LETTER OF INTRODUCTION
Hello again! I had a delightful conversation on the podcast with Rob Sweeney, who produces excellent DVD/Blu-ray sets at Kino Lorber. Lately he’s been following a couple of home-viewing paths that have proved entertaining: picking things for his daughter to watch that go beyond—way beyond—Disney or Pixar; and watching wildly creative movies by Indian director S.S. Rajamouli. These all sounded like such fun that I’ve put together show notes for the episode, since many of the (action-packed) movies are available on streaming sites (or in a few cases, DVD).
Also, I have some streaming recommendations of my own, and at the end, an interview from the vault…
So, for now a brief dispatch from me. But keep an eye out for something different on the next episode of the podcast, coming soon! Feel free to reach out at nicolas.rapold@gmail.com
PODCAST NOTES
Episode 16: Rob Sweeney of Kino Lorber
On this wide-ranging episode, Rob talks about watching Shirley Temple movies and the Japanese myth-influenced story Wolf’s Children with his 4-year-old daughter. Then I learn about the director S.S. Rajamouli, who plays out outlandish plots in his pop adventures (such as Eega, in which the main character is a vengeful fly). We also get to a couple of recent releases (well, no longer recent, but that’s life in catch-up mode), plus a smattering of other movies. I’ve listed some clickable titles below that link to streaming, or to superior DVD editions, as well as links to articles Rob mentions.
High Risk aka Meltdown (Amazon)
Darbar starring Rajinikanth (Amazon)
S.S. Rajamouli
The Fly (Eega) (Amazon)
Baahubali: The Beginning (Netflix)
Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (Netflix)
Maryada Ramanna (Amazon)
Shirley Temple
Heidi (YouTube)
Wee Willie Winkie (YouTube)
Also mentioned: Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm + Young People
Mamoru Hosada movies (available through Funimation streaming service too)
Wolf Children (Funimation)
Summer Wars (Funimation)
Mirai (Netflix)
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Funimation)
(More) Recent Movies
Bill & Ted Face the Music (in theaters or VOD, but no rush)
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Netflix)
Reading and writing discussed
Bela Tarr interview by R. Emmet Sweeney (Rob’s byline)
Antkind, book by Charlie Kaufman
“Stephen Chow and His Kings of Comedy” by R. Emmet Sweeney
Smithsonian Institute: Rob on 25 years of Hong Kong fight scenes
Kino Lorber DVD/Blu-ray Sets mentioned (and produced) by Rob
The Jewish Soul: Classics of Yiddish Cinema
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
The best last things I saw. (More or less.) Available via streaming and/or DVD.
The Women (1939) [Criterion]
Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer. Discussed on Episode 11 of The Last Thing I Saw podcast with Soraya Nadia McDonald.
Vitalina Varela [Criterion]
“Quite possibly the most beautiful film of 2020.”—NR, Film Comment
I put this on the cover of the January/February 2020 issue of Film Comment.
Feed: A Comedy About Running for President (1992)[OVID]
Documentary smorgasbord of satellite feeds and footage of candidates during the 1992 presidential primaries, including Bill Clinton and Ross Perot
Harlan County USA (1976)[Criterion]
Story of a strike. “Not ‘relevant’ at all—how could such a soul-killing journalistic-anemic word apply? Harlan County USA is essential.”—NR, Reverse Shot
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) (Criterion)
“Some signs that Werner Herzog has redone your horror classic: 1) Klaus Kinski plays (is?) the titular fiend; 2) notable interest in the dank overland journey to Dracula’s castle (complete with extras-cast-as-ethnography); 3) soundtrack by Popol Vuh; and 4) wild animals in supporting roles.”—NR, Village Voice
The 40-Year-Old Version [new release on Netflix]
NYC comedy about a playwright/teacher who reinvents herself as a rapper.
The Unknown (1927) [Criterion]
Lon Chaney IS Alonzo the Armless.
Totally Under Control [forthcoming new release via Neon and Hulu]
Alex Gibney’s tick-tock of the govenrment’s pandemic response (or lack thereof) puts faces and chronology to the ongoing disaster. The vast bulk of the timeline goes through the spring, concluding briefly with the last month. I’m mainly interested in the candid testimony here rather than the documentary as a movie, e.g., whistle-blower Rick Bright (who just resigned after evidently being demoted and sidelined after speaking out) and a volunteer who served in Jared Kushner’s shockingly unprepared task force for acquiring protective gear.
FROM THE VAULT
Charles Burnett and Killer of Sheep (Stop Smiling, 2007)
For a number of years, I was Film Editor at a lovely magazine called Stop Smiling. I also wrote and did a fair number of interviews. The filmmaker Charles Burnett was one such pleasure, interviewed here just as his 1978 movie Killer of Sheep was triumphantly reemerging and rewriting American film history. You can still buy the issue of Stop Smiling where the original interview appears; it is here quoted and abridged.
Born in 1944 in Mississippi, Burnett grew up in Los Angeles, where he still lives today. After a vocational foray into electronics, he studied filmmaking at UCLA. His city’s black working-class Watts neighborhoods were the setting for both Killer of Sheep—his thesis film, and a Library of Congress inductee—and in 1983, My Brother’s Wedding, his second feature. More magical reality reigned in To Sleep With Anger, a little-appreciated 1990 project headlined by Danny Glover as an Old South trickster visiting a family. Thereafter Burnett’s work appeared more often in television, including PBS documentaries on immigrant America and slavery liberation hero Nat Turner, a slavery drama for Disney, and an installment in the historical omnibus “The Blues.”
Rapold: You studied filmmaking at UCLA. Who were some important teachers for you?
Charles Burnett: Elyseo Taylor was one. I don’t know how many black teachers they had in film, but he came in during the time I was there, and he added a political element to the department. He brought in a lot of Third World cinema. He also created the Ethno-Communications studies there. Got together a number of diverse people, blacks, Asians, and others, to teach film. And so there were more people of color. I was also a student teacher. He also brought African films to festivals...
Rapold: Ousmane Sembene?
Charles Burnett: Oh yeah, Sembene, and others. It was great.
Rapold: Another big teacher there was Basil Wright?
Charles Burnett: Basil Wright was a documentary filmmaker. He did Song of Ceylon. A real gentle person. He was teaching documentary film. And many years later I also had the opportunity to meet Joris Ivens. He died not much longer after that. An extraordinary filmmaker and a person. A really humble, tolerant person, and he went all over the world. I was struck early on by a film of his called Rain. Another film, much later, was called A Story of the Wind, his last film. He did one about the Peking Circus, and other films in China. A Valparaiso, in Chile. A really wonderful person.
Rapold: Was there ever a point where you considered doing something very commercial?
Charles Burnett: I haven’t been offered that. The thing is, there has to be something in it that you could identify with or that would challenge you. Just going through the motions of directing something with no meaning... It has to have something. Like an actor who wants to do something with the material.
Rapold: Most people know you through independent work like Killer of Sheep and To Sleep with Anger, but you’ve worked with Disney a couple of times on interesting material.
Charles Burnett: Yeah, I did Nightjohn for Disney. And I did Selma, Lord, Selma for them [about Martin Luther King Jr.’s violently attacked 1965 marches in Alabama]. I also did a film for Oprah, The Wedding, which was on television.
Rapold: How was your experience with Disney?
Charles Burnett: Well, for Nightjohn I was surprised that Disney wanted to do a film on slavery. It was good because the people were really competent. They really wanted to make a story that would have an impact. I worked with David Manson and some others. We were all on the same page. Selma was the same way. It wasn’t some war between producer and talent at all.
Rapold: What were you aiming for with Nightjohn, in terms of improving on past depictions of slavery?
Charles Burnett: Roots was the biggest one, and that’s basically it. It’s all distorted. We were trying to represent an objective experience in a sense, and to show that these people, in spite of everything, understood the power of learning, of words and language. They could learn to be free. I was hoping that young people and children now would see that and appreciate that, and demand a better system of education. You can comprehend the world and because of that, it frees you. Because people then died for being able to read and write. Also, I wanted to show the legacy, that slavery was... not some benign institution. It was really horrendous, and people are in denial, don’t fully recognize that.
Rapold: It’s interesting that children were foremost in your concerns because what struck me while watching Killer of Sheep again recently was all the deeply felt scenes of children playing.
Charles Burnett: It’s basically from their point of view. They’re growing up and becoming desensitized. For them it’s about having to survive this rough environment where it’s not about right and wrong but about self-preservation and family. It’s you against the world. That cancels any kind of debate within yourself about right or wrong and moral issues. And for Stan [the main character, father of two of the kids], it’s also about a man having a sense of responsibility and moral compass, and he doesn’t give up. And that’s all he can ask for is to keep his family intact.
Rapold: Do you still live in Los Angeles, near where you grew up? How has it changed?
Charles Burnett: Pretty much so. It’s changed a lot. Looking at Killer of Sheep, it looks like the best of times, the worst of times. It was just before the element of crack came into the community and gang violence. And there was stretch from the ’80s on to the ’90s where it was total disaster and lawlessness. And really a small group were doing that . . . Now some people are trying to get the community back, but there were a lot of wasted lives.
Rapold: You studied electrical engineering at first, vocationally?
Charles Burnett: People would steer you a certain way. One of the reasons I started film was that I remember, walking down the street from school and seeing plenty of kids around then in this situation, and I want to write about it, do something about this. I remember seeing this big chimney above the building in junior high. I knew this place was more of a detriment. We have a big responsibility in large part, too, but in society so much now, it’s all for business, letting them exploit you, subprime lenders and all that. It started early, with dumbing down people.
Rapold: Did you have a close-knit neighborhood?
Charles Burnett: Oh, yeah. Everyone was from the South, knew each other, fanned outward. But the police department, the schooling, the money was all taken out, and it created a vacuum of people, lost the sense of community. It’s trying to come back. The guns in the community had just gone crazy. That wasn’t there before. You could walk out in the street and go anywhere basically. Used to be that gangs would beat the hell out of you, stomp you and all this kind of stuff, but they wouldn’t take it too far.
THE END
Here I might wrap up with a song.