BEFORE SCROLLING TO THE WEB PAGE BELOW ABOUT TINTO BRASS, PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT THESE NEWS ITEMS, WHICH ARE FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING I’VE EVER HAD TO SAY:

AMY GOODMAN:     A little-noticed story surfaced a couple of weeks ago in the Army Times newspaper about the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. “Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months,” reported Army Times staff writer Gina Cavallaro, “the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.” Disturbingly, she writes that “they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control” as well. The force will be called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force. Its acronym, CCMRF, is pronounced “sea-smurf.” These “sea-smurfs,” Cavallaro reports, have “spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle,” in a combat zone, and now will spend their 20-month “dwell time” — time troops are required to spend to “reset and regenerate after a deployment” — armed and ready to hit the U.S. streets....

FOR THE FULL STORY, CLICK HERE.

It gets worse:

NAOMI WOLF:     On October 1, 2008, President Bush deployed a brigade — which means three to four thousand warriors — somewhere in America. We do not know where they are deployed though citizens have informally reported to me having seen military vehicles and troops in Georgia and Alabama. We do know that their official mandate according to the first report is “crowd control” as well as action in the event of a mass civilian catastrophe. Initial reports described their technology “module package” as involving Tasers and rubber bullets.... The First Brigade is Bush’s force: they are not answerable to Congress or to the Governors of states: they are answerable to the Commander in Chief. In an Alternet posting, I interviewed Air Force Colonel (retired) David Antoon who noted that the troops must obey the president, even if he asks them to arrest Congress or fire on civilians or attack media outlets. If they do not obey orders, he notes, they face five years in prison.... Antoon himself calls the deployment “ominous.” Troops on our streets makes us something less than a democracy: one definition of a police state is when a leader sends his own military units into civilian streets. Meanwhile the civilian policing of citizens is becoming more brutal. Hundreds of preemptive arrests took place in St Paul, dozens of journalists were arrested.... In St. Paul, funds were sent in advance to pay off the lawsuits against police forces that were guaranteed to arise from the planned abuse of citizens. This sort of thing is happening across the country. The tactic has established a closed circle that has turned citizens’ law enforcement agencies into contractors of a state that is directing acts of increasing severity against US citizens. Now a military brigade is being deployed....

FOR THE FULL STORY, CLICK HERE.

Click here to see an interview with Naomi Wolf conducted in early October 2008.

For the past five years or so I hve been hearing rumors that Halliburton has been building (and has now finished building) 800 prisons throughout the USA, not yet functioning, but just waiting for the right crisis. I have not found reliable evidence for the specific quantity, readiness, functionality, locations, or details, but you might be interested in taking a look at page 5 of this Halliburton press release dated 26 January 2006: KBR has been awarded a contract announced by the Department of Homeland Security’s United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component. The Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contingency contract is to support ICE facilities and has a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term. The contract provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States, or to support the rapid development of new programs.... Now, really, what are the chances of “an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States”? And what are the “new programs” that could come under “rapid development”?

FOR THE FULL PRESS RELEASE, CLICK HERE.

NOW, BACK TO THE MAIN PART OF THE WEB PAGE:

Did you happen to record Monty Python’s Flying Circus when it was shown on PBS back in the 1970s?
Do you still have the tapes?
Is there a TIME-LIFE logo at the end?
If so, please write to me. Thank you!

THE WORKS OF TINTO BRASS

Part 6
AFTERMATH: ONE MORE GUERRILLA FILM AND A DREAM COME TRUE

Jump ahead to:

Action

(1979)

The above poster art is by The Phenomenal Jost Jakob

The protracted lawsuits involving Caligula made Brass unemployable. In order to rescue his reputation, he paid for his next production himself. He moved his crew to England and made this 16mm movie about an actor, Bruno (Luc Merenda), who specializes in gangster rôles in cheap action dramas. He is fired for cutting up on Tinto Brass’s set and ruining a take, and so follows his agent’s advice by taking a job with a porno production, which puts even further strain on his already strained marriage. Before he has a chance to act in a scene, he rescues Doris, an abused would-be Shakespearean actress who prefers to call herself Ophelia, from the set. Together they set forth on a journey through England, where they are attacked in a junkyard by punks, are taken in by an escaped lunatic who thinks he’s Garibaldi, and are incarcerated in an insane asylum where the delicate and emotionally unstable Ophelia commits suicide. An escape from the asylum is easy, and Bruno and Garibaldi steal a car, rob a cash register, shoot a cop, get a job pumping gas at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere, and find themselves caught in the middle of a domestic feud. This magnificent surreal work proves what we have suspected all along, namely, that the national language of England is Italian. The film was a family affair, as Brass’s wife Carla “Tinta” Cipriani was production secretary, their daughter Beatrice was continuity girl and played two rôles (continuity girl on the set at the beginning and the girl in the garbage dump who won’t wear her cast), and their son Bonifacio was still photographer. A lot of fun! Too bad it flopped.

There is a much-longer version on DVD in Italy, poorly derived from Tinto Brass’s personal print, and it has significantly more dialogue. Surprisingly, it was not the nudity that was cut from the release version.

On the set of a porn film	Ophelia is unhappy with her rôle
Horsing around in the pool	The punks are not amused
Bruno’s vision in the woods
No need for explanation	Horsing around on the set

A NOTE AND A QUESTION: Brass dubs an extra’s line: “Cosa sei, un prete?” Who dubbed Osiride Pevarello?

THE END OF PHASE ONE: This was the only time that Brass collaborated with both of his favorite writers, Giancarlo Fusco and Roberto Lerici, and it was his last collaboration with Fusco. Never again would Brass’s films have the same raw forcefulness and earthy feel that he achieved with these two artists. Never again would his films look so organically grown, almost improvised. Yes, he would achieve greatness again, but not this sort of greatness. I really miss this old style. It puts one in mind of the great comics of the teens and twenties, who felt free enough, creative enough, and confident enough to let films take on lives of their own. Pier Paolo Pasolini also had that gift. Dusan Makavejev, in WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971) and Sweet Movie (1974) worked the same magic. But who else? I know of no one. Action not only brought to a close the most vibrant phase of Brass’s career; it also brought to a close an entire era.

The DVD, about 10 minutes longer than any other version. Too much compression, I mean, way too much compression. And the sound is about one syllable behind the picture all the way through. But it’s got optional Italian captions and optional English subtitles and a nice photogallery and an excerpt from Lorenzo Codelli’s unreleased feature-length interview with Tinto Brass (conducted in 2003) and despite all the technical glitches (I mean, why did they letterbox it at 1.85:1???), it’s still mesmerizing and hilarious and delightful and unique and quirky and memorable and just so absolutely lovely and a million times better than most other movies.

Tinto Brass presenta

Action

CIDIF: Consorzio Italiano Distributori Indipendenti Film

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE

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