Seminal work from Chantal Akerman, 1975
This is.... gosh. From the start we know what sign we are under; prositution is shown immeditely. Thus we have this to cloud the film, with frequent passages of no reference. The end does the same thing, something to set the whole film off against, but in reverse. Perhaps we always knew it was going to happen; the first scene had told us.
Akerman's takes, extremely long (though I wouldn't get too excited about this; much of the time it does cut without a huge fuss) seems at first to emphasise space, with Jeanne's head cut off, her leaving the room, the still camera. I would argue that this film does not have space first; it has character first. We do, after all, follow her around the house, pick her up rather than the son. The mis-en-scene of the everyday is subtly enhanced by the prison bars of the tiles and teatowels, just a little hint. The camera has a little, though not much depth, largely cancelled out by the lack of layering in the medium-height view. The editing is elliptical, quite radically so at times; of course, it is 3 days in three hours, which I suppose is quite slow, compared to some films....
Frontality is changed around here; some angles seem designed to promote it, though we also have quite a bit of the back of the head. The repeition of certain shots gives a poerful sense of recurrence; nothing has changed, each day after the other
This film really calls for the viewer. And what was I thinking? One comes to know her gait, and hugely admire her control, her stillness, her patience. Yet she remains thoroughly enigmatic; what is she thinking? Is she thinking? Is she having the kinds of thoughts I am having? The time that is allowed to pass seems to take us at once closer to her, but at the same time, we see more and more that we only have the surface. Sounds take on extra importance; in the near silence, a scratched world or the crumple of fabric contains a kind of cry. Or is this just our projection?
Akermam's primary position is, quite rightly, 'If she's going to damn well do it then we are going to damn well watch her'. Is the labour stupid? Perhaps it is, but we respect her hugely.
The vortex of the house is monstrous, it seems to suck the whole world up. The outside seems strange, unnatural. And what is that remarkable flashing and scrolling blue light. It's almost like a police surveillance unit. Jeanne seems to lose humanity, to drop away, she doesn't care about the baby, she is blank. But can we really talk about humanity, in this overpowering, terrible, yet pathetic life? The abstract idea of 'humanity' seems deeply insignificant.
Akerman has deeply drawn out the content; seemingly not a single formal feature exists except as arises naturally from the content. There is no showiness, no stylisation (to use Sontag's terms). This is, I suppose, when cinema is art; when it is different from other artforms, not adhering to painterly traditions, say, but its form arising from its content, if that distinction really makes any sense.
A remarkable scene develops, first noticed as Jeanne peels potatoes. An expectation, a wish, in the audience (for me at least) has been created for montomy. We don't want her life to change; we want her to keep doing exactly what she has, not change, get angry, make her life livable, becuase it's not what we know. This is a truly remarkable narrative move, making precisely the opposite of the traditonal viewer response occur.
Is she devoted? Is she insane? The ending is at once inevtiable, and a deep shock. We know what we've been seeing, we can't be surprised, we can assent to it all we like, but have we really accepted it? Powerful, to correctly use a usually debased word, 'sublime'.
Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Je Tu Il Elle
Chantal Akerman, 1975
Akerman doesn't overload her images, indeed her still camera (with a few exceptions) demands attention in as much as their is, in a flashing lights way, not a huge amount to see. That means that, what there is, one must truly consider. Her straight-on shots are full of verticals and horizontals, holding relations to the figure(s), often by imitating that images angle, though also on occassion opposing it. These verticals and horizontals mark the degrees of shade in Akerman's wonderfully photographed black and white; on a straightforward level, she has a spectacular eye for the image and lighting conditions.
The fade-outs turn out not to be fade-outs, and this picture really takes you into its time-frame; it is rythmic in a way where nothing outside of the change and stillness of the images really exists. The dialogue comes across as extremely 'pure' here, perhaps due to the lack of interference. Their is a strange autonomy to the sound, even out of character's mouths, enhanced in the earlier sections where actions follow their exact description in voiceover.
Akermnan's long takes seem more about the 'integrity' (if that is the right word) of the locale than of the image per se. For all the individual and challenging formal elements, this isn't the work of a formalist; it's all content, and beautiful at that.
Akerman doesn't overload her images, indeed her still camera (with a few exceptions) demands attention in as much as their is, in a flashing lights way, not a huge amount to see. That means that, what there is, one must truly consider. Her straight-on shots are full of verticals and horizontals, holding relations to the figure(s), often by imitating that images angle, though also on occassion opposing it. These verticals and horizontals mark the degrees of shade in Akerman's wonderfully photographed black and white; on a straightforward level, she has a spectacular eye for the image and lighting conditions.
The fade-outs turn out not to be fade-outs, and this picture really takes you into its time-frame; it is rythmic in a way where nothing outside of the change and stillness of the images really exists. The dialogue comes across as extremely 'pure' here, perhaps due to the lack of interference. Their is a strange autonomy to the sound, even out of character's mouths, enhanced in the earlier sections where actions follow their exact description in voiceover.
Akermnan's long takes seem more about the 'integrity' (if that is the right word) of the locale than of the image per se. For all the individual and challenging formal elements, this isn't the work of a formalist; it's all content, and beautiful at that.
Friday, 9 July 2010
Double Take
Another look at Grimonprez's latest work. Still very good, very atmospheric, etc etc, even better in fact on a second viewing where one could have one's coordinates, so to speak, one could really think about and challenge that at first glance (and still, on second, perhaps deliberately labyrinthian structures).
An interesting aspect of this film is of how two 'doubles' supposed opposities but actual identicals or split images, speak through each other. Krushchev and Kennedy talk through each other's mouths, the adverts talk through both mouths and are talked through into others. Who is Hitchcock? Is the 1980 Hitchcock the mouthpiece of the 1962 Hitchcock, or vice versa?
This brings us on to ask through what lenses we view the film. As westerners, why do we watch the film through the prism we do? Whose eyes are being looked through, through whose mouth do we articulate the thoughts we have about this. Grimponprez confounds expectations on occasion, in part to show the parochialism of the filmmakers and the viewer's readings.
This also applies to the way Grimonprez uses montage. In some ways he is a prankster, setting it up so we laugh at something utterly traumatic, or mourn over a comedy. He tests the viewer; why are you laughing at this? Just because it is in the narrative montage he has created, who makes it funny? The viewer?
Grimonprez may have a slightly naive attitude about a pure 'earth', a pure underlying strata of events that an entirely postmodern sensibility would dimiss. The 'reality' of the bomb is in a sense a T.V. construction, which he realises only to the extent that it is mediated to us through the T.V.- he believes that there is a 'truer' palce out there, a noble gesture but one that he does not sustain.
Grimonprez is a deeply interesting thinker, as well as a very fun filmaker and a collector of curiousities. A fine work.
An interesting aspect of this film is of how two 'doubles' supposed opposities but actual identicals or split images, speak through each other. Krushchev and Kennedy talk through each other's mouths, the adverts talk through both mouths and are talked through into others. Who is Hitchcock? Is the 1980 Hitchcock the mouthpiece of the 1962 Hitchcock, or vice versa?
This brings us on to ask through what lenses we view the film. As westerners, why do we watch the film through the prism we do? Whose eyes are being looked through, through whose mouth do we articulate the thoughts we have about this. Grimponprez confounds expectations on occasion, in part to show the parochialism of the filmmakers and the viewer's readings.
This also applies to the way Grimonprez uses montage. In some ways he is a prankster, setting it up so we laugh at something utterly traumatic, or mourn over a comedy. He tests the viewer; why are you laughing at this? Just because it is in the narrative montage he has created, who makes it funny? The viewer?
Grimonprez may have a slightly naive attitude about a pure 'earth', a pure underlying strata of events that an entirely postmodern sensibility would dimiss. The 'reality' of the bomb is in a sense a T.V. construction, which he realises only to the extent that it is mediated to us through the T.V.- he believes that there is a 'truer' palce out there, a noble gesture but one that he does not sustain.
Grimonprez is a deeply interesting thinker, as well as a very fun filmaker and a collector of curiousities. A fine work.
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y
68 minute visual essay on plane hijackings (made in 1998) for Johan Grimonprez.
Again, this shares a lot of the things we would say about double take. The aesthetic may be less noirish, downbeat (and coherent) but it is the same in that Grimonprez had dug up a bunch of fascinating footage, and has juxtaposed it at times very skillfully.
Some of the effect is that one just doesn't usually see this stuff; the planes crashing, the man just shot. It shocks the audience, especially in the often clever conjuntions with popular music.
Again, a few of the pieces of text that run are a little trite and indicate that the maker isn't going to win any prizes for theory. However, he knows how to show an image, and that is what really matters here. Individual scenes stick with you afterwards, and most of it canters along at a speed where you won't get bored.
Difficult to know what to make of it as an artistic statement, but watchable, oddly entertaining (that's the point really, the horror IS entertaining), and may let one come out to think for oneself, even if the film itself fails to do much thinking.
Again, this shares a lot of the things we would say about double take. The aesthetic may be less noirish, downbeat (and coherent) but it is the same in that Grimonprez had dug up a bunch of fascinating footage, and has juxtaposed it at times very skillfully.
Some of the effect is that one just doesn't usually see this stuff; the planes crashing, the man just shot. It shocks the audience, especially in the often clever conjuntions with popular music.
Again, a few of the pieces of text that run are a little trite and indicate that the maker isn't going to win any prizes for theory. However, he knows how to show an image, and that is what really matters here. Individual scenes stick with you afterwards, and most of it canters along at a speed where you won't get bored.
Difficult to know what to make of it as an artistic statement, but watchable, oddly entertaining (that's the point really, the horror IS entertaining), and may let one come out to think for oneself, even if the film itself fails to do much thinking.
Double Take
Johan Grimonprez piece, 'documentary' may not cover it, it is rather an artistic exhibit, a visual essay on Hitchcock, the cold war, television and doubles.
This is a fun film to just watch. The images are put together well, with some powerful montage effects. The lergely noir-ish stylus is a pleasure at times. Some of the images selected are intriguing, fascinating, great to have a look at. The footage from 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents...' is a pleasure, no amount of that would be too much. Grimonprez has also well selcted some Nixon-Krushchev footage that deserves to be seen by everyone.
As for the thesis of the film? It is diifcult to get one's head around. The use of the dense Borges story hits us perhaps too quickly. It offers some interesting questions, of the double nature of the U.S.S.R. and the U.S., as well as a few questions about Hitchcock. A slightly deeper analysis could have helped, or maybe that analysis was there, buried. Difficult to say. There isn't much analysis of the viewer''s relation to their own double...or is there? A few of the insertions of text are mildly facile.
This film is an ingteresting watch, with a selection of clips that we are delighted we have seen. The overall atmospheric is an arresting one. Reccomended, though it won't necessarily blow one's mind as it perhaps could have.
This is a fun film to just watch. The images are put together well, with some powerful montage effects. The lergely noir-ish stylus is a pleasure at times. Some of the images selected are intriguing, fascinating, great to have a look at. The footage from 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents...' is a pleasure, no amount of that would be too much. Grimonprez has also well selcted some Nixon-Krushchev footage that deserves to be seen by everyone.
As for the thesis of the film? It is diifcult to get one's head around. The use of the dense Borges story hits us perhaps too quickly. It offers some interesting questions, of the double nature of the U.S.S.R. and the U.S., as well as a few questions about Hitchcock. A slightly deeper analysis could have helped, or maybe that analysis was there, buried. Difficult to say. There isn't much analysis of the viewer''s relation to their own double...or is there? A few of the insertions of text are mildly facile.
This film is an ingteresting watch, with a selection of clips that we are delighted we have seen. The overall atmospheric is an arresting one. Reccomended, though it won't necessarily blow one's mind as it perhaps could have.
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