Southern Comfort
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Southern Subjects
No shortage of talented musicians have appeared before Les Blank’s camera, their porch-strum music often laid over savory shots of local cuisine. Like the wind-blown grass Blank always finds time to include, the films undulate between revelry and reflection, while intangible rhythms of life are contoured by a musicality that exists not only in melody, but also in editing and observation. The richest take place in Cajun country Louisiana and rural Texas, where, between home cooking and the push-pull sounds of an accordion, Blank’s subjects unassumingly philosophize about the best ways to get through life and all its thorns. If […]
by Daniel Christian on Dec 10, 2019 -
“Tough Little Stories”: Director Walter Hill at 92Y Tribeca
Tuesday night at 92Y Tribeca in downtown Manhattan, critics Nick Pinkerton and Nicolas Rapold presented Walter Hill’s 1981 Southern Comfort and the man himself afterwards. “I’m very pleased that you’re looking at this movie 30 years later,” Hill first said when sitting down for a 57-minute Q&A. “You’ve made an old man happy. The movie, when it came out, got mostly bad reviews and did absolutely no business. Did better in Europe and Asia.” “Did better in Europe and Asia” is a common lament for American director prophets without honor in their own country. Hill’s not precisely one of those […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 29, 2013
