John Landis - C/D, S/D

Finally we're getting down to the nitty-gritty here.

I have to think on this before I reply further.

Well his carelesness did kill vic morrow and those 2 kids on the twilight zone movie in 1982.

I was just reading about that. It's not certain that he knew enough about the nature of the stunt to prevent this from happening. The jury did acquit him I believe.

So do you think the pitch black depressive tone was there pre-twilight zone, Frühlingsmute?

Auterism has gone. too. far.

I had read about the Vic Morrow incident but I've never linked it to Landis. That's terrible. Reminds me of Roy Kinnear's death causing Richard Lester to retire.

So do you think the pitch black depressive tone was there pre-twilight zone, Frühlingsmute?

Yes. (Was Trading Places post-Twilight Zone? Because I think that one is the darkest of them all.)

In Landis' Films there is often the motive of the protagonist(s) being at someone's or something's mercy: of the state (Blues Brothers), the economy (Trading Places), the Cold War parties (Spies Like Us), the own body (An American Werewolf in London), or pretty much everyone (Into the Night). The way Landis handles this motive is at the same time funny and completely desperate.

Now the problem is I couldn't put a finger on this sense of despair. It's rarely explicit, always subliminal, like a low hum that sometimes erupts into a shriek. Those "shriek" scenes don't make sense in the text of the film but somehow seem to work in the subtext - they don't feel out of place even though they are. (Examples off the top of my head: Alien Nazis raiding an American middle-class home (AAWiL); Jeff Goldblum talking a Persian commando into suicide (ItN); Dan Aykroyd in a filthy Santa Claus costume, bellowing in an empty lobby (TP).)

As I said, I could be imagining / projecting all of this, but I find the idea compelling that Landis made his most successful movies being guided by depression, and lost his edge as he lost his despair.

Les films de Robert Iscove, vol. 1: Les années Prinze Jr. par les rédacteurs de Positif (2014)

L'art de Haley Joel Osment: De "Je vois les personnes mortes" à "Veuillez me transformer en un vrai enfant" (2012)

Billy Madison d'Adam Sandler: La puissance transgressive de pisser dans son pantalon (2019)

this man is way to sloppy to be any kind of aueteur, that depressing quality is the same thing all former Princes Of Hollywood have. Classic: Kentucky Fried Movie, Animal House, Coming To America. Maybe a wee tiny bit of Three Amigos. Though none are because of Landis's work.

Destroy: probably everything else, though I've yet to see Into The Night, Oscar, Innocent Blood or the Stupids. Maybe there's a secret classic in there. Oh, and I haven't seen American Werewolf In London either.

amateurist - haha, I might have read too many Olaf Möller articles. Back in the 90s when he was working for the German Splatting Image magazine he was famous for praising les grands auteurs of Japanese porn. (Apparently Möller writes for Senses of Cinema now.)

btw "If peeing in your pants is cool, consider me Miles Davis" is the bestest movie quote EVAH so no disrespect for Billy Madison please.

If you wanna see auteurism, smart guy, you oughta check out the programming for the Paris Cinémathèque from 1999 or so, when I was there--three months of Joe Dante.

Also, can somebody please start a thread on auteurism being the rockism of the film world already? The suspense is killing me.

Yeah, I went to see Small Soldiers at Jonathan Rosenbaum's recommendation. His review--which paired it with Saving Private Ryan (=one star, SS=four stars) is probably the low point of Rosenbaum's criticism to date.

That said Dante is a gifted director. The two Gremlins movies, at least, are fabulous and Matinee is pretty good too (although the ending stinks). But he's best understood as one wrinkle in that post-Spielberg "movies for preteens" wing of 1980s and 1990s Hollywood rather than some renegade son thereof.

But yeah, the French are nuts.

Don't get me wrong, the Gremlins movies are great. And I've always had a soft spot for Innerspace.

I'm not sure, though, that I'd ever want to take in the entire Dante oeuvre, student films and all, as was featured in that particular retrospective.

Does auteurism = a director (or writer or producer) making a conscious statement? Or does auteurism = a film bearing a director's (etc.) mark? Or both?

American Werewolf In London = Classic. There isn't a more downbeat film in his career than this one. Without a doubt my favorite John Landis movie. There's something very surreal and humorous to it that just makes it completely engaging for me. Plus the make up effects are damn good for '81... this was the first movie to ever win an oscar for best make up. Anyone who hasn't seen it definately should check it out. I wouldn't waste time with American Werewolf in Paris... like many other sequels, it takes a good thing, recycles it, and makes it trash.

Frühlingsmute -- that's a really interesting read on Landis. It's a shame he's faded into obscurity. Due in no small part I'm sure to the insipid and unwatchable The Stupids and the commerical failure of Beverly Hills Cop 3 (which contains some great Landisian moments and is so Landis-like in tone and imagery it proved despite it's shortcomings that Landis was working from a very distinct cinematic point of view). He was definetly one of the most interesting voices in mainstream american comedy. Ever.

Landis definetly qualifies as an auteur. Almost all his films have a similar, bright and evenly lit look. He has an extremely distinct comic sensibility the likes of which I have seen in no other filmmaker -- A sort of love of the humor in every day mundanity which was best illustrated in Werewolf, Into The Night. Similar to Verhoven in his brightly lit, camera held back, theatre of the absurd and grotesque. His fondness for the abrupt brutal punchline. And running gags through all his films such as the 'See You Next Wednesday'fake movie which appears most prominently and hilariously in Werewolf. He had three styles. His satiric stuff (Kentucky, Shlock) which were just completely ridiculous anything for a laugh satires (revisited with his brilliant segments of Amazon Women On The Moon). His rogue style where he was into blending realism with over the top flourishes (Werewolf, Into The Night, Animal House, Blues Brothers). And his more mainstream stuff which fused his style with star vehicles and perfected the 'brightly lit' hyper-real cartoon aspects of his other films.

I feel like I'm making no sense.

Landis and Dante were like the twisted stepsons of Spielberg.

PVC, I see exactly what you're saying

Hmm... I can't remember if Landis does as well, but Dante definately belongs in that great group that could only be described as the bastard sons of Roger Corman. If not for that man, Jim Cameron, Joe Dante, Francis Ford Copolla, Scorsese. Johnathan Demme and many more might not have come into their own till much later, if at all. I know that's a bold statement, but Corman has an eye for talent.

The "See You Next Wednesday" thing is great, and that goes back to Landis' own love of Kubrick. For some reason the phrase "See you next Wednesday" pops up twice in 2001, so Landis just decided to incorporate it into all his films. Landis definately has unusual taste. I really wish he would take on a project worthy of him, we could use his satirical and timely view now more than ever.

more like step brothers on second thought, since they were all part of essentially the first TV baby generation to make films spurred by their love of the B sci-fi horror movies they saw on TV as kids.

that 2001 thing is cool to know.

"we could use his satirical and timely view now more than ever"... yes.

american werewolf is a very strange film - riffing on mark twain to locate the "fish-out-of-water" element of horror and push it into the foreground isn't something you see everyday - and i wouldn't write JL off completely before seeing it. also griffin dunne should be in more movies.

(btw the escher-puzzle secret to amateurist's a.sandler + g.marshall gags upthread = that's exactly the attitude auteur theory was responding to in the first place)

Yes, I know, and that's why I would welcome such books even if I'd be amused by their existence.

At the same time I do think that the auterists' insistence that the director was the necessary unit of study, and that the appeal and interest of a given film should reside in the personality of the director and its connection to the rest of that director's work, to have its problems. I guess I suspect that in the case of Landis, the commonalities between his films and those of over Corman-trained Hollywood directors are more interesting than the differences.