A marginal complaint about german television
As I was holding a german TV- magazin in my hands (name omitted by the author), I was wondering about the quality of films presented on german Television. Let's see the schedule for Thursday, June 1st: 19 films are listed to be screened on all german TV-stations you can get via satellite without further payment. Considering the fact that this specific magazine has 19 of these channels listed it is an unusually small number. But again considering the fact that this is during the week, where people in Germany are expected to not be so keen on watching movies if they can watch series, tv-magazines or talkshows, this small amount of film-offerings becomes more acceptable.
But if we look at the films themselves, what a surprise, what a delight!! Who needs DVDs if he is able to choose just on this single evening between such films as There's something about Mary by the Farelly brothers on one channel, while another is offering a film by Laurence Olivier starring Laurence Olivier (and Marilyn Monroe), The Prince and The Showgirl? And on yet another channel, starting only 30 minutes later you have Robert Bresson's second feature Les dames du Bois du Bologne at your disposal. Or you can tape that one, and watch a Leone-inspired american Western featuring Burt Lancaster on NDR. Michael Winner's 1971 Lawman. After this not so specific time-slot - which has also a drama with Kevin Bacon and a german cult-comedy to offer - you can enjoy a small spanish film about cubans and their dreams of Spain, Manuel Guietérrez Aragón's 1997 film Cosas que dejé en la habana. If you are more into american stuff, you can choose at the same time between Philip Kaufman's sensual study of Henry Miller's private life featuring not only a young Uma Thurman alongside the now almost forgotten Fred Ward (Tremors anyone?), but to my personal delight also the only five years older Maria de Medeiros - the movie I'm referring to is of course 1990's Henry & June) - or you can watch John Huston's own late take on the noir film he helped to establish. Asphalt Jungle is one of the great nihilistic caper movies that was an inspiration for such later classics as Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le flambeur, or Stanley Kubrick's The Killing. And it also features a very young Marilyn Monroe, what might be of interest for the people who watched The Prince and The Showgirl two hours earlier. Not much of the glamour and talent of the later Sex symbol is on display in the marginal role she is given. Instead she plays a somewhat strange mixture between a dumb blonde and a femme fatale. Although today best remembered for her more lascivious, "body-oriented" roles, maybe she's already defying easy categorization - something she would be trying to accomplish the rest of her short-lived career. As if these films weren't enough already, you can also turn your back on Hollywood and instead enjoy a film from a seldom explored scandinavian country. The Norwegian Eva's øye (loosely translated as "Eve's Eye") for which the lead actress was nominated for an Amanda Award (a national norwegian award ceremony that,like the Oscars, takes place once a year).
But the real surprise follows roughly one and a half hours later. You have not only playing Julain Schnabel's debut feature Basquiat, one of 1996's finest films about the young painter of the same name who shook the art-scene during the 80s, (and the film features, amongst others, supporting roles by the likes of David Bowie, Gary Oldman, Willem Dafoe, Benicio Del Toro, Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper), but also Arthur Penns notorious anti-western The Missouri Breaks from 1976, with a confrontation between Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando in the leading role. Beside the highly eccentric performance of Brando - as a head-hunter who not only talks to himself but also like to wear female dresses - the film is actually pretty remarkable on its own terms. A film which calls for re-discovery (like has already been the case with Brando's own - then much despised - directorial debut One-Eyed Jacks) Although overshadowed by its controversy (Brando who was also producing the film fired Kubrick who was initially supposed to direct him!) it flopped immensly in 1961, and remained Brando's only directorial debut, it is now more and more hailed as a masterpiece. The same could (and maybe should) happen to Arthur Penn's swan song for the old West.But the icing on the cake takes yet another film, screened roughly in between these two. Jerzy Skolimowski even more neglected 1971 masterpiece Deep End. Hailed in Molly Haskell's famous feminist film-study From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies as one of the rare exceptions of 70s films in which women were given a cliché-free, individual and emancipated treatment, the film (and sadly its director) have, since then, dwindled into oblivion. As of this writing, the film isn't readily available on any format, though this may change when Skolimowski's next feature - after an absence of 15 years - will finally hit the festivasl circuit. If you don't want to wait so long....
And after such an exhaustive but informative evening, what could be better than a Hollywood comedy. You can choose between Ernst Lubitsch's 1943 Heaven can wait starring Gene Tierney and Don Ameche - the picture that got Lubitsch his third and last Oscar-consideration and a classic if there ever was any, or Mike Nichols' 1986 effort Heartburn which unites Hollywood Megastars Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep for the first and only time on screen, along with a young Jeff Daniels and (I'm not kidding) Milos Forman!
So what was the title of my post meant to express you might now ask yourself. Sadly there is a reason I won't watch any of these films besides the commercial breaks - which are anyway less frequent than in the US, and which are only featured during five of the films listed. The fact still remains that after a period of experimentation in the late 20s and early 30s, in large parts due to the coming of the Third Reich, dubbing became the common standard in Germany. And it has remained so until this very day! Not only is this historical break usually disregarded in most books dealing with the cinema of the Weimar Republic, but it is still common practics amongst most German-situated reviewers to watch their films in German. And then they go on and write a review, claiming to have been accurate enough to capture its spirit! Dubbing is such a wide-spread vice that it would appear unusual, even eccentric to some, if a critic in Germany would insist on watching a film in a proper, that is subtitled, fashion. But as a true cinéaste I will naturally stay away from such sacrilege, waiting either for the world to change, or - more simple - an international DVD release. Meanwhile I am still able to browse the TV magazines, and marvel over the eclectic tastes of our local and national editors.
But if we look at the films themselves, what a surprise, what a delight!! Who needs DVDs if he is able to choose just on this single evening between such films as There's something about Mary by the Farelly brothers on one channel, while another is offering a film by Laurence Olivier starring Laurence Olivier (and Marilyn Monroe), The Prince and The Showgirl? And on yet another channel, starting only 30 minutes later you have Robert Bresson's second feature Les dames du Bois du Bologne at your disposal. Or you can tape that one, and watch a Leone-inspired american Western featuring Burt Lancaster on NDR. Michael Winner's 1971 Lawman. After this not so specific time-slot - which has also a drama with Kevin Bacon and a german cult-comedy to offer - you can enjoy a small spanish film about cubans and their dreams of Spain, Manuel Guietérrez Aragón's 1997 film Cosas que dejé en la habana. If you are more into american stuff, you can choose at the same time between Philip Kaufman's sensual study of Henry Miller's private life featuring not only a young Uma Thurman alongside the now almost forgotten Fred Ward (Tremors anyone?), but to my personal delight also the only five years older Maria de Medeiros - the movie I'm referring to is of course 1990's Henry & June) - or you can watch John Huston's own late take on the noir film he helped to establish. Asphalt Jungle is one of the great nihilistic caper movies that was an inspiration for such later classics as Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le flambeur, or Stanley Kubrick's The Killing. And it also features a very young Marilyn Monroe, what might be of interest for the people who watched The Prince and The Showgirl two hours earlier. Not much of the glamour and talent of the later Sex symbol is on display in the marginal role she is given. Instead she plays a somewhat strange mixture between a dumb blonde and a femme fatale. Although today best remembered for her more lascivious, "body-oriented" roles, maybe she's already defying easy categorization - something she would be trying to accomplish the rest of her short-lived career. As if these films weren't enough already, you can also turn your back on Hollywood and instead enjoy a film from a seldom explored scandinavian country. The Norwegian Eva's øye (loosely translated as "Eve's Eye") for which the lead actress was nominated for an Amanda Award (a national norwegian award ceremony that,like the Oscars, takes place once a year).
But the real surprise follows roughly one and a half hours later. You have not only playing Julain Schnabel's debut feature Basquiat, one of 1996's finest films about the young painter of the same name who shook the art-scene during the 80s, (and the film features, amongst others, supporting roles by the likes of David Bowie, Gary Oldman, Willem Dafoe, Benicio Del Toro, Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper), but also Arthur Penns notorious anti-western The Missouri Breaks from 1976, with a confrontation between Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando in the leading role. Beside the highly eccentric performance of Brando - as a head-hunter who not only talks to himself but also like to wear female dresses - the film is actually pretty remarkable on its own terms. A film which calls for re-discovery (like has already been the case with Brando's own - then much despised - directorial debut One-Eyed Jacks) Although overshadowed by its controversy (Brando who was also producing the film fired Kubrick who was initially supposed to direct him!) it flopped immensly in 1961, and remained Brando's only directorial debut, it is now more and more hailed as a masterpiece. The same could (and maybe should) happen to Arthur Penn's swan song for the old West.But the icing on the cake takes yet another film, screened roughly in between these two. Jerzy Skolimowski even more neglected 1971 masterpiece Deep End. Hailed in Molly Haskell's famous feminist film-study From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies as one of the rare exceptions of 70s films in which women were given a cliché-free, individual and emancipated treatment, the film (and sadly its director) have, since then, dwindled into oblivion. As of this writing, the film isn't readily available on any format, though this may change when Skolimowski's next feature - after an absence of 15 years - will finally hit the festivasl circuit. If you don't want to wait so long....
And after such an exhaustive but informative evening, what could be better than a Hollywood comedy. You can choose between Ernst Lubitsch's 1943 Heaven can wait starring Gene Tierney and Don Ameche - the picture that got Lubitsch his third and last Oscar-consideration and a classic if there ever was any, or Mike Nichols' 1986 effort Heartburn which unites Hollywood Megastars Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep for the first and only time on screen, along with a young Jeff Daniels and (I'm not kidding) Milos Forman!
So what was the title of my post meant to express you might now ask yourself. Sadly there is a reason I won't watch any of these films besides the commercial breaks - which are anyway less frequent than in the US, and which are only featured during five of the films listed. The fact still remains that after a period of experimentation in the late 20s and early 30s, in large parts due to the coming of the Third Reich, dubbing became the common standard in Germany. And it has remained so until this very day! Not only is this historical break usually disregarded in most books dealing with the cinema of the Weimar Republic, but it is still common practics amongst most German-situated reviewers to watch their films in German. And then they go on and write a review, claiming to have been accurate enough to capture its spirit! Dubbing is such a wide-spread vice that it would appear unusual, even eccentric to some, if a critic in Germany would insist on watching a film in a proper, that is subtitled, fashion. But as a true cinéaste I will naturally stay away from such sacrilege, waiting either for the world to change, or - more simple - an international DVD release. Meanwhile I am still able to browse the TV magazines, and marvel over the eclectic tastes of our local and national editors.
posted by A | 2:22 PM
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