THE ARISTOCATS - Anything after Walt Disney's death was Verboten in our home, unless Walt had developed and/or green-lit it prior to his Big Nod-Off

The Aristocats (1970) ****
dir. Wolfgang Reitherman
Voices by: Phil Harris, Eva Gabor, Sterling Holloway, Scatman Crothers

Review By Greg Klymkiw

With my first child, I had a strict rule regarding what Disney product she was allowed to see – especially when it came to the animated product. Nothing that was made after Uncle Walt’s death would be allowed in our home. Everything in the post-Walt world was risible at worst and mediocre at best. For me, this especially includes that wretched period which barfed out the overblown and overrated and overwrought “Aladdin”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “The Little Mermaid” and (gag me with a very big spoon), “The Lion King” and everything else of that unfortunate ilk. These dreadful pictures with their annoying use of actors like Robin Williams and syrupy scores would not only remain verboten in my home, but were, no doubt, sending Walt’s corpse into major grave-spinning mode.

There was, however, one exception to this strict rule and that exception was this: films that Walt personally developed and/or had already given a thumbs-up to for production PRIOR to his death were perfectly acceptable. The Aristocats, the Disney Company’s twentieth animated feature film was finished after Walt’s death, but developed personally by him. A-Okay, by me.

Some criticize the movie for being super-derivative of so many Uncle Walt classics, which, of course, is utter nonsense and true all at once. While there is no denying that “The Aristocats” is basically “Lady and the Tramp” with cats, crossed with “101 Dalmatians” and dollops - here and there - from a handful of others, all that basically proves is that good stories are always worth telling and re-telling and re-telling again – just so long as the details are not only different, but that they are, for lack of a better description, cool.

And “The Aristocats” is nothing if not cool.

With a late 50s jazz mentality set against the ultra-romantic and super-cool backdrop of Gay Par-ee, or, if you must, Paris, “The Aristocats” is up there with the best of them because it takes something from a previous (“old”) generation that already WAS cool and makes it cool again. Keep in mind that “The Aristocats” was released in 1970, long after rock n’ roll had become king, but rather than resorting to what was hip in terms of “now”, the picture steadfastly held onto what was cool in the past and not only cool, but frankly, the kind of thing that COULD withstand the test of time and appeal to generations well beyond the here and now. Disney was always ahead of his time, but he also knew that the ephemeral could make some quick bucks, but wouldn’t ensure several lifetimes of profits. And it was that knack for creating work that could keep making money for generation upon generation, work that had staying power, work that could, in fact live forever, is the very reason that Disney was a genius and a visionary and the ultimate filmmaker – an artist of the highest order in addition to being a captain – no, a General of Industry.

In a nutshell, the picture tells the story of a crazy old rich lady (Hermione Baddeley) who has a gorgeous, pampered cat called The Duchess (Eva Gabor) who, in turn, has three cute and precocious kittens. When the old rich lady decides to bequeath her whole fortune to her manservant Edgar, he decides to kill all the cats since he won’t get a single penny until all four cats live out all their nine lives due to a clause in the will that puts the kitties before Edgar. He cat-naps the felines, takes them to the middle of nowhere, tries to drown them, but is foiled in his nefarious intentions by a couple of mangy, but heroic old hound dogs. The kitties, stranded in the middle of nowhere are assisted in their plight by O’Malley (Phil Harris) and his other alley cats, a bunch of American expat-cats, who play mean jazz as only Americans in France could.

The humour, the characters, the voice-work are all first-rate. The animation, especially in terms of detail with respect to feline behaviour, is exceptional. But what really rocks (so to speak) in this picture is the fantastic musical score – especially the “Ev’rbody Wants To Be A Cat” number that is the soaring definition of the expression: “jazz hot”.

I personally saw The Aristocats in 1970 as a kid and subsequently on a couple of occasions when it was officially re-released theatrically. I saw it when it was first released on DVD, and most recently watched it in the magnificent new 2-disc DVD special edition released by Buena Vista. Each time the movie held up magnificently. It’s one great picture.

That said, my daughter eventually demanded to see all those banned Disney titles. I grudgingly bought all of them. Imagine, if you will, my shame and remorse at bringing “Aladdin”, “The Little Mermaid”, “Beauty and the Beast” and, God help me, “The [Goddamn] Lion King” into my home. Interestingly enough, my daughter watched all of those dreadful titles once and once only. She has never wanted to watch any of them again. The true Disney films, that she’d be indoctrinated with, however, are always on – again and again and again. She never tires of the real thing. “The Aristocats” is a movie she’s seen at least twenty times – probably more.

This, of course, not only proves how great Walt Disney was, but how important it is to expose children to only the best in their early years. That way, they learn how to discriminate between what’s good and bad. Most pointedly, they develop an excellent shit detector when it comes to much of the garbage that has been made in the RECENT past. When their yardstick is the very best, everything else becomes so much landfill.

2/27/08

A HOLLIS FRAMPTON ODYSSEY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The legendary experimental American filmmaker is given a magnificent platform via the Criterion Collection to showcase the art Frampton created during his tragically short life.

A Hollis Frampton Odyssey (1966-1979)
dir. Hollis Frampton

*****

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Experimental movies are cool. Or at least they can be. Like any genre, there's good, bad, in-between and yes, great. Traditionally, experimental film has no real concern with narrative and yet, non-narrative experimentation - at least some of the best work - can be as structured as a narrative film that adheres to the Syd Field or Robert McKee approaches to visual storytelling.

Hollis Frampton, subject of the magnificent and insanely exhaustive Criterion Collection Blu-Ray A Hollis Frampton Odyssey was very much a structuralist. Identified as such by P. Adams Sitney, the foremost academic scholar on experimental cinema, Frampton's films would be, according to Sitney, "predetermined and simplified" and that this overall, almost carved-in-stone minimalist structure was what leapt from the formative pre-shooting stage to the film itself.

When one compares this to traditional narrative filmmaking we see in the best work of directors like Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese a not dissimilar approach. All of them will map out precise visual renderings by way of storyboards of the equally worked-out screenplays and, for the most part, adhere strictly to the structure already worked out. While Frampton's work may be structured with seemingly rigid approaches, the final products are often playful and poetic. I'd go so far as to suggest that Spielberg, Hitchcock and Scorsese often utilize elements of play and poetry in their narrative work which, like Frampton, take them well out of the range of machine-tooled cultural "manufacturers".

The road to Hollis Frampton's own odyssey is rooted in the 1920s when experimental cinema began and throughout three decades, seemed to be the exclusive domain of Europeans. Man Ray, Dziga Vertov, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, to name but a few, delivered primarily non-narrative works that were often referred to as avant-garde. These works adhered to movements from the period that included the Surrealists, Dadaists, Lettrists and even, hilariously, Ultra Lettrists.

Whatever movements these filmmakers were part of - the films emphasized impressionism and poetry. At times, the "experiments" revolved exclusively around the medium of film itself, whereas others used the medium to experiment with new ways to express thoughts, ideas, philosophies, political ideology and basic human emotion.

In many cases, especially with Soviets like Sergei Eisenstein, Olexander Dovzhenko and Vsevolod Pudovkin, experimental technique and narrative were married to provide alternative approaches to cinematic storytelling that departed from the Hollywood Machine.

What's especially important to observe, though, is just how important experimental film has been to the medium, the art, the craft of cinema - period. Slavko Vorkapitch, for example, developed any number of cinematic vocabularies that became part and parcel of the Hollywood Machine - Vorkapitch even became the prime mover and shaker of montage in mainstream American filmmaking.

Even clearly populist filmmakers looked to experimental tradition for inspiration. George Lucas, for example, was an adherent and student of the Canadian avant-garde master Arthur Lipsett. Though Lipsett's influence is more obvious in THX-1138, one can find it healthily on display in American Graffiti and the various Star Wars films.

And though there was a smaller tradition in experimental cinema in America, this changed almost overnight in the 1950s when the likes of Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas and Kenneth Anger took the film world by storm. America became a hot bed of avant-garde cinema and yielded two important streams of academic study in the field of "alternative film". The late Black Mountain College was an early post-secondary institute and counted Arthur (Bonnie and Clyde) Penn as one of its most important teachers and of course, there's the world famous San Francisco Art Institute that became the home of teacher/filmmaker George Kuchar. Penn, of course, utilized numerous experimental film techniques in all of his Hollywood features while Kuchar astoundingly looked to Hollywood melodrama - especially that of Douglas Sirk - and fashioned his own transgressive approach to story that was rooted in the mainstream.


Hollis Frampton began his career as a poet and photographer. He subsidized his art by working in an ad agency. Much like the Kuchar Brothers, who also toiled in advertising, Frampton practised and polished elements of basic craft but at the same time, found ways of subverting these elements in his personal work. When Frampton finally began experimenting with film in the mid-1960s, he was poised to embark upon an artistic journey that would render one of the most important bodies of work in cinema history.

A Hollis Frampton Odyssey is, without question, one of the seminal achievements in what could be seen as the ART of home entertainment creation, production and distribution. Assembling, restoring and providing a wealth of supplemental materials focusing upon this visionary and highly influential artist has been rendered with such loving care that Criterion continues to maintain their well-deserved reputation of going above and beyond the call of duty in their service to preserving the art of cinema (rivalled only by that of Milestone Film and Video whose recent commitment to the work of Lionel Rogosin and their ongoing restoration of silent cinema also places them in this pantheon).

The Criterion disc places 24 of Frampton's films in three sections comprising "Early Works" (including his groundbreaking feature film Zorns Lemma, films from his Hapax Legomena cycle and several key works from the stunning, though sadly unfinished Magellan cycle.

The early works are probably going to be the most decidedly challenging films for the uninitiated to get through, but in them, we see the beginnings of Frampton's exploration between sound and image that he eventually tackled full force in Hapax Legomena and there are (at least for me) considerable visual and experiential pleasures to be found in Process Red, Carrots & Peas and Lemon.

Watching the disc from beginning to end speaks volumes of the care taken by the Criterion team to curate the films. The cumulative effect of screening the early short works prior to watching the feature length Zorns Lemma ultimately yields the riches inherent in the said early titles, but also delivers a perfect platform to succumb to the sheer, unadulterated joy to be found in Frampton's feature.

Zorns Lemma has the distinction of being the first experimental film to screen at the prestigious New York Film Festival - a tradition boldly continued to this day. The festival is both elitist and populist in the same breath as it showcases a small, exclusive number of works while at the same time aiming, as an "audience" festival to pack the house at Lincoln Centre. Films as groundbreaking as Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris and as delicate and sensory as the short experimental work URDA/Bone by Charles Officer and Ingrid Veninger have unspooled upon the NY Film Festival's screens.

As a producer myself, my New York Film Festival experience with Guy Maddin and our collaboration on Careful, the wholly insane camp homage to German expressionism, Leni Riefenstahl and the "mountain" films of Dr. Arnold Fanck, was something I'll never forget. Thousands of film lovers eye-balling something so out-of-step with contemporary cinema was utterly goose-flesh-inspiring. So much so, I'd have gladly donated a testicle (or two) to be present for the NYFF's screening of Zorns Lemma.

Frampton's feature is structured in three parts. The first has Joyce Wieland reading from a scary, imposing Puritan text book for young children - used to teach reading and writing with any number of fire and brimstone Old Testament references. The second and longest section is a mind boggling montage of letters and words, bouncing from still frames to moving images and focusing primarily upon a rigid adherence to alphabetical formalism as we're treated to a delightful series of actual New York City signs. The third section, after the first two is heartbreaking and profoundly moving as we see a couple in the distance walking slowly and endlessly through a field of snow.

The Hapax Legomena films are a perfect bridge from Zorns Lemma to the Magellan cycle. The former dives headlong into Frampton's obsession with the relationship between image and sound (and provides an unofficial Frampton autobiography to boot), while the latter presents works of extraordinary poetic lyricism and playful qualities as Frampton circumnavigates the world through the world of cinema, much like the famed explorer Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the globe during the early part of the 16th century.

Experimental cinema - especially in this package of Hollis Frampton's works - should always first be viewed experientially. Just sitting back and letting "IT" happen to you is not only pleasurable, but at times becomes impossible to do and you find yourself mysteriously and surprisingly engaged in a form of dialogue with the film. Frampton not only brilliantly EXPLORES the relationship between film and audience, but creates a relationship in and of itself.

Hollis Frampton died at the age of 48 from cancer. He was plucked from us far too early. The Magellan films, once complete, would have provided an epic work based upon the calendrical cycle and as such, would have delivered one movie for every day of the year.

Seriously, if this isn't cool, nothing is.

"A Hollis Frampton Odyssey" is available on Blu-Ray and DVD via the Criterion Collection. The restoration and picture transfers are stunning and happily, the sound is presented in uncompressed mono - the way it should be experienced. The extra features - many of which include interviews, footage and "commentary" from Frampton himself - are a treasure trove of insight into the artist and his extraordinary work. If you've never seen Frampton's work, or haven't for a long time, I highly suggest watching all the films first - from beginning to end before you dive into any of them extras. Let your senses and intellect mingle with his art. Get to know the artist through his work first - THEN get to know him with the terrific additional features. Most importantly, those who care deeply about film should NOT rent this. BUY IT!!!

A NOTE TO CRITERION: PLEASE DO GEORGE KUCHAR! I BEG OF YOU!

REPULSION and THE TENANT, Roman Polanski and the Art of Humiliation - Part Two of "You Only Have Yourself To Blame" - The Claustrophobia Films of Roman Polanski - By Greg Klymkiw

Anticipating the release of "Carnage", Roman Polanski's nasty, insanely hilarious four-hander, The Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF Bell Lightbox presents an astonishing mini-retrospective of the work of everyone's favourite genius child rapist that focuses upon his continued obsession with paranoia within the context of closed spaces. Films include: "Repulsion" (Wednesday December 21 09:00 PM), "The Tenant" (Thursday December 22 09:00 PM), "Rosemary's Baby" (Friday December 23 09:00 PM) and "The Ghost Writer" (Sunday December 25 04:00 PM).

REPULSION (1965) ***1/2 THE TENANT (1976) ****
Roman Polanski and the Art of Humiliation
Part Two of "You Only Have Yourself To Blame"
The Claustrophobia Films of Roman Polanski
By Greg Klymkiw

"You only have yourself to blame."

So says the corpulent concierge (Shelley Winters) to Trelkovsky (Roman Polanski), the title character of The Tenant. His apartment has just been broken into. He is understandably distraught. He feels violated, sullied and, for the umpteenth time in his relatively new digs, he's been insulted, humiliated and finger-wagged. And now this, the final straw - a break-in - and the only solace offered to him is:

"You only have yourself to blame."

This whiny kvetch emanating from the ciggie-twixt-the-lips, hair-in-curlers and perpetually shuffling Bubbie from the depths of Hell is merely one of a seemingly infinite number of indignities on display that are, frankly, impossible NOT to laugh at. To stifle one's guffaws while watching The Tenant is pure and utter folly. Every humiliation thrown like a tureen of cold pig slop in the faces of the disenfranchised and/or downtrodden, is a veritable laugh riot. The accumulation of hilarity amidst the darkness is, finally, what contributes to those moments of horror that creep through the movie like some T.S. Eliot Prufrock-like "pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas"

Such is the genius of Roman Polanski.

The Tenant is pure, unadulterated nasty fun that keeps you alternately laughing and cringing in terror. Telling the tale of a young Parisian of Polish descent who thinks he's happened upon a perfect apartment, we follow his tale of insanity and obsession as he begins to assume his landlords and neighbours are conspiring against him to become the former tenant of his digs, a sad young woman by the name of Simone Choule who took a dive from the balcony. Strange people stand motionless in the washroom window across the courtyard. He finds a tooth buried deep in the wall behind a heavy bureau. He visits the dying woman in the hospital and armed with a bag of oranges meets cute with the ravishing Isabelle Adjani who accompanies him to a Bruce Lee martial arts movie where the two of them make out. Soon, it doesn't take long before he begins to engage in avid cross-dressing, sitting in his window and watching the neighbours humiliate another tenant they find disfavour with.

Ah, such is life in Paris. Especially if you're Roman Polanski.

Ultimately, I've always believed that many of our truly great filmmakers are those who obsessively latch onto their favourite depravities (or at least the very worst behaviour amongst the species of man) and fetishize them - the lens of the camera a mere extension of the director's eye, revealing with frankness, their own deep-seeded sickness. This is a good thing. Truth is grand entertainment, especially when mediated through a great artist who lavishes a most meticulous attention to that which most "normal" people find utterly repugnant.

Besides, when an artist fully commits to such obsessions, it's funnier than Senior Citizen Day in Paul Bartel's Death Race 2000, where the cross-country road-racers are allowed to mow down the most vulnerable of our society with their souped-up cars and thus score extra points for every hit.

A key reference point for such cinema - and in particular, that of Roman Polanski - are the lines uttered by Nell (a legless old woman living in a trash can) in Samuel Beckett's magnificent play "Endgame":

"Nothing is funnier than unhappiness."

Truer words were never spoken. They're especially apt in relation to Polanski's trilogy of claustrophobia, paranoia and humiliation within apartment dwellings - Repulsion, the sexy, creepy exploration of a woman's descent into madness, The Tenant, the aforementioned demented horror film rife with black comedy and, of course, the queen bee of all devil worship thrillers Rosemary's Baby (a film I'll be reviewing in full at Daily Film Dose).

Repulsion is the female flipside to The Tenant, but its brand of creepy feels more Henry James (a la Turn of the Screw) as opposed to the definite Dostoyevskian qualities of the latter. Following Carole, a meek, but stunningly gorgeous beauty parlour employee who rooms with her gregarious sex-starved sister (Yvonne Furneaux), the movie presents a series of scenes where Carole is objectified by several men and then, forced to spend time alone in the apartment when her sister and her married boyfriend (Ian Hendry) take off for a few days of illicit sin. Once alone, things progressively get creepier and scarier as Carole is plagued with horrific visions of hands and arms reaching out to her through the walls and several men make visits with violation on their minds. Luckily, her sister's beau has left his shaving kit behind.

One common thread stringing through Polanski's overall mise-en-scène is his sense of pace (creepy and deliberate), the manner in which his actors glide through scenes (almost in real time), how Polanski's camera eye lavishes attention upon strange little details which are revealed to be both the POV of The character AND filmmaker and certainly in the case of Repulsion, the fetishization of his central character Carole (Catherine Deneuve).

Both Repulsion and The Tenant are given miraculous boosts thanks to the men Polanski chose to cinematographically render his vision. The former features exquisite fine grain black and white photography courtesy of the magnificent Gilbert (Dr. Strangelove, A Hard Day's Night, Frenzy, The Omen) Taylor while the latter is lensed by Ingmar Bergman's chief visual collaborator, the great Sven Nykvist. Polanski also didn't skimp on composers to render astounding scores for both - the former featuring Chico Hamilton's percussive jazz stylings, the latter imbued with Phillipe Sarde's rich, baroque orchestral drones.

And both films, especially Repulsion, are imbued with wildly imaginative and more than apt soundscapes.

Repulsion is aurally driven with the quiet - a score of silence punctuated by occasional natural (and some, not-so natural) noises. One especially salient example of this in Repulsion is when we cut to a slightly skewed God's eye closeup of a decaying uncooked skinned rabbit, then we see the stringy eyes that have grown out of some neglected potatoes. As the camera moves away, Polanski cuts to a closeup side-view of said potatoes until the camera glides up and we see Carole studying them intensely. Several perspectives for the price of one. We see Polanski's fetishization of the potatoes, Carole's fixation upon them and, in turn Polanski's fixation upon Carole/Deneuve.

And, of course, accompanying the aforementioned is the endless ticking of a clock wherein time moves forward, but without a seeming end-point and certainly, no light at the end of a deep tunnel of madness and despair.

In the same sequence above, Polanski then follows Carole's every move as some odd noises draw her to a spot of solace, which, in turn is broken by a sharp unexpected action, more silence and finally, the jangling sound of the door bell ringing. Polanski follows her as she apprehensively approaches the door - the camera hovering at about shoulder level, but tilted slightly downwards. This approach, blending perspectives of the artist and his creation is what makes the whole affair potent indeed. It's also perversely funny, undeniably sexy, grotesquely creepy and scary, to boot!

The whole notion of laying blame upon the victim - especially when mental illness is involved - is a thematic concern that Polanski has, to varying degrees, explored in virtually all of his films. Certainly in Repulsion, Carole is a victim. We're never completely sure if she's suffered sexual assault or not, but Polanski trains his camera upon her like a constant ogling eye and we are afforded shot after shot, scene after scene of men training their sights upon her - drilling holes into her beauty with their eyes. Some of this might be imagined, some of it real, but we get the overwhelming sense that she is, at the very least, a victim of constant OBJECTIFICATION. This, frankly, is as real an assault upon her as those physical violations she (possibly) imagines and/or (possibly) experiences.

Trelkovsky in The Tenant is told outright that he only has himself to blame (which, admittedly, might even be hallucinatory), just as there are strong implications throughout Repulsion that Carole is seen by virtually every character as being responsible for her own shyness, loneliness and lack of trust (in most everybody, but especially men). Like Trelkovsky, when Carole is alone - truly and physically alone - the horror, whether imagined or actual is REAL. When Carole is visited by an intruder from the shadows of her apartment, the sexual assault that occurs is real to her. Polanski presents this horrific scene by omitting the sounds of her screams, but we feel them and are repulsed just the same.

One might, of course argue that Polanski is as responsible for objectifying victims, especially women. Catherine Deneuve as Carole is ravished by his lens. It prods and pokes at her, exploring her beauty and vulnerability to a point of abject obsession. In fact, there's a strong sense that Polanski might well be objectifying the notion of virginity and that only true purity can come from madness and repulsion towards ALL sexual activity. Outside the apartment (and this IS truly hilarious) we constantly see and hear white-frocked nuns playing basketball - their giggles and shouts of joy punctuated by an almost constantly ringing bell.

Ah, virginal Carole, if only she'd join them - perhaps it's the cloister of Jesus that will provide solace and protect her virginity.

Or maybe, she just needs to butcher a few nasty fellows.

Not unlike Trelkovsky in The Tenant who needs to prove to the world that he IS a victim, by donning a dead woman's clothes, tossing himself out the window, then dragging his battered body back up the stairs, smearing blood everywhere before taking a second plunge from the balcony.

And finally, as funny, nasty, scary, sexy and horrific as both films are, it is finally the notion of blaming a victim that is most terrifying of all. I daresay, it is work that is also very strangely moving and imbued with a humanity that many do not wish to give Polanski credit for having.

Polanski has experienced horrors, perpetrated horrors and on film, both horrors are laid bare.

He's a creep, but he IS an artist.

And a great one at that.

Besides, those who are WITHOUT sin, might wish to consider casting the first stone. They'd be hypocrites, of course, and they'd be all the more so for denying the humanity in his work and that more than likely, looking deep into a Polanski film, is frankly, like looking into a mirror.

I urge anyone who has not seen either "Repulsion" or "The Tenant" to make their first experience of both on a big screen. Thanks to TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto movie-goers will have an opportunity to see both on film. "The Tenant" is sadly only available on a barebones DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment. "Repulsion", on the other hand, is available on an exquisite Criterion Collection Blu-ray. Both will more than suffice for repeat screenings, and in a pinch, they'll do for first helpings. But no matter where you live, endeavour to see them on film, before succumbing to a virginal screenings on a home entertainment format.

Part One of my coverage of the Polanski retrospective at TIFF Bell Lightbox can be found HERE.