Another Kind Of Distance: A Time Travel, Twin Peaks, Film, Doom Patrol And Nostalgia Podcast

A strange back-to-school episode for a strange back-to-school year: we look at Amy Heckerling's LOSER (2000) and Whit Stillman's DAMSELS IN DISTRESS (2011), two comedies with very different, but equally dark, visions of class and university life in America, neither of which fared well with audiences or critics at the time. Dave defends the former as a blending of Capra and Wilder romantic comedy modes, while Elise makes the case for the latter as “a perfect movie”—maybe even “the only perfect movie.” All the trigger warnings for lots of discussion of roofies, anal, Ronald Firbank, and Whit Stillman's terrible political views, and irreverence about suicide. Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:       Loser (2000) [dir: Amy Heckerling] 0h 40m 53s:       Damsels in Distress (2011) [dir. Whit Stillman] +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or on Letterboxd * Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance *And Rea

This episode of our Acteurist Oeuvre-view of Setsuko Hara (with English subs) features our first Naruse, REPAST (1951), and the movie generally considered “Ozu's masterpiece” (as if there were only one), TOKYO STORY (1953). We debate whether REPAST is housewife propaganda or the STARSHIP TROOPERS of domestic reunion dramas, and ask whether a cat can be like a husband, or a husband like a cat. Then we dig into TOKYO STORY, comparing it to the more comedic EARLY SUMMER, and trying to get a handle on the later film's vision of family and of humanity. We also discuss the meaning of Noriko's attitude of renunciation and enigmatic cri de coeur.   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:       Repast (1951) [dir. Mikio Naruse]   0h 31m 32s:       Tokyo Story (1953) [dir. Yasujiro Ozu]   +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or on Letterboxd * Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance *And Read lots of Elise’s Writ

Fox, 1933: we watch a couple of movies that complicate Ethan Mordden's characterization of Fox as “The Rube,” Henry King's State Fair and William (billed as Wilhelm) Dieterle's The Devil's in Love (both beautifully shot by Hal Mohr). The first is a sophisticated movie about simple people that doesn't make fun of them or take unsophistication as its ideal, while the second is Fox's attempt at a Sternberg movie, a Foreign Legion quadrangle with a strange climactic twist. Find out how Fox makes pre-Codes (from farm boys losing their virginity to carefree female carnies to how to take Will Rogers' mind off a hog). Also: an inadvertent Victor Jory double-feature! Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:       State Fair [dir. Henry King] 0h 52m 20s:       The Devil’s in Love [dir. William Dieterle]   +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or on Letterboxd * Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance *And Read lots

Our August Special Subject is one of Dave's favourite film books, Elizabeth Kendall's The Runaway Bride: Hollywood Romantic Comedy of the 1930s. We discuss Kendall's vision of romantic comedy from this era (it's powered by an auteur/acteur synergy between erstwhile “gag man” directors and a new type of female star) and consider how each of the films she discusses fits her thesis (or fails to). We also take extended looks at two Frank Capra comedies that receive chapters in the book: It Happened One Night (the template for “Depression romantic comedy,” as Kendall calls it) and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (in which, according to Kendall, Capra betrays the spirit of the movement in comedy that he started). Finally, we speculate about why Lubitsch is left out of the book by discussing Ninotchka. (Hint: you can't have Depression romantic comedy with a Communist heroine.)   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:       Introduction – Kendall’s Depression Romantic Comedy Thesis 0h 26m 03s:       It Happened One Night (1934) [dir: Frank

Prepare for Pre-Code shenanigans galore! In our Warner Bros. 1933 Studios Year-By-Year episode, the socialist studio shows us capitalism at its nastiest and sexiest. In Baby Face and Employees' Entrance, Barbara Stanwyck and Warren William, respectively, “crush” and “smash” in the name of surviving and triumphing in the capitalist system, and make it a lot of fun to watch—that is, when William isn't attacking passed-out women. We learn that Dave has no compassion for either bank or department store executives and marvel at Stanwyck's way with a beer bottle and a would-be molester's head. You don't want to miss this one.   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:       Baby Face [dir. Alfred E. Green] 0h 46m 50s:       Employees’ Entrance [dir. Roy del Ruth] +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or on Letterboxd * Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance *And Read lots of Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark

This time on our oeuvre-view of Setsuko Hara's (English-subtitled) career, Kurosawa's The Idiot/Hakuchi, based on Dostoevsky, is paired with Ozu's Early Summer for maximum tonal dissonance. Our heroine proves her range again—even with her Noriko roles. Join us for a discussion of sexual psychosis and tragic caritas in The Idiot and the perverse obsession with normalizing Noriko in Early Summer. Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:       The Idiot (1951) [dir: Akira Kurosawa] 0h 38m 22s:       Early Summer (1951) [dir: Yasujiro Ozo] 1h 16m 26s:       Elise Goes Wilder III & Farewell Olivia De Havilland          +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or on Letterboxd * Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance *And Read lots of Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.* Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com Theme Music: “What’s Yr Take on Cassa

MGM, 1933. Two very different movies: Penthouse, a crime drama and romantic comedy directed by W. S. “One-Take Woody” Van Dyke, and King Vidor's hard-to-find The Stranger's Return, an agrarian family melodrama reputed to have been Ozu's favourite movie. Myrna Loy, as an unflappable and lovable party girl, with her Thin Man director and producer for the first time, and an uncharacteristically relaxed Miriam Hopkins as a city girl who becomes the actual and spiritual heir of Lionel Barrymore's estate. This time Elise manages to talk to about Jane Austen and not Henry James, so she apologizes if she ruined your drinking game.   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:       Penthouse (dir. W.S. Van Dyke) 0h 36m 01s:       The Stranger’s Return (dir. King Vidor) 1h 27m 06s:       Elise Goes Wilder III +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or on Letterboxd * Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance *And Read lo

Summer comes even to a virus-ravaged northern hemisphere, and we're here to celebrate with two teen movies that have a surprising amount in common: Ingmar Bergman's Summer with Monika (1953) and Delmer Daves' A Summer Place (1959). The former turns out to be much less about sex than its reputation would have you believe, while the latter is much more about sex than you'd imagine for a movie starring Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee. Grease got it all wrong! Discussed: Harriet Andersson's granny panties, Bergman's ambivalence toward women's freedom, Sandra Dee's acteur qualifications, and the weakening late-phase Hays Code (dealt bawdy blows by “racy” foreign films like Summer with Monika). Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:       Summer with Monika (1953) [dir: Ingmar Bergman] 0h 40m 45s:       A Summer Place (1959); [dir. Delmer Daves]        1h 35m 32s:       Elise Goes Wilder II   +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or on

Paramount, 1933 (or so): a Charles Laughton and Karl Struss double feature. We start with Cecil B. DeMille's The Sign of the Cross, pitting piety against perversion. Fredric March in a mini skirt, Claudette Colbert in a milk bath, Laughton as a ditzy Nero, and a bunch of Christians bedecked with arrows. But are the Christians really Communists, or are they Mormons? Next, Island of Lost Souls, based on H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. What is the metaphor? (D)evolution or (r)evolution? It's men with whips all the way down. The hairy proletariat. The pathos of Bela Lugosi. The dilemma of Lota, the Panther Woman. All this and more!   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          The Sign of the Cross (dir: Cecil B. De Mille) 0h 49m 09s:          Island of Lost Souls (dir: Earl C. Kenton) 1h 15m 57s:          Elise Goes Wilder     +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or on Letterboxd * Find Elise’s latest film piece on D

We get to the first Ozu in our Setsuko Hara Acteurist Oeuvre-view at last, but first we look at Tadashi Ima's two-parter, Blue Mountain Range/Aoi sanmyaku (1949), a surprisingly fun movie that leads us to discuss Allied Occupation liberal propaganda, dating as a recent invention, why all men will want to have sex with Katharine Hepburn or Setsuko Hara in the future, and how a geisha is like John Wayne. Then we dig into the great Late Spring (1949), finding connections to Our Town and Little Women to explain Setsuko Hara's character and expressing our admiration for Chishū Ryū's poker face.   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          The Blue Mountains, Parts I & II (1949) aka: 續青い山脈’ [dir: Tadahi Imai] 0h 56m 42s:          Late Spring (1949) aka: 晩春 [dir. Yasujiro Ozu] +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or on Letterboxd * Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance *And Read lots of Elise’s Wri

In this week's edition of The Studios Year-by-Year, it's Universal 1932, and we have two horror movies with wildly divergent styles. First, it's Robert Florey's Murders in the Rue Morgue, perhaps the sickest and most sadistic of the 30s Universal horror classics (surpassing even The Black Cat) and a probable influence on RKO's King Kong. Then it's John Stahl's Back Street (also shot by Karl Freund), based on the novel by noted feminist author and friend of the podcast Fannie Hurst, which we consider as a kind of Handmaid's Tale cautionary tale in the mode of so op instead of sci fi, but with plenty of saving ambiguity. Both shot by Karl Freund, they couldn't be further apart in style or their approach to melodrama. A great double feature! Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          Murders in the Rue Morgue (dir: Robert Florey) 0h 48m 51s:          Back Street (dir: John M. Stahl)   +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or

For June's Special Subject, we look at three films by Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak about the aftermath of the Partition of India: Meghe Dhaka Tara/The Cloud-Capped Star (1960), Komal Gandhar/E-flat (1961), and Subarnarekha/Golden Lining (1962). Refugee life, classism, intersectional analysis, melodrama, the confusion of familial and romantic relationships, and the possibility of hope within a despairing worldview are a few of the topics that come up for discussion.   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          Brief prologue on Ritwik Ghatak 0h 13m 00s:          The Cloud-Capped Star (1960; dir: Ritwik Ghatak) [Meghe Dhaka Tara] 0h 49m 49s:          E-Flat (1961; dir: Ritwik Ghatak) [Komal Gandhar] 0h 58m 17s:          Golden Lining (1962; dir. Ritwik Ghatak) [Subarnarekha]     +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or on Letterboxd * Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance *And Read lots of Elise

RKO, 1932: Selznick has come in as production chief and fired everyone but Pandro S. Berman. We look at the result of this new regime in the form of two La Cava-helmed pictures. First, the white elephant, Symphony of Six Million, based on a short story by Fannie Hurst, shows us how RKO does the Lower East Side. Then, the termite, The Age of Consent, examines the sexual mores of American college life. Though it's probably not what you're thinking.   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          Symphony of Six Million (dir: Gregory La Cava) 0h 40m 12s:          The Age of Consent (dir: Gregory La Cava)   +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or on Letterboxd * Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance *And Read lots of Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.* Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com Theme Music: “What’s Yr Take on Cassavetes?” – L

In our final episode of “unknown” Setsuko Haras before we get into the Ozus and Naruses, we cover another tonally dissonant double feature, Kôzaburô Yoshimura's TEMPTATION/YUWAKU (1948) and Keisuke Kinoshita's HERE'S TO THE YOUNG LADY/OJOSAN KANPAI (1949). We discuss the way these films—a love triangle melodrama and a strange screwball melodrama seemingly inspired by Hepburn and Tracy movies—seem to be proleptically summarizing the Hara persona, even as they contradict it by putting the star in romantic plots. Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          Temptation (1948; dir: Kôzaburô Yoshimura) 0h 38m 47s:          Here’s to the Young Lady (1949; dir:  Keisuke Kinoshita)              +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Anagramsci Blog or on Letterboxd * Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance *And Read lots of Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.* Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

In this Fox 1932 episode of Studios Year by Year, Fox Film Corporation finds its voice despite behind-the-scenes upheaval, and we offer the name “humanism” for that voice. Termite art classic For Me and My Gal (Raoul Walsh), a loose and leisurely proto-screwball comedy, stars Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett as a pair of fresh-mouthed but tender-hearted working-class lovers. In Frank Borzage's After Tomorrow, an equally devoted but already engaged pair have their future threatened by selfish mothers (too attached or too detached) and ineffectual or absent fathers. Depression commentary abounds, and we find reasons to believe that Fox might give RKO competition as “the feminist studio.”   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          Me and My Gal (dir. Raoul Walsh) 0h 43m 07s:          After Tomorrow (dir. Frank Borzage) 1h 31m 11s:          Dave’s Complete Cahiers re-read project and listener mail!   +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Catch up with Dave’s fledgling Précis du cinema efforts on the Ana

We devote some meta-theorizing to Setsuko Hara's screen persona and its reception and look at two of her lesser-known films that are available with English subtitles, Kōzaburō Yoshimura's A Ball at the Anjo House (1947), and the very uncharacteristic A Woman in the Typhoon Area (1948, directed by Hideo Ôba), in which she plays a vampy tramp who is nevertheless as caring as her more familiar characters. Then we discuss a couple of movies about isolated romance: Frank Capra's Lost Horizon and John Cromwell's The Enchanted Cottage. Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          More Meta Musings on Setsuko Hara              0h 15m 42s:          A Ball at the Anjo House (1947; dir.  Kōzaburō Yoshimura) 0h 45m 06s:          A Woman in the Typhoon Area (1948; dir. Hideo Ôba) 1h 02m 21s:          Anniversary talk; featuring short bonus discussions of Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon (1937) and John Cromwell’s The Enchanted Cottage (1945) +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Find Elise’s latest published film piece

This week we talk French Melville—no, not Jean-Pierre, but two temperamentally polar 1999 films by French auteurs based on works by Herman: Claire Denis's Beau Travail and Leos Carax's Pola X, based respectively on Billy Budd, Sailor and Pierre, or the Ambiguities. We ask such questions as: Why fascist aesthetics? Why opera-scored Tai Chi? Why incest? Why unsimulated sex? These are just the kinds of questions that come up when you're dealing with adaptations of classic American literature of the 19th century.   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          Melvillian Loomings 0h 14m 31s:          Beau Travail (1999; dir: Claire Denis) 0h 33m 26s:          Pola X (1999; dir: Leos Carax)   +++ * Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule * Find Elise’s latest published film piece – “Elaine May’s Male Gaze” – in the Elaine May issue of Bright Wall/Dark Room* *And Read Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.* Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com Theme Music:

In this week's Studios Year by Year episode, another studio finds its voice in 1932: Warner Bros. gives us the consciousness-raising prison drama I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (dir. Mervyn LeRoy) as well as the weird little maternity ward movie Life Begins (dir. James Flood). They share a harrowing vision of life and Glenda Farrell in uncharacteristically unsympathetic roles. We discuss I Am a Fugitive's indirect but manifest depiction of the chain gang system as a continuation of slavery and the tragic intersection of machine politics and sexual assault in Life Begins. And if you haven't been harrowed enough after all of that, you can read Elise's new essay for Bright Lights Film Journal on James Whale's Waterloo Bridge (previously discussed on this podcast) and Frank Borzage's Little Man, What Now?, “Love Stories in Harrowing Times.”   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          Life Begins (dirs.: James Flood & Elliott Nugent) 0h 35m 01s:          I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (dir: Mervyn Leroy) 1h 41m

In the inaugural episode of our Setsuko Hara Acteurist Oeuvre-view series, the vagaries of foreign film availability lead to an historically illuminating double feature. First up, the fascist propaganda film that made the teenage Setsuko a star, a Japanese-German co-production, melodrama/mountain film/semi-documentary extravaganza, The Daughter of the Samurai (1937), directed by Arnold Fanck and Mansaku Itami. Followed by Akira Kurosawa's No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), a celebration of the wartime anti-fascist resistance, from the unusual perspective (for both the subject and Kurosawa's subsequent career) of a young bourgeois woman who struggles to find a place for himself within that movement. And in our Bonus section, we discuss David O. Selznick's feminine ideal, disclose tidbits from Jennifer Jones's career, and deem beloved critic David Thomson an assclown, before closing with Elise's reading of her favourite Selznick memo.   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          Setsuko Hara intro 0h 09m 30s:          Atar

It's time for an epic retrospective episode, sparked by TIFF's Call Me Jimmy: The Films of James Stewart, which was unfortunately interrupted by COVID-19. Nevertheless, we watched the remaining films at home, plus a few that weren't scheduled. Here we substantially discuss Clarence Brown's OF HUMAN HEARTS (1938), Frank Capra's MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939), and Anthony Mann's THE NAKED SPUR (1953) and THE FAR COUNTRY (1954), and devote a paragraph or so to many others, including REAR WINDOW, ANATOMY OF A MURDER, and CALL NORTHSIDE 777. We identify salient aspects of the Stewart persona, such as the interplay between idealism and cynicism and between suffering and anger. Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          Drawling preamble 0h 22m 05s:          Of Human Hearts (1938; dir: Clarence Brown) 0h 53m 54s:          Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939; dir: Frank Capra) 1h 26m 45s:          Rear Window (1954; dir: Alfred Hitchcock) 1h 35m 30s:          Stewart and Anthony Mann – ft. The Naked Spur (1953) 2h 30m 32s: