Fritz Lang - 1944
Lang, so completely masterful. Watch the switches between points of view in the SRS scenes, taken away, close up. This is talked about by Bordwell and Thompson, as are the gestures, the pointing and so on.
Lang's mastery in Hollywood, as I see it, is partly about how he keeps the brilliant incisiveness of his full frame compostions, the definition of dynamic, even as his takes get longer, steadycam-esque movements come in. He still corresponds to things always happening, movements clear, camera often set up already and someone coming in, but allied to this more fluid style. His is a cinema of things happening, of action. This is perhaps his difference, his greater classicism (not very difficult) compared to Hitchcock; he focusses on the actions, the outer, and Hitchcock on the inner. One could say a lot from preference, which is more 'true' or important; the master is the master, but I'm a Langian.
The story construction seems like 'Scarlet Street', Robinson drawn in, except he is colder. Sexual desire underneath, most clearly in the framing device. It's quite simple; violence is there, in the streets, in the library. This is also nearly two films; Robinson's police story, and Bennett's case with the kidnapper. Would crosscutting have diluted suspense? Suspense is very big here; never fatalistic or hugely humourous (a little maybe), we still find out more at times, we worry about clues left behind; it is classic suspense.
Sunday 31 July 2011
McCabe & Mrs Miller
Robert Altman - 1971
Altman makes his assault on the western genre by employing snow, a lot of bodily functions, and a weak, idiotic, alcholic lead. Shot with that low dialgoue mix, complicated sound (I love the raindrops), and wide takes that take in the dingy environment, he also isn't averse to cutting about into his closer shots.
As the stagger around, covered in blood, qhile the rest of the world quite literally burns, they are seen as rather pathetic. The genre won't allow this idea fully, but it is clearly there from McCabe's alchoholism, his lack of ability to count. Even Julie Christie's opium habit is a bit embarrasing. I don't think Altman exactly escapes genres, he can't quite explode them (see Althusser; every ideology is true in itself), but he makes it impossible for others to move around in it, which is perhaps the extent of the possible battle.
Altman makes his assault on the western genre by employing snow, a lot of bodily functions, and a weak, idiotic, alcholic lead. Shot with that low dialgoue mix, complicated sound (I love the raindrops), and wide takes that take in the dingy environment, he also isn't averse to cutting about into his closer shots.
As the stagger around, covered in blood, qhile the rest of the world quite literally burns, they are seen as rather pathetic. The genre won't allow this idea fully, but it is clearly there from McCabe's alchoholism, his lack of ability to count. Even Julie Christie's opium habit is a bit embarrasing. I don't think Altman exactly escapes genres, he can't quite explode them (see Althusser; every ideology is true in itself), but he makes it impossible for others to move around in it, which is perhaps the extent of the possible battle.
A Star Is Born
George Cukor - 1954
Very much mature Cukor, which I like a lot. Hugely long takes, in the 'scope. The colours are vivid, strong reds usually. Framed very wide, often with a moving camera that is not scared to keep still, because why would one cut around this dancing? The compositions are well lit and clear, beautfiul at times, especially some huge sunsets, like near the end.
This is a fine musical, though I must say Wellman's worked a lot better as a social analysis, and for truth, due to his willingness to look at the ugly things, life before. Garland is never really anything but a star, gruff voice and all. The ending is trying to push something, but I was really very effected by it; the best of Hollywood, a refusal to accept the world as it is; love will conquer all, that means I damn well will do this, whatever the world says.
Very much mature Cukor, which I like a lot. Hugely long takes, in the 'scope. The colours are vivid, strong reds usually. Framed very wide, often with a moving camera that is not scared to keep still, because why would one cut around this dancing? The compositions are well lit and clear, beautfiul at times, especially some huge sunsets, like near the end.
This is a fine musical, though I must say Wellman's worked a lot better as a social analysis, and for truth, due to his willingness to look at the ugly things, life before. Garland is never really anything but a star, gruff voice and all. The ending is trying to push something, but I was really very effected by it; the best of Hollywood, a refusal to accept the world as it is; love will conquer all, that means I damn well will do this, whatever the world says.
Saturday 30 July 2011
The Trial
Orson Welles - 1962
Architecturally, this is among the most impressive films I have seen. The settings are almost abstracted, no signposts or even distinguishing marks, just rows and rows of windows and modernist stone. The way the camera distorts straight lines is used, as are slightly canted angles, to avoid neat horizontals; they rather seem to push out, monumental but false. The strange thing is how these terrible buildings are always deceptively spacious, offering 'corridors' behind that seem to strech unto infinity, with no street furniture, just flat space.
And they all seem to be lit arttificially, even outside, which is impossible. Harsh lights are often here, Mr K. often against a white screen or white wall (no adornment). Even the furnished advocat's room seems oddly abstract, the books full of dust, likely.
The speech is quick and, on this watch at least I found it, meaningless. Welles is quite faithful to Kafka, looking to repeat his 'little' problems, oddly childish women and assistants who laugh but are deadly serious. It is quite existentialist, which is a rather than the reading of Kafka.
Architecturally, this is among the most impressive films I have seen. The settings are almost abstracted, no signposts or even distinguishing marks, just rows and rows of windows and modernist stone. The way the camera distorts straight lines is used, as are slightly canted angles, to avoid neat horizontals; they rather seem to push out, monumental but false. The strange thing is how these terrible buildings are always deceptively spacious, offering 'corridors' behind that seem to strech unto infinity, with no street furniture, just flat space.
And they all seem to be lit arttificially, even outside, which is impossible. Harsh lights are often here, Mr K. often against a white screen or white wall (no adornment). Even the furnished advocat's room seems oddly abstract, the books full of dust, likely.
The speech is quick and, on this watch at least I found it, meaningless. Welles is quite faithful to Kafka, looking to repeat his 'little' problems, oddly childish women and assistants who laugh but are deadly serious. It is quite existentialist, which is a rather than the reading of Kafka.
The Magnificent Ambersons
Orson Welles - 1942
Ah, what wonders. The shadows on the faces in that long, winding house; not dappled lighting because it's too hard. The small camera movements (or the big ones) that takes us along and through it, statues that are living in some mechanical way, but never really. The voiceover that is not fateful, rarely ironic. Those longer shots than usual in Welles, the house like a dolls house house, the car like a toy; and at once like a work of a master.
The death of the Gods; time takes away all that was once holy, some fight against it, most will simply dissappear, away from the former grandeur.
Ah, what wonders. The shadows on the faces in that long, winding house; not dappled lighting because it's too hard. The small camera movements (or the big ones) that takes us along and through it, statues that are living in some mechanical way, but never really. The voiceover that is not fateful, rarely ironic. Those longer shots than usual in Welles, the house like a dolls house house, the car like a toy; and at once like a work of a master.
The death of the Gods; time takes away all that was once holy, some fight against it, most will simply dissappear, away from the former grandeur.
Cet Obscur Objet Du Desir
Luis Bunuel - 1977
Perhaps my favourite Bunuel. Quite a lot of camera movement really, following people round in its smooth, almost dream like tracks (closer than the black and white pictures, of course), and also going off on its own, a particularly memorable track backwards in Rey's apartment. The lighting is often pretty hard, completely illuminating all of the face (the shadows are soft and under the chin), though in the night time a hot air is created by mixing this harshness with shadows. The focus is shallow, the colours disgusting, people sinking into the backdrops, as though the bourgeoise is a stage, with curtains to go behind.
The terrorist attacks that are total subversion, the random moments of robbery, violence are explosions from the outside, while the bourgeoisie explode inside. Desire, closing the eyes and following the path.
An interesting way of looking at this might be to try and see Conchita as more than just the phantasmic figure; what does she want? Freedom?
The framing device, of the storytelling, has the very process of telling the story as part of the eroticism... there is so much here. Marvellous.
Perhaps my favourite Bunuel. Quite a lot of camera movement really, following people round in its smooth, almost dream like tracks (closer than the black and white pictures, of course), and also going off on its own, a particularly memorable track backwards in Rey's apartment. The lighting is often pretty hard, completely illuminating all of the face (the shadows are soft and under the chin), though in the night time a hot air is created by mixing this harshness with shadows. The focus is shallow, the colours disgusting, people sinking into the backdrops, as though the bourgeoise is a stage, with curtains to go behind.
The terrorist attacks that are total subversion, the random moments of robbery, violence are explosions from the outside, while the bourgeoisie explode inside. Desire, closing the eyes and following the path.
An interesting way of looking at this might be to try and see Conchita as more than just the phantasmic figure; what does she want? Freedom?
The framing device, of the storytelling, has the very process of telling the story as part of the eroticism... there is so much here. Marvellous.
Friday 29 July 2011
Lola Montes
Max Ophuls - 1955
Using 'scope and Ophuls' only use of colour, this film looks like nothing else. Needing to move it less, but continuing to do so, Ophuls uses vertical movements more than before. The incredibly saturated, unnatural (or natural for the circus) reds, greens, and blues and often harsh lighting all contribute to the obvious way, thematically, this film discusses the playing out of a scene, an attraction, the world as a stage play, fateful.
Ophuls has something he wants to say; Lola's oppression as almost the same, her wishes crushed in the arts (dance, painting, music, and the cinema), politics, the ages, in all she is objectified. There is a rather worrying sense of revolutions and so on not mattering, as all the world is just a sad stage play for Lola; I didn't get the sense of a varied society I have had in other Ophuls' films, for all the interest in this message.
The idea of the woman as forced into prostitution, into being examined and objectified by the cinema, clearly relates to Godard and the interrogation of the camera's role. As perhaps a precusor, and certanly as singular, this is something.
Godard / fate
Using 'scope and Ophuls' only use of colour, this film looks like nothing else. Needing to move it less, but continuing to do so, Ophuls uses vertical movements more than before. The incredibly saturated, unnatural (or natural for the circus) reds, greens, and blues and often harsh lighting all contribute to the obvious way, thematically, this film discusses the playing out of a scene, an attraction, the world as a stage play, fateful.
Ophuls has something he wants to say; Lola's oppression as almost the same, her wishes crushed in the arts (dance, painting, music, and the cinema), politics, the ages, in all she is objectified. There is a rather worrying sense of revolutions and so on not mattering, as all the world is just a sad stage play for Lola; I didn't get the sense of a varied society I have had in other Ophuls' films, for all the interest in this message.
The idea of the woman as forced into prostitution, into being examined and objectified by the cinema, clearly relates to Godard and the interrogation of the camera's role. As perhaps a precusor, and certanly as singular, this is something.
Godard / fate
Madame de...
Max Ophuls - 1953
So we have Ophuls camera, mvoing around as it does, following following. The most memorable is when it combines with montage as De Sica and Madame dance across the weeks as they fall in love. Another very memorable shot is when over the top of those two we see the society ('Le Monde'?) reflected, which makes me think of 'Sunrise'. Oddly, I completely imagined a shot of de Sica waving goodbye to her at the station, though anyway, the trains are lovely.
Ophuls gives us enough of the pains, of their illtreatment of the staff and that lovely sequence by the doors, to avoid accusations of dilletantism. Boyer is mean, pretty gratuitously so at times, but we understand him. Equally, Madame is rather flighty and not entirely attractive; perhaps she isn't as profound as one could wish, but well, it would be a different film then.
What I especially like about this is that the fatalism isn't so clear; the return, la ronde, is rather slightly absurd, Boyer at one point suggesting that turning memories into objects is all a bit foolish. It is incredibly romantic, expertly judged at each moment (when de Sica and Madame part, when she leaves for Italy, the direction, each on seperate parts of the frame, is magnificent), and incisive with the levels of lies that permeate these lives, for all the keening.
So we have Ophuls camera, mvoing around as it does, following following. The most memorable is when it combines with montage as De Sica and Madame dance across the weeks as they fall in love. Another very memorable shot is when over the top of those two we see the society ('Le Monde'?) reflected, which makes me think of 'Sunrise'. Oddly, I completely imagined a shot of de Sica waving goodbye to her at the station, though anyway, the trains are lovely.
Ophuls gives us enough of the pains, of their illtreatment of the staff and that lovely sequence by the doors, to avoid accusations of dilletantism. Boyer is mean, pretty gratuitously so at times, but we understand him. Equally, Madame is rather flighty and not entirely attractive; perhaps she isn't as profound as one could wish, but well, it would be a different film then.
What I especially like about this is that the fatalism isn't so clear; the return, la ronde, is rather slightly absurd, Boyer at one point suggesting that turning memories into objects is all a bit foolish. It is incredibly romantic, expertly judged at each moment (when de Sica and Madame part, when she leaves for Italy, the direction, each on seperate parts of the frame, is magnificent), and incisive with the levels of lies that permeate these lives, for all the keening.
Macbeth
Orson Welles - 1948
This film is clearly made with deep reference to Eisenstein, and I mean by that his 'Ivans'. The look of it, the clear geometrical shapes, the high and low angles. The framings through these traingles specially, the sharp horns, the very Wellesian also high and low angles. Also note the radically off-centre compostions, memorably reversing between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth; unnaturalness and a sense of place. These ideas of disjunction occur as the sound constantly intervenes, birds, rain, and the wind, fighting.
Indeed, the space of the film is remarkable; seemingly all one set, rocky outcrop, as though wind flies through it, it is all outside. In no way realist, it has a dirt to it, and a sense of opennes. For all its abstraction, this feels like one of the most powerful evocations of a past historical period; a different kind of world. The location also allows interesting things to be done with time. There are long long brooding dialogue, contemplation as we wander in the hellish outcrop in long takes. Then, as its all in one location, literally a fast, brutal action can be launched into in one move. These fast cuts are again very Russian, shots of terrifying heads in bold lighting, cutting up space (note the witches and Macbeth at the start, shattering normal cinematic space).
All in one location as it is, it is in conversation with the theatre, but is specially cinematic. The use of shapes in the compostions, as discussed above, and a remarkable ability of Welles to tell us something through imaginative camera position dictates that.
Thematically, well, it's Macbeth. Welles is looseish, but it seems what counts as 'loose' is often stricter for Shaekspeare than others; alright, this is quite 'faithful'. Though of course it's not like the text is closed, Welles seems specially to focus in naturalness and unnaturalness. Questions that came to me would question this distinction, leading on to ask how far is one allowed to go? Is pride, power-lust, natural, or rather to what agree are we allowed to be 'natural', is Macbeth allowed to take this instinct? Is any stopping place arbitrary? In relation to the specific conditions of society, the tragedy of these rules not being clear, logical, spelt out.
This film is clearly made with deep reference to Eisenstein, and I mean by that his 'Ivans'. The look of it, the clear geometrical shapes, the high and low angles. The framings through these traingles specially, the sharp horns, the very Wellesian also high and low angles. Also note the radically off-centre compostions, memorably reversing between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth; unnaturalness and a sense of place. These ideas of disjunction occur as the sound constantly intervenes, birds, rain, and the wind, fighting.
Indeed, the space of the film is remarkable; seemingly all one set, rocky outcrop, as though wind flies through it, it is all outside. In no way realist, it has a dirt to it, and a sense of opennes. For all its abstraction, this feels like one of the most powerful evocations of a past historical period; a different kind of world. The location also allows interesting things to be done with time. There are long long brooding dialogue, contemplation as we wander in the hellish outcrop in long takes. Then, as its all in one location, literally a fast, brutal action can be launched into in one move. These fast cuts are again very Russian, shots of terrifying heads in bold lighting, cutting up space (note the witches and Macbeth at the start, shattering normal cinematic space).
All in one location as it is, it is in conversation with the theatre, but is specially cinematic. The use of shapes in the compostions, as discussed above, and a remarkable ability of Welles to tell us something through imaginative camera position dictates that.
Thematically, well, it's Macbeth. Welles is looseish, but it seems what counts as 'loose' is often stricter for Shaekspeare than others; alright, this is quite 'faithful'. Though of course it's not like the text is closed, Welles seems specially to focus in naturalness and unnaturalness. Questions that came to me would question this distinction, leading on to ask how far is one allowed to go? Is pride, power-lust, natural, or rather to what agree are we allowed to be 'natural', is Macbeth allowed to take this instinct? Is any stopping place arbitrary? In relation to the specific conditions of society, the tragedy of these rules not being clear, logical, spelt out.
The Young One
Luis Bunuel - 1960
There is something quite novelistic about this film; it's also excellent, fasinating and clear.
It is quite focussed on the narrative, the many developments (and people do change) that occur. Bunuel uses shots and reverse to coordinate this. Pictorially, I loved the sweating trees and environment of the partly hellish and partly iddylic island, and the focus on the animals. There are a lot of feet and body parts in shot, Bunuel focussing on the passions, again that animalistic side, but also on the draw that bodies have on each other.
This may though be where I most find Bunuel seeing humanity beyond the animal side. Renuncation is key here, who can do it and who can't. The position of the priest is difficult (a huge subject in Bunuel); silly, a bit ineffective, but in a sense a moral arbiter.
It would be wrong to call Bunuel abstract, but I could see how one could do it (saying he's only interested in psychoanalysis). Here he definitively repudiates these claims, making a clear statment of the inequality of race relations; the only hope of an equal relationship in modern society is when the black man has a gun on the white one. There are no dichotomies though, the white man can in a way change, making this oddly optimistic on a personal level, if the society is in no way resolved (as I've said before, surely the only moral position for a social problem film). Desire is constant, the world is in a sense going to hell, but no fatalism; possibility of change amongst the crap.
There is something quite novelistic about this film; it's also excellent, fasinating and clear.
It is quite focussed on the narrative, the many developments (and people do change) that occur. Bunuel uses shots and reverse to coordinate this. Pictorially, I loved the sweating trees and environment of the partly hellish and partly iddylic island, and the focus on the animals. There are a lot of feet and body parts in shot, Bunuel focussing on the passions, again that animalistic side, but also on the draw that bodies have on each other.
This may though be where I most find Bunuel seeing humanity beyond the animal side. Renuncation is key here, who can do it and who can't. The position of the priest is difficult (a huge subject in Bunuel); silly, a bit ineffective, but in a sense a moral arbiter.
It would be wrong to call Bunuel abstract, but I could see how one could do it (saying he's only interested in psychoanalysis). Here he definitively repudiates these claims, making a clear statment of the inequality of race relations; the only hope of an equal relationship in modern society is when the black man has a gun on the white one. There are no dichotomies though, the white man can in a way change, making this oddly optimistic on a personal level, if the society is in no way resolved (as I've said before, surely the only moral position for a social problem film). Desire is constant, the world is in a sense going to hell, but no fatalism; possibility of change amongst the crap.
Thursday 28 July 2011
Citizen Kane
Orson Welles - 1941
Sadder than ever, slower at the beginning.
Pictorially, and this is far from being the point, it is incredibly beautiful. Often with blacked out sillouhettes, which helps depth, but also great plays in the composition. And shadows on the faces of main actors; still wild.
Welles can do long takes, but his camera is less still than Ambersons. Many tracks in and out, movements of desire, of the search. Their are zig-zag compostions that are developed in these moves. The over-the-shoulder of Thompson investigates the very poissbility of that shot; what can we know about either side of an SRS. In truth, nearly every device is used at some point; closer shots, longer ones, quick cuts, and slow.
Note the huge divergences in the sound design; famously the overlapping dialogue, pure noise, put also quiet dialogue, low in the sound mix, and smart uses of silence for emphasis. And of course the smash cuts to parrots and so on.
And of course Toland's depth, with the precise compostions. After half an hour the impression is gained of time being passed through, as though by making such of the space the film manages to make time visual, or tactile, or rather more, just there.
Time pushes one way, on a single line, but it brushes against, things stick before ;ater falling; it is not truly linear. The montage sequences are like Godard's jumps, no importance between moral decisions. Yet parts are also like rolling a marble down a cathedral hall; time is seem to move. This film is architectural, if it can be related to other art forms; one can see time in its huge distances, of space and of time.
There are 1000 views that can be made on it, but that doesn't mean there is more than one object. Welles repudiates Freud and the pre-modernist novels linear, single chronology, as he does Faulkner's time shattering in 1000 pieces. There is only one way, Kane is imbued with past and future always (the end at the start). Yet neither are every really 'there'; time always marches to its own beat, it can't be frozen and surveyed (statues, photographs). This is modernist art, as it reacts to the problems of time. And it answers that question as a film. Like all the great films, it could only be cinema, and it is an argument for the singularity and greatness of the cinema. Only in images that move can this sense of unstobbable movement, yet tracked to a past, (slow motion?) continue. In a novel, describing something in two ways, thanks to language's referential function (at least in our minds, at the present) means two different things. The cinema does something different.
The strange thing is, I remembered Kane's story, and still do, chronologically? Why does memory work like that? How are moral decisions singular events, and in time? Why can cinema answer this in a way nothing else can?
Sadder than ever, slower at the beginning.
Pictorially, and this is far from being the point, it is incredibly beautiful. Often with blacked out sillouhettes, which helps depth, but also great plays in the composition. And shadows on the faces of main actors; still wild.
Welles can do long takes, but his camera is less still than Ambersons. Many tracks in and out, movements of desire, of the search. Their are zig-zag compostions that are developed in these moves. The over-the-shoulder of Thompson investigates the very poissbility of that shot; what can we know about either side of an SRS. In truth, nearly every device is used at some point; closer shots, longer ones, quick cuts, and slow.
Note the huge divergences in the sound design; famously the overlapping dialogue, pure noise, put also quiet dialogue, low in the sound mix, and smart uses of silence for emphasis. And of course the smash cuts to parrots and so on.
And of course Toland's depth, with the precise compostions. After half an hour the impression is gained of time being passed through, as though by making such of the space the film manages to make time visual, or tactile, or rather more, just there.
Time pushes one way, on a single line, but it brushes against, things stick before ;ater falling; it is not truly linear. The montage sequences are like Godard's jumps, no importance between moral decisions. Yet parts are also like rolling a marble down a cathedral hall; time is seem to move. This film is architectural, if it can be related to other art forms; one can see time in its huge distances, of space and of time.
There are 1000 views that can be made on it, but that doesn't mean there is more than one object. Welles repudiates Freud and the pre-modernist novels linear, single chronology, as he does Faulkner's time shattering in 1000 pieces. There is only one way, Kane is imbued with past and future always (the end at the start). Yet neither are every really 'there'; time always marches to its own beat, it can't be frozen and surveyed (statues, photographs). This is modernist art, as it reacts to the problems of time. And it answers that question as a film. Like all the great films, it could only be cinema, and it is an argument for the singularity and greatness of the cinema. Only in images that move can this sense of unstobbable movement, yet tracked to a past, (slow motion?) continue. In a novel, describing something in two ways, thanks to language's referential function (at least in our minds, at the present) means two different things. The cinema does something different.
The strange thing is, I remembered Kane's story, and still do, chronologically? Why does memory work like that? How are moral decisions singular events, and in time? Why can cinema answer this in a way nothing else can?
El Bruto
Luis Bunuel - 1953
Bunuel and animalism here. The direction is a bit closer than usual, with analytical editing, cut-ins more. Still, it's a Bunuel film.
After the opening, and Bunuel is clearly on the peasant's side, we move, remarkably, to have a film from the evictors side, and from the man in the middle. This is real 'everyone has their reasons', but Bunuel takes this further; not only is it terrifying, but he casts his moral gaze on it, and condemns the misery.
The people are animals; when we see the brute and the look to the women, we just know he will continue forward (the estate as an ant nest). The old man chasing after the sweets. Yet their is sympathy as they cling, in the desperate fight to keep living.
As they move forward, they can blunder, kill accidently. There is perhaps a softer touch here than usual, in the sympathy shone.
And yet this film bristles, is harsh, hair stands on the end, it is brutal. The focus on the blood and the nail. The women on the fall, blood in mouth.
There are great touches; the hell of the slughterhouse, swinging meat. And I have never been at once and terrifyed and confused by the ambiguity of the hen at the end; food, present, animal.
Bunuel and animalism here. The direction is a bit closer than usual, with analytical editing, cut-ins more. Still, it's a Bunuel film.
After the opening, and Bunuel is clearly on the peasant's side, we move, remarkably, to have a film from the evictors side, and from the man in the middle. This is real 'everyone has their reasons', but Bunuel takes this further; not only is it terrifying, but he casts his moral gaze on it, and condemns the misery.
The people are animals; when we see the brute and the look to the women, we just know he will continue forward (the estate as an ant nest). The old man chasing after the sweets. Yet their is sympathy as they cling, in the desperate fight to keep living.
As they move forward, they can blunder, kill accidently. There is perhaps a softer touch here than usual, in the sympathy shone.
And yet this film bristles, is harsh, hair stands on the end, it is brutal. The focus on the blood and the nail. The women on the fall, blood in mouth.
There are great touches; the hell of the slughterhouse, swinging meat. And I have never been at once and terrifyed and confused by the ambiguity of the hen at the end; food, present, animal.
Wednesday 27 July 2011
Gigi
Vincente Minnelli - 1958
The style; long, long 'scope takes. A;though it is constantly framing, and moves in and out a bit, the impression I got was of a still camera. There is great economy in the number of camera set-ups. It is really all in the quite straightforward staging, and in the constant bounce of the musical soundtrack that keeps it moving.
The compostions ar long shots, thin characters never taking up much of the frame. They can almost sink into the background. Shot from often noticeably high or low angles, the background can be busy, and is always magnificently coloured, garish one might say, in its self-consciously ridiculous evocation of Paris. Self-cnscious beauty enters once or twice; there is real achievement through purely cinematic means. Not especially the near-last sequence at backlight night with fountains, absurd in its horses and grandeur, but also a silent move around a deep thought process which ends with a complete character reversal.
And self-conscious this film is in many ways. Chevalier's narration taks, references throughout to the ridiculousness of the situation, really foreground this. Also note the voiceovers used with lips pursed in the image. It is also perhaps the first time I have heard singing voiceovers.
As part of the mis-en-scene are the long takes fits into this, in many ways this film is Minnelli having a conversation with itself; the film surely has a lot more to do with Minnelli than any of its characters. It is in many ways a portrait of a confused, fetishistic man, obsessed with fantasy. There is a remarkable speech where he speaks, in of course a cheery tone, of the crapness of everyday life. Then he moves into his fantasy. But it can't wholly be fantasy; that is invaded by the fact that they are all basically alcholics, that we all know Chevalier probably has severe mental problems, that the papers are malicious, and, well, suicide is constantly on the go. His Gigi is meant to be a respite, but he can't decide how he wants her; reality, fantasy, or some insane mash up. Where does one go?
This isn't really a narrative film, though it's worth paying attention to the one that does operate, for a few moments here and there. The ending is completely nuts, utterly arbitrary, complete fantasy of course (right after the deeply perverse dragging her back). The sheer arbitrariness of this surely is Minnelli's persona shining through in some ways. For all the trappings, a really very single minded work.
The style; long, long 'scope takes. A;though it is constantly framing, and moves in and out a bit, the impression I got was of a still camera. There is great economy in the number of camera set-ups. It is really all in the quite straightforward staging, and in the constant bounce of the musical soundtrack that keeps it moving.
The compostions ar long shots, thin characters never taking up much of the frame. They can almost sink into the background. Shot from often noticeably high or low angles, the background can be busy, and is always magnificently coloured, garish one might say, in its self-consciously ridiculous evocation of Paris. Self-cnscious beauty enters once or twice; there is real achievement through purely cinematic means. Not especially the near-last sequence at backlight night with fountains, absurd in its horses and grandeur, but also a silent move around a deep thought process which ends with a complete character reversal.
And self-conscious this film is in many ways. Chevalier's narration taks, references throughout to the ridiculousness of the situation, really foreground this. Also note the voiceovers used with lips pursed in the image. It is also perhaps the first time I have heard singing voiceovers.
As part of the mis-en-scene are the long takes fits into this, in many ways this film is Minnelli having a conversation with itself; the film surely has a lot more to do with Minnelli than any of its characters. It is in many ways a portrait of a confused, fetishistic man, obsessed with fantasy. There is a remarkable speech where he speaks, in of course a cheery tone, of the crapness of everyday life. Then he moves into his fantasy. But it can't wholly be fantasy; that is invaded by the fact that they are all basically alcholics, that we all know Chevalier probably has severe mental problems, that the papers are malicious, and, well, suicide is constantly on the go. His Gigi is meant to be a respite, but he can't decide how he wants her; reality, fantasy, or some insane mash up. Where does one go?
This isn't really a narrative film, though it's worth paying attention to the one that does operate, for a few moments here and there. The ending is completely nuts, utterly arbitrary, complete fantasy of course (right after the deeply perverse dragging her back). The sheer arbitrariness of this surely is Minnelli's persona shining through in some ways. For all the trappings, a really very single minded work.
On Dangerous Ground
Nicholas Ray - 1952
Mmm, this is really an excellent film. Early on we have those big faces and compostions which use all the frame, some things very close to us. With some surprsingly soft streetlights, some strong whites in the snow. The second half of the film's move to the snow signals longer shots, as the figures move around, lost, not quite getting anywhere.
There are some moments also with some very striking camera work; going handheld for a chase through the streets, chucking it around for crashes.
This is part of the contemplation that is throughout this film. Frankly, hardly anything happens, and what does is quick, but there is really a lot of thinking, moving around rooms, being with others but lonely.
I want to talk about Ray's editing; Truffaut called it a mess in 'Johnny Guitar'. This is true from an approach looking for it to be structured, but I find it poetic, musical. It follows an emotional curve, moving in or refreshing as it needs to for the stronger notes, and in accord out, and so on. In a way it is also a mess in that one feels the shots were shortened or used fully in the editing room, they are snatches, they can be very jerky (Hitchcock might have done the rock-top scene with a similar pacing in mind, but he'd never have allowed the lack of precision). This is straightforward emotion and feeling here.
So, loneliness, lonely people. Violent people who can't help it. Trying to understand others but tragically, poetically, romantically unable to. Poet at nightfall and all that. All very true, if not my favourite way of looking at Ray. What I take from him is very much a singular filmmaker, cinematic means to put across feeling and emotion, distinctive and beautiful framings, that poetic editing, in his very individual world.
Mmm, this is really an excellent film. Early on we have those big faces and compostions which use all the frame, some things very close to us. With some surprsingly soft streetlights, some strong whites in the snow. The second half of the film's move to the snow signals longer shots, as the figures move around, lost, not quite getting anywhere.
There are some moments also with some very striking camera work; going handheld for a chase through the streets, chucking it around for crashes.
This is part of the contemplation that is throughout this film. Frankly, hardly anything happens, and what does is quick, but there is really a lot of thinking, moving around rooms, being with others but lonely.
I want to talk about Ray's editing; Truffaut called it a mess in 'Johnny Guitar'. This is true from an approach looking for it to be structured, but I find it poetic, musical. It follows an emotional curve, moving in or refreshing as it needs to for the stronger notes, and in accord out, and so on. In a way it is also a mess in that one feels the shots were shortened or used fully in the editing room, they are snatches, they can be very jerky (Hitchcock might have done the rock-top scene with a similar pacing in mind, but he'd never have allowed the lack of precision). This is straightforward emotion and feeling here.
So, loneliness, lonely people. Violent people who can't help it. Trying to understand others but tragically, poetically, romantically unable to. Poet at nightfall and all that. All very true, if not my favourite way of looking at Ray. What I take from him is very much a singular filmmaker, cinematic means to put across feeling and emotion, distinctive and beautiful framings, that poetic editing, in his very individual world.
Ascent To Heaven
Luis Bunuel - 1952
This is far from being my favourite Bunuel; in fact it may be my least. Saying that, I wouldn't want to call it a bad film. There just seems to be a sentimentalism, and humdurm elements in the plot and dialogue, that bring it down.
These elements that I found negative actually made me consider Bunuel's art. Yes he looks at people like ants, but compassionately. Fatalism and Bunuel is interesting; his people are driven by naturalistic impulses, wide-eyed bodily madnesses, are bascially unable to stop themselves. They are selfish and sexually driven, always. Yet Bunuel also is angry at this behaviour, never accepts or says 'well, that's the way it is'. Notice here how the adulterous moment is not dwelled on but very quickly pulled away from.
The brilliance of Bunuel, or one of his brilliances, is that every shot looks as thoughwe see something for the first time. A new look, in those longish and spread out compostions, people standing across the frame, of something we thought we knew before. This partly happens from inversions. As the bus is stranded, there is that strange sense that it turns to a family picnic. The political march turns out to be against the politician. Most remarkably, the dream sequence is started by simply a 180' cut, where the sheer whiteness of the headrest, no 'tricks', makes the world anew. The clear 'surrealism' of the dream sequence with the plants, discontinuous locations, and the classic Bunuelean goats everywhere, are really set up by this simple inversion.
Bunuel's world suspends morality in many ways, or rather has traditional morality as crazy. That is, we support the hero imprinting his dead mother's fingerprints. There is no vacuum though, due to the searing gaze I have before mentioned.
There are too many moments in this film that go through the motions, it isn't Bunuelean enough for me, despite some great moments; the quiet power, and inversion, as the little girl is cheerily shown the dead woman's face. Even in probably the Bunuel film, if forced to, I would call my least favourite, it attests to a genius seen nowhere else.
This is far from being my favourite Bunuel; in fact it may be my least. Saying that, I wouldn't want to call it a bad film. There just seems to be a sentimentalism, and humdurm elements in the plot and dialogue, that bring it down.
These elements that I found negative actually made me consider Bunuel's art. Yes he looks at people like ants, but compassionately. Fatalism and Bunuel is interesting; his people are driven by naturalistic impulses, wide-eyed bodily madnesses, are bascially unable to stop themselves. They are selfish and sexually driven, always. Yet Bunuel also is angry at this behaviour, never accepts or says 'well, that's the way it is'. Notice here how the adulterous moment is not dwelled on but very quickly pulled away from.
The brilliance of Bunuel, or one of his brilliances, is that every shot looks as thoughwe see something for the first time. A new look, in those longish and spread out compostions, people standing across the frame, of something we thought we knew before. This partly happens from inversions. As the bus is stranded, there is that strange sense that it turns to a family picnic. The political march turns out to be against the politician. Most remarkably, the dream sequence is started by simply a 180' cut, where the sheer whiteness of the headrest, no 'tricks', makes the world anew. The clear 'surrealism' of the dream sequence with the plants, discontinuous locations, and the classic Bunuelean goats everywhere, are really set up by this simple inversion.
Bunuel's world suspends morality in many ways, or rather has traditional morality as crazy. That is, we support the hero imprinting his dead mother's fingerprints. There is no vacuum though, due to the searing gaze I have before mentioned.
There are too many moments in this film that go through the motions, it isn't Bunuelean enough for me, despite some great moments; the quiet power, and inversion, as the little girl is cheerily shown the dead woman's face. Even in probably the Bunuel film, if forced to, I would call my least favourite, it attests to a genius seen nowhere else.
The Reckless Moment
Max Ophuls - 1949
Some big deep-focus photography here. Shadows everwhere, of course, rather difficult looking stairs and wood everywhere. The tracking shots aren't here so 'frontless' as before, James Mason actually goes looking for things. These tracks are though never fatalistic in the same way that others are, in that they are searching, quite direct. I don't see Ophuls here flourshing more than necessary, more of, in a Hawskian manner, following the logic of his formal wishes to make the kind of long tracks that are really quite singular.
This film has fascinating undertones; the constrained nature of the family. The heroine basically hates her family; it is about how they hold you back. The metamorphoses of James Mason is interesting too. Within a hokum plot Ophuls is always true to feelings, what happens is more than plausible but realistic.
Some big deep-focus photography here. Shadows everwhere, of course, rather difficult looking stairs and wood everywhere. The tracking shots aren't here so 'frontless' as before, James Mason actually goes looking for things. These tracks are though never fatalistic in the same way that others are, in that they are searching, quite direct. I don't see Ophuls here flourshing more than necessary, more of, in a Hawskian manner, following the logic of his formal wishes to make the kind of long tracks that are really quite singular.
This film has fascinating undertones; the constrained nature of the family. The heroine basically hates her family; it is about how they hold you back. The metamorphoses of James Mason is interesting too. Within a hokum plot Ophuls is always true to feelings, what happens is more than plausible but realistic.
Tuesday 26 July 2011
Letter From An Unknown Woman
Max Ophuls - 1948
I find it difficult to theorsie about precise compositons in Ophuls; I'll say the compositions are often long, relatively intricately framed, with lovely soft blacks (it may be partly the print for this). What it is is immensely beautiful, backlights and all. The images are usually then complex, often with neat, but full, bars crossing one another, imprisonment maybe. The major scenes can break with this to have clear backdrops, often with smoke, to give a different feeling.
What this film does have is great depth of field. Down and up staircases, across rooms, it really uses that big space.
But it is camera movement that we are told to talk about with Ophuls. Those pans and usually tracks, nearly always moving at least a bit, gradation of emphasis. There are some through walls here, and the most radical is probably coming into the opera, where for all the bodies we are told of a fate (the voiceover, and the actions shown, combine to be very novelistic; it's a Zweig novel). The tracks can also wonderfully convey the music early on (very clear sound mix).
Ophuls tracks, to me, seem to open a new world with every move. Quite tentaive sometimes, not 'smooth' in the precision and determinism of, say, Kubrick's, they seem to mirror the passing of time, the constant surprise at a new future, a new space. My (rather up in the air) thesis is that this is due to the people moving with the tracks rarely being interested in where they are going. The compostions center rather than leave space to be balanced as they follow. The character is rarely looking where they are going; the mind and the story is nearly always from where they have come, a thought or memory (counterexamples to this, among others, would be the nun). Repeated motifs, endless numbers of them, add to this. It is as though the characters eyes only ever reach the side of the frame, so each track opens an entirely new world to see.
Ophuls, for me, is as much as anything about incredible reticence. Largely in long shots, no histrionics usually, turning from the action, no raised voices, not milking looks. At the end the couple of shots that do turn it on are all the more powerful.
What can cinema do, and Ophuls world can't? It can, as in previous superimpositons, cross memory in that montage sequence, fly together things that even we can't remember; but how could we forget, be so cruel? And those who are forgotten; Zweig's story is a deeply affecting one. Stefan is, by the story, really more of a cad and frankly a bastard than his rather nice demeanour could suggest here; this is a tragedy, making Stefan too nice, or rather reading it that way, could make Lisa's actions too arbitrary. But if one can't remember... well. Ophul's sheer fatalism (is it class specific? That would be pushing it. By the way, I like the little moments like the rug-beating and the workers at the fairground; Ophuls doesn't have to be high society) does trouble me, but the sheer beauty and affection of his mis-en-scene are quite something.
I find it difficult to theorsie about precise compositons in Ophuls; I'll say the compositions are often long, relatively intricately framed, with lovely soft blacks (it may be partly the print for this). What it is is immensely beautiful, backlights and all. The images are usually then complex, often with neat, but full, bars crossing one another, imprisonment maybe. The major scenes can break with this to have clear backdrops, often with smoke, to give a different feeling.
What this film does have is great depth of field. Down and up staircases, across rooms, it really uses that big space.
But it is camera movement that we are told to talk about with Ophuls. Those pans and usually tracks, nearly always moving at least a bit, gradation of emphasis. There are some through walls here, and the most radical is probably coming into the opera, where for all the bodies we are told of a fate (the voiceover, and the actions shown, combine to be very novelistic; it's a Zweig novel). The tracks can also wonderfully convey the music early on (very clear sound mix).
Ophuls tracks, to me, seem to open a new world with every move. Quite tentaive sometimes, not 'smooth' in the precision and determinism of, say, Kubrick's, they seem to mirror the passing of time, the constant surprise at a new future, a new space. My (rather up in the air) thesis is that this is due to the people moving with the tracks rarely being interested in where they are going. The compostions center rather than leave space to be balanced as they follow. The character is rarely looking where they are going; the mind and the story is nearly always from where they have come, a thought or memory (counterexamples to this, among others, would be the nun). Repeated motifs, endless numbers of them, add to this. It is as though the characters eyes only ever reach the side of the frame, so each track opens an entirely new world to see.
Ophuls, for me, is as much as anything about incredible reticence. Largely in long shots, no histrionics usually, turning from the action, no raised voices, not milking looks. At the end the couple of shots that do turn it on are all the more powerful.
What can cinema do, and Ophuls world can't? It can, as in previous superimpositons, cross memory in that montage sequence, fly together things that even we can't remember; but how could we forget, be so cruel? And those who are forgotten; Zweig's story is a deeply affecting one. Stefan is, by the story, really more of a cad and frankly a bastard than his rather nice demeanour could suggest here; this is a tragedy, making Stefan too nice, or rather reading it that way, could make Lisa's actions too arbitrary. But if one can't remember... well. Ophul's sheer fatalism (is it class specific? That would be pushing it. By the way, I like the little moments like the rug-beating and the workers at the fairground; Ophuls doesn't have to be high society) does trouble me, but the sheer beauty and affection of his mis-en-scene are quite something.
The Great Madcap
Luis Bunuel - 1949
What to expect from Bunuel's commerical Mexican pictures? Surely not something this great.
The direction; immediately Bunuel's later style, which some would call 'style-less', is apparent. What it is is unobtrusive tracks and pans that follow one character or another, often moving, dividing up space. It can also cut closer when the move would be too intrusive. It is masterful in its quiet way. The most obvious Bunuelian aspect are the compositions, as they are either dead-on medium shots or pretty long, full body stuff. As the characters are neatly arrayed like this in front of the camera, we have that compassionate study of human ants.
Nearly every line is loaded with a thousand bombs, every movement telling so much. That every line, deeply selfish and often violent for all the cheery delivery, actually makes sense in a kind of way, is perhaps Bunuel's deepest compassion; he doesn't hate these people. Life has just twisted itself that hoping the mother dies is kind of funny. The lines often have clear double meanings (this isn't deciphering, but just layering; it's all clearly there), almost like innuendo.
The story is remarkable. All out for themselves, then dressing up as proles. This is a remarkable first sequence; playing the part of the poor. It is remarkable in how it makes us look at the work, the washing, the house, the life in a fresh way. The absurdity of living in such misery is shown when people are directed to live like that. Seeing the world with new eyes.
Bunuel is way too great a filmmaker to leave us at simple conclusions. The family does start to love the proletarian lifestlye, and this is sincere, but also note how this moves fits perfectly in with the ascetic, perhaps post-1848 protestantism of capitalism. The whole experiment just makes him a tougher boss ('and thank God I didn't wake up, I nearly did!'- the father after the experiment).
It would be easy to list particular sequences as brilliant 'Bunuelist'; the loudspeaker for the first proposal, for example. What I loved is that, despite their having to be romance and explanation and so on, every sequence is not only executed brilliantly but becomes on its own perfectly Bunuelean, that is, true, naturalistic, texture of life, searing. The ice-creams at the engagement. How at the very end, the brie actually misses the car the first time around. This is almost imperceptible, as is my favourite; in the suicide scene, the painter underneath has a look, then gets on with his work. That scene, in fact, as the film tells us (it is pretty self-reflexive; Bunuel is aware of the need for that) that this is the one bit to be taken at face value; the evocation of the suicidal crapness of the frankly shit life of poverty.
The playacting of poverty is sharply criticised, how it can really mean very little. This is surely a selfanalysis by Bunuel, why he stuck to subjects he felt deserved tackling, that is, the bourgois. For all the 'happy poverty' here, what ultimately happens is that the bourgeois march on in that familiar line (Chaplin?), yet all the same there life has been shown as unstable, as rocked. That is Bunuel's striking brilliance.
What to expect from Bunuel's commerical Mexican pictures? Surely not something this great.
The direction; immediately Bunuel's later style, which some would call 'style-less', is apparent. What it is is unobtrusive tracks and pans that follow one character or another, often moving, dividing up space. It can also cut closer when the move would be too intrusive. It is masterful in its quiet way. The most obvious Bunuelian aspect are the compositions, as they are either dead-on medium shots or pretty long, full body stuff. As the characters are neatly arrayed like this in front of the camera, we have that compassionate study of human ants.
Nearly every line is loaded with a thousand bombs, every movement telling so much. That every line, deeply selfish and often violent for all the cheery delivery, actually makes sense in a kind of way, is perhaps Bunuel's deepest compassion; he doesn't hate these people. Life has just twisted itself that hoping the mother dies is kind of funny. The lines often have clear double meanings (this isn't deciphering, but just layering; it's all clearly there), almost like innuendo.
The story is remarkable. All out for themselves, then dressing up as proles. This is a remarkable first sequence; playing the part of the poor. It is remarkable in how it makes us look at the work, the washing, the house, the life in a fresh way. The absurdity of living in such misery is shown when people are directed to live like that. Seeing the world with new eyes.
Bunuel is way too great a filmmaker to leave us at simple conclusions. The family does start to love the proletarian lifestlye, and this is sincere, but also note how this moves fits perfectly in with the ascetic, perhaps post-1848 protestantism of capitalism. The whole experiment just makes him a tougher boss ('and thank God I didn't wake up, I nearly did!'- the father after the experiment).
It would be easy to list particular sequences as brilliant 'Bunuelist'; the loudspeaker for the first proposal, for example. What I loved is that, despite their having to be romance and explanation and so on, every sequence is not only executed brilliantly but becomes on its own perfectly Bunuelean, that is, true, naturalistic, texture of life, searing. The ice-creams at the engagement. How at the very end, the brie actually misses the car the first time around. This is almost imperceptible, as is my favourite; in the suicide scene, the painter underneath has a look, then gets on with his work. That scene, in fact, as the film tells us (it is pretty self-reflexive; Bunuel is aware of the need for that) that this is the one bit to be taken at face value; the evocation of the suicidal crapness of the frankly shit life of poverty.
The playacting of poverty is sharply criticised, how it can really mean very little. This is surely a selfanalysis by Bunuel, why he stuck to subjects he felt deserved tackling, that is, the bourgois. For all the 'happy poverty' here, what ultimately happens is that the bourgeois march on in that familiar line (Chaplin?), yet all the same there life has been shown as unstable, as rocked. That is Bunuel's striking brilliance.
Chinese Roulette
Rainer Werner Fassbinder - 1976
Not my favourite Fassbinder, but some interesting stuff. The people move around at a glacial pace, delivering carefully preprepared lines, very precise lines. The staging is self-consciously complex. The camera does a hell of a lot of racking, so there is a bit of depth. It is constantly taking another look at the characters, going for a new angle, grouping different ones together. This film is really all about the changing emotional dynamics.
The plot isn't really, for my little brain, explained clearly enough, so what should be imbued with tension is rather confusing. Perhaps this is what made me notice the complete lack of sense of humour, lightness of touch in that confined sense, in Fassbinder ('no one's ever happy, they just haven't heard the bad news yet') here rather than in other films with equal themes.
Feat of children, how they ruin erotic and emotional lives. Sadism, revenge, power of others, are all here, and explored in, to be fair, quite some detail. And Anna Karina is in it, she has huge eyes.
Not my favourite Fassbinder, but some interesting stuff. The people move around at a glacial pace, delivering carefully preprepared lines, very precise lines. The staging is self-consciously complex. The camera does a hell of a lot of racking, so there is a bit of depth. It is constantly taking another look at the characters, going for a new angle, grouping different ones together. This film is really all about the changing emotional dynamics.
The plot isn't really, for my little brain, explained clearly enough, so what should be imbued with tension is rather confusing. Perhaps this is what made me notice the complete lack of sense of humour, lightness of touch in that confined sense, in Fassbinder ('no one's ever happy, they just haven't heard the bad news yet') here rather than in other films with equal themes.
Feat of children, how they ruin erotic and emotional lives. Sadism, revenge, power of others, are all here, and explored in, to be fair, quite some detail. And Anna Karina is in it, she has huge eyes.
Monday 25 July 2011
Freaks
Tod Browning - 1932
Browning favours the two shot, though he uses single on lines for emphasis. The editing, and I understood there were production problems, can be pretty wild at times, at the start a second line has about five jump cuts in it.
It is filmed almost entirely at night. The ramshackle nature of the settings, and of the script, would make one imagine it would be like a Wellman film, and it certainly, in its sets really, suggests that. However, the acting and the delivery are a lot more defined, the gestures more clear.
What we really have is a series of conversations where we, as an audience, have a look at people, find out about the world of, people usually marginalised. The great task and message of humanist cinema. And respect is paid, it is these people, the 'Freaks' film to do what they like with; they are given free time, they act, they have a drink, have a laugh, sometimes talk about their life.
Browning realises, and surely the 'Freaks' do as well, that their situation is horrific. Their is something terrifying about them; there's no point trying to hide it. The condemnation of those who mock, mock really more than straightforwardly bully, is extremely clear though. Perhaps once or twice it is charicatured but, the point seems to be, it is impossible to see some of these people as not charicatures; that is part of their life. It is, as it is always said to be, a funny and interesting feature (just) film.
Browning favours the two shot, though he uses single on lines for emphasis. The editing, and I understood there were production problems, can be pretty wild at times, at the start a second line has about five jump cuts in it.
It is filmed almost entirely at night. The ramshackle nature of the settings, and of the script, would make one imagine it would be like a Wellman film, and it certainly, in its sets really, suggests that. However, the acting and the delivery are a lot more defined, the gestures more clear.
What we really have is a series of conversations where we, as an audience, have a look at people, find out about the world of, people usually marginalised. The great task and message of humanist cinema. And respect is paid, it is these people, the 'Freaks' film to do what they like with; they are given free time, they act, they have a drink, have a laugh, sometimes talk about their life.
Browning realises, and surely the 'Freaks' do as well, that their situation is horrific. Their is something terrifying about them; there's no point trying to hide it. The condemnation of those who mock, mock really more than straightforwardly bully, is extremely clear though. Perhaps once or twice it is charicatured but, the point seems to be, it is impossible to see some of these people as not charicatures; that is part of their life. It is, as it is always said to be, a funny and interesting feature (just) film.
Gilda
Charles Vidor - 1946
A deeply sad sotry really, a good way of looking at it, as the papers have recently mentioned, is as the flip-side of Casablanca. Of course Hayworth gets the attention, and deserves very much, but Glenn Ford is really the centre of the film. It is, ultimately, following around a sad, lonely, and deeply confused man.
Ford has hatred, desperation, economic desperation, a lack of education. Frankly, he doesn't know what he wants, he is confused. He doesn't know what to do with Hayworth; he follows her, is clearly in a way obsessed, but rather cruel. There are some nice long takes, just a few beats longer than necessary, in that SRS where Ford looks, Hayworth looks back or away, and it all is unravelled.
Their is hardly any depth in the mis-en-scene, and Charles Vidor has some fascinating framings where there is a face, a body part, very close to the camera that is completely out of foucs, in a most unclassical way. His direction is generally efficient with some flourishes of tracks in or out, flourishes of Gilda (and the wait before we first see her).
Hayworth is of course remarkable, tall, proud, one imagines it takes her quite a lot of time to turn her body round. She towers over Ford, certainly that is the impression. Ford is a man who has been economically cowed, forced to be second best for the money. He is really rather lost, and rather cruel.
The mixture of noir themes, backlights where the front is sometimes turned off, melodramatic scenes of romance also, don't overload, but, as I said, add up to quite a quiet film, affecting in its more contemplative moments.
A deeply sad sotry really, a good way of looking at it, as the papers have recently mentioned, is as the flip-side of Casablanca. Of course Hayworth gets the attention, and deserves very much, but Glenn Ford is really the centre of the film. It is, ultimately, following around a sad, lonely, and deeply confused man.
Ford has hatred, desperation, economic desperation, a lack of education. Frankly, he doesn't know what he wants, he is confused. He doesn't know what to do with Hayworth; he follows her, is clearly in a way obsessed, but rather cruel. There are some nice long takes, just a few beats longer than necessary, in that SRS where Ford looks, Hayworth looks back or away, and it all is unravelled.
Their is hardly any depth in the mis-en-scene, and Charles Vidor has some fascinating framings where there is a face, a body part, very close to the camera that is completely out of foucs, in a most unclassical way. His direction is generally efficient with some flourishes of tracks in or out, flourishes of Gilda (and the wait before we first see her).
Hayworth is of course remarkable, tall, proud, one imagines it takes her quite a lot of time to turn her body round. She towers over Ford, certainly that is the impression. Ford is a man who has been economically cowed, forced to be second best for the money. He is really rather lost, and rather cruel.
The mixture of noir themes, backlights where the front is sometimes turned off, melodramatic scenes of romance also, don't overload, but, as I said, add up to quite a quiet film, affecting in its more contemplative moments.
Fox and His Friends
Rainer Werner Fassbinder - 1975
The story here has a fatalistic angle to it, pure destiny. Rosenbaum talks about the camera already being in position for the next move, low down, waiting for the fall. I would allow to this the clear sense of winning the lottery, the quiet resignation at every point. Fassbinder's own hangdog face, and rather impressive performance, all adds to this.
The hellish bourgeois interior, Fassbinder continuing to focus on class, how it effects the very nature of relationships, is clear. He certainly sees relationships in an extremely clear way; as deeply erotic (the penises as balancing a scene), as marked by that famous sadism, as having tenderness. The two-shot of the two in the car is very sweet, but throughout we have that slow fall, collapsing into each other in that tight apartment.
The story here has a fatalistic angle to it, pure destiny. Rosenbaum talks about the camera already being in position for the next move, low down, waiting for the fall. I would allow to this the clear sense of winning the lottery, the quiet resignation at every point. Fassbinder's own hangdog face, and rather impressive performance, all adds to this.
The hellish bourgeois interior, Fassbinder continuing to focus on class, how it effects the very nature of relationships, is clear. He certainly sees relationships in an extremely clear way; as deeply erotic (the penises as balancing a scene), as marked by that famous sadism, as having tenderness. The two-shot of the two in the car is very sweet, but throughout we have that slow fall, collapsing into each other in that tight apartment.
Effi Briest
Rainer Werner Fassbinder - 1974
Opening up, I considered the various texts running through here, the voiceover/ internal monologue, and more objective voiceover, the story of the image, the titles we were given. These seem to be initially giving us the 'truth', we feel content and modern and superior, sometimes even to one of the texts, but then it turns on us, we are rather stumped; who we though was giving 'good', liberal views, will say something rather nasty. We are implicated, and who to believe? Is Effi's voiceover her 'true' self, or of a fantasist, or of a liar, or even hers? Identity and instability, even as a viewer we become unsure what position we hold.
And then, a little of the way in, I realised I was watching a dialogue with Dreyer's 'Gertrud'. Here's my evidence for connections to that strange, fascinating film, which I am not good on.
The shots of the country are pure Dreyer, overexposed back, filters, wet looking complexity of the forestry. Shot in precise slow tracks that are alreaady ongoing with the cut (desire). Often far away, but can start close. Exact visual reference with the parasol. Indeed, the general camera movements, tracks of precision, little moves, framings, are clearly indebted and referencing Dreyer; they are also brilliant, conveying nuances of emotion and the instability of the character, and us, I mentioned above. I would need to watch this again to describe it better; this is my impression rather than analysis (as all the first time reviews really are).
The hypnotic pace, the flighty voice, the very still, deliberately mannered acting. These tracks come as she walks slowly. Her very white appearance against the background, a new, by Dreyer, use of black and white, is here. As is people talking when facing in opposite directions (worth saying that much of what I say about Dreyer, and a little of Fassbinder, is from Rosenbaum).
Perhaps this film is Gertrud had she given in to that desire; it would be a complex giving in, riven by doubt, surely. Fassinbinder is surely more direct and a little lasivious than Dreyer (not that I can remember the latter exactly; I'll get to a re-watch), with some emotional SRS and a few added bits of sharpness here and there.
This film is completely fasinating, a great film for the layers, the thoughts, the worlds it opens up, though I didn't find it particularly pleasurable. Rather the opposite, in a good way, from what I might have previously expected from Fassbinder.
Opening up, I considered the various texts running through here, the voiceover/ internal monologue, and more objective voiceover, the story of the image, the titles we were given. These seem to be initially giving us the 'truth', we feel content and modern and superior, sometimes even to one of the texts, but then it turns on us, we are rather stumped; who we though was giving 'good', liberal views, will say something rather nasty. We are implicated, and who to believe? Is Effi's voiceover her 'true' self, or of a fantasist, or of a liar, or even hers? Identity and instability, even as a viewer we become unsure what position we hold.
And then, a little of the way in, I realised I was watching a dialogue with Dreyer's 'Gertrud'. Here's my evidence for connections to that strange, fascinating film, which I am not good on.
The shots of the country are pure Dreyer, overexposed back, filters, wet looking complexity of the forestry. Shot in precise slow tracks that are alreaady ongoing with the cut (desire). Often far away, but can start close. Exact visual reference with the parasol. Indeed, the general camera movements, tracks of precision, little moves, framings, are clearly indebted and referencing Dreyer; they are also brilliant, conveying nuances of emotion and the instability of the character, and us, I mentioned above. I would need to watch this again to describe it better; this is my impression rather than analysis (as all the first time reviews really are).
The hypnotic pace, the flighty voice, the very still, deliberately mannered acting. These tracks come as she walks slowly. Her very white appearance against the background, a new, by Dreyer, use of black and white, is here. As is people talking when facing in opposite directions (worth saying that much of what I say about Dreyer, and a little of Fassbinder, is from Rosenbaum).
Perhaps this film is Gertrud had she given in to that desire; it would be a complex giving in, riven by doubt, surely. Fassinbinder is surely more direct and a little lasivious than Dreyer (not that I can remember the latter exactly; I'll get to a re-watch), with some emotional SRS and a few added bits of sharpness here and there.
This film is completely fasinating, a great film for the layers, the thoughts, the worlds it opens up, though I didn't find it particularly pleasurable. Rather the opposite, in a good way, from what I might have previously expected from Fassbinder.
Ali: Fear Eats The Soul
Rainer Werner Fassbinder - 1974
It is unfair not to invoke the name of Brecht; but I'm uncomfortable doing so, because my viewing of this film isn't really able to answer the Brechtian questions of why, and how, distancing is created from the action. There is literal distance, in the camerawork, and as in 'The Merchant Of Four Seasons' bare settings. The actors obvioudly completely underplay compared to classic realism.
This film though also moves into SRS; we are complicit in the actions as we are distanced, because of the undeniable, and not specifically Brechtian, emotional pull. The process of looking in an SRS, eyeline match formula, as Hitchcock masters, does pull us in emotionally. No words needed; look at the long back and forth, long takes that is, at the garage here. We realise we are peeping, looking, just like the terrible members of society do, but we also do do this looking, are involved.
The reticence here (mistaking Brecht for reticence!), or rather the emotion of the pure look, brought me to 'A Farewell to Arms' by Borzage. Though what this film really is is 'All That Heaven Allows', plus race (so why isn't it 'Far From Heaven?' Answer: Brecht?). It is an absolutely brutal taking apart of German society, seeing the initial prejudice only subsumed by egotism. No wonder Ali feels alone even when things seem to be going well. Add to this past membership of the NAZI party. It is sharp, of course Effi is deeply implicated, and Ali perhaps to an extent. That we are forced to identify with this, emotionally, as well as distanced, we are not part, creates an interesting double movement. Lots to think about here.
It is unfair not to invoke the name of Brecht; but I'm uncomfortable doing so, because my viewing of this film isn't really able to answer the Brechtian questions of why, and how, distancing is created from the action. There is literal distance, in the camerawork, and as in 'The Merchant Of Four Seasons' bare settings. The actors obvioudly completely underplay compared to classic realism.
This film though also moves into SRS; we are complicit in the actions as we are distanced, because of the undeniable, and not specifically Brechtian, emotional pull. The process of looking in an SRS, eyeline match formula, as Hitchcock masters, does pull us in emotionally. No words needed; look at the long back and forth, long takes that is, at the garage here. We realise we are peeping, looking, just like the terrible members of society do, but we also do do this looking, are involved.
The reticence here (mistaking Brecht for reticence!), or rather the emotion of the pure look, brought me to 'A Farewell to Arms' by Borzage. Though what this film really is is 'All That Heaven Allows', plus race (so why isn't it 'Far From Heaven?' Answer: Brecht?). It is an absolutely brutal taking apart of German society, seeing the initial prejudice only subsumed by egotism. No wonder Ali feels alone even when things seem to be going well. Add to this past membership of the NAZI party. It is sharp, of course Effi is deeply implicated, and Ali perhaps to an extent. That we are forced to identify with this, emotionally, as well as distanced, we are not part, creates an interesting double movement. Lots to think about here.
Sunday 24 July 2011
The Bitter Tears Of Petra von Kant
Rainer Werner Fassbinder - 1972
Performed as though on a stage, Fassbinder undoubtedly uses his camera for various means to make his film. The camera's ignoring of Marlene, for instance, following Petre, or later Karin, about is clearly there to show the principles of domination. Compositions often add an element for symbolic effect or emphasis, showing someone dwarfed by a piece of furniture or dominating over it. The props are further given attention in appropriate places, with special note given to the set design of the huge painting (the sadism of renaissance beauty; see Fellini, Greenaway) and the props of the drink bottles. Devices such as the Hitchcockian rule of closer for emphasis are also also. The pretty sparse sound design allows typing or footsteps to act as counters, to add to the image. This is pretty talky. We circle around, sometimes literally, prowl around the dominant women as the dialogue prowls around the particular relationship of command that is in place. As these slowly shift, in a very 'well-made play' arc, so do the appropriate camera positions. The mannered acting, cold dialgoue delivery, flight, combined also with the costumes, give that kind of mummified, preserved in ice appearance to the actors.
Performed as though on a stage, Fassbinder undoubtedly uses his camera for various means to make his film. The camera's ignoring of Marlene, for instance, following Petre, or later Karin, about is clearly there to show the principles of domination. Compositions often add an element for symbolic effect or emphasis, showing someone dwarfed by a piece of furniture or dominating over it. The props are further given attention in appropriate places, with special note given to the set design of the huge painting (the sadism of renaissance beauty; see Fellini, Greenaway) and the props of the drink bottles. Devices such as the Hitchcockian rule of closer for emphasis are also also. The pretty sparse sound design allows typing or footsteps to act as counters, to add to the image. This is pretty talky. We circle around, sometimes literally, prowl around the dominant women as the dialogue prowls around the particular relationship of command that is in place. As these slowly shift, in a very 'well-made play' arc, so do the appropriate camera positions. The mannered acting, cold dialgoue delivery, flight, combined also with the costumes, give that kind of mummified, preserved in ice appearance to the actors.
Saturday 23 July 2011
North By Northwest
Alfred Hitchcock - 1959
Completely absurd, often filthy, directed with such elan.
Hitchcock manipulates time quite spectacularly; some sequences go on and on, the long lull before the cropduster (and of course space is also used there), the incredibly quick ending, the long first love scene (which is really remarkably frank). All for the old suspense, of course.
As far as composition, I am sure, with the exception of a few sequences (at the Gehry house, for example) Hitchcock uses less eyeline matches. His camera is in fact often alowing medium shots, twos or threes, more 'objective' one could say. Gives the impression of Grant as the action puppet thrown around.
The plot is completely absurd, but surely the logic of it is a clear emotional one. The comic idea of the mistaken man, the man in the wrong place. Taken on a wild adventure, he turns out to rather enjoy it, and, having at first tried to reassure his mother, sticks two fingers up. Then finding that in this new world, where beautiful women seem to fall for him, he is betrayed; they are really out for him, he's not a part of that world. Grant is always an outsider here. Think of the scene as he goes into the auction house; tragic, his amour is with the other man, and he thought he was in that world. Then finding out others are equally trapped, lonely. How much of this is personal to Hitchcock, outsider, playing the game but detached?
This is, as Grant tells us, an absurd plot, flying along in all directions, implausible, who cares. It tells us of urgent feelings, in a riotously, expertly entertaining manner.
Completely absurd, often filthy, directed with such elan.
Hitchcock manipulates time quite spectacularly; some sequences go on and on, the long lull before the cropduster (and of course space is also used there), the incredibly quick ending, the long first love scene (which is really remarkably frank). All for the old suspense, of course.
As far as composition, I am sure, with the exception of a few sequences (at the Gehry house, for example) Hitchcock uses less eyeline matches. His camera is in fact often alowing medium shots, twos or threes, more 'objective' one could say. Gives the impression of Grant as the action puppet thrown around.
The plot is completely absurd, but surely the logic of it is a clear emotional one. The comic idea of the mistaken man, the man in the wrong place. Taken on a wild adventure, he turns out to rather enjoy it, and, having at first tried to reassure his mother, sticks two fingers up. Then finding that in this new world, where beautiful women seem to fall for him, he is betrayed; they are really out for him, he's not a part of that world. Grant is always an outsider here. Think of the scene as he goes into the auction house; tragic, his amour is with the other man, and he thought he was in that world. Then finding out others are equally trapped, lonely. How much of this is personal to Hitchcock, outsider, playing the game but detached?
This is, as Grant tells us, an absurd plot, flying along in all directions, implausible, who cares. It tells us of urgent feelings, in a riotously, expertly entertaining manner.
The Merchant Of Four Seasons
Rainer Werner Fassbinder - 1971
Known as Fassbinder's first real advance in the melodrama tragedy. On grimy, clearly low budget sets there is a lot of SRS (though never unconsidered), zooming in. There are nice framings as our merchant spies on others, and circlung camera movements that can tell us much.
Structurally, this is a pretty brutal attack on the principles of exchange that ruin the lives of its characters, who are in one way or another cruel to each other, though there is surely empathy there. The edit flits between time frames, often not too clearly, but it does give a general sense of an environment of quiet horror.
Known as Fassbinder's first real advance in the melodrama tragedy. On grimy, clearly low budget sets there is a lot of SRS (though never unconsidered), zooming in. There are nice framings as our merchant spies on others, and circlung camera movements that can tell us much.
Structurally, this is a pretty brutal attack on the principles of exchange that ruin the lives of its characters, who are in one way or another cruel to each other, though there is surely empathy there. The edit flits between time frames, often not too clearly, but it does give a general sense of an environment of quiet horror.
Why Does Herr K. Run Amok?
Rainer Werner Fassbinder - 1970
This is a really terrific little film. Grainy stock, going from cheap dirty room to little room, no tripod in sight, mumbling actors. The camera often starts quite close, this film is made up of dialogue scenes, and swishes back and forth (voices often offscreen). It can zoom in, rove away to look for someone else. The closeness means we are quite often surprised to find someone else is there; we suddenly realise Herr K.'s wife is also in the room, and the agony increases. We'll then move to an establishing shot to get the full weight of the horror.
The thing is, this film truly doesn't depart from what ordinary bourgeois conversations are made up of. Yet it manages to be completely fascinating, surely down to that intimate, claustrophobic camera and the brutal mounting edit, to observe all this. This is really hell captured, with all its grubby soft furnished trimmings.
This film is structurally very similar to 'Jeanne Dielmann', and it also works by achieving a kind of hypnosis, while at the same time allowing distance for us to observe and judge. Ackerman is surely a lot more systematic in her use of space and time, this film perhaps feels more direct, made by a passionate nature.
This is a really terrific little film. Grainy stock, going from cheap dirty room to little room, no tripod in sight, mumbling actors. The camera often starts quite close, this film is made up of dialogue scenes, and swishes back and forth (voices often offscreen). It can zoom in, rove away to look for someone else. The closeness means we are quite often surprised to find someone else is there; we suddenly realise Herr K.'s wife is also in the room, and the agony increases. We'll then move to an establishing shot to get the full weight of the horror.
The thing is, this film truly doesn't depart from what ordinary bourgeois conversations are made up of. Yet it manages to be completely fascinating, surely down to that intimate, claustrophobic camera and the brutal mounting edit, to observe all this. This is really hell captured, with all its grubby soft furnished trimmings.
This film is structurally very similar to 'Jeanne Dielmann', and it also works by achieving a kind of hypnosis, while at the same time allowing distance for us to observe and judge. Ackerman is surely a lot more systematic in her use of space and time, this film perhaps feels more direct, made by a passionate nature.
Ginger e Fred
Federico Fellini - 1986
Fellini seems to actually be using two shots more, here, at the tail end of his career. Among the gaudy colours and tubing of the TV sets, and unnatural lights coming through windows.
The emotional effect here is really from how nasty the world they are in is, there is that kind of solemn dignity about their wish, their lives (though I've now established I have a problem with Massina's acting). Fellini, for me, is far too accomodating of the hellish world of TV, seeing it as more gaudy and silly than completely vile and evil.
Fellini seems to actually be using two shots more, here, at the tail end of his career. Among the gaudy colours and tubing of the TV sets, and unnatural lights coming through windows.
The emotional effect here is really from how nasty the world they are in is, there is that kind of solemn dignity about their wish, their lives (though I've now established I have a problem with Massina's acting). Fellini, for me, is far too accomodating of the hellish world of TV, seeing it as more gaudy and silly than completely vile and evil.
Friday 22 July 2011
Eloge de L'Amour
Jean-Luc Godard - 2001
Heartbreaking, brilliant, complex, enigmatic, dense.
The first section has that incredible black and white imagery, again using strong outside light and completely underexposing the rooms it shoots in. The low angle, among others, acts to cut off heads or not let us see who is talking. It's people, but it's also abstract shapes. Then that piano motif comes in, the heartbreaking one. The remarkable thing is it never comes in on an 'emotional' scene; there is not a single such scene in this film/video in that sense (though I'm not sure quite how to describe the 'L'Atalante' shot). The emotion, the Elogie, rather builds up through memory, and comradeship. The shooting on the street is again dark (and black and white), Bresson references, on park benches, the only lights shining being the whites of headlights. Can we tell the story, the history, without falsifying it? Memory requires comradeship, comradeship requires memory. The titles flash; quelquechose de l'amour.
The second half of video is remarkable. He lights his video, again, pretty hard in many ways, nearly always backlight, backlight backlight; and then he films with no side or front, so the shapes we see on the interior are pretty much in black. Maybe it's the colours, the sea and the sky, that are most distinctive. Huge blue, green, and that orangey yellow seem to be almost the entire palette. I don't know how we got that white balance; post-production, it's got to be. We could make the film about the past, about history, before the Americans colonise it.... but we can't. The hatred of the Americans is clear, but balanced; they want a memory too, that's why they snatch ours, or our attempts. The end is strangely affirming, the train (always the train) and the walk, nothing was said, but there's more... I never wanted this to end.
Heartbreaking, brilliant, complex, enigmatic, dense.
The first section has that incredible black and white imagery, again using strong outside light and completely underexposing the rooms it shoots in. The low angle, among others, acts to cut off heads or not let us see who is talking. It's people, but it's also abstract shapes. Then that piano motif comes in, the heartbreaking one. The remarkable thing is it never comes in on an 'emotional' scene; there is not a single such scene in this film/video in that sense (though I'm not sure quite how to describe the 'L'Atalante' shot). The emotion, the Elogie, rather builds up through memory, and comradeship. The shooting on the street is again dark (and black and white), Bresson references, on park benches, the only lights shining being the whites of headlights. Can we tell the story, the history, without falsifying it? Memory requires comradeship, comradeship requires memory. The titles flash; quelquechose de l'amour.
The second half of video is remarkable. He lights his video, again, pretty hard in many ways, nearly always backlight, backlight backlight; and then he films with no side or front, so the shapes we see on the interior are pretty much in black. Maybe it's the colours, the sea and the sky, that are most distinctive. Huge blue, green, and that orangey yellow seem to be almost the entire palette. I don't know how we got that white balance; post-production, it's got to be. We could make the film about the past, about history, before the Americans colonise it.... but we can't. The hatred of the Americans is clear, but balanced; they want a memory too, that's why they snatch ours, or our attempts. The end is strangely affirming, the train (always the train) and the walk, nothing was said, but there's more... I never wanted this to end.
Fellini's Casanova
Federico Fellini - 1976
Fellini's images, by this stage, really can be remarkable. He often uses, say, a bowl of fruit, something riotously saturated or so on with lights, on one half of the image, and Donald Sutherland on the other. This juxtaposition isn't one negating the other, but in fact emphasising it.
The seascape, among other images, is clearly 'fantasy'. What Fellini does specially is that he asks the audience to extend their imagination, making all his films at Cinecitta, not just his own imagination, but sharing it, asking us to extend ours.
The strange thing about Fellini's images is that he doesn't really stick very long on them. He cuts surprisingly quickly, one to the other. Tough to say why; I think it would be way too simple to talk about commercialism.
Fellini is fascinating in, to make a rather simplistic analysis, he takes the unusual answer to a normal question; the vapid life or pleasure? He, in his films, explores pleasure, in a way perhaps more complicated than others (does, say Bunuel examine this in a way?). The theme of innocence remains; is Casanova still 'innocent', trying to keep something alive? Yes, probably. But what is innocence, a touch of love in this world? A 'fake' love, a machine...
Fellini's images, by this stage, really can be remarkable. He often uses, say, a bowl of fruit, something riotously saturated or so on with lights, on one half of the image, and Donald Sutherland on the other. This juxtaposition isn't one negating the other, but in fact emphasising it.
The seascape, among other images, is clearly 'fantasy'. What Fellini does specially is that he asks the audience to extend their imagination, making all his films at Cinecitta, not just his own imagination, but sharing it, asking us to extend ours.
The strange thing about Fellini's images is that he doesn't really stick very long on them. He cuts surprisingly quickly, one to the other. Tough to say why; I think it would be way too simple to talk about commercialism.
Fellini is fascinating in, to make a rather simplistic analysis, he takes the unusual answer to a normal question; the vapid life or pleasure? He, in his films, explores pleasure, in a way perhaps more complicated than others (does, say Bunuel examine this in a way?). The theme of innocence remains; is Casanova still 'innocent', trying to keep something alive? Yes, probably. But what is innocence, a touch of love in this world? A 'fake' love, a machine...
The White Sheik
Federico Fellini - 1952
Strangely similar to The Grunde film 'The Strabe' at times. Clearly a satire on a certain kind of values, it is at once silly but also poignant. Quite an affectionate film.
It is the earliest Fellini I have seen, and it is pretty straight. The direction is nicely done, if not too innovative, as I have seen before on early Fellini.
Strangely similar to The Grunde film 'The Strabe' at times. Clearly a satire on a certain kind of values, it is at once silly but also poignant. Quite an affectionate film.
It is the earliest Fellini I have seen, and it is pretty straight. The direction is nicely done, if not too innovative, as I have seen before on early Fellini.
Un Poison Violent (Love Like Poison)
Katell Quillevere - 2010
Well, I can't pretend I found this very interesting. The camera has a little track for the first shot but then settles into establishing two-shots, then SRS and SRS and SRS and shot and reverse over and over. Of course there are a few lightly expressive moves, but little is really conveyed.
The set design is quite deliberately comletely disgusting, vile colours in the boring little town. One interesting this is the way the light is caught a lot of the time into shadows under our heroines' eyes; she seems to be front lit a lot.
The story isn't bad but nothing too earth-shaking; largely sexual coming-of-age / awakening, in the Catholic environement, with the grandpere working as a kind of propadeutic. All restrained, nicely acted, and nothing I could see, on this watch, to get too excited about.
Well, I can't pretend I found this very interesting. The camera has a little track for the first shot but then settles into establishing two-shots, then SRS and SRS and SRS and shot and reverse over and over. Of course there are a few lightly expressive moves, but little is really conveyed.
The set design is quite deliberately comletely disgusting, vile colours in the boring little town. One interesting this is the way the light is caught a lot of the time into shadows under our heroines' eyes; she seems to be front lit a lot.
The story isn't bad but nothing too earth-shaking; largely sexual coming-of-age / awakening, in the Catholic environement, with the grandpere working as a kind of propadeutic. All restrained, nicely acted, and nothing I could see, on this watch, to get too excited about.
Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie)
Jean-Luc Godard - 1980
This film is really pretty brutal. A world marked by power and violence, constantly. Going to the countryside marks an idiotic, naive retreat; there is not going back to 'zero', an extension of Godard's thinking. And staying in town leaves one compromised, of course, subject to the brutality of making a film (the prostitute's image and sound put together), and pretty blatant stuff about child abuse. The crossing of street footage with this is especially disquieting. That is what the disjunction of sound and image seems to work at here, largely.
Notice, also, how later Godard's spectacular images are often due to saturated, let me say strong colours, in very strong natural light (dark interiors). There are the industrial carparks, but also often Southern European direct sunlight.
And we have the character of M. Godard. Why make a film? Because one is terrified of doing nothing. There is a real condemnation of the countryside militancy here, working on its own equally fantastic and brutal power games. Everything seems soiled.
And yet, I would regard this as in many ways one of Godard's most sentimental films. Sentimental, yes, but not tragic. What is slow motion? It is of life continuing, being unable to stop, even when one tries to freeze it, to look around. It is the ability to see life, see it more clearly, yet it is not a fantastic still, because it continues to move, that is the damn thing about it. Then the train or the bus rushes past (a women's whisper, says the unseen Duras) life flies over, but the effect has been thrown. Even the end is tough, the inability to feel la tendresse; but we are left with a modern tragedy, which isn't even a tragedy.
This film is really pretty brutal. A world marked by power and violence, constantly. Going to the countryside marks an idiotic, naive retreat; there is not going back to 'zero', an extension of Godard's thinking. And staying in town leaves one compromised, of course, subject to the brutality of making a film (the prostitute's image and sound put together), and pretty blatant stuff about child abuse. The crossing of street footage with this is especially disquieting. That is what the disjunction of sound and image seems to work at here, largely.
Notice, also, how later Godard's spectacular images are often due to saturated, let me say strong colours, in very strong natural light (dark interiors). There are the industrial carparks, but also often Southern European direct sunlight.
And we have the character of M. Godard. Why make a film? Because one is terrified of doing nothing. There is a real condemnation of the countryside militancy here, working on its own equally fantastic and brutal power games. Everything seems soiled.
And yet, I would regard this as in many ways one of Godard's most sentimental films. Sentimental, yes, but not tragic. What is slow motion? It is of life continuing, being unable to stop, even when one tries to freeze it, to look around. It is the ability to see life, see it more clearly, yet it is not a fantastic still, because it continues to move, that is the damn thing about it. Then the train or the bus rushes past (a women's whisper, says the unseen Duras) life flies over, but the effect has been thrown. Even the end is tough, the inability to feel la tendresse; but we are left with a modern tragedy, which isn't even a tragedy.
Thursday 21 July 2011
Amarcord
Federico Fellini - 1973
A series of vignettes, surely autobiographical, through that busy world of Fellini's. And then, the striking image; let me take Mussolini's head, and the peacock in the snow.
They are clearly both fantasies of Fellini, representations of what the world was like, what it was felt to be like, the power and the imaginary. What I like is that Fellini does not blast them at us with awe (though they may be awe-some), but rather puts them in a local context, considers them, juxtaposes them with the ordinary, the completely unspectacular, to create something quite new. A peacock, the snow, the town; by themselves quite down to earth, as this film is, but together a strange new ambiguity is formed. Maybe I should be looking to late Fellini more for my kicks; the image as more important than what goes on, not a brutal image, but one that can act ass more than an accompaniment to words.
A series of vignettes, surely autobiographical, through that busy world of Fellini's. And then, the striking image; let me take Mussolini's head, and the peacock in the snow.
They are clearly both fantasies of Fellini, representations of what the world was like, what it was felt to be like, the power and the imaginary. What I like is that Fellini does not blast them at us with awe (though they may be awe-some), but rather puts them in a local context, considers them, juxtaposes them with the ordinary, the completely unspectacular, to create something quite new. A peacock, the snow, the town; by themselves quite down to earth, as this film is, but together a strange new ambiguity is formed. Maybe I should be looking to late Fellini more for my kicks; the image as more important than what goes on, not a brutal image, but one that can act ass more than an accompaniment to words.
8 1/2
Federico Fellini - 1963
In and out; long shots to close shots, seems to be Fellini's rule, along with some very high and low angles. Thoughtful and invenetive, really, without too much strictness. There is a sense of finding the best way to capture a scene that is already happening, regardless of the camera. Which is theatre. The camera can move fast, pans and tracks, around and about the swirling milleu, as Guido is accosted and swoops from room to room, person to person. Also not some of Fellini's favoured framings; half of the frame a close portrait, the other half strecthing to the distance, something usually either walking to or from the camera.
The whites are clearly very original; I would guess he does them by overexposure, or at least a slow film. The whites are not always heavily nuanced, while the darker portions of the frame are pretty soft (also, no huge depth).
Fellini's inteerest is surely in the power of his images, the story a series, a sort of jazz solo. What is the real interest of these images, apart from mere curiousity into the functioning of a man's mind? Perhaps to gain their full power they need the big screen.The play of shades and colours is surely remarkable, but so far...
Is this film self-induglent? Yes. It answers, or rather affirms its own critics, on that count. Fellini wants to say cinema can just be my personal fantasy, which can be confused. What are we then to do when we deeply dislike the fantasist? Guido doesn't seem interested in others; he is deeply unpleasant, making people build sets then stewing over, navel gazing (which Fellini repeats as autocritique incessantly) basically, then blowing them off. If that's the way it is, that's the way it is; the 'truth' of a mind. Maybe. But the truth of a bad, and for that uninteresting, except as documentation, one?
In and out; long shots to close shots, seems to be Fellini's rule, along with some very high and low angles. Thoughtful and invenetive, really, without too much strictness. There is a sense of finding the best way to capture a scene that is already happening, regardless of the camera. Which is theatre. The camera can move fast, pans and tracks, around and about the swirling milleu, as Guido is accosted and swoops from room to room, person to person. Also not some of Fellini's favoured framings; half of the frame a close portrait, the other half strecthing to the distance, something usually either walking to or from the camera.
The whites are clearly very original; I would guess he does them by overexposure, or at least a slow film. The whites are not always heavily nuanced, while the darker portions of the frame are pretty soft (also, no huge depth).
Fellini's inteerest is surely in the power of his images, the story a series, a sort of jazz solo. What is the real interest of these images, apart from mere curiousity into the functioning of a man's mind? Perhaps to gain their full power they need the big screen.The play of shades and colours is surely remarkable, but so far...
Is this film self-induglent? Yes. It answers, or rather affirms its own critics, on that count. Fellini wants to say cinema can just be my personal fantasy, which can be confused. What are we then to do when we deeply dislike the fantasist? Guido doesn't seem interested in others; he is deeply unpleasant, making people build sets then stewing over, navel gazing (which Fellini repeats as autocritique incessantly) basically, then blowing them off. If that's the way it is, that's the way it is; the 'truth' of a mind. Maybe. But the truth of a bad, and for that uninteresting, except as documentation, one?
Nights Of Cabiria
Federico Fellini - 1957
Opening with an extremely long shot, pans back and forth. Fellini often frames full body and more, the world as the big stage. And then he can move in, really quite close, portraiture at furthest away; here for SRS and eyeline matches, usually strongly shading towards one character, Cabiria.
This is where one should say that Massina's performance is lively, strong, full of joie de vivre, wiping water off the face, hugely expressive eyes, Chaplinesque. Her stlye is almost expressionist, broad. Frankly, I got little out of this; I found it, and her, annoying. This is partly one of the points of the film; how do we react to such a display of innocence? My problem was perhaps more that it seemed to me predictable, for all the pyrotechnics almost tired; the story is hugely predictable.
The grimness that follows is pretty ritual, I'm really not at all sure what the point in the excercise is; perhaps as a social document, fine, but I'd like a bit of a more complex analysis then. The final shot, Fellini's classic music, is again broad, but the look into the camera does some interesting things (by the by, I can't say I picked out special lighting in this scene).
Opening with an extremely long shot, pans back and forth. Fellini often frames full body and more, the world as the big stage. And then he can move in, really quite close, portraiture at furthest away; here for SRS and eyeline matches, usually strongly shading towards one character, Cabiria.
This is where one should say that Massina's performance is lively, strong, full of joie de vivre, wiping water off the face, hugely expressive eyes, Chaplinesque. Her stlye is almost expressionist, broad. Frankly, I got little out of this; I found it, and her, annoying. This is partly one of the points of the film; how do we react to such a display of innocence? My problem was perhaps more that it seemed to me predictable, for all the pyrotechnics almost tired; the story is hugely predictable.
The grimness that follows is pretty ritual, I'm really not at all sure what the point in the excercise is; perhaps as a social document, fine, but I'd like a bit of a more complex analysis then. The final shot, Fellini's classic music, is again broad, but the look into the camera does some interesting things (by the by, I can't say I picked out special lighting in this scene).
Wednesday 20 July 2011
Vivre Sa Vie
Jean-Luc Godard - 1962
Yes; I think I said what I wanted to say in the last entry. What struck me again? The simplicity of the narrative; this really, in many ways, isn't as reflexive as the later works which develop the same themes. It is nearly like the laying out of a number of themes. It is also so close to a classic documentary in many ways.
Yes; I think I said what I wanted to say in the last entry. What struck me again? The simplicity of the narrative; this really, in many ways, isn't as reflexive as the later works which develop the same themes. It is nearly like the laying out of a number of themes. It is also so close to a classic documentary in many ways.
Alphaville
Jean-Luc Godard - 1965
This is clearly an absolute riot; the film I have always wanted to make and watch. I don't think it's Godard's best, it's off the cuff in that way, but Godard's not completely 'best' means only better than 99.9999999percent of the films I know.
Godard doesn't use alienation techniques quite so much, with the edit and the acting, as elsewhere, perhaps because of the entire idea of the film as unreality. The camera operates in a way like the 'Whirpool' and co. it is flying off; plan americains, a mixture of plans and tracks showing people around rooms. These are all of course uniformly brilliant, unexpected, with some spectauclar flourishes, a sudden very high angle, for example (and some takes can be remarkably long).
Making Paris Alphaville is at once a great achievement, and very easy, because they're the same place. Shooting at night always, Coutard using fast film and the lights of the city, abstract corridors, shots from the car, using the positive print when we might be getting complacent.
The entire piece is that air of the troupe making a legend, playing out an of course completely ludicrous enactment which, in fact, tells the truth more than pretty much any realism. That is the idea; by going into the future, this massive fantasy, we have the truth of society. The imagination is the reality of the reflection.
I was slightly uncomfortable with the complete bash at logic; though completely there on the technological rationalisation of society. Does Godard start the film having concluded 'logic= bad', 'illogic=good'? I can't believe so, perhaps I'm giving too much credence to what they say. The discussion of time is fascinating. We have to live in the present. This film is about the future, which yearns for a past. Should we not compromise, and live in this fantasy land, of ideals?
The air of paranoia means this film shares much with 'Masculin Feminin'; communication has become difficult, how are we to express what we want to, words move away, become meaningless.
This is clearly an absolute riot; the film I have always wanted to make and watch. I don't think it's Godard's best, it's off the cuff in that way, but Godard's not completely 'best' means only better than 99.9999999percent of the films I know.
Godard doesn't use alienation techniques quite so much, with the edit and the acting, as elsewhere, perhaps because of the entire idea of the film as unreality. The camera operates in a way like the 'Whirpool' and co. it is flying off; plan americains, a mixture of plans and tracks showing people around rooms. These are all of course uniformly brilliant, unexpected, with some spectauclar flourishes, a sudden very high angle, for example (and some takes can be remarkably long).
Making Paris Alphaville is at once a great achievement, and very easy, because they're the same place. Shooting at night always, Coutard using fast film and the lights of the city, abstract corridors, shots from the car, using the positive print when we might be getting complacent.
The entire piece is that air of the troupe making a legend, playing out an of course completely ludicrous enactment which, in fact, tells the truth more than pretty much any realism. That is the idea; by going into the future, this massive fantasy, we have the truth of society. The imagination is the reality of the reflection.
I was slightly uncomfortable with the complete bash at logic; though completely there on the technological rationalisation of society. Does Godard start the film having concluded 'logic= bad', 'illogic=good'? I can't believe so, perhaps I'm giving too much credence to what they say. The discussion of time is fascinating. We have to live in the present. This film is about the future, which yearns for a past. Should we not compromise, and live in this fantasy land, of ideals?
The air of paranoia means this film shares much with 'Masculin Feminin'; communication has become difficult, how are we to express what we want to, words move away, become meaningless.
Floating Weeds
Yasujiro Ozu - 1959
Ozu, for all the reflection, doesn't cut too slowly. He can pretty much be said to analyse, whatever that means.
It is the clearest thing I can think to say about Ozu that his is a cinema of space. We have pure fun in the shapes, of the whole frame and of objects. The colours of windows, the way something obscures a part of the frame. Often quite a lot of depth, where we particularly focus on the people. Space is not used for narrative purposes; we can have a position, can cut to a position, for the shape of the space it gives, rather than clearing narrative purpose.
Does Ozu establish? Yes and no. Place to a small extent, more of a mood.
Ozu, as I said, does move in. There is quite a lot of SRS, intersting ones. Often with their backs to us, facing a wall. Often at a slight angle. And then that straight on one. Ozu's camera is without exception low-angled, so I'm not sure they don't look above.
The underplaying, reticencce, gives a huge emotional complexity, as simply does the plot, We enter the world, see thne connections, the changes reverberate so strongly. A slight fatalism? Perhaps. Resigation? Ozu can do something so remarkable with the emotions in the second halves of his film.
Ozu, for all the reflection, doesn't cut too slowly. He can pretty much be said to analyse, whatever that means.
It is the clearest thing I can think to say about Ozu that his is a cinema of space. We have pure fun in the shapes, of the whole frame and of objects. The colours of windows, the way something obscures a part of the frame. Often quite a lot of depth, where we particularly focus on the people. Space is not used for narrative purposes; we can have a position, can cut to a position, for the shape of the space it gives, rather than clearing narrative purpose.
Does Ozu establish? Yes and no. Place to a small extent, more of a mood.
Ozu, as I said, does move in. There is quite a lot of SRS, intersting ones. Often with their backs to us, facing a wall. Often at a slight angle. And then that straight on one. Ozu's camera is without exception low-angled, so I'm not sure they don't look above.
The underplaying, reticencce, gives a huge emotional complexity, as simply does the plot, We enter the world, see thne connections, the changes reverberate so strongly. A slight fatalism? Perhaps. Resigation? Ozu can do something so remarkable with the emotions in the second halves of his film.
La Chinoise
Jean-Luc Godard - 1967
Godard has this as a moment; a moment in the struggle that can then be critiqued, without navel-gazing worries.The logic used on the train isn't intended to mock the struggle, but to put it on the path, take it beyond the simplistic Maoism of that summer.
And simplicity is the question here. The three primary colours, the slogans everywhere. Too simple has to be the conclusion. But when we try to do this theory, takes words as materials, someone says I don't love you, and it's difficult to keep it that. The theory was all in the wrong order. Back to work; zero.
The use of interview is key here, allowing us to consider the actors as people, as involved in what they do. This is a renactment of an event; and this film is one of the strongest argument for the Melies cinema, the reenactment of events. As with the Vietnam play, here is what we can take as truth. The reality of the reflection, not the reflection of reality. Art and politics; thinking about two things at once.
Also, a couple of things about the camera; Godard moves it less as the sixties go on, but what here about those tracks along the window. Seperating?
Godard has this as a moment; a moment in the struggle that can then be critiqued, without navel-gazing worries.The logic used on the train isn't intended to mock the struggle, but to put it on the path, take it beyond the simplistic Maoism of that summer.
And simplicity is the question here. The three primary colours, the slogans everywhere. Too simple has to be the conclusion. But when we try to do this theory, takes words as materials, someone says I don't love you, and it's difficult to keep it that. The theory was all in the wrong order. Back to work; zero.
The use of interview is key here, allowing us to consider the actors as people, as involved in what they do. This is a renactment of an event; and this film is one of the strongest argument for the Melies cinema, the reenactment of events. As with the Vietnam play, here is what we can take as truth. The reality of the reflection, not the reflection of reality. Art and politics; thinking about two things at once.
Also, a couple of things about the camera; Godard moves it less as the sixties go on, but what here about those tracks along the window. Seperating?
The Passenger
Michelangelo Antonioni - 1975
Antonioni's camera works in an interesting way. Often it moves away from the person it starts on, or moves towards them. It would be uncomfortable to film in a 'normal' way. There is more handheld, movement around than I can remember in other Antonioni. This atmosphere is also in the framings. Decentered, often for some reason to our right.
And it is always Antonioni's edit that really gets me. Never ever does he make the obvious move. Space isn't the continous entity. Supposedly SRS scenes will take a different angle than expected in the 'reverse', we will move away, the 'action' will be obscured. Notice also the architecture; how it is framed, in his often perpendicular compositions, to glower over, to reflect confusion in some of Gaudi and other's escher-like contraptions, that people are forced to walk through.
Colour is as ever key. Nicholson seems very red, and his clothes are often violently sperated from the surroundings. Yet he can also sink in; perhaps always the opposite of what he wants. A man out place.
What happens in an Antonioni film? The realisation that the course of events isn't part of a grand plan, but just one step in front of another. Nicholson is over his head, strange conspiracies, in flavourless international locations, pop up. He can't escape his identity, but neither one seems real.
He can't stand the camera turned on himself. The man cured from blindness sees too much to live as part of the world, like Locke, the documentatrian. I feel about this as I do 'Blow-Up'; a clear extrapolation of Antonioni's themes, when he is at his best in the earlier works when pure visuals take over.
Antonioni's camera works in an interesting way. Often it moves away from the person it starts on, or moves towards them. It would be uncomfortable to film in a 'normal' way. There is more handheld, movement around than I can remember in other Antonioni. This atmosphere is also in the framings. Decentered, often for some reason to our right.
And it is always Antonioni's edit that really gets me. Never ever does he make the obvious move. Space isn't the continous entity. Supposedly SRS scenes will take a different angle than expected in the 'reverse', we will move away, the 'action' will be obscured. Notice also the architecture; how it is framed, in his often perpendicular compositions, to glower over, to reflect confusion in some of Gaudi and other's escher-like contraptions, that people are forced to walk through.
Colour is as ever key. Nicholson seems very red, and his clothes are often violently sperated from the surroundings. Yet he can also sink in; perhaps always the opposite of what he wants. A man out place.
What happens in an Antonioni film? The realisation that the course of events isn't part of a grand plan, but just one step in front of another. Nicholson is over his head, strange conspiracies, in flavourless international locations, pop up. He can't escape his identity, but neither one seems real.
He can't stand the camera turned on himself. The man cured from blindness sees too much to live as part of the world, like Locke, the documentatrian. I feel about this as I do 'Blow-Up'; a clear extrapolation of Antonioni's themes, when he is at his best in the earlier works when pure visuals take over.
Tuesday 19 July 2011
2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle
Jean-Luc Godard - 1966
A film that goes beyond what was before; Godard extends literature, and then here, he deciseively goes beyond it. I can talk about this film; but better to make a visual response.
There is such an affair of confusion, but such confidence in the presentation. Thw whisper. Is the machinery brutal objectivity, the interviews sujectivity? Godard displays such patience, such incredilbe patience with his subjects. Each owrd cries for a digression, but he stays with them, keeping the eyes and the ears open.
This is about Paris, but it enters into philosophy. It is about as abstract as I will let it get, but the crossing with the image, the relation to that sociology. A teacup does contain the world; so does Marine Vlady.
Everything can contain its opposite, or could be its opposite. That is the arbitrary nature of words? Who is she? A fractured jigsaw that can't be put back together. Each object can also be something else. Deconstruction, verging on the po-mo, in film.
This is a way of seeing; Sontag argues the content of the ideas is less important, which is true to an extent, but I still would feel I was missing something if they were ignored. The slogans that hit us; how do we take in words about Vietnam out of the mouths of children? Violence and life, how do we live with them, how do we coexist. We forget about everything. Then we listen. So we go back to zero.
A film that goes beyond what was before; Godard extends literature, and then here, he deciseively goes beyond it. I can talk about this film; but better to make a visual response.
There is such an affair of confusion, but such confidence in the presentation. Thw whisper. Is the machinery brutal objectivity, the interviews sujectivity? Godard displays such patience, such incredilbe patience with his subjects. Each owrd cries for a digression, but he stays with them, keeping the eyes and the ears open.
This is about Paris, but it enters into philosophy. It is about as abstract as I will let it get, but the crossing with the image, the relation to that sociology. A teacup does contain the world; so does Marine Vlady.
Everything can contain its opposite, or could be its opposite. That is the arbitrary nature of words? Who is she? A fractured jigsaw that can't be put back together. Each object can also be something else. Deconstruction, verging on the po-mo, in film.
This is a way of seeing; Sontag argues the content of the ideas is less important, which is true to an extent, but I still would feel I was missing something if they were ignored. The slogans that hit us; how do we take in words about Vietnam out of the mouths of children? Violence and life, how do we live with them, how do we coexist. We forget about everything. Then we listen. So we go back to zero.
Masculin / Feminin
Jean-Luc Godard - 1966
With this work, Godard foregrounds what has always been there; the question of his own role. Or rather, he problematises it more than before. Just by stepping into the shoes, by enacting what happened, one does not understand them. Is this a counter to 'if you take away the inside, you find the soul'? It surely is in dialogue with his role, in, say, 'Vivre Sa Vie', as the social investigator who just needs to probe harder to understand.... he doesn't know what understanding means, or at least that is the intial question. It is about understanding the modern world.
This, oddly enough, means we get more 'identification' than usual. The Leaud model thinks he can understand revolution, the conditions of life. But he is hopeless, undermined, gets nowhere. He tries to act like a movie star, but they want to talk about Sandy Shaw. He surely is Godard's stand-in to some extent.
Godard sees possibilities in the documentary, in some form of interview. He cuts to shots of street-filming. The use of ideas as slogans, intertitles and so on, at once put across modern life as this series of hopes, disconnections from the 'truth', and the array of responses their are to the world. In form, it is trying to help but, like Leaud, finding little behind the slogans. But that is just his life; and he can't escape it. He and we find ourselves always on the edges of what should be the 'film'; little bits of great heartbreaking situations, actors, killings, and so on. There is an element of absurdism, but also of the idea of the after the lord mayor's show character, of not being able to be truly involved in that. The wish to is Marx; modern life, love affairs and commerce, are Coca-Cola. Or well, love, may cross somewhere.
So Godard wants some kind of documentary. Not to ask leading questions. Though one always must. Wisdom is trying to see clearly. This leads to, stylistically, a much less elaborate film than before. There are some tracks, but largely we have pretty sober straight twos or threes, and singles. This might be Godard's contribution to the neo-realist legacy. We do see the places the young Parisians of '66 live in. We do hear their thoughts, see the streets. And the interviews. What are these? Investigations? How to not know the answers before we ask the questions? There must be theory, but that should be the start of the debate, not the end. The key interview is maybe the long one, with Miss 19. She is clueless, though she sincerely tries to answer, and is revealing. I partly felt this was almost cruel. It desperately tries not to be, but is. Must one be cruel? Why did I say she is 'clueless'? What did I want from her. How can I learn to see? Godard moves towards (I know this, I've seen some of what comes after!) the use of 'documentary' footage, ideas directly given, and other things (they tell us two or three things...). How to put them together? The difficulty, frankly the worry and the paranoia here, are evident. A film of questions.
And we give it all for two or three shots. Hanging around against the wall, General Doinel waiting for the car. Legging it up to the projection box. That cut, classical profundity to the painful but true inconsequentiality of modernity (so inconsequential as to be consequential), from the camps to the pop charts, an incredible cut, one brutal one among others here. A film less sure of itself than 'Vivre Sa Vie' and 'Le Mepris'.
With this work, Godard foregrounds what has always been there; the question of his own role. Or rather, he problematises it more than before. Just by stepping into the shoes, by enacting what happened, one does not understand them. Is this a counter to 'if you take away the inside, you find the soul'? It surely is in dialogue with his role, in, say, 'Vivre Sa Vie', as the social investigator who just needs to probe harder to understand.... he doesn't know what understanding means, or at least that is the intial question. It is about understanding the modern world.
This, oddly enough, means we get more 'identification' than usual. The Leaud model thinks he can understand revolution, the conditions of life. But he is hopeless, undermined, gets nowhere. He tries to act like a movie star, but they want to talk about Sandy Shaw. He surely is Godard's stand-in to some extent.
Godard sees possibilities in the documentary, in some form of interview. He cuts to shots of street-filming. The use of ideas as slogans, intertitles and so on, at once put across modern life as this series of hopes, disconnections from the 'truth', and the array of responses their are to the world. In form, it is trying to help but, like Leaud, finding little behind the slogans. But that is just his life; and he can't escape it. He and we find ourselves always on the edges of what should be the 'film'; little bits of great heartbreaking situations, actors, killings, and so on. There is an element of absurdism, but also of the idea of the after the lord mayor's show character, of not being able to be truly involved in that. The wish to is Marx; modern life, love affairs and commerce, are Coca-Cola. Or well, love, may cross somewhere.
So Godard wants some kind of documentary. Not to ask leading questions. Though one always must. Wisdom is trying to see clearly. This leads to, stylistically, a much less elaborate film than before. There are some tracks, but largely we have pretty sober straight twos or threes, and singles. This might be Godard's contribution to the neo-realist legacy. We do see the places the young Parisians of '66 live in. We do hear their thoughts, see the streets. And the interviews. What are these? Investigations? How to not know the answers before we ask the questions? There must be theory, but that should be the start of the debate, not the end. The key interview is maybe the long one, with Miss 19. She is clueless, though she sincerely tries to answer, and is revealing. I partly felt this was almost cruel. It desperately tries not to be, but is. Must one be cruel? Why did I say she is 'clueless'? What did I want from her. How can I learn to see? Godard moves towards (I know this, I've seen some of what comes after!) the use of 'documentary' footage, ideas directly given, and other things (they tell us two or three things...). How to put them together? The difficulty, frankly the worry and the paranoia here, are evident. A film of questions.
And we give it all for two or three shots. Hanging around against the wall, General Doinel waiting for the car. Legging it up to the projection box. That cut, classical profundity to the painful but true inconsequentiality of modernity (so inconsequential as to be consequential), from the camps to the pop charts, an incredible cut, one brutal one among others here. A film less sure of itself than 'Vivre Sa Vie' and 'Le Mepris'.
The Tree Of Life
Terrence Malick - 2011
This really is a pretty terrible. Let me try and say something nice first; Malick does use images when he wants an emotion, a feeling, or whatever rather than words. This doesn't mean he is a visual storyteller; there is no real story hear to speak of, certainly none of any complexity.
This is an unattractive film. Shot with handheld or steadycam swooping about. It is postcardism constantly, one big pretty pciture. Turns out things look pretty damn big if you film them from a low angle. And that the golden hour, constantly over and over again, is quite pretty. That's about it, except for some abstract graphics. No real interest in compostion or content or anything, just orangey light and sillouhettes, or gauzes, over and over again. Insipid.
And cliche after cliche follow in the action; of what 'cruel children' is, of what 'fun' is, and so on. There is a complete lack of imagination. There is no complexity.
Of course, the philosophy is at once idiotic and massively offensive. Incredinly rich people, out of a Gap advert, have a bit of mumbo jumbo. The two or so non-WASPS they come across are aesthetic events, curious for the fact of their existence. Their is even a weird part where it is suggested that, and I think this was accidental, you need to be rich to be happy. Though I sure as well don't want to be happy if it's Malick's idea.
The only not completely empty thing here is the 'Death Of A Salesman' Brad Pitt parts, which are all the same massively underdeveloped, undermined, and so familiar as to offer nothing really of interest. The mother is a complete blockhead. This is really a vapid, ugly, dull, stupid film.
This really is a pretty terrible. Let me try and say something nice first; Malick does use images when he wants an emotion, a feeling, or whatever rather than words. This doesn't mean he is a visual storyteller; there is no real story hear to speak of, certainly none of any complexity.
This is an unattractive film. Shot with handheld or steadycam swooping about. It is postcardism constantly, one big pretty pciture. Turns out things look pretty damn big if you film them from a low angle. And that the golden hour, constantly over and over again, is quite pretty. That's about it, except for some abstract graphics. No real interest in compostion or content or anything, just orangey light and sillouhettes, or gauzes, over and over again. Insipid.
And cliche after cliche follow in the action; of what 'cruel children' is, of what 'fun' is, and so on. There is a complete lack of imagination. There is no complexity.
Of course, the philosophy is at once idiotic and massively offensive. Incredinly rich people, out of a Gap advert, have a bit of mumbo jumbo. The two or so non-WASPS they come across are aesthetic events, curious for the fact of their existence. Their is even a weird part where it is suggested that, and I think this was accidental, you need to be rich to be happy. Though I sure as well don't want to be happy if it's Malick's idea.
The only not completely empty thing here is the 'Death Of A Salesman' Brad Pitt parts, which are all the same massively underdeveloped, undermined, and so familiar as to offer nothing really of interest. The mother is a complete blockhead. This is really a vapid, ugly, dull, stupid film.
Le Mepris
Jean-Luc Godard - 1963
I'll try and say some things about this great film by splitting into three parts. Any of the comments I make can surely apply to the other parts; the division is pretty much arbitrary, around when they crossed my mind (the division itself seems slightly justified; pretty flat, flat, Capri; if not definitive).
The first section, before Capri. Those wonderful, beautiful stately horizontal tracks. This is is so many ways an elogy for beauty, for classical art and its remnants in the modern renaissance and so on; for beauty. It is incredibly moving. We have those statues, eyes coloured. Throughout, we see the ancient as modern, the modern as ancient. Or as that just our hubris; was Ulysses really a modern neurotic. I have to side with Lang; it's a bad way of looking at things. The music, (which Greenaway has been listening to) makes us conscious that we are manipulated, pushed into this position; it doesn't lessen the effect. And then there is Lang. What beauty he has created, what cinema. Simply, what a great man, dwarfing those around him, all ironies aside. Yet Godard won't let us revel; ugliness so quickly intrudes, for all the bare emotion here. A key question here also seems to be; what is Bardot in the film? We look at Bardot, we look at her body. How is it possible to treat her, and not deserve her contempt? Godard again asks, who is he really filming? And we have a lot of the translation adventures in the first part. The lack of communication, the idiocy, cruelty in that. It is extremely funny, also, or because.
The second section, the flat. An excrutiatingly long analysis of a marriage, of the fluctuations, a meditation on screen time. Shot in those long takes, with the panning camera from a still point (and some wonderful framings; colour palette throughout is just...). And yet we know an eternity passes. How? The cinema. 'Realistically' justified, she can change dresses, hair, the house can change. The vacillations can seem ridiculous, all in one place. Cross this with Angelopoulos, past and present in the frame together; cinema and history. It is just.... The complexities of a relationship in time, all in one shot, a shot through time. Time is so important in this film; the long distances and slow movements, and the swelling music, called to mind the idea of cinema as movement through time, and for me the greatest single shots; 'La Dolce Vita', 'L'Eclisse' and 'Il Deserto Rosso', 'Kane'. And we also have the essayistic breaks in this movement. The turn to a voiceover and the image, sound and image together. This scene flaunts its length, toys with the audience; it isn't purely pleaurable, I partly thought 'it goes on too long'. But it might also be one of the greatest films there is.
The final section; Capri. We have the notion of fate. Godard's repeated motif; what one must do to live in the world. Again, Dreyer. Why must money shape the way things are? But as Lang says, the world is as it is. How to live with that, compromise. We see Piccolli compromise here, 'be to careful', allow his wife to go off with Palance. We see it isn't good enough. But how else to live? What does Lang do? Lang damn well fights, every inch of the way, every second, against the Palance's who are the world (who is not evil, who does have his phrases; he's just an idiot. But as he tells us, let's not get too superior, try to humiliate; it's his world). What Piccolli finds himsself in is a situation where he, like us, in the cinema and life, live in a world where we cannot but deseverve contempt for what we do (to survive is to prostitute oneself). There is no real exit here. There is just art, beauty, Lang. Does Godard disagree with Lang's boats beating on (why can't I think of a Lang phrase? He's light years ahead of Fitzgerald). Well, it's a different perspective, one of many in Godard;s films. The death of Bardot and Palance is, with the monumentalism, deserving of that move in, the swell and the 'Scope. This world has its fatefulness, it's measure, but always undercut. Not tragic, but in memory of it. Having to live, having to lose, deserving contempt.
I'll try and say some things about this great film by splitting into three parts. Any of the comments I make can surely apply to the other parts; the division is pretty much arbitrary, around when they crossed my mind (the division itself seems slightly justified; pretty flat, flat, Capri; if not definitive).
The first section, before Capri. Those wonderful, beautiful stately horizontal tracks. This is is so many ways an elogy for beauty, for classical art and its remnants in the modern renaissance and so on; for beauty. It is incredibly moving. We have those statues, eyes coloured. Throughout, we see the ancient as modern, the modern as ancient. Or as that just our hubris; was Ulysses really a modern neurotic. I have to side with Lang; it's a bad way of looking at things. The music, (which Greenaway has been listening to) makes us conscious that we are manipulated, pushed into this position; it doesn't lessen the effect. And then there is Lang. What beauty he has created, what cinema. Simply, what a great man, dwarfing those around him, all ironies aside. Yet Godard won't let us revel; ugliness so quickly intrudes, for all the bare emotion here. A key question here also seems to be; what is Bardot in the film? We look at Bardot, we look at her body. How is it possible to treat her, and not deserve her contempt? Godard again asks, who is he really filming? And we have a lot of the translation adventures in the first part. The lack of communication, the idiocy, cruelty in that. It is extremely funny, also, or because.
The second section, the flat. An excrutiatingly long analysis of a marriage, of the fluctuations, a meditation on screen time. Shot in those long takes, with the panning camera from a still point (and some wonderful framings; colour palette throughout is just...). And yet we know an eternity passes. How? The cinema. 'Realistically' justified, she can change dresses, hair, the house can change. The vacillations can seem ridiculous, all in one place. Cross this with Angelopoulos, past and present in the frame together; cinema and history. It is just.... The complexities of a relationship in time, all in one shot, a shot through time. Time is so important in this film; the long distances and slow movements, and the swelling music, called to mind the idea of cinema as movement through time, and for me the greatest single shots; 'La Dolce Vita', 'L'Eclisse' and 'Il Deserto Rosso', 'Kane'. And we also have the essayistic breaks in this movement. The turn to a voiceover and the image, sound and image together. This scene flaunts its length, toys with the audience; it isn't purely pleaurable, I partly thought 'it goes on too long'. But it might also be one of the greatest films there is.
The final section; Capri. We have the notion of fate. Godard's repeated motif; what one must do to live in the world. Again, Dreyer. Why must money shape the way things are? But as Lang says, the world is as it is. How to live with that, compromise. We see Piccolli compromise here, 'be to careful', allow his wife to go off with Palance. We see it isn't good enough. But how else to live? What does Lang do? Lang damn well fights, every inch of the way, every second, against the Palance's who are the world (who is not evil, who does have his phrases; he's just an idiot. But as he tells us, let's not get too superior, try to humiliate; it's his world). What Piccolli finds himsself in is a situation where he, like us, in the cinema and life, live in a world where we cannot but deseverve contempt for what we do (to survive is to prostitute oneself). There is no real exit here. There is just art, beauty, Lang. Does Godard disagree with Lang's boats beating on (why can't I think of a Lang phrase? He's light years ahead of Fitzgerald). Well, it's a different perspective, one of many in Godard;s films. The death of Bardot and Palance is, with the monumentalism, deserving of that move in, the swell and the 'Scope. This world has its fatefulness, it's measure, but always undercut. Not tragic, but in memory of it. Having to live, having to lose, deserving contempt.
Monday 18 July 2011
Master Of The House
Carl Theodor Dreyer - 1925
Initially, the fast, late silent edit seems to move around fast; from a pretty wide, deep, realist establishing of the house, to side-views and others, which is definitively not continuity. It analyses the scene. Then it strikes; Dreyer has put huge amounts of this film around eyeline matches.
Considering Dreyer, in my experince, is one of the great directors who reinvents their cinema with every work, I was surprised, in that way, how formally similar this was to 'Jeanne d'Arc' (just three years later). That is; close-ups, the study of the face, eyeline matches (studies of a face; 'Vivre Sa Vie'). With generally strong side light, strong but misty, and the average tone of the palette being a dark grey.
Dreyer, like Hitchock (or rather Hitchcock, like Dreyer; I am sure Hitchcock knew and fully took in Dreyer), not only uses these matches but also displays sheer brilliance, thought, an exciting camera position, invention, in every shot. The embrace from behind the head, so we only see the hands come around the neck, for example..
Dreyer is also deeply creative in his montage. Cutting in the father's entry with the smiles or cries of the baby, for example, who is not plot-wise key to the action, gives the sense of the whole tone. Kuleshov at work
The plot is incredibly simple; yet it is a joyful and engrossing film to watch. The focus on the everyday chores is done briskly but, in the scheme of film time, arguably slow. We usually have a still camera, but occassionally those very neat horizontal tracks are made. These are revelatory moments; a connection is made across the field where people seem ignorant of each other. Even from one hand making a sandwhich to another.
What is the abiding sense of the film. Dreyer makes his actor's great; they express straight, primal emotions, daring to go to each other, yet retain a complexity and the enigma of the face, perhaps due to the cinematic medium and the eyeline matches. This film can be upbeat, brisk, but one also can't say there isn't a sense of impending doom as well. They are all watching each other, voyeurs even. One binds the other, as the plot goes the relations are reversed. There is something deeply sado-masochistic in the conclusions. Dreyer goes beyond the accepted emotions.
One more thing; Dreyer is here pretty sociologically acute. This is the baseline, an often seen as 'unglamorous' social issue, which Dreyer deals with. As he does economic hardsip, unemployment. This is perhaps Dreyer's, of what I have seen, most economically minded film, which I particularly appreciate. It, like all his films, deals with the seemingly average lives, not spectacular in on the surface overlarge; but gives them weight, lets us see, for all their mistakes, a dignity and the truth there.
Initially, the fast, late silent edit seems to move around fast; from a pretty wide, deep, realist establishing of the house, to side-views and others, which is definitively not continuity. It analyses the scene. Then it strikes; Dreyer has put huge amounts of this film around eyeline matches.
Considering Dreyer, in my experince, is one of the great directors who reinvents their cinema with every work, I was surprised, in that way, how formally similar this was to 'Jeanne d'Arc' (just three years later). That is; close-ups, the study of the face, eyeline matches (studies of a face; 'Vivre Sa Vie'). With generally strong side light, strong but misty, and the average tone of the palette being a dark grey.
Dreyer, like Hitchock (or rather Hitchcock, like Dreyer; I am sure Hitchcock knew and fully took in Dreyer), not only uses these matches but also displays sheer brilliance, thought, an exciting camera position, invention, in every shot. The embrace from behind the head, so we only see the hands come around the neck, for example..
Dreyer is also deeply creative in his montage. Cutting in the father's entry with the smiles or cries of the baby, for example, who is not plot-wise key to the action, gives the sense of the whole tone. Kuleshov at work
The plot is incredibly simple; yet it is a joyful and engrossing film to watch. The focus on the everyday chores is done briskly but, in the scheme of film time, arguably slow. We usually have a still camera, but occassionally those very neat horizontal tracks are made. These are revelatory moments; a connection is made across the field where people seem ignorant of each other. Even from one hand making a sandwhich to another.
What is the abiding sense of the film. Dreyer makes his actor's great; they express straight, primal emotions, daring to go to each other, yet retain a complexity and the enigma of the face, perhaps due to the cinematic medium and the eyeline matches. This film can be upbeat, brisk, but one also can't say there isn't a sense of impending doom as well. They are all watching each other, voyeurs even. One binds the other, as the plot goes the relations are reversed. There is something deeply sado-masochistic in the conclusions. Dreyer goes beyond the accepted emotions.
One more thing; Dreyer is here pretty sociologically acute. This is the baseline, an often seen as 'unglamorous' social issue, which Dreyer deals with. As he does economic hardsip, unemployment. This is perhaps Dreyer's, of what I have seen, most economically minded film, which I particularly appreciate. It, like all his films, deals with the seemingly average lives, not spectacular in on the surface overlarge; but gives them weight, lets us see, for all their mistakes, a dignity and the truth there.
Vivre Sa Vie
Jean-Luc Godard - 1962
It's, again, not much use giving my normal type of analysis; there is enough in each scene to write a book on, not that I would feel particularly able to go beyond speculation. It's a film, not a code, after all. But I'll say a few things.
If I, watching it here, had a chief subject, it was the identity. The soul, what you get if you take away the inside. What are we filming? Anna Karina, a 1962 prostitute, a film star. Godard fractures the identity through his Brechtian titles, some long takes, keeping the camera on when Karina fluffs a line, looks at the camera, before a shot starts.
How is she a cinema star? Through the association with Joan of Arc. Through her place as a model of Godard, made clear as the effective voiceover of the 'Oval Portrait' chapter, where sound is shown seperate from image. In the documentary voiceover parts, in the movements to song, we see her for what she (in part) is; someone in a film, someone Godard is filming, a film star. With all these identities in place, is she free? One vpice tells us she is; the words. Does the image agree? Cinema tells us she must follow a path; hence the Aldrich-esque conclusion, necessary for the binded film star.
Lets look at two techniques of these parts, these identities, never really seperate. We have the camera that, rather than going into SRS, swings back and forth; is this a reaction against the eyeline matches of Dreyer we have just seen? A metaphor for the shifting identities? A clear show of the manipulation of our positions?
By the by; Godard's horizontal pans, smooth, are really wonderful. With the sound design, it shows us we are in a location, not part of a film set... perhaps. It creates, by its ease, a whole location.
With these identities, what can a film show? When it turns to a newsreel documentary; do we believe the sound, or the image, which seems in a way to enact, but do we see more, or because it's not 'real', and we might traditionally say the words 'are real', less? Are the words lying without the image? But we know that the images are 'fiction'! This relates to the philosopher's discussion of language; we have to balance, to contemplate, perhaps in the words, the 'facts', and we have to live. What is Godard's cinema? Sort of both...
What does this, as documentary, tell us about? Paris, the social situation in '62? That's what it's a documentary about. About the nature of film? Godard wants to talk about that? About the 'human condition'; on the surface, not so much. Freedom ,identity, surely? But always refracted through the cinema, that is how these themes are presented. After all, it's a film.
It's, again, not much use giving my normal type of analysis; there is enough in each scene to write a book on, not that I would feel particularly able to go beyond speculation. It's a film, not a code, after all. But I'll say a few things.
If I, watching it here, had a chief subject, it was the identity. The soul, what you get if you take away the inside. What are we filming? Anna Karina, a 1962 prostitute, a film star. Godard fractures the identity through his Brechtian titles, some long takes, keeping the camera on when Karina fluffs a line, looks at the camera, before a shot starts.
How is she a cinema star? Through the association with Joan of Arc. Through her place as a model of Godard, made clear as the effective voiceover of the 'Oval Portrait' chapter, where sound is shown seperate from image. In the documentary voiceover parts, in the movements to song, we see her for what she (in part) is; someone in a film, someone Godard is filming, a film star. With all these identities in place, is she free? One vpice tells us she is; the words. Does the image agree? Cinema tells us she must follow a path; hence the Aldrich-esque conclusion, necessary for the binded film star.
Lets look at two techniques of these parts, these identities, never really seperate. We have the camera that, rather than going into SRS, swings back and forth; is this a reaction against the eyeline matches of Dreyer we have just seen? A metaphor for the shifting identities? A clear show of the manipulation of our positions?
By the by; Godard's horizontal pans, smooth, are really wonderful. With the sound design, it shows us we are in a location, not part of a film set... perhaps. It creates, by its ease, a whole location.
With these identities, what can a film show? When it turns to a newsreel documentary; do we believe the sound, or the image, which seems in a way to enact, but do we see more, or because it's not 'real', and we might traditionally say the words 'are real', less? Are the words lying without the image? But we know that the images are 'fiction'! This relates to the philosopher's discussion of language; we have to balance, to contemplate, perhaps in the words, the 'facts', and we have to live. What is Godard's cinema? Sort of both...
What does this, as documentary, tell us about? Paris, the social situation in '62? That's what it's a documentary about. About the nature of film? Godard wants to talk about that? About the 'human condition'; on the surface, not so much. Freedom ,identity, surely? But always refracted through the cinema, that is how these themes are presented. After all, it's a film.
The Wild Bunch
Sam Peckinpah - 1969
I was really very impressed by this. Peckinpah is cinematic; it's about his images. And what... striking....ones they are.
How does Pecknipah operate here? Quick cuts, always quick cuts. That doesn't have to mean close-ups though, or at least not extreme close-ups. We go between lots of medium shots much of the time, even pretty long shots. These aren't classically set up, but they're pretty long. The pananvision adds to this impression. It's not in the edit Peckinpah tries to really hit you, but what's going on in the scene. He can move from closer to longer with no real pattern; just whatever is visually best at that time.
The film seems broken up into longer and shorter segments. The longer ones are contemplative; I don't feel Peckinpah is a master of novelistic narrative. He rather wants to go for the look, that sweaty circulairty of time. The sound mix is, as with all elements, grubby, dusty, not clean dialogue. People growl lowly, or pretty much give the defintion of 'bark' at each other.
I saw the 135 minute 'director's cut' (one of many, I believe). Yet even this seemed, in mayn ways, to be a cut of a longer film. Bits are skipped over pretty quickly. There are all kinds of things thrown in, quite telegraphed flashbacks, sudden departures. Their isn't really a clear line of drama; I'm not sure if Peckinpah was trying to build up suspense, but he doesn't really succeed in doing so, cutting all wrong compared to the Hitchcockian methods of that.
From these contemplative scenes, bathed with ant covered scorpions, shots of children, men looking moody, nasty things happening, we are then delivered to the action sequences, which notably open and close the picture. Devices used in these are shared throughout the film; lots and lots of zooms, long lenses, fast panning and scanning, editing that is not non-continuity, but very loose.
These clear are pretty sensational, for all the copying. Extremely quickly edited, we don't really know where we are. We have the slow-motion movements, flying everywhere. Most acutely, we have those spatterings, blow-ups of blood off.
And we have woman thrown in front of the guns, people just being horrendously nasty, no honour, no happiness, no nothing. People bursting out laughing over torture, no such thing as trust or any good values, just completely negative. That is Peckinpah's world, and it remains shockingly brutal. The only ones who escape being a lacivious whore, an idiot man money-grubbing, or something equally horrendous, is a couple of older males, who are all these things, but remember that a moral compass once existed. That these figures are the only ones who have even a memory us what makes the mysoginisitic element. We should at least remember, having said that, that Pecknipah creates such a complete world that it's pretty complicated to assess as clearly as that. Any and every character can torture, murder, humiliate, and most importantly, degrade, and always responf 'why not'?'/
There isn't really comradeship, except in how they laugh together at something brutal. I would argue Peckinpah's relation to the genre is subverting by staying within, extending; that murder and so on are always there. He just takes it beyond loyalty or trust or these 'old fashioned' things, and gives us scorpions, kids with guns, every person about to be brutally killed, dwelling on horror. All in cinematic ways.
I was really very impressed by this. Peckinpah is cinematic; it's about his images. And what... striking....ones they are.
How does Pecknipah operate here? Quick cuts, always quick cuts. That doesn't have to mean close-ups though, or at least not extreme close-ups. We go between lots of medium shots much of the time, even pretty long shots. These aren't classically set up, but they're pretty long. The pananvision adds to this impression. It's not in the edit Peckinpah tries to really hit you, but what's going on in the scene. He can move from closer to longer with no real pattern; just whatever is visually best at that time.
The film seems broken up into longer and shorter segments. The longer ones are contemplative; I don't feel Peckinpah is a master of novelistic narrative. He rather wants to go for the look, that sweaty circulairty of time. The sound mix is, as with all elements, grubby, dusty, not clean dialogue. People growl lowly, or pretty much give the defintion of 'bark' at each other.
I saw the 135 minute 'director's cut' (one of many, I believe). Yet even this seemed, in mayn ways, to be a cut of a longer film. Bits are skipped over pretty quickly. There are all kinds of things thrown in, quite telegraphed flashbacks, sudden departures. Their isn't really a clear line of drama; I'm not sure if Peckinpah was trying to build up suspense, but he doesn't really succeed in doing so, cutting all wrong compared to the Hitchcockian methods of that.
From these contemplative scenes, bathed with ant covered scorpions, shots of children, men looking moody, nasty things happening, we are then delivered to the action sequences, which notably open and close the picture. Devices used in these are shared throughout the film; lots and lots of zooms, long lenses, fast panning and scanning, editing that is not non-continuity, but very loose.
These clear are pretty sensational, for all the copying. Extremely quickly edited, we don't really know where we are. We have the slow-motion movements, flying everywhere. Most acutely, we have those spatterings, blow-ups of blood off.
And we have woman thrown in front of the guns, people just being horrendously nasty, no honour, no happiness, no nothing. People bursting out laughing over torture, no such thing as trust or any good values, just completely negative. That is Peckinpah's world, and it remains shockingly brutal. The only ones who escape being a lacivious whore, an idiot man money-grubbing, or something equally horrendous, is a couple of older males, who are all these things, but remember that a moral compass once existed. That these figures are the only ones who have even a memory us what makes the mysoginisitic element. We should at least remember, having said that, that Pecknipah creates such a complete world that it's pretty complicated to assess as clearly as that. Any and every character can torture, murder, humiliate, and most importantly, degrade, and always responf 'why not'?'/
There isn't really comradeship, except in how they laugh together at something brutal. I would argue Peckinpah's relation to the genre is subverting by staying within, extending; that murder and so on are always there. He just takes it beyond loyalty or trust or these 'old fashioned' things, and gives us scorpions, kids with guns, every person about to be brutally killed, dwelling on horror. All in cinematic ways.
Partie de Campagne
Jean Renoir - 1936
Forty minutes, of charm, of wonder. Renoir's style at this point isn't really the long shot, long take one. He is really pretty analytical, cutting in, and going from person to person. He does use depth, most famously in the scene by the window. But even this scene hardly lasts a few seconds.
This is the most impressionist film I can remember seeing of Renoir's. Two particular shots come to mind; the back and forth (and the low angle still) of the girl on the swing, and that backwards track, a sensational shot, through the rain on the river.
The great joy of this film is partly in that fresh and easy central performance, an almost miraculous mixture of freedom and sadness. And then of course, 'nature'. Shot in incredible, natural light, at once extremely bright and soft. We have dappling... it's really the light of the place, and what a wonder it is. This film is poetic in its montage of the swaying reeds by the river, the flow of the water.. a wonderful dream.
That mixture of real eroticism, natural wishes, conventions, transience, return; perhaps it is on the more sentimental side of Renoir's pictures. With Bataille' central performance, all these traits are put together in a forty mintues of wonder. Eseential.
Forty minutes, of charm, of wonder. Renoir's style at this point isn't really the long shot, long take one. He is really pretty analytical, cutting in, and going from person to person. He does use depth, most famously in the scene by the window. But even this scene hardly lasts a few seconds.
This is the most impressionist film I can remember seeing of Renoir's. Two particular shots come to mind; the back and forth (and the low angle still) of the girl on the swing, and that backwards track, a sensational shot, through the rain on the river.
The great joy of this film is partly in that fresh and easy central performance, an almost miraculous mixture of freedom and sadness. And then of course, 'nature'. Shot in incredible, natural light, at once extremely bright and soft. We have dappling... it's really the light of the place, and what a wonder it is. This film is poetic in its montage of the swaying reeds by the river, the flow of the water.. a wonderful dream.
That mixture of real eroticism, natural wishes, conventions, transience, return; perhaps it is on the more sentimental side of Renoir's pictures. With Bataille' central performance, all these traits are put together in a forty mintues of wonder. Eseential.
Sunday 17 July 2011
When A Woman Ascends The Stairs
Mikio Naruse - 1960
I love Naruse's repeated motif of the woman approaching the stairs. Low angle look up ,pause, track along with her feet, at the top. There are some great bits of editing as we move further into the bars. The edit here, especially at the start, can be a little surprising. Graphically discontinuous cuts, making us have to reprocess the image, of couples talking in the bar, as well as some pretty much graphically continous jumps across time and space, give this feel. Altogehter, this is surely a more 'modern' picture than 'Late Chrysanthemums' or 'Floating Clouds', as much for the locale as anything.
Neverthless, it shares much with these other two works. The matter of fact attitude towards sex and the body (the bathing in 'Late Chrysanthemums' is a good example, and the rape reference in that film as well). The obsession with money, money, money, it is a driving force behind nearly all the action. The repetitious music. The long, twisting narratives. The nearly entirely awful men, or rather cruel, often not intentionally. The woman trying to escape, becomg cruel in this process, ultimately failing. It is all pretty grim stuff, for all the quiet beauty Naruse also shows.
I love Naruse's repeated motif of the woman approaching the stairs. Low angle look up ,pause, track along with her feet, at the top. There are some great bits of editing as we move further into the bars. The edit here, especially at the start, can be a little surprising. Graphically discontinuous cuts, making us have to reprocess the image, of couples talking in the bar, as well as some pretty much graphically continous jumps across time and space, give this feel. Altogehter, this is surely a more 'modern' picture than 'Late Chrysanthemums' or 'Floating Clouds', as much for the locale as anything.
Neverthless, it shares much with these other two works. The matter of fact attitude towards sex and the body (the bathing in 'Late Chrysanthemums' is a good example, and the rape reference in that film as well). The obsession with money, money, money, it is a driving force behind nearly all the action. The repetitious music. The long, twisting narratives. The nearly entirely awful men, or rather cruel, often not intentionally. The woman trying to escape, becomg cruel in this process, ultimately failing. It is all pretty grim stuff, for all the quiet beauty Naruse also shows.
Floating Clouds
Mikio Naruse - 1955
Some fascinating decisions in the edit here. The two stories, when crosscut, always seem to have a connection, This can be almost thematic, they are both thinking about money, or wandering, or it can some form of graphic match, often both walking. The theme of walking is big here; especially the walk together. This is repeated as a motif throughout the film, apart from the first sequence taking in a single smooth track. This repetition, tracing over old steps, is important thematically and also reflected in the repetions of the music.
The lighting is not quite so distinctive as in 'Late Chrysanthemums', but I would still argue that Naruse generally does not exactly flood his sets.
And those cuts, the flashback at the start. Four or five years before 'Hiroshima Mon Amour' we have a non-cued flashback. I kept anticipating this to happen again, which made me get a little confused, which may be my fault rather than the films.
The telling of the story is certainly complex, perhaps not totally a positive. I wouldn't say Naruse narrates in an economical way his themes; it can be a little baggy. This may partly be down to how, formally with all the SRS, this isn't particularly exciting much of the time. Scenes talking in a room can get a bit samey.
Nonethless, there are incredibly powerful parts here. The theme, again making us cross with Resnais, of at once the inadequacy but the tugging persistence of memory is present. The man isn't up to much; but the relationship goes on, in this strange back and forth. Leading to a remarkably affecting conclusion.
Some fascinating decisions in the edit here. The two stories, when crosscut, always seem to have a connection, This can be almost thematic, they are both thinking about money, or wandering, or it can some form of graphic match, often both walking. The theme of walking is big here; especially the walk together. This is repeated as a motif throughout the film, apart from the first sequence taking in a single smooth track. This repetition, tracing over old steps, is important thematically and also reflected in the repetions of the music.
The lighting is not quite so distinctive as in 'Late Chrysanthemums', but I would still argue that Naruse generally does not exactly flood his sets.
And those cuts, the flashback at the start. Four or five years before 'Hiroshima Mon Amour' we have a non-cued flashback. I kept anticipating this to happen again, which made me get a little confused, which may be my fault rather than the films.
The telling of the story is certainly complex, perhaps not totally a positive. I wouldn't say Naruse narrates in an economical way his themes; it can be a little baggy. This may partly be down to how, formally with all the SRS, this isn't particularly exciting much of the time. Scenes talking in a room can get a bit samey.
Nonethless, there are incredibly powerful parts here. The theme, again making us cross with Resnais, of at once the inadequacy but the tugging persistence of memory is present. The man isn't up to much; but the relationship goes on, in this strange back and forth. Leading to a remarkably affecting conclusion.
La Caporal Epingle
Jean Renoir - 1962
In many ways, this is a return to old style, '30's Renoir; not that I have found his post-war period formally entirely different, though there are some.
By classic Renoir I mean we are amongst the men, in the POW camp, apart from the castle thing so much like 'La Grande Illusion' in thoughts of class, loyalty, survival. We have the men chatting, in long shots, with maybe not so much movement but otherwise that mis-en-scene of moving flanks and great characterisation.
The world here seems to revolve around luck; luck if one escapes, how one lives. It shows that even in what appears outside so smooth, it's really just people running it. Not that this means brutality doesn't exist. We also have a pretty heroic figure.
In many ways, this is a return to old style, '30's Renoir; not that I have found his post-war period formally entirely different, though there are some.
By classic Renoir I mean we are amongst the men, in the POW camp, apart from the castle thing so much like 'La Grande Illusion' in thoughts of class, loyalty, survival. We have the men chatting, in long shots, with maybe not so much movement but otherwise that mis-en-scene of moving flanks and great characterisation.
The world here seems to revolve around luck; luck if one escapes, how one lives. It shows that even in what appears outside so smooth, it's really just people running it. Not that this means brutality doesn't exist. We also have a pretty heroic figure.
Le Dejuner Sur L'Herbe
Jean Renoir - 1959
Stylistically, this could, apart from the colour, nearly be Renoir in the '30s. The shots are longer, perhaps the takes also, and we have that classic sitting around, talking about life, with desires and a sense of matter.
It doesn't have the hard artificial lightingh of his other colour work I've seen; the natural lighting is so hard anyway, the brilliant sunlight. In it, the colours are so vivid, the greens really are memorable. There is something in the forest setting, the piper, the Grecian memories, almost of the locale of Starub-Huillet; the idea of life as infinitely rich, small things.
This is, in many ways, a modern film in that bodies are no longer 'mine' or 'yours', but there is a larger definition of flesh that is coefficient with scientific explanations and purely erotic ones. There is a real lustiness here, and science isn't really straightforwardly attacked; it is just a natural part of life, it nearly seems (though Renoir wants to remind us about romance). The idea of the stolid bourgeoise is best put across in the storm, where the images really come to life, in that kind of blown away dignity where we see they are ridiculous, and they are human.
Stylistically, this could, apart from the colour, nearly be Renoir in the '30s. The shots are longer, perhaps the takes also, and we have that classic sitting around, talking about life, with desires and a sense of matter.
It doesn't have the hard artificial lightingh of his other colour work I've seen; the natural lighting is so hard anyway, the brilliant sunlight. In it, the colours are so vivid, the greens really are memorable. There is something in the forest setting, the piper, the Grecian memories, almost of the locale of Starub-Huillet; the idea of life as infinitely rich, small things.
This is, in many ways, a modern film in that bodies are no longer 'mine' or 'yours', but there is a larger definition of flesh that is coefficient with scientific explanations and purely erotic ones. There is a real lustiness here, and science isn't really straightforwardly attacked; it is just a natural part of life, it nearly seems (though Renoir wants to remind us about romance). The idea of the stolid bourgeoise is best put across in the storm, where the images really come to life, in that kind of blown away dignity where we see they are ridiculous, and they are human.
Saturday 16 July 2011
Late Chrysanthemums
Mikio Naruse - 1954
Lilting, beautiful, intelligent, deeply effecting.
The establishing shots need not be at the start of the scene. They are, as we saw in Yamanaka and see in Ozu, often pushed in at the side of the frames deep, with converging lines leading to distant doorways. The camera, again thinking of Ozu here, is in a low position. It generally only moves to reframe. There are also frequent, not narrative driving shots of a road stretching deep away on the right of the frame. That various characters go down this shape (the roads can be different) gives juxtapositions, as do sights of people both coming towards us, and going away.
Naruse isn't really all that much Ozu-ean in his direction (in the pathetic amount of Ozu I have seen), in that his edit is different. He has a wonderfully smooth pace, perhaps helped by the rythmic repetitions of the music, dog barking, or other noises that follow each other through parts of the film.
His compostions raise some fundamental questions? What is a SRS sequence, and what is the line between it and an establishing shot? What I mean is that not full establishing shots, but clear two shots with a bit of the room, favour one person, and the next shot of the conversation is invariably the 'reverse' to the other partner. So if this is SRS, much of it includes both in it. There is also a lot of more traditional SRS, never impatient.
The mis-en-scene is also surprisingly dark (forgetting that this might be the print). The light is generally from above, perhaps in front, and quite harsh, but the fill seems minimal. The film is all the same quite soft, with the shades in a cloish palette. Yet, there seems a bit of depth. How? Well, the characters sink into the background, but there's not a lack of depth... this may be a matter of focussing not entirely on the character's faces.
People are always doing something. Drinking, with their hands. This is Naruse's famous focus on materiality, here principally money. It shapes the characters, what they do. This is really terrific, intense and complex, deep, dense, requiring concentration, social analysis and analysis of life. The dialogue and the image are both dense, complex, with their own thoughts and richochets between them. As I said, it requires great concentration, but it achieves quite something when one is up to it (as I am of course not always; I could get a impatient for the end, I sadly confess).
We have here women aging, it is sad, yet they are not sentimentalised. Trying to live without the worldly miseries of men, the oppression of patriarchal society, has one bitter and twisted (for all the comprehension), or just slowly fading. This is though far too simple an analysis; 'bitter and twisted' is all wrong. More like 'finding a way', that we, and she surely, know is weak. Is there a right way? We understand that the children, for all their forgetful cruelties, do, as is said, know how to live? But what for those whose way of life has greyed? Do they follow this? They must, and they can't. Their is friendship, is that enough? What would enough be? A great work.
Lilting, beautiful, intelligent, deeply effecting.
The establishing shots need not be at the start of the scene. They are, as we saw in Yamanaka and see in Ozu, often pushed in at the side of the frames deep, with converging lines leading to distant doorways. The camera, again thinking of Ozu here, is in a low position. It generally only moves to reframe. There are also frequent, not narrative driving shots of a road stretching deep away on the right of the frame. That various characters go down this shape (the roads can be different) gives juxtapositions, as do sights of people both coming towards us, and going away.
Naruse isn't really all that much Ozu-ean in his direction (in the pathetic amount of Ozu I have seen), in that his edit is different. He has a wonderfully smooth pace, perhaps helped by the rythmic repetitions of the music, dog barking, or other noises that follow each other through parts of the film.
His compostions raise some fundamental questions? What is a SRS sequence, and what is the line between it and an establishing shot? What I mean is that not full establishing shots, but clear two shots with a bit of the room, favour one person, and the next shot of the conversation is invariably the 'reverse' to the other partner. So if this is SRS, much of it includes both in it. There is also a lot of more traditional SRS, never impatient.
The mis-en-scene is also surprisingly dark (forgetting that this might be the print). The light is generally from above, perhaps in front, and quite harsh, but the fill seems minimal. The film is all the same quite soft, with the shades in a cloish palette. Yet, there seems a bit of depth. How? Well, the characters sink into the background, but there's not a lack of depth... this may be a matter of focussing not entirely on the character's faces.
People are always doing something. Drinking, with their hands. This is Naruse's famous focus on materiality, here principally money. It shapes the characters, what they do. This is really terrific, intense and complex, deep, dense, requiring concentration, social analysis and analysis of life. The dialogue and the image are both dense, complex, with their own thoughts and richochets between them. As I said, it requires great concentration, but it achieves quite something when one is up to it (as I am of course not always; I could get a impatient for the end, I sadly confess).
We have here women aging, it is sad, yet they are not sentimentalised. Trying to live without the worldly miseries of men, the oppression of patriarchal society, has one bitter and twisted (for all the comprehension), or just slowly fading. This is though far too simple an analysis; 'bitter and twisted' is all wrong. More like 'finding a way', that we, and she surely, know is weak. Is there a right way? We understand that the children, for all their forgetful cruelties, do, as is said, know how to live? But what for those whose way of life has greyed? Do they follow this? They must, and they can't. Their is friendship, is that enough? What would enough be? A great work.
La Testament Du Docteur Cordelier
Jean Renoir - 1959
Renoir for T.V.; not too different. Indeed, this is obviously a Renoir film, though maybe a few more cuts than would otherwise be. Formally, the most interesting element is probably the abstractness of the set, the lack of details. This gives that fable like wuality the framing device, otherwise unimportant I would say, gives it.
How to tell such a well known story, Jekyll and Hyde? Renoir tries to make a mystery sometimes, which is odd, as we all know what happens. I like the approach, as of the book, to work from the associate, even if he does run away from that near the end.
The updating is interesting. Jekyll is here cold and malign; like a capitalist charity giver. Renoir clearly suggests that cold evil can lie in these hearts. It all lacks the warmth of Mamoulian's version, which I frankly thought a little more passionate, but it has its moments.
Do i find, just small signs, the great humanist Renoir, the lover of the world, even a little pessimism? Human nature has misery, cruelty, that here is suggested makes life not even worthwhile; throughout Renoir, cruelty is certainly unstoppable, a 'natural' part of life. The concept of 'nature' in Renoir would interest. By the way, who is Renoir's Michael Simon? Jekyll, Hyde, or both/neither?
Renoir for T.V.; not too different. Indeed, this is obviously a Renoir film, though maybe a few more cuts than would otherwise be. Formally, the most interesting element is probably the abstractness of the set, the lack of details. This gives that fable like wuality the framing device, otherwise unimportant I would say, gives it.
How to tell such a well known story, Jekyll and Hyde? Renoir tries to make a mystery sometimes, which is odd, as we all know what happens. I like the approach, as of the book, to work from the associate, even if he does run away from that near the end.
The updating is interesting. Jekyll is here cold and malign; like a capitalist charity giver. Renoir clearly suggests that cold evil can lie in these hearts. It all lacks the warmth of Mamoulian's version, which I frankly thought a little more passionate, but it has its moments.
Do i find, just small signs, the great humanist Renoir, the lover of the world, even a little pessimism? Human nature has misery, cruelty, that here is suggested makes life not even worthwhile; throughout Renoir, cruelty is certainly unstoppable, a 'natural' part of life. The concept of 'nature' in Renoir would interest. By the way, who is Renoir's Michael Simon? Jekyll, Hyde, or both/neither?
Elena et Les Hommes
Jean Renoir - 1956
The light is so, so hard, the colours huge, in this picture.
Not my favourite Renoir. I found the plot, the farce, with short scenes and crowds, far too fast. No time to build up character, which is Renoir's genius. I found it to become tedious and, on occassion, annoying, though individual moments of rest showed that this is still the film of a great artist.
One elemtent of slightly annoying cliched Frenchness, but formal interest, was the flower seller with her song. Clearly there to, in an Ophulsian manner, show the circulairty, the game, the play of life. Existence as a mask, the world's a stage; is that pessimism?
The light is so, so hard, the colours huge, in this picture.
Not my favourite Renoir. I found the plot, the farce, with short scenes and crowds, far too fast. No time to build up character, which is Renoir's genius. I found it to become tedious and, on occassion, annoying, though individual moments of rest showed that this is still the film of a great artist.
One elemtent of slightly annoying cliched Frenchness, but formal interest, was the flower seller with her song. Clearly there to, in an Ophulsian manner, show the circulairty, the game, the play of life. Existence as a mask, the world's a stage; is that pessimism?
The River
Jean Renoir - 1951
Renoir in colour means brutal lighting. Really, hard, hard, probably even more with the film stock and the crazt sun and colours of India caught here. The shadows are black. Some deeply beautiful stuff here. Is this India? Yes and no; the story isn't a lot to do, but the place sure is.
The direction is more edit based, isolating charcters (from the sound of it, due to the production conditions).
The voiceover can be a little intrusicve (perhaps, again, necessary by the sound of the conditions).
As for the plot; the birth of women, here various ones seen. Ideas of the cruelty of youth, the natural cycle. Birth comes, as does death. There is a slight element of nature worship and placid acceptance, but also anger that life turns out this way. All are somehow 'flawed' in this world; disability, racial non-acceptance, not being so beautiful; but can purgatory be beautiful? I suspect Renoir wants it to be.
Renoir in colour means brutal lighting. Really, hard, hard, probably even more with the film stock and the crazt sun and colours of India caught here. The shadows are black. Some deeply beautiful stuff here. Is this India? Yes and no; the story isn't a lot to do, but the place sure is.
The direction is more edit based, isolating charcters (from the sound of it, due to the production conditions).
The voiceover can be a little intrusicve (perhaps, again, necessary by the sound of the conditions).
As for the plot; the birth of women, here various ones seen. Ideas of the cruelty of youth, the natural cycle. Birth comes, as does death. There is a slight element of nature worship and placid acceptance, but also anger that life turns out this way. All are somehow 'flawed' in this world; disability, racial non-acceptance, not being so beautiful; but can purgatory be beautiful? I suspect Renoir wants it to be.
Friday 15 July 2011
The Princess of Montpensier
Bertrand Tavernier - 2011
The opening movement is pretty spectacular; a fast tracking camera, left to right, through that field of war, craning up in a huge swoosh, continuing to follow; we have continuations of these massive movements throughout the picture. This is combined with a lot of SRS stuff, though not just cut on dialogue, it reflects P.O.V. among other things.
Tavernier gives great thought to the direction, each shot is used to convey the emotion, the unsaid, through eyeline matches, pans to important information, and so on. When this means sticking close to one character in an SRS, and some other features, it results in an effective picture. I didn't however, understand a lot of the decisions. At a moment of tension he had a habit of cutting to a, for me, overly elaborate high angle establishing shot, which dissipated the tension. Was this deliberate? Also, the pans and tracks, especially off the back of Renoir, were fast and jerky- little use of the tripod here, throughout- and occassionally seemed a little clumsy, swoosh pans making up for a slightly awkward staging.
Despite these reservations, I liked this film. The big 'Scope let us see children playing in the background, there were many nice details. Horses riding are always fun, especially in the long shot. The plot was pretty engaging, though I'm unsure about the acting.
Perhaps there was a slight surfeit of ideas; that we can't see love, but have faith it's there, is alluded to, but I didn't feel that every scene had justification on its own to exist. I liked this, the direction was thoughtful, but it's not a film that I would look to return to.
The opening movement is pretty spectacular; a fast tracking camera, left to right, through that field of war, craning up in a huge swoosh, continuing to follow; we have continuations of these massive movements throughout the picture. This is combined with a lot of SRS stuff, though not just cut on dialogue, it reflects P.O.V. among other things.
Tavernier gives great thought to the direction, each shot is used to convey the emotion, the unsaid, through eyeline matches, pans to important information, and so on. When this means sticking close to one character in an SRS, and some other features, it results in an effective picture. I didn't however, understand a lot of the decisions. At a moment of tension he had a habit of cutting to a, for me, overly elaborate high angle establishing shot, which dissipated the tension. Was this deliberate? Also, the pans and tracks, especially off the back of Renoir, were fast and jerky- little use of the tripod here, throughout- and occassionally seemed a little clumsy, swoosh pans making up for a slightly awkward staging.
Despite these reservations, I liked this film. The big 'Scope let us see children playing in the background, there were many nice details. Horses riding are always fun, especially in the long shot. The plot was pretty engaging, though I'm unsure about the acting.
Perhaps there was a slight surfeit of ideas; that we can't see love, but have faith it's there, is alluded to, but I didn't feel that every scene had justification on its own to exist. I liked this, the direction was thoughtful, but it's not a film that I would look to return to.
Potiche
Francois Ozon - 2011
Liked this a lot. Ozon's camera has some sweeping moves, often to start scenes; it threatens to look like Assayas for a second, with movements in and around. Then it very much calms down, partly surely due to the melodrama (of a sort; I'll call it melodrama) it is playing off. So lots of SRS and moves in on this, for emphasis (accompanied by music).
The colours and the decor are showy, their, in a way, as indications of the real horror of the bourgoise household. The clothes, the ridiculous facial hair, the colour schemes. It all rather goes with the almost absurd performances of Deneuve and Depardieu. Of course, they aren't, especially Catherine, absurd; just growing older, like we all do and will.
So what is Ozon doing with this stylization? At first, and this is the bit I really liked, he problematises the genre by attacks from outside; discomfort from the usine and from the locations visited, the problems that come up. This is as opposed to the use of the genre from inside to deal with social issues we have in a Sirk, and perhaps Fassbinder.
Ozon probably does settle into this second position, making it more of a family saga. Or rather, one to do with feminism (the factory becomes rather too happy for my tastes... though it, and a number of other issues, are cheerfully unresolved), and feminist issues are ones the genre can deal with, in a sense, by simply extending its own logic. Nevertheless, the subversions going on with the nymphomania, and the coming into power of Deneuve, are well put across.
Ozon presumably uses the screaming settings he does to get across his messages in a way people will listen to. This is though surely combined for a understanding of that genre as well. I'm not sure about all of Ozon's messages, the idea of politics being a respite, and the aformentioned factory, are slight cop-outs. What I did really like about this film was ; the early bits of the factory, and the sights of Depardieu and most particularly Deneuve, graceful and beautful as ever, simply going about their lives. This isn't mawkish about her, our memories of her (umbrellas!) but remembers wonderful things that we can take up in a way now, with memories of the past. Like Depardieu says about his socialism. Not incisive, I know, but I've seen few modern commerical pictures that even mention it, and in such an accomplished manner here.
Liked this a lot. Ozon's camera has some sweeping moves, often to start scenes; it threatens to look like Assayas for a second, with movements in and around. Then it very much calms down, partly surely due to the melodrama (of a sort; I'll call it melodrama) it is playing off. So lots of SRS and moves in on this, for emphasis (accompanied by music).
The colours and the decor are showy, their, in a way, as indications of the real horror of the bourgoise household. The clothes, the ridiculous facial hair, the colour schemes. It all rather goes with the almost absurd performances of Deneuve and Depardieu. Of course, they aren't, especially Catherine, absurd; just growing older, like we all do and will.
So what is Ozon doing with this stylization? At first, and this is the bit I really liked, he problematises the genre by attacks from outside; discomfort from the usine and from the locations visited, the problems that come up. This is as opposed to the use of the genre from inside to deal with social issues we have in a Sirk, and perhaps Fassbinder.
Ozon probably does settle into this second position, making it more of a family saga. Or rather, one to do with feminism (the factory becomes rather too happy for my tastes... though it, and a number of other issues, are cheerfully unresolved), and feminist issues are ones the genre can deal with, in a sense, by simply extending its own logic. Nevertheless, the subversions going on with the nymphomania, and the coming into power of Deneuve, are well put across.
Ozon presumably uses the screaming settings he does to get across his messages in a way people will listen to. This is though surely combined for a understanding of that genre as well. I'm not sure about all of Ozon's messages, the idea of politics being a respite, and the aformentioned factory, are slight cop-outs. What I did really like about this film was ; the early bits of the factory, and the sights of Depardieu and most particularly Deneuve, graceful and beautful as ever, simply going about their lives. This isn't mawkish about her, our memories of her (umbrellas!) but remembers wonderful things that we can take up in a way now, with memories of the past. Like Depardieu says about his socialism. Not incisive, I know, but I've seen few modern commerical pictures that even mention it, and in such an accomplished manner here.
La Marseillaise
Jean Renoir - 1938
Yet another masterpiece from Renoir... should I be surprised?
We have the classically Renoirean mis-en-scene. Long shots with full bodies, letting the action play out in depth. Wonderful, calmy sensational camera movements. It feels more like tracking than panning, though it's both. Moves across people, showing that comradeship (often vertical). Not strongly moves in, but focusses on a section of a mis-en-scene. Often moves that take us to what was previously out of the frame. Al these moves, so elegant, really give us a sense of a wider world, with war there are still children playing (an incredible track from people, to the children's game, to the battering ram).
We move into Renoir's shots, which he can also analyse a bit, where we have that everyday dialogue. I am not at all sure how Renoir makes what seems, on the surface, to be just everyday chat, so fascinating. Partly great acting, strong acting, with racuous types and dirty faces. Partly that the conversation isn't really 'everyday'. It's about matters we all care about, and has a seriousness, but mainly that constant humour, earthiness.
Politically, yes, all have reasons. But we obviously attack Marie Antoinette. Renoir focusses on everyone we don't usually see in the revolution (avoids actually seeing Robespierre, Marat etc, though the latter is involved in some smart newspaper montage shots, and in dialogue), to give us the soldiers. Through an omniscient narrative this is never self-obsessed though, what we know about them is what relates about them to the wider situations. We find out about them their political level; and that is, ultimately, their moral level, and what cinema is.
Their are dissolves that move us through historical events, though nothing is really passed over. It is a propogandist film, for working together depite differences, for freedom, for realising (among the gilded classes) that freedom comes from below, not above. The Marseillaise can damn well take care of themselves. Not that there isn't brutality (the shooting of the Swiss), idiocy and argumentation among them, but to grasp freedom...
Yet another masterpiece from Renoir... should I be surprised?
We have the classically Renoirean mis-en-scene. Long shots with full bodies, letting the action play out in depth. Wonderful, calmy sensational camera movements. It feels more like tracking than panning, though it's both. Moves across people, showing that comradeship (often vertical). Not strongly moves in, but focusses on a section of a mis-en-scene. Often moves that take us to what was previously out of the frame. Al these moves, so elegant, really give us a sense of a wider world, with war there are still children playing (an incredible track from people, to the children's game, to the battering ram).
We move into Renoir's shots, which he can also analyse a bit, where we have that everyday dialogue. I am not at all sure how Renoir makes what seems, on the surface, to be just everyday chat, so fascinating. Partly great acting, strong acting, with racuous types and dirty faces. Partly that the conversation isn't really 'everyday'. It's about matters we all care about, and has a seriousness, but mainly that constant humour, earthiness.
Politically, yes, all have reasons. But we obviously attack Marie Antoinette. Renoir focusses on everyone we don't usually see in the revolution (avoids actually seeing Robespierre, Marat etc, though the latter is involved in some smart newspaper montage shots, and in dialogue), to give us the soldiers. Through an omniscient narrative this is never self-obsessed though, what we know about them is what relates about them to the wider situations. We find out about them their political level; and that is, ultimately, their moral level, and what cinema is.
Their are dissolves that move us through historical events, though nothing is really passed over. It is a propogandist film, for working together depite differences, for freedom, for realising (among the gilded classes) that freedom comes from below, not above. The Marseillaise can damn well take care of themselves. Not that there isn't brutality (the shooting of the Swiss), idiocy and argumentation among them, but to grasp freedom...
Thursday 14 July 2011
Frenzy
Alfred Hitchock - 1972
Moving back to Britain, it all gets a bit ditry.... shots of breasts, lacivious dialogue that is frankly a little unpleasant (I'm sure it's intended to be, but what about dedramatization?). Everyone is covered in sweat in dark and dingy locations. There is the element of the leer here.
Hitchcock of course gives the audience the information, dares us, nearly, to identify with a man we think is rather unpleasant, if 'innocent'.
Moving back to Britain, it all gets a bit ditry.... shots of breasts, lacivious dialogue that is frankly a little unpleasant (I'm sure it's intended to be, but what about dedramatization?). Everyone is covered in sweat in dark and dingy locations. There is the element of the leer here.
Hitchcock of course gives the audience the information, dares us, nearly, to identify with a man we think is rather unpleasant, if 'innocent'.
Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock - 1958
One of the few perfect films, maybe, it has nothing to do with classicism, though the credits may say it comes from that tradition; this is as related to Fellini as it is to the cinema of Griffiths. It is the cinema of looks, looking. Stewart looks. A film made up entirely of eyeline matches.
The master's camera perhaps moves less than in others of his work I have seen. We stay so much with Stewart, they walk towards him and the camera, we get his reverse. We of course have tracks and moves, that '360 pan where cinema and time; I get the feeling this film isn't strictly chronologically arranged, when do Scottie and Madeleine first sleep together? There isn't chronology, just the memory...
Another technical point is the changes of filters; quick moves to blue filters, for example. Also some blatantly 'non-realist' stopping down, as with the vivid colours (which I remeber so strongly in 'Rope', and a bit on 'Marnie').
I could play with symbolism, I think I can just say it needs to be watched, then again... Stewart us a free man, an independent man, who is free? What kind of man lived in San Francisco ten years ago? I kept thinking of Chris Marker, this film goes with 'Sans Soleil', among others. Time comes together, memory, 'Marienbad', cinema and time, a picture, a dress. No second chances.
One of the few perfect films, maybe, it has nothing to do with classicism, though the credits may say it comes from that tradition; this is as related to Fellini as it is to the cinema of Griffiths. It is the cinema of looks, looking. Stewart looks. A film made up entirely of eyeline matches.
The master's camera perhaps moves less than in others of his work I have seen. We stay so much with Stewart, they walk towards him and the camera, we get his reverse. We of course have tracks and moves, that '360 pan where cinema and time; I get the feeling this film isn't strictly chronologically arranged, when do Scottie and Madeleine first sleep together? There isn't chronology, just the memory...
Another technical point is the changes of filters; quick moves to blue filters, for example. Also some blatantly 'non-realist' stopping down, as with the vivid colours (which I remeber so strongly in 'Rope', and a bit on 'Marnie').
I could play with symbolism, I think I can just say it needs to be watched, then again... Stewart us a free man, an independent man, who is free? What kind of man lived in San Francisco ten years ago? I kept thinking of Chris Marker, this film goes with 'Sans Soleil', among others. Time comes together, memory, 'Marienbad', cinema and time, a picture, a dress. No second chances.
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