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Ray Carney's Mailbag -- This section of the site contains letters written to Prof. Carney by students and artists, announcements of news, events, and screenings, and miscellaneous observations about life and art by Ray Carney. Letters and notices submitted by readers are in black. Prof. Carney's responses, observations, and recommendations are in blue. Note that Prof. Carney receives many more letters and announcements than he can possibly include on the site. The material on these pages has been selected as being that which will be the most interesting, inspiring, useful, or informative to site readers. Click on the first page (via the links at the top or bottom of the page) to read an explanation of this material, why it is being posted, and how this relatively small selection was made from among the tens of thousands of messages Prof. Carney has received.

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Subject: Tarkovsky's diaries

Prof. Carney:

I just found a great website with The Tarkovsky Diaries (Martyrolog)!

"...shed much new light on Tarkovsky's creative process, how he worked with others, and what his opinions were on other directors, actors, movies, etc..."

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheDiaries.html

Excerpts on: The Witch, The Sacrifice, St. Anthony, Hamlet, The 1983 American Visit and Tempo di viaggio.

Your devoted student,

Robert Jameson, Jr.

Dear Ray Carney:

Thank you for all you do for filmmakers. It is very inspirational. I compiled quotes from many of the directors listed in the Viewing Recommendations.  You can call this contribution your "guest speakers", in the spirit of the apprentice system!

Jane Rivera

RC replies: I love some of these quotes. Thank you very much, Jane. I'm sure others will be thanking you too. We're all apprentices, all amateurs, all students. Only fools think they are beyond those stages --RC

The Filmmakers Speak Out

“Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me." – Federico Fellini

“Juxtaposing a person with an environment that is boundless, collating him with a countless number of people passing by close to him and far away, relating a person to the whole world, that is the meaning of cinema." – Andrei Tarkovsky

“Tarkovsky is for me the greatest, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream." – Ingmar Bergman

“An old thing becomes new if you detach it from what usually surrounds it." – Robert Bresson

“Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing." – Robert Bresson

"Films can only be made by by-passing the will of those who appear in them, using not what they do, but what they are." – Robert Bresson

"In the NUDE, all that is not beautiful is obscene." – Robert Bresson

"Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen." – Robert Bresson

"Model. Two mobile eyes in a mobile head, itself on a mobile body." – Robert Bresson

"My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water." – Robert Bresson

"The most ordinary word, when put into place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine." – Robert Bresson

"When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best - that is inspiration." – Robert Bresson

“Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls." – Ingmar Bergman

"I hope I never get so old I get religious." – Ingmar Bergman

"I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images." – Ingmar Bergman

"Art is a sense of magic." – Stan Brakhage

“A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something." – Frank Capra

“Compassion is a two way street." – Frank Capra

"Do not help the quick moneymakers who have delusions about taking possession of classics by smearing them with paint." – Frank Capra

"Film is one of the three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music." – Frank Capra

"I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries." – Frank Capra

"In our film profession you may have Gable's looks, Tracy's art, Marlene's legs or Liz's violet eyes, but they don't mean a thing without that swinging thing called courage." – Frank Capra

"My advice to young film-makers is this: don't follow trends, Start them!" – Frank Capra

"Scriptwriting is the toughest part of the whole racket... the least understood and the least noticed." – Frank Capra

"Whenever a situation develops to its extreme, it is bound to turn around and become its opposite." – Frank Capra

"A different language is a different vision of life." – Federico Fellini

"All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography." – Federico Fellini

"Censorship is advertising paid by the government." – Federico Fellini

"It is only when I am doing my work that I feel truly alive." – Federico Fellini

"You exist only in what you do." – Federico Fellini

“A lot of poets too live on the margins of social acceptance, they certainly aren't in it for the money. William Blake - only his first book was legitimately published." – Jim Jarmusch

“Hopefully, if not it's not working right. I'm like a navigator and I try to encourage our collaboration and find the best way that will produce fruit. I like fruit. I like cherries, I like bananas. “– Jim Jarmusch

"I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are." – Jim Jarmusch

“I did not expect Dead Man to be a commercial success. But I wanted it handled in a classy way. And it was handled, as one critic put it, with tongs by Miramax. This was insulting to me and, ultimately, I felt punished. “ – Jim Jarmusch

“I like doing them and they're ridiculous and the actors can improvise a lot, and they don't have to be really realistic characters that hit a very specific tone as in a feature film. They're really fun, I want to make more of them definitely." – Jim Jarmusch

"I like to rehearse with the actors scenes that are not in the script and will not be in the film because what we're really doing is trying to establish their character, and good acting to me is about reacting." – Jim Jarmusch

“I love rehearsing because in rehearsals there are no mistakes, nothing is wrong, some things apply or lead you to focus on the character and the things that don't apply are equally valuable because they lead you to towards what does." – Jim Jarmusch

"I start with actors that I know personally or I know their work, and there are things about their work or their presence or their own personality that make a character, that exaggerates some qualities and suppresses other qualities. It's always a real collaboration for me." – Jim Jarmusch

"I started working with friends of mine and that, to some degree, continues." – Jim Jarmusch

"I think it comes from really liking literary forms. Poetry is very beautiful, but the space on the page can be as affecting as where the text is. Like when Miles Davis doesn't play, it has a poignancy to it." – Jim Jarmusch

"I think of poets as outlaw visionaries in a way." – Jim Jarmusch

“I think that Dante was hip-hop culture because he wrote in vernacular Italian, and at the time that was unheard of; people wrote in Latin or Petrach wrote in high Italian, and so Dante was talking street stuff." – Jim Jarmusch

"I wanted to make an Indian character who wasn't either a) the savage that must be eliminated, the force of nature that's blocking the way for industrial progress, or b) the noble innocent that knows all and is another cliché. I wanted him to be a complicated human being." – Jim Jarmusch

"I was interested formally from literature and musical structures. I don't remember exactly where it came from. At that time, I was also inspired by very formally pure films, films by Carl Dreyer or Bresson." – Jim Jarmusch

“I was writing prose poems, but they were starting to echo not film scripts, but descriptions of scenes in a cinematic way." – Jim Jarmusch

"I'd wanted to be a writer and when I came back to New York worked as a musician too, but I found my writing starting to get more and more referential to cinema." – Jim Jarmusch

"I'm not a director who says, ‘Say your line, hit your mark’, that's not my style. I want them to work with me and everyone I choose to collaborate with elevates our work above what I could imagine on my own." – Jim Jarmusch

“If you go into a bar in most places in America and even say the word poetry, you'll probably get beaten up. But poetry is a really strong, beautiful form to me, and a lot of innovation in language comes from poetry." – Jim Jarmusch

"If you think about taking a taxi, it's something insignificant in your daily life; in a film when someone takes a taxi, you see them get in, then there's a cut, then you see them get out. So in a way the content of this film is made up of things that would usually be taken out." – Jim Jarmusch

"In real life, if you're at a table with four people, you don't know which one is going to speak next, it's not scripted in that way, so if you can work with the actor to get to a place where they are confident in their character, then you let their character react to the scene that you're filming." – Jim Jarmusch

“Instead of sending it to the school for tuition, they sent it directly to me, so I spent it on the budget of the film." – Jim Jarmusch

“It was a really interesting time in New York in the late 70s and early 80s, and the music scene was really, really interesting because you didn't have to be a virtuoso to make music, it was more about your desire to express things." – Jim Jarmusch

"Language can be abstracted, language can be used as a very beautiful code in poetry, the nuances and the multiple meanings of things, it has a music to it. It has so many things in it. It is also reduced from prose and therefore can be both mathematical, or very, very abstract." – Jim Jarmusch

"Laughter is good for your spirit and Oscar Wilde said: ‘Life is far too important to be taken seriously,’ which is a quote I really love and I feel that way about the work as well." – Jim Jarmusch

“Poets are always ahead of things in a certain way, their sense of language and their vision." – Jim Jarmusch

"So what you do is work with each actor individually to find out ‘How can I work with this person, how can the two of us collaborate?’ and it's always that there's a different way. Different actors have different strengths." – Jim Jarmusch

"That period was really, really important, because there were a lot of different artists - musicians, film-makers - that had this "make-it-in-the-garage" aesthetic that was really inspiring and really good." – Jim Jarmusch

"The intention was to shoot short films that can exist as shorts independently, but when I put them all together, there are things that echo through them like the dialogue repeats; the situation is always the same, the way they're shot is very simple and the same." – Jim Jarmusch

"What I did was I completed the half-hour film, but before really showing it, I wrote two more sections for a potential feature film which I didn't think would really happen, but at least I had it in case." – Jim Jarmusch

“When I left Ohio when I was 17 and ended up in New York and realised that not all films had the giant crab monsters in them, it really opened up a lot of things for me." – Jim Jarmusch

“Film-makers should remain true to their principles and never compromise, there is a real revival in the British film industry but there is a danger that we will become colonial servants of Hollywood. We need to maintain our own integrity." – Mike Leigh

"I am not concerned with making esoteric, obscure kinds of films. These are films that can share and talk to anybody about real things." – Mike Leigh

"I've derived a lot of pleasure and education from the theatre. It's great when audiences really enjoy it. It's part of my life." – Mike Leigh

"It creeps up on you and becomes an obsession. It comes out of watching a million movies." – Mike Leigh

"The good thing from my perspective is that nobody puts any pressure on me to say what it's going to be. The backers accept that they don't know what they are going to get." – Mike Leigh

"The whole thing about making films in an organic film on location is that it's not all about characters, relationships and themes, it's also about place and the poetry of place. It's about the spirit of what you find, the accidents of what you stumble across." – Mike Leigh

"There is a popular misconception that film-makers have to look to Hollywood to be commercially successful but this is how we have been conditioned." – Mike Leigh

"There's a constant drip and trickle of life that goes into one's awareness really and consciousness of things." – Mike Leigh

“A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again." –Jean Renoir

“I've lost all my money on these films. They are not commercial. But I'm glad to lose it this way. To have for a souvenir of my life pictures like Umberto D. and The Bicycle Thief." – Vittorio DeSica

"Moral indignation in most cases is, 2% moral, 48% indignation, and 50% envy." – Vittorio DeSica

“A load of cinematic effects that otherwise seem easy or cheap to me suddenly become difficult again... can't you hear that this is the only right way of doing it?" – Lars Von Trier

"Actors need bricks to play with, and in fact we rejected all the improvised fragments we had made without a plan. Improvisation without a plan is like tennis without tennis balls." – Lars Von Trier

"Before, I worked with a storyboard, and that meant that the image wasn't good. There was a lot of things that you had to live up to." – Lars Von Trier

"But if it means that people who used to be limited by a notion of how a proper film should be, if those people now feel that they can make film - then I find that has a certain quality to it." – Lars Von Trier

Evil gives you far more strings to pull. But I must say that I have never been interested in the psychology of evil, not in the slightest. Perhaps I'm not interested in evil, but in the dark sides of human beings." – Lars Von Trier

"For me as a director, it is extremely fun trying to add the music on the spot. Especially the moment when the music sets in and the emotional chords are engaged, is a very important means of expression." – Lars Von Trier

"I also wanted t do a film with a religious motif, a film about miracles. At the same time, I wanted to do a completely naturalistic film." – Lars Von Trier

"I always do something that I've never done before." – Lars Von Trier

"I encouraged the cast to make up their own lines." – Lars Von Trier

"I enjoy dialogue that leads to something more comical, and at the same time I like the added poignancy, too." – Lars Von Trier

"I give myself a task. This time, the task was to do a musical." – Lars Von Trier

"I grew up in a culturally radical home, where strong emotions were forbidden." – Lars Von Trier

"I had an almost fetishistic attraction to film technology." – Lars Von Trier

"I had to fight so much for the film. It was not very pleasant, but it's rewarding in another way. But it has not been pleasant." – Lars Von Trier

"I kind of have to see it through to the end, don't I? But at the same time it's also rather dull doing something for the second time, I must admit. I've never made anything twice in my life." – Lars Von Trier

"I prefer to work with unassailable ideas. And I wanted to do a film about goodness." – Lars Von Trier

"I sit there pouring out my woes year after year, coming up with one enormity after another about my mother and the way she let me down; but it doesn't make me any the less fearful." – Lars Von Trier

"I think it's important that we all try to give something to this medium, instead of just thinking about what is the most efficient way of telling a story or making an audience stay in a cinema." – Lars Von Trier

"I think technology right now is great, because it makes filming so easy, you know." – Lars Von Trier

"I would argue that the aesthetics in flattening out a scene completely are obsolete." – Lars Von Trier

"I'd toyed with a couple of ideas beforehand, but I hadn't written a single cue, and it was a wonderful feeling to just write away." – Lars Von Trier

"I'm much calmer. We had a lot of time problems going to Cannes. The print was ready one day before it was shown. Now I feel very good." – Lars Von Trier

"I've taken the circuitous path of being interested in people." – Lars Von Trier

"If Breaking the Waves had been rendered with a conventional technique, I don't think you could have tolerated the story." – Lars Von Trier

"If I made a musical in the beginning of my career, it would have been crane shots and tracking shots and people coming out of cakes and whatever, but these techniques are something that I've left behind me." – Lars Von Trier

"If one devalues rationality, the world tends to fall apart." – Lars Von Trier

"If you go on correcting a script, you may lose your enthusiasm. It almost happened in this process, too, when we spent ages changing scenes and moving back and forth; but in the end we returned to the original, and the final version of the film is very close to the script." – Lars Von Trier

"If you tell a man what to do in real life, to which extent is it reality and to which extent are you in control?" – Lars Von Trier

"In many ways I also have an understanding for-or rather, that people are engaged by spiritual questions and that they are so in an extreme manner. It is just that, if you want to create a melodrama, you have to furnish it with certain obstacles." – Lars Von Trier

"In many ways the six weeks of shooting was the most intense film experience I've ever had." – Lars Von Trier

"In the earlier films, it was a conscious decision not to be too close to the actors." – Lars Von Trier

"It felt important to find some actors who really had the enthusiasm to participate. And I think it feels as if the heart is in it among those we finally chose." – Lars Von Trier

"It is more difficult to manipulate with film than, for instance, video. The problem with video is that it gives you a thousand possibilities." – Lars Von Trier

"It should all come from the main character's idea that life is beautiful anywhere. It doesn't have to be light with spotlights and blue lights and slow motion or whatever, life is great anyway." – Lars Von Trier

"It was fun having a musician on the set and then having to communicate with him-it was a completely new discipline which I found interesting." – Lars Von Trier

"It's always been a lie that it's difficult to make films." – Lars Von Trier

"It's... a matter of making the actors responsible for their characters, so if they felt that their character would read a Donald Duck magazine, they would bring one themselves." – Lars Von Trier

"More than anything, there are more images in evil. Evil is based far more on the visual, whereas good has no good images at all." – Lars Von Trier

"My films have become highly moral recently." – Lars Von Trier

"My intention has not been to criticise a particular religious community. That doesn't interest me." – Lars Von Trier

"One morning I greeted the cast naked in the front drive and insisted that today was to be a nude day. No, we didn't have any nudity problems." – Lars Von Trier

"Only a fool does not fear actors, but you can't beat them, and if you can't beat them, join them, as they say. As I've got older I've become very interested in that part of the work." – Lars Von Trier

"Opera is more like melodrama. And the good thing about opera is that if you can accept that people sing instead of talk, then you don't have to go in and out of it. And that means you can have your emotions with you." – Lars Von Trier

"Regarding the rule about colour, that one was for me, because I have always felt it difficult to accept the way a colour film looks. I have always spent a lot of energy changing it one way or other, so I could bear looking at it, and therefore it was a wonderful rule for me." – Lars Von Trier

"The last year has been more full of fear than ever before... but on the personal level, each of my films is a little monument." – Lars Von Trier

"The members of my family that I've shown the film to have also been severely critical toward it." – Lars Von Trier

"The rule means - as I interpret it - that you are allowed to do nothing with the sound and picture after shooting: sound and picture hang together, and neither may be changed or moved afterwards." – Lars Von Trier

"There are two kinds of stamp - the dirty ones and the decent ones - but the dirty ones are just as good - I mean the ones you get for negative coverage or behaviour." – Lars Von Trier

"This way of working with actors that I have found now is normally a great pleasure, because it means giving a lot of freedom to some people-and to see them enjoy that freedom and to give to the project is usually very nice." – Lars Von Trier

"We had shot very long scenes, and no scene was like the other. The actors were allowed to move within the scene as they pleased, and they never needed to follow any determined action." – Lars Von Trier

"We had to turn up the colors in the dance sequences to make people feel that there were different levels of the film. I was not so fond of that, because it made the dancing more glamorous in a superficial way than what I really wanted, but it was necessary for the understanding of the two levels." – Lars Von Trier

"What is new for me is that a woman is at the centre of the story. All of Dreyer's films have a woman as the central character. And the suffering woman besides." – Lars Von Trier

"When I was in film school, it was said that all good films were characterised by some form of humour. – Lars Von Trier

"When we later cut down the scenes, our only thought was to increase the intensity in the performance, without regard as to whether the image is in focus." – Lars Von Trier

"You could say that when you introduce humour to your work, you also step back a little from it. You create a distance." – Lars Von Trier

“Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself." – Charlie Chaplin

“A day without laughter is a day wasted." – Charlie Chaplin

“We think too much and feel too little." – Charlie Chaplin

“Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain." – Charlie Chaplin

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." – Charlie Chaplin

“A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure." – Charlie Chaplin

“The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting." – Charlie Chaplin

“Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is 'elephant'." – Charlie Chaplin

“The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury." – Charlie Chaplin

“I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born." – Charlie Chaplin

“I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose." – Charlie Chaplin

 “That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head." – Charlie Chaplin

“All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman." – Charlie Chaplin

 “Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded." – Charlie Chaplin

 “To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!" – Charlie Chaplin

“That´s what all we are. Amateurs. We don´t live long enough to be anything else." – Charlie Chaplin

“Why should poetry have to make sense?" – Charlie Chaplin

“Billions of years it´s taken to evolve human conciousness and you want to wipe it out. Wipe out the miracle of all existence." – Charlie Chaplin

“That´s the trouble with the world. We all despise ourselves." – Charlie Chaplin

"Rarely has reality needed so much to be imagined." – Chris Marker

“To demand that color in color films should be "natural" is to misunderstand all that is involved" – Carl Dreyer

"I like to act in films, I like to shoot 'em, I like to direct 'em, I like to be around 'em. I like the feel of it and it's something I respect. It doesn't make any difference whether it's a crappy film or a good film. Anyone who can make a film, I already love. But I feel sorry if they don't put any thought in it because then they missed the boat." – John Cassavetes

"It's not really interesting to me, at least, to set up a camera angle. At some points in the filming you really want to take the camera and break it for no reason except that it's just an interference and you don’t know what to do with it." – John Cassavetes

"Most people don't know what they want or feel. And for everyone, myself included, Its very difficult to say what you mean when what you mean is painful. The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to... As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all, we must dare to fail. You must have the courage to be bad - to be willing to risk everything to really express it all." – John Cassavetes

"When I'm told that our films are painful, I think, oh God, I know real pain. We soften our pictures so tremendously. We make them almost romantic fantasies, and just barely touch on these things in a more idealistic way than other people do." – John Cassavetes

"Let's let people laugh at what they want to laugh at. Why shouldn't they laugh?... Listen. I've had people close to me die, and I giggled. No one is going to tell me about it. You can't tell me how I feel. You can't tell that... Its' healthy to laugh at somebody. Do you know why people don't laugh at people? Because they are too high and mighty to laugh, because if you laugh at somebody, you know you're going to have to be connected with them. You know that you are going to have to put some time in with them. You know that you are going to truly like those people. The truth of the matter is that nobody can afford to laugh at anybody. That's why some fucking psychologist comes along and says, 'Don't laugh at him.' When friends get together they laugh at each other. When enemies get together, no chance baby. No laughter" – John Cassavetes

"I've always been able to work with anybody that doesn't want success. Jazz musicians don't want success... They have these little tin weapons – they don’t shoot. They don't go anywhere. The jazz musician doesn't deal with the structured life - he just wants that night , like a kid."

"The secret of life is to do." – John Cassavetes

"You have to fight sophistication...it’s a trap, a kind of death." – John Cassavetes

"Film is an art, a beautiful art. It’s a madness that overcomes us...And the hope is that the audience will forget everything and that celluloid will change lives. That’s a preposterously presumptuous assumption, yet that’s the hope of every filmmaker." – John Cassavetes

A note about a new film from a former student of Prof. Carney's, who alludes to the title of a course Prof. Carney taught for many years: "Ways of Seeing."

hi ray

maybe it was the mention of "ways of seeing", but I thought of you as I read this article. I'm just back from 10 days of screenings at sundance, and about to embark on 10 more in Berlin. But, I think BLACK SUN was the best film I saw in years. I hope you get a chance to see it. Hope all's well.

David Nugent

Ray,

Some good news on an otherwise dreary day:

This month's Bright Lights Film Journal has just been published online. Are you at all familiar with the publication? It's certainly one of the better online film journals out there - meaning every once in a while some strong pieces get published.

There's a fine essay by Lesley Chow on Andrew Bujalski's movies. Probably the best I've read so far, and I've read almost all of them. Rather than simply hurling superlatives or digging for grand meanings embedded in the work, she tries to stay with its flow, focusing relentlessly on his uses of conversation. It's not altogether dissimilar from the style of some of your writings on Leigh and Cassavetes.

Here's the link: http://brightlightsfilm.com/55/bujalski.htm

Also, there's a nice interview with Abbas Kiarostami about his life and career. The questions he's asked aren't supremely interesting, but his reponses are.

Here's the link: http://brightlightsfilm.com/55/kiarostamitv.htm

Check them out; certainly a better use of your time than watching the Super Bowl.

Alex

Hello Professor Carney,

I am a person who has appreciated the films of John Cassavetes for many years. As you know, there was no other spirit and talent working in films quite like John Cassavetes. I would like to know if you have any information on where I could acquire any original and authentic film memorabilia from John's films (i.e. posters etc.) I would greatly appreciate your consideration and any possible help you offer me.

All the Best,

Ray

Ray,

I found out your complete name by looking at the return address in your email. It is "Raymond Ruggeri" and when I Googled it, I came up with "....Raymond Ruggeri, a Chicago-based film poster collector and dealer..." so have no interest in helping you. I've provided this sort of information numerous times to other so-called "collectors" (often taking hours or days to compile lists or locate sources for them--foolishly I now realize), and always felt myself "used and abused." In the end, I realized that there were irreconcilable differences in our approaches. I love movies, you love making money off them. I love collecting unique items in order to preserve the historical record, you love selling them to movie stars and other soulless collectors who hope they appreciate. I love the items because of their intrinsic value or beauty, you love re-selling them. I love them for their non-monetary value, you love them as an investment. Sorry, I have no desire to help you turn art into business. I won't be helping you.

Ray Carney

Ray,

You have to tell me (well you don't HAVE to) about the unknown film Cassavetes wrote and directed.

Can you tell me something about it, as much as you are willing?

Tristan

RC Replies:

My web site has everything I can publish. I don't dare put the details down given Gena's avowed belief that anything that is discovered after JC's death "was not intended to be shown in public." These were her exact words to me when I discovered the first version of Shadows. And her clear implication was that such works should be suppressed or destroyed. (She is still attempting to do this with the first version of Shadows.) So I would not be honoring John Cassavetes' memory if I turned this additional material over to her or told her enough about it that she would be able to confiscate it. But I am patient. As I told John himself several times when he was alive: I am in this not for money or fame, but for eternity.

All best wishes,

Ray Carney

What's wrong with film competitions category: Look at what they want and who they get to judge the entries. This is the world business creates. It's the only world business understands. And that's why we need art all the more--to critique it, to resist it, to combat it, to rise above it and go beyond it--to show us other ways of being and doing, other forms of knowing and feeling.--Ray Carney

From: "Taylor Choi" <taylor@blinkentertain.com>
Cc: <whatareyouin2films@blinkentertain.com>
Subject: Calvin Klein International Film School Competition

Dear BU Film Administrators,

We would like to remind you that our Calvin Klein International Film Competition deadline is this FRIDAY, FEB 9th.  Please be sure to remind your students to get involved before its too late!  The Top Ten Films will be viewed by a panel of celebrity judges from Bobby Director Emilio Estevez, For Your Consideration's Jennifer Coolidge and Factory Girl's Mena Suvari, and producer Evan Ferrante and other members of the film community and studio execs.

We would like you to send another remind to your film students to submit their 3 min shorts on "what they are in 2".

Thank you and we look forward to reviewing everyone's works.

what are you in2?
what turns you on?
what presses your buttons?

answer in a film
short film competition (up to 3 minutes)
submissions accepted Jan 26 - Feb 9

a panel of independent film personalities will help select the most bold, provocative, authentic entries

the winning filmmaker receives $10,000 and a trip for 2 to new york to attend the global press event for the new ck fragrance launch where the winning film will be premiered

Best,

The cK Calvin Klein Fragrances Team

www.whatareyouin2films.com

Dear Professor Carney,

Wow!  Where in the world did you get those sound clips for the original Cassavetes' Faces radio commercials, and the amazing missing 12 minutes from Husbands? The Husbands material especially is fantastic, I love it!  Even if she got it excluded from the the film, I'm glad Gena Rowlands hasn't been able to destroy this material.  Thanks for sharing with all of us Cass fanatics.

Best,

Matt Reed

A note from Ray Carney: The sound files Matt is referring to are on page 54 of the Mailbag pages.

57 < Page 58 < 59

Introduction and Page 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / 32 / 33 / 34 / 35 / 36 / 37 / 38 / 39 / 40 / 41 / 42 / 43 / 44 / 45 / 46 / 47 / 48 / 49 / 50 / 51 / 52 / 53 / 54 / 55 / 56 / 57 / 58 / 59 / 60 / 61 / 62 / 63 / 64 / 65 / 66 / 67 / 68 / 69 / 70 / 71 / 72 / 73 / 74 / 75 / 76 / 77 / 78 / 79 / 80 / 81 / 82 / 83 / 84 / 85 / 86 / 87 / 88 / 89 / 90 / 91 / 92 / 93 / 94 / 95 / 96 / 97 / 98 / 99 / 100 / 101 / 102 / 103 / 104 / 105 / 106 / 107 / 108 / 109 / 110 / 111 / 112 / 113 / 114 / 115 / 116 / 117 / 118 / 119 / 120 / 121 / 122