tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87963712024-03-07T02:01:28.328-08:00The Criterion ContraptionI'm going to watch every last DVD in the Criterion Collection. Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.comBlogger141125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-54365522149997362522015-09-16T17:47:00.000-07:002015-09-16T17:48:00.714-07:00The Gag Man: Clyde Bruckman and the Birth of Film Comedy: Now Available!My first book, The Gag Man: Clyde Bruckman and the Birth of Film Comedy has been officially released. You can buy it directly from the publisher at http://thecriticalpress.com/books/the-gag-man/ or from Amazon at http://amzn.com/1941629199. Read the book Werner Herzog called "a deep insight into the vortex of laughter and death!"
Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-47403268187073104912015-08-12T11:41:00.000-07:002015-08-12T11:41:21.111-07:00Book Cover, Release Date, and Pre-Order!My first book, The Gag Man: Clyde Bruckman and the Birth of Film Comedy now has an official release date, a final cover, and a blurb from Werner Herzog.
Coming from The Critical Press on September 15; pre-order it here: http://thecriticalpress.com/books/the-gag-man/Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-55947020168134134492014-10-23T16:55:00.003-07:002014-10-23T16:56:36.543-07:00New WorkHola, amigos. It's been a long time since I rapped at ya, so here are links to a lot of new work I've done for The Dissolve. First, features:
Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and the rise and fall of Hollywood's happiest couple: A history of the collaborative partnership between Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, which produced some great films, at least two masterpieces, and a lot of bad blood.
Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-89528737932196553422014-05-13T10:35:00.002-07:002014-05-13T10:38:19.753-07:00The Gag ManI'm thrilled to announce that I'll be expanding an article I wrote for The Dissolve into a book for The Critical Press. Here's the original article, and here's some more information about the book. I'm looking forward to digging deeper into Bruckman's life, and I think it's going to be a really interesting book. Also: it's great and kind of unbelievable that The Dissolve let me write a story Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-8828739127799283362014-04-14T09:59:00.002-07:002014-04-14T09:59:12.732-07:00Munchausen-by-TerrierAll credit to Chuck Jordan for the title of this post. I've written something new for the Dissolve, about puppies. Dog trainers, movies with dogs, that kind of thing, but also there are pictures of our puppy. Here it is. (My next article will be about a tragic Hollywood failure, don't worry.) Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-37884289069040948042014-02-24T19:11:00.002-08:002014-02-24T19:12:53.411-08:00Film Preservation 2.0In further non-Criterion-Contraption news, I wrote a feature for The Dissolve about the challenges of film preservation in the digital age, which is here.Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-10378224463490946912013-12-10T12:45:00.004-08:002013-12-10T12:45:50.444-08:00Good News for People Who Love Bad NewsI've written a piece for Slate about Charlie Brooker's show Black Mirror (I'm a fan).Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-37909332949647393032013-09-20T15:55:00.005-07:002013-09-20T15:55:59.403-07:00The TCL Chinese TheatreKurosawa soon, but for now, I've written something about the reopening of the Chinese Theatre for The Dissolve. You can read it here.Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-62874536961302770182013-08-04T20:11:00.002-07:002013-08-04T20:50:08.026-07:00#115: RififiRififi, 1955, directed by Jules Dassin, screenplay by Jules Dassin, René Wheeler and Auguste Le Breton, from the novel Du Rififi Chez les Hommes by Auguste Le Breton.
I'm a big fan of adaptations that subvert their source material. I'm not talking here about, say, retelling the Divine Comedy from Brutus's perspective, which unless you are Tom Stoppard or John Gardner is likely to yield garbage.1Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-7239737388244284002012-12-01T16:37:00.000-08:002012-12-01T16:37:30.618-08:00News You Probably Can't UseIf you didn't see it elsewhere, you might enjoy this piece I wrote for Slate about Edward Ford.Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-70146951064797897242012-12-01T16:23:00.002-08:002012-12-01T16:29:10.508-08:00#114: My Man GodfreyMy Man Godfrey, 1936, directed by Gregory La Cava, screenplay by Morrie Ryskind & Eric Hatch from the novel by Eric Hatch.
I'm told by people who've seen them projected that nitrate prints had a sparkling, shimmering quality that safety stock was never able to reproduce. If I had access to nitrate prints (and a brave projectionist), the first film I'd like to see in its original splendor is, Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-3489690556825395292012-05-09T02:37:00.001-07:002012-05-09T02:52:49.913-07:00#113: Big Deal on Madonna StreetBig Deal on Madonna Street, 1958, directed by Mario Monicelli, screenplay by Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, and Mario Monicelli, story by Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli.
In literature everyone understands the problems of translation. You only have to glance at a few sentences of Stuart Gilbert and Matthew Ward's respective versions of L’Étranger to understand how Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-29660993315968780282012-03-15T01:50:00.005-07:002012-03-15T13:41:47.351-07:00#112: Play TimePlay Time, 1967, directed by Jacques Tati, written by Jacques Lagrange & Jacques Tati, with additional English dialogue by Art Buchwald.
One of my college professors summed up James Joyce's career by saying that Joyce mastered the short story, the novella, and the novel, in that order. Then, with no more worlds to conquer, he moved on to something else. And yet, despite that fact that it more orMatthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-54347445397796275722011-11-29T16:52:00.002-08:002012-04-04T00:04:04.130-07:00#111: Mon OncleMon Oncle, 1958, directed by Jacques Tati, written by Jacques Tati, with the artistic collaboration of Jacques Lagrange and Jean L'Hôte.
Not even Triumph of the Will announces its visual strategy as succinctly as Mon Oncle, which opens with the following credits:
Followed immediately by the film's title:
It's cold, sterile modernity versus warm, chaotic life, down to the adorable pack of Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-85218603720383488492011-10-04T00:03:00.000-07:002011-10-04T00:07:01.000-07:00#110: M. Hulot's HolidayM. Hulot's Holiday, 1953, directed by Jacques Tati, written by Henri Marquet, Jacques Tati, Pierre Aubert, and Jacques Lagrange.
It's easy to forget just how much comedy is fueled by misanthropy until you encounter a film like M. Hulot's Holiday. As something of a misanthrope myself, I have mixed feelings about this kind of movie. On the one hand, it's a gentle, affectionate film that manages toMatthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-89940230574050823272011-07-06T02:10:00.000-07:002011-07-06T02:14:50.957-07:00#109: The Scarlet EmpressThe Scarlet Empress, 1934, directed by Josef von Sternberg, screenplay by Eleanor McGeary, from the diaries of Catherine II, arranged by Manual Komroff.
From the Poetics right up until the post-structuralists blew everything up, literary critics spent a surprising amount of time on taxonomies of genre. Although it has glaring omissions, I think Northrop Frye's was one of the most elegant, if forMatthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-42597850431235751492011-06-09T23:11:00.000-07:002011-06-09T23:12:05.803-07:00#108: The RockThe Rock, 1996, directed by Michael Bay, screenplay by David Weisberg & Douglas S. Cook and Mark Rosner, story by David Weisberg & Douglas S. Cook.
Here's Michael Bay on the commentary track for The Rock, talking about his decision to insert a stand-alone car chase into the film, a sequence that, for all its sound and fury, accomplishes exactly nothing that has anything at all to do with the Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-29222078594665707272011-04-08T18:23:00.000-07:002011-04-08T18:48:39.228-07:00107: Mona LisaMona Lisa, 1986, directed by Neil Jordan, screenplay by Neil Jordan and David Leland.
As anyone who has ever been a teenager will tell you, romantic obsession is more about subject than object. Proust grasped this completely:
No doubt very few people understand the purely subjective nature of the phenomenon that we call love, or how it creates, so to speak, a supplementary person, distinct fromMatthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-31767565598743262412011-03-13T18:55:00.000-07:002011-03-23T00:34:17.384-07:00#106: Coup de TorchonCoup de Torchon, 1981, directed by Bertrand Tavernier, screenplay by Bertrand Tavernier and Jean Aurenche, from the novel Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson.
One of my favorite types of novel doesn't really have a name, but if it did, it would be something like "books with possibly unreliable narrators who are morally reprehensible but can also be quite charming, because, after all, they're the narrator.Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-73432425409428359322011-02-25T01:38:00.000-08:002011-03-17T15:54:29.085-07:00#105: SpartacusSpartacus, 1960, directed by Stanley Kubrick, screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, from the novel by Howard Fast
When most actors discover they didn't get a role they wanted, they react like you or I would: by driving to Las Vegas and spending the rent money on blackjack and cocaine. But Kirk Douglas was never most actors. So when William Wyler gave the role of Ben Hur to Charlton Heston, Douglas Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-20438445219241016802011-02-01T01:12:00.000-08:002011-02-01T10:21:32.771-08:00#104: Double SuicideDouble Suicide, 1969, directed by Masahiro Shinoda, written by Masahiro Shinoda, Tôru Takemitsu, and Taeko Tomioka, from the play by Monzaemon Chikamatsu.
It's a truism that film has its roots in theater. Less remarked upon is how shallow those roots usually are: most movies owe more to melodrama and vaudeville than to Shakespeare. And they owe twentieth century drama almost nothing. Okay, Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-3727768741040513062011-01-02T18:35:00.000-08:002011-01-04T13:22:56.082-08:00#103: The Lady EveThe Lady Eve, 1941, written and directed by Preston Sturges, from a story by Monckton Hoffe.
It's nearly impossible to write about The Lady Eve without violating Richard Brody's dictum that "the past should be used to nourish the present, not bludgeon it." In the general case, I think Brody's skepticism toward the TCM Industrial Complex is salutary: nostalgia for classical Hollywood cinema is Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-41484115782555438362010-11-01T01:44:00.000-07:002010-11-01T01:44:41.023-07:00#102: The Discreet Charm of the BourgeoisieThe Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, 1972, directed by Luis Buñuel, written by Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière.
It's a truism that the 1970's were a golden age for mainstream recognition of difficult films. But if you want to really demonstrate to someone exactly what that means, don't sit them down in front of Mean Streets or The Conversation. Put in The Discreet Charm of the Matthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-54594219051296140732010-10-05T02:31:00.000-07:002010-10-05T10:51:19.271-07:00#101: Cries and WhispersCries and Whispers, 1972, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman.
In Harold Pinter's marvelous play Moonlight, a woman tells her terminally ill husband, "Death will be your new horizon." It's the most quietly chilling sentence I know, and it would have made the perfect epigraph for Cries and Whispers. The film is concerned with the business of dying, and not in an abstract way. Harriet AnderssonMatthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8796371.post-19839193407105188822010-08-21T19:30:00.000-07:002010-08-22T10:22:43.549-07:00#100: Beastie Boys Video AnthologyBeastie Boys Video Anthology, 1981–2000, videos directed by Evan Bernard, Adam Bernstein, Tamra Davis, Nathanial Hörnblowér, Spike Jonze, Ari Marcopoulos, and David Perez.
The only type of film that gets less critical attention than music videos are commercials, and that's a shame on both counts. For one thing, the consumerist dystopia in The Flowbee Home Haircutting Show is crying out forMatthew Dessemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09288268335735601918noreply@blogger.com19