King Vidor - 1928
I'm very underdone on silent Hollywood, so this mught apply very generally; we have longer shots, longer than plan americains, and lots of short takes, cutting back and forth from closer views. Also there are a few long takes, i.e. the wonderful emotion picture at waterfall.
Throughout, especially the earlier stages, we have a focus on that beeming, overexposed face.
The framing of the individual is interesting. There are some great tracks, and staging decsisions, usually to show either connection or disconnection from the crowd. Often using a kind of V-shaped formation, the lead can move higher to cover the camera view of the crowd, to be individuated. This is clearest perhaps in the early scene at the stairs; an early example of a longrunning motif, that only a day of tragedy (never a week) can let one temporarily be distinguished. From then on, higher framings and staging decisions have a sinking into this V,
We have some fastish montages of different crowds moving (continuity of direction), often against quite abstract backgrounds. These scenes are some of the most beautiful with the film, edited close to the spectacular simplicity of entry to new york; a few views of skyscrapers, a long reverse on him looking. As far as the streets go, the high angles at the crossroads can first be referred to Vertov, or perhaps 'Berlin: Symphony Of A City'.
Narrative wise, there is so much shading going on. There may not be 'great' incidents, but the use of excitment-conventions makes the sheer ordinariness seem remarkable; yet then we reflect, we again see ordinariness.
This is really a pretty remarkable study of urban alientation, caused, after all, by capitalism. His dreams of the advert are ridiculous, but shared by so many, is the abiding message. It is cruel at times; the last shot has a Langian sarcasm on entertainment, a harshness to it. We can love John, but that's no succour to the world.
Wednesday 29 June 2011
Die 3 Groschen-Oper
G.W. Pabst , based on Brecht - 1931
The first half's probably a disaster. Pabst's camera reminds one of a drunk; lloking for somehting while trying to get from one end of the room to another, but it's forgotten what. For no discernible reason it likes looking at stomachs, and the tracks and pans are unsteady, just lacking direction.
The real problem here is the editing. It is way, way too slow; there is a complete lack of directness (I need Lang!). Trying to give psychological depth, as I'll explain, with lingering shots, is a disastorous choice. The cut-aways in the middle of dialogues pretty much loses any of the power of fleshiness Brecht is based on. There are so many unnecessary reframing cuts and moves around, that frankly baffle me. Maybe someone can explain a logic in Pabst's cuts, mathematical or sensual. Please.
Saying that, there is occasionally used one effective technique. Short scenes and quick crosscutting gives a nice sense of the confusion and double relations, giving us some distance.
The soubd design here also seems key; or rather, its lack. There is just no track for most of what ;should' be there; this adds to the abstract feel, a kind of emptiness. It divorces from realism, interferes with a sense of place. Is it Brechtian? Perhaps, but seems strangely inadequate considering the rest of the mis-en-scene is pretty sensually created (which is of course un Brechtian).
Largely, Brecht's formal brilliance is destroyed. The introductions seem no less modernist that Hawks' opening narrations. The acting style, though a few occassional moments of distantiation, is way too normal, there is no focus on the gesture (Eisenstein's 'Ivans' are way more Brechtian). There isn't that distancing. Nor is there a sense of plasticity; Pabst is the least plastic director I can think of. Shadows on faces and no backlighting. No real physicality that transferring Brecht's theatrical moves could help (is it possible?).
With all this, there are some beguiling moments. Brecht's confusing, strange, work still shines through. The songs, the backs of sets of ships, the kind of supposed ambivalence in the social comment; in a way, they are here (though I dislike Pabst's change of the ending; that horse is my favourite bit of the play).
Von Arbou clearly was no genius; Brecht is. Why does Lang stride all over this as a film (obviously, in a way, this has 'more to say'. But Spiones has 'more to be', let me say). Lang is sharper, must cinema be? The best parts here are the beggar king, the second half, in other words, the action bits. This seems a weak rule. But there is something seriously poor and wrong with this film. Yet is still has Brecht, and for that it is endlessly brilliant.
The first half's probably a disaster. Pabst's camera reminds one of a drunk; lloking for somehting while trying to get from one end of the room to another, but it's forgotten what. For no discernible reason it likes looking at stomachs, and the tracks and pans are unsteady, just lacking direction.
The real problem here is the editing. It is way, way too slow; there is a complete lack of directness (I need Lang!). Trying to give psychological depth, as I'll explain, with lingering shots, is a disastorous choice. The cut-aways in the middle of dialogues pretty much loses any of the power of fleshiness Brecht is based on. There are so many unnecessary reframing cuts and moves around, that frankly baffle me. Maybe someone can explain a logic in Pabst's cuts, mathematical or sensual. Please.
Saying that, there is occasionally used one effective technique. Short scenes and quick crosscutting gives a nice sense of the confusion and double relations, giving us some distance.
The soubd design here also seems key; or rather, its lack. There is just no track for most of what ;should' be there; this adds to the abstract feel, a kind of emptiness. It divorces from realism, interferes with a sense of place. Is it Brechtian? Perhaps, but seems strangely inadequate considering the rest of the mis-en-scene is pretty sensually created (which is of course un Brechtian).
Largely, Brecht's formal brilliance is destroyed. The introductions seem no less modernist that Hawks' opening narrations. The acting style, though a few occassional moments of distantiation, is way too normal, there is no focus on the gesture (Eisenstein's 'Ivans' are way more Brechtian). There isn't that distancing. Nor is there a sense of plasticity; Pabst is the least plastic director I can think of. Shadows on faces and no backlighting. No real physicality that transferring Brecht's theatrical moves could help (is it possible?).
With all this, there are some beguiling moments. Brecht's confusing, strange, work still shines through. The songs, the backs of sets of ships, the kind of supposed ambivalence in the social comment; in a way, they are here (though I dislike Pabst's change of the ending; that horse is my favourite bit of the play).
Von Arbou clearly was no genius; Brecht is. Why does Lang stride all over this as a film (obviously, in a way, this has 'more to say'. But Spiones has 'more to be', let me say). Lang is sharper, must cinema be? The best parts here are the beggar king, the second half, in other words, the action bits. This seems a weak rule. But there is something seriously poor and wrong with this film. Yet is still has Brecht, and for that it is endlessly brilliant.
The Man With The Golden Arm
Otto Preminger - 1955
Huge camera movements, in a stately but often quite quick, and always baroque, manner swooping around to reframe pretty wide shots. We have a winderful view of the constructed set of the street; combined with the probably overdone music, it gives the film an operatic quality (crossed with the reticence...); it reminded me of 'Do The Right Thing', sets wise.
It is worth saying that Frank Sinatra is very good here; looking nicely scraggy, playing well into his role. His torso is too small for his body; he looks like a man who has had illness, stomach polio or something.
This film is about a man, perhaps an artist, who is held back by others. They are petty, the way of life brings out the worst in him. There is almost a paranoia in the desperate wish for his own way, the (justified) lack of trust. This is more existentialist than Preminger's other work, and perhaps a little more in keeping with the Hollywood milleu. As far as that, it is well done.
Huge camera movements, in a stately but often quite quick, and always baroque, manner swooping around to reframe pretty wide shots. We have a winderful view of the constructed set of the street; combined with the probably overdone music, it gives the film an operatic quality (crossed with the reticence...); it reminded me of 'Do The Right Thing', sets wise.
It is worth saying that Frank Sinatra is very good here; looking nicely scraggy, playing well into his role. His torso is too small for his body; he looks like a man who has had illness, stomach polio or something.
This film is about a man, perhaps an artist, who is held back by others. They are petty, the way of life brings out the worst in him. There is almost a paranoia in the desperate wish for his own way, the (justified) lack of trust. This is more existentialist than Preminger's other work, and perhaps a little more in keeping with the Hollywood milleu. As far as that, it is well done.
Where The Sidealk Ends
Otto Preminger - 1950
This is a kind of anti-Preminger film, in that he turns his usual strategy on its head. Here we, the audience, know exactly (or at least to the key points) what happened, the truth, and we have a front-row seat at the allusions, evasions, investigation, and attempts to uncover it.
There is the more Preminger-esque touch of the man, ambiguous, insane with desire, attempting to violently make the truth exactly what he wants it to be. In a 'Vertigo'-esque manner he decides that the truth will fit his desire, he takes on another man's role, tries to make the case fit what he wants to be the facts, will even die to make the truth satisfy his lust.
This is very much an explicitly noir-ish looking picture. Some very low angles, hats, shadows, all that great stuff. There is some nice geometric shots in cars, and a camera position on a flight of stairs that tilts up and down. Perhaps slightly less distinctively Premingerean in its themes than others, all the same this is a very impressive noir.
This is a kind of anti-Preminger film, in that he turns his usual strategy on its head. Here we, the audience, know exactly (or at least to the key points) what happened, the truth, and we have a front-row seat at the allusions, evasions, investigation, and attempts to uncover it.
There is the more Preminger-esque touch of the man, ambiguous, insane with desire, attempting to violently make the truth exactly what he wants it to be. In a 'Vertigo'-esque manner he decides that the truth will fit his desire, he takes on another man's role, tries to make the case fit what he wants to be the facts, will even die to make the truth satisfy his lust.
This is very much an explicitly noir-ish looking picture. Some very low angles, hats, shadows, all that great stuff. There is some nice geometric shots in cars, and a camera position on a flight of stairs that tilts up and down. Perhaps slightly less distinctively Premingerean in its themes than others, all the same this is a very impressive noir.
Tuesday 28 June 2011
Whirlpool
Otto Premimger - 1949
Obviously Preminger does use quite long shots, though I would argue that isn't really the key here; sure, we have lots of plan-americain (below-knee), and some longer stuff we can have those incredible tracks in from (there are also some closer, then the moves out from), but it just, for me, isn't that noticeable. One difference, from earlier Hawks, for example, is that he is willing within a scene to change the length we have on a figure, those suited men going from room to room can come close to the camera, then move away.
Shot with a bit of depth, though of course he does actually cut a bit. Preminger sets up a world of massive connections, with almost no character shadings. The plots are really incredibly twisty, but don't seem too ridiculous, beacuse there is nothing except the plot. Such understated, calm, laconic acting, we have to read it ourselves. As ever, we don't know the figure's goals, and neither do they.
For all this, the scenes, though with long takes and complex moves, aren't hugely long; long, yes, but not huge relaxations with shading and throwaway dialogue. This is intellectual cinema, probably pre-planned to within an inch. Which is perfect for what it expresses, a reflection on life, on emotions, on ideas.
This film is at its best as the woman pieces together her life, trying to make sense. Their are so many comparisons with 'Marnie'. Pushed around by men, compelled to commit crimes, dominated. The plot falls for some 'dime-store Freud' (Welles), we know things they don't and so there is some banal melodramatic suspense, but even here fascinating things are introduced. Giving the woman and story so, basically, she can be loved. The dream like sexual obsession in Preminger's film (removing her nightgown as she sleeps!). There is certainly a lot of sleeping here; who falls into dreams, who makes up what stories?
The woman's construction of identity, bullied into identity. 'Is there truth'? Is a priori interesting, but could be reduced to being facile. I think Preminger does more than simply ask that question; there is a kind of truth of desire, but memory is so linked with it.. it's just more complicated than that. Webs everywhere, cinema as webs between characters, stories about desire and memory.
Obviously Preminger does use quite long shots, though I would argue that isn't really the key here; sure, we have lots of plan-americain (below-knee), and some longer stuff we can have those incredible tracks in from (there are also some closer, then the moves out from), but it just, for me, isn't that noticeable. One difference, from earlier Hawks, for example, is that he is willing within a scene to change the length we have on a figure, those suited men going from room to room can come close to the camera, then move away.
Shot with a bit of depth, though of course he does actually cut a bit. Preminger sets up a world of massive connections, with almost no character shadings. The plots are really incredibly twisty, but don't seem too ridiculous, beacuse there is nothing except the plot. Such understated, calm, laconic acting, we have to read it ourselves. As ever, we don't know the figure's goals, and neither do they.
For all this, the scenes, though with long takes and complex moves, aren't hugely long; long, yes, but not huge relaxations with shading and throwaway dialogue. This is intellectual cinema, probably pre-planned to within an inch. Which is perfect for what it expresses, a reflection on life, on emotions, on ideas.
This film is at its best as the woman pieces together her life, trying to make sense. Their are so many comparisons with 'Marnie'. Pushed around by men, compelled to commit crimes, dominated. The plot falls for some 'dime-store Freud' (Welles), we know things they don't and so there is some banal melodramatic suspense, but even here fascinating things are introduced. Giving the woman and story so, basically, she can be loved. The dream like sexual obsession in Preminger's film (removing her nightgown as she sleeps!). There is certainly a lot of sleeping here; who falls into dreams, who makes up what stories?
The woman's construction of identity, bullied into identity. 'Is there truth'? Is a priori interesting, but could be reduced to being facile. I think Preminger does more than simply ask that question; there is a kind of truth of desire, but memory is so linked with it.. it's just more complicated than that. Webs everywhere, cinema as webs between characters, stories about desire and memory.
The Fan
Otto Preminger - 1949
Based on the Wilde play; with some unnecessary bits, and the horrific wild ending, but those same themes, filmed like so, the stolid bourgeois, so inexpressive, the tracks into them... There are some, and I'm really thinking of one in particular, two shots of (female, usually) faces where domination changes, mother and daughter, one comes to be another. Here we have 'Persona'.
There are also the movements into the past. These kind of flashbacks have of course long been a staple, but I can't remember an earlier example of going back sixty years in the course of a pan across a room... I thought that wasn't meant to happen for another decade.
We here have memory, creating memory. We have creating a person, creating an attitude. Picking together pieces. We have the twist half way through. And the atmosphere of desire, making all ambiguous. They are able to reflect on their desire, look at it from outside, which seems to add to it (not being identified with one's desire). It isn't funny, there is rather an air of sadness is the gilded smoothly walk around in their dying society.
Based on the Wilde play; with some unnecessary bits, and the horrific wild ending, but those same themes, filmed like so, the stolid bourgeois, so inexpressive, the tracks into them... There are some, and I'm really thinking of one in particular, two shots of (female, usually) faces where domination changes, mother and daughter, one comes to be another. Here we have 'Persona'.
There are also the movements into the past. These kind of flashbacks have of course long been a staple, but I can't remember an earlier example of going back sixty years in the course of a pan across a room... I thought that wasn't meant to happen for another decade.
We here have memory, creating memory. We have creating a person, creating an attitude. Picking together pieces. We have the twist half way through. And the atmosphere of desire, making all ambiguous. They are able to reflect on their desire, look at it from outside, which seems to add to it (not being identified with one's desire). It isn't funny, there is rather an air of sadness is the gilded smoothly walk around in their dying society.
Fallen Angel
Otto Preminger - 1945
Another stunning picture; stripped down to its bones. We have those track ins, the movements round. Some depth staging, more generally complex compositions. The takes can be so long, virtuoso, moving around, truth to truth. There is a huge long take in a hotel room.
As before, we do not know who is after what, or why. As again, we have the switch half way through. We have, above all, the ebb, on and on, of desire. Desire for a woman who is there, who is not there. Dana Andrews' lead has a desire beyond all reason, he has decided he wants that woman, with such legs and hair, and will do anything for her. The other woman's desire is also constant, calm as ever, but constant.
Those track-ins; not melodramatic, but on an axis boring into the scene, to start it or later on; this, for me, is what desire is. See Resnais, see Preminger.
Camera height is important in Preminger's mis-en-scene. I would say default is slightly low, shoulder height. Looking up at the figures. Yet he can use high fframings. What he doesn't really have is classical eye level. I feel this adds a lot to the style.
There is such an economy of wishes here, played out against backdrops of great power; dirty night hotel (shadow), gilded cage, expressive tones of the beach. Taut, quite something.
Another stunning picture; stripped down to its bones. We have those track ins, the movements round. Some depth staging, more generally complex compositions. The takes can be so long, virtuoso, moving around, truth to truth. There is a huge long take in a hotel room.
As before, we do not know who is after what, or why. As again, we have the switch half way through. We have, above all, the ebb, on and on, of desire. Desire for a woman who is there, who is not there. Dana Andrews' lead has a desire beyond all reason, he has decided he wants that woman, with such legs and hair, and will do anything for her. The other woman's desire is also constant, calm as ever, but constant.
Those track-ins; not melodramatic, but on an axis boring into the scene, to start it or later on; this, for me, is what desire is. See Resnais, see Preminger.
Camera height is important in Preminger's mis-en-scene. I would say default is slightly low, shoulder height. Looking up at the figures. Yet he can use high fframings. What he doesn't really have is classical eye level. I feel this adds a lot to the style.
There is such an economy of wishes here, played out against backdrops of great power; dirty night hotel (shadow), gilded cage, expressive tones of the beach. Taut, quite something.
Laura
Otto Preminger - 1944
Time, memory, desire, tracking shots, voiceover; 'Marienbad', 'Ambersons'... now Laura?
Tracking shots bring us in as the voiceover expresses the desire for what is dead. Voiceover that is false but reconsiders the image. Tracking and panning throughout the mis-en-scene, one usually the dominant move, to frame in at least two shots the interlocurs. Yes, cuts in, but always tracking around and into scenes, smooth and often along one axis but also able to move. SRS once we are in, though always tracks, and pans, often slow, to move across those who are set up in the room. Shadows in a fine presentation, relation of people to the background, complex patterns.
Changes of staging, turning away, moving into the distance. The whole film could operate byy who sits and who stands; yet the 'power' position isn't stable.
The structure here; we think we are piecing it together, a 'whodunnit?', but we are proved wrong, though it is still a 'whodunnit?'. It is a conventional narrative, piecing events, looked back at from the past. Yet we know no character's intentions, throughout they lie, always the impression of not giving us. Incredibly restrained, quiet acting and presentation. Mystery, no histrionics. We know no goals beyond vague ones, can barely decipher. Cinema of the present tense, of discovery.
The entire second half as a dream. Cut to the door ('Vertigo' would have used a pan, to keep in the time?). You desire who is dead. The policeman succeeds in turning time backwards, the rich man only can shoot the clock, hide the clock, though time marches on. Necrophilia, desire for the dead lover, courtly love, unreal. Finding new items in the mis-en-scene. Clear, short, pure. A masterpiece.
Time, memory, desire, tracking shots, voiceover; 'Marienbad', 'Ambersons'... now Laura?
Tracking shots bring us in as the voiceover expresses the desire for what is dead. Voiceover that is false but reconsiders the image. Tracking and panning throughout the mis-en-scene, one usually the dominant move, to frame in at least two shots the interlocurs. Yes, cuts in, but always tracking around and into scenes, smooth and often along one axis but also able to move. SRS once we are in, though always tracks, and pans, often slow, to move across those who are set up in the room. Shadows in a fine presentation, relation of people to the background, complex patterns.
Changes of staging, turning away, moving into the distance. The whole film could operate byy who sits and who stands; yet the 'power' position isn't stable.
The structure here; we think we are piecing it together, a 'whodunnit?', but we are proved wrong, though it is still a 'whodunnit?'. It is a conventional narrative, piecing events, looked back at from the past. Yet we know no character's intentions, throughout they lie, always the impression of not giving us. Incredibly restrained, quiet acting and presentation. Mystery, no histrionics. We know no goals beyond vague ones, can barely decipher. Cinema of the present tense, of discovery.
The entire second half as a dream. Cut to the door ('Vertigo' would have used a pan, to keep in the time?). You desire who is dead. The policeman succeeds in turning time backwards, the rich man only can shoot the clock, hide the clock, though time marches on. Necrophilia, desire for the dead lover, courtly love, unreal. Finding new items in the mis-en-scene. Clear, short, pure. A masterpiece.
Monday 27 June 2011
Deep End
Jerzy Skolimowski - 1970
We have perfectly pleasant, if not a very interesting camera. Without jumping on us we move back and forth, or both are in one deepish image, quite close. All against the grubby backdrops, or should that be backdrop, with sets here being in the economy category quantatively and qualitatively. We have outbursts of violent red and yellows to, postmarked, wonder what that could mean...
All right, the script is a paper not a cinematic one, the acting is (deliberately?) stilted, but there is a good tone here, half or three quater truths. Pathetic little looks, going back for the hot dogs, mumbled conversations, things being not quite succesful, little games.
I mean, the philsophy here is though what I have no time for. Very Polanski-esque pessimism of the violence, the uncertain male-feamle relationship based on economics, domination, violence, no way out, that's the way it is. We've already made the distinction between Bunuel/Lang strikinng pessimism and just a kind of nastiness. I wouldn't want to go overboard with this on this film, it's not entirely untender, but ultimately it falls down. The final violence is remarkably telegraphed in the, again, Polanski tradition, and there you go. Once again, some nice bits, and really good tone, with problems.
We have perfectly pleasant, if not a very interesting camera. Without jumping on us we move back and forth, or both are in one deepish image, quite close. All against the grubby backdrops, or should that be backdrop, with sets here being in the economy category quantatively and qualitatively. We have outbursts of violent red and yellows to, postmarked, wonder what that could mean...
All right, the script is a paper not a cinematic one, the acting is (deliberately?) stilted, but there is a good tone here, half or three quater truths. Pathetic little looks, going back for the hot dogs, mumbled conversations, things being not quite succesful, little games.
I mean, the philsophy here is though what I have no time for. Very Polanski-esque pessimism of the violence, the uncertain male-feamle relationship based on economics, domination, violence, no way out, that's the way it is. We've already made the distinction between Bunuel/Lang strikinng pessimism and just a kind of nastiness. I wouldn't want to go overboard with this on this film, it's not entirely untender, but ultimately it falls down. The final violence is remarkably telegraphed in the, again, Polanski tradition, and there you go. Once again, some nice bits, and really good tone, with problems.
Incendies
Denis Villeneuve - 2010
Ah, the tracking shot. Some here that redeem the film (and the world). After a rather underfed mucking around, cutting around, opening, a track on that single access (Resnais, insistence...) into an eye. Tracks into a group, or along with walking. Truth.
There's, with this, quite a bit of unnecessary foreshortening of shots and cutting around some very static staging (bit thin to argue it is content-wise justified, but possible). One wants the shot to go on in a longer frame. Some of these can be good, using non-centered framings of the people. Though this itself can also be opened to censure as their are some nasty tendencies of aestheticism of a pretty grim situation.
About as grim as the acting and the script, though we can get around that. Overall, I rather liked the direction, the tracking and the long shots. The plot has some good moments, a few truish ones, though centrally this is something of the Tintin about the adventures of an ingenue abroad that seems to all go very smoothly. We usually know a little more than they do, but the characters aren't really interesting enough to allow suspense. And the ending is of course absurd, deadly in its lack of realism, hammering home and by that succeeding in undermining the message of the cycles of violence.
Despite all these points, it did give us a look at something; uneasy as I am at the lack of specific location. Some problems, bad bits, but really more good than bad.
Ah, the tracking shot. Some here that redeem the film (and the world). After a rather underfed mucking around, cutting around, opening, a track on that single access (Resnais, insistence...) into an eye. Tracks into a group, or along with walking. Truth.
There's, with this, quite a bit of unnecessary foreshortening of shots and cutting around some very static staging (bit thin to argue it is content-wise justified, but possible). One wants the shot to go on in a longer frame. Some of these can be good, using non-centered framings of the people. Though this itself can also be opened to censure as their are some nasty tendencies of aestheticism of a pretty grim situation.
About as grim as the acting and the script, though we can get around that. Overall, I rather liked the direction, the tracking and the long shots. The plot has some good moments, a few truish ones, though centrally this is something of the Tintin about the adventures of an ingenue abroad that seems to all go very smoothly. We usually know a little more than they do, but the characters aren't really interesting enough to allow suspense. And the ending is of course absurd, deadly in its lack of realism, hammering home and by that succeeding in undermining the message of the cycles of violence.
Despite all these points, it did give us a look at something; uneasy as I am at the lack of specific location. Some problems, bad bits, but really more good than bad.
Written On The Wind
Douglas Sirk - 1956
Sirk is not in direct social criticism so much here, or at least he only is insofar as one is able to solve the puzzle. What we have here is clearly repressed desire, sexual desire, and the social relations underpinning it. Lauren Bacall is given a slightly glazed look, with a nice picture of a slightly older person than one would see in the modern. One thing worth mentioning here is the surprsingly nuanced, in the overall melodrama picture, of the daighter. O.K., she's a nymphomaniac, but she isn't laughed at, or seen as ridiculous; this is a confused person with a problem.
The look is of course hyper real with the saturated colours. Elegance, with also a narrative structure where something is shown at the start, then fully explained later. With one of Sirk's now cliched roll-backs/ forwards in time.
This isn't quite as visceral as 'All That Heaven Allows', more of an enclosed portrait. But it really does say more about sexual desire than one would expect it to be able to get away with.
Sirk is not in direct social criticism so much here, or at least he only is insofar as one is able to solve the puzzle. What we have here is clearly repressed desire, sexual desire, and the social relations underpinning it. Lauren Bacall is given a slightly glazed look, with a nice picture of a slightly older person than one would see in the modern. One thing worth mentioning here is the surprsingly nuanced, in the overall melodrama picture, of the daighter. O.K., she's a nymphomaniac, but she isn't laughed at, or seen as ridiculous; this is a confused person with a problem.
The look is of course hyper real with the saturated colours. Elegance, with also a narrative structure where something is shown at the start, then fully explained later. With one of Sirk's now cliched roll-backs/ forwards in time.
This isn't quite as visceral as 'All That Heaven Allows', more of an enclosed portrait. But it really does say more about sexual desire than one would expect it to be able to get away with.
Sunday 26 June 2011
All That Heaven Allows
Douglas Sirk - 1955
I really got a lot out of this; it does things that films shouldn't be scared of doing, but seemingly are (thus this, in a better world, wouldn't be as important a film as it is... but we can say that for anything).
Within Sirk's deeply elegant mis-en-scene, with those lovely economic but still often complex moves, we have a very expressive use of colour. It seems, in general, quite simple; part of the screen is a cold blue, of the outside, the nasty habitants, and we have the warm yellows and organges of the other life. Nuance is allowed by the multicolours in one key scene (expressing conflict?). Shadows seem to function for staging, one of many devices- there is much turning away and small blocking differences, to subtly push emphasis and feeling about. All very impressive.
Socially, this film plants nails on heads. The central theme is clear; we have this love, but the nasty pettiness of small town America will not allow it. This is a basic trashing of all-American values, which is great.
What I particularly appreciated was, firstly, the general celebration of 'alternate lifestyles', just the wish to live differently. This still strikes as a bold move in a Hollywood picture.
Most importantly, we have a care, a concern, an, understanding, for the slightly older woman. Her life is important, we care; lives of quiet desperation. Yes she's lonely, and why can't we acknowledge it? Her children just steamroll over her, as does everyone, as does Hollywood. Does she too not deserve a life? Most subversively, here, is she not allowed to have desires, pleasures (clearly noted here in the Freudian talk)? Yes, the wonderfull restarined, beautiful in her lack of glamour, Wyman may like Hudson for his spirit; but she also likes him because he is a sexually attractive beefcake, and why on earth shouldn't she like him for that?
This is why I found this film important; because it finds people important, draws them to our attention.
Note: Yes, it's a melodrama, and has its own conventions. Yes, people don't wear their hair like that any more, or say the same things in the same way. But why on earth should one laugh at people for simply being different? This is precisely what this film is about; learning to care, and not to mock, those who are different. Laughing at 'All That Heaven Allows' means mocking and not caring about its characters. It is complicit with the hateful townspeople.
I really got a lot out of this; it does things that films shouldn't be scared of doing, but seemingly are (thus this, in a better world, wouldn't be as important a film as it is... but we can say that for anything).
Within Sirk's deeply elegant mis-en-scene, with those lovely economic but still often complex moves, we have a very expressive use of colour. It seems, in general, quite simple; part of the screen is a cold blue, of the outside, the nasty habitants, and we have the warm yellows and organges of the other life. Nuance is allowed by the multicolours in one key scene (expressing conflict?). Shadows seem to function for staging, one of many devices- there is much turning away and small blocking differences, to subtly push emphasis and feeling about. All very impressive.
Socially, this film plants nails on heads. The central theme is clear; we have this love, but the nasty pettiness of small town America will not allow it. This is a basic trashing of all-American values, which is great.
What I particularly appreciated was, firstly, the general celebration of 'alternate lifestyles', just the wish to live differently. This still strikes as a bold move in a Hollywood picture.
Most importantly, we have a care, a concern, an, understanding, for the slightly older woman. Her life is important, we care; lives of quiet desperation. Yes she's lonely, and why can't we acknowledge it? Her children just steamroll over her, as does everyone, as does Hollywood. Does she too not deserve a life? Most subversively, here, is she not allowed to have desires, pleasures (clearly noted here in the Freudian talk)? Yes, the wonderfull restarined, beautiful in her lack of glamour, Wyman may like Hudson for his spirit; but she also likes him because he is a sexually attractive beefcake, and why on earth shouldn't she like him for that?
This is why I found this film important; because it finds people important, draws them to our attention.
Note: Yes, it's a melodrama, and has its own conventions. Yes, people don't wear their hair like that any more, or say the same things in the same way. But why on earth should one laugh at people for simply being different? This is precisely what this film is about; learning to care, and not to mock, those who are different. Laughing at 'All That Heaven Allows' means mocking and not caring about its characters. It is complicit with the hateful townspeople.
Magnificent Obsession
Douglas Sirk - 1954
Sirk's camera is not particularly revolutionary. It is, however, deeply elegant with a fine touch. Making good use of both sides of the frame with his wide (2:1) format, he also uses a closer view on one side of the frame, with a face over a more distant character.
The general pattern is longer views that are moved into, with some lovely smooth tracks and pans in, usually then changed to a still mid-shot, and then our SRS close-ups. There is a nice elegance about these medium shots, the unhurried reframings, and some nice followings. We have a good look at the place.
The colours and lighting are the most obviously non-diagetic here. Sometimes hyperreal, often we could have a dull area, then with huge saturated blow-ups of a red or green squeaking out of a corner. Not so staid after all. We also have expressive lighting in so far as diffeent colour-schemes; warm and cool; are used for different expressions of feeling by character.
Sirk's lighting immediately comes across as always high-key, almost absurdly, but on closer inspection he is not afraid to use shadow, often on half a face, and often on the half of a face closer to us in a profile shot. Whether this is to help staging, so we concentrate on the right person, or if it is to express the emotional or relationship's situation, I could not divine a pattern.
Sirk doesn't go in for much messing around, his scenes, and the order of them, is very much to the point in a twisting narrative. Some bits seem to get left behind, but this may be a function of the realisation of them as unimportant.
Based on this film, it would be rather much to describe anything going on as 'subversive'. Things are detectable, but the fact that one feels one is out looking for clues is a little desperate.
All the same; clearly we are anti-money obsession, and we want to learn the importance of giving without return. Yet Hudson really does, kind of, do the whole thing just to get the girl. Until maybe the end. More interesting are the sudden surges where the women stand up for themselves; they are here powerful characters, for long periods the only attractive ones in the picture.
One more thing here that may be of interest. Europe here seems posited as an alternative to America. It is where a culture of positivity, of illusion, is seen as silly and is punctured. It is a place of darker, and more multicoloured lighting, in comparison to an occassionally washed-out blank spaces of the American rooms. Well, Sirk was German.
Sirk's camera is not particularly revolutionary. It is, however, deeply elegant with a fine touch. Making good use of both sides of the frame with his wide (2:1) format, he also uses a closer view on one side of the frame, with a face over a more distant character.
The general pattern is longer views that are moved into, with some lovely smooth tracks and pans in, usually then changed to a still mid-shot, and then our SRS close-ups. There is a nice elegance about these medium shots, the unhurried reframings, and some nice followings. We have a good look at the place.
The colours and lighting are the most obviously non-diagetic here. Sometimes hyperreal, often we could have a dull area, then with huge saturated blow-ups of a red or green squeaking out of a corner. Not so staid after all. We also have expressive lighting in so far as diffeent colour-schemes; warm and cool; are used for different expressions of feeling by character.
Sirk's lighting immediately comes across as always high-key, almost absurdly, but on closer inspection he is not afraid to use shadow, often on half a face, and often on the half of a face closer to us in a profile shot. Whether this is to help staging, so we concentrate on the right person, or if it is to express the emotional or relationship's situation, I could not divine a pattern.
Sirk doesn't go in for much messing around, his scenes, and the order of them, is very much to the point in a twisting narrative. Some bits seem to get left behind, but this may be a function of the realisation of them as unimportant.
Based on this film, it would be rather much to describe anything going on as 'subversive'. Things are detectable, but the fact that one feels one is out looking for clues is a little desperate.
All the same; clearly we are anti-money obsession, and we want to learn the importance of giving without return. Yet Hudson really does, kind of, do the whole thing just to get the girl. Until maybe the end. More interesting are the sudden surges where the women stand up for themselves; they are here powerful characters, for long periods the only attractive ones in the picture.
One more thing here that may be of interest. Europe here seems posited as an alternative to America. It is where a culture of positivity, of illusion, is seen as silly and is punctured. It is a place of darker, and more multicoloured lighting, in comparison to an occassionally washed-out blank spaces of the American rooms. Well, Sirk was German.
The Big Red One
Samuel Fuller - 1980 - The two and a half hour, reconstructed version
This is really a marvellous film. It puts to mind 'The Thin Red Line'; this is perhaps a better war film, though 'The Thin Red Line' is more than a war film; but then it is at its weakest when it goes in for the metaphysical speculation. If we're contesting, Fuller wins.
This film is pretty no-nonsense, straight down the line. We don't go in for a huge fuss over character psychology, it seems more about the general experience of war. It is episodic, but each one becomes its own little world, source of fascination in the cameraderie and arbitrariness of death.
It doesn't use consciously poetic or beautiful devices (unlike Malick), but its images are always fine; notably certain very strong lighting patterns, colour saturation especially in an early scene by the sea, and a general care. Fuller really uses most framings, along with his usual montage of face-close views we also have more longer stuff than what I have seen before. Perhaps this film gets less of its effect from 'purely cinematic means', and is more concerned with the shadings of a story. It's not a complete masterpiece; but it is damn good, it tells much about war.
Fuller's shooting of action also deserves mention; yes, the montage is fast, the space unsure in the explosions. But he keeps the camera still, and each image, though unorganised, has an individual power to it; a body close, action further away, for example.
And one final word; I'm with Fuller in being anti the voiceover. On a couple of occassions it helps the understanding, but otherwise rather obvious.
There are some great scenes here, for example of the childbirth. Fuller doesn't seem to condone some of the G.I.'s mysoginist or rather unpleasant attitudes, though that could undermine things. There is a lot to say here.
This is really a marvellous film. It puts to mind 'The Thin Red Line'; this is perhaps a better war film, though 'The Thin Red Line' is more than a war film; but then it is at its weakest when it goes in for the metaphysical speculation. If we're contesting, Fuller wins.
This film is pretty no-nonsense, straight down the line. We don't go in for a huge fuss over character psychology, it seems more about the general experience of war. It is episodic, but each one becomes its own little world, source of fascination in the cameraderie and arbitrariness of death.
It doesn't use consciously poetic or beautiful devices (unlike Malick), but its images are always fine; notably certain very strong lighting patterns, colour saturation especially in an early scene by the sea, and a general care. Fuller really uses most framings, along with his usual montage of face-close views we also have more longer stuff than what I have seen before. Perhaps this film gets less of its effect from 'purely cinematic means', and is more concerned with the shadings of a story. It's not a complete masterpiece; but it is damn good, it tells much about war.
Fuller's shooting of action also deserves mention; yes, the montage is fast, the space unsure in the explosions. But he keeps the camera still, and each image, though unorganised, has an individual power to it; a body close, action further away, for example.
And one final word; I'm with Fuller in being anti the voiceover. On a couple of occassions it helps the understanding, but otherwise rather obvious.
There are some great scenes here, for example of the childbirth. Fuller doesn't seem to condone some of the G.I.'s mysoginist or rather unpleasant attitudes, though that could undermine things. There is a lot to say here.
Le Diable Probablement
Robert Bresson - 1977
Their is one thing in the framing here that struck me. Bresson uses an angle that certainly points down, meaning that the world slopes downhill towards downscreen. This means, as we know, he likes to shoot feet and legs at the top of the screen. But here I noticed he does the same things with heads; they are at the top of the screen, but there bodies aren't really underneath.
Bresson's cinema of the present, along with what I read as a slightly old-fashioned (i.e. pre-'68) sensibility, makes there seem an air of shock about the horrors of the world portrayed here. It is as though Bresson has peaked out of his enclosed world (where he produced some of the greatest films ever) and finds it all a remarkable horror, which he is very keen to tell us about; we reply 'well, yes, we know'. I wouldn't really say Bresson has anything interesting, not-abstract about what he shows (using some stock footage, oddly).
Of couruse Bresson is right about what he sees, even if he doesn't diagnose it, and his style remains as remarkable as ever. But still, late and minor.
Their is one thing in the framing here that struck me. Bresson uses an angle that certainly points down, meaning that the world slopes downhill towards downscreen. This means, as we know, he likes to shoot feet and legs at the top of the screen. But here I noticed he does the same things with heads; they are at the top of the screen, but there bodies aren't really underneath.
Bresson's cinema of the present, along with what I read as a slightly old-fashioned (i.e. pre-'68) sensibility, makes there seem an air of shock about the horrors of the world portrayed here. It is as though Bresson has peaked out of his enclosed world (where he produced some of the greatest films ever) and finds it all a remarkable horror, which he is very keen to tell us about; we reply 'well, yes, we know'. I wouldn't really say Bresson has anything interesting, not-abstract about what he shows (using some stock footage, oddly).
Of couruse Bresson is right about what he sees, even if he doesn't diagnose it, and his style remains as remarkable as ever. But still, late and minor.
The Big Heat
Fritz Lang - 1953
This is really a great, great film. Lang has found a plot of simplicity, a style that uses long and short takes, more mobile than his early work, yet still with those incredibly striking, noir-tinged images. His focus on a gesture, an action (see a Bordwell & Thompson blog post), is all in place here, though it would be fair to say he actually keeps pretty cool.
The plot is, arguably, Lang's least pessimistic work I know, in that there is a kind of weaving together that simply isn't there in his other work (I take the end of 'Metropolis' as a von Arbou implantation / joke).
We have the understandable, but crazy, search for vengeance. Lang is on one side a great critical realist, cutting through society and its conspiracies; complicity, the low-pay of the police force. He doesn't allow cliches to intrude except as self-conscious ones; O.K., Bannion's marraige is in a sense idyllic, but it also includes worries, arguments, and a slightly uneasy self-consciousness of their 'perfect situation'.
A spectacular moment of this film is the appearing of something I can remember next to never seeing in Lang; solidarity. Like magic, like... grace, people come to help Bannion. The old army pals, Gloria Grahame. This is a sublime moment of the cinema; one of Hollywood's finest.
I recently read, in my mind quite rightly, about Bunuel that, for all his pessimism, it comes from a position where he is furious, there is a right way and truth, and the pessimism is only about reality meeting that. This seems to me the case with Lang; again, not fatalism, but a complete pessimism about the current state of things. O.K., the conclusions still give us a world of misery, of domination (wages remain low...), but this film also has a touch of, not only the beauty that is attendant in all Lang's images, that stark striking of powerful beauty, but also that picture of commonality.
This is really a great, great film. Lang has found a plot of simplicity, a style that uses long and short takes, more mobile than his early work, yet still with those incredibly striking, noir-tinged images. His focus on a gesture, an action (see a Bordwell & Thompson blog post), is all in place here, though it would be fair to say he actually keeps pretty cool.
The plot is, arguably, Lang's least pessimistic work I know, in that there is a kind of weaving together that simply isn't there in his other work (I take the end of 'Metropolis' as a von Arbou implantation / joke).
We have the understandable, but crazy, search for vengeance. Lang is on one side a great critical realist, cutting through society and its conspiracies; complicity, the low-pay of the police force. He doesn't allow cliches to intrude except as self-conscious ones; O.K., Bannion's marraige is in a sense idyllic, but it also includes worries, arguments, and a slightly uneasy self-consciousness of their 'perfect situation'.
A spectacular moment of this film is the appearing of something I can remember next to never seeing in Lang; solidarity. Like magic, like... grace, people come to help Bannion. The old army pals, Gloria Grahame. This is a sublime moment of the cinema; one of Hollywood's finest.
I recently read, in my mind quite rightly, about Bunuel that, for all his pessimism, it comes from a position where he is furious, there is a right way and truth, and the pessimism is only about reality meeting that. This seems to me the case with Lang; again, not fatalism, but a complete pessimism about the current state of things. O.K., the conclusions still give us a world of misery, of domination (wages remain low...), but this film also has a touch of, not only the beauty that is attendant in all Lang's images, that stark striking of powerful beauty, but also that picture of commonality.
The Naked Kiss
Samuel Fuller - 1964
Fuller likes his visceral opening; the direct attack here, switching from P.O.V. to slightly off-centred P.O.V. in the attack, then that extra surprise.
Realism is to an extent left behind here in certain scenes, not least the narrative reverse, really quite a shock, when we learn what Mr Grant likes to do on a quiet aafternoon.
So this is sensational, but, as a 'what's behind the picket fence' movie; it remains rather serious. The prostitute is nasty, but tries to do good. All the men are pretty much grubby, cruel psychos. I seem to be in a cycle of bashing 'Blue Velvet', which I shouldn't, it does some excellent things; but Fuller here really gets down to the details, the petty cruelties and complicities of the misery of the suburban, or small town lifestyle (not least by paying attention to economics). There isn't much irony here; Fuller says what he has to say. Still relevant? Yes and No.
Fuller likes his visceral opening; the direct attack here, switching from P.O.V. to slightly off-centred P.O.V. in the attack, then that extra surprise.
Realism is to an extent left behind here in certain scenes, not least the narrative reverse, really quite a shock, when we learn what Mr Grant likes to do on a quiet aafternoon.
So this is sensational, but, as a 'what's behind the picket fence' movie; it remains rather serious. The prostitute is nasty, but tries to do good. All the men are pretty much grubby, cruel psychos. I seem to be in a cycle of bashing 'Blue Velvet', which I shouldn't, it does some excellent things; but Fuller here really gets down to the details, the petty cruelties and complicities of the misery of the suburban, or small town lifestyle (not least by paying attention to economics). There isn't much irony here; Fuller says what he has to say. Still relevant? Yes and No.
Shock Corridor
Samuel Fuller - 1963
Fuller's basic style here does adopt similar tactics to 'Pickup...'; the track ins, the mixture of short montage from head to head, and longer takes. When these longer one comes on violence, we have a visceral level reached by very few. There are lots of quick, almost imperceptible, yet quite jerky reframings as the combatants really look like they are crashing each other, and themselves, about.
Fuller always does though pay great attention to the look of the film; and his images are terrific. Flagrantly non-realistic uses of shadows, often letterboxing sections of faces, and medium shots to closer views are often made against backdrops almost like a kinf od dynamic portraiture.
The non-realism is also here in a number of flourishes. We have some extremely fast montage work. The non-diagetic inserts of the deteriorating mental state; the woman superimposed on the dreaming man, along with his almost constant voiceover. Those quite stunning, literally, flicks to colour that are clearly not a 'part' of the film, i.e. shot for it, but give the right hallucinatory, non-realist feeling.
Fuller can be at his best though in less direct-attack mode. There is some lovely panning here from medium shot to medium shot, framing a single action or item. And there is one stunning move when a fight breaks out in the canteen; from the wider view of chaos, there is a deeply elegant, but fast-ish, track in to a two-shot as the noise of the fight remains the same.
This is a sensationalised view, funny at times, to its eternal credit it is about something, namely America. Nostalgia for old civil-war values is seen to lead to violence, madness. The reporter out, grubbily, for a story is crazy. We have Reds, Race, and The Bomb, the crazy world lived in, when the American walks down 'The Street' each day.
Fuller's basic style here does adopt similar tactics to 'Pickup...'; the track ins, the mixture of short montage from head to head, and longer takes. When these longer one comes on violence, we have a visceral level reached by very few. There are lots of quick, almost imperceptible, yet quite jerky reframings as the combatants really look like they are crashing each other, and themselves, about.
Fuller always does though pay great attention to the look of the film; and his images are terrific. Flagrantly non-realistic uses of shadows, often letterboxing sections of faces, and medium shots to closer views are often made against backdrops almost like a kinf od dynamic portraiture.
The non-realism is also here in a number of flourishes. We have some extremely fast montage work. The non-diagetic inserts of the deteriorating mental state; the woman superimposed on the dreaming man, along with his almost constant voiceover. Those quite stunning, literally, flicks to colour that are clearly not a 'part' of the film, i.e. shot for it, but give the right hallucinatory, non-realist feeling.
Fuller can be at his best though in less direct-attack mode. There is some lovely panning here from medium shot to medium shot, framing a single action or item. And there is one stunning move when a fight breaks out in the canteen; from the wider view of chaos, there is a deeply elegant, but fast-ish, track in to a two-shot as the noise of the fight remains the same.
This is a sensationalised view, funny at times, to its eternal credit it is about something, namely America. Nostalgia for old civil-war values is seen to lead to violence, madness. The reporter out, grubbily, for a story is crazy. We have Reds, Race, and The Bomb, the crazy world lived in, when the American walks down 'The Street' each day.
Saturday 25 June 2011
Journal D'Un Cure De Campagne
Robert Bresson - 1951 , again
Watching from a less technical perspective, this film really knocked me down. What struck me was its simplicity, partly that means how the formal elements (the lack of establishing shots most obviously) really aren't obtrusive at all; the innovation doesn't seem to be for its own sake. I should also note that I didn't see much of the slightly high angle I mentioned in 'Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne'.
The great rythm of the film also was more obvious. How Bresson pushes us up, then that long central scene with the countess. From then on he calms us down, before suddenly throwing us unto infinity; the motorcycle scene as a magical burst of freshness, the mixture of a slight pathos and of a preperation for that word; grace; when his illness is found out.
What also struck was how gloomy, and rather self-important the priest is. This added to the humour, especially early on. He really seems like a rather pretentious soul; we agree with the canon telling him to stop being absurd. The film is his film, and thus takes some of this tone. But the priest isn't a hero in any conventional sense. All of Bresson's central figures are not examples, but are living, breathing people, who we may well not like, and confound attempts at generalisations about the 'human condition'.
Watching from a less technical perspective, this film really knocked me down. What struck me was its simplicity, partly that means how the formal elements (the lack of establishing shots most obviously) really aren't obtrusive at all; the innovation doesn't seem to be for its own sake. I should also note that I didn't see much of the slightly high angle I mentioned in 'Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne'.
The great rythm of the film also was more obvious. How Bresson pushes us up, then that long central scene with the countess. From then on he calms us down, before suddenly throwing us unto infinity; the motorcycle scene as a magical burst of freshness, the mixture of a slight pathos and of a preperation for that word; grace; when his illness is found out.
What also struck was how gloomy, and rather self-important the priest is. This added to the humour, especially early on. He really seems like a rather pretentious soul; we agree with the canon telling him to stop being absurd. The film is his film, and thus takes some of this tone. But the priest isn't a hero in any conventional sense. All of Bresson's central figures are not examples, but are living, breathing people, who we may well not like, and confound attempts at generalisations about the 'human condition'.
Friday 24 June 2011
Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne
Robert Bresson - 1945
All the Bresson marks are present and correct here. in usually slightly less extreme or developed form; use of sound, blankness of the acting (one can almost hear Bresson shouting at the professionals to tone it down), that rather enigmatic dialogue.
Dialogue is interesting here (written by Cocteau). It is a terrific and powerful story, touching on fate, choice, predestination, love, the earthly against the spiritual (or rather, 'pure'). Perhaps their is a slight tendency to manoevre people into rooms to repeat this dialogue, rather than Bresson's usual purely filmic means. The scenes are pretty long here, especially for Bresson. Also note we have a couple of examples of what even may, just may, be establishing shots (in a Bresson film!). The look is more stylised also, brought out by the Bressonian factor, which makes one notice things double. Their is that slight noirish tone (or maybe more Clouzot, or 'Le Jour Se Leve', kind of a grittier poetic realism) to the rain and the trenchcoats.
A note, also, on Bressonian framings. Here, at least, we have often a plan-Americain as a standing default; but the key is the height. Bresson seems to operate from a touch, just a touch, higher than eye level. Forehead, or top of head height). Both when photographing those standing, and those sitting down. He looks down slightly. This may help the overall impression of marionettes.
Yet this is Bresson, for a number of reasons. One of his intentions that Bresson achieved was to make a cinema of the present; one doesn't know what will happen next, what happens happens in the present, the pure physicality (much of which is derived from this present-tenseness) of the scene. This is partly due to narrative elipsis, 'acting' style, and the classic Bressonian complete destruction/ deconstruction of the idea of 'character psychology'. His figures are unknowable. I think there is more than this in his cinema of the present; I will try and pay it closer attention, as it is perhaps a key to what makes Bresson so distinctive in his art.
This sense of fate, which also may contribute (it's not really character's volitions that drive it) is enhanced by the moves of focus, largely a single move though there is a bit of back and forth, from Helene to Agnes. We have an omnipresent P.O.V., in classical terms, except of course we don't know what anyone is 'up to' (or if we do, it's not clear how they 'feel' about it), because Bresson-cinema does not work on those grounds.
There is a ten-minute lag where it all gets a bit lost about two-thirds through, but the final scenes are stunning; the return of Helene from our view of the car, the wonderful grace, yet desperation, of the final scene. This is really pretty excellent.
All the Bresson marks are present and correct here. in usually slightly less extreme or developed form; use of sound, blankness of the acting (one can almost hear Bresson shouting at the professionals to tone it down), that rather enigmatic dialogue.
Dialogue is interesting here (written by Cocteau). It is a terrific and powerful story, touching on fate, choice, predestination, love, the earthly against the spiritual (or rather, 'pure'). Perhaps their is a slight tendency to manoevre people into rooms to repeat this dialogue, rather than Bresson's usual purely filmic means. The scenes are pretty long here, especially for Bresson. Also note we have a couple of examples of what even may, just may, be establishing shots (in a Bresson film!). The look is more stylised also, brought out by the Bressonian factor, which makes one notice things double. Their is that slight noirish tone (or maybe more Clouzot, or 'Le Jour Se Leve', kind of a grittier poetic realism) to the rain and the trenchcoats.
A note, also, on Bressonian framings. Here, at least, we have often a plan-Americain as a standing default; but the key is the height. Bresson seems to operate from a touch, just a touch, higher than eye level. Forehead, or top of head height). Both when photographing those standing, and those sitting down. He looks down slightly. This may help the overall impression of marionettes.
Yet this is Bresson, for a number of reasons. One of his intentions that Bresson achieved was to make a cinema of the present; one doesn't know what will happen next, what happens happens in the present, the pure physicality (much of which is derived from this present-tenseness) of the scene. This is partly due to narrative elipsis, 'acting' style, and the classic Bressonian complete destruction/ deconstruction of the idea of 'character psychology'. His figures are unknowable. I think there is more than this in his cinema of the present; I will try and pay it closer attention, as it is perhaps a key to what makes Bresson so distinctive in his art.
This sense of fate, which also may contribute (it's not really character's volitions that drive it) is enhanced by the moves of focus, largely a single move though there is a bit of back and forth, from Helene to Agnes. We have an omnipresent P.O.V., in classical terms, except of course we don't know what anyone is 'up to' (or if we do, it's not clear how they 'feel' about it), because Bresson-cinema does not work on those grounds.
There is a ten-minute lag where it all gets a bit lost about two-thirds through, but the final scenes are stunning; the return of Helene from our view of the car, the wonderful grace, yet desperation, of the final scene. This is really pretty excellent.
The Blue Gardenia
Fritz Lang - 1953
Lang's technique has changed. He now employs much longer scenes, and much longer takes. These are mobile takes, sliding on each axis around rooms. The postions they end up in are surely pre-destined, considering how he retains pictoral beauty. But would an earlier Lang have allowed the lighting to change so much within a single take, losing the precise control over the 'one action-one shot' rule I made up?
Here we have sexual violence foregrounded pretty blatantly. We have the central nasty man, we have a horrible, slow realisation of his intentions. Lang rarely makes it clear what a character's exact intentions are, what their mindset is; most evident here. What is most remarkable about the structure, especially so for the time, is how Lang has completely misled us through the whole course of the film (or is the twist at the end I sop? I would guess not, it's Lang's intention). I thought that was only allowed in Chandler adaptions. But Lang just, without ever having promised, makes us believe something completely false; most unclassical.
But back to the sexual violence; the newspaper man meant to be our hero seems to share rather the same attitude towards woman, it is worth noticing. This is more than a grubby world, it's a violent one.
The settings are lovingly, disgustingly, detailed. The bar is great, as is Nat King Cole's song (a wonderful mirror framing is used; reminiscent, as Lang's use of the vertical often is, of Murnau's scenes inside the dancehall in 'Sunrise', the dance reflected overhead). Most impressive, again.
Lang's technique has changed. He now employs much longer scenes, and much longer takes. These are mobile takes, sliding on each axis around rooms. The postions they end up in are surely pre-destined, considering how he retains pictoral beauty. But would an earlier Lang have allowed the lighting to change so much within a single take, losing the precise control over the 'one action-one shot' rule I made up?
Here we have sexual violence foregrounded pretty blatantly. We have the central nasty man, we have a horrible, slow realisation of his intentions. Lang rarely makes it clear what a character's exact intentions are, what their mindset is; most evident here. What is most remarkable about the structure, especially so for the time, is how Lang has completely misled us through the whole course of the film (or is the twist at the end I sop? I would guess not, it's Lang's intention). I thought that was only allowed in Chandler adaptions. But Lang just, without ever having promised, makes us believe something completely false; most unclassical.
But back to the sexual violence; the newspaper man meant to be our hero seems to share rather the same attitude towards woman, it is worth noticing. This is more than a grubby world, it's a violent one.
The settings are lovingly, disgustingly, detailed. The bar is great, as is Nat King Cole's song (a wonderful mirror framing is used; reminiscent, as Lang's use of the vertical often is, of Murnau's scenes inside the dancehall in 'Sunrise', the dance reflected overhead). Most impressive, again.
Scarlet Street
Fritz Lang - 1945
I watched this on a remarkably poor print. It gives an inky, dirty tone. Edward G. Robinson is pathetic. This is not just the beleagured artist at the whims of capitalism (though it is that); Robinson is an old fuddy duddy, reckoning photography is mud. Yet he paints those seethingly repressed pictures (snakes and woman? Paging Dr Freud...).
He is a man desperate, but who can't accept it. She is a philistine. Their isn't a lot of let-up. He, for all his gentility, is in a hateful relationship, has every intention of stealing cash, and is, as she says, 'a caveman'. There's no getting away from it; he hires her as a prostitute. Lang gives us an overhead view on these events.
The ending is a little tiresome, asking for the censor-approved absolution, but Lang surely is more interested in showing how Robinson is not punished at all.
Awash with great little details, the constant rain (as in 'Ministry Of Fear'), some exceptionally beautiful shots of the streets, of barrooms.
I watched this on a remarkably poor print. It gives an inky, dirty tone. Edward G. Robinson is pathetic. This is not just the beleagured artist at the whims of capitalism (though it is that); Robinson is an old fuddy duddy, reckoning photography is mud. Yet he paints those seethingly repressed pictures (snakes and woman? Paging Dr Freud...).
He is a man desperate, but who can't accept it. She is a philistine. Their isn't a lot of let-up. He, for all his gentility, is in a hateful relationship, has every intention of stealing cash, and is, as she says, 'a caveman'. There's no getting away from it; he hires her as a prostitute. Lang gives us an overhead view on these events.
The ending is a little tiresome, asking for the censor-approved absolution, but Lang surely is more interested in showing how Robinson is not punished at all.
Awash with great little details, the constant rain (as in 'Ministry Of Fear'), some exceptionally beautiful shots of the streets, of barrooms.
Ministry Of Fear
Fritz Lang - 1944 (based on a Grahame Greene novel)
Known as a pretty expressionist Lang film, this did some nice things. The opening is completely hillarious, with the indoor scene before the swooping shot outside where we found out this perfectly nice seeming man, presumably in prison or something, is leaving an asylum. This kind of atmosphere is enhanced by the attendant chaos of the cake, the bomb, and the village fete (which is also pretty dramatic, and taunting, with the blind man).
It is expressionist in that the shadows are long, it is dark, and there are the scenes, like at the seance, dramatically lit which move into non-diagetic imagery. I wouldn't make all too much of the expressionism, however.
We have familiar Langian themes of paranoia, shadowy systems of control, violence bubbling under, and confusion. We talk about Hitchcock and the 'wrong man', but we can equally talk about Lang. Mistaken identities and so on.
The wish for a quiet life, survival, also interests. As the end plays out, with the hillariously out of place (rather adding to the surreal Langian touches in fact) studio-added (presumably) last shot.
Known as a pretty expressionist Lang film, this did some nice things. The opening is completely hillarious, with the indoor scene before the swooping shot outside where we found out this perfectly nice seeming man, presumably in prison or something, is leaving an asylum. This kind of atmosphere is enhanced by the attendant chaos of the cake, the bomb, and the village fete (which is also pretty dramatic, and taunting, with the blind man).
It is expressionist in that the shadows are long, it is dark, and there are the scenes, like at the seance, dramatically lit which move into non-diagetic imagery. I wouldn't make all too much of the expressionism, however.
We have familiar Langian themes of paranoia, shadowy systems of control, violence bubbling under, and confusion. We talk about Hitchcock and the 'wrong man', but we can equally talk about Lang. Mistaken identities and so on.
The wish for a quiet life, survival, also interests. As the end plays out, with the hillariously out of place (rather adding to the surreal Langian touches in fact) studio-added (presumably) last shot.
Pickup On South Street
Samuel Fuller - 1953
The opening is a marvel of close framings, big heads (kept throughout), that SRS back and forth, unbearable tension by pure cinema. This focus on the heads doesn't come at the cost of fluidity of the camera, nor does it mean the takes are short (though they can be, very).
SRS is used to really throw us from one to another, an atmosphere of broiling heat. Faces are often zoomed or tracked into, quickly, with a real punch of emphasis. The shots are, of course, always beautiful; the city from the house, the shadows on the faces.
There is a remarkable focus on detail. This is perhaps helped by some very long takes, which make for tension, an almost unbearable 'reality' to the events. Other formal features to note are the music's at once emphasis and keening, almost sadness about the events, and the economy of sets and even camera set-ups used. Low-budget used perfectly.
We have here a capitalist world that is just brutal, with anger and communism also closely related. All are out for money, and pull no punches. The brutal harshness here is inflicted in those long takes often on women; he just shoots her. The long takes give such a physical sense of violence. Wounds are real, they stay, they look like they've been hit. Even the miserable acting gives this nasty world extra edge.
With his harshness is also a clear tenderness, for the wounds, but for the people, nasty capitalists or 'dirty reds' they be. This is helped by the long takes; indeed, I am confident in saying that Fuller and neo-realism have had words. The long takes, concern for Moe, is one of the most tender moments I know in the Hollywood cinema, and then, brutality, harshness, no punches pulled.
The opening is a marvel of close framings, big heads (kept throughout), that SRS back and forth, unbearable tension by pure cinema. This focus on the heads doesn't come at the cost of fluidity of the camera, nor does it mean the takes are short (though they can be, very).
SRS is used to really throw us from one to another, an atmosphere of broiling heat. Faces are often zoomed or tracked into, quickly, with a real punch of emphasis. The shots are, of course, always beautiful; the city from the house, the shadows on the faces.
There is a remarkable focus on detail. This is perhaps helped by some very long takes, which make for tension, an almost unbearable 'reality' to the events. Other formal features to note are the music's at once emphasis and keening, almost sadness about the events, and the economy of sets and even camera set-ups used. Low-budget used perfectly.
We have here a capitalist world that is just brutal, with anger and communism also closely related. All are out for money, and pull no punches. The brutal harshness here is inflicted in those long takes often on women; he just shoots her. The long takes give such a physical sense of violence. Wounds are real, they stay, they look like they've been hit. Even the miserable acting gives this nasty world extra edge.
With his harshness is also a clear tenderness, for the wounds, but for the people, nasty capitalists or 'dirty reds' they be. This is helped by the long takes; indeed, I am confident in saying that Fuller and neo-realism have had words. The long takes, concern for Moe, is one of the most tender moments I know in the Hollywood cinema, and then, brutality, harshness, no punches pulled.
Western Union
Fritz Lang - 1941
Lang cuts around, that is in and out, from his action. The old Lang dictum; one take, one action, is in fact not that far away from applying (in this he gets off a horse, in this he reaches for some water etc). The camera often starts a scene furhter out, but then can make quicker movements in (a movement we have seen before in Franju (again connected with Lang) and Chaplin) that are smooth but flexible. There are pans around, with Lang using a lot of surprise pans; finding something in the screen space we had not anticipated (nearly always a person). That shadow near the opening, running across the ground, is noirish, as is this entire film; never have I seen comwboys in so many shadows, often long. It is shot in a colour which is much darker (and more saturated; the sky is actually blue, this is the lushest west I can remember) than classical (for me, that means Fordian) westerns.
The actual compositions are, as always with Lang, about the highest point of cinematic artistry on that front. Whatever 'dynamic' means, presumably tight, Lang is that. He uses high heads, often putting them right (even a little cut off) at the very top, or at the top sides, really using the entire frame. He has some wonderful scenes of eyelines diagonally up and down the frame, using different vertical levels.
Lang doesn't use short scenes, but everything is quick. Dialogue is short, actions are over soon. It is like a series of very short scenes that happen to all be taking place in the same space and time. When extension of a scene or shot occurs, it takes on great power. The scenes are in continual movement.
Although I am aware this may be largely reading-in, from what I already know of Lang, it seems there is a dirty cynicism here, a toughness, even a pessimism (but never fatalism for Lang). The world is nasty, double-crossing, people aren't who they say they are. Pain is dwelt upon, notably in the remarkable scene where Randolph Scott deliberately burns his hands; the close up, kept long, on the face is sensational and brutal.
Also note the scene where the Indians are electrocuted. Even our 'heroes' are cynical, nasty, nihilistic, destructive; taking way too much pleasure in the execution. Here we see civilization is insanity (compared to the rather sweet Indians). The sexual motifs of the horse (the courtly love interest is pretty much forgotten in the fog of violence, also), of violence breaking through.
We have an exploration of the telegram, civilization breaking through, with wonderful economy of mis-en-scene in how the telegram builds tension as we wwait for the decodings, and it allows innuendo. This mixture of brutality and comedy, a kind of weirdness, is striking; death and the adventures of the cook, and the half-shaven, cream everywhere, last shootout. A remarkable Western.
Lang cuts around, that is in and out, from his action. The old Lang dictum; one take, one action, is in fact not that far away from applying (in this he gets off a horse, in this he reaches for some water etc). The camera often starts a scene furhter out, but then can make quicker movements in (a movement we have seen before in Franju (again connected with Lang) and Chaplin) that are smooth but flexible. There are pans around, with Lang using a lot of surprise pans; finding something in the screen space we had not anticipated (nearly always a person). That shadow near the opening, running across the ground, is noirish, as is this entire film; never have I seen comwboys in so many shadows, often long. It is shot in a colour which is much darker (and more saturated; the sky is actually blue, this is the lushest west I can remember) than classical (for me, that means Fordian) westerns.
The actual compositions are, as always with Lang, about the highest point of cinematic artistry on that front. Whatever 'dynamic' means, presumably tight, Lang is that. He uses high heads, often putting them right (even a little cut off) at the very top, or at the top sides, really using the entire frame. He has some wonderful scenes of eyelines diagonally up and down the frame, using different vertical levels.
Lang doesn't use short scenes, but everything is quick. Dialogue is short, actions are over soon. It is like a series of very short scenes that happen to all be taking place in the same space and time. When extension of a scene or shot occurs, it takes on great power. The scenes are in continual movement.
Although I am aware this may be largely reading-in, from what I already know of Lang, it seems there is a dirty cynicism here, a toughness, even a pessimism (but never fatalism for Lang). The world is nasty, double-crossing, people aren't who they say they are. Pain is dwelt upon, notably in the remarkable scene where Randolph Scott deliberately burns his hands; the close up, kept long, on the face is sensational and brutal.
Also note the scene where the Indians are electrocuted. Even our 'heroes' are cynical, nasty, nihilistic, destructive; taking way too much pleasure in the execution. Here we see civilization is insanity (compared to the rather sweet Indians). The sexual motifs of the horse (the courtly love interest is pretty much forgotten in the fog of violence, also), of violence breaking through.
We have an exploration of the telegram, civilization breaking through, with wonderful economy of mis-en-scene in how the telegram builds tension as we wwait for the decodings, and it allows innuendo. This mixture of brutality and comedy, a kind of weirdness, is striking; death and the adventures of the cook, and the half-shaven, cream everywhere, last shootout. A remarkable Western.
Thursday 23 June 2011
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
John Ford - 1949
This neatly straddles the line between evocation of place, with its sympathetic reports of high-jinks and the fear of retirement and leaving 'the boys', with a narrative that is pretty strong until the rather fast extinguishing at the end. Ford gives the Indians here a bit more screen time; they in fact have the same issue as the cavalry, of the old-timers passing on the batton to young warmongers.
Ford's images are more two shots than the earlier huge wide ones. In a couple of ways, I wouldn't be surprised if he had aquatintance with Welles and Eisenstein, looming men. The colours here, reminiscent of 'The Searchers', are dramtic blood reds, the crazy technicolour primaries.
Their are some startlingly beautiful images here, of the plains, of the horse running and the dust they throw up, of the eeries and proud monument valley. On my 'height of the horizon' scale, it goes like this; Dovzhenko- bottom of the frame, Ford- just blow centre, Hawks- just above a centre, Kiarostami- at the top. The idea is, rather vulgarly, this fits in with the evocations of wide infinite expanses (lower) versus localistic circularity (higher).
This neatly straddles the line between evocation of place, with its sympathetic reports of high-jinks and the fear of retirement and leaving 'the boys', with a narrative that is pretty strong until the rather fast extinguishing at the end. Ford gives the Indians here a bit more screen time; they in fact have the same issue as the cavalry, of the old-timers passing on the batton to young warmongers.
Ford's images are more two shots than the earlier huge wide ones. In a couple of ways, I wouldn't be surprised if he had aquatintance with Welles and Eisenstein, looming men. The colours here, reminiscent of 'The Searchers', are dramtic blood reds, the crazy technicolour primaries.
Their are some startlingly beautiful images here, of the plains, of the horse running and the dust they throw up, of the eeries and proud monument valley. On my 'height of the horizon' scale, it goes like this; Dovzhenko- bottom of the frame, Ford- just blow centre, Hawks- just above a centre, Kiarostami- at the top. The idea is, rather vulgarly, this fits in with the evocations of wide infinite expanses (lower) versus localistic circularity (higher).
Journal d'un Cure de Campagne (Diary Of A Country Priest)
Robert Bresson - 1951
One of Bresson's masterpieces.
Short scenes open here, meaning the longer ones later give extra weight, make us watch them with extra care and attention.
The repetition of the word, in writing, speech, and action, gives a solidity and materiality to the action; the flesh.
The pains that rise up, the malevolence of the village, the music (not used as ascetically as in say 'A Man Escaped') are the moments when something else arises, material but not material. The priest must confron these. Perhaps Bresson uses some halo lighting in these moments. Not quite as beautiful (greys) as 'Pickpocket'; this is a darker film, slightly heavier shapes than 'Pickpocket's' remarkable floating effect.
The Priest's facial expression barely ever changes. Kuleshov to an extent, but also a critical view of the audience. Not a test of if words match image, but asking; 'what can a word, or an image, tell us about a feeling' (what can eyes and ears tell us, as the priest asks).
Bresson as, mostly, sound (including language) in dialectic with image; key questions of Godard and Resnais. Through footsteps (echoing), gravel, dogs, we have a complete location, though there are no establishing shots. The repetition of the gate's squeaks.
Little camera movements in, through sparseness generally the power of a reverse-shot. Concentration (the white of the bicycle tyre-guard) gives a more powerful sense of flesh, materiality. No lies in Bresson; this is a man, of flesh, saying these words.
How is the word made flesh, what is it for sound and image to come together? Which is life, which is death? Which is both? Cinema? Is Cinema grace? The final shot here, echoes of Dreyer ('Joan', 'Ordet') as materiality of cross and transcedence of world, distilled as one.
One of Bresson's masterpieces.
Short scenes open here, meaning the longer ones later give extra weight, make us watch them with extra care and attention.
The repetition of the word, in writing, speech, and action, gives a solidity and materiality to the action; the flesh.
The pains that rise up, the malevolence of the village, the music (not used as ascetically as in say 'A Man Escaped') are the moments when something else arises, material but not material. The priest must confron these. Perhaps Bresson uses some halo lighting in these moments. Not quite as beautiful (greys) as 'Pickpocket'; this is a darker film, slightly heavier shapes than 'Pickpocket's' remarkable floating effect.
The Priest's facial expression barely ever changes. Kuleshov to an extent, but also a critical view of the audience. Not a test of if words match image, but asking; 'what can a word, or an image, tell us about a feeling' (what can eyes and ears tell us, as the priest asks).
Bresson as, mostly, sound (including language) in dialectic with image; key questions of Godard and Resnais. Through footsteps (echoing), gravel, dogs, we have a complete location, though there are no establishing shots. The repetition of the gate's squeaks.
Little camera movements in, through sparseness generally the power of a reverse-shot. Concentration (the white of the bicycle tyre-guard) gives a more powerful sense of flesh, materiality. No lies in Bresson; this is a man, of flesh, saying these words.
How is the word made flesh, what is it for sound and image to come together? Which is life, which is death? Which is both? Cinema? Is Cinema grace? The final shot here, echoes of Dreyer ('Joan', 'Ordet') as materiality of cross and transcedence of world, distilled as one.
Rio Grande
John Ford - 1950
There's something here almost on the line taken by Godard's 'Detective'; a collection of motifs, wonderfully, beautifully put together, creating almost a genre-film by association than anything aparticularly plot-based.
This is in many ways a mood-piece, with a focus on the everyday life of the troupe, lots of comedy messing around, There are lines that, taken in the usually jingoistic films of the genre, come across as quite stunningly anti-violence, condemning it. Yet this is one of the films where Ford seems to think it's fine (Wayne never does; he makes it look damn difficult) to shoot a bunch of Indians.
There's something here almost on the line taken by Godard's 'Detective'; a collection of motifs, wonderfully, beautifully put together, creating almost a genre-film by association than anything aparticularly plot-based.
This is in many ways a mood-piece, with a focus on the everyday life of the troupe, lots of comedy messing around, There are lines that, taken in the usually jingoistic films of the genre, come across as quite stunningly anti-violence, condemning it. Yet this is one of the films where Ford seems to think it's fine (Wayne never does; he makes it look damn difficult) to shoot a bunch of Indians.
Drums Along The Mohawk
John Ford - 1939
This didn't strike as a great Ford, with Henry Fonda coming across as a rather weedy 'hero'. It's probably most notable for being shot in Technicolour, and for having less of a reliance on wider establishing shots. Also notice Ford's use of the image of the man looking up the image, in a very long shot, towards usually a home.
This film is also downright racist; the Indians are seen as uncontrollable savages, ordered by a 'Birth Of A Nation' style white man, which does not make it O.K.
This didn't strike as a great Ford, with Henry Fonda coming across as a rather weedy 'hero'. It's probably most notable for being shot in Technicolour, and for having less of a reliance on wider establishing shots. Also notice Ford's use of the image of the man looking up the image, in a very long shot, towards usually a home.
This film is also downright racist; the Indians are seen as uncontrollable savages, ordered by a 'Birth Of A Nation' style white man, which does not make it O.K.
Fort Apache
John Ford - 1948
The first film of the calvary trilogy, this struck me as a masterful, powerful Western. The tiny figures careering, but then quite still, through monument valley, the black and white steam from the horses. The gorizon is usually about halfway up the screen, but Ford doesn't use that shot too much.
A couple of thoughts on the action scene in Ford. There are maybe upwards of five camera positions, and Ford speeds up the edit between them. His camera doesn't get shaky, often just pans in a quick little motion across a rather small angle as a shot fires or a horse flies over. And then there are of course the shots where the camera is presumably on some kind of vehicle. These are so exhillirating, so smooth, so steady, amidst the fanfare.
This struck me as an anti-war film, critical of parts of the American attitude. Henry Fonda is an insane warmonger; O.K. the Indians are pcitures in cliched and proto-racist manners, but this seems to stem from a lack of understanding, a refusal to listen; there is no suggestion they are naturally 'savage'. Indeed, it is capitalism, in fact, that is ruining everything.
Ford does idealise the community, the comradeship of the cavalry, but there is nevertheless a great power in the nuanced dances he gives the (often deluded) people. There is something of that affectionate criticism most famous in Renoir.
The first film of the calvary trilogy, this struck me as a masterful, powerful Western. The tiny figures careering, but then quite still, through monument valley, the black and white steam from the horses. The gorizon is usually about halfway up the screen, but Ford doesn't use that shot too much.
A couple of thoughts on the action scene in Ford. There are maybe upwards of five camera positions, and Ford speeds up the edit between them. His camera doesn't get shaky, often just pans in a quick little motion across a rather small angle as a shot fires or a horse flies over. And then there are of course the shots where the camera is presumably on some kind of vehicle. These are so exhillirating, so smooth, so steady, amidst the fanfare.
This struck me as an anti-war film, critical of parts of the American attitude. Henry Fonda is an insane warmonger; O.K. the Indians are pcitures in cliched and proto-racist manners, but this seems to stem from a lack of understanding, a refusal to listen; there is no suggestion they are naturally 'savage'. Indeed, it is capitalism, in fact, that is ruining everything.
Ford does idealise the community, the comradeship of the cavalry, but there is nevertheless a great power in the nuanced dances he gives the (often deluded) people. There is something of that affectionate criticism most famous in Renoir.
Wednesday 22 June 2011
Ivan The Terrible Part II
Sergei Eisenstein - 1958
Eisenstein's images are so much like portraits, even more so here in the longer framings used, and the extremely stylised use of colour. Striking primaries, largely. Symbols, expressionist motifs are everywhere, the eye and the religious idols particularly.
One thing seen here is quite how still Eisenstein's camera is; next to no movement. I would really call Eisenstein still a silent director in many senses (though obviously a still camera means nothing on its own on this count). The wish to express action through montage, facial expression, everything seems to come to a halt when there's dialogue, it's not really a fluid part.
Eisenstein's images are so much like portraits, even more so here in the longer framings used, and the extremely stylised use of colour. Striking primaries, largely. Symbols, expressionist motifs are everywhere, the eye and the religious idols particularly.
One thing seen here is quite how still Eisenstein's camera is; next to no movement. I would really call Eisenstein still a silent director in many senses (though obviously a still camera means nothing on its own on this count). The wish to express action through montage, facial expression, everything seems to come to a halt when there's dialogue, it's not really a fluid part.
Stagecoach
John Ford - 1939
Obviously, it's a masterpiece; of simplicity.
Ford uses long shots, with a pretty deep focus, especially noticeable in those rooms which is cramps up the rooms are also shot from a pretty low angle). It can even seem a little aggressive. From this framing, which he uses with great restraint, Ford moves in closer to ones and twos.
The remarkable thing I found here about Ford's mis-en-scene is that it is an entirely mediated world. Ford has next to no shots that just show a person. It is always a person with a background of a place, other people, with the wind blowing, with dirt on their faces. Everyone is from their environment, is their environment is what they are in that shot. This combines with that masterful simplicity of direction, in that every cut and take is for a reason, portraying through purely cinematic means (Kuleshov, usually) relationships and so on, by looks). Ford can be very reticent about this, because every shot is allowed to have a meaning, so when a shot comes, even if the acting in it is laconic, we understand.
For the particular look of the images we have some really strong backlighting; lots of halos, which add to the beautiful sillouhettes and grand shafts of light that comes across the frame of the film, as though the locations were cathedrals.
Another remarkable thing about this film is how many 'classical continuity rules' it breaks. the apache showdown, for example, is constantly breaking the line, the direction of movement across the screen and so on. How the stage itself is actually shot inside doesn't stick, as far as I could tell in my one viewing, to a strict continuity line. Indeed, for perhaps obvious reasons, we never even get an establishing shot of it.
Ford uses much shorter scenes than, say, Hawks. He is pretty narrative driven, not much mucking about, but the narrative does remain very simple, with more and more obstacles. Holding the Apache back so long is a strong moment, and it seems that even in 1939 Ford isn't quite comfortable with basing his film around the crass racism that is obviously their in the plit; the social miseries of the coach party are just as important.
For all the 'boys own' side, the relationships are really pretty grown-up, perhaps due to this reticence. Their isn't a great epiphany (the alcholic seems happy at the end to keep drinking...), people remain uncertain with each other.
Obviously, it's a masterpiece; of simplicity.
Ford uses long shots, with a pretty deep focus, especially noticeable in those rooms which is cramps up the rooms are also shot from a pretty low angle). It can even seem a little aggressive. From this framing, which he uses with great restraint, Ford moves in closer to ones and twos.
The remarkable thing I found here about Ford's mis-en-scene is that it is an entirely mediated world. Ford has next to no shots that just show a person. It is always a person with a background of a place, other people, with the wind blowing, with dirt on their faces. Everyone is from their environment, is their environment is what they are in that shot. This combines with that masterful simplicity of direction, in that every cut and take is for a reason, portraying through purely cinematic means (Kuleshov, usually) relationships and so on, by looks). Ford can be very reticent about this, because every shot is allowed to have a meaning, so when a shot comes, even if the acting in it is laconic, we understand.
For the particular look of the images we have some really strong backlighting; lots of halos, which add to the beautiful sillouhettes and grand shafts of light that comes across the frame of the film, as though the locations were cathedrals.
Another remarkable thing about this film is how many 'classical continuity rules' it breaks. the apache showdown, for example, is constantly breaking the line, the direction of movement across the screen and so on. How the stage itself is actually shot inside doesn't stick, as far as I could tell in my one viewing, to a strict continuity line. Indeed, for perhaps obvious reasons, we never even get an establishing shot of it.
Ford uses much shorter scenes than, say, Hawks. He is pretty narrative driven, not much mucking about, but the narrative does remain very simple, with more and more obstacles. Holding the Apache back so long is a strong moment, and it seems that even in 1939 Ford isn't quite comfortable with basing his film around the crass racism that is obviously their in the plit; the social miseries of the coach party are just as important.
For all the 'boys own' side, the relationships are really pretty grown-up, perhaps due to this reticence. Their isn't a great epiphany (the alcholic seems happy at the end to keep drinking...), people remain uncertain with each other.
Tuesday 21 June 2011
Ivan The Terrible, Part I
Sergei Eisenstein - 1944
Iconic imagery is used, that baroque thinness. The verticals throughout accentuate; bodies are often low down on the frame, creating thoughts in the mind of slanting up.
The acting style is expressionist, I'm not sure what this does; I'm really not able to make much of a critique of this film. What I did see was expressionist shadows that seem to leave bodies (affects outside materials is clear here). This adds to the madness theme, Ivan at once powerful, but also going too far.
The montage is often individual face to individual face, that's how the mass is shown. There is also a huge amount of axial cutting, usually from the out in, that deserves study, as I'm unsure of its purposes. Surely any analysis of this film should also discuss, which I'm not really capable of, Prokofiev's score.
Iconic imagery is used, that baroque thinness. The verticals throughout accentuate; bodies are often low down on the frame, creating thoughts in the mind of slanting up.
The acting style is expressionist, I'm not sure what this does; I'm really not able to make much of a critique of this film. What I did see was expressionist shadows that seem to leave bodies (affects outside materials is clear here). This adds to the madness theme, Ivan at once powerful, but also going too far.
The montage is often individual face to individual face, that's how the mass is shown. There is also a huge amount of axial cutting, usually from the out in, that deserves study, as I'm unsure of its purposes. Surely any analysis of this film should also discuss, which I'm not really capable of, Prokofiev's score.
Cluny Brown
Ernst Lubitsch - 1946
This is one of my favourite Lubitsch films, along with 'The Shop Around The Corner'. Both have a wonderful, true air of quiet desperation and melancholy. Charles Boyer's performance in this is one of the most magnificent I have seen in the classical Hollyowood cinema. Lubitsch's repetition of a line or action, from humour to melancholy, mixed together always, is perfectyed with the opening of the shop door here.
The themes of class, place, freedom, are foregrounded more that in other Lubitsch work. When Cluny mistaken by the Lord and Lady, one of the most perfect, quiet evocations of tyranny is shown.
All right, it ends with a man pulling up a female prole, but gosh, there is a lot of truth here.
This is one of my favourite Lubitsch films, along with 'The Shop Around The Corner'. Both have a wonderful, true air of quiet desperation and melancholy. Charles Boyer's performance in this is one of the most magnificent I have seen in the classical Hollyowood cinema. Lubitsch's repetition of a line or action, from humour to melancholy, mixed together always, is perfectyed with the opening of the shop door here.
The themes of class, place, freedom, are foregrounded more that in other Lubitsch work. When Cluny mistaken by the Lord and Lady, one of the most perfect, quiet evocations of tyranny is shown.
All right, it ends with a man pulling up a female prole, but gosh, there is a lot of truth here.
Heaven Can Wait
Ernst Lubitsch - 1943
An analysis of love and lust, or most convincingly of aging, filmed in technicolour. Against the bourgois backdrop, almost completely indoors. There is some nice filming of doors; that Lubitsch can do this shows something rather remarkable. Gene Tierneyu's enture youthful frivolity is demonstrated although his parent's house is never left.
Lubitsch doesn't seem to really go beyond a kind of keening romanticism, courtly love, as far as I can see. This is, I must admit, a little disquieting. His direction uses emphaseses well, in its deeply (indeed, they say creating it) classical SRS, fluid movements, and first of all establishing.
As far as love vs lust goes; we have sympathy, and Lubitsh is nicelt grown up about it, how connection can still flourish. Lubitsch is sexy, but not at all smutty; he takes sex seriously, that is, he sees it is fun, and fun shouldn't be demeaned.
An analysis of love and lust, or most convincingly of aging, filmed in technicolour. Against the bourgois backdrop, almost completely indoors. There is some nice filming of doors; that Lubitsch can do this shows something rather remarkable. Gene Tierneyu's enture youthful frivolity is demonstrated although his parent's house is never left.
Lubitsch doesn't seem to really go beyond a kind of keening romanticism, courtly love, as far as I can see. This is, I must admit, a little disquieting. His direction uses emphaseses well, in its deeply (indeed, they say creating it) classical SRS, fluid movements, and first of all establishing.
As far as love vs lust goes; we have sympathy, and Lubitsh is nicelt grown up about it, how connection can still flourish. Lubitsch is sexy, but not at all smutty; he takes sex seriously, that is, he sees it is fun, and fun shouldn't be demeaned.
Monday 20 June 2011
The Saddest Music InThe World
Guy Maddin - 2000
Clearly pretty distinctive, with a lot of references. We have the Hollywood narrative, soft style, that distinctive look created by, among other things, shooting on presumably 8mm or 16mm, and the segues into almost parodic SRS. There also seems a huge Weimar expressionist influence. The Caligari sets, or perhaps more the Spione and Metropolis era Lang geometries, along with canted angles and harsh lighting. Calling something a 'silent movie aesthetic'; I'm not alltogether sure what that means, the framings are too close to match precisely.. but it just seems to look like a silent. Inserts, those dramatic angles (which is slightly Wellesian, as is the central businessman), rich blacks, and perhaps above all the cutting pace. This is all mixed in with frequent montage.
The Hollywood ideology is undermined as racist, riven to absurdity by the script and descents to melodrama. It is taking rhe mickey, but that isn't really the concern. That is more the idea being taken apart of false sentimentality, which is clear. All can be desecrated, undermined by crassness. Maddin wants 'real' sadness surely, but can't find it; when his film thinks it has found it, it came across to me as rather a lunge. Sadness seems rather the lack of anything, and this film is brimming, overdetermined memories and histories and styles and aesthetics (which is precisely Maddin's point).
The strongest point is surely the family relations; the father is the strongest figure, a cipher of a kind of desperation. Either than that, engaging and absorbing as its distinctive style is, I'm not sure I got alot. This film may benefit, from reading and discussion; I don't really want to criticise it, more say that I just didn't get much out of it.
Clearly pretty distinctive, with a lot of references. We have the Hollywood narrative, soft style, that distinctive look created by, among other things, shooting on presumably 8mm or 16mm, and the segues into almost parodic SRS. There also seems a huge Weimar expressionist influence. The Caligari sets, or perhaps more the Spione and Metropolis era Lang geometries, along with canted angles and harsh lighting. Calling something a 'silent movie aesthetic'; I'm not alltogether sure what that means, the framings are too close to match precisely.. but it just seems to look like a silent. Inserts, those dramatic angles (which is slightly Wellesian, as is the central businessman), rich blacks, and perhaps above all the cutting pace. This is all mixed in with frequent montage.
The Hollywood ideology is undermined as racist, riven to absurdity by the script and descents to melodrama. It is taking rhe mickey, but that isn't really the concern. That is more the idea being taken apart of false sentimentality, which is clear. All can be desecrated, undermined by crassness. Maddin wants 'real' sadness surely, but can't find it; when his film thinks it has found it, it came across to me as rather a lunge. Sadness seems rather the lack of anything, and this film is brimming, overdetermined memories and histories and styles and aesthetics (which is precisely Maddin's point).
The strongest point is surely the family relations; the father is the strongest figure, a cipher of a kind of desperation. Either than that, engaging and absorbing as its distinctive style is, I'm not sure I got alot. This film may benefit, from reading and discussion; I don't really want to criticise it, more say that I just didn't get much out of it.
To Be Or Not To Be
Ernst Lubitsch - 1942
Lubitsch is again fluid. He employs a clear, often still establishing shot, before jeerily mmoving around his limited number of locations. He uses different staging techniques, up and down screen left and right, turning to or away, to emphasise or deemphasise certain reactions and moments. These don't usually come from moments within the set, they are more set beforehand.
Lubitsch is at his best when a simple framing straighforwadly conveys a reaction, his strength is the need not to need to draw out exactly what it is a reaction to, but that it is a reaction. As we aren't given narrative explicitly, but (quite obviously) create it ourselves, the viewer is always implicated in the picture.
As a narrative, we have an entry in the 'plucky Europeans' genre. Lubitsch likes to pull the wool, then the carpet out, making the stage reality and vice versa. Everyone is a mercenary, and everyone cares.
Lubitsch is again fluid. He employs a clear, often still establishing shot, before jeerily mmoving around his limited number of locations. He uses different staging techniques, up and down screen left and right, turning to or away, to emphasise or deemphasise certain reactions and moments. These don't usually come from moments within the set, they are more set beforehand.
Lubitsch is at his best when a simple framing straighforwadly conveys a reaction, his strength is the need not to need to draw out exactly what it is a reaction to, but that it is a reaction. As we aren't given narrative explicitly, but (quite obviously) create it ourselves, the viewer is always implicated in the picture.
As a narrative, we have an entry in the 'plucky Europeans' genre. Lubitsch likes to pull the wool, then the carpet out, making the stage reality and vice versa. Everyone is a mercenary, and everyone cares.
Ninotchka
Ernst Lubitsch - 1939
Lubitsch's style goes for some sort of establishing, and then, crucially, a great fluidity as we move in and about our closer work. The establishing can occasionally seem almost cursory, and focus more on a wider world (i.e., a whole city) than telling us eaxct room layouts. Elegant, sometimes quite complex pans ans tracks make a frame that has a certain airiness and roominess. When necessary, Garbo and other characters pop from their background by reducing depth of focus, coulour differences, and turning up the backlight in the usual three-point setup.
For standing-up we largely work with plan americain, just above the knees maybe, and we come to waist-high medium shots for sitting. These can be extremely long takes.
Lubitsch's editing is rythmic in the sense that he knows how to use certain framings for a punctuation. That is, the timing of a reaction shot, or using a close-up when one has not come before. Their is also the famous Lubitsch discretion, which is perhaps most notable when parties are shown from noises behind a door, or in small details (portraits etc) in the mis-en-scene.
The narrative here works as central long scenes which drive the plot on (and include within these dialogues shadings), often with longer takes, and with shorter scenes/ actions around these (often in the same locations), that usually provide the shadings. Lubitsch is able to overdetermine actions, and make us induce, from actions, states of mind, rather than either telling us of differences or ignoring them altogether.
As for the plot; well, the ideology has some nice points, but generally it falls into a rather silly bashing of the Soviets. Saying that, there are moments (the genuine community of some Soviet scenes, the discussions about how, yes, the USSR was working for the people) do undercut this, but are then forgotten in the main sentimental strain. Was this a necessity at the time, or Lubitsch's considered opinion? That is hardly the point. It does make the piece a touch irritating, and go on a bit. Nevertheless, the fine moments at the end, very 'Shop Around The Corner', where silence is used with a surprising cut, a medium to slow dawning rather than a shock, introduces that wave of mocked, but strong, romanticism.
Lubitsch's style goes for some sort of establishing, and then, crucially, a great fluidity as we move in and about our closer work. The establishing can occasionally seem almost cursory, and focus more on a wider world (i.e., a whole city) than telling us eaxct room layouts. Elegant, sometimes quite complex pans ans tracks make a frame that has a certain airiness and roominess. When necessary, Garbo and other characters pop from their background by reducing depth of focus, coulour differences, and turning up the backlight in the usual three-point setup.
For standing-up we largely work with plan americain, just above the knees maybe, and we come to waist-high medium shots for sitting. These can be extremely long takes.
Lubitsch's editing is rythmic in the sense that he knows how to use certain framings for a punctuation. That is, the timing of a reaction shot, or using a close-up when one has not come before. Their is also the famous Lubitsch discretion, which is perhaps most notable when parties are shown from noises behind a door, or in small details (portraits etc) in the mis-en-scene.
The narrative here works as central long scenes which drive the plot on (and include within these dialogues shadings), often with longer takes, and with shorter scenes/ actions around these (often in the same locations), that usually provide the shadings. Lubitsch is able to overdetermine actions, and make us induce, from actions, states of mind, rather than either telling us of differences or ignoring them altogether.
As for the plot; well, the ideology has some nice points, but generally it falls into a rather silly bashing of the Soviets. Saying that, there are moments (the genuine community of some Soviet scenes, the discussions about how, yes, the USSR was working for the people) do undercut this, but are then forgotten in the main sentimental strain. Was this a necessity at the time, or Lubitsch's considered opinion? That is hardly the point. It does make the piece a touch irritating, and go on a bit. Nevertheless, the fine moments at the end, very 'Shop Around The Corner', where silence is used with a surprising cut, a medium to slow dawning rather than a shock, introduces that wave of mocked, but strong, romanticism.
Wise Blood
John Huston - 1979
Huston is certainly using more expressive camera movements here. He allows buildings to loom, there to be close-ups, or for the camera to linger on something. The washed out colours and simple malevolence of the costumes, along with a structure that screams 'independent', gives for a more free-wheeling piece.
Huston has some interesting ideas, about idolatory, belief, sin. They are rather stuffy, perhaps a little cliche-riven, but open to cinematic discussion. Indeed, they do come across here. The problem is that Huston's direction does not allow a world, does not compose or edit so as to give a sense of anything beyond actors repeating lines in a certain kind of sense. There is, almost, a lack of art. This makes the exploration of themes rather abstract; this isn't a real place, with real people, and all the complexities and shades of the world. This isn't a bad film; but it's pretty insubstantial, too.
Huston is certainly using more expressive camera movements here. He allows buildings to loom, there to be close-ups, or for the camera to linger on something. The washed out colours and simple malevolence of the costumes, along with a structure that screams 'independent', gives for a more free-wheeling piece.
Huston has some interesting ideas, about idolatory, belief, sin. They are rather stuffy, perhaps a little cliche-riven, but open to cinematic discussion. Indeed, they do come across here. The problem is that Huston's direction does not allow a world, does not compose or edit so as to give a sense of anything beyond actors repeating lines in a certain kind of sense. There is, almost, a lack of art. This makes the exploration of themes rather abstract; this isn't a real place, with real people, and all the complexities and shades of the world. This isn't a bad film; but it's pretty insubstantial, too.
A Walk With Love and Death
John Huston - 1969
Huston directs in his usual rather non-consequential way, not really creating much of a sense of a world, sticking to establishing, then SRS. The dialogue is getting better, and their is now a nice simplicity to the direction, one doesn't feel it is intrusive. The film stock here uses heavily saturated colour, for some reason.
We have here very much a flower-power story, credit for tackling that society in this way, though not much of a sense of time and place. Angelica Huston's face and acting really work rather well for a kind of Byzantium icon-painting; but visually, she is photographed in no distinctive way whatsoever.
Huston seems rather stuck on the cliches of courtly love, trying to circumvent but ultimately returning to a tragic romanticism. A worthy subject, with some nice moments, but no real cinematic expression.
Huston directs in his usual rather non-consequential way, not really creating much of a sense of a world, sticking to establishing, then SRS. The dialogue is getting better, and their is now a nice simplicity to the direction, one doesn't feel it is intrusive. The film stock here uses heavily saturated colour, for some reason.
We have here very much a flower-power story, credit for tackling that society in this way, though not much of a sense of time and place. Angelica Huston's face and acting really work rather well for a kind of Byzantium icon-painting; but visually, she is photographed in no distinctive way whatsoever.
Huston seems rather stuck on the cliches of courtly love, trying to circumvent but ultimately returning to a tragic romanticism. A worthy subject, with some nice moments, but no real cinematic expression.
Sunday 19 June 2011
The African Queen
John Huston - 1951
This is a well-directed film. By 'well-directed' I mean simple, clear. Usually we isolate the two leads, but Huston has no problem getting them a bit closer, or using a bit of depth. Every few shots or so we go off the boat and have a little look around. Jack Cardiff heavily saturates his palate, the skin tones have an especially satisfying brown palette.
This is really an excellent adventure kids film. Fun, quick, without Huston's repetition or explanations so much.
What this film made me consider is whether this kind of film is really O.K.; it does, after all, lie. It lies about human relationships, about struggles, it is racist and sexist. There are perhaps two or three true moments; the bit with the leeches, a couple of exchanges (in a nice script, Huston and James Agee).
This is a well-directed film. By 'well-directed' I mean simple, clear. Usually we isolate the two leads, but Huston has no problem getting them a bit closer, or using a bit of depth. Every few shots or so we go off the boat and have a little look around. Jack Cardiff heavily saturates his palate, the skin tones have an especially satisfying brown palette.
This is really an excellent adventure kids film. Fun, quick, without Huston's repetition or explanations so much.
What this film made me consider is whether this kind of film is really O.K.; it does, after all, lie. It lies about human relationships, about struggles, it is racist and sexist. There are perhaps two or three true moments; the bit with the leeches, a couple of exchanges (in a nice script, Huston and James Agee).
Szegenylegenyek (The Round-Up)
Miklos Jancso - 1966
This is really a great piece of simple filmaking; simple in that it is immensely complex, worlds and difficulties.
The camera, with a great wide frame (2.35:1), is pretty economical in its movements, is calm, controlled. This perhaps is what most contributes to the almost underwater (but clear), slow pace. The camera almost exclusively follows people, without obvious autonomy.
The wide screen us used to great effect. Two qualities of the image strike; firstly, the sheer whiteness of it; the pale, not overexposed, but not blacks. Also interesting is how much of the screen is filled with 'blank'; usually white walls. The image is balanced, but often what is on either side of the screen is different.
Jancso seems to want to avoid the obvious horizontals one might expect. He is known for small figures in the distance, almost abstract shapes, but in this film I found more of a closer focus, delibertely unexact and unsymmetrical (though balanced, one way or another) shapes. Their is no prettification of the image. Their are interesting shapes made by the square flanks of the armies and so on. We very much look forward to seeing, I hope 'The Red and The White'.
The calm oppression, not abstracted but made personal, is revealed by sudden turns, realisations that the execuation will take place, when some hope is achieved. The power is exercised slowly, without hurry, letting a thought of escape, then calmly extinguishing. Why no big surprises? The underlying slow atmosphere perhaps, the unclear narrative that avoids identification. Their are shocks, but they always seem to dawn, rather than strike.
The end is powerful because it doesn't seem to be designed to shock, though it does. It doesn't draw out the misery, is so blatant as a reverse, it discombobulates from the way a classical narrative would introduce such a shock. Then the credits come, and the music hammers.
This is really a great piece of simple filmaking; simple in that it is immensely complex, worlds and difficulties.
The camera, with a great wide frame (2.35:1), is pretty economical in its movements, is calm, controlled. This perhaps is what most contributes to the almost underwater (but clear), slow pace. The camera almost exclusively follows people, without obvious autonomy.
The wide screen us used to great effect. Two qualities of the image strike; firstly, the sheer whiteness of it; the pale, not overexposed, but not blacks. Also interesting is how much of the screen is filled with 'blank'; usually white walls. The image is balanced, but often what is on either side of the screen is different.
Jancso seems to want to avoid the obvious horizontals one might expect. He is known for small figures in the distance, almost abstract shapes, but in this film I found more of a closer focus, delibertely unexact and unsymmetrical (though balanced, one way or another) shapes. Their is no prettification of the image. Their are interesting shapes made by the square flanks of the armies and so on. We very much look forward to seeing, I hope 'The Red and The White'.
The calm oppression, not abstracted but made personal, is revealed by sudden turns, realisations that the execuation will take place, when some hope is achieved. The power is exercised slowly, without hurry, letting a thought of escape, then calmly extinguishing. Why no big surprises? The underlying slow atmosphere perhaps, the unclear narrative that avoids identification. Their are shocks, but they always seem to dawn, rather than strike.
The end is powerful because it doesn't seem to be designed to shock, though it does. It doesn't draw out the misery, is so blatant as a reverse, it discombobulates from the way a classical narrative would introduce such a shock. Then the credits come, and the music hammers.
Beat The Devil
John Huston - 1953
Clearly a satire, edited quickly with almost a Wellesian verve of extreme framings heights and blocky expressionist shadows. Something if the 'Journey Into Fear'.
As an exploration of colonialism, capitalism, bourgeois complacency, it is direct and rather good and cutting at times. Perhaps there's not a lot beneath the surface, but that surface does a lot. It is pbvious why this is a cult movie; it's silly, but also rather intelligent all the same.
Clearly a satire, edited quickly with almost a Wellesian verve of extreme framings heights and blocky expressionist shadows. Something if the 'Journey Into Fear'.
As an exploration of colonialism, capitalism, bourgeois complacency, it is direct and rather good and cutting at times. Perhaps there's not a lot beneath the surface, but that surface does a lot. It is pbvious why this is a cult movie; it's silly, but also rather intelligent all the same.
Key Largo
John Huston - 1948
This is nuts and bolts direction, wuth cutting that is really surprisingly fast at times. There is an odd part where Bogart and Bacall are just walking along, minding their own business. Their is also more telling than showing, which we're finding rather familiar in Huston.
This film is pretty pleasurable... partly perhaps due to some good lighting decisions, their are more fills than hardcore noir, but spots shine through this on to the sides of faces, to create a harsh, dirty effect. The acting is very impressive also. Robinson and Bogart are special as always, but Bacall's primness here is the true wonder. She isn't that harsh, she seems, in fact, happy.
This is deeply theatrical. Static zig-zag deep framings in a single location. It is an interesting play, with a little bit of O'Neill. And a decent enough film, if no more.
This is nuts and bolts direction, wuth cutting that is really surprisingly fast at times. There is an odd part where Bogart and Bacall are just walking along, minding their own business. Their is also more telling than showing, which we're finding rather familiar in Huston.
This film is pretty pleasurable... partly perhaps due to some good lighting decisions, their are more fills than hardcore noir, but spots shine through this on to the sides of faces, to create a harsh, dirty effect. The acting is very impressive also. Robinson and Bogart are special as always, but Bacall's primness here is the true wonder. She isn't that harsh, she seems, in fact, happy.
This is deeply theatrical. Static zig-zag deep framings in a single location. It is an interesting play, with a little bit of O'Neill. And a decent enough film, if no more.
Szenvedely (Passion)
Gyorgy Feher - 1998
The late Gyorgy Feher’s 1998 Passion is usually mentioned, when at all, as an addendum to discussions of the work of Bela Tarr. The two collaborated, they shared a nationality, a style, an approach to the cinema and to life. It would perhaps be perverse not to discuss them together. Indeed, that the more famous Tarr can help introduce, and in a rare screening at the Edinburgh Film Festival curate, encounters with Feher’s work is surely a good thing. This all, of course, leads to the obvious point that Tarr’s presence must not lead us to ignore shadings of, and even quite fundamental, differences between the two Hungarian auteur’s works. Slight differences of style and subject-matter, devices used by one but not the other, can lead to quite different ideas and world created by a cinema. In the case of Tarr and Feher’s Passion, their differences can help to deepen our understanding of both artists’ works.
Would it be impossible for Bela Tarr to remake, or rather attempt another adaption from the source material of, The Postman Always Rings Twice? Clearly not; Tarr worked on Passion’s script and the aesthetic of, to put it vulgarly, slow and long takes, here fits the story very well. Feher also places the action, of an adulterous couple’s attempts to knock off the lady’s husband for freedom and finances, in a setting we know from Tarr. Filthy barrooms, muddy streets, crumbling stonework and faces filled with cross-lit crevices and misery. All dwelt upon in huge (and often mobile) takes, the audience drinking in the obscene broth of bad breath, befouled whisky, sweated stubble, and misogyny.
The aesthetic, shard by Feher and Tarr, creates an atmosphere that is a whole cinema of its won. What seemed especially clear to me in Passionwas the weight the aesthetic gives to quotidities, rather sordid and pathetic events. If the ellipsis and reticent innuendo of Lubitsch and Hitchcock seem to sweep over the top of life (and who is to say the surface is not also the deepest), heavy takes of deliberate movements (Passion perhaps a little elegant, more shaky than certainly later Tarr) takes the world onto its shoulders. Gallows humour in this ugliness abounds, as does a sense of inevitable fate and likely misery, of inevitable punishment by a God retributive and never redemptive. Does it aestheticize a tortured existence? Passion certainly throws up some remarkable black and white imagery, rain and the human face, that ‘beautiful’ is far too prettified a word for. This isn’t an ‘ecstatic truth’ (the image Herzog has enjoyed inhumanely and masochistically circling around) because table truth is, after the death of God, a lie; but it certainly is ecstatic in some way, like a thunderbolt.
These questions apply more to Passion than to Tarr’s works, because the former is more obviously open to charges of aestheticism. His images, inkeeping with his attempt to make the film look as though a mysterious relic, are softer, with a greater sensitivity of tones that Tarr’s. This leads to overexposure, often on faces, and the blatantly non-realistic ‘whiting out’ of areas of the screen. This is an abstraction, in the sense that the how the image is given to us is foregrounded as much as what is being portrayed.
It is this slight removal from everyday life, almost a magical element, that I feel separates Feher’s Passion from any of Tarr’s works while shining a light on both. The fact is that Tarr has not yet adapted The Postman Always Rings Twice. And for all the formal differences from mainstream Hollywood cinema, Feher’s Passion is an adaption; each take just plays out twenty times longer. Giving a summary of a few lines to each scene would reveal quite strict, classical narrative. The images, as mentioned softer than Tarr’s, call to mind 1930’s Hollywood, as does the universal nature of the settings. The rooms and cars seem less rooted in a particular time and space than the locale of, say, Santantango, we have less of the muddy streets or distinct etiquettes of place. It would take little to move Passion to the small town America of Cain’s novel.
This is a kind of abstraction that Tarr does not deal in. Certainly, Satantango has a mythic, enclosed quality, or the farmhouse of his latest, The Turin Horse, has an existence in a mist that calls to mind purgatory. But in Tarr we have at first a temporally and geographically precise setting, that only then takes on a mythic, (anti-)theological resonance. In Feher’s Passion, the feeling and the weight of the image comes before the placing of the content. What we find in Passion is more primarily a discourse on the image, on the power of light and shadow, than Tarr’s cinema, which is not implausibly a radical development of the neo-realist tradition. Of course Feher’s film and the works of Tarr are deeply similar; but slight changes of emphasis can pull the mind into most distinct shapes.
The late Gyorgy Feher’s 1998 Passion is usually mentioned, when at all, as an addendum to discussions of the work of Bela Tarr. The two collaborated, they shared a nationality, a style, an approach to the cinema and to life. It would perhaps be perverse not to discuss them together. Indeed, that the more famous Tarr can help introduce, and in a rare screening at the Edinburgh Film Festival curate, encounters with Feher’s work is surely a good thing. This all, of course, leads to the obvious point that Tarr’s presence must not lead us to ignore shadings of, and even quite fundamental, differences between the two Hungarian auteur’s works. Slight differences of style and subject-matter, devices used by one but not the other, can lead to quite different ideas and world created by a cinema. In the case of Tarr and Feher’s Passion, their differences can help to deepen our understanding of both artists’ works.
Would it be impossible for Bela Tarr to remake, or rather attempt another adaption from the source material of, The Postman Always Rings Twice? Clearly not; Tarr worked on Passion’s script and the aesthetic of, to put it vulgarly, slow and long takes, here fits the story very well. Feher also places the action, of an adulterous couple’s attempts to knock off the lady’s husband for freedom and finances, in a setting we know from Tarr. Filthy barrooms, muddy streets, crumbling stonework and faces filled with cross-lit crevices and misery. All dwelt upon in huge (and often mobile) takes, the audience drinking in the obscene broth of bad breath, befouled whisky, sweated stubble, and misogyny.
The aesthetic, shard by Feher and Tarr, creates an atmosphere that is a whole cinema of its won. What seemed especially clear to me in Passionwas the weight the aesthetic gives to quotidities, rather sordid and pathetic events. If the ellipsis and reticent innuendo of Lubitsch and Hitchcock seem to sweep over the top of life (and who is to say the surface is not also the deepest), heavy takes of deliberate movements (Passion perhaps a little elegant, more shaky than certainly later Tarr) takes the world onto its shoulders. Gallows humour in this ugliness abounds, as does a sense of inevitable fate and likely misery, of inevitable punishment by a God retributive and never redemptive. Does it aestheticize a tortured existence? Passion certainly throws up some remarkable black and white imagery, rain and the human face, that ‘beautiful’ is far too prettified a word for. This isn’t an ‘ecstatic truth’ (the image Herzog has enjoyed inhumanely and masochistically circling around) because table truth is, after the death of God, a lie; but it certainly is ecstatic in some way, like a thunderbolt.
These questions apply more to Passion than to Tarr’s works, because the former is more obviously open to charges of aestheticism. His images, inkeeping with his attempt to make the film look as though a mysterious relic, are softer, with a greater sensitivity of tones that Tarr’s. This leads to overexposure, often on faces, and the blatantly non-realistic ‘whiting out’ of areas of the screen. This is an abstraction, in the sense that the how the image is given to us is foregrounded as much as what is being portrayed.
It is this slight removal from everyday life, almost a magical element, that I feel separates Feher’s Passion from any of Tarr’s works while shining a light on both. The fact is that Tarr has not yet adapted The Postman Always Rings Twice. And for all the formal differences from mainstream Hollywood cinema, Feher’s Passion is an adaption; each take just plays out twenty times longer. Giving a summary of a few lines to each scene would reveal quite strict, classical narrative. The images, as mentioned softer than Tarr’s, call to mind 1930’s Hollywood, as does the universal nature of the settings. The rooms and cars seem less rooted in a particular time and space than the locale of, say, Santantango, we have less of the muddy streets or distinct etiquettes of place. It would take little to move Passion to the small town America of Cain’s novel.
This is a kind of abstraction that Tarr does not deal in. Certainly, Satantango has a mythic, enclosed quality, or the farmhouse of his latest, The Turin Horse, has an existence in a mist that calls to mind purgatory. But in Tarr we have at first a temporally and geographically precise setting, that only then takes on a mythic, (anti-)theological resonance. In Feher’s Passion, the feeling and the weight of the image comes before the placing of the content. What we find in Passion is more primarily a discourse on the image, on the power of light and shadow, than Tarr’s cinema, which is not implausibly a radical development of the neo-realist tradition. Of course Feher’s film and the works of Tarr are deeply similar; but slight changes of emphasis can pull the mind into most distinct shapes.
American Torso
Gabor Body - 1975
Gabriel Body’s 196? American Torso is made up of a series instructions, demands, commands, father’s voices. These words, or actions, are performed by a figure with a disregard for, though they are always directed towards, an other. This series of one-channel communications lines plot from character to character that fail to intersect, combine to form a film that speaks a truth, in its disconnected stabs, of modern warfare and domination.
The play, and the notion of theatre is crucial here, takes place during the American civil war, where it can be established that some kind of technology of long-distance sighting mechanisms is being pioneered. Opening the film, and repeated throughout, are views of people as ‘targets’, between cross-hairs. Others aren’t interlocurs or part of one’s life; they are a shape in a line of sight, for words, and perhaps bullets, to be fired at.
The film neither has a narrative, nor is it anything traditionally called realism. A theatrical distancing is made by the disjointed delivery of lines, and intrusions of incongruous references to the cowboy and other such mild absurdities. It could nearly be called a collection of skits, collected by locale rather than time. The film stock is deliberately torn or flickering in overexposure, the settings are unrealistic. I mean unrealistic in that they employ a theatrical, rather than cinematically real, space; for bar location is a single room separated by spotlights that into a series of non-communicative groups. This idea of separate locations, with a failure to connect between in any meaningful way, is a key thematic of the film. What Body is, through cinematic means, is to juxtapose and create a kind of communication by holding together to the light of the film the two separate elements. This put me in mind of Bela Tarr, who curated American Torso’s recent screening at the Edinburgh Film Festival, and declares himself deeply affected by the work. Tarr uses few visual cues, overlappings or moves across planes, to indicate depth. The world is of separate, uncommunicative planes. Yet his camera’s framings, and often his depth of field, allow the two separate elements to be seen together, to mediate and connect with each other in a single image. Perhaps cinema is the spider that Tarr frequently uses as a motif, and is also invoked in American Torso; imperceptible, translucent webs are woven across the world.
Lines, imposed non-diagetically across the environment at crucial stages of American Torso, mark paths of connection and separation. Along words fired there, Walt Whitman phrases and Karl Marx theories, one rarely feels that a complete geometrical shape will be made. The lines don’t come together to make beautiful shapes, or run perfectly parallel. They splay out in all directions as if from shotgun. Body does not give us particularly beautiful or totally clear images; his rfrequent cuts to close-up seem designed to break up the smooth running of ‘pretty pictures’.
This harsh view of relations, with humanist or revolutionary tracts working as commands in the military environment, gives the film a peculiarly modern sense of chaos, of miniature power struggle carried out in every word and deed. Yet I wouldn’t call this a brutal film; harsh, maybe, but with a sense of curiosity and even tenderness for its figures. The individuals at once controlled by and part of a system, an abstract conspiracy, still have soft skins that put me in mind of Jacques Rivette. If Rivette’s Paris Nous Appartient, Bandes Des Quatres, or Haut Bas Fragile worlds are of the interplay of the sensitive soul and their search for narrative and goodness), Body has pre-empted Rivette in a subtly different way. Body’s film, rather than being concerned with victims, displays the bad guys, the ones who consider themselves to be running the conspiracy (they are, of course, as entrapped as any). His military men have a complacency, a theatrical brazenness about the slaughter. Yet they still fail to deliver a true narrative, military technology is not understood by its consequences, the slaughter still proceeds. Like Rivette’s seekers, they search for a narrative; the difference is that Body’s figures have fooled themselves that they have found this key. Picked up like loose military ‘intelligence’, swatting around in the dark of the midday American sun, American Torso is fine-tuned to an erratic frequency broadcasting a version of the truth.
Gabriel Body’s 196? American Torso is made up of a series instructions, demands, commands, father’s voices. These words, or actions, are performed by a figure with a disregard for, though they are always directed towards, an other. This series of one-channel communications lines plot from character to character that fail to intersect, combine to form a film that speaks a truth, in its disconnected stabs, of modern warfare and domination.
The play, and the notion of theatre is crucial here, takes place during the American civil war, where it can be established that some kind of technology of long-distance sighting mechanisms is being pioneered. Opening the film, and repeated throughout, are views of people as ‘targets’, between cross-hairs. Others aren’t interlocurs or part of one’s life; they are a shape in a line of sight, for words, and perhaps bullets, to be fired at.
The film neither has a narrative, nor is it anything traditionally called realism. A theatrical distancing is made by the disjointed delivery of lines, and intrusions of incongruous references to the cowboy and other such mild absurdities. It could nearly be called a collection of skits, collected by locale rather than time. The film stock is deliberately torn or flickering in overexposure, the settings are unrealistic. I mean unrealistic in that they employ a theatrical, rather than cinematically real, space; for bar location is a single room separated by spotlights that into a series of non-communicative groups. This idea of separate locations, with a failure to connect between in any meaningful way, is a key thematic of the film. What Body is, through cinematic means, is to juxtapose and create a kind of communication by holding together to the light of the film the two separate elements. This put me in mind of Bela Tarr, who curated American Torso’s recent screening at the Edinburgh Film Festival, and declares himself deeply affected by the work. Tarr uses few visual cues, overlappings or moves across planes, to indicate depth. The world is of separate, uncommunicative planes. Yet his camera’s framings, and often his depth of field, allow the two separate elements to be seen together, to mediate and connect with each other in a single image. Perhaps cinema is the spider that Tarr frequently uses as a motif, and is also invoked in American Torso; imperceptible, translucent webs are woven across the world.
Lines, imposed non-diagetically across the environment at crucial stages of American Torso, mark paths of connection and separation. Along words fired there, Walt Whitman phrases and Karl Marx theories, one rarely feels that a complete geometrical shape will be made. The lines don’t come together to make beautiful shapes, or run perfectly parallel. They splay out in all directions as if from shotgun. Body does not give us particularly beautiful or totally clear images; his rfrequent cuts to close-up seem designed to break up the smooth running of ‘pretty pictures’.
This harsh view of relations, with humanist or revolutionary tracts working as commands in the military environment, gives the film a peculiarly modern sense of chaos, of miniature power struggle carried out in every word and deed. Yet I wouldn’t call this a brutal film; harsh, maybe, but with a sense of curiosity and even tenderness for its figures. The individuals at once controlled by and part of a system, an abstract conspiracy, still have soft skins that put me in mind of Jacques Rivette. If Rivette’s Paris Nous Appartient, Bandes Des Quatres, or Haut Bas Fragile worlds are of the interplay of the sensitive soul and their search for narrative and goodness), Body has pre-empted Rivette in a subtly different way. Body’s film, rather than being concerned with victims, displays the bad guys, the ones who consider themselves to be running the conspiracy (they are, of course, as entrapped as any). His military men have a complacency, a theatrical brazenness about the slaughter. Yet they still fail to deliver a true narrative, military technology is not understood by its consequences, the slaughter still proceeds. Like Rivette’s seekers, they search for a narrative; the difference is that Body’s figures have fooled themselves that they have found this key. Picked up like loose military ‘intelligence’, swatting around in the dark of the midday American sun, American Torso is fine-tuned to an erratic frequency broadcasting a version of the truth.
Saturday 18 June 2011
Satantango
Bela Tarr - 1994
It is, of course, a masterpiece. Let's look at particular visual style. Tarr in fact quite often compartmentalises his images, quite perpendicular (and horizontal), with little overlapping. This means, though there is usually depth of field in the lens, that their are a lack of depth cues. This leads to pictoral abstraction, wonderful, almost comic plays with scale and so on. Their are often only two planes in the staging, and movement across them passes quickly.
As for the film, this is clearly low-key, with the particular tone of the sky used so as to avoid overexposure. With the dispersing clouds light is rarely harsh. Perhaps their is a certain degree of sidelighting, to accentuate the shadows. Their is, I suspect, a filter (red or blue?) used here. Also note how frequently the pallette changes; in the pub, well-lit, for one remarkable shot, the characters appear as merely sillouhettes.
Talking about depth makes it sound like the camera is still; indeed it is, for long periods, but there is also a lot a lot of precise, nerver unsteady, movement. This circles, reframes, in its stately manner, in the long, long, beautiful and long, takes.
Despite what this may sound like, I find this very different from Tarkovsky. Tarkovsky essentially pans and scans, using the camera to capture an event. Tarr's camera is autonomous for long periods, moving past static people, avoiding the source of dialogue (which Tarkovsky obviously does as well), moving on its own way. The above comments on depth are more to do with when it settles in.
This sounds like Tarr is after 'the' perfect image, a kind of Herzogian ecstacy. But this kind of postcardism doesn't seem at all Tarr's point; he is after 'a' image, 'a' framing, rather. He isn't trying to aestheticise what he sees, but just capture it in a certain way.
Nevertheless, for all the movements in the quagmire, Tarr's camera has a seperation from its village that raises it above any talk of 'realism', or indeed Tarkovsky (excepting 'Andrei Rubelev'?). The village is a slightly unreal place, almost abstract, a universal, not in a negative way, but in a king of Kafka-esque way. This is art, not reality, to put it in a vulgar way. The rythmic repetition of lines, the lack of an outside world, the circularity of the place, all enhance this feeling.
The 'action' is a creation of the world, several individual stories woven into a loose, and not entirely clear, one, about false promises, redemption, people's unsuitability for utopia, feat of utopia, misery, sordidness, laughter. It requires closer attention than I surely paid it; for now I can say that Tarr seems to possess a deep intelligence, an ability to balance various aspects of the juncture.
The remarkable way that we watch people doing things, actually walking, not eliptically flying from location to location. The old stick is right; we have a real sense of time passing. But this isn't of a tense time; there is a world here we can enter, feel our way around, not worry about the next point of narrative.
This is blatantly one of the great films of the 90's, and a monument of recent cinema. I look forward very much to seeing it again.
It is, of course, a masterpiece. Let's look at particular visual style. Tarr in fact quite often compartmentalises his images, quite perpendicular (and horizontal), with little overlapping. This means, though there is usually depth of field in the lens, that their are a lack of depth cues. This leads to pictoral abstraction, wonderful, almost comic plays with scale and so on. Their are often only two planes in the staging, and movement across them passes quickly.
As for the film, this is clearly low-key, with the particular tone of the sky used so as to avoid overexposure. With the dispersing clouds light is rarely harsh. Perhaps their is a certain degree of sidelighting, to accentuate the shadows. Their is, I suspect, a filter (red or blue?) used here. Also note how frequently the pallette changes; in the pub, well-lit, for one remarkable shot, the characters appear as merely sillouhettes.
Talking about depth makes it sound like the camera is still; indeed it is, for long periods, but there is also a lot a lot of precise, nerver unsteady, movement. This circles, reframes, in its stately manner, in the long, long, beautiful and long, takes.
Despite what this may sound like, I find this very different from Tarkovsky. Tarkovsky essentially pans and scans, using the camera to capture an event. Tarr's camera is autonomous for long periods, moving past static people, avoiding the source of dialogue (which Tarkovsky obviously does as well), moving on its own way. The above comments on depth are more to do with when it settles in.
This sounds like Tarr is after 'the' perfect image, a kind of Herzogian ecstacy. But this kind of postcardism doesn't seem at all Tarr's point; he is after 'a' image, 'a' framing, rather. He isn't trying to aestheticise what he sees, but just capture it in a certain way.
Nevertheless, for all the movements in the quagmire, Tarr's camera has a seperation from its village that raises it above any talk of 'realism', or indeed Tarkovsky (excepting 'Andrei Rubelev'?). The village is a slightly unreal place, almost abstract, a universal, not in a negative way, but in a king of Kafka-esque way. This is art, not reality, to put it in a vulgar way. The rythmic repetition of lines, the lack of an outside world, the circularity of the place, all enhance this feeling.
The 'action' is a creation of the world, several individual stories woven into a loose, and not entirely clear, one, about false promises, redemption, people's unsuitability for utopia, feat of utopia, misery, sordidness, laughter. It requires closer attention than I surely paid it; for now I can say that Tarr seems to possess a deep intelligence, an ability to balance various aspects of the juncture.
The remarkable way that we watch people doing things, actually walking, not eliptically flying from location to location. The old stick is right; we have a real sense of time passing. But this isn't of a tense time; there is a world here we can enter, feel our way around, not worry about the next point of narrative.
This is blatantly one of the great films of the 90's, and a monument of recent cinema. I look forward very much to seeing it again.
The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre
John Huston - 1948
Huston's camera seems remarkably aggressive for its time. Using blocks close to the camera, pushing them then away into the distance. His directorial style is often a close on an object, then a fast track out, or going from a wider view in.
Largely, apart from these elements, the direction is pretty simple stuff. Static stagings of sitting around campfires, shot and reverse not so much of dialogue, but of people.
The mvoie is pictorially fine. To my mind not enough is made of it, but in the town there is some nice expressionist stuff with shadows, and in the desert, of we don't really see anything of interest in the location, the high-key light works well.
There is a deep problem here, in that the film is largely people telling each other how they feel, what's going on. There isn't really a lot of visual evocation of this. This means that mood changes happen too quickly, don't seem justified, seem skipped and unreal. There isn't much of a sense of feelings, or intermingling with the landscape. It is really character actors doing their job pretty ostentatiously in an exotic location.
This is 'pre-Bresson' filmmaking; there isn't much of a sense of life, just actors talking about it. Some non-narrative shots might have helped.
Huston's camera seems remarkably aggressive for its time. Using blocks close to the camera, pushing them then away into the distance. His directorial style is often a close on an object, then a fast track out, or going from a wider view in.
Largely, apart from these elements, the direction is pretty simple stuff. Static stagings of sitting around campfires, shot and reverse not so much of dialogue, but of people.
The mvoie is pictorially fine. To my mind not enough is made of it, but in the town there is some nice expressionist stuff with shadows, and in the desert, of we don't really see anything of interest in the location, the high-key light works well.
There is a deep problem here, in that the film is largely people telling each other how they feel, what's going on. There isn't really a lot of visual evocation of this. This means that mood changes happen too quickly, don't seem justified, seem skipped and unreal. There isn't much of a sense of feelings, or intermingling with the landscape. It is really character actors doing their job pretty ostentatiously in an exotic location.
This is 'pre-Bresson' filmmaking; there isn't much of a sense of life, just actors talking about it. Some non-narrative shots might have helped.
Thursday 16 June 2011
Mysterious Object At Noon
Apichatpong Weerasethakul - 2000
A story told on the Breton-esque principle of the 'exquisite corpse', what struck me here was almost a sense of dread running behind it. That is, of zombies, death hanging over, a mundane kind of spirit world. The ramshackle nature of the storytelling principle is mirrored in the camera, where we appear to have black and white and a strong filter of some kind.
The camera work, sometimes fixed to a car ('Driving Lessons'- Staub-Huilet), also works with loger shots, and unsteady closer work. This, combined with the snatched dialgoue and story, certainly give a lack of coherence, of even unified space.
The storytelling motif seems, almost, to come from behind the camera with a threatening gun in hand. There isn't space to luxuriate in the tight world of the story, yet the story makes no sense. The 'Arabian Nights' style aesthetic is undercit by this kind of doubling, this not-free by necessary command for a story.
Yet this film is also fascinating in its evocation of 'just hanging out'. Ultimately, that is mostly what is going on, but within this idea of vague threat. When that threat is dissipated, the voice behind the camera says the shot's over, we do have a kind of freedom, though nothing too pure seems to come through.
The idea of relaxation, relaxing and losing tension in a film, not constrained by everything but just watching people, having a look, is on this film's horizon (especially after the end credits) and constantly evoked. It is a fascinating discourse, with many of the pleasures, of this kind of idea.
A story told on the Breton-esque principle of the 'exquisite corpse', what struck me here was almost a sense of dread running behind it. That is, of zombies, death hanging over, a mundane kind of spirit world. The ramshackle nature of the storytelling principle is mirrored in the camera, where we appear to have black and white and a strong filter of some kind.
The camera work, sometimes fixed to a car ('Driving Lessons'- Staub-Huilet), also works with loger shots, and unsteady closer work. This, combined with the snatched dialgoue and story, certainly give a lack of coherence, of even unified space.
The storytelling motif seems, almost, to come from behind the camera with a threatening gun in hand. There isn't space to luxuriate in the tight world of the story, yet the story makes no sense. The 'Arabian Nights' style aesthetic is undercit by this kind of doubling, this not-free by necessary command for a story.
Yet this film is also fascinating in its evocation of 'just hanging out'. Ultimately, that is mostly what is going on, but within this idea of vague threat. When that threat is dissipated, the voice behind the camera says the shot's over, we do have a kind of freedom, though nothing too pure seems to come through.
The idea of relaxation, relaxing and losing tension in a film, not constrained by everything but just watching people, having a look, is on this film's horizon (especially after the end credits) and constantly evoked. It is a fascinating discourse, with many of the pleasures, of this kind of idea.
My Way Home (Igy Jottem)
Miklos Jancso - 1965
Jancso opertaes with such a free camera. Pretty long takes that haven't met a tripod, through the country, moving around it. Not interested in continuity for the sake of it, pretty much the defintion of pan and scan. Except here we are close-in, often staying near, to the faces. Movements far away, unidentified figures fighting, violence, usually start off near the camera before going away. The camera can circle around heads and characters. Often moves are motivated by a follow, but they are also often not. Complete autnomoy is not really the point, but a freedom is.
A key question is; 'when to cut?'. Jancso's takes here are obviously long by normal standards, but at the same time they're not really too long (perhaps this impression is enhanced by their lack of stillness). It seems that a cut occurs simply when an image has no more, now, to give us. There would just be a repetition if the idea. We, ultimately, cut when it seems that we should see something else. The question from this is; 'who does anything else'?
In this mis-en-scene opressors can pop in, without expectations of them. These aren't shocks though, rather the low-key nature has a kind if inevitability. The dread of the place, the random but omnipresent domination, effects the very environment so even the cows seem, with their weight and stubborness, malevolent.
This doesn't set us precisely in a narrative, but is also not abstract; their are no great messages, just, ultimately, an inconclusive search home.
Jancso opertaes with such a free camera. Pretty long takes that haven't met a tripod, through the country, moving around it. Not interested in continuity for the sake of it, pretty much the defintion of pan and scan. Except here we are close-in, often staying near, to the faces. Movements far away, unidentified figures fighting, violence, usually start off near the camera before going away. The camera can circle around heads and characters. Often moves are motivated by a follow, but they are also often not. Complete autnomoy is not really the point, but a freedom is.
A key question is; 'when to cut?'. Jancso's takes here are obviously long by normal standards, but at the same time they're not really too long (perhaps this impression is enhanced by their lack of stillness). It seems that a cut occurs simply when an image has no more, now, to give us. There would just be a repetition if the idea. We, ultimately, cut when it seems that we should see something else. The question from this is; 'who does anything else'?
In this mis-en-scene opressors can pop in, without expectations of them. These aren't shocks though, rather the low-key nature has a kind if inevitability. The dread of the place, the random but omnipresent domination, effects the very environment so even the cows seem, with their weight and stubborness, malevolent.
This doesn't set us precisely in a narrative, but is also not abstract; their are no great messages, just, ultimately, an inconclusive search home.
You Are Not I (+ Act of God)
You Are Not I (Sara Driver, 1981);About a film which derives much of its power on its audience creating a scenario, creating expectations about future ‘events’, let me write a story for you. A black and white traffic accident releases a mentally disturbed young woman into the wild. We hear her voice, precise but enigmatic, as she wanders through a wasteland, uncertain where the surreal terror of the accident ends and the ordinary terror of free life begins. We follow her encounters with bodies, people, and into the home of her prim sister.
This is a fair description of Sara Driver’s 1981 ‘You Are Not I’, a film considered lost before retrieval of a misplaced negative last year. For the most part, the above synopsis can be followed; this isn’t a blatantly illogical film, or one with disunified times and spaces. The strangeness of the film rather comes from its slow movements and edit, the measured words, which put me in mind of Louis Malle’s (for me, inferior) Black Moon. This pace contributes to a painterly image; Driver sets up her near-still shots with precise diffusions of light, generally complex tones with some overexposure when the sun breaks indoors. Shot by Driver’s partner, Jim Jarmusch, the image has a scratchiness, like the sharp prickles of a haystack. This kind of earthy image put me in mind of Goya; not precise strokes of light, but sharply tactile ones.
The Goya comparison also holds for the black mops of hair that appear, and for the intermingling of location and violence. At the accident scene, on the highway, in the house, the detachment of the women sees the ambulance men as spooks, her sister as a Lynchian crazy. This perhaps explains why each location of the film has the kind of universal character of a film set; locations for an action, with a drabness suggesting violence.
This could all come across as rather portentous, and indeed it does at times. The measured voiceover of the patient is uncomfortably close to the hipster drawl, and putting stones in people’s mouths is an unnecessary intrusion of opaque symbolism. Nevertheless, the detached tone provides some wonderful moments of hypnosis. The fluid, but tiny, rhythms of a rocking chair, or increasingly close cut-ins, pull the audience from tide to tide, as though in a wave machine. It invokes feelings not of searching for the next action, but of a sense of repetition in one movement, one feeling, a tactile reference Driver asks us to grasp as the mental illness.
As far as the structure of the film goes, this feeling also undercuts expectations. The women gives us the expectation, quite explicitly, that she will continue the narrative with a violent act. Should we trust her account? Why should we build up such expectations anyway about a narrative, about what kinds of narratives the mentally ill follow? We are transformed in some way to an accommodation with the women, rather than being a mere onlooker. This idea of the transferral of sense, the transferral of expectations, seems central to the film’s final act, which indeed is truly baffling. The feeling it creates, however, us the film’s great strength. More than just the facile ‘who’s really crazy?’, You Are Not I pushes into our relation with the screen, and the people we see one it.
Act of God (Peter Greenaway, 1980, documentary); The Nyman strings, those tableau framings, all very trad. Greenaway. There is also that discomfitting anti-humanist air, mocking his people. Is there really much beyond the boring old 'eccentric english' stereotypes? The entry of pathos doesn't really do much. Not uninteresting, all the same.
This is a fair description of Sara Driver’s 1981 ‘You Are Not I’, a film considered lost before retrieval of a misplaced negative last year. For the most part, the above synopsis can be followed; this isn’t a blatantly illogical film, or one with disunified times and spaces. The strangeness of the film rather comes from its slow movements and edit, the measured words, which put me in mind of Louis Malle’s (for me, inferior) Black Moon. This pace contributes to a painterly image; Driver sets up her near-still shots with precise diffusions of light, generally complex tones with some overexposure when the sun breaks indoors. Shot by Driver’s partner, Jim Jarmusch, the image has a scratchiness, like the sharp prickles of a haystack. This kind of earthy image put me in mind of Goya; not precise strokes of light, but sharply tactile ones.
The Goya comparison also holds for the black mops of hair that appear, and for the intermingling of location and violence. At the accident scene, on the highway, in the house, the detachment of the women sees the ambulance men as spooks, her sister as a Lynchian crazy. This perhaps explains why each location of the film has the kind of universal character of a film set; locations for an action, with a drabness suggesting violence.
This could all come across as rather portentous, and indeed it does at times. The measured voiceover of the patient is uncomfortably close to the hipster drawl, and putting stones in people’s mouths is an unnecessary intrusion of opaque symbolism. Nevertheless, the detached tone provides some wonderful moments of hypnosis. The fluid, but tiny, rhythms of a rocking chair, or increasingly close cut-ins, pull the audience from tide to tide, as though in a wave machine. It invokes feelings not of searching for the next action, but of a sense of repetition in one movement, one feeling, a tactile reference Driver asks us to grasp as the mental illness.
As far as the structure of the film goes, this feeling also undercuts expectations. The women gives us the expectation, quite explicitly, that she will continue the narrative with a violent act. Should we trust her account? Why should we build up such expectations anyway about a narrative, about what kinds of narratives the mentally ill follow? We are transformed in some way to an accommodation with the women, rather than being a mere onlooker. This idea of the transferral of sense, the transferral of expectations, seems central to the film’s final act, which indeed is truly baffling. The feeling it creates, however, us the film’s great strength. More than just the facile ‘who’s really crazy?’, You Are Not I pushes into our relation with the screen, and the people we see one it.
Act of God (Peter Greenaway, 1980, documentary); The Nyman strings, those tableau framings, all very trad. Greenaway. There is also that discomfitting anti-humanist air, mocking his people. Is there really much beyond the boring old 'eccentric english' stereotypes? The entry of pathos doesn't really do much. Not uninteresting, all the same.
Limelight
Charles Chaplin - 1952
Chaplin here follows the same technique as in 'Monsieur Verdoux'; those moves or tracks in, most reminiscient, or rather the greatest similarity, perhaps being with Franju of all people.
The upstairs is created simply with some depth, but the keywords really are the montage that shows us a sign, a street, perfectly into the location. These fast dissolves are really only comparable with similar sequences with Welles, and both are high points of the cinema.
Is this self-indulgent? Chaplin is at once self-justifying, trying to return to his old tramp skills, and reflecting on his inability to do so anymore, both physically and in the use of him doing so. The odd relationship at the centre is indeed gratifying to Chaplin, but false self-abasement would be silly. These late Chaplin films are, ultimately, what happens to the Tramp when that part of the life is over. The sequences with Keaton are stil wonderful, but also very outdated. This isn't one of Chaplin's best, i.e. it isn't one of the greatest films ever, but still quite something.
Chaplin here follows the same technique as in 'Monsieur Verdoux'; those moves or tracks in, most reminiscient, or rather the greatest similarity, perhaps being with Franju of all people.
The upstairs is created simply with some depth, but the keywords really are the montage that shows us a sign, a street, perfectly into the location. These fast dissolves are really only comparable with similar sequences with Welles, and both are high points of the cinema.
Is this self-indulgent? Chaplin is at once self-justifying, trying to return to his old tramp skills, and reflecting on his inability to do so anymore, both physically and in the use of him doing so. The odd relationship at the centre is indeed gratifying to Chaplin, but false self-abasement would be silly. These late Chaplin films are, ultimately, what happens to the Tramp when that part of the life is over. The sequences with Keaton are stil wonderful, but also very outdated. This isn't one of Chaplin's best, i.e. it isn't one of the greatest films ever, but still quite something.
Monsieur Verdoux
Charles Chaplin - 1947
The greatest is always beyond easy reckonings, explanations, while at once being so simple... Chaplin is not trying to confues, to make a code to decipher, he just makes films.
The technqiue here isn't really 'technique', it's just filming something. We usually have a longer shot to start and then a neat, pleasurable but pretty silent track in. Every cut is necessary, used for emphasis when cutting in, and longer shots otherwise. The stagings can be complex, can be pretty 'primitive'. There is nothing to be too ostentatious about, cuts between groups quite near are often made.
Their is, of course, huge pleasure in the sheer physicality, of simply watching another human being (usually Chaplin) on screen. Little movements and looks, big ones.
This film has no pretty pictures; but it is remarkably beautiful. A simple mis-en-scene, though not overly so, that one suddenly realises has a kind of realist truth to it. People just come together in groups, against lights in hallways.
My reaction is to say that Chaplin has created the most complex and interesting character out of all the films I have ever seen. Verdoux can be read as a bourgeois we must despise for his narrowness, but be sympathetic to for his naivete. Yet Verdoux is also Chaplin, an exploiter who is in fact some kind of humanist. He doesn't fit into any box comfortably.
And yet the film is clearly showing how capitalism tends towards making even the 'good' murder, installing misery. Chaplin is not scared to tell us this- why would he be? Why must a film lie? One of the greatest things about the film is how Verdoux intermittently talks to us, quite naturally, explains what is happening and what we need to know. And why not? No one is trying to confuse anyone; let's exaplain and work things out together. This film is remarkably self-reflexive.
As Chaplin's wider points are made explicit, we have a historical montage, it is at once a lunge and the apotheosis of trying to do what cinema can do; communicate, be with us, not just reflect life, but be life in a complex dialectic. There is also, for all the explictness, a fascinating and beautiful restraint in not showing Verdoux's greatest misery; just a rather low-key and unemotional explanation.
Yet for all this clearness, there is an enigmatic feature behind Chaplin, and Verdoux. Some later lines obviously mean certaint things, yet they are cryptic. And the final shot, rejecting postcardism, referencing both the end of 'Modern Times' and a peculiarly modern misery is quite something. Chaplin is in dialogue with his own earlier films, his truth, and with the untrue world.
final shot
The greatest is always beyond easy reckonings, explanations, while at once being so simple... Chaplin is not trying to confues, to make a code to decipher, he just makes films.
The technqiue here isn't really 'technique', it's just filming something. We usually have a longer shot to start and then a neat, pleasurable but pretty silent track in. Every cut is necessary, used for emphasis when cutting in, and longer shots otherwise. The stagings can be complex, can be pretty 'primitive'. There is nothing to be too ostentatious about, cuts between groups quite near are often made.
Their is, of course, huge pleasure in the sheer physicality, of simply watching another human being (usually Chaplin) on screen. Little movements and looks, big ones.
This film has no pretty pictures; but it is remarkably beautiful. A simple mis-en-scene, though not overly so, that one suddenly realises has a kind of realist truth to it. People just come together in groups, against lights in hallways.
My reaction is to say that Chaplin has created the most complex and interesting character out of all the films I have ever seen. Verdoux can be read as a bourgeois we must despise for his narrowness, but be sympathetic to for his naivete. Yet Verdoux is also Chaplin, an exploiter who is in fact some kind of humanist. He doesn't fit into any box comfortably.
And yet the film is clearly showing how capitalism tends towards making even the 'good' murder, installing misery. Chaplin is not scared to tell us this- why would he be? Why must a film lie? One of the greatest things about the film is how Verdoux intermittently talks to us, quite naturally, explains what is happening and what we need to know. And why not? No one is trying to confuse anyone; let's exaplain and work things out together. This film is remarkably self-reflexive.
As Chaplin's wider points are made explicit, we have a historical montage, it is at once a lunge and the apotheosis of trying to do what cinema can do; communicate, be with us, not just reflect life, but be life in a complex dialectic. There is also, for all the explictness, a fascinating and beautiful restraint in not showing Verdoux's greatest misery; just a rather low-key and unemotional explanation.
Yet for all this clearness, there is an enigmatic feature behind Chaplin, and Verdoux. Some later lines obviously mean certaint things, yet they are cryptic. And the final shot, rejecting postcardism, referencing both the end of 'Modern Times' and a peculiarly modern misery is quite something. Chaplin is in dialogue with his own earlier films, his truth, and with the untrue world.
final shot
Wednesday 15 June 2011
Westfront 1918
G.W. Pabst - 1930
Pabst continues to enjoy cutting off people's heads. The spaces he films are not strongly continuity (or rather they are, but there's a lack of cues), and these half-body framings again give that sense of a part of the world captured as a block, in an almost random edit, not concerned with the 'story'. This is more complicated here as Pabst's camera does move in quite fast tracks. These can seem a little rushed and uncontrolled, going along the line in a way Renoir had mastered in 'La Grande Illusion'. There is a scene in a bed which, due to Pabst's usually static blocking, seems oddly like a pan and scan job (and, incidentally, we have more of the idea of the perverse in the sexual we find in Pabst).
Nevertheless, this idea of rushed, grabbed footage works well, as indeed does the tracking generally along the line. We had before noticed Pabst's uneasiness in going outside; this is rectified here, and how (perhaps the fact this is clearly not a studio helps).
The images are 'terrific'; complex tones and nice depth in our scratchy print. There is a quite new sense of the choas of the front, pieces of the non-continuity world snatched. This film is stunningly good as a kind of 'montage of attractions', or rather repulsions, of the war. There is a Renoir-esque spirit in the terrific musical hall scenes, and of the ones where the man are 'hanging out'.
The bursts around an undefined area of the edit also avoids the morally dubious 'map-plotting' of your standard war film; we instead have unconnected by narrative crashes of terror, making this at once personal and post-human, sub-human. The terrible noise of the bombs makes this film evoke the idea of shell-shock in a way that seems to resound true. Dialogue becomes unimportant, except as a scream.
Their are elements, points of action, which are taken from 'All Quiet On The Western Front', but the non-narrative nature, and a technqiue so suited for the subject, makes this, from our vantage point which is still undereducated, Pabst's masterpiece.
Pabst continues to enjoy cutting off people's heads. The spaces he films are not strongly continuity (or rather they are, but there's a lack of cues), and these half-body framings again give that sense of a part of the world captured as a block, in an almost random edit, not concerned with the 'story'. This is more complicated here as Pabst's camera does move in quite fast tracks. These can seem a little rushed and uncontrolled, going along the line in a way Renoir had mastered in 'La Grande Illusion'. There is a scene in a bed which, due to Pabst's usually static blocking, seems oddly like a pan and scan job (and, incidentally, we have more of the idea of the perverse in the sexual we find in Pabst).
Nevertheless, this idea of rushed, grabbed footage works well, as indeed does the tracking generally along the line. We had before noticed Pabst's uneasiness in going outside; this is rectified here, and how (perhaps the fact this is clearly not a studio helps).
The images are 'terrific'; complex tones and nice depth in our scratchy print. There is a quite new sense of the choas of the front, pieces of the non-continuity world snatched. This film is stunningly good as a kind of 'montage of attractions', or rather repulsions, of the war. There is a Renoir-esque spirit in the terrific musical hall scenes, and of the ones where the man are 'hanging out'.
The bursts around an undefined area of the edit also avoids the morally dubious 'map-plotting' of your standard war film; we instead have unconnected by narrative crashes of terror, making this at once personal and post-human, sub-human. The terrible noise of the bombs makes this film evoke the idea of shell-shock in a way that seems to resound true. Dialogue becomes unimportant, except as a scream.
Their are elements, points of action, which are taken from 'All Quiet On The Western Front', but the non-narrative nature, and a technqiue so suited for the subject, makes this, from our vantage point which is still undereducated, Pabst's masterpiece.
Born Yesterday
George Cukor - 1950
Cukor's direction keeps it simple, with some nice depth images. Perhpas the most distinctive thing are the very, very long takes. There is one scene at the card table where, not having a stopwatch on me, I wouldn't be surprised if the take had lasted more than one hundred seconds.
Thematically, we have on the surface a theme that seems a constant (the main?) referent for Cukor; class. There is a slight tendency to 'brin g the proles up', but it is clear Cukor is uneasy with this. He constantly strives, and indeed often succeeds, in avoiding being patronising. The film does uphold traditional values, but at least it generally picks good ones, and, all in all, it really is a very charming success.
Cukor's direction keeps it simple, with some nice depth images. Perhpas the most distinctive thing are the very, very long takes. There is one scene at the card table where, not having a stopwatch on me, I wouldn't be surprised if the take had lasted more than one hundred seconds.
Thematically, we have on the surface a theme that seems a constant (the main?) referent for Cukor; class. There is a slight tendency to 'brin g the proles up', but it is clear Cukor is uneasy with this. He constantly strives, and indeed often succeeds, in avoiding being patronising. The film does uphold traditional values, but at least it generally picks good ones, and, all in all, it really is a very charming success.
Tuesday 14 June 2011
Adam's Rib
George Cukor - 1949
Cukor's depth, and evocation of space, isn't perhaps quite given as much of a floursih as 'Gaslight'. which by its genre obviously goes with certain things. Neverthless, this is extremely well staged and shot. The courtroom is beautifully evoked, with different planes of depth used for a side-angle of the jury, lawyer, and witness. The house is also used for some nice moves, never as fluid as Hawks.
Cukor is obviously moving to a longer shot, and not going in for closer views anything like as much.
One interesting thing about Cukor, along with the strong females, the wish that love not be about 'gods' and 'godesses' but is all the more beautiful when it is down to earth (the marraige here is really very tenderly evoked), is how he never quite fits into a genre. This is a comedy in that it's funny, but it also contains high drama, courtroom things, and even some violence. Serious issues in Cukor are undercut by comedy (mangling words etc), and thriller-esque situations (Tracy with his gun etc) are turned into comedy. There is underlying a kind of sad, very restrained romanticism.
Cukor's depth, and evocation of space, isn't perhaps quite given as much of a floursih as 'Gaslight'. which by its genre obviously goes with certain things. Neverthless, this is extremely well staged and shot. The courtroom is beautifully evoked, with different planes of depth used for a side-angle of the jury, lawyer, and witness. The house is also used for some nice moves, never as fluid as Hawks.
Cukor is obviously moving to a longer shot, and not going in for closer views anything like as much.
One interesting thing about Cukor, along with the strong females, the wish that love not be about 'gods' and 'godesses' but is all the more beautiful when it is down to earth (the marraige here is really very tenderly evoked), is how he never quite fits into a genre. This is a comedy in that it's funny, but it also contains high drama, courtroom things, and even some violence. Serious issues in Cukor are undercut by comedy (mangling words etc), and thriller-esque situations (Tracy with his gun etc) are turned into comedy. There is underlying a kind of sad, very restrained romanticism.
So Close To Life
Ingmar Bergman - 1958
There is a very special kind of grimness about bad Bergman... anyway, without Sven Nykvist here, we have blank rooms, though without the interest of overexposure, of a complete lack of shadows and just some quite hard lighting for our usual close-ups, none of which are really sustained.
The camera cracks about the room without respecting any particular lines, usually cutting in rather than panning or tracking. The tone is a pretty relentless unimportant gloom, and deeply predictable.
There is a very special kind of grimness about bad Bergman... anyway, without Sven Nykvist here, we have blank rooms, though without the interest of overexposure, of a complete lack of shadows and just some quite hard lighting for our usual close-ups, none of which are really sustained.
The camera cracks about the room without respecting any particular lines, usually cutting in rather than panning or tracking. The tone is a pretty relentless unimportant gloom, and deeply predictable.
Gaslight
George Cukor - 1944
This is the first film where we have seen Cukor really come into his own. His camera is a lot more autonomous, with a couple of great touches. These are some wonderful travelling shots, tracking from the street through a window, and also some shots where the space supercedes the characters. As the camera remains still the actors pass to another room, this is both reticence and a way to make the house seem to have a life of its own. The use of shadows is similarly done, as is the complex set design.
There is great detail in the edit from face to face, and some great views of the staircase, 'Vertigo' esque.
What is especially noticeable is Joseph Ruttenburg's depth of focus. This seems to really bring Cukor into his own, allowing more complex framing decisions, longer shots and longer takes. It frees him to use a more complicated dramatic space, and he replies by some nice depth staging, use of eyeline differences, framing decisions, and other quietly elegant devices. The best directed Cukor film I have seen.
Thematically, we again have a complex woman, distant at first, brought to reality by the vulgar decisions of a man in this case. Men competing for a women.
This is the first film where we have seen Cukor really come into his own. His camera is a lot more autonomous, with a couple of great touches. These are some wonderful travelling shots, tracking from the street through a window, and also some shots where the space supercedes the characters. As the camera remains still the actors pass to another room, this is both reticence and a way to make the house seem to have a life of its own. The use of shadows is similarly done, as is the complex set design.
There is great detail in the edit from face to face, and some great views of the staircase, 'Vertigo' esque.
What is especially noticeable is Joseph Ruttenburg's depth of focus. This seems to really bring Cukor into his own, allowing more complex framing decisions, longer shots and longer takes. It frees him to use a more complicated dramatic space, and he replies by some nice depth staging, use of eyeline differences, framing decisions, and other quietly elegant devices. The best directed Cukor film I have seen.
Thematically, we again have a complex woman, distant at first, brought to reality by the vulgar decisions of a man in this case. Men competing for a women.
Keeper Of The Flame
George Cukor - 1942
Cukor nicely presents a world, nearly forgetting about moving the plot forward until the end, that Spencer Tracy is uneasy turning into a noir universe. He is far to nice. The direction by Cukor is becoming more interesting; some good P.O.V. stuff, not so much SRS, longer shots. He guides us around, rather than keeping us in the same place.
Perhaps most noticeable is the greater depth here, a sign of the times, that can give some nice staging opportunities and some complex imagery.
Thematically, we have again a focus on purity, about people not 'understanding', yet they must be made to understand. Whether he likes it or not, Cukor's women are noticeably well rounded. This is also a war propoganda film; a little self-obsessed, and a little choppy for that.
Cukor nicely presents a world, nearly forgetting about moving the plot forward until the end, that Spencer Tracy is uneasy turning into a noir universe. He is far to nice. The direction by Cukor is becoming more interesting; some good P.O.V. stuff, not so much SRS, longer shots. He guides us around, rather than keeping us in the same place.
Perhaps most noticeable is the greater depth here, a sign of the times, that can give some nice staging opportunities and some complex imagery.
Thematically, we have again a focus on purity, about people not 'understanding', yet they must be made to understand. Whether he likes it or not, Cukor's women are noticeably well rounded. This is also a war propoganda film; a little self-obsessed, and a little choppy for that.
Monday 13 June 2011
The Philadelphia Story
George Cukor - 1940 ; after quite a gap, another viewing
It would be difficult to really say there is anything formally exciting about Cukor's direction. On a craftmanship basis, we can again identify medium shots then moves in to closer ones.
The narrative worlds here seem to be of some interest. Cukor creates a world, a place of habitation, and the narrative isn't really a single line driving forward, but the inferences made out, quite naturally, of this world.
Ssome interesting thematic moves are introduced, if for various reasons not fully developed. The Stewart character's mixture of class resentment, and fascination, could give us a subtext. As could the suggestions of wifeswapping among the monied (always apt to put in mind that part of the 'Manifesto'...
It would be difficult to really say there is anything formally exciting about Cukor's direction. On a craftmanship basis, we can again identify medium shots then moves in to closer ones.
The narrative worlds here seem to be of some interest. Cukor creates a world, a place of habitation, and the narrative isn't really a single line driving forward, but the inferences made out, quite naturally, of this world.
Ssome interesting thematic moves are introduced, if for various reasons not fully developed. The Stewart character's mixture of class resentment, and fascination, could give us a subtext. As could the suggestions of wifeswapping among the monied (always apt to put in mind that part of the 'Manifesto'...
The Savage Innocents
Nicholas Ray - 1960
We have the outsider community as free-love, as a kind of naive tenderness. Yet we also have the brutality of the treatment of the wives.
Ray's distinctive technique seems to have gone a little awol, apart from some nice framings here and there. The radically unreal colours and sets do though contrbute and seem part of a Ray aesthetic, of a kind of fantasy-land.
We have the outsider community as free-love, as a kind of naive tenderness. Yet we also have the brutality of the treatment of the wives.
Ray's distinctive technique seems to have gone a little awol, apart from some nice framings here and there. The radically unreal colours and sets do though contrbute and seem part of a Ray aesthetic, of a kind of fantasy-land.
Bigger Than Life
Nicholas Ray - 1956
Ray's style is not overexplicit, but there is a quiet mastery here. The 'Scope cuts down the editing decisions, and allows some more room colex and segmented images.
Ray is ultimately a musician, a poet of rythm. He deals in harmonies, dynamics, paces within takes and in the edit. There are punctuation devices; specific cuts and framings, some colour schemes used that are clearly non-realistic (or odd justifications) lighting decisions. There is also a judicious (not overdone) use of more aggressive tracks and framings.
In this film Mason's Nietzschean turn details modern suburban man's turn to insanity. Capitalism, and bourgeois condition, is shown to tend towards both death and this madness. This is reall 'Death Of A Salesman'; but less overly keening and bathetic.
There is a clear move to fascism in Mason, yet at once some of what he says is entriely correct, steamrollering over bourgeois complacency (i.e. dullness, mediocrity).
Ray obviously is not a conservative, but he is trying to defend progressive goals that have been reached. He is not anti-anti-suburbia, the usual life is shown as idiotic, the suburban home a hellhole, but Mason's laternative is certainlty vile. This seems like a more general condemnation of how that culture tends, what it does to you.
The American Dream, bible-quoting and freedom, is suggested to point towards fascism ('I was walking with Abraham Lincoln...'). I look forward to comparing with Fuller, Sirk and Preminger, understabding how 1950's Hollywood could make films as remarkable as this.
Ray's style is not overexplicit, but there is a quiet mastery here. The 'Scope cuts down the editing decisions, and allows some more room colex and segmented images.
Ray is ultimately a musician, a poet of rythm. He deals in harmonies, dynamics, paces within takes and in the edit. There are punctuation devices; specific cuts and framings, some colour schemes used that are clearly non-realistic (or odd justifications) lighting decisions. There is also a judicious (not overdone) use of more aggressive tracks and framings.
In this film Mason's Nietzschean turn details modern suburban man's turn to insanity. Capitalism, and bourgeois condition, is shown to tend towards both death and this madness. This is reall 'Death Of A Salesman'; but less overly keening and bathetic.
There is a clear move to fascism in Mason, yet at once some of what he says is entriely correct, steamrollering over bourgeois complacency (i.e. dullness, mediocrity).
Ray obviously is not a conservative, but he is trying to defend progressive goals that have been reached. He is not anti-anti-suburbia, the usual life is shown as idiotic, the suburban home a hellhole, but Mason's laternative is certainlty vile. This seems like a more general condemnation of how that culture tends, what it does to you.
The American Dream, bible-quoting and freedom, is suggested to point towards fascism ('I was walking with Abraham Lincoln...'). I look forward to comparing with Fuller, Sirk and Preminger, understabding how 1950's Hollywood could make films as remarkable as this.
Johnny Guitar
1954 - Nicholas Ray
Ray's slighter calmer framing and cutting is 'made up for' by wildly saturated blocks of primary colours, and an almost expressionist, static acting style.
The use of red /power for Vienna, contrasted to the church clothes of the mob, throws hundreds of allusions of sexual power into the McCarthyist/ red menace mix. Notice that the colour scheme is washed out and overexposed on the high angle outdoor (out of Vienna's) shots.
Ray is again more willing to show violence, more explicit and more aggressive. This film seethes with repressed and unrepressed tensions.
Also note the males running around, looking desperate, with almost comical reaction shots sometimes put on them. This film is most obviously subversive and powerful for the dominance, the ordering around and narrative centrality, of its female characters.
Thinking about Nicholas Ray's alternate lifestyles; here we are on the side of those against the law, of these trying to live differently in an alternate community ('won't you just leave us alone?'). But even the Band Of Outsiders is itself a complicated group with competing dynamics. Demarcations, as in life, aren't always too clear.
Ray's slighter calmer framing and cutting is 'made up for' by wildly saturated blocks of primary colours, and an almost expressionist, static acting style.
The use of red /power for Vienna, contrasted to the church clothes of the mob, throws hundreds of allusions of sexual power into the McCarthyist/ red menace mix. Notice that the colour scheme is washed out and overexposed on the high angle outdoor (out of Vienna's) shots.
Ray is again more willing to show violence, more explicit and more aggressive. This film seethes with repressed and unrepressed tensions.
Also note the males running around, looking desperate, with almost comical reaction shots sometimes put on them. This film is most obviously subversive and powerful for the dominance, the ordering around and narrative centrality, of its female characters.
Thinking about Nicholas Ray's alternate lifestyles; here we are on the side of those against the law, of these trying to live differently in an alternate community ('won't you just leave us alone?'). But even the Band Of Outsiders is itself a complicated group with competing dynamics. Demarcations, as in life, aren't always too clear.
Sunday 12 June 2011
Camille
1936 - George Cukor (starring Garbo)
Cukor's technique in this film is of little moves in, byt the real interest in getting as close as possible. The camera, once in, remains almost entirely static. Longer (medium) give way to two shots, and the real interest seems to lie on moving into medium close-ups (top of the shoulders up, not too cramped). These are photographed in a soft manner.
There are some nice moments of detail, the picking up of the fan, for example (defintion of what a 'gentleman' is). The main elements running through seem to be a focus on, and certain distaste of(though, perhaps, fascination with) vulgarity. The transcendental love is at once soiled, and breaks through somehow, failing really, this vulgarity. It is against life, both cultural life and biological life.
There is something quite wooden, not jsut about Garbo and the whole piece. It is as though an atmosphere of stuffiness, constraint is everywhere. Cukor entirely focusses on the love, with little to no let up. Even the duel is dispatched in about half a second. It makes for a very particular environment.
Cukor's technique in this film is of little moves in, byt the real interest in getting as close as possible. The camera, once in, remains almost entirely static. Longer (medium) give way to two shots, and the real interest seems to lie on moving into medium close-ups (top of the shoulders up, not too cramped). These are photographed in a soft manner.
There are some nice moments of detail, the picking up of the fan, for example (defintion of what a 'gentleman' is). The main elements running through seem to be a focus on, and certain distaste of(though, perhaps, fascination with) vulgarity. The transcendental love is at once soiled, and breaks through somehow, failing really, this vulgarity. It is against life, both cultural life and biological life.
There is something quite wooden, not jsut about Garbo and the whole piece. It is as though an atmosphere of stuffiness, constraint is everywhere. Cukor entirely focusses on the love, with little to no let up. Even the duel is dispatched in about half a second. It makes for a very particular environment.
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