Turned off after about three minutes...
... when Cousins claimed CASABLANCA could not be considered classic romance but RECORD OF A TENEMENT GENTLEMAN could and is.
What a pile of pretentious wank.
So sezeth I, so sezeth the world.
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MovieChat Forums > The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011) Discussion > Turned off after about three minutes...
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No, he specifically stated that Casablanca was not a classic, choosing to ignore the most common dictionary usage of the word (Belonging to the highest rank or class; serving as the established model or standard; having lasting significance or worth; enduring) in favor of regarding a classic as purely derivative of the word classical. Even in this it's hard to agree with his definition, since the Japanese film he cites as a true classic doesn't adhere to characteristic of the literature, art, and culture of ancient Greece and Rome, which is equally emotional and 'unbalanced' even if it's not overtly romantic. Instead he seems to be applying his own definiton of what 'classical' means built around a dubious notion of 'balance.'
"Security - release the badgers."
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I said no because Cousins unequivocally states that Casablanca is not a classic movie of any kind, and applies dubious semantics to uphold that opinion. He likes the film as pure romanticism, but claims this disqualifies it from being considered as a classic under any circumstances. The linking of the words classic and romance is anathema in Cousinspeak.
"Security - release the badgers."
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Bergman_the_Ferryman: This board/thread is not some classroom. You are not the Student Aide grading papers for your Professor/Teacher for extra credit. So move off it and get to the point. I have never seen the Japanese film, but I can tell you this a boiling teapot does not make for a 'classic'. I can watch that at home and trust me there is nothing 'classic' going around here.
Maybe the problem has to do with Mark Cousins as narrator. Who seems to wish to hammer home his beliefs and political orientation. A different narrator with a more dynamic presentation could have made people actually listen to what is being stated. Kevin Brownlow in his series of documentaries on Silent Films and their Stars had the good fortune to use James Mason as narrator. Listening to Mr. Cousins monotone is as interesting as that 'boiling teapot'.
Bergman_the_Ferryman: This board/thread is not some classroom. You are not the Student Aide grading papers for your Professor/Teacher for extra credit. So move off it and get to the point. I have never seen the Japanese film, but I can tell you this a boiling teapot does not make for a 'classic'. I can watch that at home and trust me there is nothing 'classic' going around here.
Maybe the problem has to do with Mark Cousins as narrator. Who seems to wish to hammer home his beliefs and political orientation. A different narrator with a more dynamic presentation could have made people actually listen to what is being stated. Kevin Brownlow in his series of documentaries on Silent Films and their Stars had the good fortune to use James Mason as narrator. Listening to Mr. Cousins monotone is as interesting as that 'boiling teapot'.
I've got check discs of the forthcoming DVD release of the series, and the full context of what Cousins said about CASABLANCA is below:
'At first thought, you’d guess that The Story of Film will be about scenes like this one, from Casablanca, full of yearning, story and sadness, because Casablanca is a Hollywood classic [….] But films like Casablanca are too Romantic to be Classical in the true sense. Instead, Japanese films like this [Record of a Tenement Gentleman] are the real "Classical" movies. Romantic films are always in a rush, but this moment in Record of a Tenement Gentleman is a pause in the story'.
Cousins doesn't deny that CASABLANCA is a 'Hollywood classic' but says instead that it's not a Classical film - in the traditional sense that the word 'Classical' denotes something of high culture and restraint, as opposed to more emotional and unrestrained, melodramatic popular culture.
In that context, what he's saying is one hundred per cent accurate - in that CASABLANCA was an emotional, melodramatic film made for popular consumption. It only came to be lumped in with the 'Classical Hollywood' movement later - and Cousins is saying that Hollywood was never 'Classical' in the true sense of the word (ie, in the sense that the word 'Classical' denotes restraint of style) because Hollywood was always about excess (of style, of emotion, of finance, etc).
When I first viewed the series on television, without the ability to rewind the episode and listen again to what Cousins was saying, I immediately thought, 'Eh? What's he on about?' I think that was down to me mishearing the word 'Classical' as 'classic'.
'What does it matter what you say about people?'
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958).
That's one interpretation of what he saysd, but, as so often with Cousins, the linguistic knots he ties himself up in really lead to a different interpretation entirely. After all, that first sentence -
you’d guess that The Story of Film will be about scenes like this one, from Casablanca, full of yearning, story and sadness, because Casablanca is a Hollywood classic
- is not his view: he's not acknowledging it's a classic, merely taking what he imagines is the uneducated viewer's position and saying their ignorant assumption is that it's a classic so that's the kind of film they expect his series will be about. He then goes onto to completely disabuse the viewer of that notion by immediately introducing his own interpretation (in itself debatable) of what a 'classical movie' is, as if classical and classic are exactly the same thing and therefore interchangeable - and then goes on to stress that Casablanca does not fit that mold at all. It's like a presumptious university student trying to prove his smarter than his tutor by confusing the words Roman and Romanesque, which would, of course, mean that Gaius Julius Caesar was not a Roman because he didn't have Byzantine influences, but really just trapping his own foot in another needless semantic beartrap. So what he's saying is anything but 100% accurate.
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"he's not acknowledging it's a classic, merely taking what he imagines is the uneducated viewer's position and saying their ignorant assumption is that it's a classic"
I don't see any evidence of that in the actual text of what Cousins says, although some of it may be inferred from the way he delivers the narration (ie, you may infer irony or sarcasm in his intonation).
The distinction between 'classicism' or 'classical' and 'classic' predates not just THE STORY OF FILM but Cousins himself. Whilst I'm no defender of Cousins and I agree with your general point that he sometimes obfuscates issues and is often guilty of using poetic language that clouds what he's trying to say (some of his comments about film noir in the second episode were clouded by his use of language, for example), his comments about CASABLANCA seem to me to be as clear as day - especially in the context of his similar comments about Raoul Walsh's THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD. What he's talking about is the distinction between (austere/disengaged) Classicism and (passionate/emotional) Romanticism, which was an issue at the forefront of many cultural debates during the early years of cinema: Fritz Lang could be said to conform to the tenets of Classicism, whilst a Hollywood director like Michael Curtiz (who was labelled a 'hack' for many years, we must remember, and is still seen as a jobbing director rather than an auteur) who specialised in melodramas was aligned with Romanticism. What Cousins is saying is that the evaluative (and, arguably, highly subjective) label 'classic' does not equal 'Classicism': the former is an evaluative term, whilst the latter refers to a specific ethos/style.
Of course, Cousins privileges the ethos of Classicism over that of Romanticism - but then, most popular studies of film history (eg, Bordwell & Thompson), focused largely on Hollywood, do the exact opposite and could equally be accused of prejudicial judgements, as Cousins suggests.
I don't see an issue with what Cousins says about CASABLANCA, and this comes form someone who's a huge fan of that film - I've seen it on the big screen at revival screenings several times, and I revisit it about once a year. There are flaws throughout the series, but the point he made about CASABLANCA was clear and established the series' distinction between the Romanticism of Hollywood cinema (ie, the focus on melodrama, emotion and style) and the formal Classicism of, say, Japanese filmmakers like Ozu or Europeans like Lang.
'What does it matter what you say about people?'
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958).
That's one interpretation of what he saysd
Actually, that's exactly what he said, no interpretation required, and it's a good argument, too.
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"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/
No, it isn't, since his entire point is to dismiss the notion that the film is a classic because of an artificially imposed definition that relies on reinterpreting just how the word classic is used to prop up a rather flimsy argument.
"Security - release the badgers."
Calling CASABLANCA a classic--which he does--is a rather crafty way of going about saying it isn't a classic. You're trying more than a little too hard, here, to make a case against the obvious.
---
"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/
If anyone is trying very much too hard, it's Cousins and his verbal gymnastics.
"Security - release the badgers."
It's a strange point to dwell upon, since classics are good and works of Classicism often are not. Addison's play "Cato" is squarely within the tradition and style of classicism, and almost nobody wants to see it or do it. Comparatively few even want to read it.
Cousins is comparing two superb films (at least I hope the other flm is superb; I don't know it), and insofar as they have anything in common it is that they are classics. There would be little point in his dwelling at length upon some bad film just because it scrupulously adheres to the "unities" and all its pictorial compositions are scrupulously symmetrical.
It's fishy that he wants us not to think of Casablanca as a classic because it isn't (according to him) a work of Classicism. It seems like a contrived way of knocking a great American film off its perch. Why does he want to do that? To "redress the balance" of film history, as he announces in the beginning that he intends to do?
If you can't find anything worse to say about Casablanca than that it's more Romanticism than Classicism, give up. Besides, Romanticism is a perfectly valid and historically important tradition as well. Byron is not a less important poet than Pope, but he is certainly a less Classical one. Is he therefore not a classic author? Is "Don Juan" less important than "The Rape of the Lock"? Not everybody will agree with that.
The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).
"Security - release the badgers."
There is a strong difference between "classic" and "classical". "Casablanca", by no stretch of the imagination, could be called "classical", the word Cousins used.
shareCousins uses both words:
"Casablanca is a Hollywood classic...But films like Casablanca are too Romantic to be Classical in the true sense"
...before going on to say that Japanese cinema is truly classical and Hollywood is not (starting the series as he means to go on with a sweeping generalisation). Even if that's a little bit like a script isn't really constructd because no bricks or building material are used, the series is not even about about 'classical' cinema and does contain clips from the very kind of film he's initially so dismissive about, reducing his argument to mere attention seeking.
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Does everybody realize he says "the youngest daughter" in "Tokyo Story," considered Ozu's best film/most popular film/one of Ozu's most palatable films to Westerners -- pick one -- and it's the old couple's daughter-in-law?
That's the point. The Japanese are a very hospitable people. The old couple know the wife does not have long to live. They go to visit their two surviving children in Tokyo. The children get rid of them, sending them to a spa, which is something like promising some people a weekend in Vegas and then putting them in the cheapest downtown hotel, or Circus Circus. The children argue about who has to put them up and the grandchildren are bratty. The daughter-in-law, widowed because their youngest son died in WWII, is the most welcoming and spends the most time taking them sightseeing, even though she lives in poverty.
Ozu is pretty merciless about blood relations who really can't stand each other. The daughter says she has bought her parents some special cakes and then eats them herself. The Japanese are more polite than Americans visiting for Thanksgiving who really can't stand each other, though.
Mark Cousins is an idiot with moss stuck to his head.
Sh-it's a secret!
Mark Cousins is an idiot with moss stuck to his head.
I had to laugh last night when, while showing a clip of John Barrymore in Twentieth Century, he referred to him having "unkempt hair."
It ain't easy being green, or anything else, other than to be me
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