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Bright Lights Film Journal
Issue 30 | October 2000

editorial

We were so excited by one of this issue’s submissions, Frederick Zackel’s "Robinson Crusoe and the Ethnic Sidekick," that we brazenly violated the unspoken rule of editors everywhere that the article must conform to the magazine, not vice versa. Why should little things like editorial profile and brand identity prevent us from publishing such a thorough, persuasive piece, which nails an enormous number of targets beyond film (though that’s included): classic literature, Wall Street, capitalism, Star Trek, even Gilligan’s Island are put under Zackel’s finely polished lens. We say all this not only to praise this article but also to encourage similar submissions that treat film in a larger cultural context, not merely in a vacuum — though of course we also welcome well-written, wildly insightful pieces in the "vacuum" mode, which has, after all, been BL’s bread ‘n butter, such as it is, for lo these many years.

Serendipity, which is practically a religion here at Bright Lights, has again given this issue an unintended theme: racial politics in le cinema. Under that rubric fall a number of articles in addition to Zackel’s exegesis of the black ‘n white buddy motif: Aaron Cohen’s tantalizing look at Japan’s first film actress, Tokuko Nagai Takagi (who makes Asta Nielsen seem like a household word); Eve Kushner’s robust assault on Mike Leigh’s widely lauded Topsy-Turvy; Molly Sackler’s snappy skewering of East Is East; and of course several pieces by your ego-drenched editor, including reviews of the fine apartheid documentary Long Night’s Journey into Day and that paean to bratty Greek and Albanian rent boys, From the Edge of the City.

Other, less categorizable pleasures await, including BL warhorse Alan Vanneman’s superb long last word on Irving Berlin in the movies; Eric Schlosser’s charming interview with the darling of the film festivals, director Béla Tarr; Julian Upton’s beguiling look at Derek Jarman’s rare 1978 punk flick Jubilee. Fetishism gets the BL once-over (see "S&M Alcove"), as do several recent queerflix (see "Homo Corner" — what’s next, "Women’s Film Foyer" or perhaps "Ukrainian Movie Lanai"?). The DVD and VHS reviews cover cinema’s heights (Cocteau, Kurosawa, Sirk) and depths (Ulmer), though admittedly the difference isn’t always clear. No book reviews this time because, like practically everybody these days, every time our fingers threatened to touch a page, we shocked even ourselves by nervously lunging for the remote.

Gary Morris

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Watch for new issues of Bright Lights every three months: August, November, February, and May. To be automatically notified when the next issue is posted, join our mailing list.

Visit the archives for hundreds of other articles, dear.

features

Robinson Crusoe and the Ethnic Sidekick — Who knew that Crusoe and Friday would be resurrected daily for service to western culture's nefarious needs?

Irving Berlin on Film — Forget Barry Manilow — this is the guy who really wrote the songs

Tokuko Nagai Takagi: Japan’s First Film Actress — This forgotten star was caught up — and perhaps crushed — by larger historical forces

Dis-Orientation: Japan from a Western Viewpoint in Topsy-Turvy and The Mikado — If the "Asian face" doesn’t get you, how about names like Nanki-Poo and Yum Yum?

recent

Fall 2000’s Queer Films: Preview! — Gay werewolves, the Marquis De Sade, and a mean one-legged nun: The tortured queens and killer dykes of yesteryear make way for more rareified queer types this season

When Worlds Collide: East Is East — Stereotypes and social critique spar in this culture-clash dramedy

Truth and Consequences: Long Night’s Journey into Day — Post-apartheid South Africa’s rituals of admission and absolution

revivals

Anarchy in the UK: Derek Jarman’s Jubilee (1978) — Punks hail Britannia in their own peculiar way in this little-seen gem by the late queer auteur

s&m alcove

A Tired Bag of Tricks: Nick Broomfield’s Fetishes — Literal commodity fetishism in the far fringes of New York’s S&M scene

interview

Béla Tarr Speaks! — About Werckmeister Harmonies (Cannes 2000, Director's Fortnight)

homo corner

Ozon Meets Fassbinder: Water Drops on Burning Rocks — A stylized look at one of the colder corners of gay petit bourgeois life

Teetering Teens: From the Edge of the City — Couldn’t they have just sent us a postcard?

Deepa Mehta's Fire — The first of the Canadian-Indian auteur's controversial attacks on the privileges of patriarchy

The Nightmare in the Fairy Tale: Criminal Lovers — A modern-day Hansel and Gretel take on love, sex, and death with rapturous results

experimental

Brief Candles: Warren Sonbert in Retrospect — The work of an avant-garde master now restored

Tableaux Vivant: Lawrence Jordan — Jordan’s collage films are "moving" in two senses

dvd and vhs reviews

Rare Kurosawa on VHS — Tubercular yakuza, scandalous artists, and postwar paranoids duke it out with the world

Jean Cocteau’s Orphic Trilogy on DVD — The arthouse staple gets a gorgeous makeover in this DVD set brimming with extras

Sirk’s A Scandal in Paris on VHS — The "Great Dane’s" rare 1946 masterpiece now on VHS

Ulmer’s Daughter of Dr. Jekyll on DVD — Monsters are bad enough; must we also endure their relatives?