On this day in 1929, the great American filmmaker John Cassavetes was born. It seems to me that in recent years, younger film lovers have often discounted him. In fact, among some it seems hip to do so. I think you have to be determined to find fault. Either that or you must care for style above all else. Like all artists, Cassavetes has to be seen within his historical context. But even outside that, he made some of the most powerful films ever. And that is why among more mature viewers — and internationally — Cassavetes’ reputation has only grown.

I’ll admit, I’m a special kind of sucker for Cassavetes’ film. He was one of the rarest of creatures: someone who was both idiosyncratic and brilliant. Even the goofy genre film Gloria eschews the formula and tells an interesting story with surprising simplicity. But it isn’t what I most love about his work. For that, you have to go back to Faces and especially A Woman Under the Influence, which is probably Cassavetes’ masterpiece. But if you want a less intense film, you might try, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. It’s a lot like Gloria but not quite so silly:

Happy birthday John Cassavetes!

Today, the great comedian Steven Wright is 59 years old, which makes me feel very old. He is known for his surreal one-liners. But he is a lot more than that, as I will discuss in a moment. First, however, I want to discuss one of his jokes.

The joke is this: “If you were in a vehicle traveling at the speed of light and you turned your lights on, would they do anything?” This is a better description of Special Relativity than you are ever likely to hear. To begin with, nothing would happen. And that should explain why it is that you couldn’t have a vehicle that is traveling at the speed of light.

If we change the joke so that the vehicle is traveling at just under the speed of light, then the answer would be: yes. The light would emit at the speed of light. And the crux of the matter is that regardless of who was watching your vehicle, they would see the light moving at the same speed. That is why I spent years during my twenties obsessed with Special Relativity. But eventually, I learned as we all must, that since I have no actually experience of riding around in spaceships, I had no “common sense” about the way the world works when different objects were moving very fast relatively to each other. Regardless, I think you can learn a whole lot more from that one joke than you can from a single physics course.

At this point, I’m much more interested in Wright as a filmmaker than a comedian. He’s made a couple of half hour films. The most recent is One Soldier. It is very good and even kind of profound, if a bit too much like a Bergman parody. The first is The Appointments of Dennis Jennings. It’s very funny, with a brilliant ending:

Happy birthday Steven Wright!

On this day in 1890, the great filmmaker Fritz Lang was born. He is primarily known for two iconic films. The first is one of the greatest silent films, Metropolis. It is visually stunning (even by today’s standards) and great story telling. Thematically, I have some problems with it. It shows the unjust class divide of that time as well as today. But it also shows the workers of Metropolis as a bunch of sheep who are easily led to do good or evil. I can well see why Joseph Goebbels loved the film and offered Lang the job of running Universum Film AG. (It was at that moment that Lang decided he had to get out of Germany. He went to France for two years and then made the very smart decision to move to the United States.) The entire two and a half hour 2010 restored print of the film is available on YouTube. But here is the trailer, which gives a good idea of just how amazing the film is:

His second iconic film was made four years later, M. It was also his first film with audible dialog. But unlike early American sound pictures, it was not staged at all. In fact, much of it has an almost neorealist feel to it. And there isn’t much to the story. There’s a man who we assume is molesting and then killing children. The town chase after him and put him on trial. And here is that scene:

He made a couple dozen films in the United States. There are generally quite good, but they aren’t revolutionary like his early work. Even still, he was critical to the development of the look and feel of film noir. And, of course, Hollywood constrained him because he remained an artist and we can’t have that now, can we? He ended his career with a couple of German productions, including the successful, The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse. Here is a terrible dubbed trailer for the film:

Happy birthday Fritz Lang!

The iconic Max Baer Jr is 77 years old today. He will always be remembered as Jethro Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies. When I was a kid, I hated that character. I didn’t have much of an appreciation for stupid characters. I liked Elly May — not because she was gorgeous (although she was), but because she was brilliant. Regardless, I wasn’t much of a The Beverly Hillbillies fan anyway. I would probably like it more now.

Baer’s father was the great boxer Max Baer. If you aren’t a boxing fan, you probably only know him from his portrayal in Cinderella Man. And you would get entirely the wrong idea about him. By all accounts he was a decent guy. But the movie is quite good. Just don’t believe what it says about Baer. But that has nothing to do with Max Baer Jr, who I am writing about, at least in theory.

After nine seasons and 274 episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies, Baer tried his hand at at feature filmmaking — the sort of films I remember watching at drive-ins when I was just a kid. He had the knack! In 1974, he produced and co-wrote Macon County Line. It is a revenge film with a twist. Well worth checking out! Baer and director Richard Compton made the film for about a hundred thousand dollars and made $30 million. Here is the totally awesome trailer (it is not a true story):

He went on to make a few more films — generally quite successfully. The biggest film was Ode to Billy Joe. I actually hate the film, but that isn’t his fault. I just love the song so much, and the film destroys it by making the story concrete. What’s brilliant about the song is that other than the emotional core, the listener has no idea what’s actually happened.

After roughly five years of writing, producing, and directing, Baer pretty much retired at the age of 40. And why not? He was ridiculously wealthy by that time. He did, apparently, try to get the film rights for “Like a Virgin.” That could have been an awesome film too!

Happy birthday Max Baer Jr!

The great filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard is 84 years old today. I know, last year I referred to him as overrated. I’ll stand by that. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t great. It’s a general thing anyway. I think the French “New Wave” have been hopelessly overrated. This is probably due to the fact that most of them were film writers so they were in a position to plug themselves — which they did. But generally, give me Robert Bresson over any of them. And generally Alain Resnais over Godard or Truffaut.

Above all, I have never been able to get into À Bout de Souffle, or Breathless as it is commonly known in English. But I’m not one to especially appreciate cinematic technique when it isn’t combined with compelling characters, plot, or theme. I’m willing to admit that I’m missing something, but the film seems to me very sloppy, never clear what it is trying to say. And it has the plot of Dillinger, with less interesting characters.

Godard got more interesting the more political he became. I’ve always been very fond of Alphaville and later still La Chinoise and Week End. His later work also shows more wit, even when he’s being serious. But it is hard to show any of this here. So consider just a minute from Alphaville. I think you can see a direct line from this to Jon Jost:

Happy birthday Jean-Luc Godard!

Sarah Silverman is 44 years old today. She’s very strange, but I really like that kind of postmodern comedy. But I’ll admit, there are times when her work is more anxiety producing than laughter producing. But I’d rather have that than something boring. Most comedians are boring. The strange thing is that at this point, I know Silverman more from her political videos than I do from her actual stand-up act or her show.

But two years ago, TED Talks decided to book her. Apparently, they did not feel as though their message of pseudo-innovation that absolutely positively cannot offend the power elite was strong enough. So after she performed, doing exactly the sort of thing she’s always done, the group freaked out and for a while didn’t allow the video to be released. Because you know: they needed to drive home their brand as purveyors of pseudo-innovation that absolutely positively cannot offend the power elite. Silverman’s act was, of course, funny as hell:

Happy birthday Sarah Silverman!