Hopperesque

Hopperesque

Monday 30 May 2022

Don't Feel in the Mood



                 When i don't feel in the mood for painting i go to the movies, for a week or more.

Edward Hopper

image
Oliver Denker
Hopper Homage
                                 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/apr/25/art

Sunday 29 May 2022

Even Bad Luck is Some Kind of Luck #101

Babylon Berlin

Rififi

Chinatown

The Big Sleep

Godfather II

The Killing

Hickey and Boggs

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Nightmare Alley (2021)

They Live By Night

Donnie Brasco

Odds Against Tomorrow

Public Eye

Le Trou

Walk Among the Tombstones

Shadow of a Doubt

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Thieves Highway

Taking of Pelham 123 (1974)

Death of a Cyclist

Vertigo

Saturday 28 May 2022

After the Fight



       At the count of ten, i watched some of my father die. As he sat with his red face in his oil driller's hands, my mother turned off the radio. We were to eat lemon meringue pie after the fight, my father's favorite. I was able to eat a little piece, but not my da, though he tried. He fell off the wagon that night.

excerpt from
The Cut Man
FX Toole
1999
                                          https://www.richmondreview.co.uk/toole01/

Friday 27 May 2022

Self Portrait

Vivian Maier

Andreas Feininger

Frank Horvat

Esther Bubley

Danny Lyon

Gita Lenz

Ed Van der Elksen

Eve Arnold

Ernst Haas

Germaine Krull

Ilse Bing

Stanley Kubrick

Lee Friedlander

Paul Almasy

Roy Decarava

Sabine Weiss

Willy Ronis

Thursday 26 May 2022

Story of a Sad Sack

      
             If Detour was higher budgeted and more realistic (to the extent that Noir films of the period could be said to be realistic), it would harm what Ulmer set out to do with the film. There isn't a "right way" to make a film, and the unglamorous and cheap-looking settings suit a story of a sad sack fumbling through the gutter of film Noir. The movie also reflects the distortion of being from Al's point-of-view, both in visual terms and in terms of the facts of his innocence, and these distortions are often misrepresented as technical gaffes or script holes. The end result is unique and arguably post-modern. Here is a Noir story that seems to be manipulated by the main character's own psyche, and he even spends much of the film speaking to the audience, framing what we have just seen and pleading his innocence. It's as if he is molding his own memory to fit the form of an extreme Noir film, where the streets are completely covered in fog, the sad sacks are only sad and the femme fatales only fatal, and bleak fatalism rules over everyone.

Roger Ebert
2003

Wednesday 25 May 2022

Tuesday 24 May 2022

Caught the Rhythm


        The speech fascinated him. His ear caught the rhythm of it and he noted their idioms and worked some of them into his patter. He had found the reason behind the peculiar, drawling language of the old carny hands - it was a composite of all the sprawling regions of the country. A language which sounded Southern to Southerners, Western to Westerners. It was the talk of the soil and it's drawl covered the agility of the brains that poured it out. It was a soothing, illiterate, earthy language.

Nightmare Alley
William Lindsay Gresham
1946

image
unknown

https://greenvincentine.tumblr.com/post/152406514241/the-speech-fascinated-him-his-ear-caught-the

Monday 23 May 2022

Dark Reflections #3

Memento

Shutter Island

Lady from Shanghai

Plein Soleil

Quai Des Orfevres

Phoenix

Kansas City Confidential

Croupier

Dead Reckoning

Carol

The Big Night (1951)

Angel Heart

Torment

Vertigo

Raging Bull

Lady in the Lake

Taxi Driver

T Men