Le Petit MacMahon de David Ehrenstein presents … Les Idoles and Point of Order

Pierre Clementi, Jean-Pierre Kalfon et Bulle Ogier dans Les Idoles

The film adaptation of a stage spectacle Les Idoles (1968) is both a tribute and send-up of French “Ye-Ye” culture with its phenomenally talented cast reconfiguring pop music in the style of Antonin Artuad’s “Theater of Cruelty”. A decisive influence on Rivette’s Out One it has never been equalled or dupicated. Its director/instigator Marc’o was born on April 10, 1927 in Clermont-Ferrand, Puy-de-Dôme, France. Besides this masterpiece he is also responsible Chained Vision (1954) and Voyage au bout de reve (1958)

(Les Idoles)

Roy and Joe

With Roy Cohn back from the grave and into the news lately (See my review of the new documentary about him: (“Where’s My Roy Cohn? or The Return of the Repressed” Los Angeles Blade, September 18, 2019), a look at Point of Order, Emile deAntonio’s 1964 distillation of the Army-McCarthy hearings merits a new look-see.

“De” — as Andy called him — was a great documentary filmmaker whose work should not be overlooked.

(Emile de Antonio)

IMDB says: “The son of a wealthy physician, Emile de Antonio grew up in the tough coal-mining town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and it made a deep impression on him. His sympathies were always with working-class people (although he was a Harvard graduate, he was at times a dock worker, a peddler, the captain of a river barge and a broker in war-surplus equipment), and his documentaries are decidedly Marxist in philosophy. His most famous film is probably Point of Order! (1964), about the Army-McCarthy hearings ten years previously, but his most controversial films would be Millhouse (1971), a scathing indictment of then-President Richard Nixon, and In the Year of the Pig (1968), a radically left-wing perspective on the Vietnam War.”

Married six times “De” was an alcoholic. Andy was such a good friend he allowed him to film him getting royally plastered in a film called Drunk (1964) that as far as I know has never been screened publically.

ENJOY!

(Point of Order)

*

p.s. Hey. It’s been ages since this minimally dimensional space was squatted by the roving cinema project Le Petit MacMahon de David Ehrenstein, and today marks its lucky return. David E. has programmed an amazing double bill for you to watch, should you so choose, and you really should. That’s your day around here, and thank you for your kind attendance, and thank you, Mr. E, for the generous inhabitation. ** Scunnard, Hi, J. Yes, we’ve been in touch off-blog, and all is great and squared away, as you know, and thank you again. This is more of a stopover than a resettling as I jet off again on Saturday, but here is making sense. ** Keatonwalker, The escorts shake a tail feather in thanks. Fake corpses are pretty various. There’s the charming scarecrow kind and the stuffed with newspapers kind and the double-take provoking kind like those Unit 70 dealys I featured here recently. I think I believe in them all somehow. Me? Well, thanks, I doubt it severely, but non-dying is my dream, so that’s a nice thought. Boom was good. I like Boom. He’s an endearingly bad painter too. The whole Gacy thing is so foreign over here, in Paris at least. It never happened like that here, and it never could, and it’s weird. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you so much ‘in person’ for today! If you had said that to me about Procol Harum when I was a teen, you would have been in big trouble, man. ** Brendan, Hi, B. Thanks, or, well, it just happens biologically or something, so I don’t really get any credit apart from housing the urge/do response, but thank you. Me too: live in that world. Oslo’s cool. It’s kind of nothing to look at. I mean it has no archtectural signature. The buildings just look like buildings with a slightly non-USA design. It’s kind of relaxing there, or maybe I mean comfortable, but, at the same, kind of grubby and grim. But when I told anyone who lived there that I liked Oslo, they made it clear that there were reasons not to like it, although they didn’t spell the problems out. Anyway, it’s cool. Everyone there speaks impeccable English. It’s almost spooky, that. Norway itself is fucking beautiful. I mean the nature, geography, and such. Easily one of the most beautiful looking countries I’ve been in. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I’ve never heard of Cartel Madras, Doesn’t sound like something I would be very into. I’ll try a track or video or something. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks for thanking Ghoster, man. ** John Fram, Hi, John. I’m good, busy. Ugh about the food poisoning, Nasty. My novel is out seeking a publisher, and I’m waiting/hoping/worrying and all of that. Ooh, I will try, but I don’t know if I can do that in two weeks. I’m flying to LA on Saturday for a bit more than a couple of weeks of heavy haunted house research and film script/proposal documents work on deadline, and it’ll depend on how consuming that is. I’ll try. Have not seen ‘Midsommar’ yet, no, strangely. I want to, of course. Soon somehow. ** Barkley, Hi. Glad you came back. Cheaply flavored fruit candies are an excellent choice. Obviously, I highly approve of that old costume of yours. Pix? I have a pic of my Procol Harum one, but it’s in a drawer somewhere in LA, god knows where. Thank you about our films! That’s so great to hear. The meeting went okay. He says we have to do some more and quick work on the script to make things a bit clearer and more readable for the grants/funding organisations to whom we will now submit the script and who will want the proposals to be easy to understand immediately, understandably, so we need to do that fast, but he likes the script, and we are on our way, so it was good. Hope you have a good day.  What’s going on in your world at the moment? ** Okay. Put on your earphones or crank your speakers or whatever and enjoy the big show. I will see you tomorrow.