Maysles' Films / BBC4 season

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BBC4 is weird. there rarely seems to be much of interest on it and yet it has so much potential.

i was flicking channels tonight and some old footage of Marlon Brando caught my eye. turns out it was "Meet Marlon Brando" the first film in the short Maysles brothers documentary season (or the second after the intro film) which would have totally bypassed me if i hadn't chanced upon it.

anyway it looks like a great short season. tonight (monday 7th august) there's The Rolling Stones Altamont film "Gimme Shelter" then tomorrow, i'm thrilled to say, they're showing "Grey Gardens" which i've wanted to see for so bloody long.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/storyville/images/grey_gardens2_cnr.jpg

this news has made my week.

The last film of the season (i told you it was short!) is "The Salesman" on wednesday night.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/storyville/maysles.shtml

― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 6 August 2006 22:32 (nineteen years ago)

talk about the Maysles or BBC4!

― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 6 August 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

maysles rule

grey gardens is great

discus

― cousin larry bundgee (bundgee), Sunday, 6 August 2006 23:04 (nineteen years ago)

'Brazil' was on BBC4 the other day, which raises it infinitely in my estimation.

― Louis Jagger (Haberdager), Sunday, 6 August 2006 23:57 (nineteen years ago)

jealous

― fauxhemian (fauxhemian), Monday, 7 August 2006 04:35 (nineteen years ago)

where's enrique?

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 7 August 2006 14:08 (nineteen years ago)

I received the Criterion release of "Salesman" on Christmas. It's excellent...one of my favorite docs.

― Tape Store (Tape Store), Monday, 7 August 2006 20:58 (nineteen years ago)

hi!

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 07:17 (nineteen years ago)

nobody knows the trouble i've seen.

aka i can't find the hours at the mo :0(

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 07:17 (nineteen years ago)

i just did this thing and i'm kind of direct cinema/rolling stoned out...

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Tuesday, 8 August 2006 07:19 (nineteen years ago)

BBC4 could just play documentaries all the long day as far as I'm concerned. I've seen loads of excellent ones on there since it started. I remember a whole series of documentaries many years ago which were on the Beeb and were excellent. I think they were called 60 Minutes or something. Presumably the beeb has the rights to those? There was a terrific one on a Lido.

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 12:15 (nineteen years ago)

Actually it was called Modern Times...
Here's some of the details of The Lido one.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0175922/

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 12:16 (nineteen years ago)

Dammit - it looks like they showed it back in March!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/tvontrial/decades.shtml
Well, anyway that's the kind of thing I'd like to see on there.

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 12:20 (nineteen years ago)

I had to turn off Grey Gardens half way through, I'm afraid. Those two women were just unbearable.

― David Orton (scarlet), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 12:24 (nineteen years ago)

maysles is an anagram of ENDEMOL

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 12:25 (nineteen years ago)

Anyone watching the re-runs of I, Claudius on BBC4? It's great stuff.

― Michael B (Michael B), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 12:35 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, Grey Gardens was hard to endure. Glad to have caught Gimme Shelter at last tho'.

Fave bit:
'They're beating people up with pool cues!'
Grateful Dead (about to fly out on a helicopter): 'Oh......bummer'

― Michael B (Michael B), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 12:42 (nineteen years ago)

maysles is an anagram of ENDEMOL
-- mark s, August 9th, 2006.

I know what you mean and with the Modern Times stuff (and then the whole load of series like Airport and all them real life things) we were edging ever closer to reality tv hell (or heaven) but I still enjoyed them for showing me stuff I didn't know about. Now it shows me stuff I don't want to know about. It's a subtle difference.

xpost
I loved those ladies on GG but clearly deranged and (if the prog had been any longer) very irritating.

I,Claudius = fantastic. Derek Jacobi is the best. And the sets!

I heart BBC4.

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 12:47 (nineteen years ago)

mark is otm, but there's some interest in seeing this stuff done FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER kind of thing.

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 12:51 (nineteen years ago)

it wasn't a complaint! "what happens when the avant garde is routinised" is a v.interesting question (cf also the wall-to-wall burroughs/ballardisation of crime and hospital drama)

i think reality TV is important -- my main problem w.the maysles is that their films are (b ythe nature of the medium back in the day) trapped in the "white elephant" as opposed to the "termite art" mode, so there's no very powerful feedback loop

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 12:58 (nineteen years ago)

There are clips on the bbc website, for evaluative purposes only. Looked awful depressing to me, in my depressed state.

I have the DVD of The Beatles Goes America or something. I should watch the Extra, which is the Mayleseseses behind the scenes of behind the scenes or something.

Mark, I think this is what people mean when they accuse you of writing in code.

Mind you, I HAVE BEEN TO THE PUB.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 13:00 (nineteen years ago)

"what happens when the avant garde is routinised"

interesting thing to be written about the New American Cinema. i can't remember when this was, or exactly what it was (marketing tool basically), but i think a bunch of people signed up to it and it cut across narrative, not, and documentary filmmakers.

so i guess cassavetes, robert frank, brakhage, mayles, pennebaker mekas.

and maybe warhol?

and so these guys invented modern tv: the mekas-type diary film, warhol-style reality tv, mayles/pennebaker-type reality tv...

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 13:06 (nineteen years ago)

A friend of mine was raving about the Brando film. Not really the film but Brando himself.

― My Mind's Not Made of Gravel (Dada), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 13:08 (nineteen years ago)

amy taubin and j.hoberman both advert to that continuum a LOT: amy in particular draws in ZAPRUDER alongside warhol; also woodstock and a kind of loose mcluhan-ish medium-is-message-ism

certainly it's partly a technology thing: the availability of cheap portable movie cameras (isn't the the rad-pol group in VINELAND called 24fps or something?)

but also the nexus of not-yet-academic film studies, film clubs and little fleapit indie cinemas, the underground press, the new left and the Movement...

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 14:01 (nineteen years ago)

also PRE-GALLERY cinema, in a way.

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 14:21 (nineteen years ago)

actually iirc the 'first' Direct Cinema films were current affairs tv specials, 'primary', starring jfk, and something else, can't remember. think the maysles worked on them maybe. but the later ones like 'salesman' and the monterey festival films, not sure.

― Bashment Jakes (Enrique), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

one month passes...

I was skeptical of Grey Gardens but eventually gave into my inner camp. Probably right around the time the elder Edith started singing "Tea for Two" the second time.

I wonder how Jessica Lange will pull it off.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 20 September 2006 16:53 (nineteen years ago)

eight years pass...

RIP Albert

http://www.slashfilm.com/albert-maysles-died/

4K digitized Grey Gardens opens in NYC today.

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 6 March 2015 17:38 (ten years ago)

RIP...what a career. Lots of things I still need to see, too.
weirdly, "Gimme Shelter" just started playing on the office stereo...

― tylerw, Friday, 6 March 2015 17:40 (ten years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzNWuMazFYE

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 6 March 2015 18:25 (ten years ago)

obit roundup

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-albert-maysles-1926-2015

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 6 March 2015 19:37 (ten years ago)

RIP
Salesman is one of my favorites. I saw some Bible peddlers last year and I thought of that movie and how great it was.

― groundless round (La Lechera), Friday, 6 March 2015 19:41 (ten years ago)

rip albert, so many great films

― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 6 March 2015 19:43 (ten years ago)

i'd forgotten they'd shot Cut Piece

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sc47KfJjcI

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 6 March 2015 19:56 (ten years ago)

two months pass...

hey, an ex-ilxor on Albert M:

http://www.filmcomment.com/article/albert-maysles

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 7 May 2015 01:46 (ten years ago)

two years pass...

If you're in NYC, Albert Maysles' last movie, In Transit, is showing in Harlem. Might be the last chance for some time

http://www.npr.org/2017/06/27/534572593/documentary-giant-albert-maysles-last-film-in-transit-is-still-in-limbo

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 27 June 2017 22:20 (eight years ago)

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