As you all know, our friend Ken Mogg wrote voluminously about the works of Alfred Hitchcock.

Ken's publications included a number of books and many postings for magazines such as "Senses of Cinema" as well as regular items for about 30 years under the name "The MacGuffin".

Recently two people from opposite sides of the world have achieved a minor miracle... they have saved our friend Ken Mogg's huge body of posts about Hitchcock from oblivion.

To begin with I was contacted by a regular supporter of Ken's from the UK, Brent Reid. Brent wondered if anyone was doing anything to make sure Ken's work could be kept online in any way. I was unable to help him except by connecting him with Alex Freiberg, a close friend of Ken's who had been assisting him with considerable technical support for many years.

It turned out that Ken was so unwell he had not renewed his payments for his sites so they had both lapsed a few days before his passing. But Brent's concerns to preserve Ken's work were taken up by Alex and with many weeks of work since early April he managed to restore them for all to have access via these links:

"The MacGuffin" Web Page | Alfred Hitchcock

https://members.optusnet.com.au/afreiberg/MacGuffin/

and 

HitchInfo

So first, my very enthusiastic vote of thanks to both of these  gentlemen for ensuring that Ken's huge body of work has not been lost. 

Second, all our friends can now access this work and hopefully share it with people on other sites. I know my friend Geoff Gardner will assist with this on Film Alert 101 and any other sites which may be relevant. 

Thank you for your fine efforts Alex and Brent.

Peter.

ps.,

I asked Brent and Alex if they might include a few notes here concerning their history with Ken and his prolific postings?  

From Brent:

Thanks very much for this, Peter, but my main contribution has been one of enthusiasm and moral support; Alex deserves the lion's share of the praise! Also, depending on what Alex thinks of my suggestions, if improvements are to be implemented it might be better to hold fire on an announcement until it's all ready.

 

Lastly, the links I provided in my last email, which are now in your post, lead to old, archived copies of the site; its live link is at HitchInfo.net.

 

Thanks again,

 

Brent

Following from the screening of "Journey to the End of Night" last week...

 

Hello good friends, this is by way of a big thanks to everyone who came to the event and to Bill Mousoulis, Chris Luscri for all their work.

I also want to thank Bill for his kind effort to re-sync the film as it was a few frames out on the night, which was made more apparent by the large screen magnification.

And a very special thank you to Adrian Martin for his commentary on the film which was wonderful!

From my point of view the evening was a huge success, meeting many old friends, some of whom had seen the film way back, and new friends who had not seen it previously.

I've been thinking about some issues like our friends who live interstate or overseas who could not see the film, and for those of you who would like to have a personal copy of the restored film at your disposal.

Herein lies a problem: like a number of my films this film is with the publisher "Bloomsbury" and I don't want to erode their rights to distribute the film as per the contract. 

I simply can't make it open for public viewing.

I hope they won't mind me sharing it with a few friends.

This is what I am going to do, I'll send a link to any of you who request it. I don't expect that will be everyone, I think it will be fewer than half the number we have on our emailing list.

Please email me and let me know if you would like to receive the link to the restored film:

ptammer65@gmail.com

Thanks to everyone who attended, it was such a great night!

PT

Something.... from Anonymous

 

Darko has been very busy...

Wondering why we have not heard lately from our friend in Split, I wrote and asked him and then I found out he's been very busy indeed.

He sent me a link to some recent postings on his YouTube page and I've meandered through quite a few of those trying to work out what to pass on to our friends at large.

My conundrum is this... how to keep up with Darko and his incredible spontaneity and yet not put all our friends into "headspace overload", to coin a phrase from Richard.

I've selected three pieces, not to say the are the best or to place any comparative value judgment upon them, merely to show three separate samples which I found interesting.

1.  Caesium 

2.   ...blow... 

3.  Paradox of Evolution 

and that's not all folks:

https://www.youtube.com/@DarkoDuilo/videos

pt

My sister Chris has introduced me to works by the artist Richard Diebenkorn.

 RICHARD DIEBENKORN

 

Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993)

I had never heard of this artist until a couple of days ago when Chris sent me an email concerning some new works which she has discovered since she took up painting watercolours two years ago.

Chris's new-found love of painting has led her to enquire into the lives and works of a whole new range of painters she had never heard of previously. So now I get to learn about them from her.

Chris's reflections are inserted between each these paintings by Richard Diebenkorn.

I'm sure Chris would like to hear your responses to them too.

DRIVEWAY 1956

Oil on canvas.

The beauty of something so ordinary.

Colours and shapes stand out to make me feel like a coming home, or arrival.

I like the shade I’m invited into.

I like how he’s painted part of it, then gone over it with other colours that let the underneath layer show through.

COFFEE

1959

She seems so intriguing. So debonair and smooth.

And yet she is made of such rough brushstrokes.

I like how much she is enjoying that cup of coffee.

Berkeley 12

The Phillips Collection

Oil on canvas

I love how this flat landscape seems to be just that.

Squares and ragged rectangles.

Aerial.

Boxed shapes of different sizes and colours.

But I sort of fall into it.

Then I want to know why they are separated sometimes by such whimsical, fine black lines.

1954 Berkeley #26

Look at the colour of that water. So inviting. But it is so flat, and how has he invited me into this scene that seems to have so much depth?

I love the softness of the aqua-bluey-green against the ochre and rawness of the background. Into Black. What is that?

Still Life With Orange Peel

Richard Diebenkorn, Still Life with Orange Peel, 1955; 

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, bequest of Barbara E. Foster;

 © The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation

Those colours are all seemingly at odds with each other. But I love them. They are like some kind of interesting mix of ice creams that make me want to taste them. I like how the perspective is not even suggested. It just is what it is for you to do what you want with it. From above? But then there is the detail of the reflection on the bottle!

After writing about these paintings I did some more research and stumbled up this:

 

Notes to myself: Diebenkorn’s 10 rules for painting

By Louise Cohen and Harriet Baker, Published 13 March 2015 

Sometime in his later career, Diebenkorn wrote down ten points of

artistic intention. 

Sharing them here, we also begin a new series of notes, asking artists

to share their own creative wisdom.

• For Richard Diebenkorn, each painting was a search for what he called “rightness.” Revered as one of the great post-war masters in his native United States, Diebenkorn moved from abstraction to figuration and back again, often disregarding the popular styles and trends happening around him, in order to solve complex, self-imposed compositional problems in his paintings.

• 
  Probably sometime during his later, second phase of abstraction, Diebenkorn made the following list for himself – titled Notes to myself on beginning a painting. As the art historian John Elderfield said when he first published them in 1997, these “studio notes”, as Diebenkorn called them, are not so much rules as statements of “artistic intention.” Presumably, they were reminders to himself to observe in his studio, though we know that Diebenkorn did also share them with authors in his lifetime.

• 
  While of course today these notes help us further understand and appreciate Diebenkorn’s work, they may also be useful for today’s artists. Whether they are directly relevant to another practise or not, a master’s own notes on approaching that enduring challenge – how to start making art – may well prove a valuable source of inspiration.
  
  
  
  "Notes to myself on beginning a painting"

                                                by Richard Diebenkorn




1. Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion.

2. The pretty, initial position which falls short of completeness is not to be valued – except as a stimulus for further moves.

3. DO search.

4. Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them absolutely expendable.

5. Don’t “discover” a subject – of any kind.

6. Somehow don’t be bored but if you must, use it in action. Use its destructive potential.

7. Mistakes can’t be erased but they move you from your present position.

8. Keep thinking about Pollyanna.

9. Tolerate chaos.

10. Be careful only in a perverse way.