#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 6: a main character wearing a dress for #NationalDressDay

“[…] in the ballroom circuit, it is so obvious that if you have captured the great white way of living, or looking, or dressing, or speaking - you is a marvel.” –Pepper LaBeija

Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990) is probably best known for its fabulous #ballroom and #vogue-ㅤing scenes but in its heart, it tells the story of #family, of people who found their new ménage where they can live and love without fear and prejudice. While you may expect a fierce #documentary about #TransRights, or maybe merely a glamorous parade, you will be confronted with the flagrant #racism that made the #BallroomScene so essential for the Black and #Latinx #LGBT+ (comm)unity who founded it. And the tragedy of its demise in the name of pop culture even more heartbreaking.

#film #drag #LGBTQI #TransRightsAreHumanRights 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈 #CulturalAppropriation #ParisIsBurning #PepperLaBeija #VenusXtravaganza @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 7: a town meeting for #NationalTownMeetingDay

Raymond Rouleau's Les sorcières de #Salem (FR/GDR, 1957) – , with a screenplay by Marxist philosopher Jean-Paul #Sartre – is a very early #film adaptation of Arthur Miller's 1953 #TheatrePlay The Crucible. An allegory of #McCarthyism, the play is a (partially dramatised) retelling of the #SalemWitchTrials, a dramatic episode in early US-American history. During several court and town meetings, 200 people were falsely accused of meddling with the Devil; 19 of them were eventually executed.

Miller himself was accused of un-American activities in 1956 and convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended. Which doesn't mean that #WitchTrials are a thing of the past. As easily one can transplant Puritan religious mass hysteria to 1950s McCarthy anti-socialism, as easy is it applicable to the state of the world today.

#ArthurMiller #JeanPaulSartre #TheCrucible #DDR #SimoneSignoret #YvesMontand @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 8: a #movie shot in #Oregon for #NationalOregonDay

For authenticity reasons, Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton's The General (1926) was – for the most part – filmed on location in Oregon. Set during the #AmericanCivilWar, it's a comedic retelling of a popular war memoir about the #GreatLocomotiveChase.

Sadly it was a box office #flop, resulting in Keaton losing his independence and The General entering the #PublicDomain as early as 1954. Luckily for us that means we too can enjoy the views of beautiful 1920s Oregon: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=YWm587wKKVw (note: this version has the appropriate piano score but appears to be a missing few minutes).

#film #TheGeneral #SilentFilm #ClydeBruckman #BusterKeaton #MarionMack #SilentCinema @film

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 9: Someone going potty for #WorldKidneyDay

“Madrid was filled with the stench of – pardon my language – food. It was indecent.”

Eating is taboo, and relieving oneself is performed on a toilet at a communal table in Luis Buñuel's Le fantôme de la liberté [The Phantom of Liberty] (FR/IT, 1974). Le fantôme strings together events from #Buñuel's life (he was 74 by the time he made this film), with dreams remembered by both Buñuel and co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière. The title references the opening sentence from Marx/Engels' Communist Manifesto. What follows is a wonderful, free-flowing pastiche performed by a sublime cast.

#film #LuisBuñuel #JeanClaudeCarrière #MichelPiccoli #MonicaVitti @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 10: Someone's wearing a #wig for #InternationalWigDay

Re-released by Something Weird you're forgiven to think that She-Man: A Story of Fixation (1967) will be a schlockfest. Instead it's a versatile as Bob Clark's filmography. She-Man – and do please forgive the wording – is part #fetish fest, part #mondo movie, part #queer liberation. Real-world female impersonator Leslie Marlowe plays Lt. Albert Rose, a military man forced into wearing lingerie and said wig and eventually embracing it as “Rose Albert”. I loved this #film which reminded me of Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda, another lovingly made #LowBudget crossdresser movie made by the people who lived it.

Read more about #LeslieMarlowe and her peers in Avery Willard's Female Impersonation (1971) https://queermusicheritage.com/fem-willard7.html

#film #BobClark #transvestism #crossdressing #FemaleImpersonation #LGBT @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 11: a (positively awkward) #SchoolDance for #NationalPromposalDay

Frederick Wiseman is the fly-on-the-wall at Northeast High School, filming teenage angst and awkwardness. There's talk of #PromNight, and small dramas when it turns out that above-the-knee is not formal wear thankyouverymuchyounglady. The dance itself is never shown. This is High School (1968). I'm glad I never have to set foot in one ever again.

#film #FrederickWiseman #HighSchool #documentary #CinémaVérité #Prom #TeenageAngst @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 12: the #AcademyAwardForBestPicture on #OscarNight is…

not the #film that won the first grand price at that first #Oscar night in 1929, F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927).

Sunrise was bestowed the award for “Best Unique and Artistic Picture”. The first and last time that ever happened; in 1930, the price was scrapped and replaced by “Outstanding Picture” aka “Best Picture”. And that one went to the much more American-patriotic Wings.

Also rightfully awarded in '29 were Janet Gaynor (Best Actress in a Leading Role), Charles Rosher and Karl Struss (Best #Cinematography), while Rochus Gliese was nominated for Best #ArtDirection.

Sunrise is a fantastic tour de force, and it winning that award should make you feel hopeful for the future of cinema. Instead, the current list of nominees and winners is, at least to me, a checklist of what to avoid for ever.

#Murnau #AcademyAwards #Oscars #FilmHistory @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 13: Do something daring on #NationalOpenAnUmbrellaIndoorsDay

A slice of teenage bravura is just enough for a couple of kids to #dare each other to a drag race. Hours after the car of one of them plunges from a bridge into the murky waters below, Mary Henry resurfaces.

Carnival of Souls was Herk Harvey sole feature length #film. He's much better known – albeit mostly uncredited – for his short PSAs including Halloween Safety, ruining your kids' favourite holiday since 1977, and Shake Hands With Danger (1980). You don't have to tell Three Finger Joe about taking no risks.

#IndependentCinema #HerkHarvey #CandaceHilligoss #CarnivalOfSouls #horror #mystery @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 14: Someone's life story told for #NationalWriteYourStoryDay

A young woman jumps out of a window, leaving behind her husband, an antiques dealer. Sitting in their bedroom with the body lying in state, the widower remembers her. In his memory, she is nameless, abstract, a state not a life. This is Une femme douce [A Gentle Woman] (Robert Bresson, 1969), closely adapted from Fyodor #Dostoevsky's A Gentle Creature (1876).

#film #RobertBresson #FyodorDostoevsky #DominiqueSanda #GuyFrangin #DorothéeBlanck @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 15: Lost shoes for #NationalShoeTheWorldDay

Various characters lose their shoes in #Fellini's hedonistic La dolce vita (IT/FR, 1960), most famously Anita Ekberg after entering a freezing Fontana di #Trevi with #paparazzo Marcello #Mastroianni.

#film #FedericoFellini #LaDolceVita #MarcelloMastroianni #AnitaEkberg #AnoukAimée #Nico #paparazzi #Roma @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 16: a #panda spotted in a #movie for #NationalPandaDay

In ON THE MARRIAGE BROKER #JOKE AS CITED BY #SIGMUNDFREUD IN “WIT AND ITS RELATION TO THE UNCONSCIOUS” OR CAN THE AVANT-GARDE ARTIST BE WHOLED?” (1977) Owen Land explores meaning, wit, and #WordPlay, and manages to unite the #marketing of #umeboshi #plums in a wide variety of vessels, the brokering of brides, and pandas discussing #Freud in all of the above contexts.

#film #OwenLand #AvantGarde #Pandas #ShortFilm #FilmMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 17: Someone is sleeping on #WorldSleepDay

In a small train station's waiting room, people sleep. #Trains in the distance rumble along. #Snow covers footprints crossing nearby tracks and the wooden shed where travellers, strangers, huddle together in their shared fate. Pavel Kostomarov's cinematography and Sergey Loznitsa's direction capture the silence. This is Полустанок [Polustanok / The Halt)] (RU, 2000).

#film #Russia #ShortFilm #documentary #FilmMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 18: Sports car racing on #InternationalSportsCarRacingDay

A man and a woman meet and fall in love. The woman – Anouk Aimée – still mourns the loss of her stuntman husband, while the man – Jean-Louis Trintignant – is alone since his partner took her life, incapable of dealing with his near-fatal crash at #LeMans. #Trintignant came from a family obsessed with race car driving and was an avid amateur driver himself. His uncle, the #GrandPrix racer Maurice Trintignant, can be seen driving a #Maserati Tipo 151/1 during the race scene.

A deceptively simple #film by Claude Lelouch, with an equally breezy soundtrack by Francis Lai. This is Un homme et une femme (1966).

#film #AnoukAimée #JeanLouisTrintignant #ClaudeLelouch #FrancisLai #FilmMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 19: Going through automatic doors on #NationalAutomaticDoorDay

Joseph #Losey's The Damned (1962) starts out as your conventional, lurid, early counterculture affair.

An American tourist visiting #Dorset is tricked by a prostitute, then falls victim to a youth gang controlled by King, a still very green Oliver Reed at his meanest. The trickster is King's sister, who confides in the American hoping to escape her brother's incestuous avances. They elope to a nearby island, closely followed by King and his gang, where they find a group of #children, all contently living in an underground lab, with #AutomaticDoors only they can control. These are the damned.

#film #UK #ColdWar #HammerFilms #JosephLosey #MacdonaldCarey #ShirleyAnneField #OliverReed #TheDamned #horror #drama #SciFi #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 20: French spoken on #FrenchLanguageDay

A Walloon language professor and his French set designer fiancée are at an impasse. While his Flemish students vocally protest against more Walloon influence at their uni, the couple - who superficially speak the same #language, #French - struggles to find the right words. They meet, part ways, then find each other again on a train that at morning turns out to be standing still in the middle of nowhere. The man, now without her, disembarks and with two acquaintances who also were on that train tries to find out where he and she are. André Delvaux's Un soir, un train (1968) is a masterpiece about finding the right language in a fractured world.

#film #cinema #Belgium #France #MagicRealism #AndréDelvaux #YvesMontand #AnoukAimée #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 21: Countdown on #NationalCountdownDay

[SPOILER WARNING BELOW]

#Peace, little girl aka Daisy aka Daisy Girl was the #PoliticalAd campaign to end all ad campaigns. It opens innocently enough with a little blonde girl, picking the petals of an ox-eye #daisy while counting. When the final petal's gone, the tone changes completely*

This deceptively simple #propaganda #film was made in support of Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign by ad agency #DBB and media consultant #TonySchwartz. It was so effective and bleak in is insinuations that the Johnson campaign was forced to pull it after only one screening.

What fascinates me is the similarity with one particular scene from James Whale's Frankenstein (1931). The Monster (#Karloff) meets a little girl who sits on the shore of a lake, picking daisies. He approaches her, and the girl, knowing the creature is a good man at heart, invites him to play a game with her involving them tossing the daisies into the lake. <spoiler>When they run out of daisies, the Monster picks up the girl who to him is as pretty and innocent as a flower, and throws her into the water.</spoiler>.

This scene was cut and considered lost until the 1980s. Could Tony Schwartz have been aware of that scene? He was at the right age to have seen the pre-code, pre-cut version.

*Peace, little girl is deceptively simple and only a minute long. However, do watch it on a sunny day: https://www.loc.gov/item/mbrs01185386.

#film #cinema #propaganda #elections #LyndonBJohnson #BarryGoldwater #ColdWar #Vietnam #VietnamWar #politics #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 22: Someone breaks into song on #NationalSingItOutDay

In #蔡明亮 / Ming-liang Tsai's 洞 [Dóng / The Hole] (1998), set in a #plague-ridden #Taiwan it's raining relentlessly. The #rain and a #virus forces people to retreat. In Hsiao Kang's crumbling building, a plumber inadvertently punches a hole from his floor to the unnamed woman's below. While she, another victim of the #disease, holes up in her apartment they struck up a strange detached relationship. Between endless rain and frantic #food hoarding, in her heart a #musical sings.

#film #cinema #MingLiangTsai #LeeKangSheng #YangKueiMei #SciFi #romance #musical #cockroaches #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 23: Someone barely escapes something on #NationalNearMissDay

In Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Charles Reisner / Buster Keaton, 1928), former vaudevillian Keaton narrowly escapes the façade of a house crashing down around him. Both Keaton and the stunt lived on, probably most famously in Keaton aficionado Jackie Chan's Project A Part II (HK, 1987). Despite all the well-meant tributes, none of the later stunts are as nail biting as the pre-OSHA original.

#film #cinema #SilentCinema #SilentFilm #BusterKeaton #slapstick #vaudeville #stunts #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 24: Roommates or flatmates on #FlatmatesDay

May Lin (楊貴媚 / Kuei-Mei Yang) is a real estate agent who meets up with a man (陳昭榮 / Chao-jung Chen) in the bare, too sterile flat she brokers. Another man, Hsiao-kang (李康生 / Kang-sheng Lee) who took the key of the same dwellings for his own cause, decides to settle in. In 蔡明亮 / Ming-liang Tsai's 愛情萬歲 [Ai qing wan sui / Vive L'Amour] (TW, 1994) the apartment serves not only as a space where events take place, but locks and guides the flatmates through their impulses.

#film #cinema #Taiwan #Taipei #TsaiMingLiang #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 25: Walking in #sand on #WalkInTheSandDay

During a summer vacation on #FireIsland, two young men come across Sandy, a young woman with an injured #seagull. While nursing the bird back to life, the relationship between the three deepens. A second girl, the much younger Rhoda (the breathtaking Catherine Burns) is taken in by the trio. Set almost entirely on a sunny #beach, Last Summer (Frank “The Swimmer” Perry, 1969) is one of the most claustrophobic films you may ever watch.

#film #cinema #LastSummer #FrankPerry #EvanHunter #BarbaraHershey #BarbaraSeagull #RichardThomas #BruceDavison #CatherineBurns #ComingOfAge #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 26: Someone wearing #purple on #PurpleDay / #InternationalEpilepsyDay

Both in The Wormwood Star (Curtis Harrington, 1956) and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (Kenneth Anger, 1954) Marjorie Cameron wears shades of purple. Professionally known as #Cameron, she was a follower of #Thelema, the philosophical movement founded by occultist Aleister #Crowley.

Meanwhile in 1946, rocket scientist Jack Parsons and (pre-Scientology) #SciFi author L. Ron Hubbard worked on a series of Crowley-related magic ceremonies named Babalon Working. After Parsons declared the initial rituals a success, he encountered Cameron in his own house. She became the element required to continue the ceremonies, this resulting in her being declared Babalon, the #Scarlet Woman.

#film #cinema #MarjorieCameron #JackParsons #JLP #Liber49 #AleisterCrowley #SexMagic #Magick #Babalon #Thelema #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 27: Play an acoustic musical instrument on #NationalAcousticSoulDay

There are two notable amateur films in the National Film Registry. One of them is the Zapruder film, the other Sid Laverents' Multiple SIDosis (1970).

Sid Laverents was an airplane engineer and former one-man band vaudevillian who in his fifties, joined the #SanDiego Amateur Moviemakers Club. One of his best known outputs, Multiple SIDosis, took him and his 16 mm #Bolex four years and 1,900 feet of celluloid to make. In it, Sid – and a musical group made up of many overdubbed versions of himself – performs the popular and insanely catchy tune Nola. Catch it here: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=8mblxjfh5kE

#film #cinema #vaudeville #OneManBand #music #ChristmasMovie #AmateurFilm #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

Back to the old tricks.

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 29: Deception on #SmokeAndMirrorsDay

Vérités et Mensonges is what it's actually called, but you may know it as F for Fake (1973). Orson Welles and three uncredited fellow conspirators – Gary Graver, Oja Kodar, and François Reichenbach – delve into the world of #art forger Elmyr de Hory by way of his biographer Clifford Irving. Welles et al free-associate with concepts of art, lies, #deception, and #authenticity. Houdin, Welles, Picasso and Hughes, hoaxers, hucksters and artists in their own right. And then it's over: this work of art, this sleight of hand, this demonstration of factuality, an exposé.

#film #cinema #OrsonWelles #OjaKodar #HowardHughes #hoax #FForFake #FilmEssay #documentary #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 31: Spot the #Eiffel Tower on #EiffelTowerDay

Never was or will I be a fan of Jacques #Tati, the loveable Luddite who wouldn't be as big as he became if it wasn't for the technological wonders of the 20th century. Having said that, his #Playtime (1967) holds a special place in my heart. Tati's alter ego Monsieur #Hulot roams a hyper-modern #Paris, actually an enormous soundstage dubbed #Tativille. People, buildings and gadgets interact with and against each other, each and everyone as plotless as a prop. In unison, it becomes a perfectly orchestrated symphony of maddening modernism. But Tati wouldn't be Tati if it wasn't for a glimpse of quiet nostalgia. A woman holding the glass-and-steel entrance door of yet another concrete office building. In the glass, a burst of warm light and colour and movement. And then it's gone, and we remember how that tower once was the thorn in the Luddite's eye, that “baroque and mercantile fancy of a builder of machines”.

#film #cinema #JacquesTati #MonsieurHulot #TourEiffel #EiffelTower #Paris #architecture #MonsieurHulot #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

Hmmm, I've still got yesterday's freebie…

#Bales2023FilmChallenge March 31, again: The #EiffelTower in a #movie for #EiffelTowerDay

#SciFi may be one of those genres that's forever linked to the future and, depending on which side of 2000 you are at, either in a dystopian of utopian fashion. In 1925, René Clair released Paris qui dort. An #Eiffel Tower watchman wakes up to find the world around him asleep. The few ones still awake – the bright, pretty, carefree things – explore, live and loot.

#film #cinema #ScienceFiction #TourEiffel #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 1: Craft something on #NationalHandmadeDay

All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl. Or a girl with a glue gun. Or skip the girl, get yourself a piece of cardboard, some foam latex, and a six pack of beer. Frank Grow's Red & Rosy (1989) is the embodiment of a special staple of #DIY culture that appears to be long-lost. Really kids, you don't need much of a budget. Or tomorrows latest equipment. The hottest Hollywood hotshot? Forget about it, ask your drunk uncle to yell at the camera for 10 minutes. You want authenticity? Tape some random medical footage straight from your teevee. Need a shot of adrenal juice? Well, just watch this movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1woAMfQ9DuQ

#film #cinema #horror #comedy #puppetry #HotRods #punk #LowBudget #DragRacing #FrankGrow #RicoMartinez #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 2: a #movie that takes place out in nature on #NatureDay

Two American families, adults and their children, go on a #HikingTrip in the south of #France. They find themselves increasingly lost, not only in #nature but also in and among themselves.

Supposedly based on a real troublesome event and riddled with much #film-making adversity, Raúl Ruiz's O Território [The Territory] (1981) nearly stranded as much as the hikers did. In support, Wim Wenders used the same cast for his Der Stand der Dinge (1982), about a film crew's attempt to remake Roger Corman's Day the World Ended (1955). In a wonderful, unscripted circular way, Corman was one of the executive producers of O Território.

#film #cinema #RaúlRuiz #Portugal #hiking #survival #religion #cartography #RogerCorman #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 3: #Party on #WorldPartyDay

To support his family, small-town boy Domenico moves to #Milan in the hope to find a #job. Eventually he's employed, as a clerk in a drab office replacing a senior worker who died. While the days drag on, only interrupted by coffee shop small talk with fellow #teenager Antonietta, the #Christmas office #party draws nearer.

With the dark absurdity of coming out of fascism and having to run a real-world country with a naive ineptitude – represented by the too-large-borrowed-from-father-suits – and pretence childlike bureaucratic procedures, Ermanno Olmi's Il posto [The Job] (1961) is a wonderfully sharp observation of #postwar #Italy.

#film #cinema #ErmannoOlmi #Neorealismo #neorealism #ComingOfAge #TeenangeAngst #bureaucracy #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 4: Rats in a movie on #WorldRatDay

NOTE no screenshots because I cannot post any content illegal in Germany. However, I do believe it is a must to study any film of far-reaching significance, no matter how repulsive.

I took a long time considering what to nominate for today's topic. This is not an easy one. And frankly, barely qualifies as as film.

In the 1930s, three films (2 British, 1 American) portrayed Jews in a positive light, as victims of persecution through history. When in 1938 the Novemberpogrome took place in (Nazi-occupied) Germany (the term “Kristallnacht” is a horrible euphemism and I won't use it), media was not unanimously jubilant about it. Understanding that violence is not the way to popular consensus, plans were made to change people's thinking about the Jews, using widely available visual media (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism_and_cinema). In 1939, the faux #documentary Der ewige Jude [The Eternal Jew], directed by the leader of Goebbels' #propaganda film department Fritz Hippler, started production. Scenes shot in Jewish ghettos in occupied Poland were intercut with real, but out-of-context documentary footage, giving it a false sense of authenticity.

A returning theme in Der ewige Jude is disease. Not merely to suggest “the Jew”'s unclean life and religion, but as a synonym of people as a vermin, a parasite to decent (read: Aryan) society. In a horrible demonstration of the Kuleshov Effect, footage of a large group of #rats coming out of a sewer is followed by a crowd of Jews in the Łódź Ghetto, filmed without their consent or knowledge of where this footage would end up. The voice-over states:

"Where rats appear, they bring ruin by destroying mankind's goods and foodstuffs. In this way, they spread disease, plague, leprosy, typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery, and so on. They are cunning, cowardly and cruel and are found mostly in large packs. Among the animals, they represent the rudiment of an insidious, underground destruction – just like the Jews among human beings."

Do remember that, whenever you hear or see comparisons made between people and disease, or people and rats. Let's not just never forget, but always remember and never repeat.

#film #cinema #Germany #antisemitism #dehumanization #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 5: A #movie #FilmedInNebraska for #NationalNebraskaDay

The one that got bombed by Strangelove.

Both Lumet's Fail Safe and #Kubrick's #ColdWar comedy came out in 1964, right after the #CubaCrisis. The world was awash with the realisation that the bomb, The Bomb, wasn't merely proverbial flexing. And when crisis happens, there are two options. One is to laugh, the other is to grasp. Sadly for Lumet, and the world, his Fail Safe was released while everyone was still too busy chuckling.

#film #cinema #Nebraska #SidneyLumet #FailSafe #HenryFonda #WalterMatthau #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/

#Bales2023FilmChallenge April 6: Someone is rejected on #SorryCharlieDay

A scandal, that's what it was! In the late 1960s, Peter Fleischmann picked the picturesque Catholic village of #Landshut as the backdrop for Jagdszenen aus #Niederbayern, the #film adaptation of Martin Sperr's #TheatrePlay with the same name.

A young man named Abram – played by Sperr – returns to his family village. Soon the townspeople's thorns move from the in their eyes other disgraceful villagers to the much-needed mechanic.

Where did he return from? He was in prison. What for? For being a homosexual. He's a #Drecksau (a dirty pig), his mother says. The village whore can't turn him around. A sow is slaughtered in real time in celebration of a successful #harvest and plans for the town's future are forged.

While created when West Germany's #Paragrafen175 was in place [1872–1994], illegality of same-sex relations], the homosexual aspect wasn't the main cause of the outrage. Some of the Landshutter villagers who played alongside the professional actors felt they were depicted as being backwards. This isn't a movie about hunting, sigted some. Lifting the veil of the prevalence of, a #Fernweh in a sense, *that* Germany (hush) was another.

Catholic Mass is a theatrical re-enactment of the life and suffering of the son of God. When rites outstay their meaning, when invocations turn routine, the worshippers lose sight.

#film #cinema #WestGermany #PeterFleischmann #MartinSperr #AngelaWinkler #HannaSchygulla #LGBT #Bayern #Bavaria #FilMastodon #CineMastodon @film https://letterboxd.com/12pt9/list/bales2023filmchallenge/