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.

Mon oncle d'Amerique

Alain Resnais - 1980
What an interesting, interesting film. Even if not every parts work, a bit of a lag for the third quarter, so much to go on here. Essayistic cinema, perhaps.
I almost want to call it a documentary; juxtaposition of factual study, then application; perhaps at its best when they are temporally together, rather than contiguous. We have the theory, then we have a kind of play, to prove it or not. What do we see? This is a fasinating question. At first, I felt the theory was disproved; far too neat, explains little to nothing, Resnais seemed to say. These actions are simpy not categorisable into the four, at best they are all of them combined, and their is a moral problem here.
As I went on, though, the film seemed more and more to confirm the findings, upon consideration. But Resnais proves it the hard way, the complicated way; theories are right, but that doesn't dispel other questions. It is the combining of humanism and the rat-like anti-humanism I felt in 'Coeurs' (by the way, I loved especially the montages of theory voiceover and application, of rats juxtaposed with humans, and the hillarious rat heads dress up- essayistic cinema. And the voiceovers at the beginning, though the amount of information is difficult). Again, we study the people running, and like rats they are, but we feel for them, see their reasons; as is said, just because we understand, it doesn't solve anything (the conclusion of the film addresses many of my moral qualms; just because it's like this doesn't mean it can't be changed, it suggests).
Applied to Resnais' cinema, we have those warm, often orangey colours. We have a willingness to shoot the quotidien, the motorway. Often long shots, sometime with humourous framings. And when he moves in for the SRS, I had a great feeling that what he really expressed was the very strangeness of the idea of SRS, isolating eaach one.
And, unlike the two later works I just watched, we had a few of the kind of tracks I would call 'Resnais'. This for me is desire, and it is something that is different but is mediated through and with- interrogation. As in 'Night and Fog', 'Marienbad', the tracking movement, ruthless, inevitable, sensually gratifying, interrogates (though doesn't invade) what is there, it wants to know more, more. Here we have that sense; Resnais wants to know more, the world. In the later works of his I have seen, he continues this preoccupation, but without tracks (interrogation without desire)? Not a perfect film, but I found some aspects stunning, and as a whole fasinating, perhaps great.

Coeurs

Alain Resnais - 2006
Adaption of Ayckbourn play, 'private fears in public places'- apt title. Resnais' direction is consciously, surely, quiet direction, till at least the end, so I'll pay the respect of not giving moves more than their functional worth.
All the same huge colours of red and blue, those oranges also in 'On Connait...', all extremely warm, vare used. Clearly the reason for the Almodovar comparison (except Resnais uses them thematically in a clearer way, perhaps... though I shouldn't really comment). Either way, the direction of longer compositions, moving in on the wide format for emphasis, is always beautful, elegant.
What are the themes? An examination of the private sphere, hiddenness. The fear of the open space. Think about video; a private pleasure of something public, dare one share?
The great success of this film, on its surface is its build up and examination of fasinating characters. But we also have a double move, studying the idea of fascination; beyond Ayckbourn? Their is a sense of studying rats, of an examination from an outside context of these lives, more than just emotion in cinema (or a different kind of emotion). This is created by some vertical high camera, the unreal colours colours, the little pods people are framed through. The short scenes, the snow that comes between them as a transition, lets us know the artifice of the montage (though not of the lives?). In these ways, I was reminded more than anything of 'Tout La Memoire De La Monde'; study of things, knowledge, from above (there's even a track at one point!). Yet this film combines this format with humanism (not that 'Tout La...' may not as well), in the sympathetic look at these rats; life as serious, though it is tiny.
At the end, there is a move away from the classically realist, with expressive mis-en-scene as snow invades the living room, the camera starts making itself noticed with wild circling and jumpy editing, the light at the end is a series of spots. Is this Resnais trying not to deceive us; let us understand we have watched a study, not something called 'reality?' Or is he rather saying that this is what reality is? I must leave the habit of thing someone is 'saying' something. After all, this film is one of fasination, it is also 'heartfelt', contemplative, a sstudy- and a great modern one.

Othello

Orson Welles - 1952 ; I can't legislate for the restoration.
Maybe I preferred 'Mabeth' by Welles... I'd have to see both again. This is really extremely Russian; some very fast cutting, lots of still shots from a low angle of dramatically framed figures. Great shadows and decenterings. Typical Wellesian touches of overlapping dialogue, and in his historical mode the real earthiness, enthusiasm for the time.
Welles focusses on the beastly aspects; his Othello is still, flat faced, never blinking. Framed many times bursting through covers, there is the real 'La Belle et La Bete' feel. Deeply sexually repressed, the question of the lacivious is crucial. I also got the feeling of a strange kind of abstraction, taken away to Cyprus, a bizarre hothouse. The lack of ellipsis in the 'convincing' scene, Othello and Iago from stone room to stone from outside, with that long walking tracking shot outside. And the wonderful shadows, geometrical faces, huge rooms and focus of the final momologues. This, with the beating music, give that sense of fate and doom also there in the threat of invasion.

On Connait La Chanson

Alain Resnais - 1997
A real joy of a film. With people's lives interweaving, responsibilities between them, compassion and understanding for every character. A modern film as well, simply and unpretentiously being set in its time. In all these ways, as well as in notions of theatricality, it approaches the brillaince of 'Va Savoir'.
Resnais' camera opts for pretty close views, and long takes. There are great moments, of complete virtuosity and very fun, involving cutting with jellyfish, various little jokes here and there like that.
Then of course the music, told as a homage to Dennis Potter. This is how emotions are well expressed, how people think. Extremely funny at times, but not in a mocking way, just in its power; Resnais has as much respect for the material as for his characters (Dussollier is a joy throughout- like the film).

Orphee

Jean Cocteau - 1950
The wonderful thing here is how we see the fantastic in the everyday, and the everyday in the fantastic; Lumiere and Melies. Shooting in vivid fast black and white, usually focussing on one person at a time. It operates by something I am willing to call genuine dream logic, a move from one moment to another, the moves not questioned by more than a brief confusion.
A particularly wonderful thing is the level of detail here; the acting is very precise, with lots of little movements. There are thousands of nice little details, little comments that really bring it to the ground. Among the fantastic chase scenes, we have silly little comments from street vendors; and we also have a couple embracing, then from their sheer immobility it takes on a fantastic quality. The urban comedy of looking in the face is also part of this movement.

Entr'acte

Rene Clair - 1924
Short film; I would genuinely call it surrealist. This is because it deals with the everyday; not larger than life characters, or in costumes, but just part of life. The trick as that this life moves; from one thing to another, without one knowing or understanding the sequence. The speeded up procession, a camel (why not?), the pointless chase, the magician at the end. The exciting montage of the chase is cinema creating for the purpose of pushing on a narrative, though there isn’t a narrative; it is positively Rivette-esque.
Clair also uses various possibilities of the cinema, its capacity to make these ‘illogical’ moves. It’s capacity to evoke images, ideas that aren’t ‘really’ there; for creating an emotion through its ability to make people disappear, double the screen. This even extends to those extremely fast, though smooth, pans.
I’m not going to pretend the film discusses or uses these kind of possibilities with any of the same kind of intelligence, depth, or power as ‘Qui Sauve Peut’ (always stupid to compare to Godard). It rather shows them, and its historical in that sense.

a Nous la Liberte

Rene Clair - 1931
This is basically a silent film, with Auric music throughout and a few songs (though there is actually dialogue). We have long shots, chases, lots of physical gestures, cuts to emphasis, that is emphasis on action, things to move the plot forward
It has a very distinctive look; of clearly sets made for the piece, perhaps with paper mache, abstract, not really worn (though not gleaming either). The palette operates with one very harsh light, a very interesting look really, and the floods kept pretty light.
This isn’t really a great critique of industrial society, more a wish to focus on the ‘good’ bits of it; it is really very different from ‘Modern Times’. We have the tracks along the line, the difference of the final product and the work in it, a critique of conformism, certainly, but this isn’t really dwelled on. It is, ultimately, out to be a piece of good fun.

Ne Touchez Pas La Hache

Jacques Rivette - 2007
Rivette's camera takes in long tracks, moving in, free, autonomous, from far away to meet the action, and frame it in sometimes long shots, sometimes a bit closer, nearly always pretty long takes with this swooping camera.
An incredibly elliptical narrative, almost jump cuts. A Bressonian sense of an action being carried out, pushing the plot along with that look, that piece of dialogue. Pure plot, yet the ellipsis goes over much of what we would often see; pure narrative, except it is not quite a narrative, we have to piece it together.
The idea of cinema as narrative seems key here. Psychology is better represented by the novel, which is why we have the jumps to the white on black intertitles, still a shocking move. Film for narrative, for showing ettiquette (for showing more; it's just better, now, seems to be the reason this is a film with a bit of novel, not vice versa), for eyeline matches, for modern life, better than the novelist Balzac. The novel for psychological stuff; why not just tell us these things? And music enters too, in between. This is all a slightly reductive reading, but seems there.
The text and the play acting is also a key theme in the narrative. The man controls the text, wants to tell a story, make her a story, dominate her that way. She is a control freak, an idealist, who won't let him narrate, who wants to create her own mis-en-scene. This is an element to the constant play, back and forth, of domination between them. Rivette's world is that of intrigues, looks, all created despite the fact there are barely more than two characters here, and barely more than two or three rooms. These locations are what they are, but they are also entirely society; monadology.

Un Chant d'Amour

Jean Genet - 1950
Genet's only film, a bit under half an hour. We have a real focus on the body obviously, with many many close views, a great physicality. The taking of individual body parts in quite abstracted backdrops made me think of Cocteau, who is after all the obvious reference point. The skin, the licks, the saliva, even the smoke, is given great plasticity. This is perhaps due to the light spots on the bodies being just a touch overexposed, with satisfyingly grainy rest of the prison cells.
The real achievement I got from this film was the sense of their not being any reality / fantasy distinction; each of the different kinds of images functioned on an equal plain, to make an expression of at once a story and a feeling. Moves from one to another could be cued, but there is really no differnce. When a guard is with a prisoner, looking at him, why should the next shot not be of a flower failing to be grasped, or of some naked bodies? We know what Genet is saying, or rather expressing, even if it does not follow a strict deductive logic. This lack of embarrasement about showing the different images together was, for me, very impressive.

Parade

Jacques Tati - 1974
Modernist but very much not in your face; full of fasination with what is going on, but not spectacular in any way. It is obvious this is a 'strange' film.
What makes this what it is is how we are not (only) watching the show, we are watching a show being performed. We are constantly on the auience, cutting back and reframing also (in a way less like Tati than usual). We are almost studying the audience more at times. What I found especially interesting about this is how Tati can show the audience as a little odd, even a little bored. Are we watching a failing show? No, not really, but it's not just 'here's our show; like it'.
The show is impressive, as circuses are, and very fun to watch, though not really stunning. What is interesting is how the crowd are so involved, the show spills to backstage, the decor doesn't quite tell us where the show ends or anything else begins. Everything is rehearsed, yet at the same time one feels that most of them would be being done anyway. O.K., we have a white backdrop and so on, but still.
As Tati gives us his show, casting an eye over his own impressive, of a different age perhaps, performance. He becomes more interested in watching the kids, not necessarilly 'doing' anything, but, well, doesn't make it less interesting to watch. Tati as sociologist, as performer, no gap, all in one.

Playtime

Jacques Tati - 1967
Tati uses Often high, very deep compostitions. There are no lines in these Fordian spaces (though Ford is low- and Tati can also be)meeting in distance. The camera moves from from one precise postion to another with often little tracks, very precise, moves in. Each carefully chosen positions allows the visual ephemera to appear, allows Tati's cinema.
Again, Tati is full of set-ups. We also have more than ever returning jokes, my favourite centering around the overseasoned Turbot. These don't have to conclude. One constantly goes 'ah, yes', as one recalls the strand.
Tati's fram employs multiple points of action. Each one is complex, in so far as people living lives, talking to each other, small gestures, small niceties, a world and in short, a life, to see. Yet at the same time the difficulty in fully training the eyes on any one of these points does not necessarilly mean one misses much; this is because the points are not 'actions', just people living, talking, usually presumably banalities (which are the most fasinating, and worthy of study, for the student of life). Each piece deserves study as a point of morality; each deserves to be concentrated on closely. This is what doesn't happen fully, yet to an extent. For this reason I wouldn't call Tati a humanist (not a criticism); he rather wants to create a milleu full of humans, wants to understand group behaviour before individual (that is the way his study goes).
And what an environment is Tati's city, light blue, grey colours, buildings so similar, the classic landmarks only reflections on those endless glass doors and tea towels. The compelling, yet montomous colour palette often uses darker colours, or rather shaed of navy, near its front. And one more thing about this world; you can
see the cardboard cut outs in the background!
This kind of conformity of dress, colour and behaviour is most interesting when we see it mirrored even in Hulot; as well as businessmen there are also multiple Tati's. There is no way to escape the group, the figure of Hulot himself can't be read fully as a romantic outsider.
So many wonderful sequences; T.V. watching, and of course that restaurant scene; really remarkable.

Les Vacances de M. Hulot

Jacques Tati - 1953
There are many long shots here, cars and hotels. There is a kind of diagonal shot, very very deep, that is distinctive to Tati, and used often here.
The bit that takes me a while to get used to woth Tati is the way there are long long periods without any jokes. There are endless set-ups, some blatantly calling for a 'gag', others just of situations, locations, spaces, but the pay-off is deliberately avoided. This enters into the disticntive Tati rhythm. This pattern in really the narrative of the film; Hulot could have a love affair, could cause complete chaos, but neither quite happens, life continues... (I'm uncomfortable calling Tati's time circular; it is more that time does not follow actions, but follows reactions).
What makes up most of the film is displays of social ettiquette, just observed. Tati is in many ways a sociologist, not making an obvious joke of, or indeed critiquing deeply beyond some light absurdism, but rather displaying the wares of human non-linguistic interaction (soundtrack for comedy, and to draw attention to pertinent points).
This film is quite clear; we have a less complex frame than I can remember in 'Mon Oncle' or 'Playtime' also. I wouldn't rank it with 'Playtime', but it's at times joyful to watch.

Jour de Fete

Jacques Tati - 1949
Apart from a bit of extra dialogue, the narration figure, and maybe a slightly closer, faster cut mis-en-scene, all the Tati brilliance is in place. The use of far and near exploited in the sound track, animal (or record, memorably) noises used diagetically, but offscreen to set off the action for jokes and so on.
The frame is used pretty widely, not hugely so (there weren't hidden jokes I could see). Certainly far and near are used. The camera is happy to often pan and on occassion track, or move to a position where to best have a comical view on the action.
The colour version, which I saw here, uses huge contrasts; bottomless black clothes and bright, bright sunlight. It seems set to a high contrast, so a lot of the frame is burnt out, faces are very white. It may be the hard direct sunlight filled in. I don't want to say 'washed out', because it's too vivid, too hot for that.
Tati is of course marvellous, incredibly gawky on the bicycle, stiff-legged. The speed and mechanisation of man is here, as is the idea of a rural life that is loved but not averse to mockery. The narrative is pretty much incidents, often explained by the old hag, but a story does develop, or rather a pretext for five minute sequences with the postman. Tati is innovative, exciting, and deeply fun to watch.

Film Socialisme

Jean-Luc Godard - 2010
Godard doesn't really ram us with literary ideas; there is certainly a lot, a thousand more times thinking in languga than other films, but it isn't a complete overload, trying to confuse one at all. Much of it is simply looking at the image, recognising that the figure is listening to music.
The montage is, also, not non-sequiter; there is an associative train of thought, obviously very loose, prone to digressions (the wonderful little look at Egypt, in silence, for example, the Odessa Steps sequence), but it is often quite clearly there. Why do we follow the editor's train of thought? Or are we really following our own, making connections?
And one more technical point; Godard manipulates focus a lot, using it quite shallow at times (along with at others video's deep capacity) to imbue his images.
The first half here seemed to me less straightforward mocking, much more complicit in the hell it presents. Yeah, its hateful, but mockery isn't really the point; this is what we are. The second section may have given me the most this time around. Tender, absolutely full of ideas, shot in a coldly elegiac way, if that is possible. The final section, when we now know images are lost, texts but imitations, had the few single moments (not whole parts, which is alot) that really brought the house down. Godard is clearly uncomfortable with cinema's ability to have these great emotional, intellectual moments, but he gets away with one in particular- when I say 'get away' it usually means they haven't really, but here it does- where a smile destroys the universe, a smile not even seen. Montage, cinema, mis-en-scene. This is a film. Because it's not a thing. But it is a thing (Les Choses Comme Ca).

Film socialisme

Jean-Luc Godard - 2010
The end of discourses, even challneging the supremacy of the text; of course whatever I say here is an imitation, that can be contradicted. Godard has a stunning appetite for destruction, anything that can be destroyed will be. But that doesn't mean its not beautiful.
The first part on the boat again uses that hard late Godardian lighting. Also some deep, deep blues and the still camera. People captured on it, maybe looking. Everyone has images, they are everywhere, which means cinema is dead. Images for the sake of images are dead. Tracking shots, creating emotion through images, goes. All we have left are those incredible movements across the sea, 'tracks' past the waves. This section is remarkably pessimistic. Tjis might just be hell; all images degraded. It is the floating shift of dead Europe, the different methods of filming mean a thousand views, but only one thing, that boat moving. All is incredibly ugly, as what was beautiful, the age of cinema, is now used for the most vile reasons. But Godard has created the first, maybe, film that is dialectical in its images, not just in the descriptions of its images. Crahing wind on the soundtrack, crappy images, it smashes against each other, and it is beautiful, deliriously so, never self-consciously so, as we realise the second we had of that was false. The beauty is truly in the montage; the Soviet's dream.
From this incredible pessimism we have, the move from the abstract vote of a dead Europe (always an abstract dream of some artist) to the personal (take THAT, Malick). Hard light, less visceral sound and image, contemplation. Yet it, of course, can't help but reflect the totality. Understanding each other. Tell television to piss off. Massive optimism, the children, the child in the red t-shirt finding himself able to conduct. We realise we have to listen to music again, though compromised, art is damn well there. Always the chance to move back to zero, but what is zero? Sublime moments with the Renoir painting. I want to learn more, so many words, return, learn how to read; this is optimism, the sheer enthusiasm and energy, but mediated by pessimism, to see the world. Ypu don't need to feel stupid; just ready, and willing.
And the essay of the end. Some clear political messages; common ground. Thinking in images. Godard pretty much gives a history of the twentieth century. The past as a collection of texts that are oddly unreal, modern attempts to read them are imitations. Images everywhere.
This is more intelligent, maximalist, truly beautiful, than pretty much anything else.

L'Argent

Marcel L'Herbier - 1928
L'Herbier's mis-en-scene is always thoughtfully positioned. The camera can start in and move out (still usually feet-less), mirroring the moves from subjective, visceral and 'impressiionist' (to be used advidely, but I'll crack on) and a more Zola-esque naturalism (not that Zola lacks that scent of blood, I don't mean that). The camera can make some extravagant bobs, and often a move to the left side. The tracks can be huge, flying very perpendicular to walls, and there is even one 360' move. Often a horizontal track for a bit, along a room, a pan to finish.
We have the cinema that is objective, and the subjective, to simplify. The very high angles, direct overhead, where they look like rats (or maybe we are rats, in the rafters, looking at them). The slightly high angle, perhaps a default for SRS. Lots and lot of low-angles, to extend a room, and often P.O.V. There are lots of, and some remarkable, subjective P.O.V. shots here, with special lens effects, hazing. Also the simple use of someone's angle has the expressive affect.
So we have this idea of personal, yet also a major work across time and space. It takes place in such a busy setting, people flying back and forth, in front of and behind our centre of attention. The stock market scenes are my favourite here; hugely wide, deep, busy mis-en-scene, some people very close to the camera, all in action.
The story? Saccard is really rather sympathetic; at first he could nearly be a hero. Manipulated, he has his flaw that so overwhelms him that he goes beyond redemption, and we have to disslike so much of what he does. The film's wish to critique capitalism is clear, and it certainly critiques something, but I think it is really better for its general critique of male obsession; the plane as much as the car. What would be needed was an analysis (that I would sign for) that all male obsession is money related; that all fetishism (which is here) is to do with exchange, commodities, capital.
I wouldn't like to call this though anything but one of the fine late silent epics, with slightly longer takes and more 'pyschological' focus than, say 'Metropolis', and huge reserves of beauty, novelistic rigour, social analysis, silent cinema.

Chimes At Midnight

Orson Welles - 1965
Have I ever really seen Shakespeare before? Have I lived with art? Welles kickstarts my heart, injects with his syringe of pure cinema elan vital into Shaekspeare's words. Huge long, yet intimate, tracks through rooms as we dance with the people in the enviroment lacking in adornment. Welles is a master of architecture, understanding the geometry of a place, in off-centre framings putting people there. One of the very few true historians. Little camera movements, not so much reframings as the joy of the parlour, of the world, of living in a body.
Straight up dramatic framings are here, off centre often, many low angles. There is a remarkable use of white, with the hrash light on Falstaff's wracked, hairy face. Also note the white robes, and those incredible shafts that do not dazzle but hold up the cathedral.
How does one see a Cathedral? Do I live in it, or do a walk around a museum, a monument? How can me, blood moving of its own accord, continue in this place? What is a battle? Here the scenes are fast-cut chaos, no idea who is who, battle scenes rolling in mud while Falstaff in that huge armour runs around humourosuly. Terrible and absurd.
The language is difficult to pick up, especially as I don't know the plays. The camera stills for moments when we pay special attention (and silence comes in, or rather bursts through at moments, incredibly powerfully).
The film, Shakespeare and Welles' dream, concerns legacy; Hal's strange inversions/ playacting with Falstaff, the father and son rolls and how they play out, copying, breaking from the other.
Did I understand, for me did Shakespeare live, after the nineteenth century does Shakespeare live, except through Welles? The two men's relation, Welles taking Shakespeare; Welles loves, the rest of the world has before only had admiration. Skaespeare is alive, because he is now modernist, or relates to the modernist world rather. How do we have art, the world as the place of our fathers, cold dead stones, products of labour? How do we live among them, where is life breathed into them, can it be?
It is at once breaking from the past, but in the same old enviroments. Welles is discussing happenings, the situationists before they even existed, urban events, counterculture. The life in the old stones; does one feel 'better' than the dead, for being alive? Where is the life, where is the blood, in Shakespeare or in us? What is a word, is it alive?

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.

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