ATG retrospective in Vienna

[Mark Nornes]

Life has settled down sufficiently since returning from Vienna to say a 
word or two about the Viennale and ATG.

The Viennale is a wonderful, medium sized festival. The festival guests 
seem to be mostly European, and then mostly from German speaking areas. 
Although this is only an impression. This is my second visit, and I 
must say I love the programming. Very smart, with a healthy mix of 
feature, doc, and avant-garde. They always have well-programmed 
retrospectives. Well, at least for the most part. They do these 
retrospectives built around Hollywood stars, perhaps hoping that 
they'll accept an invitation to attend. Nice choices----Sissy Spacek 
last year and Warren Beatty this year----but they proved no shows. 
Without the artist on hand to talk, I'm not sure what the point of 
showing the films is since they're so readily available. Of course, 
there's something to say for the chance to see something like McCabe & 
Mrs. Miller on 35mm. But with limited time, I stuck to mostly the 
Japanese films.

Oh, and the parties are held in appropriately Imperial digs. Quite a 
contrast to Yamagata the week before!

They showed Shara soju and Zatoichi, both of which have been discussed 
here. I enjoyed Shara soju, thought Kawase did a nice job acting (and 
grant room to representations of mothers that aren't amaekasu machines).

Zatoichi was particularly well-received, but left me a little pissed. 
Give me Katsu Shintaro's charming performance over Kitano's cynical, 
smirking shell any day. The blood was excessive (in the "unnecessary" 
sense); just watch one of the Katsushin versions and you'll know what I 
mean). Now I don't necessarily have anything against fountains of 
blood....when someone tried to argue against my cranky criticism of 
Kitano they cited Kill Bill. Touché. At least Tarantino is straight 
about what he's giving you (a string of bloody references to the things 
he loves). I haven't paid any attention to Kitano's rhetoric around 
this film, but the film presents itself as so serious (artful?). Of 
course, it's full of ironic comments, black humor and irreverent use of 
song and dance (probably taking a cue from Miike's Katakuri?). But 
unlike Tarantino's bloodfest or Miike's musical numbers, Kitano's lacks 
love. It's all so empty and unsatisfying.

They also showed Tokyo sora after I left.

The rest of my time, I was over at the ATG event. The prints were hit 
and miss, a mixture of soft 16s and brilliant 35s.  Mujo, built on a 
novel film language of sweeping tracking shots that must have driven 
Jissoji's crew batty, was pristine and wonderful and worth the trip in 
and of itself. It was nice to see and re-view those great films by 
Oshima, Teshigawara, and Hani. I was glad to be able to experience the 
Terayama films on film, as I always thought my difficulty with him had 
to do with video.....actually, I think it's that the short form is 
where Terayama shines. And another highlight was being able to view a 
close to pristine print of what Roland so obliquely called the "certain 
famous film by a certain famous novelist." This was both moving and 
traumatic. I think I can safely say it was one of those rare 
experiences in the movie theater you can call singular or absolutely 
unique. I'm grateful to Roland just for this.

Of course, one of the stand-out films was Tenshi no kokotsu, by 
Wakamatsu. The film is far more compelling on the big screen, and 
Wakamatsu was fun to listen to. Most curiously, he said this was the 
first time he'd actually seen the film (not that he's such a reliable 
source for such info), and he was visibly embarrassed by the sex 
scenes: they were too long, had characters spouting crazy lines in the 
act, poorly photographed, and---most interesting----had no "kokoro." 
Yes, Wakamatsu Koji self-critiquing his sex scenes for lacking heart. 
He said things like this on stage and off. At one point, I tried 
pressing him on this, curious about why exactly he was embarrassed 
about things he clearly was proud about (and celebrated for) in 
previous circumstances and contexts. I had the feeling it was because 
he was among a European crowd and self-conscious about their sexual 
politics, which is surely informed by feminism. But I couldn't draw him 
out.

He certainly loved talking about anything else, though.  A master of 
the jimanbanashi. It was fun to the extent that he didn't repeat 
himself. I have to admit I came away with a better impression, and 
measure of respect, that I didn't necessary have before the ATG 
retrospective.

Kuzui Kinshiro was the other guest. The perfect gentlleman and dressed 
to kill. As the man who tied nearly all these films together----all the 
good and great ones----I thought he was somewhat underutilized. He 
loved the attention; it would have been great to have him talk after 
every film! Even if it might have killed him!  He was a great choice as 
a guest.

I have run out of time, so will mention something about the ATG 
symposium another day.

Markus








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