by Sam Juliano
Dear Allan:
The time for our annual film discussion on the occasion of the site tribute to your incomparable mastery of the medium you practically gave your life to, has arrived. Word got back to me down here of the major shindig they arranged for you at “The Angel’s Inn.” There isn’t anything I wouldn’t have done to be in attendance that day, (Monday, May 28) but of course I will only be eligible when my time arrives. I do know you are spreading the word on a daily basis, though as of late I understand you have soured big-time on the new releases. Heck, you only gave your vaunted five-star ratings to movies three or four times a year, and at least once I remember you only awarded a film such a grade, though I seem to have forgotten the year. With you – and who can blame you? – the discussion always reverts back to the golden years, which for you means the American pre-code era, the whole of Japanese cinema, the French New Wave, the British New Wave, the Czech New Wave, German expressionism, Neorealism, American Film Noir, and British television. As to the last of those headings, you are always attuned to the very latest in small screen excellence. I wonder what you think of The Crown, for one. I would bet the farm you are a huge fan for all sorts of reasons. Anyway, I am only allowed in this correspondence to focus on a single topic for the lion’s share of the letter. I thought about the public domain Our Town (1940) or a difficult-to-locate American film from 1969 by Frank Perry titled Last Summer – and for sure either would have inspired a nice talk, especially since you saw both and spoke glowingly on them – but this past year something happened on the film scene that you were anticipating right up until your untimely departure in 2016.
As a lifelong hater of the Oscars and other groups that gave short shrift to arthouse films in favor of the commercial pictures that flood our multiplexes, you took some measure of refuge in polls conducted by film scholars and serious cineastes. One such poll – conducted by the British Film Institute – was always regarded as the Rolls Royce of such undertakings, and for as long as I knew you (you will recall we first connected in the summer of 2005 on e bay) you issued some positive commentary on the films appearing on the respective Top 10s, even with the caveat that some of the placements were preposterous and/or undeserved. As you will recall, these were the polls anointing such masterpieces like Citizen Kane, Tokyo Story, La Regle de Jeu, Vertigo, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Man with a Movie Camera, The Godfather, Singin in the Rain, and your own personal #1 film of all-time, Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. I never forgot your strong preference for the critic’s poll over the director’s poll. You made that position clear many times. Your reasoning, as I seem to recall was that filmmakers could never be trusted to evaluate their own work, and though you disliked many critics, you felt the best of them – your all-time favorite was David Thomson, who is still here on earth, though relatively inactive now – were more worthy than filmmaker-critics.
Well my friend, I am unable to determine what your position is on the matter of Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’s ascendency to pole position. You were a longtime champion of the film (and of Akerman’s cinema overall) and you once sent me a DVD-R of the film, well before it first appeared legitimately. When I told you I had mixed feelings about it, you told me I probably fell asleep while watching the nearly three-hour subtitled film, one that took a while to get off the mat. Since that time, I have re-watched the film, and while I do feel its merit and reputation are understandable, I remain perplexed at how it raced up to the top spot, over such masterpieces as Vertigo, Kane and Tokyo Story. The sordid subject matter was rather a turn-off, though the feminism at the film’s heart was a long time coming in the male-dominated art. Since I am a maniacal adherent of French cinema from all eras, it pained me greatly to check in with a less-than-enthusiastic verdict on a film that many of my respected friends and colleagues have praised to high heaven. When an online film lover predicted it would end up #1 on the day before the results were announced, I politely told him it had less than a 1% chance. He answered that when it did win I should reach out to him and apologize for the error in my ways. My wager is that you celebrated when news of the balloting reached upstairs, even though I do well know your love for Tokyo Story, Vertigo, 2001 and other iconic pictures eclipses by quite a distance your affinity for this feminist film, even if it represents the long-deserved recognition of a gender and a type of film that was always ignored. Similarly, the placement of Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love in the Number 5 spot, Claire Denis’s Beau Travail at Number 6 and David Lynch’s new millennium Mulholland Drive has to have you beaming, if I know you as well as I think I do. To boot, Agnes Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7 placing at Number 14 surely impressed you in a polling that overall gave more attention to contemporary cinema than any poll ever conducted by the institute.
And yet, I know you must have been disappointed on the No. 11 finish of Sunrise, (I surely am as well) and we both would agree that Ozu’s Tokyo Story should have been in the top 2, not at Number 4. I am certain all the blowback to the poll has reached you and I bet you remarked, “The philistines are at it again!” Numerical disagreements aside, I am sure you approve of the actual films chosen for S & S’s Top 20. Yes, Satyajit Ray is sorely underrepresented (but doesn’t Indian cinema always gets the short end of the stick?) though you have always been on the same wave length as Canadian-Indian Sachin Gandhi and Indian Shubhajit Lahiri, film scholars who have long understood the central Asian nation’s film tradition is really on the highest level worldwide, roughly equal to America, France, the UK and Japan. And where is Dreyer? And Bresson? And Tarkovsky? And Godard? And Mizoguchi? Well, to be fair, films by them and some others I haven’t mentioned are there under the Top 20 -and after all, how many films can be possibly place in that Top 20? – and our hero Bergman is highest at Number 18 for Persona. Heck, it is all relative, I know, and our own voters – bless their hearts – gave stellar representation to this group, and of course to the miraculous Apu Trilogy. I never forgot you once telling me that Pather Panchali was one of the greatest films ever made, and one sitting pretty in your own Top 10. And I recall I answered you nodding vigorously over the phone. I miss those phone chats, Allan. Terribly. I would pay a hefty fee to hear you ream me out on my ignorance, irresponsible handling of DVDRs, and my “pedestrian” taste, and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of your creative takedowns of Zeffirelli’s Brother Sun Sister Moon and Bruce Beresford’s Driving Miss Daisy. On the former you altered the title to Brother Sun, Sister Shite, and added: “There should never be a death penalty for bad taste, but if I were Pope I’d have the film burned in public.”
I know you are having a blast up there, and the class you taught on the Sight & Sound 2022 results had to be fantastic, but things are simply not the same down here. We’ll always pay tribute to you in late May, and as long as I am breathing, any attempts to close it out will be rebuffed – and I know project founder Jamie Uhler feels the same – but your sizzling diatribes are sorely missed as is your comprehensive mastery of film and television, and daily alerts. If only you knew how much we all really thought of you. Life is simply too short for certain sentiments to filter through.
The summer season up there must be so special. Outdoor festivals can’t be beat, especially with those fabulous temperatures!
Love,
Sam
P.S. I always meant to ask you. As you’ll well remember you weren’t keen on Italian food when you visited us in successive years. You thought tomato sauce was vile, and the thought of putting ketchup on hamburgers repulsed you. Has your diet up there changed? Have you discovered the Mediterranean cuisine? I recommend that you watch the CNN television series, Searching For Italy moderated from his personal experiences by Stanley Tucci. It is quite persuasive!
Sam, thanks for this wonderful and fitting tribute to end this year’s festival.. I have often thought what Allan would have thought of recent cinema and the S&S poll and the changing placements. You sum up some of these queries nicely.
Thank YOU, Sachin, for your amazing support for this annual project and for your own masterful essays, including the gem you offered up this year! You have been truly invaluable in every sense, and your generous comments under all the posts showcase this glorious propensity my great friend!
What a great wrap-up, Sam. I enjoyed reading this. It would be so nice to get to see Allan’s response.
Thank you so much my Duane, my great friend! Yes, I’d do anything to receive Allan’s response. I have a general idea, though, and sadly mucst stick with that.
Allan was no gushing fan or habitual yea-sayer promoting the
latest festival darling, and it’s this blazing honesty that drew me to his film criticism in the first place.
(Allan would have poured scorn on the new ideological S&S poll.)
A moving tribute to your great good friend—your cinema brother from another mother.
Also. I love that Allan adored Ruan Lingyu. What an actress and a great beauty.
Mark, you certainly are right about Allan’s aversion to polls and award ceremonies. His scorn for A.M.P.A.S. knew no bounds. I do think he WOULD have had some begrudging respect for S & S’s embrace of Ozu, Hitchcock, Welles, Bergman, and of course the Ackerman surprise, but yes overall he would have been on the attack. Thank you for the beautiful words my longtime friend – “cinema brother from another mother.”
And oh God yes, Allan adored Lingyu like no other person I ever encountered.
A beautiful and deeply moving tribute to your beloved friend, Sam. Some wonderful laughs too.
Ricky, my longtime friend, I am happy you were able to laugh some. Thanks for the beautiful words!
Some lovely tributes this past week. I wonder what films over the past 7+years would have made the cut for his book, mainly TV works I suspect (very possibly Tar though).
James, many thanks for the kind words my longtime good friend! I have to say that I do agree with you on the matter of your speculation. He would certainly have praised a few films, but TELEVISION entries like “The Crown” would have been more prominent, indeed, methinks!
Marvelous, Sam, simply marvelous.
Thank you so very much Marilyn, my longtime treasured friend!
Once tried to instill in my teenage nephew a love of old Hollywood movies, so I showed him Freaks, Strangers on a Train, Cat People, and Northwest Hounded Police. The Tex Avery cartoon, an Allan Fish favorite I think,
left him writhing with laughter.
Alas, now he’s all grown up, loves tentpole movies and disdains b&w cinematography. I blame Joe Biden.
Mark, Allan DID love Tex Avery, and that’s quite the understatement. But as far as the cartoon you mentioned here, I was the one who woulddn’t stut up about it. Hahahahaha on your Joe Biden comment and the matter of your nephew’s morphing taste in movies!
Love this—it’s the bigger film moments that I liked about Wonders and a new S&S list would have surely warranted much discussion from us. It’s all moved elsewhere—twitter, Facebook, etc, but I miss the old days of blogs and online communities. I know people claim Facebook has it, but that’s a pure cesspool imho, so I’ve never moved over after all these years. I first watched the S&S #1 because it appeared during Allan’s 70s countdown and been a fan of it ever since (though, it wouldn’t make my own top 10*). As always I say I miss Allan, which is of course true, but it probably needs to be said that I miss all that happened around these parts 10-15 years ago. Such is life.
* https://boxd.it/jrlgg
Jamie, thank you so much for your wonderful comment here, and also for once again launching this wonderful, gloriously sustained project in in tribute to your sorely-missed, film expert like no other. You are so right too about how things have shifted, and not necessarily for the better. I too miss the frenzied action here at WONDERS and at other blogsites! i do remember Allan saying back in 2015 that he was looking forward to the S & S results, but of course he would have likes and hated some fo the placements.
If people had kept commenting on Ferdy on Films, I probably wouldn’t have closed up shop. It was so lonely, and with only a handful of blogs still going (with far too few comments), I feel out in the cold most of the time. Wonders in the Dark is the one exception – always a warm welcome. Thanks for keeping on here – I’m sure your students appreciate your stick-to-itiveness, too!
Marilyn, the matter of comments at a blogsite is quite vital, and who can blame you for being disheartened by silence. It always made me think at this site that people were not reading or accessing. At its height FERDY did command a ton of comments, but then blogs in general lost much of their audience to social media. Thrilled you are back in the fray, and I will look on. Thanks as always for the exceedingly kind words.
Sorry to be redundant, but this is indeed a wonderful tribute – and the perfect subject for it.
Joel, thank you so very much for the glowing appraisal, my long-time friend and one who has always professed special appreciation for Allan!
This was beautiful, Sammy. Every year, you make me sorely miss a man I never actually met beyond reading his masterful (mostly triptych) essays. I look forward to honoring him in this way in years to come.
Thank you many times over Robert! Your words are so moving, but I do well remember your special regard for Allan when he writing here. Your continuing respect and veneration for him is a beautiful thing to behold!
A lovely tribute to Allan, Sam. Quite enchanting.
That Sight and Sound poll was a disgrace, though. They’ve been meaning to knock Kane off it’s pedestal for a long time. The first time was when they combined the votes for ‘The Godfather’ and ‘The Godfather Part II’ (note, they didn’t volunteer part III). In the last one, they again changed the way votes were tabulated so ‘Vertigo’ took the top spot. This time, they changed it again to give a hefty push to include groups who’d never voted in previous polls and hated classical Hollywood, the new Puritans (the ones who changed the Academy rules so that unless 30% of the crew were gay, trans, “people of color, disabled, etc, that film can’t qualify, which would have meant most film in the last 100 years would out on there ear).
anyway, got to run.
PS: Allan would, I think, have torn ‘The Crown’ apart, as well as ‘Downton Abbey’ and called it aristo-trash. They certainly aren’t a pimple to the original ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’.
Bobby, many thank for the exceedingly kind words, and so thrilled to hear from you, longtime friend! Like you I must say i was NOT enthralled with the results of the poll, mainly because I never much cared for the #1 film, even while I greatly respect friends and colleagues who feel differently. Your specifics are certainly food for thought, and you may well be right on the way Allan would have reacted to THE CROWN!!