The Mood of No-Mood: "Frames" (Brandon Colvin)

by James Hansen

*Writer’s Note: As long time readers of this site will know, Brandon Colvin was a crucial part to its founding and initial success. Brandon and I got the site going in 2007-08, as undergraduates at different institutions. I mention this not because I believe it disqualifies me from writing about the film at hand – if friendship were a disqualification, then we may have a very different history of film and art – but rather just to say this has been a rather difficult piece to put together. It is also somewhat strange to see Colvin listed as the director of a film and not the author of criticism. Those were the days. Anyways, I didn’t feel like I NEEDED to write a “disclaimer” on this piece, but I did want address the “history” of this site somewhat and credit Brandon for always thinking through his writing and writing through his thinking. It shows. jh

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Hug Me Tight: Tom Rhoads (1987-1989)

by James Hansen

This piece was originally published in Dirty Looks 3.3 "Tom Rhoads: 3 Films" as part of a screening which took place at The Kitchen in New York, NY on March 26, 2013. (http://dirtylooksnyc.org/pages/rhoads.html) Thanks to Bradford Nordeen for the opportunity. 

Tom Rhoads was a gentle, tortured soul. In the words of Luther Price, he was “a nice guy who would buy you an ice cream cone.” Nonetheless, watching the 8mm films of Tom Rhoads, one has to wonder how long he stood still in the sun, gripping the ice cream cone with a crooked smile on his face, anticipating the arrival of someone – anyone – so that they can finally pry the melting treat from his hand. The tender films appear as unearthed, forgotten time capsules. Intensely personal and deeply felt, they reveal unknown subjects lost in time, waiting on life or death or both.


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Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel)

by James Hansen

It is practically useless to describe Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel’s experiential documentary Leviathan, surely one of the most enthralling and terrifying films of the year. Ostensibly about the commercial fishing industry, the directors utilize mini-waterproof cameras to gain access to various locations and points of view on board a fishing vessel. While there are certain precedents for this kind of “observational” filmmaking, Leviathan is truly something no one has seen or heard before.

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On Representation and Wish Fulfillment

by Adam Hofbauer

2012’s two most visible films relating the experiences of African Americans were both made by white men.  Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild fantasized a magical Mississippi Delta, where most of the magic seemed to involve ignoring any racial or post-Katrina related subtext and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained continued his increasingly Ouroboros like cycle of cinematic self-reference.  Here is a superhero origin story for a man whose superpower is cultural reparations via bullet to the nuts, where the intended pleasure is escapist, bloody fantasy. 

It is not these films’ treatment of race that raises eye brows, but their shared filter of wish fulfillment.  Their creators seem to be using blacks in the south as set dressing for their own personal fantasies.  Controversy over Django has been mostly limited to its use of the word “nigger”, with little question raised about its muddy approach to morality.  That the film all but equates freedom with gun ownership seems to little trouble audiences and critics when there is so much bloody carnage to enjoy.  Obviously, praise for Django has not been unanimous.  The New Yorker’s Jelani Cobb called into question many of the film’s issues, from its portrayal of slaves as “ciphers passively awaiting freedom” (a diminishing of populist slave resistance that finds echoes in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln) to its replacing of history with morally simplistic mythology.  Of course, even a cursory viewing of Django reveals that this is its very intention, restaging the legend of Siegfried through the kind of lone wolf emancipator inspired by real life rebels like John Brown.  Of course Tarantino is aware of his history.  The issue is the wide spread acceptance of stories that reshape history and contemporary politics for the sake of emotional catharsis.

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Out 1 Film Journal's Top 13 Films of 2012

Just like everyone else in the film critic community, I've been slowly putting together my list of the best films I saw in 2012. This year, rather than publish a simple list, I took the liberty to create this video compilation including clips/images from the films. (Fair use!) Quality probably isn't great (and it's probably obvious which clips have been cobbled together from all-too-brief-shots-in-trailers) but I hope you enjoy it. I should note that I still haven't seen Almayer's Folly, Amour, or Tabu, all of which I look forward to seeing. I also should say a second look may have greatly benefited two particular films (David Gatten's The Extravagant Shadows and Dardenne's Kid With A Bike) that I like very much, but which slid off this list nonetheless. I may eventually write capsules and include a list in this post, but, for now, just the video. [Edit: a list is now included after the break.] Thanks to everyone for your continued readership and support of the site. Here's to more movies (and more publishing!) in 2013. Cheers. 





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