Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau - 1927
Murnau uses some pretty distant framings at times. Most notably, putting the couple low down in the frame, and using the top. He creates some of the greatest images in the cinema with the somplexity of the lighting, and this tiered composition, in the dance hall sequence. He also uses variations for entirely different effects, for loomings and overhangings, of the vamp near the end, for example.
Pictorially, the off-centre hard backlight provides beyond beautiful images. Murnau won't cut on these too quickly. This allows for two of the greatest performances of the cinema; not overdone, full of nuance and depth (whatever that is...), but also clear and simple, of the country folk.
Their is really a plethora of effects here, that would be verging on ridiculous anywhere else, but are used so perfectly to work. Endless impositions, of a city, a dream, cinema across time. And of course the wonderful movement. We have slow tracks, so smooth, so sensual, that are, yes, erotic, in a more gentle than brutal way. The horizontals across the city, at once calm but wildly exciting.
This is what the city is; the place of beauty, coming from the tram window (simple, but sharp), surrounding with love, with hope. But often the place of predators, despair, the couple caight in the traffic, for all the beauty, across time and space, of their tracking walk through it. The city is at once the storm, but how can one live without it?
What is 'Sunrise'? It is the most beautiful day of our life. And with that I take a short break to these entries.
Monday 29 August 2011
Akasen Chitai
Kenji Mizoguchi - 1956
Known as 'Street Of Shame'... Mizoguchi isn't quite so much for the closer views in here is very last. It is however pretty busy, often compartmentalised, as we go through the different prostitutes. There are some great shots of the street, always of course in long. Of course the singular use Mizoguchi makes of off-screen space, not only in still eyelines, but how characters come from somewhere, walk through, leave on the other end.
Mizoguchi's sheer sympathy is remarkable; there are more simple things to say than the obvious, the hatred of what they do. It is difficult to love them and not then defend what they do, but I felt the balance was struck. Perhaps partly due to the narrative strategy; slow unfoldings of pretty clear stories.
Known as 'Street Of Shame'... Mizoguchi isn't quite so much for the closer views in here is very last. It is however pretty busy, often compartmentalised, as we go through the different prostitutes. There are some great shots of the street, always of course in long. Of course the singular use Mizoguchi makes of off-screen space, not only in still eyelines, but how characters come from somewhere, walk through, leave on the other end.
Mizoguchi's sheer sympathy is remarkable; there are more simple things to say than the obvious, the hatred of what they do. It is difficult to love them and not then defend what they do, but I felt the balance was struck. Perhaps partly due to the narrative strategy; slow unfoldings of pretty clear stories.
Yokihi
Kenji Mizoguchi - 1955
In colour? Whatever next. Pretty well lit, I rather liked the paleness in the whole situation; especially in the water, and the bathing pools, and the bathing robes.
Sacrifice is centered here. It is at once political, but really I felt more of the pull of the personal here; ideas of transformation, who one is really connected to, and the love that crosses all, across real time, across cuts of the cinema.
In colour? Whatever next. Pretty well lit, I rather liked the paleness in the whole situation; especially in the water, and the bathing pools, and the bathing robes.
Sacrifice is centered here. It is at once political, but really I felt more of the pull of the personal here; ideas of transformation, who one is really connected to, and the love that crosses all, across real time, across cuts of the cinema.
Chikamatsu Monogatari
Kenji Mizoguchi - 1954
This is one of the busier of Mizoguchi's works I have seen. The close views aren't too obvious, but the long takes are, in the enclosed rooms, and later the enclosed forests, that I'm coming to associate, with the twinkling lights that just creep around, with Mizoguchi. Again we have tragic love, the figure of the women as the noble survivor, the good natured by rather weak man, and the evil man.
Mizoguchi and Deleuze (did the latter write on the former?); there's a weird combination. Here's my thinking. Mizoguchi is known as taking a relation to emotion that is not direct sympathy. In earlier entries I have talked about swirling effects in Mizoguchi, the idea of the lack of specificity ('A' Emotion / 'A' Life) in this portrayal. Add to this what I keep coming across in Mizoguchi (but forgot to mention in earlier entires); the idea of excess. His females, looking for love generally, for cosy home life, are, frankly insane. They are insane masochists. In Oyu-Sama the younger sister originally basically commits herself to a life of misery for another, giving more than she has; excess. Look at the face of Zushio as he goes to the advisor in Sancho Dayu. The idea od mysticism in Mizoguchi, excess, love beyond the exchnage principle, the sacrifice of this, the end of 'Ugetsu Monogatari'. For all the decorum, his is a cinema of insanity. But portrayed quite calmly.
This is one of the busier of Mizoguchi's works I have seen. The close views aren't too obvious, but the long takes are, in the enclosed rooms, and later the enclosed forests, that I'm coming to associate, with the twinkling lights that just creep around, with Mizoguchi. Again we have tragic love, the figure of the women as the noble survivor, the good natured by rather weak man, and the evil man.
Mizoguchi and Deleuze (did the latter write on the former?); there's a weird combination. Here's my thinking. Mizoguchi is known as taking a relation to emotion that is not direct sympathy. In earlier entries I have talked about swirling effects in Mizoguchi, the idea of the lack of specificity ('A' Emotion / 'A' Life) in this portrayal. Add to this what I keep coming across in Mizoguchi (but forgot to mention in earlier entires); the idea of excess. His females, looking for love generally, for cosy home life, are, frankly insane. They are insane masochists. In Oyu-Sama the younger sister originally basically commits herself to a life of misery for another, giving more than she has; excess. Look at the face of Zushio as he goes to the advisor in Sancho Dayu. The idea od mysticism in Mizoguchi, excess, love beyond the exchnage principle, the sacrifice of this, the end of 'Ugetsu Monogatari'. For all the decorum, his is a cinema of insanity. But portrayed quite calmly.
L'Annee Derniere A Marienbad
Alain Resnais - 1961
Let's mention the music before I start; very powerful, I liked it, almost absurd in the organs strength, matching the arch humour throughout the work.
Lights usually come from back and behind, to mention. We have a camera crawling along walls, strokes in both directions, camera stylo writing, also moving up and down. 'Marienbad' as the anatomy of the track (smooth); dissection of role of that move, of a camera, as desire (When the eventual move backwards comes, falls off the wall, we have its reverse, a dissection, the negation of desire; what is that?).
These erotic tracks are not actually too explicit, then huge orgasm on ironic Italian melo burst in, repetition of a track into the feathered arms, one of the most powerful moments I know in the cinema.
Also worth to say that there are quite a few close views- and why not. That is the feeling, it conveys it.
Marienbad won't be reduced, but let me talk of specificity and abstraction. If time doesn't matter, nor does place; says the man, abstraction. Yet also, there is specificity in eroticism, among the interchangeable walls we have the one moment, the walk I made for you through carpets so thick we had silence. This is all in the same way the voice (over)/ poetry (Robbe-Grillet, yet also the words of some kind of characters)/ acting (mannered, singular, general stand-ins) is specific and abstract.
Where to start on the shadows of the garden; not for blocks, but specific humans? Too easy. The location is at once so clear, big blocks referenced in the final words, yet among them I lose you.
For all, in a way this is quite simple; man meets women, she can't remember, montage cuts between then and now, some maybe true, some not, all indeterminate, maybe, or specific in erotic. The only confusion is deliberate, the need, perhaps, for mystification, the way life is clear, clear blocks, but I still can't find you, the mystery of a white wall, a gaudy stucco. One just needs to accept continuous time has collapsed in the montage.
Returning to the key question of specificity; does time matter between moral decisions? Does what is in between matter? If there was a decision now, and then, does time exist between? What is going on in the cut, in impossible spaces where space is clearly 'unreal'? Does this matter, for life?
Is there a lack of politics here? This is a film from a director of the mouvelle vague, in some way; one occassioanlly realises, in the deliberate humour often, this is after all people dressing up. The nouvelle vague was horribly apolitical in many ways; and like them, you have to say Resnais at least centers erotiticism as much, if not more, than engagement (fatalism?). I would call this, if I could name things, a film about eroticism, really. But eroticism and politics are intertwined; the film is about eroticism in a degraded world, how it can only exist as deliberately obscured, confused, not making sense. This is the fetish element, shoes and bondage.
How can the specificity of desire manage in the degraded world of this hotel/ spa? Marienbad, Fredericksbad, twists these confusions, which are necessary. Desire only possible through what looks like heavy formalism; the only way to save it, by intellectualising it?
For all, there are clear politics; the spa (I want!) is clearly the bourgeois/ aristocracy, the fading abstractions of the brutal walls that enclose, only one way, that turn my footsteps to silence in the carpet, yet can be heard in the gravel that may or may not be under your window.
O.K., Resnais is allowed one symbol, and the quite funny game is perfect for capitalism; he can lose, but never does. Is this my favourite symbol in cinema? Clear, beautfiul, beyond simple unpacking.
The greatest film ever? Never a good phrase- it is on that highest plateau, which isn't even a plateau, but the unsayable.... The most erotic film (Dreyer?), moments of losing control, the voiceover in crashes of specificity. The most visually pleasing? Maybe. Perfectly formed location, architecture geometric and mysterirous, tracks around corners. The most intelligent? Visually, in literature, it achieves greatness.
Let's mention the music before I start; very powerful, I liked it, almost absurd in the organs strength, matching the arch humour throughout the work.
Lights usually come from back and behind, to mention. We have a camera crawling along walls, strokes in both directions, camera stylo writing, also moving up and down. 'Marienbad' as the anatomy of the track (smooth); dissection of role of that move, of a camera, as desire (When the eventual move backwards comes, falls off the wall, we have its reverse, a dissection, the negation of desire; what is that?).
These erotic tracks are not actually too explicit, then huge orgasm on ironic Italian melo burst in, repetition of a track into the feathered arms, one of the most powerful moments I know in the cinema.
Also worth to say that there are quite a few close views- and why not. That is the feeling, it conveys it.
Marienbad won't be reduced, but let me talk of specificity and abstraction. If time doesn't matter, nor does place; says the man, abstraction. Yet also, there is specificity in eroticism, among the interchangeable walls we have the one moment, the walk I made for you through carpets so thick we had silence. This is all in the same way the voice (over)/ poetry (Robbe-Grillet, yet also the words of some kind of characters)/ acting (mannered, singular, general stand-ins) is specific and abstract.
Where to start on the shadows of the garden; not for blocks, but specific humans? Too easy. The location is at once so clear, big blocks referenced in the final words, yet among them I lose you.
For all, in a way this is quite simple; man meets women, she can't remember, montage cuts between then and now, some maybe true, some not, all indeterminate, maybe, or specific in erotic. The only confusion is deliberate, the need, perhaps, for mystification, the way life is clear, clear blocks, but I still can't find you, the mystery of a white wall, a gaudy stucco. One just needs to accept continuous time has collapsed in the montage.
Returning to the key question of specificity; does time matter between moral decisions? Does what is in between matter? If there was a decision now, and then, does time exist between? What is going on in the cut, in impossible spaces where space is clearly 'unreal'? Does this matter, for life?
Is there a lack of politics here? This is a film from a director of the mouvelle vague, in some way; one occassioanlly realises, in the deliberate humour often, this is after all people dressing up. The nouvelle vague was horribly apolitical in many ways; and like them, you have to say Resnais at least centers erotiticism as much, if not more, than engagement (fatalism?). I would call this, if I could name things, a film about eroticism, really. But eroticism and politics are intertwined; the film is about eroticism in a degraded world, how it can only exist as deliberately obscured, confused, not making sense. This is the fetish element, shoes and bondage.
How can the specificity of desire manage in the degraded world of this hotel/ spa? Marienbad, Fredericksbad, twists these confusions, which are necessary. Desire only possible through what looks like heavy formalism; the only way to save it, by intellectualising it?
For all, there are clear politics; the spa (I want!) is clearly the bourgeois/ aristocracy, the fading abstractions of the brutal walls that enclose, only one way, that turn my footsteps to silence in the carpet, yet can be heard in the gravel that may or may not be under your window.
O.K., Resnais is allowed one symbol, and the quite funny game is perfect for capitalism; he can lose, but never does. Is this my favourite symbol in cinema? Clear, beautfiul, beyond simple unpacking.
The greatest film ever? Never a good phrase- it is on that highest plateau, which isn't even a plateau, but the unsayable.... The most erotic film (Dreyer?), moments of losing control, the voiceover in crashes of specificity. The most visually pleasing? Maybe. Perfectly formed location, architecture geometric and mysterirous, tracks around corners. The most intelligent? Visually, in literature, it achieves greatness.
Cria Cuervos
Carlos Saura - 1976
I mean, it's not terrible, but I can't really think of anything nice to say about it. Quite a heavy camera creeps around a bit, in pretty long takes, slowly moving in and out (though there is what I would describe as pointless cutting, perhaps down to inadequacies of framing). There is a hell of a lot of Kuleshoving with the little girl, her blank expression I suppose intended to be charming or meaningful, which I didn't really find. Th washes out palette is pretty ugly, not in a very interesting way.
Childhood / children can be interesting when considered from an adult perspective, used to cast light on an adult world; in itself, it is idiotic and boring. Harsh but fair, I think...
I mean, it's not terrible, but I can't really think of anything nice to say about it. Quite a heavy camera creeps around a bit, in pretty long takes, slowly moving in and out (though there is what I would describe as pointless cutting, perhaps down to inadequacies of framing). There is a hell of a lot of Kuleshoving with the little girl, her blank expression I suppose intended to be charming or meaningful, which I didn't really find. Th washes out palette is pretty ugly, not in a very interesting way.
Childhood / children can be interesting when considered from an adult perspective, used to cast light on an adult world; in itself, it is idiotic and boring. Harsh but fair, I think...
Sunday 28 August 2011
Tartuffe
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau - 1925
The often referred to 'mobile camera' of Murnau, and Freund, has often confused me, for, for all the innovations in movement, as an aesthetic principle it is pretty minimal in a lot of shots. But here I felt great mobility in the camera, despite its stillness; precisely because their is mobility in the set up; Murnau, as Griffiths, introduces the idea of the camera as being able to shoot from any point, any angle, not constrained by stage constaints. His camera can be below, behind, through a window, wherever.
This surprised me for the pace of the edit, and for how close the framings are. And I mean really close; facial close-ups even, medium shots could be as far out as we get for a few sequences. This is not what one expects of silent cinema. There is also some long stuff, on that slightly abstract, deeply beautiful studio set look that Murnau has, with light expressionism (cinematic, German) infusing the air; a kind of slightly lighter one than, say, Murnau's 'Faust'.
I didn't find this his most distinctive work, we basically have a tale set out in front of us (or around us, as above). Of course the compositions are [refect, hang-up able. I watched a copy with a lot of yellow tints, high contrasts, and pretty scratchy, faded sides. Also note we have the Murnau-ish back of the leering man.
The obvious point of interest is the framing device; why? There is quite a shock here. Is it modernist (why categorize?)? Yes and no. Yes, in that we are told 'Tartuffe' and asked explictly to reflect on it, consider even the morality of telling a tale. No in that what it sets up is simply a very middle-ages esque tale, pure and simple; it is a morality play, modernist only if you are being difficult.
There are recurring elements of Murnau found even in Moliere's story. The odd attitude towards woman, showing their power, yet disgust with them is obvious; as is a kind of lust (the director's sexuality notwithstanding, perhaps). Also the fear of unemployment, and the need to communicate, say something. This moral part (not that I necessarilly agree..), with the tale like structure, put me in mind of the slightly more detailed, though admittedly less ornate and baroque, 'Master Of The House'.
The often referred to 'mobile camera' of Murnau, and Freund, has often confused me, for, for all the innovations in movement, as an aesthetic principle it is pretty minimal in a lot of shots. But here I felt great mobility in the camera, despite its stillness; precisely because their is mobility in the set up; Murnau, as Griffiths, introduces the idea of the camera as being able to shoot from any point, any angle, not constrained by stage constaints. His camera can be below, behind, through a window, wherever.
This surprised me for the pace of the edit, and for how close the framings are. And I mean really close; facial close-ups even, medium shots could be as far out as we get for a few sequences. This is not what one expects of silent cinema. There is also some long stuff, on that slightly abstract, deeply beautiful studio set look that Murnau has, with light expressionism (cinematic, German) infusing the air; a kind of slightly lighter one than, say, Murnau's 'Faust'.
I didn't find this his most distinctive work, we basically have a tale set out in front of us (or around us, as above). Of course the compositions are [refect, hang-up able. I watched a copy with a lot of yellow tints, high contrasts, and pretty scratchy, faded sides. Also note we have the Murnau-ish back of the leering man.
The obvious point of interest is the framing device; why? There is quite a shock here. Is it modernist (why categorize?)? Yes and no. Yes, in that we are told 'Tartuffe' and asked explictly to reflect on it, consider even the morality of telling a tale. No in that what it sets up is simply a very middle-ages esque tale, pure and simple; it is a morality play, modernist only if you are being difficult.
There are recurring elements of Murnau found even in Moliere's story. The odd attitude towards woman, showing their power, yet disgust with them is obvious; as is a kind of lust (the director's sexuality notwithstanding, perhaps). Also the fear of unemployment, and the need to communicate, say something. This moral part (not that I necessarilly agree..), with the tale like structure, put me in mind of the slightly more detailed, though admittedly less ornate and baroque, 'Master Of The House'.
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