Okay, to the point. I'll be short about this. Dušan Makavejev was the often controversial Yugoslavian director of the late sixties and early seventies, with his politico-pornographical essays Sweet Movie and WR, but he more or less vanished from sight after those films. He's been making films still in the 1990's, even though the results haven't been up there with his early films.
However, Manifesto from 1988 which I saw recently on the big screen is a very funny rendering of an Émile Zola short story, set in an unidentifed country just after the First World War, with people trying to kill the (hilariously stupid) king. It's full of sexual exhilaration and the film boasts with surreal ideas. It's incoherent, but always hilarious, with some good actors (Simon Callow, Eric Stoltz, Alfred Molina). It's not as experimental or as political as Makavejev's old films, but the fact that the lead woman in the film is very firm in getting her sexual satisfaction is enough for me to make the film political. Actually the erotic content, mixed with absurd comedy, with some mild domination thrown in, made me think of my own sleaze paperback, Lausteen himokämppä (and its sequel, which I, by the way, finished writing the other day).
What's interesting is that this was a Cannon Group film, produced by the Israeli duo of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. They made some artsy films, at least one by Robert Altman and possibly others. I don't have time to look for the other titles now...
As with such colleagues as the Weinsteins or Roger Corman, the Cannon guys weren't against Art (or "ott") if it would turn a buck...
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine pointed out that the Cannon guys produced Norman Mailer's TOUGH GUYS DON'T DANCE (artsy film if there ever was one) and Godard's supposedly horrendous KING LEAR (with Woody Allen! KING LEAR was also the film in which Tarantino said he's playing in, he thought no one would want to watch the whole film to make sure.)
ReplyDeleteI did a search on Menahem Golan in IMDb, and boy what a mixed bag of stuff he had been involved in. There are some legendary turkeys such as the DEATH WISH sequels, COBRA, and BOLERO in there. But also RUNAWAY TRAIN, MARIA'S LOVERS and even a John Cassavetes documentary.
ReplyDeleteTOUGH GUYS DON'T DANCE the movie is way better than the novel, btw. Larry Tierney steals the show.
So he had more unprofitable films than Roger Corman? Schmuck!
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