#Nicholas Kazan

[aegoism]

I never understood what made your lips on my neck such an intimate affair until your teeth grazed my pulse and I realized you could tear open my throat and make me bleed out in your arms, but instead you chose to kiss.

[screenshotingmonstercinema]

[sesiondemadrugada]

Patty Hearst (Paul Schrader, 1988).

[kiki-de-la-petite-flaque]

James Spader and Mädchen Amick in Dream Lover, Nicholas Kazan, 1993

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

The BFG (2016, Steven Spielberg)

13/03/2024

The BFG is a 2016 film directed by Steven Spielberg.

The first film directed by Spielberg to be produced and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, it is the film adaptation of the 1982 novel The BFG written by Roald Dahl, already brought to the big screen with the 1989 animated film The BFG.

In a London orphanage, in the middle of the night, the orphan Sophie Tibbs can't sleep. Once they arrive in the giant's cave, in a place protected by the fog of the north sea of the United Kingdom, the Land of Giants, Sophie, terrified, tries to escape.

Sophie decides to desist from escaping from the land of the Giants, learning of their customs: the good giant shows her how he must feed on disgusting Snozzcumber, the only food existing in their land besides human flesh, which are the raw material for preparing Frobscottle, a bizarre sparkling green drink consumed by all the giants, in which the bubbles go down instead of up and which therefore causes flatulence.

Finding a photo of Queen Victoria in Jack's lair, Sophie comes up with a plan to get rid of the giants. She then asks the BFG to create a dream for Queen Elizabeth II: in the dream, the queen will see their adventure so far and will know that, when she wakes up, she will see a little girl and a peaceful giant at the window who will help her stop the evil giants who decided that night to eat several children in orphanages.

The first attempts to make a big-screen adaptation of the novel The BFG were made in 1991, when producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy tried to involve Paramount Pictures. In 1998, the spouses Robin Swicord and Nicholas Kazan wrote a screenplay for a possible film, thinking of Robin Williams in the main role of the BFG. In 2001 the screenplay was rewritten by Gwyn Lurie with the approval of the Dahl foundation.

In September 2011, DreamWorks announced that it had purchased the film to the book; Kennedy and Marshall are confirmed as producers, and Melissa Mathison is brought in to write the screenplay. In April 2014, Steven Spielberg was announced as director. In March 2015, Walden Media announced its role as co-financier and co-producer of the film.

[everyfilmisaw]

Dream Lover by Nicholas Kazan, 1993

[theoscarsproject]

Frances (1982). The story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.

Jessica Lange is IT in this movie, god, she's so good. This movie predominantly works as a showcase for her talent, but in that sense, it does succeed. She nails every moment, both big and small, and really brings Frances Farmer's struggles to life with empathy and depth. The pacing and narrative structure can be a bit awkward in parts, but overall, it's pretty solid. 8/10.

[jennyviviandee]

Has access to streaming all kinds of stuff she's never seen before.

...Instead rewatches the magnificent Malitda (1996) starring the sensational Mara Wilson that Danny Devito directed. Based off of the Roald Dahl book of the same name. Screenplay by Nicholas Kazan and Robin Swicord.

Interestingly, another Dahl adaptation came out that very year. A hybrid of live action with stop-motion animation flick of Dahl's James and the Giant Peach by Disney from director Henry Selick. Screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick, Johnathan Roberts, and Steve Bloom.

[heartbreakfeelsgoodinablog]

If you think you know your lover. Think again. Especially if she’s your wife.

[movie-titlecards]

Fallen (1998)

My rating: 4/10

Dull, dreary and pretentious. It's like somebody watched The Frighteners and went, "This movie is a lot of fun, and I hate that about it."

[artist-issues]

Welcome back to my obsession!

I saw the other day that director Elia Kazan disapproved of Rebel Without a Cause’s portrayal of parents. He said something like: they were too insensitive and made parents look like the ones totally at fault for rebellious teens.

Which, not only did James Dean not agree with (he said: “The picture deals with the problems of modern youth. It is the romanticized conception of the juvenile that causes much of our trouble with misguided youth nowadays. I think the one thing this picture shows that’s new is the psychological disproportion of the kids’ demands on the parents. Parents are often at fault, but the kids have some work to do, too. But you can’t show some far off idyllic conception of behavior if you want the kids to come and see the picture.’) but neither do I!

Of course, who am I when compared with Elia Kazan? I just mean, if anybody was going to complain about unfair or one-sided portrayals of parents in the movie, it would’ve been me, with no prompting. I’m the person who keeps badmouthing Stranger Things for having incompetent, irresponsible, uncaring parents.

But, I didn’t get that impression from Rebel Without a Cause. So at first when I read Elia Kazan’s opinion I was like, “‘oh, shoot, I got lost in James Dean’s eyes and forgot to think critically! The parents are one-sided!” But that didn’t feel right to me even after watching the movie again (because I’m obsessed.)

So I thought about it and I realized it doesn’t feel right because that’s not what the movie is saying. The movie is a cautionary tale showing audiences what happens when kids don’t get what they need from parents.

Kids don’t know how to be men and they don’t know how to be women. They don’t come with that information programmed into them already. They have to learn it, and they ARE programmed to learn it from their parents. Teenagers, in particular, have all the potential to be the most dynamite, powerful people living at any point in time.

Think about it. Teenagers talk in italics. Everything is major. They’re passionate. If parents would just show them what to do with all that energy and passion and freshness, teenagers would be unstoppable forces. They’re young enough to believe they can do anything if someone believes in them and they’re old enough to actually go for it. I’ve worked with youth for ten years and that’s what I’ve been noticing.  In Rebel, that is what Jim Stark represents. He represents a kid who has all the potential to be a hero, but he can’t do it without his parents. He tries to. He tries to do both; he tries to be a man by participating in the chickie run and he tries to be a hero by helping Plato and Judy. All of this because his parents aren’t showing him how. They aren’t pointing all that energy and potential in the right direction, so it just comes off as a loose canon.

 He could be the good kid that is solid and dependable and sincere, and everybody likes him. But he’s stuck looking for approval from friends because he can’t get it from his family, and he’s stuck getting drunk after curfew to get them to face the fact that he needs help, because they won’t. 

So he winds up giving up on them helping him and choosing to try doing it himself. He tries to be a man, and Buzz dies. He runs away with Plato and Judy, trying to save them and himself from loneliness and the gap left by their parents, and Plato dies. Because Jim can’t do it without his parents. He needs them to pick him up when he tries but fails, and look at him for who he is and love him anyway, and correct him when he’s wrong. That’s the point of him clinging to his dad at the end of the film. 

It’s not that the parents are always wrong and the kids are always tragically right. It’s that the kids are a mess of wasted potential if they don’t have their God-given conduits to run through: parents.  Jim is the prime example. He’s a hero under all the mess, but he needs his parents to bring that out of him and help him fly straight, and they won’t, so he’s just “torn apart” instead. They won’t because the dad is a coward who won’t face anything hard, including the disappointment in his son’s eyes or the mom’s. And they won’t because the mom is a shrew who takes charge of the family only to run them away from anything she doesn’t want to face, like the fact that her son is troubled.

But Plato is a good example of the other direction, too. He maybe had potential, but it was buried under layers of hurt and fear and abandonment well before he even reached teenage years, because his parents were awful enough that he had to run away several times, and then they split up, and then abandoned him. He just represents need. He needs a dad to just be there, which is why he clings to Jim. Without any guardians (except that sweet housekeeper) he lives life afraid and thinking he needs something like a gun, or else he’s not safe, not with cops, not in a planetarium, not with other teens, not even at home.  And Judy is a great example, too. She doesn’t really ask for guidance or safety, like Jim and Plato; what she really wants is love. Her mom isn’t shown giving her any affection other than telling her to drink tomato juice. The main issue, of course, is Judy’s dad: he doesn’t know how to handle the fact that Judy is growing into a young woman and isn’t a little girl anymore, so he runs away. Not literally like Plato’s, and not in a buddy-buddy manner like Jim’s dad, but by being cold and sharp and frustrated with her. She doesn’t understand that, so she just decides he must hate her. So she acts out to get any attention from him at all. 

Love, guidance, protection. That is what this movie says kids need parents for, and it is what all their potential  will spoil and turn rotten and dangerous without. That’s all the movie is saying. Not that all parents don’t give their kids this stuff. Just a look at what happens when they don’t, for whatever reasons.

[screenshotingmonstercinema]

[genevieveetguy]

- The only way these women are going to go on the record. - Is if they all jump together.

She Said, Maria Schrader (2022)

[laurent-bigot]

JAMES DEAN

Trois grands films avaient suffi à faire de James Dean l’interprète inspiré des angoisses et des inquiétudes de la jeunesse américaine. Guidé par un instinct tragique et capricieux, son talent n’a jamais été égalé. Sa mort brutale l’a fait entrer dans la mythologie du septième art. Troublante et dominatrice, sa présence à l’écran était telle que le spectateur se trouvait comme confronté à une…

[zanephillips]

Dream Lover (1993) dir. Nicholas Kazan