Sunday, April 19, 2015

Episode #58 - Fernando F. Croce (Once Upon A Honeymoon)



"I think of films at these points where older films go into and newer films come out of."

Reading Fernando F. Croce's work, you get the sense that his criticism is more of an ode to the gods that create cinema than descriptions of moral material. They are filled with such romanticism and specificity that each line feels as intensely sculpted as the contours of a Bernini. So Peter was absolutely delighted to travel up to San Jose to talk about film with the Brazilian born critic, including the influence of Manny Farber, seeing art as a great unconscious that spills between films and beyond, and the two pillars that hold up this great art. The two then dive into the truly unique world of Once Upon A Honeymoon, a Leo McCarey romantic comedy following Cary Grant and Ginger Rodgers as they flee the Nazi invasion of Europe, creating a pathos that includes both sexual innuendo as well as sympathy for the plight of a soon to be exterminated people.

0:00-2:28 Opening
3:24-9:52 Establishing Shots - Rossellini's India: Matri Bhumi
10:37-53:20  Deep Focus - Fernando F Croce
54:05-56:40 Mubi Sponsorship - Boarding Gate and A Spell To Ward Off the Darkness
58:10 -1:24:36 Double Exposure - Once Upon A Honeymoon (Leo McCarey)
1:24:41-1:26:19 Close


Read Fernando F Croce at his website CinePassion, as well as on Slant, MubiReverse Shot, and Keyframe Daily. Follow him on Twitter.
Watch Once Upon A Honeymoon on YouTube or Amazon.


Notes and Links from the Conversation
-Watch India: Matri Bhumi on Hulu+
-Jonathan Rosenbaum and Girish Shambu on India: Matri Bhumi
-Fernando on seeing Pulp Fiction in 1994.
-Microsoft Cinemania
-A bit on the history of Slant Magazine
-On The Naked Kiss
-Selected De Palma Reviews: The Black Dahlia, Greetings, Dressed to Kill, Hi, Mom!
-Selected Edgar Ulmer Reviews: Detour, The Strange Woman, Bluebeard, Strange Illusion
-On The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums
-Dr. Cyclops
-Eva
-Cinema Novo
-Glauber Rocha's Antonio das Mortes and Barravento
-The "Trash Mouth" Genre
-The Strange World of Coffin Joe
-Fernando and Danny Kasman's TIFF Correspondences
-Selected Renoir Reviews: The Lower Depths, Picnic on the Grass, Nana, La Nuit du Carrefour
-Selected Lang Reviews: You and Me, Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler, Secret Beyond the Door, The Blue Gardenia, Cloak and Dagger 
-Nabakov's "A Forgotten Poet"
-Borges's Ficciones
-On Futurama's "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" for Reverse Shot
-Footage of the Concentration Camps as shot by George Stevens
-For more on Once Upon a Honeymoon, I recommend Robin Wood's "Democracy and Shpontanuity," published in Film Comment, January 1976.

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