No success like failure

April 11, 2021 4:43 AM

a natural history of the film maudit.
posted by sapagan (40 comments total)

Fun and fascinating! Thanks!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:13 AM on April 11, 2021

Fascinating.

I do enjoy this concluding thought:

To paraphrase a 1917 avant-garde manifesto, a film maudit was understood as a slap in the face of public taste or, as another Russian avant-gardist put it, “to lay bare the device”. While not necessarily self-reflexive, many if not most of the great films maudits broke the rules in holding up a funhouse mirror to the worlds of movies, stardom, spectatorship and the media system itself. It was a reflection many did not wish to see.
posted by doctornemo at 6:35 AM on April 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

came here to quote Bob Dylan but then bothered to begin reading the article and there it is a few paragraphs in:

“There’s no success like failure, and failure’s no success at all.”
posted by philip-random at 7:24 AM on April 11, 2021

came here to quote Bob Dylan but then bothered to begin reading the article and there it is a few paragraphs in:

It's also the title of the post itself.
posted by octothorpe at 7:46 AM on April 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

My first thought was how Ralph Bakshi simultaneously went to Movie Jail and Horny Jail after making Cool World.
posted by theodolite at 8:20 AM on April 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Under the Silver Lake might be the latest entry into the film maudit canon.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:25 AM on April 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

It's also the title of the post itself.

not the complete quote though. It only half turns the corner.
posted by philip-random at 8:30 AM on April 11, 2021

They mention Lady from Shanghai but it feels like almost every Orson Welles film, save for his first, falls into this category.
posted by octothorpe at 8:50 AM on April 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

Under the Silver Lake might be the latest entry into the film maudit canon.

I hadn't heard of Southland Tales, and was immediately struck by the superficial resemblance between Donnie Darko/Southland Tales and It Follows/Under The Silver Lake.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 9:25 AM on April 11, 2021

I saw Southland Tales in a rare 35mm print at a screening very, very shortly after Donald Trump had been elected. Richard Kelly was there for Q&A. So, I asked him, "Did you know you were making a documentary about the future?"
posted by jonp72 at 10:44 AM on April 11, 2021 [6 favorites]

By the way, I have to say I am a huge J Hoberman fanboy, probably since I first read the Midnight Movies book he co-wrote with Jonathan Rosenbaum. I even got to meet him at a Pacific Film Archive screening, and he autographed some of my copies of his books. I first learned about the film maudit concept from him, and I am so glad he still has venues to publish his work after the collapse of the Village Voice. Too bad he's not on Film Twitter, but I guess he probably finds the character limits too constraining.
posted by jonp72 at 10:49 AM on April 11, 2021

I haven’t seen Southland Tales since it came out but I have the strong suspicion that it aged way better than our collective well-being would have liked.

Besides, the bonkers JT dance sequence is worth admission alone.
posted by hototogisu at 11:02 AM on April 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

On a whim I found "Initiation à la danse des Possédés" and was underwhelmed - it was, you know, racist and patronizing but also not in any way artful. And not even artlessly artful.

That said, an interesting article and, yes, nice to see J.Hoberman's by-line again.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:30 PM on April 11, 2021

I wonder of Saturn 3 would fit into the category. Brand name cast giving terrible performances in an almost entirely stupefying story. I would feel bad recommending that anyone bother watching it. Maudit or just dreck?
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:48 PM on April 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

I wasn't sure what I was reading, but I enjoyed clicking through on the "Ishtar" link.
posted by MtDewd at 1:16 PM on April 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

I often have a fondness for cinematic ugly ducklings and audience-teasers. But I'll draw the line at 'Ishtar'. Which is just a bumpy expensive mediocre movie, but with those brain-melting Paul Williams compositions in the soundtrack, which are completely inedible.
posted by ovvl at 1:22 PM on April 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Excuse me? Paul Williams is the best part of the movie.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:26 PM on April 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

The author suggests that the film maudit is on its way out, which I don't get. How is this world not still full of visions and boondoggles?

I wonder if The Room counts, or if it is what you call a cult film. I think the latter, since Tommy Wiseau eventually got paid as a result of making it. Maybe The Book of Henry is one. Colin Trevorrow was going to direct a Star Wars movie before Disney caught the stink waves radiating off of The Book of Henry.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:32 PM on April 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

The definition is hard to pin down, not that is unexpected for something invented by Jean Cocteau. Genre-less/too genre/avante garde/ terrible/a slap in the face/politically banned? Useful for Cocteau, sure, useful to the Cahiers du Cinema critics, sure. Useful to us now? I'm not sure; all of the movies mentioned that I have seen are legit good movies (Renoir, Vigo, Vidor, Ophuls), are enjoyable (Chaplin,,Welles) or provocations (Godard, Makavejev). If the definition is "movies which, for various reasons, you have not seen but which are worth seeing for artistic or sociological reasons", well OK. But I take the author's point: nowadays everything has a home.
posted by acrasis at 2:37 PM on April 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

I wonder of Saturn 3 would fit into the category. Brand name cast giving terrible performances in an almost entirely stupefying story. I would feel bad recommending that anyone bother watching it. Maudit or just dreck?

I'm leaning to maudit: original script was by Martin Amis (then re-written) plus Harvey Keitel refused to do looping (a disagreement about his accent, apparently) so his entire performance was dubbed in post by another actor.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 2:47 PM on April 11, 2021

Ever since I read this article, I have been wondering if there is a phrase that means the opposite of film maudit. You know, the film that EVERYONE loves, the critics, it's gotten lots of award nominations, etc., and you think it was the worst piece of garbage in every way?
posted by queensissy at 3:22 PM on April 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

I'm leaning to maudit

That might be sorta true in one sense of the movie being damned from the start, but it still would need to have people championing it to really fit the term in how it was wielded to reclaim films perceived as artistic failures. I'm not aware of there being much push to reclaim Saturn 3 in that way by film buffs.
posted by gusottertrout at 3:47 PM on April 11, 2021

So I just watched Southland Tales and it is a mess, but it was also disturbingly familiar. I saw racist cops, riots on the streets, fascist Republicans, a surveillance state, and cameos everywhere. It's not perfect by any means, but it did see into the future a bit. It reminded me that artists who can see the future can never see it perfectly clearly, and their work when first received seems incomprehensible.
posted by Stanczyk at 3:58 PM on April 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

I'm not aware of there being much push to reclaim Saturn 3 in that way by film buffs.

Hmmm, yeah, I'd have to give ya that. No one would (or could) argue for critical rehabilitation despite some interesting bits and bobs about it's making.

Into the dreck pile.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 4:05 PM on April 11, 2021

If I remember correctly the selling point of Saturn 3 was actually the bits and boobs.
posted by Stanczyk at 4:15 PM on April 11, 2021

I should watch Southland Tales again - what I remember is a tremendous sense of bathos, which is something I quite enjoy in film (other examples would be I ❤︎ Huckabees and Shock Treatment), partly because cinema, as a medium, relies so much on bravura that going full-pelt for bathos seems wonderfully transgressive, even if it was inadvertent.

The recent films maudits that spring to mind are pre-bombed blockbusters like John Carter or The Lone Ranger. I've not seen the former, but The Lone Ranger is one of those films (like Caligula) that contains within it an extraordinary movie that can't exist because its disastrous sibling does, but that I can sort of see. If I squint.
posted by Grangousier at 4:23 PM on April 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

I don't think the article mentions Starship Troopers which also might fit the bill.
posted by Stanczyk at 4:30 PM on April 11, 2021

I don't think the article mentions Starship Troopers which also might fit the bill.

I think Verhoeven was far too conscious of what he was going for (and managed to achieve) to qualify.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 4:32 PM on April 11, 2021

But isn't Maudin about reception and not intention?
posted by Stanczyk at 4:39 PM on April 11, 2021

queensissy:

I propose the following term for the oppose of un film maudit: the Schlockbuster.

An emblematic Schlock-buster movie would be Forest Gump, or Paul Haggis' 2004 crash. It is an agreeable film full of bathos, that avoids saying much other than the most consensus filled of platitudes.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 5:20 PM on April 11, 2021 [7 favorites]

I think you might be on to something, LRJ. I'm realizing that with a couple of recent movies, I really need others to recognize the terribleness, if only sometime down the road. Your examples are very good.
posted by queensissy at 5:29 PM on April 11, 2021

I'm thinking of Freddy Got Fingered and The Book of Henry as two post-2000 examples here. Maybe Elizabethtown as well - a reviled Cameron Crowe attempt at epic something-or-other that inspired Nathin Rabin's "My Year of Flops" column and therefor also incidentally gave the world the phrase "Manic Pixie Dream Girl," which is more of a cultural footprint than the movie itself left.
posted by Navelgazer at 5:53 PM on April 11, 2021

Paul Williams is the best part of the movie.

Hah. Those songs are pretty avant-garde.
posted by ovvl at 6:30 PM on April 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

I think the key thing to consider about the concept of the film maudit is that it is used as a way to redesignate a film from being considered a failure to an artistic success. It's use is wielded against the immediate response of those who may care little for the alleged greater value the movie has or will show over time, that those who really care understand.

There's quite a bit left unstated in that, and a fair bit of it carries assumptions that themselves need addressing, even as there is some practical truth to them as well. Perhaps the most important element is in noting that the experience of a movie, and thus its "value" is assessed first by the mass audience and the reviewers that serve them over commercial success of the film, the immediate pleasure it provides or at least the interest it feeds that will determine whether it is a "hit" or not.

The aficionado though has a different agenda, they're more concerned with what they take as the movie's "ultimate value", it's merits as considered over time or as "timeless". Their interests, in that way, are more refined, in a sense, to thinking about a history of film they care about and how this movie might fit within that history. When the immediate moment of the film's release has passed and the mass audience loses interest in the old for the next new thing, the aficionado's claims gain importance simply because they still care after the others move on. (Of course some movies have immediate critical and/or some popular success that are also loved, but the basic dynamic is still that the aficionado is more the curator of the legacy than the moment.)

Calling a movie a film maudit offers an excuse of sorts for why it didn't find earlier acclaim, invests it with an added sense of the esoteric to it and often carries a demand of special knowledge to appreciate. A cursed film, in that way, is almost a forbidden object, which increases its appeal to those who see themselves as judging intrinsic merit obscured by extrinsic circumstance, as that is the nature of a curse, hiding the "real" value under some outward damaging effect.

The typical film maudit is often a work by a director of considered importance that somehow wasn't seen as matching the expected status of that director's other works. The aficionado has invested themselves in the director's "oeuvre", their history, and through that sees the work as part of an important larger whole rather than just a thing in itself. This leads to claims of value that can't be assessed in immediate response, save by others who might share the same awareness of that history. It creates a barrier to judgement that leaves the aficionado uniquely qualified to breach.

A recentish example of this is the movie blackhat, directed by Michael Mann, it was largely ignored, or worse, on release but has a devoted following of film buffs who claim it as a great film. They think Michael Mann is a great director and blackhat is fit to his body of work and "says something" about the current moment that is important, because Michael Mann is a great artist. I know this is the case because I think blackhat is awful and continue to argue against its inclusion as a film of importance, even though I know that's a fight I'm going to probably lose because the aficionado has time working for them. The longer the fight, the greater the advantage for those who still care.

Most people stop carrying about films they don't like shortly after they see them, unless they really hate the work, so they drop away from concern over the film, leaving it to those who feel most strongly to debate, but the weight of appreciation leans towards the "pro" side since continuing to engage with a movie you hate is tedious for keeping it present in your mind, so the battle of attrition favors those who enjoy the work. The argument essentially is one over how we assess works and directors as much as the specific films themselves, the value of "auteurism", for example, or the importance of "cinematic" expression vs concrete detail, but ultimately its an argument over the meaning of appreciation itself, though not usually stated as such so directly. Eh, there's more, but I know some find my long posts irksome, so I'll leave it there and hope that people will read the middlebrow post above since that also speaks to some similar ideas.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:32 AM on April 12, 2021 [5 favorites]

I'm thinking of Freddy Got Fingered and The Book of Henry as two post-2000 examples here.

I was going to be snarky and say "but the thing about a Maudit is that someone eventually has to like it" about Freddy Got Fingered, but have realized that's a good jumping-off point for a tangent.

I think I've heard about the same things you're intending, where there are some people who are fascinated by FGF for being such a concentrated example of...whatever it is. Some say it's a sort of modern dada work, some say it's reveling in its own transgression, there are probably arguments I'm not aware of. However - I'm not sure that this necessarily means that people like it. They may like the mental puzzle it creates - studying how it got made, studying the techniques it uses - but is that the same thing as liking the movie itself?

I'm not so sure. The Nostalgia Critic reviewed it on his Youtube channel a couple years back, and one scene in particular baffles him so much that the whole movie becomes a strangely fascinating exercise. Its existence shocks him so much that he kind of wants to analyze how it happened. (He's even more shocked in the "first time viewing" video where he and his brother watch it together and film their candid initial reaction - they have to actually pause the video mid-watch and recover because one scene has just shocked them that much. But- they still hate the film itself.

I'd argue that the enjoyment of discussing a film, or enjoying busting on a film, is a little different from enjoyment of a film itself. So I'm not quite as convinced this would count as a maudit in this case.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:42 AM on April 12, 2021

But I'll draw the line at 'Ishtar'.

Yeah, I've always thought Ishtar was underrated, but that doesn't mean I think it's a lost masterpiece or anything, which is what it sounds like a film needs to be in this category. It's just a mediocre movie that was unfairly called a legendary disaster. It's not horrible. It's just sort of... there.
posted by Naberius at 6:56 AM on April 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

>> It's also the title of the post itself.

> not the complete quote though. It only half turns the corner.
> posted by philip-random at 8:30 AM on April 11 [+] [!]

And you know what they say about failure to make it all the way around the corner. (philip-random, if you could get me the technical specs on how you made ASCII insert audio directly into my brain, I'd appreciate it. It was a very efficient encoding algorithm.)

I'm looking forward to sitting down with this post, thanks sapagan.
posted by adekllny at 7:01 AM on April 12, 2021

Southland Tales is not a good movie by any definition, but it was utterly compelling and I thought about it for weeks after watching it. So that seems like a success to me.

Part of it was that there were so many choices that seemed intentional, but for no reason I could figure out. Like the prevalence in the cast of washed-up 80s-90s SNL cast members -- Nora Dunn, Cheri Oteri, Jon Lovitz. Like the (then) stunt-casting of The Rock, Mandy Moore, and Justin Timberlake.

Now I want to watch it again.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:07 AM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

I wholeheartedly love Southland Tales and, when asked about it, describe it as "The Princess Bride for fans of Phillip K. Dick." It's lovely to see it's still talked about.
posted by foxtongue at 1:18 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

Paul Williams is the best part of most of the things he's involved in. For me the best part of Phantom of the Paradise is Jessica Harper's voice, but she's singing his songs.

(When I wake up on Thursdays, for several decades now, I often have Swan's voice telling me what day it is.)
posted by Grangousier at 11:51 AM on April 13, 2021