The Moderns (1988 Alan Rudolph & co-scr)

I had long wanted to watch The Moderns, which just goes to prove something. It's an interesting film in many ways, but also somehow maddening. After 30 minutes Q asked if there were any likable characters in it, and bailed. I know what she means. 

The plot kept making me think of Casablanca, somehow. We're in 1920s Paris, with the usual array of Hemingways, Gertrude Steins, etc. Jon Bradshaw was the other writer.

The direction and editing are interesting, and the design (though it was very clearly not filmed in Paris). For example in the scene where Keith Carradine drives away with Geraldine Chaplin, it does look like the background through the car's rear window is all painted, as indeed is the view through the gauze curtains of her apartment window. 'The Moderns' refers to the artists who Carradine agrees to copy - Cezanne, Modigliani and er somebody - it's then most amusing when utter shit John Lone burns the real ones thinking they are fake. Also fun is the faked suicide of M. Oiseau (Wallace Shawn) and his reappearance as a woman. The filming is interesting, such as the café opening in which Rudolph is constantly slowly zooming in on the various characters, Altman-like (Altman was his mentor and the film is dedicated to him). The characters are annoying and some of the dialogue you're really not sure how to take (such as "She's as cool as somebody else's cucumber") - with a pinch of salt? Though did like the irony in Shawn's lines "Y'know, Paris has been taken over by imitators of people who were imitators themselves. It's become a parody. It's finished. It's over. Believe me, Hollywood is going to be like a breath of fresh air."

Its device of fading from black and white twenties clips of Paris into colour anticipates Hemingway and Gellhorn - coincidentally both films featuring the writer, this one played by Kevin J. O'Connor. Also involved are waif Linda Fiorentino (After Hours), art dealer Genevieve Bujold, slippery art owner Geraldine Chaplin, critic Gailard Sartain.

The film is filled with music and art and it feels textured and layered, perhaps with a sense of sending itself up.

Much music from Charlélie Couture, who is the singer in the film, as well as Bechet, Josephine Baker and Puccini. Photographed by Tayomichi Kuita and edited by Scott Brock and Debra Smith. Steven Legler is the production designer.