new films?

trumbology

Interesting. I post a bit of what Jack pointed to:

"Another musical biopic in the works is ''Django,'' about jazz's greatest guitarist, Django Reinhardt. Director Frank Marshall tells Variety that Reinhardt is, indirectly, the reason he grew up in the film business. He says that listening to the Gypsy guitarist on the radio in the 1930s inspired his father, Jack Marshall, to become a musician and move to Hollywood; the elder Marshall eventually wrote the guitar-driven theme song to ''The Munsters'' and is credited with the famous arrangement of Peggy Lee's ''Fever.'' Writing the screenplay will be Janus Cercone, who spent two years tracking down Reinhardt's son to acquire the movie rights and got him to sign two days before he died. [This would be Babik in 2001 I assume, not Lousson in 1992?--NH] Marshall has produced dozens of movies, but his most recently released feature as a director was 1995's gorilla thrilla ''Congo,'' while Cercone's last produced screenplay was ''Ed,'' the baseball-playing-chimp movie that nipped Matt LeBlanc's film career in the bud. How the filmmakers' expertise with monkeys will play out in a music biopic remains to be seen."

No mention of M. Dregni or his biography. I hope he's going to see some Hollywood green come his way, I think he deserves it.

A nice biographical article (by Eugene Chadbourne, no less!) on Jack Marshall is on allmusic.com

Evidently he was tight with Howard Roberts, and they formed the group "Guitars Unlimited."

Howard Roberts retired to my neck of the woods, and now teaches us rubes in central North Carolina. And Eugene Chadbourne lives a little further down the road from me and Howard, in Greensboro. Today, everything is connected. Maybe it's Halloween.

nwilkins

thank you thank you thank you everyone for not bringing up the dreaded question in relation to this topic

Jack

nwilkins wrote:

thank you thank you thank you everyone for not bringing up the dreaded question in relation to this topic

Without actually asking anything, can I just say two words? David Suchet.




Sorry, Nick!
Best,
Jack.

trumbology

Methinks there is either a hilariious in-joke behind this veiled reference, or Nick's dreaded question involves Adolf.

But David Suchet.

IMDB seems to indicate fame moslty for playing an Agatha Christie detective.

I don't have enough Hercule Poirot in me myselft to figure out how Suchet and a Django biopic might intersect. Oh, well.

nwilkins

damn you Jack! Trumbology you are thinking too meanginfully about the film to get Jack's reference. Let's just say the dreaded question involves Bireli, Tchavolo, Johnny Depp and for some reason always Leonardo DiCaprio.

trumbology

nwilkins wrote:

damn you Jack! Trumbology you are thinking too meanginfully about the film to get Jack's reference. Let's just say the dreaded question involves Bireli, Tchavolo, Johnny Depp and for some reason always Leonardo DiCaprio.

For some reason, when I posted last, the Suchet pictures weren't loading in my browser.

Now that I see them, Alles ist klar. He's perfect.

Ando

Jack wrote: "To my mind, it can get dangerous to start looking for 'themes' in a life-it becomes all too easy to overlook the life itself."

Well, sure. Look, we're having a very old argument that has no resolution. You're taking the view that Django's bio (Nature) is enough to sustain an interesting story. The old answer (of Art) to this is "rubbish." Life and Nature have no shape, no story. In a film, you've only got 90 minutes, so you are forced to select. Selection is de facto distortion. So my view is that some sort of idea has to govern the selection, or you end up with randomness. Of course, the film might just end up a picaresque with no governing theme(s) or idea(s). I suppose that could be interesting, but probably only interesting for isolated vignettes.

Consider Tony Gatlif's films. He seems to be interested most in the relations of insiders and outsiders, and these films have conventional "plots." But let's think about his most famous film, which is of another type entirely. What makes "Latcho Drom" so compelling is that it's picaresque (following wanderers) without being random: it has shape. That shape comes from its consciously following certain kinds of themes, such as the ritual function of gypsy music, its capacity to transmute what it encounters, its universal roots in joy and togetherness. There are also other craft-related elements that give it coherence: stitching visual motifs through the film, such as water.

(I'd be most interested to see a movie about Django done by Gatlif, BTW.)

A successful movie about Django has to think in these terms. It has to come to grips with the large resonances of Django's life and to be daring and audacious in its cinematography. In short, it has to approach film the way Django approached music. It's still an interesting question to discuss: what would that sort of film look like?

Cheers,
Ando

Jack

Ando,

Right on. What I'm talking about is the situation where Django ends up "representing" something to a director (be it 'Freedom', or 'Innocence', or what have you) and the details of his life cherry-picked to serve that vision, leaving you with a one-dimensional character being used to make a bigger point. I've nothing against art (art school degree, arthouse cinema manager), I swear!

Ando wrote:

In a film, you've only got 90 minutes, so you are forced to select. Selection is de facto distortion. So my view is that some sort of idea has to govern the selection, or you end up with randomness.

Like you say, you've only got 90m, and of course you have to choose, and that very act has its own consequences. So yes, some idea has to lead you to choose what you choose-my thought is simply that the life itself has enough of an narrative arc (complete with dramatic beginning/ending already in place) that it itself will suggest what to include.

Best,
Jack.

Ando

Jack,

LOL Please tell me that Mr. Art-House Cinema Guy doesn't want a straight biopic with all the major "life episodes" arranged from beginning to end!

*sound of forehead hitting the keyboard followed by involuntary snoring*
*desperate invocation of the muses*

All right then, what's the opening scene, maestro?

a) Liberchies, Belgium, in a roulotte. The sound of screaming and birdsong. Steam and hot water, white towels, women keeping men outside, at bay. A baby boy pulled fresh and wakeful from his mother's womb because there was no room at the inn, and they didn't want an inn, anyway. Close-up of the infant's eyes, which... open.

b) A young man rushes up stairs in an artist's studio in southern France. Sunlight through the windows. Oranges on a table. He's carrying a Louis Armstrong record. He puts the record on a turntable, cranks it up, and after a minute, a man suddenly sits upright in bed and cries "Ach, moune!"

c) War-time Paris. Night. Boots marching outside. A small group of guitarists awake and try to rouse their companion, presumably to avoid detection. The sound of knocking on the door. General alarm. They carry their companion, who is still largely asleep, into a waiting car, and speed off to a cafe, where they disembark and put a guitar in his hands. He's now fully awake, and plays masterfully in his nightshirt.

Clearly, we have options.

Cheers,
Ando

djangology

That's right...I seem to remember it was one of the producers-Frank Marshall, who was also involved with the movie Swing Kids-who wanted to do the film. This is dated just yesterday:

http://www.ew.com/ew/allabout/0,9930,43 ... 0_,00.html

Jack, your onto something here. I know that Claire Danes went at least once to see Stephane Wrembel perform at Barbes. (Notice that the link you provide above also has a link to Claire. coincidence?)