Hollywood Elsewhere joins the mourners of legendary Australian (Aboriginal) actor and dancer David Guilpil, who has passed from lung cancer at age 68.

A symbol of indigenous pride and a man of great meditative silence, Guilpil’s best-known or most striking performances were captured in Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout, Peter Weir’s The Last Wave, Crocodile Dundee (original + sequel), Philip Noyce’s Rabbit Proof Fence and Ten Canoes (‘06).

Noyce: “For tens of millions the world over, David was the living embodiment of Australia’s 100,000 year First Nation culture. He taught us all so much.”

Posted on 7.9.08: HE commenter Burmashave: “Anybody ever think about James Dean playing Jesus if he’d lived, and how fucking crazy that would have been?”

There’s a distinct similarity factor between Rebel Without a Cause‘s James Dean and King of Kings‘ Jeffrey Hunter. Both films were directed by Nicholas Ray, of course, so in a sartorial fashion Ray did sorta kinda cast Dean in his Bible movie. He did this by having Hunter wear a facsimile of the iconic red jacket and white T-shirt get-up that Dean wore in Rebel.

Variety critic Todd McCarthy reminded me this morning, in fact, that “Ray dressed Hunter in a robe of exactly the same shade of red as Dean’s Rebel jacket.”

The idea of Christ wearing a red robe had already been established in The Robe and Demetrius and the Gladiators, but think for a moment about the ludicrousness of a dirt-poor Jesus of Nazareth wearing a red cloak with a perfect white T-shirt garment underneath. It’s as if they had Gap and Banana Republic shops in old Jerusalem, and Jesus and his disciples occasionally shopped there.

What if J.C. had hired a fashion consultant? “As you know, Nazarene, plain red works fine on every occasion, but — stop me if I’m overstepping — you need to present an extra stylistic distinction, something that says ‘this guy is special’ and not just some, whatever, shepherd or olive farmer or whatever, if you follow my drift. That’s why a white undergarment is such a good idea. And it comes with white briefs in case, perish the thought, you’re ever crucified, because the Roman guards will let you keep the briefs on. Or at least, they have with my other customers.”

“Everything you say about King of Kings is right,” McCarthy wrote about my 7.8 posting, “but to me the most compelling aspect of the film it how political it is. The first whole section of the picture details the political situation in Judea at the time with almost documentary-like attention, and the script’s great and provocative gesture is to present Jesus and Harry Guardino‘s Barabbas as parallel revolutionaries — Jesus of a religious stripe and Barabbas as a political outlaw, which makes the ending ironic.

“In defining the major Jesus films of the ’60s-70s period, it’s fair to say that Stevens’ The Greatest Story Ever Told is the Protestant version, Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth is the Catholic version, Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew is the Marxist version and King of Kings is the Zionist version.

“Of course Hunter is physically far too fair (and note the shaved armpits at the crucifixion), but he still manages to achieve a poignant purity as things move along. The score is one of Rozsa’s very greatest and crucial to covering over various narrative lurches and shortcomings. And, by the way, there are no known 70mm prints, so you can’t blame the Cinematheque for not delivering one.””

Jeremy Wein attended Sunday’s SAG screening of Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story, and has tweeted that Rita Moreno, who plays “Valentina,” the widow of “Doc”, the elderly drugstore owner played by Ned Glass in the ’61 version, is “the heart of the whole thing.”

Dan Gaertner conveys a similar report:

World of Reel ‘s Jordan Ruimy passes this along:

Good for Moreno, but this seems a bit curious. A supporting character with a big emotional scene in the latter half overwhelms the contributions of the leads (Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez)?

Similar reaction to 1961 version: “Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno and George Chakiris were good enough, but Ned Glass knocked it out of the park.”

I’m trying not to sound all performance-arty about the sad, sudden passing of former movie critic and film festival get-around guy James Rocchi, who was 53. Felled by a heart attack. He wasn’t a “friend” but I certainly liked and admired him during the Rocchi peak years (late aughts to mid teens), and he seemed to enjoy or at least tolerate my routine for the most part. (He often addressed me as “Doctor Wells.”). I’m running around Manhattan as we speak but I’m very, very sorry for James’ loss, and ours. He was a total gentleman, and he always dressed impeccably.

I’ve been watching Lindsay Anderson’s This Sporting Life (‘63) off and on for 20+ years, or since the dawn of the DVD/Bluray era. Easily my all-time favorite “throwing up in the kitchen sink” drama, and certainly one of Richard Harris and Rachel Roberts’ greatest roles.

Denys Coop’s black-and-white cinematography is heavenly, and yet I’ve never gotten hold of an HD-streaming or Bluray version.

The kitchen sink genre was otherwise known as England’s “free cinema” movement. Most know this, but perhaps not all.

Before the Sundance Film Festival woked itself to death, it was the indie pathfinder and trailblazer — the greatest-ever springboard for American indie cinema. And in my 24 diligent years of covering that January celebration (’95 to ’18), one of the most exciting Sundance premieres was Karyn Kusama‘s Girlfight on 1.22.00.

A great boxing flick, a first-rate relationship drama and the film that launched Michelle Rodriguez, it won the festival’s Grand Jury Prize and the Best Directing Award in dramatic competition. Produced for $1 million, Girlfight‘s distrib rights were bought by Screen Gems for $3 million.

I saw a proud and tough feminist film, and one that could really connect with Latinas and women of color along with indie film fans.

Girlfight opened eight months later (9.29.00) and promptly flopped. Latinas and women of color stayed away in droves. After a five-week run it had tallied a total domestic haul of $1,565,852 plus a lousy $100,176 overseas. I’ve never understood why this happened. I’ll bet that a fair percentage of HE readers never even saw it.

Few Broadway musicals have melted my heart like Stephen Sondheim‘s Sunday in the Park with George. It opened in ’84 with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters in the lead roles, and was revived in ’17 with Jake Gyllenhaal. I managed to miss both.

I’ve watched the DVD a couple of times (hence my enthusiasm), but both it and the streaming version have been removed from Amazon. It’s never even been transferred to HD.

This Act Two song — “Putting It Together” — is especially sharp and elegant and so wise. Excerpt: “Having just a vision’s no solution/everything depends on execution!”

I’m so glad to have absorbed the often miraculous Sondheim groove, starting with Company. Everyone, all of us, all there.