Undercurrent. 5.

By David Hudson on 05/10/2009

Introducing a mammoth special section in the new issue of Undercurrent, "FIPRESCI's magazine of film criticism," on a monumental director, John Ford - 18 authors on on 18 films! - editor Chris Fujiwara reminds us of "the ethical imperative in Ford's work: the need to answer with a clear and realistic seeing the demand of the real to be seen."

This is an event, people. What we have here is a book-length collection of essays by some of the best writers on film working today, addressing some of the most important American films ever made, and it's free-fallen right onto our hard drives. There'd be little point in my reproducing the table of contents, helpfully arranged according to the chronological order of the films, as you can see it with a click right here, but just to emphasize the urgent need for you to bookmark or otherwise make note of this collection, the contributors in (admittedly less helpful alphabetical order) are: Sam Adams, Ronald Bergan, Eleanor Ringel Cater, Jean-Pierre Coursodon, Chris Fujiwara, Toshi Fujiwara, AS Hamrah, Shigehiko Hasumi, Richard T Jameson, Blake Lucas, Miguel Marías, Adrian Martin, Geoffrey O'Brien, Fernando Martín Peña, Gregg Rickman, Dan Sallitt, David Sterritt and James Verniere.

Also in this issue: Chris Fujiwara exchanges email with Gerald Peary. The occasion, of course, is "For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism," but the questions are hardly of the softball variety.

Also, a report on the Jeonju International Film Festival, which "has established itself as a showcase for challenging films from around the world and, despite the greater draw of Pusan for Korean filmmakers, has sometimes managed to secure the premieres of worthy Korean independent films, while also putting its stamp on world cinema with the Jeonju Digital Project, which each year produces an omnibus of three shorts by well-known directors."

Jem Cohen's "Evening's Civil Twilight in Empires of Tin" is "as much music as it is film," writes Dana Linssen.

Klaus Eder justifiably sings the praises of the Edition Filmmuseum, noting, for one thing, that it's part of a general trend among film archives to make their collections available to eager viewers: "It's an astonishing, gratifying and welcome change in archive mentality, helped by digital technology - a technology which removes the difference between 'original' and 'copy' and which no longer knows the notion of an unique specimen." For another, Edition Filmmuseum DVDs are multilingual and "region-free and can therefore be played all over the world. The publishers obviously have no wish to subjugate the series to the mechanisms of the market but aim at open access everywhere."

In an excerpt from "The B List," Richard Corliss considers "Mona" (1970), "the first known feature-length film that integrated explicit sex into a fictional plot.... Whatever artistic daring 'Mona' required of its makers, the legal bravado was greater; they could all be arrested. But this scuzzy little fable, made in three days for five thousand dollars, had two unique achievements: it played in major US cities without being shut down by the police; and, for the very first of its kind, the movie was pretty good."

Eleanor Ringel Cater reviews Molly Haskell's "Frankly, My Dear: 'Gone with the Wind' Revisited," "likely the best book ever written about Scarlett, Melanie, Mammy, Rhett and the rest (aside from Margaret Mitchell's little effort)."

[Photo: John Ford]

Tags: Edition Filmmuseum, Gerald Peary, Gone With the Wind, Jem Cohen, John Ford, Molly Haskell, Undercurrent