Thom Andersen's THE THOUGHTS THAT ONCE WE HAD debuts at Anthology Film Archives

Noted documentarian Thom Andersen calls his new work, THE THOUGHTS THAT ONCE WE HAD, "a personal history of cinema." Boy, is it ever. It is also, as will come as no surprise to those who love Andersen's work -- his Los Angeles Plays Itself, which I just watched for the second time in preparation for covering his new film, still holds up as the best documentary I've ever seen about my own home town -- so full of ideas, connections and sheer love of cinema that it should prove irresistible to any cinephile. Another terrific film of his, Red Hollywood, along with the rest of his work, will be shown during an Andersen retrospective that opens this Friday, June 3, at Anthology Film Archives in New York City.

Andersen, shown above, is smart and fast, bouncing around from film to film, period to period, in somewhat chronological order. He credits as his major inspiration (and quotes freely from) a French philosopher named Gilles Deleuze, whose work I do not know. (After seeing and enjoying Andersen's film, in which Deleuze is heavily used, I should find out more about this fellow and his writing.)

What, for TrustMovies, makes the documentary most unusual is that so many of the film clips used are new to me. They're not at all what I'm used to seeing. And even when they are sometimes better known, the way Andersen presents and juxtaposes them makes for thought-provoking, troubling and intellectually stimulating viewing.

From the silents, with their reflective faces (above and below), through talkies and into color (and finally a whiff or two of the musical), the filmmaker whisks us along. Suddenly we're seeing the bombing of North Korea ("No repentance. Not even an acknowledgment"), along with Hiroshima and Vietnam. "Did we have it in for the yellow race?" Andersen wonders. "The past," he notes, "must be redeemed." As always with this filmmaker, the sense of justice deferred comes across mightily.

We see Hitler visiting a conquered Paris and Maurice Chevalier singing Sweeping the Clouds Away. If only. There's a comparison of Hank Ballard and Chubby Checker and their Twists, and then a good portion devoted to the various types of comedy -- from Harry Langdon to Laurel & Hardy and The Marx Brothers.

Ah -- then we view some crime, which is so often "delivered up as a gift." And horror. And an odd-but-endearing tribute to a little know (by me, anyway) actor named Timothy Carey. And Brando, of course. Do you know who was Ludwig Wittgenstein's favorite actress? (I'm not telling: You'll have to see this film to find out.) We do see those amazing clips of Jack Smith's favorite star, Maria Montez.

Andersen himself owns up to loving Debra Paget (above) best of all. So did I, actually, along with early Joan Collins. (I thought Ms Paget was so gorgeous and sexy that I've often wondered why I didn't turn out a bit straighter.)  I'd also never seen the clip he uses of Paget dancing in a costume that seems awfully racy for its time.

The Thoughts That Once We Had grows ever better, crazier and more rapturous as it goes along. That search for justice continues, too. I think we even view, toward the end, Austrian journalist/novelist Joseph Roth reading in German? (No, it's not: See the welcome comment below this post.) And Christina Rossetti gets one of the last words -- if not the last visual.  Just as with Los Angeles Plays Itself and my favorite Demy, The Young Girls of Rochefort, I'll want to see this film again in a few years. Probably every few years. What a movie documentarian Mr. Andersen is!

His newest work, along with a retrospective of his other films, opens this Friday, June 3 and runs through Sunday, June 12, in New York City at Anthology Film Archives. You can find the complete schedule by clicking here. Los Angeles Plays Itself, by the way, is also available for DVD rental at Netflix. For awhile you could even stream it, though that option is no longer currently open. Maybe it'll come back again at some point. Meanwhile, get to AFA for a very good time in an intelligent, thought-provoking movieland. 

At the FSLC--Thom Andersen & Noël Burch's RED HOLLYWOOD: a different twist on that "blacklist"

TrustMovies has never seen anything quite like the documentary that opens for a week's theatrical run this Friday in New York City at the Film Society of Lincoln Center as the lead-in to a program entitled Red Hollywood and the Blacklist. The filmmakers -- Thom Andersen (at right, of Los Angeles Plays Itself) and Noël Burch (below) -- explain to us right upfront that theirs is a "compilation film about the film work created by victims of the Hollywood Blacklist to isolate their contribution to Hollywood cinema. It is not about their politics or their martyrdom. Credits are limited to screenwriters and directors."

Called simply RED HOLLY-WOOD, and running two hours, what a compilation this is! Beginning with a scene from Big Jim McLain, the John Wayne/James Arness-starrer celebrating the House Un-American Activities Committee, and ending with a series of films starring John Garfield in which filmmakers the likes of Robert Rossen and Abraham Polonsky were involved, Andersen and Burch show us shafts of and snippets from, by my count, nearly 50 films -- from the 1930s through the early 50s. Most important, I think, is how they have divided up their enormous content: into themes such as Myth, Class, The Sexes, WWII, The Holocaust, Race, Religion, Crime and, finally, showing us how movies were presented and perceived during the actual time of the blacklist.

This last and rather short section was one of the documentary's most eye-opening for me -- learning how so many women were shown as villains in these films, while, suddenly, informers often played the heroes. What? Yes.

You may be, as was I, brought up short by this alternate view of a film classic like On the Waterfront. And then, of course, you realize that this film was written by Budd Schulberg and directed by Elia Kazan: HUAC informers both.

The other great source of pleasure, as well as education, to be found in the documentary comes from hearing and seeing how political ideas and notions crept (or were sometimes smashed) into movies of all stripes -- from soap operas to musicals. Watching this great compilation, you cannot come out of it unmoved by this look at the progressive ideas that so many of Hollywood's writers and directors had during these times. (The shot below is from Marked Woman, co-written by Rossen.

Yet another blast of bleak humor is found in seeing how American films looked -- depending on what was happening over there -- at Russia during this extended period: first as helper and savior and then as the unalloyed source of all evil.

Watching the documentary should have you jotting down some little known movies you'll want to see, while realizing that perhaps you need to take a look at some of the others for a second time, now that your consciousness has been, well, raised a bit.

The film also includes interviews with some of the writers -- Polonsky, Paul Jarrico, Alfred Lewis Levitt (who co-wrote The Boy With Green Hair, above) among them -- who worked during this time and were still alive when Andersen and Burch shot the film in 1996. Mr. Polonsky is a lot of fun. At one point, discussing the making of crime movies, he explains, "All films about crime are about Capitalism. At least, that's what I used to think. Now, I'm convinced."

Red Hollywood makes a terrific entryway into this entire series, all the films of which can be found by clicking here. It's an odd array -- Zulu? Well, director Cy Endfield was one of the blacklisted -- but an interesting one, featuring several films you probably have not ever seen. Here's your chance, and up on the big screen for a change.

The week-long run of Red Hollywood, with the other series films wedged in between, can be seen at either of two of the FSLC's several theaters: Saturday, August 16, and Wednesday, August 20, the film will show at the Francesca Beale Theater; all remaining days of its Friday, August 15, through Thursday, August 21 run, it will play at the larger Walter Reade Theater.  Special note: there will be a personal appearance and Q&A with filmmaker Thom Andersen at the Walter Reade on Friday, August 15, at 6:30pm, and on Saturday, August 16, at 6:15pm at the Francesca Beale. You can access the FSLC's site and purchase your tickets by clicking here.

It's back -- and (evidently) better than ever! Thom Andersen's LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF

I'm told that, for his newly remastered version of the now-fabled LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF (not to be confused with Fred Halsted's famous porno hit, LA Plays Itself, which is actually given some prime space in this film), filmmaker Thom Andersen (shown below) has replaced most of its old VHS clips with hi-def source material, dropping certain sections, lengthening others and re-editing the whole shebang. All of what's new would be lost on TrustMovies, however, because I never got to see the original version. As soon as I heard about this film, which is just now celebrating its 10th anniversary, I stuck it on my Netflix queue -- and waited. I'm still waiting. So thank god for this second and very timely theatrical release.

Evidently (and I am guessing on this), due to the amazing amount of clips from other films that are used in this documentary and the consequent problems with "rights and permissions," the film never made its way onto DVD. More than a shame, this seems almost criminal, considering how terrific the film is in every way, particularly, I think, for anyone who truly knows and appreciates Los Angeles -- even folk, like me, who don't much care for the place. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, then returned in my adulthood to live and work there for another decade. So I feel I can assess the city pretty well. And since Mr. Andersen and I were born only two years apart, I expect we know L.A. in somewhat the same way. (I, too, remember the original Angels Flight, below.)

What Andersen has given us is not only one of the best documentaries I've yet seen on movies, it is also the best about Los Angeles and where and how the city and the movies intersect. The filmmaker's narration (beauti-fully voiced by Encke King) -- Andersen wrote, produced and directed this film -- is wonderfully literate, thoughtful, funny, incisive, with loads of specifics, some of which you may already know but most you will not.

Here's one: L.A.'s Union Station (left) has played a kind of "everystation" in films, even once -- in The Replacement Killers -- playing the L.A. airport.

When it comes to architecture, the documentarian also shows us -- rightly, I think -- how Hollywood films tend to quite unfairly "trash" the modern, making it so often the home, as in L.A. Confidential, below, of villains and sleaze.

Mr. Andersen loves movies, it is clear, and I think he also loves Los Angeles, but he is quite aware of the city's history (his section on its public transit system, example below, is eye-opening, offering a less simplistic look than we got from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), its notorious police department, and the Hollywood "Walk of Shame" (as he calls that cruddy, stars-in-the-pavement "Walk of Fame").

His opinions are sometimes jolting and funny: "People who hate Los Angeles love Point Blank." (Hey, I don't like either!) And I hope he will forgive me for using the shortened name of L.A., which he evidently despises, rather than constantly having to type out the full Los Angeles moniker. Yet his tastes and wit help make this movie -- a love letter to this city if ever there was one -- both sharp and endearing, a kind of personal history of public places and things.

Andersen's look at a famous Los Angeles hotel (above) and its use in movies is gorgeous, sometimes bizarre fun. And his observation on Hollywood movie bathrooms in the '50s (no toilets!) is something I never noticed till now. He also notes in passing how Hollywood does love to destroy Hollywood via its own disaster movies.

After showing us moments from The Outside Man, Andersen takes on movies' "tourism" and divides this into what he calls high and low tourism, with Woody Allen and Alfred Hitchcock examples of (this may surprise you) the latter, while the Jacques, Deray and Demy, excel at the former (Deray with The Outside Man and Demy with his Model Shop (above).

The filmmaker also gives us an hilarious "take" on Sunset Boulevard and a very different, intelligent and provocative look at Blade Runner. From L.A. Confidential, we move to cop stories like Dragnet (that's TV, mostly, though several movies were made from the series) and Altman's Short Cuts. (Notes Andersen: "Condescending directors know only a few parts of this city.")

There is so much more here (for one, where L.A.'s water comes from and its somewhat wrongly understood connection to Chinatown, above), and we see again some wonderful city landmarks like the Pan Pacific auditorium and the Richfield Building.

Los Angeles Plays Itself is three hours long. Yet I sat and watched it through, end to end, and then so besotted with all the movies and facts and surprises and opinions and more, all that I wanted to do was immediately see it again, if only to straighten out certain confusions and wrap myself in its pleasures once more.

Along the way, you will note in Andersen's narration a persistent streak of, well, a kind of call for justice -- from the movies, from the city. Our filmmaker is a good progressive thinker, with an eye and ear for all the people of L.A. His finale is unequivocally socialist and egalitarian, angry and moving. Along the way, we hear of Kent Mackenzie's perhaps over-rated but still important film, The Exiles (above), and now we get Billy Woodbury's Bless Their Little Hearts (below) and Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep. It's a fitting finale for a film this inclusive, this important, this... great.

My apologies to Thom Andersen and to Harris Dew at IFC for getting this post up late. Los Angeles Plays Itself opened yesterday here in NYC at the IFC Center, where it will play through January 9th and where it deserves to find a huge audience. I hope it will play elsewhere around the country, and this time also find its way to DVD. If anyone out there knows more about playdates for the film and/or a possible DVD release, please alert me and I will add that info to this post.