Monthly Archive for January, 2011

Kodachrome Fades—Out: But the Afterglow Lingers

January 31, 2011 in John’s Bailiwick
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Final frame, final photo R.I.P..

This is the last photograph on the last roll of Kodachrome film manufactured by Kodak. It was taken by National Geographic photojournalist Steve McCurry with his trusty Nikon F, the camera on which for decades he loaded thousands of 36 exposure rolls of the 35mm color-transparency film. This final exposure was made in a cemetery (what an apt metaphor) in Parsons, Kansas (location of Dwayne’s Photo, the last lab in the world still processing Kodachrome). McCurry had brought the roll there himself, hand-delivering it to Dwayne Steinle, whose family still owns and operates the lab that he founded in 1956.

Dwayne's—Last stop for Kodachrome.

From its introduction in 1936, the year after Kodak had introduced it in the 16mm. motion picture format, Kodachrome reversal became a film of choice for professionals and shutterbugs alike. It was the emulsion that William Eggleston chose for his photographs, work became a 1976 landmark book and exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the first ever in color by that institution.

Cover of the MOMA book.

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Joao Silva, The Bang Bang Club and Jehad Nga—Part Two

January 24, 2011 in John’s Bailiwick
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The New York Times “Week in Review” in the Sunday edition is print heavy—mostly highlighting major newsworthy stories of the past week, editorials and opinion pieces, including that of Frank Rich. However, the Dec. 26 issue had 10 of its 16 pages devoted solely to photographs—“The Year in Pictures.” The front page header read, “Wars, disaster and sweet victories: the power of the photojournalist in a world overflowing with images.” The photograph that occupied the full front page is by Andrees Latif.

Andrees Latif for Reuters.

This much space is a singular recognition by America’s “newspaper of record” of the increasing presence and power of the men and women scattered around the world who with their cameras “bear witness” to the full spectrum of the human drama. One of this fraternity’s most renowned and beloved members is Joao Silva, a member of the so-called “Bang Bang Club” of South Africa’s struggle against apartheid in the 90s.

Joao Silva in 2008, Baghdad, photo by Michael Kamber.

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Pina Bausch: “Dance, Dance or We Are Lost”

January 17, 2011 in John’s Bailiwick
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Bausch, photo by Wilfred Krueger.

The quote above, “Dance, dance or we are lost,” was her mantra. It is also the subtitle of a new film in 3-D by Wim Wenders that opens in February after its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Pina Bausch, to whom Wenders dedicates the film, is the founder and driving force of a dance company with the rather unwieldy name—Tanztheater Wuppertal. At the time of her death on June 30, 2009 at age 68 she was widely regarded as the foremost choreographer of our time. Here is a trailer for the film.

pina: tanzt, tanzt songst sind wir verloren link

From the Wenders film “Pina.”

From the Wenders film “Pina.”

If some of the dance moves seem familiar it may be because you recognize them from another film: Pedro Almodovar’s Talk to Her. That film features several scenes of Bausch and her company, taken mostly from her large-scale work, Café Müller. Here is the trailer for Talk to Her with several glimpses of the company.

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“Let There Be Light”: John Huston’s Journey into Psychic Darkness

January 10, 2011 in John’s Bailiwick
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John Huston in the mid 40s.

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The Book of Genesis 1:3 command, “Let There Be Light,” that serves as the title of the last of John Huston’s trilogy of World War II documentaries, may have promised psychic illumination for battle damaged soldiers, but the film itself leaves emotional scars on viewers today—nearly 65 years after it was made.

When completed in 1946, Huston scheduled the film’s premiere at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The US Army’s Signal Corps, the commissioning agency, confiscated the print before the screening could take place. Let There Be Light remained unseen until a coalition of Hollywood filmmakers and studio executives persuaded the Army to release it in 1981, where it was finally shown at the Cannes Film Festival and New York’s legendary repertory cinema, the Thalia. The reason for the 35-year ban according to official reports is because the Army insisted that the privacy of interviewed soldiers must be protected. Huston equally insisted that all the men and their families had signed releases. When he tried to secure the documented papers—they had all mysteriously disappeared; the Army refused to obtain new releases.

Of the major Hollywood feature film directors who served in the military and who made propaganda films during the war (John Ford, George Stevens, Frank Capra, William Wyler), John Huston was the most junior in experience. His 1941 proto-noir film, The Maltese Falcon, his first directing job, promised a quick-rise career on the home front. The following year, however, he enlisted in the Army and after a brief stint at a desk job in Washington he began to make films for the Signal Corps, films that later would be understood as an interlocked trilogy: documentary films that in many ways paralleled the importance of Rossellini’s war trilogy, seminal films of Italian Neo-realism:

John’s Bailiwick: “Roberto Rossellini and World War II: Part One” link

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“Over the Rainbow”: A Video Jukebox

January 3, 2011 in John’s Bailiwick
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(Somewhere) Over the Rainbow

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One of the more onerous rituals of the annual Academy Awards telecast is the attempt to recreate onstage at the Kodak Theater the “lightning in a bottle” incandescence of the nominated songs. Though backed by glitzy production sets and dancers, the songs are stripped clean of their movie contexts. Whether sung in the movie itself, underscoring a montage, or embedded in a credit crawl, they were written to reflect, even enhance, the scene for which they were composed. In this respect the songs are close cousins to the best of Broadway musicals. Sometimes, these three-minute ballads even escape their celluloid bonds, becoming a part of American pop culture.

There is no song in all of American cinema that pulls you into its unfolding drama as successfully as Judy Garland’s “Over the Rainbow” from the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. But, this universally beloved song was very nearly cut from the movie.

Legend has it that after a preview, MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer felt that the song “slowed down the picture” and “our star sings it in a barnyard.” True, it is sung very early in the movie, at a time when much of the audience had barely settled into their seats. In any case, a reprise of the song was cut from the finished film. An additional chorus (audio only), sung by Garland, trapped in the wicked witch’s castle, was released many years later in a deluxe edition of the soundtrack. The accompanying picture is believed lost.

A recent discussion of Over the Rainbow by Renee Montagne on the NPR morning news (in a version sung by the late Hawaiian, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole) is such an extreme departure from the classic Garland rendition, yet so successful, that it becomes a veritable re-creation of the song and a template for many cover versions. I began to consider why this song, above all other movie songs, has had such an enduring presence in American culture, so I decided to do a YouTube search, a kind of video jukebox, to hear a handful of the many variations possible. This took me to an earlier NPR story about how and why this song became a rite of passage for generations of American singers—a heartfelt “internal monologue” on life’s aspirations and dreams.

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