Arthur Penn - RIP

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/movies/30penn.html?_r=2&src=mv

Let's make this S&D too.

S: Little Big Man! great 70s western, Custer as delusional asshat.

Alice's Restaurant is pretty silly, not exactly D tho

watched 'dead of winter' last wk. not sure i'd S or D. S the first half, kinda runs off the rails by the end imo

Saw him do a Q&A after Little Big Man maybe a dozen years ago. He said "Better than Dances With Wolves, isn't it?"

guess I'll finally watch The Missouri Breaks now, and rewatch The Chase.

Target is a sad, sad movie

Dunno if he was ever anything but an intelligent hack who helmed a couple of excellent films.

he was a theatre/TV director first, y'know

'night moves' is a nasty detective thriller, the ending kinda rivals 'chinatown' in the helpless/downbeat stakes.

Night Moves really surprised me when I finally saw it – terrific.

He said "Better than Dances With Wolves, isn't it?"

Dances with Wolves is an abortion.

been meaning to catch Night Moves. one of these days

yea i love the last shot of night moves

yeah, i'm surprised Night Moves isn't more of a classic? Loved that when I saw it a few years back. Not perfect, or anything, but great vibe -- and yeah the end is awesome.

and i'll second the love for little big man ... i've never seen alice's restaurant, oddly enough. is penn's TV work readily available anywhere?

Hair and Alice's Restaurant kinda run together for me - similarly lackadaisical low-key hippie antics

RIP

didn't see bonnie and clyde til this year and thought it was pretty great

The final shot of "Night Moves" is every bit as good a nihilistic conclusion as Hackman at the end of "The Conversation."

yeah i love how there's not even an explanation as to how everything ties together, he doesn't even get the answers that are there at the end of 'chinatown' or 'the conversation.'

I saw the movie two years ago and can't remember the ending. Hmph.

gene hackman does a killer rendition of bob seger's "night moves"

oh, bummer. the sadness and wasted potential of the final third of his career is matched only by the desolate dregs of monte hellman's last twenty years, when it comes to 60s new american auteurs: bonnie and clyde, night moves, little big man, m breaks are gd to v gd movies, full of violent eruptions, moments of colour and character, tension and critique. j hoberman writes v. well abt the chase in his dream life bk.

he was also a friend and supporter of robin wood, so cool dude in my bk

Best Vietnam metaphor ever (as Hackman watches a football game in Night Moves):

"Who's winning?"
"No one--one side's just losing slower than the other."

Has anyone seen Four Friends? I was always sort of intrigued by it, but never followed up. There's a five-year gap between it and The Missouri Breaks; every big '70s director had his Waterloo (commercially and/or artistically, often both), and, from what I remember, MB was Penn's.

I saw Little Big Man at a pretty young age, nine or so? TV broadcast I assume -- I remember being pretty impressed even then, it made the Old West seem like this very confusing, unstable place as opposed to straight up cowboys/Indians.

LOVE the missouri breaks, it's a bit of a disaster, brando's a trip, nicholson's still good, harry dean stanton. can't go wrong. i like the chase alot also. bonnie and clyde is like robin yount or something to me, i respect it but i don't think it's ever provoked a really strong emotion in me one way or the other really (beyond lol crowther). little big man is fantastic, night moves a hell of a movie.

is penn's TV work readily available anywhere?

you can see kinescopes of his tv work (all live tv drama) in archives, but that's about it. a shame.

the miracle worker (very different than his later work) is amazing, if you can take some really aggressive Acting by anne bancroft.

I agree -- one of the best play adaptions ever. He could have filmed Long Day's Journey Into Night had Lumet not gotten to it first.

I think Lumet did a great job with Long Day's Journey, though; one of my favorite last shots.

The Cinematheque here is running a Penn series, so I saw The Missouri Breaks last night for the first time ever. I expected...well, I've always grouped it in my mind with Sorcerer, At Long Last Love, 1941, etc.--all the mid-'70s debacles that eventually led to Heaven's Gate. So I was surprised by how much I liked it. To me, it avoids all three of the major problems with such films: the performances are really good, it's completely coherent, and even at

Oops--to be continued momentarily.

The Cinematheque here is running a Penn series, so I saw The Missouri Breaks last night for the first time ever. I expected...well, I've always grouped it in my mind with Sorcerer, At Long Last Love, 1941, etc.--all the mid-'70s debacles that eventually led to Heaven's Gate. (I realize they all have their advocates.) So I was surprised by how much I liked it. To me, it avoids all three of the major problems with such films: the performances are really good, it's completely coherent, and even at 130 minutes, it didn't seem overlong at all. Nicholson is still safely on the right side of the descending-into-self-caricature divide, wherever you think that's located. I got worried when Brando showed up with an accent, but he's good too--by the end of the film, he's kind of terrifying. Harry Dean Stanton's as good as ever, and the real revelation is Kathleen Lloyd. Did she ever make another major film? She's so good, and eminently crush-worthy besides. Maybe I'm overcompensating for how little I expected, but after one viewing, I'm adding it to my list of underappreciated '70s films (Smile, Desperate Characters, Cisco Pike, Made for Each Other, etc.).

I saw TMB a couple of years ago and I agree: it's much better than its reputation suggests.

I used to assume that Penn's long layoff after The Missouri Breaks (five years) was imposed on him by the money people; now I'm now wondering if he was just frustrated/depressed by the failure of what I thought was a very good film.

I found Dead of Winter cheap a few weeks ago, gave it a try. Good lord...in the big chase scene near the end, the guy doing the chasing has to first get out of his wheelchair. And that's only like the 14th-most ludicrous thing in the film.