Ray Pride

As far as I know, most of the films of late, great, obstinate French director Jean Eustache have never been seen in Chicago, and the retrospective at Siskel picks up every last stitch of his autobiographical weave. Every six or seven years, I wind up getting to see 1973's "The Mother and the Whore" (May 24, 28), Eustache's astonishing, coruscating, relentless Jean Pierre Leaud-starring four-hour 16mm-shot black-and-white post-1968 sexual-politics talkfest, and it's always a waterfall of conflicting notions. (More about it next week.) Not available on DVD in the US, the most recent subtitling job added sped-up captions for its verbiage, replacing the older set that included the words "untranslatable pun" several times. It’s the sort of smart, immediate, immersive experience that demands to be seen on the big screen, as I imagine the other films to be as well, including his follow-up, "My Little Loves," a look at childhood. Also this week: a biographical doc paired with "The Pig," his 1970 documentary that follows a swine from farmyard to sausage grinder.

"The Films of Jean Eustache" continues through June 5 at Siskel.

(2008-05-13)

Also by Ray Pride

Heavy Meta
Studios seem to have a harder and harder time to make movies in familiar forms that don't seem… familiar. Yet even with well-worn elements, there's much to enjoy in "Iron Man"
(2008-05-06)

Tip of the Week
Garth Jennings' "Son of Rambow" takes the same rude clay as Michel Gondry's "Be Kind Rewind" with much more fruitful results. In the case of "Rambow," two English 11-year-olds in the early 1980s get the idea of remaking "Rambo: First Blood" out the wilds of their imagination
(2008-05-06)

How Do Photographs Mean?
At the end of last week, the New York Times set off a secondary firestorm about "Standard Operating Procedure," Errol Morris' documentary about the photographs taken by soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq that led to the exposure of the continued use of the facility, post-Saddam Hussein, for torture. Morris paid some of his interviewees, but doesn't specify which were given consultation honoraria. Some writers (and several documentary filmmakers I talked to about this) say this is an abdication of the responsibility of a journalist, or of a generally held consensus of what constitutes documentary practice. But some of the arguments are in a different service
(2008-04-29)

Tip of the Week
A shambling yet exceptionally good movie with gorgeous visual interludes befitting the work of co-producer Terrence Malick, Laura Dunn's "The Unforeseen" is an overt agit-doc about irresponsible land-use policies and practice over a couple of decades in a suburb of Austin, Texas
(2008-04-29)

Something Happened
(2008-04-22)

Tip of the Week
(2008-04-22)

Mad Hot Sickroom
(2008-04-15)

Pie Eyed
(2008-04-15)

Tip of the Week
(2008-04-15)

Tip of the Week
(2008-04-08)

Uplifting the Nightingale
(2008-04-08)

Tip of the Week
(2008-04-01)

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