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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Film Tonight on NPT: 'No Subtitles Necessary'

Posted by Jim Ridley on Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:46 PM

Forty-two years ago, an obscure B movie called The Road to Nashville packaged some of country's hottest acts--Johnny and June Carter Cash, Waylon Jennings, Marty Robbins, Connie Smith, Hank Snow, Porter Wagoner--in a flimsy framework about a Hollywood talent scout hoping to make a movie about country music. Of no special interest to anyone at the time was the cameraman shooting the movie in Nashville: a Hungarian emigre who billed himself as William Zsigmund. If the name doesn't ring a bell, maybe this one does: Vilmos Zsigmond, who just four years later shot Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller under his real name. He went on to shoot some of the best and/or most influential movies of the next decade, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Deliverance, The Deer Hunter, Altman's The Long Goodbye, and one of my favorites, Brian De Palma's Blow Out. At 9 p.m. tonight on NPT-Channel 8, the documentary No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos chronicles the lifelong friendship of Zsigmond and his fellow cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs, whose own credits range from Easy Rider to Ghostbusters. The clip above concerns their literally death-defying efforts to record the Communist takeover of Hungary. Considering how little attention cinematographers get, at least in relation to their importance to a movie's end result, the chance to see these two masters in deep focus should be a movie lover's treat. The movie shows tonight on PBS's first-rate Independent Lens series, which shows high-profile documentaries fresh from the festival circuit or theatrical release. Remember, you can always TiVo Sons of Anarchy.

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"Remember, you can always TiVo Sons of Anarchy."
Not if you don't have TiVo.
Besides, there is something better than either one of those programs on tonight:
the 4th Installment of World War II in HD on the History channel.

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Posted by Gilbert Martin on November 18, 2009 at 10:14 AM

Beats watching World War III in 2-D.

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Posted by mr. pink on November 20, 2009 at 10:50 AM

After seeing this film, I can’t believe I didn’t already know who Kovacs and Zsigmond were. As a huge fan of a number of the films they worked on, I think it’s a tragedy that more people don’t know who they are and I hope this documentary changes things.
Even for people who aren’t cinemaphiles, there’s lots of good stuff in this documentary - just the story of their friendship and escape from Hungary was interesting enough. The breathtaking footage they have of the Soviet invasion really strikes an emotional nerve.
I also loved the film’s musical selections. JJ Johnson’s “Seven Days in Tahiti” was a perfect mood setter to conjure up 1960s Hollywood, and I’ve always been a big fan of Jolie Holland was happpy to hear “Sascha” in the end credits. Overall, a great job by everyone involved.

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Posted by brett on November 24, 2009 at 5:42 PM
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