Episode #119 - Racquel Gates (White Chicks)

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"The images, lines, and things that people quote are never the ones that get written about...It seems to me the way people engage these movies is much more complex."

In some regards, cinephilia often defines itself in knowing what is good from what is bad, highlighting the rarity of intention and execution in a select few texts from the rest of the trash. But what about those supposedly bad films? Do they not offer insight into our culture as well? In Double Negative, Associate Professor Racquel Gates explores the supposed bad mirror image of black cinema and television from the 1980s and beyond. Looking at a set of nearly forgotten works, Gates examines how these texts reveal insights into black popular culture often ignored by the mainstream. As Peter and Racquel discuss, these texts often aim to show a slice of American life what is usually acceptable in white popular culture—if only simply showing suburban middle-class life. In their final segment, they dissect the topic of whiteness with the 2004 Wayans Brother flick White Chicks, a very silly film with a very insightful dissection of privilege and femininity, as well as absolute sheer gross-out humor. 

0:00–3:03 Opening
3:41–11:37 Establishing Shots — At the Mill Valley Film Festival
12:23–49:33 Deep Focus — Racquel Gates
50:52–54:23 Sponsorship Section
55:33–1:06:04 Double Exposure — White Chicks (Keenen Ivory Wayans)
1:06:25–1:08:17 Close / Outtake

Episode #118 - Daniel Steinhart (Bunny Lake Is Missing)

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"When Hollywood films go overseas, they do have to become more flexible and adaptable, but that has always been the case."

As much as many will espouse the "universal language" of cinema, the experience of both making and watching films from location to location is full of fascinating difference. As someone who grew up watching films in both America and Colombia, Daniel Steinhart became attuned to look for these differences as he traveled film festivals as well. But his book, Runaway Hollywood, moves from the audience to the filmmakers who escaped the studio lot and made works across the globe in the postwar era. Peter and Dan discuss this fascinating taxonomy of taxes and tea, gaffers and genre, politics and panning shots. How exactly could this cultural exchange create a change in film style? Finally, they dive into an oddball thriller from Otto Preminger shot in London, Bunny Lake Is Missing, examining how this film balances both its unique locale and the demands of its auteur.

0:00–3:28 Opening
5:11–12:52 Establishing Shots — Gilberto Perez's The Eloquent Screen
13:37–1:07:22 Deep Focus — Daniel Steinhart
1:08:06–1:11:33 Sponsorship Section
1:12:52–1:33:02 Double Exposure — Bunny Lake Is Missing (Otto Preminger)
1:33:07–1:35:50 Close

Episode #117 - Justin Chang (Flowers of Shanghai)

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"I very much believe in having a very Catholic sensibility of writing about everything."

Being the metropolitan area newspaper's film critic has its set of burdens and responsibilities to a number of diverse audiences, but for Justin Chang, those challenges are multiplied by the the odd nature of Los Angeles as the movie capital of the  world. In this final episode from the City  of Angels as Peter says adios to the city he's called home for the last five years, he sits down with the former Variety and current Los Angeles Times critic to explore how to look and consider the industry and the various entanglements that expand out from it. Justin explains his growth from intern to critic within the city's oldest trade publication to the issues of representation and politics within Hollywood today. The two cap off their conversation by looking at Hou Hsiao-Hsien's strange and hypnotic Flowers of Shanghai, looking at how the director lays clues throughout to explore a 19th century brothel wrapped into a romantic mystery.

0:00–3:11 Opening
3:51–11:39 Establishing Shots — Celebrating Seven Years of The Cinephiliacs
12:24–1:04:31 Deep Focus — Justin Chang
1:05:28–1:09:15 Sponsorship Section
1:10:27–1:28:49 Double Exposure — Flowers of Shanghai (Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
1:29:02–1:31:29 Close / Outtake

Episode #116 - Elena Gorfinkel (The Color of Love)

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"What is it about sexuality in cinema that is a marker of the present?"

As this podcast has aimed to define, those who watch cinema can often be more revealing of culture than cinema itself. In her book, Lewd Looks, Elena Gorfinkel explores the sexploitation era of the 1960s. However, she looks past the texts to consider some of the more aspects of spectators and the public who shaped this unique era. The result is a fascinating text that considers cinephilia's history in ways that imagines both a more dynamic and complex past alongside a new way of formulating our current moment. Peter and Elena go on to discuss the issues surrounding cinephilia today and Elena's own work outside of the academic halls. Finally, Elena brings in the fascinating experimental work The Color of Love from filmmaker Peggy Ahwesh, considering how this work literally found in a dumpster becomes a cinephilie love letter to another forgotten filmmaker.

0:00–3:16 Opening
4:01–1:03:33 Deep Focus — Elena Gorfinkel
1:04:30–1:03:33 Sponsorship Section
1:08:24–1:25:14 Double Exposure — The Color of Love (Peggy Ahwesh)
1:25:19–1:26:52 Close

Episode #115 - Joshua Gleich (Days of Wine and Roses)

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"I think one of the reasons I work on location shooting is not because I understand it completely but because I have a question I still can't answer."

For anyone whose lived in Los Angeles or New York, it's easy to see when a film cheats its its locales. Just watch John Wick 3 and see the eponymous character seemingly make the trip from Midtown to Chinatown in a matter of minutes—and all by foot. But why has location shooting evolved such as it is? Joshua Gleich, a historian making his home at the University of Arizona, Tuscon, explores this by looking at the city of fog, San Francisco. Less an exploration of which films "get it right" or "get it wrong," Gleich's new book explores the evolution of location shooting from the 1940s to the 1970s, and how curiously the films of SF soon diverted from its actual life, attempting to mimic the urban nightmares that took up the imagination of Hollywood. Josh talks about his new book with Peter, exploring a number of classic films and the production contexts that made them. Finally, the two explore Blake Edwards's alcoholic drama Days of Wine and Roses and how a little location shooting can help pepper an entire film, especially one that breaks many of the molds of the classic Hollywood melodrama. Plus, Peter praises the work of the back-in-action Le Cinema Club and its opener with a rare Claire Denis short made in New York.

0:00–3:28 Opening
3:51–8:37 Establishing Shots — Le Cinema Club and Claire Denis
9:21–59:20 Deep Focus — Joshua Gleich
1:00:23–1:03:49 Sponsorship Section
1:05:44–1:19:21 Double Exposure — Days of Wine and Roses (Blake Edwards)
1:19:27–1:26:52 Close

The 2019 San Francisco Silent Film Festival

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After a year hiatus, Peter returns to the Castro Theatre alongside Victor Morton to check back in with the good folks at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, now in their 24th iteration. It's more proof that this cinephile culture is alive and well and always expanding toward new avenues despite its century longevity. This year includes discoveries from both the studio era of filmmaking as well as unique corners of the globe, featuring narratives of fallen women, activist women, and women willing to push their vanity to death itself (also the occasional man). The surprise of the festival in part is seeing this period of history both in its innovations as well as its regressions, which sometimes work to turn seemingly simple works into complex objects. Within this, great artists appear: some known and others now reclaimed. Join Peter and Victor as they work their way through this excellent set of films.

0:00–2:41 Opening
2:42–15:00 The Signal Tower (Clarence Brown, 1924)
16:36–30:56 Tonka of the Gallows (Karel Anton, 1931)
32:11–49:33 Color Extravaganza!
50:30–53:30 Sponsorship Section
54:16–1:05:08 Goona Goona (André Roosevelt and Armand Denis, 1932)
1:06:03–1:24:03 Romance, Comedy and Otherwise
1:24:52–1:37:38 The Wedding March (Erich Von Stroheim, 1928)
1:37:42–1:26:52 Close

Episode #114 - Katherine Groo (Archives de la Planète)

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"I've been thinking about archives as sites of mediation, as sites that are doing things to artifacts and objects, and what we do to them as well."

In the search for reclaiming masterpieces, creating streaming services that put every film at our fingertips, and investigating narratives that simply continue variations of the canon, what have we missed? What happens when we put our foot on the breaks and reconsider not just the what's of cinema and media history but the hows? In her extraordinary body of research, Professor Katherine Groo has been looking toward the objects that film history often ignores, simply because it seems there is nothing to do with them. The result in her new book, Bad Film Histories, considers some methods and ideas of how to approach a particular set of objects: early ethnographic film. From there, Peter and Katherine look into her much discussed op-ed for the Washington Post on the role of streaming services like FilmStruck and end by examining not a film but an archive: a set of films and glass plates collected to create an archive of the world by Albert Kahn. Needless to say, it is the odds and ends there that remain more fascinating than considering the body of work itself.

0:00–4:37 Opening
5:23–58:48 Deep Focus — Katherine Groo
1:00:09–1:04:36 Sponsorship Section
1:05:46–1:25:08 Double Exposure — Archives de la Planète
1:25:13–1:26:52 Close

Episode #113 - Jane Gaines (The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg)

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"So many of those social history accounts said there were no women in the industry...so what do you do with this overwhelming evidence?"

Unless you've had your head in the sand, the awareness of the women dominated Hollywood of the 1910s has moved out of academic circles and into popular discourse. Instead of asking what happened to these women, film scholar Jane Gaines has another: why has this only now become part of our history? A pioneering scholar in mixed-race films, copyright, and documentary, Gaines's latest, long gestating book Pink Slipped mines film studies's own history to look at the reasons and problems of telling history through this one paradigm. In this winding conversation, Jane explores her own history and what led her to explore this problem and where history goes from here. They end their conversation looking at one particularly fascinating woman—Gene Gauntier—who beat out Pearl White and Helen Holmes as the first serial star by playing a cross-dressing confederate spy. A not to be missed discussion! Plus, Peter delivers some thoughts on a rediscovered and restored British drama exploring the Jamaican diaspora. 

0:00–4:22 Opening
5:14–10:30 Establishing Shots — Franco Rosso's Babylon
11:16–51:53 Deep Focus — Jane Gaines
52:53–56:54 Sponsorship Section
57:19–1:06:52 Double Exposure — The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg (Gene Gauntier)
1:06:57–1:09:58 Close / Outtake

Episode #112 — Maya Montañez Smukler (Old Boyfriends)

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"This is a book about a specific moment where second wave feminism

and 1970s Hollywood intersect and how that unique historical

intersection impacted women directors."

In a time of Easy Riders and Raging Bulls, the opportunities for directors of New Hollywood to make ambitious, artistic, and socially conscious movies blossomed in a way the industry had never allowed—but those outside the categories of white and male had a different story. But despite the gender disparity, sixteen daring women broke through. Some of their names are known; others in need of rediscovery. Either way, UCLA's Maya Montañez Smukler saw her goal to tell their narratives, showing how the rise of second wave feminism started the fight against the industry's sexism that continues today. In this wide ranging interview, Maya discusses her early history working for women-focused cinema organizations and how that eventually led to her book Liberating Hollywood. Peter and Maya explore the legal and cultural bookends that make up her project, and contextualize these directors in both their moment and ours. Finally, the two dive into Old Boyfriends, a truly oddball debut feature from Nashville screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury with a screenplay by Taxi Driver's Paul Schrader and an all-star cast.

0:00–3:36 Opening
4:21–1:05:42 Deep Focus — Maya Montañez Smukler
1:06:34–1:2:05 Sponsorship Section
1:12:45–1:27:34 Double Exposure — Old Boyfriends (Joan Tewkesbury)
1:27:39–1:29:29 Close / Outtake

2018 Countdown With Keith Uhlich (Part 2)

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It's easy to claim art serves a purpose, but what exactly is that purpose? How do artists and critics reckon with the images, ideas, and worlds they've created—for better and worse? If art only builds a monument to itself, what value does that hold? In the second part of Peter and Keith Uhlich's look back at the year 2018 in movies, these questions come to the forefront. It's not just what art is but how it strikes us, how it is purposed (or repurposed), and how it becomes part of a dialogue. Though covering just one year of cinema, a list that expands back over a century. The big surprise: who topped their list with film and who topped it with television? Surprises abound in this invigorating discussion.

0:00–2:41 Opening
2:41–26:34 Picks for #5
26:34–41:40 Picks for #4
41:40–1:00:41 Picks for #3
1:01:20–1:03:59 Sponsorship Section
1:04:47–1:27:08 Picks for #2
1:27:08–1:30:02 Guest Picks
1:30:02–1:59:56 Picks for #1
1:59:56–2:04:39 Wrap Up 
2:05:36–2:08:35 Close / Outtake

2018 Countdown With Keith Uhlich (Part 1)

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Witches, Worship, and White People: Oh my! Keith Uhlich returns for another year of counting down films, television, and other media of 2018 in this Part 1 of 2. The choices remain as eclectic as always, but the spirit of debate shifts toward not just what constitutes not just what cinema is but when it is (2017? 1972? Who Knows!)—part of the larger flux in our ever expanding digital world. Each challenges the other for a statement of principals to understand not just what films get made and who gets to make them, throwing wrenches into questions surrounding the systems that hold the keys and the role of representation on screen. Strap on (!) in for another series of conversations on what might not be the best films of the year, but the ones that engaged us most into a winding conversation.

0:00-2:52 Opening
2:52-27:04 Picks for #10
27:04-50:21 Picks for #9
51:08-55:07 Sponsorship Section
55:29-1:21:01 Picks for #8
1:21:01-1:43:53 Picks for #7
1:43:53-2:05:26 Picks for #6
2:06:02-2:06:35 Wrap Up 
2:06:44 -2:08:52 Close / Outtake