The Year in Film 2019 - Part Three

El patrullero (Highway Patrolman) [Alex Cox, 1991]:

Watched: Mar 17, 2019

If one filmmaker dominated 2019 for me, it was Alex Cox. Earlier in the year I read his 2008 memoir, "X-Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker", and greatly enjoyed its informative and always self-deprecating approach. I purchased two more of Cox's excursions into the literary world, his 2017 book "I am (Not) a Number: Decoding the Prisoner" and 2009's "10,000 Ways to Die: A Director's Take on the Spaghetti Western", and found both to be of a similar value. Inspired by the books I was also watching and re-watching Cox's films. Of those that were new to me, his films The Winner (1996), Revengers Tragedy (2002), Searchers 2.0 (2007) and Bill the Galactic Hero (2014) are either excellent or better than their reputations suggest, however one film stood out as a definite highlight. Filmed in Mexico following Cox's departure from Hollywood, El patrullero – or Highway Patrolman as it's commonly known – ties with Walker (1987) as the absolute pinnacle of the filmmaker's career. Scripted by Lorenzo O'Brien, El patrullero takes the mythos of the American western – where the lone lawman attempts to remain moral and just as he fights corruption and criminality in a lawless border town – and contrasts it against the conventions of the road movie. The tone is anarchic, carefully mixing between scenes of broad comedy, character development and gritty violence, while the filmmaking is ambitious and creative. This was the period when Cox was shooting his films "plano secuencia", meaning every scene is filmed in a single, carefully choreographed take. The result is a complete masterpiece of narrative, theme and aesthetics, and one of the absolute great films of the 1990s.

Phantom Lady [Robert Siodmak, 1944]:

Watched: Mar 24, 2019

The title hints at something supernatural, putting us in mind of certain analogous Val Lewton produced horror films, such as The Leopard Man, or The Seventh Victim (both 1943), but this isn't the case. Instead, Phantom Lady could be described as a "proto-giallo"; a film noir that predicts many of the conventions and practicalities that would go on to define that particular sub-genre of Italian murder mysteries so popular during the 1960s and 1970s. While it doesn't have the black-gloved serial killer or the stylised death scenes, there is nonetheless something about this story of a bystander taking on the role of amateur-sleuth to investigate a grisly murder, as well as the subsequent confession of the killer, whose grip on sanity has unraveled into tortured exposition, that recalls the practicalities of later films by directors like Mario Bava, Dario Argento and others. Films like The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and Deep Red (1975) specifically, which capture something of a similar atmosphere, as well as 'cat and mouse' scenes of the "hunter" becoming the hunted. While not as powerful in its emotional drama or as inventive in its storytelling as his later film, The Killers (1946), the imagery of director Robert Siodmak is at its peak here, as the film blends the mystery and procedural elements with a thrilling descent into a third-act psychodrama.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest [Gore Verbinski, 2006]:

Watched: Mar 26, 2019

Dispensing with plot to an even greater degree than the original film, the likable but otherwise thinly-sketched Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), director Gore Verbinski's first sequel to the long-running franchise builds on its greatest strength (i.e. Johnny Depp as the irrepressible Captain Jack Sparrow) and runs with it, creating a narrative that exists for no other reason than to place its central characters into situations that allow for much comic misunderstanding, stunts and orchestrated suspense. The result, a non-stop cavalcade of action and comedy, feels less like a Hollywood blockbuster than something possessed by the cinematic spirits of Jackie Chan, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton. It's a film that places the emphasis on spectacle; upping the ante on what the first film was able to achieve and creating a series of visuals and set-pieces that are thrilling, original and brimming with imagination. For me, "Dead Man's Chest" is the absolute pinnacle of the first three "Pirates" films, and is a work that marks the beginning of Verbinski's run as a genuine "termite artist"; a filmmaker working within the mainstream that is nonetheless able to invest his films with ideas, images and scenarios that are subversive, eccentric, or defiantly anti-mainstream. In its scope, ambition and pure force of vision, it's a definite precursor to Verbinski's subsequent fantastic oddities, The Lone Ranger (2013) and A Cure for Wellness (2016).

Dumbo [Tim Burton, 2019]:

Watched: Apr 08, 2019

The experience of the film for me was like the world in miniature; the big-top reverie of the American experience distilled to its key essentials. The real pleasure of the film was not limited to the story and its presentation, but more redolent in what the film was able to suggest between the lines of blockbuster expectation. In its tone and intentions, Dumbo is capitalism and candy floss. It's the triumph of the broken, the different, the "other", struggling against uncertain odds. It's maudlin sentimentality. It's love, both between the child and its mother, but also at first sight. It's the struggle of the independent cinema against the unstoppable Disney machine. It's escapism. It's a circus train moving across the landscape in-time to the clamour of musical instruments. It's prejudice and persecution, pre-packaged in such a way that its message will be understood by young children, but not lost on the parents and adults also in attendance. It's a film about understanding. So many of the current crop of "live-action" Disney remakes are films made without style or personal aesthetic. They exist first and foremost as product; the imagery is there to illustrate the story and little else. Dumbo is not only defiantly beautiful as a piece of cinema, its alive with themes and ideas. While the anti-corporate, anti-big business subtext might seem disingenuous given that the film is a product of the Disney™ brand, it's another example of Burton as the "termite artist", biting the hand that feeds him. The small circus becomes a metaphor not just for the family (extended, as in the 'community') but the independent cinema. "Dreamland" as an obvious Disneyland surrogate, represents the mainstream, with its profit driven incentives, callous treatment of artists and emphasis on merchandising. The film even ends with an image of the cinema as a symbol of the great spectacles to come.

Cloud Atlas [Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski & Tom Tykwer, 2012]:

Watched: Apr 14, 2019

The earnest nature of its message and the eccentricity of its delivery invite ridicule. After all, this is a film that casts recognisable superstars and has them speak in a variety of contrived, even fictional dialects, buries them under heavy prosthetic effects, and even at times indulges in the more controversial practices of gender and race-bending. To see Halle Berry portraying a white character, Hugo Weaving imitating a woman and Jim Sturgess playing Chinese isn't perfect, but it's practical, and plays into one of the more important components of the film; specifically the idea of a small group of "souls" inhabiting different variations of the same characters throughout history. Covering six different timelines and a variety of locations, from the Chatham Islands in 1849 to a post-apocalyptic future world in the year 2321, Cloud Atlas is by far the most ambitious Hollywood film of the past decade. Here, its three directors' cross countries and continents, cross boundaries of style and genre, and even cross the lines of convention and common-sense, delivering a film that for all its fantasy and imagination is focused on a human story of love and perseverance. Like Sense8 (2015-2018), the mostly brilliant TV series that Tkwer and Wachowskis would go on to helm a few years later, Cloud Atlas is a story about connections. Individual narratives find parallel lines that tangle and enfold, while music, words, images and characters echo across time and space. At close to three hours in duration there are many that would argue the film is too slight and simplistic in its message to justify the level of indulgence, but I found it genuinely moving. That the message can be regarded as "prejudice is bad and we should live as better people" was not a flaw for me. I found it beautiful, moving and admirably humanist in intentions.

A Question of Aesthetics

Thoughts on a film: Repo Chick (2009)

It's been ten years since the release of Repo Chick (2009); writer and director Alex Cox's self-proclaimed "non-sequel" to his earlier but still very much enduring cult-classic, Repo Man (1984). At the time I'd intended to post something about the look and stylisation of the film, which struck me (and still does) as incredibly intelligent, even satirical; however, a combination of laziness and procrastination meant I never got around to it. Having recently read and blogged about Cox's great and very self-deprecating 2008 book, "X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker", I'm once again drawn to discussing the director's work and feeling compelled to come to the defence of this particular film, which seems misunderstood.

A cursory glance at the YouTube comments for the film's trailer, or indeed the user reviews posted on Letterboxd and the IMDb, give an immediate impression as to why Repo Chick was so mocked and derided. The general consensus is that the film looks cheap (it was, comparatively speaking: the final production budget was $200,000) and that the imagery is flat, fake and bordering on the amateurish. Two of these criticisms seem fair. The imagery is flat - it's frequently composed in a presentational, tableau-vivant style, which restricts the natural movement of the actors within the frame - and it is fake. All scenes were shot with the actors positioned in front of a green-screen, with the backdrops - created through a combination of miniatures, old toys and CGI - added in later. But is it amateurish? I'm not so sure.

Repo Chick [Alex Cox, 2009]:

Given the context of Cox's film, its emphasis on a superficial character - a kind of post-Paris Hilton/pre-Kim Kardashian trust-fund millennial forced to work and engage with the seamier side of life following the 2008 financial crash - it would be fair to say that the film is meant to reflect the point of view of its title character and her background of sheltered privilege. If the world looks fake - and it does - then it's probably because the character is fake. The presentation of the world here is seemingly superficial, made childish and immature in order to reflect the character's sense of arrested development. The artificiality of it, the flatness, the plasticity, are all intentional, and suggest the life of a character imprisoned by circumstances and a culture devoid of authenticity.

In terms of its context and conception, the stylisation of the film, with its posed artificiality, its falseness, the almost Barbie™ doll diorama of it all, is incredibly important to the film's wider socio-political subtext. The character becomes a toy, controlled and manipulated by unseen forces. Through this, Cox is creating a dual commentary: on one hand  illustrating how people, especially young people, are controlled and manipulated by the culture, the media and marketing, by parents and peers, while on the other hand illustrating something of a self-reflexive commentary on the nature of cinema and storytelling, where actors are moved around a play-set facsimile of the world and given thoughts, actions and opinions by some omnipotent, controlling force.

While stylised to look intentionally cheap and kitsch, the filmmaking is in fact incredibly clever and works to suggest subtleties and nuances in the text and sub-text of the film. If audiences found this style dismissible, or refused to engage with it on the academic, post-modern level at which it was clearly aimed, then it's probably because the "form" stands in direct contrast to their perceptions of what a film should be; or more specifically, what an Alex Cox film should be in the context of the earlier Repo Man and its particular "brand."

Repo Man [Alex Cox, 1984]:

Contrast and compare with the imagery from the earlier Repo Man, with its gritty Los Angeles noir and nods to atomic-age B-movies recalling the apparently more authentic and conventional influences of The Driver (1978) by Walter Hill or Kiss Me Deadly (1955) by Robert Aldrich.

What critics and audiences were really reacting against in their dismissal of Repo Chick and its particular visual aesthetic was that the film didn't conform to their expectations of what an Alex Cox film should be. Even though the film is true to the same spirit of post-modernist deconstruction, socialist politics, genre play and subverting expectations consistent throughout the filmmakers career, the markedly different approach to the stylisation - which looks nothing like the earlier Repo Man or Sid & Nancy (1986) - saw Repo Chick dismissed as a failed experiment.

Rather than look at the film for what it is, viewers approached it in the context of what it isn't. They wanted the real Los Angeles with its grit and grime, the car chases, the urban sprawl and decay, the disenfranchised Generation X mentality of drop-out nihilism, and they balked when they didn't get it. Rather than embrace Repo Chick as something different, something new or something alive with ideas and ideals, critics of the film merely turned to derivative efforts such as Drive (2011) and Nightcrawler (2014), finding their fix for alienated L.A. noir in those particular works instead.

Repo Chick [Alex Cox, 2009]:

It's worth mentioning that Cox doesn't categorise Repo Chick as an actual sequel to Repo Man; however, given both the title and its plot contrivances, as well as the obvious facts that both films are by the same writer and director, it's not unreasonable for people to drawn comparisons.

In the ten years since Repo Chick was released to mixed reviews and much bemusement across social media, the general language of the mainstream cinema has shifted. The rapid development of digital cinematography, CGI and green-screen technology, has meant that the cinema, post-Avatar (2009) by James Cameron, has become increasingly artificial, with the line between live-action and animation, especially in relation to recent Dinsey® remakes, such as The Lion King (2019), becoming increasingly blurred. If we're to still cling to the criticisms of Cox's film and its flat, artificial aesthetic, then how do we square that with recent films that have been acclaimed by audiences and critics as pinnacles of the modern cinema? Are the images from Repo Chick more or less fake-looking than this?

Black Panther [Ryan Coogler, 2018]:

The above images are of course taken from massively acclaimed, Oscar® nominated Marvel™ blockbuster, Black Panther (2018). While the imagery here has a gloss and a scale that the Cox film isn't able to compete with, it's still to all intents and purposes, flat and artificial. The images lack depth, scale and spatial authenticity, and yet despite all this they're not embracing artificiality as an aesthetic choice, but merely putting up with its lack of photo-realism because the convenience dictates.

The makers of Black Panther aren't satirising the falseness of a character or their arrested state-of-development. Images such as the ones seen here are meant to be believable and true to life. Is it also worth mentioning that the Marvel film in question had a production budget of $210million, enough to fund Cox's film countless times over, and yet the imagery - so acclaimed by modern critics - is scarcely "better" than that of Repo Chick, and certainly less distinctive.

No one would say that the imagery from Black Panther looks amateurish, but the fact remains that is doesn't look authentic, convincing or real. Like Repo Chick, the imagery looks flat and fake. And yet no one has levelled this as a criticism against Black Panther, or of other films in the same comic book sub-genre, such as Avengers 2: Age of Ultron (2015), or the more recent Aquaman (2019). All of these films were shot in the same manner as Cox's film, with the actors in front of a green screen, and the backdrops rendered later in post-production. And yet the deliberate stylisations of Repo Chick were seen as a deterrent to the film's success - while Black Panther can look like a 90s video game movie and still get nominated for "best cinematography" by members of the Film Critics Association Awards.

Black Panther [Ryan Coogler, 2018]:

Repo Chick [Alex Cox, 2009]:

In Repo Chick, the image has context. The style, no matter how contentious or derided, is a part of the content. There is no context for the garish imagery of films like Aquaman or the video-game-like flatness of Black Panther. These films are aesthetically deficient, not to create a point, but because they're manufactured products. Unlike the stylisation of Repo Chick, the additional films discussed here represent no unique vision, purpose or intent. They're simply examples of the corporate cinema, which unfortunately continues to triumph over the genuinely independent cinema that Cox is dedicated to.

Styling Repo Chick to look and feel identical, aesthetically, to the earlier Repo Man, might've served the kind of audiences and critics that don't go to the movies to be challenged or provoked. It may have even resulted in a return to cult-movie acclaim for its writer and director, who rejected the lure of Hollywood to make greater films like Walker (1987) and El Patrullero (1991). However, it would've been a mistake. By rejected nostalgic recreation and instead embracing the new, the independent, the handmade, Cox is remaining close to the spirit of post-punk anarchism that runs throughout his career. After all, there's nothing less radical than a middle-aged artist trying to play to the nostalgia crowd by becoming a tribute-act to their own past work. Just look at The Rolling Stones.

X Films - True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker

Thoughts on the book by Alex Cox

Roger Ebert, a one-time sports writer who looked as if he'd never picked up a bat or ball or run a marathon in his entire life, turned to movie criticism as a potential career opportunity and became one of the most influential American film reviewers of the late-twentieth century. Ebert's approach was to adopt the perspective of the potential consumer. He had enough of the history behind him to make his opinions more valid than the average Joe's, but he presented himself, absolutely, as the 'voice' of the mainstream moviegoer; he spoke to the people, but he spoke for them as well.

If Ebert loved a movie he would rhapsodise about it the way a fanatic might. If he hated it, then his rage and disappointment would take the form of a condescending rant that framed the film as a joke and encouraged the audience to join him in mocking its perceived failures. He reduced the cinema to a tale of winners and losers, which cheapened the art, but in turn inspired countless generations of film critics - professional or otherwise - who assumed the same voice, the same attitude.

The Simpsons: Season 2, Episode 12: "The Way We Was" [David Silverman, 1991]:

Ebert's mainstream profile and claim to authority was due in part to the success of his television partnership with fellow critic Gene Siskel. So ubiquitous was the pair's particular brand of populist criticism that it even became recognisable enough to be lampooned by mainstream programmes, such as The Simpsons, above.

One of the filmmakers that Ebert initially championed was the British writer and director Alex Cox. When Cox released his first feature-length work, the enduring cult-classic Repo Man (1984), Ebert praised it, writing: "This is the kind of movie that baffles Hollywood, because it isn't made from any known formula and doesn't follow the rules." In discussing Cox's next film, the punk biographical drama Sid and Nancy (1986), Ebert said that it announced Cox as a "great director" who "pull(s) off the neat trick of creating a movie full of noise and fury, and telling a meticulous story right in the middle of it." The tide would turn however with the release of the director's next film, the gonzo 'Spaghetti Western' pastiche Straight to Hell (1987). In his one-star review, Ebert gives Cox the benefit of the doubt, describing the filmmaker as follows: "I believed that he could scarcely do wrong, and that there was a streak of obsession in his genius that might well carry him into the pantheon." However, when Cox released his fourth feature, his masterpiece, Walker (1987), the gloves were well and truly off.

Walker, an intentionally anachronistic and anarchic biographical film about William Walker, the American filibuster who invaded Nicaragua and appointed himself president of the country, was made in solidarity with members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front. Rather than provide a conventional historical narrative, Cox's film, scripted by Rudy Wurlitzer, was intended to draw a line between the actual Walker's misguided 1855 political campaign across a divided Central America and the insidiousness of contemporary American foreign policy during the Reagan administration and the period surrounding the Iran–Contra affair.

Walker [Alex Cox, 1987]:

Walker remains one of the visionary films of the 1980s; a wild, chaotic mix of Sam Peckinpah inspired violence and furious politics, all anchored by an eclectic supporting cast led by a rarely better Ed Harris. In his review, Ebert rewarded the film no stars and apparently drove the final nail into the coffin of Cox's career as a mainstream filmmaker, describing the work as "a pointless and increasingly obnoxious exercise in satire by Cox, the director, who doesn't seem to have a clue about what he wants to do or even what he has done. Although the ads for 'Walker' don't even hint it, this movie is apparently intended as a comedy or a satire. I write "apparently" because, if it is a comedy, it has no laughs, and if a satire, no target." While Ebert had praised the earlier Repo Man as a film that baffled Hollywood, that didn't follow formulas or rules, he was apparently not so generous to celebrate the similarly rebellious spirit found in Walker.

Throughout this early writing, Ebert's attitude towards Cox reads as petty and personal. It's as if by following his own path and refusing to become a maker of prestige Hollywood product Cox had someone failed Ebert and made him look foolish for putting so much faith into those first two films. Look at the way Ebert prefaces his review of Straight to Hell by including a personal anecdote about being asked by a magazine: "which young directors showed the most promise of being the grandmasters of the 21st century?" Ebert feels his response is necessary in this context: "Alex Cox was right there at the top of my list."

Straight to Hell (Director's Cut) [Alex Cox, 1987]:

Straight to Hell isn't a great film - it's loud and formless, languorous and often obnoxious - but it also isn't t a failure. Its post-modern melange of American film-noir, Italian western and British post-punk anarchy predates the recent cinema of Quentin Tarantino by over a decade, while its subtext, of a war between rival gangs manipulated by a shadowy businessman as a means of gaining control of a region so that it can be mined for lucrative resources, predicts the illegal war in Iraq.

By beginning his review in such a way - with a personal shaming that has literally nothing to do with the film, its merits, or the merits of Cox as filmmaker - Ebert was placing his own disappointment at the centre of the discussion. It was less the work of a film critic excavating the text for meaning or emotion than something equivalent to a parent or teacher scolding a child that had failed to live up to the potential said grownup had attributed to them. As an attitude, these observations by Ebert were emblematic of the critic's formative years as a sports writer; the idea of the filmmaker being given a shot at the 'big time' and fumbling it. It also plays into the accepted journey of the director, as most cultural commentators seem to see it, where the success of the individual is measured by the rise through the ranks; that progression from the small-scale independent movie, to bigger, more ambitious, more expensive ones.

The narrative that Ebert helped to assign to Cox's career over the course of those first four films has been reflected in the general perception of the filmmaker's career since. Recent praise for Repo Man from fellow cult-cinema auteurs Paul Thomas Anderson and Nicholas Winding Refn both seem to be framed around the notion that Cox is now lost to the wilderness; that he had his chance and blew it; that the films he made after Walker have been attempts to get by on whatever scraps were available; that what he really needs is for Hollywood to come a-knocking with the perfect script. Having recently finished Cox's excellent 2008 book on his filmmaking career, "X Films - True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker", I'm not sure that's the case.

X Films - True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker [Alex Cox, 2008]:

You might be wondering why this preamble about Roger Ebert is necessary to the discussion of "X Films" and of Cox's career as a whole? Cox never mentions Ebert during the course of his book and similarly doesn't seem to give much credence to the critical through-line of his career among anyone else; let alone privileged move-brats like Anderson and Refn who succeeded (in-part) through the professional connections of their respective parents. However, Ebert's dismissal of Cox's career, post-Sid and Nancy, and the acceptance of this narrative by talented pretenders like Anderson and Refn, is irresponsible, and part of a general attitude towards non-mainstream culture that is designed to keep marginalised content hidden or delegitimized by measuring their perceived lack of success against the greater successes of corporate Hollywood (including the corporate Hollywood films produced by independent or 'boutique' studios). It's also indicative of the hypocrisy of many modern critics who claim to want films that are challenging, that don't follow formulas or rules, but then expect the same filmmakers to be safe, career-driven professions that aspire to be part of the "pantheon." The best filmmakers - the true originals - are the ones that aspire to burn it down.

Furthermore, the narrative of Cox being excommunicated from the mainstream is patently untrue. After Walker, Cox would begin production on the true-life crime drama Let Him Have It (1991). He was eventually replaced by director Peter Medak only when his choice to shoot the film in black and white was rejected by the producers. He was also offered the opportunity to direct Three Amigos! (1986), The Running Man (1987) and RocoCop 2 (1990) respectively; films that he turned down for political or moral reasons. He was also responsible for bringing both Mars Attacks (1996) and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) to the attention of major studios. That Cox didn't pursue these projects has little to do with his industry status as "persona non-grata" and a lot to do with his attempts to create films in the right environment, with the right people, and expressive of the right politics, aesthetics and ideas.

If Cox is now making films like Tombstone Rashomon (2017) on a micro-budget, as opposed to getting into bed with a Hollywood studio to produce compromised cult cinema-by-numbers, then one has to assume the choice is deliberate. Not every filmmaker measures success by the standards of the worldwide box-office, or by the self-celebration of the Academy Awards®. "X Films" paints a picture of a morally upstanding filmmaker on a restless search for independence.

Tombstone Rashomon [Alex Cox, 2017]:

The book effectively details the making of ten of Cox's films (hence "X Films" - X being the Roman numeral) beginning with Edge City (1980), the author's UCLA graduation project, and concluding with Searchers 2.0 (2007), the first of his 'micro-budget' features. It skips over The Winner (1996), a heavily re-edited "for hire" assignment that Cox directed only as a means of raising the necessary funding to complete post-production on his excellent Borges adaptation Death and the Compass (1995), as well as his two cinema based documentary projects, Kurosawa: The Last Emperor (1999) and Emmanuelle: A Hard Look (2000).

Through each chapter, Cox gives an engaging if self-deprecating insight into how each of the films came together; discussing the main inspiration behind the subject-matter, the political and/or geographical context that existed at the time of the production and the general critical and commercial reception that followed their eventual release. However, he also details the various struggles and difficulties faced in getting the films made. These difficulties include uncooperative actors, meddlesome producers, lawyers with the authority to shut down a production over a single line of the script, distributors who buy and bury films for nefarious reasons, and the slow and cumbersome nature of mainstream filmmaking, with its army of trucks, large crews, intimidating police presence and heavy equipment.

As someone who fell in love with the fantasy of cinema, as defined by the films themselves, Cox's chronicle of the mundane "business" of show is hugely dispiriting; reminding us that the reality of filmmaking is not the magic of Ed Wood (1994), or even the romanticised actuality of Day for Night (1973), but closer perhaps to the autocratic nightmares of Terry Gilliam's dystopian satire Brazil (1985). For this reason alone the book should be seen as required reading for all would-be filmmakers, film-critics and film-enthusiasts of all backgrounds and persuasions. It demystifies the process of independent filmmaking in the shadow of modern Hollywood and its insights into this world are both practical and invaluable.

Moviedrome [BBC, 1988-2000]:

Cox of course has prior form when it comes to discussing films in an engaging and self-deprecating manner. As the original host of the BBC's Moviedrome series, Cox played Roger Ebert at his own game, introducing countless cult film titles to mainstream television audiences from 1988 to 1994. In 1997, the esteemed Mark Cousins would take over hosting duties until the series ended.

For me "X Films" is one of the great books about filmmaking. It's funny, informal and always informative. It's packed with anecdotes and choice namedropping, and paints Cox as a genuinely humanist figure who cares very deeply about his collaborators, and isn't too precious to acknowledge their influence in shaping many of the best scenes and images from his work. As much as Cox's career has been framed around the cult-success of both Repo Man and Sid and Nancy, or even the perceived "failures" of Walker and Straight to Hell, he's nonetheless continued to make films that possess the same spirit of post-modern experimentation, non-conformism, personal integrity and imagination. To quote the recently deceased Scott Walker from the lyrics of his song Patriot (A Single): he "never sold out."

Cox's best films work to combine genres and influences. In this sense he was ahead of his time. Looking back at the independent American cinema of the 1990s, defined as it was by the post-modern genre play of filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and the Coen Brothers (to name a few), it's impossible not to see films like Repo Man, Straight to Hell, Walker, etc. as the early forerunners of this particular cinematic zeitgeist. That Cox was denied acclaim for the kind of filmmaking that would become, post-Tarantino, the standard among the populist auteurs, must have hurt. And yet there's no bitterness to "X Films"; perhaps because Cox knows that his best work - which also includes the later efforts El Patrullero (1991), Death and the Compass, Three Businessmen (1998) and Revengers Tragedy (2002) - exist on their own terms and no one else's.

Robby Müller

In Memoriam

In general, I tend not to make too many "R.I.P." posts. Other blogs that are more active than mine make such tributes a regular feature of their postings, but given that I'm not a very prolific writer here at Lights in the Dusk, I could imagine such posts becoming overwhelming given the general lack of other content. The sad fact is that too many great artists come and go and if I were to acknowledge each of them this blog would turn into an obituary.

However, Robby Müller, the great Dutch cinematographer famed for his collaborations with Wim Wenders, among other filmmakers, passed away this week, and it seems necessary to break from this tradition and share a few words (and images) about his extraordinary career.

To Live and Die in L.A. [William Friedkin, 1985]:

Müller was one of my absolute favourite cinematographers and was someone who seemed to gravitate towards projects and filmmakers that speak to me on a profoundly personal level.

It's difficult to choose a favourite film photographed by Müller. Throughout his career he brought a style, atmosphere and inventiveness that always seemed right for the specific project. In other words, he served the material. Whether he was working in 16mm black and white, as in Alice in the Cities (1974), 35mm colour, as in Barfly (1987), or pioneering the use of digital video, as in Dancer in the Dark (2000), My Brother Tom (2001) and 24 Hour Party People (2002), respectively, Müller was able to create lasting images that were bold, iconographic and always attuned to matters of light, space, character and location.

Whether collaborating with mainstream Hollywood directors, such as William Friedkin, John Schlesinger and Peter Bogdanovich, or more idiosyncratic, independent talents, such as Alex Cox, Jim Jarmusch and Raúl Ruiz, Müller always seemed to bring a level of craftsmanship that was even more remarkable given the limitations that he chose to embrace.

It's not an overstatement to suggest that Müller could have had the same career as Roger Deakins, Robert Richardson, or more recently Hoyte Van Hoytema; working exclusively on big budget Hollywood pictures for so-called "prestige" filmmakers. Instead, Müller chose to work with filmmakers that were unconventional, controversial and often at the start of their careers. In doing so, he nonetheless succeeded in creating a lifetime's worth of astounding images on small budgets, short schedules and against incredibly difficult filming conditions.

Robby Müller filming Kings of the Road [photo attributed to Wim Wenders]:

Just focusing on his early collaborations with Wenders already illustrates Müller's amazing versatility. Moving from the stylised and Hitchcokian The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972) to the almost documentary like travelogue of Alice in the Cities, we can appreciate both his mastery of different mediums and his ability to switch between works of unforced naturalism and painterly stylisation.

The subsequent films that Wenders and Müller made together would only broaden their creative pallet, as the emphasis on landscape, or 'place', became a central concern in a film like Kings of the Road (1976) or the early scenes of Paris, Texas (1984), while the use of colour would become increasingly more daring and expressive, as in the Edward Hopper influenced Patricia Highsmith adaptation The American Friend (1977).

The lasting legacy of Müller is perhaps best surmised by Wenders himself, who in a tribute to his former collaborator, states: "Like no other, you were able to seize moods and to describe situations in your imagery that revealed more about the characters than long dialogues or dramaturgical structures ever could. You knew how to create a distinctive atmosphere for each and every film, in which the respective actors were, in the truest sense of the phrase, "in good hands." For a handful of filmmakers, among whom I was one, you were their most important companion, like Hans W., Jim, Lars, Steve. And you were a role model for a whole generation of young directors of photography."

Below are some images taken from my absolute favourite films photographed by Robby Müller, which I hope illustrate many of the qualities discussed here, as well as providing a chronological record of his stylistic progression, trademarks, characteristics and key works.

Alice in the Cities [Wim Wenders, 1974]:

Kings of the Road [Wim Wenders, 1976]:

The Left-Handed Woman [Peter Handke, 1978]:

The American Friend [Wim Wenders, 1977]:

They All Laughed [Peter Bogdanovich, 1981]:

Repo Man [Alex Cox, 1984]:

Paris, Texas [Wim Wenders, 1984]:

To Live and Die in L.A. [William Friedkin, 1985]:

Down by Law [Jim Jarmusch, 1986]:

Mystery Train [Jim Jarmusch, 1989]:

Korczak [Andrzej Wajda, 1990]:

Until the End of the World [Wim Wenders, 1991]:

Dead Man [Jim Jarmusch, 1995]:

Breaking the Waves [Lars von Trier, 1996]:

The Tango Lesson [Sally Potter, 1997]:

Dancer in the Dark [Lars von Trier, 2000]:

Ashes [Steve McQueen, 2014]: