Showing posts with label Pakula. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pakula. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 28, 2009


Another image for the series. This one is featured in the "brainwashing" montage sequence of The Parallax View.

This famous picture of JFK in the oval office was taken by New York Times Photographer George Tames in 1961 and is titled "The Loneliest Job in the World." Tames on the photograph:
More info is available/sources are available at the George Tames wikipedia entry. 

President Kennedy's back was broken during the war, when that torpedo boat of his was hit by the Japanese destroyer. As a result of that injury he wore a brace on his back most of his life. Quite a few people didn't realize that. Also he could never sit for any length of time, more than thirty or forty minutes in a chair without having to get up and walk around. Particularly when it felt bad he had a habit, in the House, and the Senate, and into the presidency, of carrying his weight on his shoulders, literally, by leaning over a desk, putting down his palms out flat, and leaning over and carrying the weight of his upper body by his shoulder muscles, and sort of stretching or easing his back. He would read and work that way, which was something I had seen him do many times. When I saw him doing that, I walked in, stood by his rocking chair, and then I looked down and framed him between the two windows, and I shot that picture.1

More info is available/sources are available at the George Tames wikipedia entry. 

Tuesday, October 13, 2009



Too busy writing to explore this stuff now, but: 

- The Seventies in America eds. Bailey and Farber contains a chapter entitled "Adults Only: The Construction of an Erotic City in New York in the 1970s" by Peter Braunstein. 
- Mineshaft Nights is a memoir by Leo Cardini of time spent in the NY s&M club that Cruising was filmed in. 

A few notes to put here just in case they get lost in the shuffle:
-While filming Klute, Pakula describes Fonda as being constantly on the phone, organizing her political activities and speaking engagements. She was also, at the time, under surviellance by the FBI. I'm unsure if she is aware of this fact at the time. (Jane Fonda's War: A Political Biography, p 22) - I think this information can orginally be found in The Films of Jane Fonda by George Haddad-Garcia. 
-Klute starts shooting in the spring of 1970. The scenes of Peter Cable in his high-rise boardroom feature cranes and a building that seem very likely to be one of the WTC towers! The cranes are in movement during the shot. 

Also, these two images. One of Nixon in 1972, the other, earlier, of Peter Cable in Klute. Did Gordon Willis come to DEFINE a particular mode of visual presentation, so much so as to be influential in how American presidents, however disgraced, could be shown that way? 

Edit: The picture of Nixon was taken by Ollie Atkins, presidential photographer, at Camp David right after the 1972 election, during which the events of Watergate were still unfolding. 

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The Klute DVD has a great contemporaneous behind-the-scenes documentary included in the special features entitled "Klute: A Background for Suspense" with great quotes from Pakula and Willis (also Sutherland and Fonda).

Parts of Klute were also filmed at Filmways Studios in Harlem (possibly 245 E 127 St) where the Godfather was also filmed. It would be interesting to find out what else from my list was shot here, as I'm sure imdb info on this is incomplete.

Also found an article from New York Magazine, March 16, 1992 (pp42-?) that has some things about Sonny Grosso's film and television work.