Invisible River: Recent Films of Robert Todd

Boston based filmmaker Robert Todd came back to Milwaukee to showcase a few of his more recent cinematic explorations. I have found myself growing very fond of Todd’s work as well as his demeanour as an artist. His eyes and ears are highly focused, but there is a humbling aloofness in how he talks about his work. He does not hide his films behind convoluted concepts, but speaks directly and admits when he has reached the limits of his understanding. His work, like that of Nathaniel Dorsky or Jim Jennings, strives not for knowing, but for the ineffable.

Rose (2008, 9 min.)
A sensual, but cheeky exploration of the body. A tender black and white rendering of unidentifiable body parts. Todd referred to it as an affair between himself and his Bolex.

Qualities of Stone (2006, 11 min.)
Perhaps, I won’t see a more lovely film this year. Qualities of Stone transcends the rather clumsy textual description Robert Todd provides for the film. “Stone is an analog to mineral, the common denominator between organic and inorganic life (as crystalline forms). This one moves closer to the flesh of the film – a much more interior film. It lives within the near present.” I can agree with the last sentence of this summary, but flesh feels to physical where as Qualities of Stone was more cerebral. Todd’s haunting mixture of ethereal sounds and acute visual perception rewarded me with a truly to euphoric experience. I imagine this is the sensation people seek when they take hallucinogenics.

Riverbed (2008, 18 min.)
As great as Qualities of Stone was, Riverbed was just as maddening. The films structure follows an invisible stream, but like the river that cannot be seen, the films structure feels just as absent, even sloppy. So disappoint, the film left me with a crushing headache and a desire to revisit Qualities of Stone.

Passing (2008, 19 min.)
A eulogy for his father-in-law. A backyard universe. At times touching, the film, with its attention to fire, water, and wood reminds me a great deal of Leighton Pierce’s Wood. This comparison is a compliment to Todd, but Passing is not as transcendent.

Gathering (2009 – work in progress, 4.5 min.)
The record of a tree planting, its roots and soil mixed with the ashes of Todd’s father-in-law is poignant, but not powerful. Too often, it feels like a family film, shared.

Repair (2009, 15 min.)
Todd’s work has a great kinship to the films of Jim Jennings and Nathaniel Dorsky. Yet, when Todd removes sound from his films, his work loses the magic that allows Dorsky or Jennings films to stand silent. I am not suggesting that Robert Todd is unable to make great silent films, but rather that after having heard how wonderfully he works with sound, a silent Robert Todd  feels incomplete.

Fast-Walking (1982)

Some strange, but good, twists and turns ahead

Typically, I’d chide a film like Fast-Walking for being too smart. If there is one type of film I deplore it’s the type where a writer or director flaunts a “can-you-keep-up-with-me” attitude. It’s the reason I never get that into Law & Order.  Twists and turns are best left to car commercials. Fast Walking is full of them, but this neo-noir about a corrupt prison guard has enough  for three films. It also has a few amazing things going for it, each of which makes the clever, but slightly convuluted plot palpable.

Like his role in Videodrome, James Woods perfectly plays a man who feels he’s in control of his life, but is obviously in over his head. When Timothy Carey takes a beating you know that crazy fool demanded real body blows. M. Emmet Walsh goes Full Monty. Fans of gonzo monologues get two or three great ones from Tim McIntire . What keeps this film in most folks memory Kay Lenz is sex appeal. However, what I found oddest of all were the two actresses employed to play the parts of hookers. Barbara Eaton and Bonnye Brown look like real hookers. I’m not talking strippers. I’m talking work-a-day whores. It’s quite rare to see something that trashy in an otherwise non-grindhouse feature. Even odder is how the scene where he hoses them off with a garden hose reminds me a lot like the scene in Pulp Fiction where Vincent and Jules get washed clean of brains and blood.

Q (1982)

One of Saint Cohen's Miracles

Larry Cohen is a saint amongst sinners. In the gutterworld of cheap and quick filmmaking Cohen is a principled director, driven to making more than a buck on a tantalizing or gimcrack flick. Cohen doesn’t peddle in gore or sex. Those elements may exist in many of his films, but they aren’t the essence or the goal. Cohen deals first and foremost in characters.

Q is about a giant winged serpent terrifying the city of New York, but the winged serpent is perhaps the least interesting aspect of the film. Corny and obviously fake, there is little to no attempt to disguise the fact that Q is a special effect. Even in his commentary, Cohen makes little reference to the monster, how it was constructed, any funny stories about working with the creature, or if he thinks the effects are good or dated. Cohen is more interested in talking about Michael Moriarty or David Carradine or executive producer Samuel Z. Arkoff. People are what matter most in Cohen’s world of filmmaking.

When he does discuss the technical craft of filmmaking Cohen speak more about his guerrilla style of filmmaking; shoot first and ask permission. He also notes that his shaky hand-held camera was not an aesthetic, but a flaw. He jokes how that this look as become fashionable ever since NYPD Blue. It’s not with a favorable tone that he notes just how many movies and television shows are shot with shaky held cameras. Productions spend millions of dollars to try and get the gritty, authentic, from the hip, made-in-the-streets look that Cohen perfected, not out of want, but out of necessity. As the man himself says, he could probably shoot three or four (better) films for the price of one of these slick, soulless productions.

I believe him.

Shoot (1976)

The best defense is a good offense...or kill them all and let God sort them out.

Some movies make me want to run out and see everything a director has made. Shoot makes me want to run out and read the books of Douglas Fairbairn. I have no proof that his novels will be as profound as I imagine, call it a mere hunch. I do know that Harvey Hart’s perfunctory style of directing never raises the film to the meditative or thought provoking level that the underlying material deserves.

The story: A group of veterans hunting in the Canadian hills encounter another group of hunters. A tense illogical face-off occurs. A hunter from the other party fires a shot, winging one of the vets. One of the vets returns fire killing a member of the other hunting party. The men disperse. What follows is the real horror.

Rex, the obsessive, self-appointed leader of the vets, intriguingly portrayed Cliff Robertson, convinces his men that they have to prepare themselves for retaliation. Most of the men buy into Rex’s theories, especially when word of the fallen hunter fails to reach the paper and no police reports are filed. Terrified into a state of paranoia, Rex convinces his fellow hunters to that if they ever want to feel secure,  if they ever want to stop worry, if they ever want to be free then they must return to the same hunting grounds, fully armed and ready for a war.

In 1976, the film’s metaphor lent itself to Viet Nam. Today, the film feels more in tune with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict or even 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unfortunately, the strength of the the filmmaking never fully examines the aftermath of a violent attack and the response to such an attack. Even with its explosive ending that carries a slightly hypnotic and contemplative quality, Shoot over-steps the moment and adds a dumbed down, to-on-the-nose voice over, making sure that viewer understands the destructive ends of escalated, unsubstantiated fears.

These lofty topics deserve more careful handling. Alas, Hart’s direction carries the baggage of years of television directing. His shots just capture action and his actors are rarely more than vehicles for dialog. Shoot deserves more than a television movie treatment.

Guyana: Crime of the Century (1979)

Always start with a bang.

Everytime this came on cable I watched it. Though, I always remember it starting with Jim Jones…I mean James Johnson…giving a sermon and telling his flock about the promise of Guyana.

A title card at the beginning of the film informs us that the names were changed to protect the innocent, which seems foolish since there is no mistaking who this film is about. Guyana: Crime of the Century is a fictionaized retelling of the Jim Jones and the Jonestown Massacre. The title card says so much, but what I don’t get is how Jim Jones is innocent?

The title card is followed by a grizzly suicide, something I don’t recall from the many times I saw this on television. It’s a shocking start and makes the sermon that follows more tolerable. Actually, between the suicide and the sermon is another title.

Is this company for Re-Al? Is this Al's second attempt? And, Who is Al?

The Wizard of Speed and Time (1988)

Is the Wizard playing the sytem or is the system playing the Wizard?

The story of Mike Jittlov continues to fascinate me. The Wizard of Speed and Time is a blatantly self-referential movie laced with a high level of bitterness towards the movie industry. For a man so in love with the magic of movies, it’s both sad and peculiar to watch Jittlov take every opportunity possible to bite the hand that might feed him. As I shared this strange, ‘children’s’ film with others, I was glad to I am not the only person intrigued by Mike Jittlov or should I say, The Wizard?

For the first time I noticed the credits listing the character of Mike Jittlov being played by the Wizard and the Wizard as being played by himself. So, perhaps there is no Mike Jittlov?

Older Viewing, Longer Writing

Tote Taube in der Beethovenstraße (1973)

Known as Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street, I am having a hard time understanding if this is or is not part of a long running German police drama known as Tatort. The film certainly has the look and feel of television. Mostly, the production feels rushed, with vast amounts of exposition being given in voice-overs. There are a few striking angles and some visually exciting shots, but the espionage and blackmail plot is extremely confusing and the characters are never consistent.

Still there is that one scene that makes it worth it, not because it is great, but simply because it is just insane.

Ten Nights in a Barroom (1931)

What a surprise. Ten Nights in a Barroom was just one of 20 Cult Classics I picked up on clearance, yet this rum soaked tale of a drunkard’s downfall was not the laugh inducing film I expected. It actually had some real power to its story.  I’ll have to watch this film again when I’m not so tired. Also, I need try and find the source material from Timothy Shaw Arthur’s Ten Nights in a Bar-room and What I Saw There, not to mention the 1921, 1913, and 1910 filmmed versions of this same story.

Style Wars (1983)

The opening to Style Wars is one of the most captivating starts to any film I’ve ever seen. The way a single spotlight illuminates the graffiti on subway trains while they pull into the terminal, mixed with the haunting classical music sets up this brilliant, swelling, dicotomy. The darkness is replaced with bright exterior shots and the expected sounds of rap. Suddenly, a culture has come out. It is no longer underground.

Nuit et brouillard (1955)

If you don’t learn from history you are bound to repeat it. After watching Night and Fog, I wonder how many nations learned from Germany’s folly. After WWII images of war were no longer testements to man’s inhumanity, but evidence that could be used against the defeated. America would be slow to learn this lesson. Too many images from Vietnam were transmitted home. Today, images are guarded, distant, even scarce. It seems that as our ability to capture and transmit imagery grows increasingly easier the amount of footage we see decreses. Is information being suppressed? Are we just getting jaded?