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December 2001, Week 1

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Subject:
From:
Jeremy Butler <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 3 Dec 2001 08:00:46 -0600
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One of my favorite uses of beat culture is BEAT GIRL (1960).  A teenaged
girl is drawn to the decadence that is the beatnik scene in London. She
has a bunch of beat pals over for a party while her father is away. He
comes home unexpectedly and is appalled by the sight of beats in his
house. He shouts, "Get out of my house, you jiving, jumping scum!"

(See Internet Movie Database plot summary below.)

Also, a tangential beat film is JAZZ ON A SUMMER'S DAY, a documentary about
the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival (see review below). I'm sure there were
plenty of beats in attendance.

-----------------

BEAT GIRL IMDb plot summary:

Paul, a divorced architect, marries Nichole, a woman from Paris. His teen
daughter Jenny has fallen in with the English beatnik scene and likes to
hang out in cave-like clubs to listen to jazz and rudimentary rock'n'roll.
Jenny takes an immediate dislike to her mother-in-law, who is not that much
older than she, and goes out of her way to make life miserable for Nichole.
When Jenny discovers that Nichole is a friend of one of the strippers from
the dance hall across the street, she investigates and uses Nichole's
sordid past to embarrass her father. Meanwhile Jenny attracts the lecherous
eye of Kenny, the owner of the dance hall.

Summary written by Ed Sutton

Jazz on a Summer's Day

Capsule by Jonathan Rosenbaum
 From the Chicago Reader

Bert Stern's film of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival features Thelonious
Monk, Louis Armstrong, Eric Dolphy, Chuck Berry, Dinah Washington, Mahalia
Jackson, Anita O'Day, Gerry Mulligan, Chico Hamilton, and many others.
Stern's only film, shot in gorgeous color, is probably the best
feature-length jazz concert film ever made. Despite some distracting
cutaways to boats in the opening sections, the film eventually buckles down
to an intense concentration on the music and the audience's rapport with it
as afternoon turns into evening, with Mahalia Jackson's rendition of "The
Lord's Prayer" a particularly luminous highlight. Stern doesn't seem to
know what distinguishes mediocre from good or great jazz, because all three
seem to get equal amounts of his attention, but he's very good at showing
people listening (1960, 85 min.).


At 12:00 AM 12/3/2001 -0600, you wrote:
>Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2001 17:39:47 -0500
>From: Mary Celeste Kearney <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: films about the Beats
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>Hi -
>
>I'm looking for recommendations for films about the Beats, either narrative
>or documentary.
>
>
>Thanks very much,
>
>mary
>
>
>Mary Celeste Kearney
>Department of Radio-Television-Film
>The University of Texas at Austin
>Office: 512-475-8648
>Fax: 512-471-4077

Jeremy Butler
[log in to unmask]
========================================================
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