In other news, I just realised that Submit Response has been going for over six years now —its birth­day is the 10th of October.

In that time, 1,225 entries have been posted, and read­ers have left 2,605 com­ments. All of which makes me feel bad about the fact that this place has turned into an end­less stream of daily links.

Must try harder.

Just as The Stains’ career is taking off, Billy (a chubby Ray Win­stone) and Cor­rine “Third Degree” Burns (Diane Lane) have the fol­low­ing exchange on their tour bus:

Billy: I like your hair.

Cor­rine: Yeah? What else do you like?

Billy: That’s it. I mean, at the moment, you’re just hair, aintcha? If you work hard, maybe, in a couple of years time, you might be something… dif­fer­ent. At the moment, you’re just two white stripes.

Is that where the famous rock ‘n’ roll group got their name?

More details of the 2007 pro­gramme are avail­able here. And, if you’re won­der­ing how one makes an inter­na­tional film fes­ti­val, here is a hint.

Nice work, Han!

The EIFF’s new Artis­tic Direc­tor, Hannah McGill, announced today that this year’s Fes­ti­val, taking place from August 15-26, will have an over­ar­ch­ing screen­writ­ing theme – Cinema and the Writ­ten Word. The ini­tia­tive is the first intro­duced by McGill who took over as Artis­tic Direc­tor fol­low­ing last year’s Festival.

The new theme arises in recog­ni­tion of the increased inter­na­tional inter­est in the prac­tice of screen­writ­ing, and the rise to promi­nence of auteur screen­writ­ers. Through panel events, master classes, work­shops and dis­cus­sions with film­maker guests, the 61st EIFF will explore approaches to screen­writ­ing and lit­er­ary adap­ta­tion, rela­tion­ships between screen­writ­ers and direc­tors, and the posi­tion of screen­writ­ers within the inter­na­tional film industry.

“The screen­writ­ing theme extends our endur­ing remit to look beyond the image on the screen in order to explore the struc­tures and indi­vid­u­als who put it there and make it fascinating,” said McGill. “For me, it’s an intrigu­ing shift that writ­ers like Char­lie Kauf­man and Peter Morgan sud­denly have more cur­rency than some direc­tors and that script devel­op­ment is such a focus of the inter­na­tional industry.”

1. No Wikipedia entry for Chimpy? I am shocked, shocked I tell you! Not shocked enough to write one, mind you.↩

Hero (Ying Xiong) is fuck­ing amazing.

A more con­sid­ered review fol­lows shortly.

Little Edie - and her mother Big Edie - are the sub­ject of the Maysles Brothers’ doc­u­men­tary film Grey Gar­dens.

Their story is way beyond high camp.

The Beales are also Bou­viers - as in Jackie Bou­vier Kennedy - and Little Edie was once the toast of the town, as a debu­tante, model and aspir­ing actress (she claimed pro­pos­als of mar­riage were forth­com­ing from Howard Hughes and John Paul Getty) until her ailing and aban­doned mother called her home to their East Hamp­tons manse in 1952. From then on, the pair lived together alone, holed up in the house as it went to seed around them.

By the time the documentary-​makers showed up with their cam­eras, the Beales had hit the head­lines, and rock bottom, after the local Health Board con­demned Grey Gar­dens, in 1971 (Jackie even donned rubber gloves to help clear the filth).

The film shows their daily rou­tine, up close, in the ‘direct cinema’ style pio­neered by the Maysles Broth­ers - Little Edie dances and sings, lam­basts her mother for cur­tail­ing her career, and feeds the rac­coons that live in the attic; Big Edie sings too, lam­basts her daugh­ter for pretty much every­thing under the sun, and mixes cock­tails in jam jars. There isn’t, as far as I remem­ber, a single moment in the film when the Beales are silent. Most of the time, they’re shout­ing at and over each other, in what is almost a pri­vate argot of quick-​witted, epi­gram­matic quips. (They are both, it has to be said, quite, quite mad.)

It’s a moving por­trait, then, and one that steers well clear of exploit­ing the Beales. The cherry on the cake, though, is Little Edie’s look. She is never seen with­out an impro­vised turban, usu­ally fash­ioned by poking her face through the neck of a jumper with the arms tied at the back and a brooch pinned at the temple, and, more often than not, she bunches, ties and rouches up her skirts at random points around the hem. The result, fit­tingly, ends up some­where between bag lady and soci­ety dame.

Sadly, Grey Gar­dens is only avail­able on DVD in the US, but it’s well worth track­ing down a copy if you’re able to play it. Fail­ing that, you could always read more a wee bit more about the Beales:

• Edith Bou­vier Beale, an obit­u­ary in The Guardian
• Christo­pher Barton’s Little Edie Shrine
• Jonno’s Lost In A Sea Of Leaves: Remem­ber­ing the life - and death - of Little Edie Beale
• Instruc­tions for access­ing an ‘Easter Egg’ inter­view with Little Edie on the Cri­te­rion Grey Gar­dens DVD.

All credit to Janet for intro­duc­ing me to the Edies and Grey Gar­dens!