist Syd Mead, whose outré automobile designs which have enriched film (Blade Runner, most famously), print publications and imaginations for decades. An excerpt about the role of cars in a time when we’ve passed peak-auto:

Jonathan Moore:

With a declining interest in the car nowadays, the car as personal transport appears an ever more precarious economic prospect. Do you think that the car as a private but communal mode of transport is living on borrowed time? What’s coming next and how quickly will it arrive? Is it the ’sentient, super-evolved version of the horse’? And did you already sketch it in the ’60s?!’

Syd Mead:

The future of the car as personal transport will morph into time/use formats probably owned either by municipal agencies, a variation of corporate rental schemes and rotating mileage based lease by single lessees. With 50 percent of the world’s population living in cities, I predict that a lot of high-density core urban mobility will be by moving platforms, sidewalks, escalators and lift platforms as architectural enclosures become larger and more interconnected. The autonomous car is almost here already, making ‘call, ride and forget’ a real personal transport factor.

‘So-called mass transit is the automobile. Bus systems, light rail and combinations thereof are subject to unionized strikes, expensive staffing costs and maintenance of route fixtures and machinery. Dial in aggressive riders who ignore rules of civility and you have a worrisome vector in public transportation. I sketched and rendered the ‘electronic herd’ concept years ago, depicting MTU’s (Mobile Transit Units) traveling in a bunch, thus creating a high-density use of existing thoroughfare routing.

The private automobile as a personal possession will certainly survive, but as an increasingly expensive proposition for those who choose, like now, to own a vehicle that sits unused for various periods of time. We have four vehicles in our ‘stable’: an ’03 Sebring convertible, an ’09 Cadillac DTS and two collector cars, a 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser two-door with electric windows and the 1972 Imperial LeBaron four-door hardtop. Working at home, the two collector cars are operated maybe once every two weeks, the Sebring maybe once a month. The Cadillac is the most used daily driver and it has only 16,000 miles after almost five years of use.•

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“In effect, I was creating my own world”:

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“You Could Send People A Lot More Than Just Maps And Menus With This Thing”

August 3, 2014 in Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of Douglas Coupland’s latest Financial Times column, in which he acknowledges not being able to capitalize on being well-positioned to foresee the explosion of fax machines, Starbucks and zombie films:

“In 1985 I was working in a Tokyo magazine office where, from across the room, I often heard a faint whirring sound. After a few days I went to look, and I saw hand-drawn maps emerging from what appeared to be a photocopier . . . yet nothing was being photocopied. I asked and was told, ‘It’s a fax.’

‘A fax?’

‘Yes, a fax.’

I did some research and quickly learnt that fax machines were developed in Japan specifically because their postal system’s wayfinding is contextual rather than based on streets and street numbers. You can’t just say 123 East Ginza Way; you need maps, often with railway underpasses, subway nodes and visual landmarks. Just before lunchtime, when the office fax seemed to kick into overdrive, it was usually the office manager and local restaurants swapping menus and food orders.

I remember thinking, ‘Hmmm . . . you know, you could send people a lot more than just maps and menus with this thing . . . you could send, well . . . letters and documents.'”

 

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“It’s Time For A Discussion About What The Future Will Bring”

July 30, 2014 in Excerpts, Film, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In 1951, Hollywood director Edward Ludwig predicted computers would soon automatically write screenplays, and it’s difficult to see how they wouldn’t be capable of managing the flat dialogue of today’s globalized blockbusters. But machines don’t only want the starring roles–they’re also after us bit players. From Rob Enderle’s CIO report essay the so-called “robot apocalypse” and what it will mean for your job:

“It’s time for a discussion about what the future will bring. It won’t be world of lollipops and rainbows that [Marc] Andreessen and [Larry] Page will live in. The world of the rich won’t apply to the rest of us. Interestingly, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt better anticipates the ‘jobs and robots’ problem, but his solution is investing in startups, which is where we’ll all work while the robots do our existing jobs.

Sure, robots already do some jobs: Assembly lines, self-driving cars, delivery drones and cleaning robots, both the consumer Roomba and larger, industrial vacuums. There’s a bigger threat: Workers who basically look at numbers and draw conclusions. Robots are surprisingly good at this, too. Robots could do a range of jobs – including analysis, purchasing, consulting and journalism – because they can look at more real-time information in less time and with better recommendations than people.

This is one downside to big data analytics. Once you have the information, Watson, Siri, Cortana or any other artificial intelligence-like system can do a pretty decent job of identifying the best path. In the near term, at least, people will remain in the loop, but they’ll increasingly serve as little more than quality control – and, unfortunately, won’t operate fast enough to do the job properly.

Sheehy also created a spreadsheet that ranks the jobs that robots are most and least likely to take from people. The top jobs at risk: Financial analyst, financial advisor, industrial buyer, administrator, chartered legal executive (compliance officer) and financial trader. Least at risk: Clinical embryologist, bar manager, diplomatic services officer, community arts worker, international aid worker, dancer, aid/development worker and osteopath.

What’s interesting is that jobs that focus on dealing with people are relatively safe, while jobs that focus on analyzing things aren’t. Now if the people you focus on are increasingly unemployed, I have to wonder where the money’s coming from to pay the salaries of the people-focused folks. (Given that folks who write about technology need an audience to consume things to pay our salaries, we shouldn’t be sleeping that well, even though we aren’t on the list.)”

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“It’s Just Chinese Patriotism On The Screen, Not American”

July 27, 2014 in Excerpts, Film, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Before globalization reached critical mass, America pretty much owned the narrative ever since the conclusion of World War II. But there are other players on the stage (and screen) today, including those communists capitalists in China. If you ever scratch your head when something like Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters gets a sequel despite a relatively soft North American box office, just check the domestic and foreign grosses, because the international business is what turns the light green now. We’re not alone anymore. THEY are out there. From “Hollywood Transformed,” by Tom Shone in the Financial Times:

“Nobody said global takeover would be easy. On course to beating Avatar (2009) as the top-grossing film of all time at the Chinese box office, Transformers: Age of Extinction picked up a flurry of complaints from Chinese companies who had paid for their products to appear in the movie.

A Chinese takeaway chain that sells duck necks said it was ‘very dissatisfied’ with a three-second shot of its meat in a refrigerator; the Wulong Karst National Park was upset the US production team had mistaken a sign that read ‘Green Dragon Bridge’ for the park’s actual logo, and given the impression the park was near Hong Kong, when they are actually more than 700 miles apart. Clearly, the park owners had never seen Michael Bay’s movies, with their cheerful war on all manner of coherence: spatial, geographical, narratological.

‘Why do all the cars that fought in Hong Kong have their [steering] wheels on the left?’ one movie-goer asked on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter, where many gathered to puzzle over the movie’s numerous product placements. ‘Why would a middle-aged man in the middle of the desert in Texas take out a China Construction Bank card to withdraw money from the ATM?’ asked another.

A fitting image, perhaps, for the new breed of eastward-bound Hollywood blockbuster, aimed at penetrating China’s ‘Great Wall’ quota system – limiting the number of foreign films shown and the profits passed on to its makers – by gaining coveted ‘co-production’ status.

Working with their Chinese counterparts, Jiaflix Enterprises and the China Movie Channel, the producers of the fourth Transformers film shot the movie partly in China. They also cast Chinese stars Li Bingbing and Han Geng in small roles, and made multiple product-placement deals with Chinese consumer brands, although by far the strangest endorsement in the film has to be for single-party, non-democratic rule. While western democracy is represented by a Cheney-esque goon heading up the CIA and running rings around an ineffectual president, the response of the Chinese government to alien invasion is one of efficient, disciplined resolve. ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction is a very patriotic film,’ noted Variety, ‘It’s just Chinese patriotism on the screen, not American.’”

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“In A Deal You Give And Take. You Compromise. Then You Grab The Cash And Catch The Next Train Out Of Town.’

July 22, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Film, Urban Studies | Permalink

Irving “Swifty” Lazar, whose entire head was made of bifocals, was a lawyer who learned you could make a killing as an agent if you held fast to situational ethics. From Harry Minetree’s 1975 People article about Lazar, as he had just closed a book deal for a disgraced Richard Nixon and had agreed to let the former President sit for an interview with David Frost:

On a bright morning last August, Irving Paul (Swifty) Lazar, the literary agent, was having breakfast beside the pool at his Beverly Hills home when the telephone interrupted. It was Ron Ziegler, ex-President Nixon’s ex-press secretary, calling from San Clemente. Mr. Nixon, Ziegler said, was eager to see Lazar to discuss “some business.” Lazar, who had a pretty good idea what the business was, crisply replied that he was leaving for Europe shortly, but he would be happy to see Mr. Nixon upon his return.

On August 31 the dapper, billiard-bald Lazar and Nixon met over a three-hour lunch at San Clemente. Afterward, agent Lazar returned home in his black limousine with the exclusive rights to sell the former President’s memoirs in his attaché case. No matter that Swifty, a lifelong Democrat, had been an indefatigable fund-raiser for John F. Kennedy. Or that his Washington representative, Ann Buchwald, the wife of political satirist Art Buchwald, quit as a result of the Nixon deal. There was a buck to be made, in fact millions of bucks and, true to the 10-percenters’ code, Lazar had a flexible philosophy to suit the occasion: “In a deal you give and take. You compromise. Then you grab the cash and catch the next train out of town.”

Not many literary agents can afford to be so candid about their modus operandi. But then not many of them can afford a California mansion with genuine Picassos, Roualts, Chagalls and Dalis on the walls, a Rolls-Royce and a Mercedes in the garage, an elegant pied-a-terre in New York, offices in Beverly Hills, New York, London, Paris and Rome, $40,000-a-year phone bills and a custom-made wardrobe. There is only one “Swifty”—a soubriquet Humphrey Bogart laid on him after Lazar acquired three hot screen properties for him in the space of 24 hours—and indeed there is hardly room for more than one Swifty in the agents’ trade.

With characteristic speed, Lazar put together a package for Nixon: he sold the paperback rights to the book, which will probably appear in three volumes, to Warner Paperback Library for $2.5 million, the television rights for a Nixon interview to David Frost for another $750,000 and is asking for a hard-cover advance in the neighborhood of $1 million. (Although Lazar says Nixon was persuaded to accept Frost’s proposition because of the “interesting approach,” the word around Hollywood is that the interesting approach was simply the highest bid.) Still to be negotiated are foreign rights, book clubs, a possible movie and other spin-offs that will propel the former President back into millionaire status and guarantee Swifty Lazar fees well in the area of half a million. Even so, Lazar went through considerable soul-searching before he decided to represent Nixon. “He asked the advice of everyone he knows,” says Art Buchwald. “But it’s probably for the best. When a politician gets in trouble he deserves the best lawyer and the best literary agent around. You use the agent to pay the lawyer—that’s the way it goes.”

Nixon represents only the latest in Lazar’s ledger of famous, infamous, literary, political and showbiz clients. Over the years, he has represented Hemingway, Ira Gershwin, Truman Capote, Clifford Odets, Vladimir Nabokov, Neil Simon, Herman Wouk, Lerner and Lowe, John Huston, Edna Ferber, Buchwald, Noël Coward and Richard Rodgers, among others.•

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“I Think Any Decent Human Being Should Run Away From Home”

July 21, 2014 in Film, Videos | Permalink

Fritz Lang, one of film’s great visionaries, interviewed in 1975 by William Friedkin, no slouch himself.

 

“I Was Impressed By Their Almost Human Expressions”

July 21, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Pierre Boulle wasn’t exactly embarrassed, just perplexed, by the success of The Planet of the Apes, his 1963 French novel which became an unlikely American film franchise in a time before franchises were really a thing. It seemed to him an odd, little fantasy that shouldn’t have approached the popularity of something like the Oscar-winning The Bridge Over the River Kwai, yet it did. A good deal of the big-screen appeal was the remarkable make-up work of John Chambers, who made monkeys out of men (and women), and Boulle was aware of this contribution, but he still couldn’t account for the reception. Here’s a (rough) translation into English of an interview Boulle did about Apes, though I’m not sure of the source:

Question:

What inspired you to write Planet of the Apes?

Pierre Boulle:

I do not really remember. I think it was during a visit to the zoo, watching the gorillas. I was impressed by their almost human expressions. This led me to imagine what would a man/monkey relationship. Some believe that I had King Kong in mind when I wrote my book, but this is totally false. Frankly, I have never considered it one of my best novels, but more like a fun fantasy. I’m not very happy with the final result: I think I could have done better with parts of the book.

Question:

Do you think the film is faithful to the book?

Pierre Boulle:

You should never ask that of an author whose novel has been made into a film. There have been a lot of changes, and some very disconcerting. My planet had three suns for example. The first part of the film is excellent, and the monkeys’ makeup is particularly successful. I do not like the end with the Statue of Liberty. I prefer mine where finally we were not on Earth but of course on another planet. But critics loved it, so maybe I’m a bad judge. I knew from the outset that the producer Arthur P. Jacobs wanted this. He had it in mind from the first day and told me about it. I replied ‘Why not try it?’ Critics have approved, but I’m a little more rational writer and I prefer everything to be explained from A to Z. I am also completely unable to work in a group, which seems a necessity in the production of a film. When I write, I am alone. I give the book to my editor, and do not want to change anything, to the last comma.

Question:

But you have started working on the sequel to Planet of the Apes?

Pierre Boulle:

True. After the success of the first film, Arthur asked me to write more for him. It was called Planet of Women. They initially agreed, but then there were so many changes. I read the script of the Secret of the Planet of the Apes, and it interested me because it had nothing to do with my work. It was completely different. This does not bother me because the film did not ultimately matter to me. I rarely see movies. It is also strange that what I write inspires such visual and adaptable on-screen elements.

What would you attribute the success of the Planet of the Apes?

Pierre Boulle:

Honestly, I have no idea.•

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“He’s Probably Part Artist, Part Businessman, Part Scientist, I Guess”

July 17, 2014 in Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

If you’re interested in advertising, New York City in the ’60s, Mad Men or the subtle levers of the free market, “The Quiet Persuader,” a 1967 installment of the BBC’s Inside America series, is great fun. It profiles Young & Rubicam exec Steve Frankfurt at 33, during the middle of that decade when the industry was flush and fascinating, when TV, the medium in which he excelled, was becoming the center of the ad world. Frankfurt’s work was so highly regarded that he was even hired to create the title sequence for To Kill a Mockingbird and other films. His first wife, Suzie, who also appears in the documentary, was a highly regarded interior designer and a friend and collaborator of Andy Warhol.

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Two Brief, Beautiful Films By Jean Painlevé

July 10, 2014 in Film, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink


“Calder’s Circus” (1955):


“L’Hippocampe” (1934):

“What Did You Think About As You Were Modeling In Your Velour Jockstrap?”

July 8, 2014 in Film, Videos | Permalink

Charlton Heston, another Conservative who wanted people to believe he’d led a virtuous life, interviewed about his career, including parts he would have rather forgotten, by the gleefully obnoxious Russell Harty in 1979.

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