and all the love in the world
Omigod, that Chris Fujiwara book was awesome.
To the point of me actually going out and buying two other books with the full intention of reading them in between just so I could slow my devouring because I simply did not want this intense highly intelligent and above all positive immersion in Jerry's films to end.
Ya, that didn't work. Couldn't bring myself to start something else when I had this to wrap around me. God knows I'm going to be doing infinite re-reads, no doubt to the point of not even knowing where my thoughts end and Chris' thoughts begin. And sponge, you shall be squeezed dry! Not that I agree with everything he says, there are bits where I want to scribble in the margins: "But but you don't allow for the possibility that after the film ..." or "But it could also be a unification, a synthesis!"
It's a book for the fans. And not just the guffawing fan but the fan who watches closely and wonders what that shot meant and what this colour means and why that scene had to go right there and what the bloody hell am I supposed to make of this joke, Jerry?! Also for the fan who has seen every single one of Jer's films and knows them intimately. Which was colossally exciting when it came to citing films like The Bellboy and The Nutty Professor which I kinda know inside out, and crushingly frustrating for the non-Paramount films, none of which I've seen and which I will watch, one a day, on YouTube over the next month and a bit. Cos I bloody well can. Hee! *knocks nervously on wood*
And since I can't quote the entire book, some bits that I have to pull out cos they are that valuable.
Literature, Maurice Blanchot writes, is made up of different stages which are distinct from one another and in opposition to one another .... The writer is not simply one of these stages to the exclusion of the others, nor is he even all of them put together in their unimportant succession, but the action which brings them together and unifies them ... Every time a writer is challenged in one of his aspects he has no choice but to present himself as someone else, and when admired as an inspiration and a genius, see in himself only application and hard work, and when read by everyone, say: "Who can read me? I haven't written anything." This shifting on the part of the writer makes him into someone who is perpetually absent, an irresponsible character without a conscience, but this shifting also forms the extent of his presence, of his risks and his responsibility.
...
In The Total Film-Maker, Lewis writes: A man who is going to write, produce, direct and act in a film argues more with himself, fights a greater battle than any battle with all the other bright committee minds choosing to give him static. The battle within himself is part and pacel of what makes a total film-maker. He struggles within one mind. One hat fights the other. Often the actor cannot stand what the director says. The producer thinks the director is a moron. And the writer is disturbed by all three. The total film-maker cannot lie to any of his separate parts and be successful. There is a tremendous inner government within him, and his judgment is severely examined by that inner government. (p.24)
Being total means being at war with oneself. In his films, Lewis finds this inner struggle in, and projects it onto, the world, which he remakes in the image of a multiplicity all of whose members ... demand to be recognized and coexist in a state of constant disagreement.
...
The difference between them was not merely one of quantity (as if Lewis's character merely stood lower than Martin's on a scale of masculinity and competency), nor was it a clear-cut binary opposition. As Frank Krutnik writes, Lewis, with his perpetually shifting identities, "encompasses not simply an alternative 'voice' to Martin but an alternative mode of being, a splintering multiplicity that contends with the handsome man's singularity."
Oh holy fuck, I love that bit so much. Practically died a little death at the end of that sentence and now am all the more determined to get my hands on Enfant Terrible! which includes the Krutnik essay.
All the above quoted from Contemporary Film Directors: Jerry Lewis, Chris Fujiwara.
I cannot say just how deeply deeply wonderful it is to experience someone talking with serious and intense concentration about Jerry's art. With respect.
To the point of me actually going out and buying two other books with the full intention of reading them in between just so I could slow my devouring because I simply did not want this intense highly intelligent and above all positive immersion in Jerry's films to end.
Ya, that didn't work. Couldn't bring myself to start something else when I had this to wrap around me. God knows I'm going to be doing infinite re-reads, no doubt to the point of not even knowing where my thoughts end and Chris' thoughts begin. And sponge, you shall be squeezed dry! Not that I agree with everything he says, there are bits where I want to scribble in the margins: "But but you don't allow for the possibility that after the film ..." or "But it could also be a unification, a synthesis!"
It's a book for the fans. And not just the guffawing fan but the fan who watches closely and wonders what that shot meant and what this colour means and why that scene had to go right there and what the bloody hell am I supposed to make of this joke, Jerry?! Also for the fan who has seen every single one of Jer's films and knows them intimately. Which was colossally exciting when it came to citing films like The Bellboy and The Nutty Professor which I kinda know inside out, and crushingly frustrating for the non-Paramount films, none of which I've seen and which I will watch, one a day, on YouTube over the next month and a bit. Cos I bloody well can. Hee! *knocks nervously on wood*
And since I can't quote the entire book, some bits that I have to pull out cos they are that valuable.
Literature, Maurice Blanchot writes, is made up of different stages which are distinct from one another and in opposition to one another .... The writer is not simply one of these stages to the exclusion of the others, nor is he even all of them put together in their unimportant succession, but the action which brings them together and unifies them ... Every time a writer is challenged in one of his aspects he has no choice but to present himself as someone else, and when admired as an inspiration and a genius, see in himself only application and hard work, and when read by everyone, say: "Who can read me? I haven't written anything." This shifting on the part of the writer makes him into someone who is perpetually absent, an irresponsible character without a conscience, but this shifting also forms the extent of his presence, of his risks and his responsibility.
...
In The Total Film-Maker, Lewis writes: A man who is going to write, produce, direct and act in a film argues more with himself, fights a greater battle than any battle with all the other bright committee minds choosing to give him static. The battle within himself is part and pacel of what makes a total film-maker. He struggles within one mind. One hat fights the other. Often the actor cannot stand what the director says. The producer thinks the director is a moron. And the writer is disturbed by all three. The total film-maker cannot lie to any of his separate parts and be successful. There is a tremendous inner government within him, and his judgment is severely examined by that inner government. (p.24)
Being total means being at war with oneself. In his films, Lewis finds this inner struggle in, and projects it onto, the world, which he remakes in the image of a multiplicity all of whose members ... demand to be recognized and coexist in a state of constant disagreement.
...
The difference between them was not merely one of quantity (as if Lewis's character merely stood lower than Martin's on a scale of masculinity and competency), nor was it a clear-cut binary opposition. As Frank Krutnik writes, Lewis, with his perpetually shifting identities, "encompasses not simply an alternative 'voice' to Martin but an alternative mode of being, a splintering multiplicity that contends with the handsome man's singularity."
Oh holy fuck, I love that bit so much. Practically died a little death at the end of that sentence and now am all the more determined to get my hands on Enfant Terrible! which includes the Krutnik essay.
All the above quoted from Contemporary Film Directors: Jerry Lewis, Chris Fujiwara.
I cannot say just how deeply deeply wonderful it is to experience someone talking with serious and intense concentration about Jerry's art. With respect.