I've been reading a book of essay, Writers At The Movies (2000) edited by Jim Shepard, and if there a movie I haven't seen I will watch it before reading the essay. So the firs tone I hadn't seen was Samuel Beckett's Quadrat I and II (1981). It is a very obscure, abstract piece. I guess it doesn't surprise me that it comes from the mind of Beckett and Anne Carson's essay is hardly illuminating on the meaning of the short 24 minute film.
The second film that I hadn't seen was Buster Keaton's Sherlock Junior (1924), an entertaining silent film from one of the greatest comedians of film. It isn't surprising that post modern writer Robert Coover chose to write about this film. Keaton uses several postmodern or experimental cinematic techniques-for example, the last section of the film the protagonist (Keaton) in a dream enters into a film and solves a crime in the film. This idea was recreated by Woody Allen in The Purple Rose of Cairo.
Next up was Fredrick Wiseman's documentary, Titcut Follies (1967), disturbing portrait of the Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater. which was written about by Stephen Dobyns. It not so much the inmates who are frightening-although some of them are no doubt troubled, but rather the doctors, guards, and staff are the truly frightening people. Their inhumane treatment of the inmates is uncomfortable to watch. I have seen Wiseman's recent documentary At Berkeley and this was his first and think it is quite striking-the story behind the film is also quite interesting. Dobyns had interviewed Wiseman and talked about how the film was held from release for two years by the public authorities saying that it was a violation of the inmates rights. So far this was one of the most interesting essays in the collection.
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