(Berenice)
(Godard’s King Lear)
*
p.s. Hey. Today Mr. Ehrenstein very, very simply wants you to watch two films. Given their directorial provenance, they are undoubtedly worth your time investment, should your day ahead allow. Please settle in and take him up on his offer, and thank you, and thank you very much, David. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Thank you again for letting the blog do some theater cosplay. ** T. J., Oh, yeah, I know that story of Gary’s in Aura’s book, and I totally agree. I forgot that he’s in a Valie Export film. How amazing is that. Wow, that’s an interesting job, or at least whenever I go through a toll booth, I always wonder what doing that job must be like, and I can’t seem to wrap my mind around the state of mind one would have or adopt to work that particular turf. Interesting. Bonus that you’re getting something for your work out of the ambience at least. Good reading there, and thank you for including me. Especially happy you read Benjamin Weissman. I think he’s so underrated, and I’m actually Zooming in part with him tomorrow night, so I’ll pass on the news of your reading him. How is ‘Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn’? Keep looking at it and wondering if I should do it or not. I’m finally watching the much vaunted ‘Drive My Car’ today, so we’ll see. Hope you get to hit that gig. My first is coming up too: Puce Mary playing on a boat in the Seine. Great talking with you. ** Misanthrope, I don’t buy the UFOs thing, or not in the form that humans conceptualise at least, but they’re fun to imagine are around. Big shit about your return to in-person work. That does sound like an unnecessary hell. Maybe things will go nuts again and they’ll pull back. Jeez, sorry, George. ** Tosh Berman, When A Different Light was in Silverlake, it was a great store. When it moved to West Hollywood, and Richard was no longer involved, it quickly evolved into more of a queer card and soft erotica store, but the rent was much higher there. Huh. I thought I saw a UFO in or rather over Honolulu once when I was a kid, but it sure seems like a plane in memory. ** woah its Ryan, Hi. Yeah, I too love the UFO sightings that can’t be proven fake. They’re very exciting. Same with ghost stuff. Wow, I will definitely hunt down The Neverhood. That sounds very immensely up my alley. Thanks! And I’ll check out the soundtrack first, thanks again. I guess …enjoy the flu-iness? Have a friend who thinks having the flu is a great gift to the body. Up there with LSD or something. Did you and the daughter of your aunt gel? Barring a schedule shift, the gig that has your track/video included will be here on April 6th. Love and later, me. ** Bill, Me too, about Vomitingghosts. I keep think he might pop in to say hi, but it seems he might have moved on into a post-DC’s observing elsewhere. I did a book tour with Gary, I think for my ‘Frisk’ and his ‘Horse Crazy’ because we shared the same publisher (Grove Press) at the time. I could tell you stories, but I won’t, or not here, ha ha. ** Shane Christmass, Hey. Yeah, thanks Vg wherever you are! I need to get that anthology, although I think might be sold out already. I’ll hit Philip up with a pretty please. ** Rafe, Hey, Rafe. Well, we’re not going to record the audio novel until we’re finished with the film, meaning probably not until late this year. So it’ll be a while. ‘Victims’, yes, wonderful book, and I remain its proud initial publisher. ‘Victorious’: news to me. I don’t think I’ve even watched Nickelodeon, weird. Hm, I think I need to go find the video you mention. Should be easy. Thanks a lot, man. Your today coughing up anything of note? ** Right. So, if you can spare the time, please watch a film or two, and I will see you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
*
Merci Dennis!
The lategreat Raul Ruiz created so many films everyone has lost count. His rendition of Racine’s masterpiece show only the title character on screen in full. All the other characters are played by shadow figures.
Godard’s insane “King Lear” came about thanks to Cannon Films (remember them) and a contract drawn p on tale cloth at the Canne Film Festival. It was supposed to have been scripted by Norman Mailer, but after a few days Noran and his daughter Kate left the project. Bugess Meredith plays Lear, Molly Ringwald isCordelia (shehas spoken of the experiece of makig the film with gret insight and affection) , theater director Peter Sellars (not t be confused with the comic legend) plays William Shakespeare Jr. the5th (whatever happene dto him), Julie Delpy who Godard discovered for “Detective) is on hand as is Leos Carax — whose “Annette” is one of 2021’s very best fims
DavidE, A new post from The Maestro! Thank you, sir.
Dennis, Well, I got some good news. We will be returning to the office…BUT only one day a week like the fed employees we work with. Yay! Our manager is going to tweak our contract to include the language that will allow us to do this.
Well, a UFO is an unidentified flying object, so anything in the air that you can’t identify is technically a UFO. But yeah, these people who are really into them are into actual aliens from other planets and all that, which includes all the conspiracies.
My friend liked the post yesterday. Of course, he was already familiar with all of it.
I hope your weekend is awesome. I’ve been doing my weekly grocery shopping after work on Friday lately, which frees up the whole weekend. It’s been working out well.
I’ve been making headway on getting through abandoned novel of mine. Hoping to have it all gone over by the end of the weekend and then I’ll start on actually finishing it, with tons of editing to follow. We’ll see how that goes.
The Inventor of the gif passed away, Stephen Wilhite. And David thank you for the blog for today. I saw King Lear some years ago, and thought it was great at the time. Time for a revisit.
@ David, I never even knew this Godard take on of King Lear existed, so will try and make some time for it this weekend. Thank you!
The big news for me is that my DVD rental is back up and running. Starting out slowly with house of Gucci and Tigers Are Not Afraid, so we’ll see if Mum’s not too annoyed with those.
Hey Dennis, Again God said no to me having a week off and I’ve been in the house with a head cold the past few days. Annoying but I managed to get some reading and drawing and movies in so that’s good at least. Do not watch the new Dark Water, haha, what happened to erotic thrillers they really used to be like peak camp and but also good. Need another Hand That Rocks The Cradle type gig, none of this sterile stuff. Seeing Goodbye, Dragon Inn later today with a friend now that my cold’s subsided, I’ve never seen anything by Tsai so I’m excited. Hope the past few days were good and productive for you, any new stuff with the film or any other events of note? I’ll talk to you later, have a beautiful day!
-Brandon
Dennis, next time we meet in person, I’ll have to remember to bug you about Gary Indiana stories, ha.
I remember seeing King Lear when it first came out. I nodded off quite a bit, and saw a lot of hallucinatory images on screen that I’m sure were part of my dreams. I’ve done this for a few other movies; very entertaining experiences.
Bill
Weird how there are surveillance cameras every 5 feet, but we’re still getting the same fuzzy images of black shapes in the sky as supposed proof of UFOs. It’s possible those are unexplained now, but I suspect they’re military technology from the US or other countries that hasn’t been made public yet. But I do wonder if it’s possible for our minds, in certain states of consciousness, to interact with beings or states that don’t exist in our physical reality but are real in some way.
I reviewed the ’80s rom-com throwback THE LOST CITY for the Nashville Scene: https://www.nashvillescene.com/arts_culture/film_tv/i-the-lost-city-i-is-a-pleasant-distraction-at-best/article_f26b6c38-aadc-11ec-a0c4-5731bf564244.html
I’m selecting and mixing songs for my upcoming album. I hope to be done with that process next week and be ready to drop it then.
Yeah Dear Dead Person is the funniest book I’ve read in a long time, just sad that isn’t more of it.
Loony Porn is fun in the vein of late Bunuel, good Bertrand Blier or Szifron’s Wild Tales. I haven’t seen any other Jade yet and I’m not familiar with Romanian class history so sure of it was lost on me but fun. I internet know someone very smart who is a Drive My Car contrarian but I haven’t seen it yet.
The one thing I saw in my lockdown ’20 Gary obsession I do not recommend is the very very stupid 00s doc Camp Hollywood about some famous LA hotel, GI just happened to be staying at and the nitwit who shot, narrates and interviews all the guest clearly doesn’t even know who he is or appreciates anything. He’s in it for 2 min.
I realized reading this post how little Ruiz I have seen, I remember liking his Treasure Island adaptation with Martin Landau, Anna Karina and Jean Piere Leaud, his Dog short that’s told in stills and narration in the tradition of La Jette is cute, Golden Boat is funny. Klaus Kinski’s son made a good Egon Schiele lookalike in Klimpt. I saw King Lear when I was too young and stupid to appreciate. One of those millenials who jumped Breathless to the 80s cause that’s all the video stores had.
Enjoy your weekend!
Hi Dennis,
Yeah that YouTube video is definitely strange but kind of funny. He just gets so into it. My day did actually end up coughing up some interesting encounters; saw Kyler James in the park—I see him once in a while and it’s always fun to talk to him. Tonight I found myself at a rough reading for a pretty funny play about I-don’t-know-what. Also picked up a copy of Sarah Schulman’s ‘After Dolores’ this morning which I started reading. (Re: the Benjamin Weissman discussion —I love his stories; I mean how could I not ?! Very interested in thinking about how his painting practice informs his writing/ vice-versa ). About to watch the Ruiz film, and then bed—I’ve only seen the Klimt so I’m excited…Curious to know what you thought of drive my car, too. I hope you have a nice weekend, and as always, thanks for the recs!!