Elia Suleiman - 2002
I don't know Tati well enough to compare, but what I mean by the Tati aspect is a still camera with long focus takes, and the use of the body in that machine-like way. The audience can see the whole picture, using as much depth for the space as horizontals, to create a kind of absurdist suspense as understanding. Without quite the industry of rats.
Suleiman uses his face as always on the verge of smiling, but never quite. This is maybe a little more self-conscious than 'The Time That Remains' (one, for me, of the finest films I have seen from recent times) in its use of expressionless acting, clearly Bressonian influenced in its functionality. Their is a high degreee of self-consciousness.
Suleiman is not afraid to cut in, for all the full compositions, also. His sound gags aren't unrealist in the Tati sense I know.
In a way, this is an explanation, though I wouldn't really call it an apology, for why one would be goaded to violence. It can occassionally get a little comic book, devices used to show the mentality of terrorism, generally, while at the same time recognizing a common humanity of all people. I found it a little stylised and unsure of that style, thus short of the later work ('The Time That Remains'), but still formally very noticeable.
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
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.
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.
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.
A fost sau n-a fost (12:08 East Of Bucharest)
Corneliu Porumboiu - 2006
'Politist, Adjectiv' is for me one of the best films of the last few years; this is nearly as good.
It opens with long scenes with a still camera. The light is like, well, late Godard, Tarr, a lot of people; dark inside, with outside overexposure peaking out. Can just having a big contrast, big difference between the lightest and darkest patches, make a fine image?
Whne we get to the TV station, we have what I loved about 'Politist, Adjectiv'; the idea of interrogation. Logic being used to generally try to get to the truth (I dont really buy the relativism). The necessity to get the facts, to pierce further in, to realise the true complexities of reality. What we find may not be to our liking, in fact, here and in 'Politist..' it is directly contrary to what I wanted. Yet there is always a sense of admiration for the process, of its greater importance; that is detail. The hymnotic search. The camera, and there are some funny self-reflexive lines about it, messes its focus and clumsily makes little moves.
We began with a deeply beautiful blue of the city, and such images return at the wonderful conclusion of this film. They are overlaid by the director's straight voiceover, earned so many times over (why would it need to be earned anyway?). The idea; stepping in front of the camera, dictating, leads to lies. Truth in observance, cine-truth by questions, not forcing.
The lights motif, and the city of this film and its end, is clearly deeply Antonioni influenced ('L'Eclisse', that means for me right now). The lights on and off in the empty streets, together and following each other. Porumboiu is personal, speaks, personal in that we discover with him what is outside of him; discover beauty, the world, whatever that is. He's going to make masterpieces; he's already made two great to ver good films.
'Politist, Adjectiv' is for me one of the best films of the last few years; this is nearly as good.
It opens with long scenes with a still camera. The light is like, well, late Godard, Tarr, a lot of people; dark inside, with outside overexposure peaking out. Can just having a big contrast, big difference between the lightest and darkest patches, make a fine image?
Whne we get to the TV station, we have what I loved about 'Politist, Adjectiv'; the idea of interrogation. Logic being used to generally try to get to the truth (I dont really buy the relativism). The necessity to get the facts, to pierce further in, to realise the true complexities of reality. What we find may not be to our liking, in fact, here and in 'Politist..' it is directly contrary to what I wanted. Yet there is always a sense of admiration for the process, of its greater importance; that is detail. The hymnotic search. The camera, and there are some funny self-reflexive lines about it, messes its focus and clumsily makes little moves.
We began with a deeply beautiful blue of the city, and such images return at the wonderful conclusion of this film. They are overlaid by the director's straight voiceover, earned so many times over (why would it need to be earned anyway?). The idea; stepping in front of the camera, dictating, leads to lies. Truth in observance, cine-truth by questions, not forcing.
The lights motif, and the city of this film and its end, is clearly deeply Antonioni influenced ('L'Eclisse', that means for me right now). The lights on and off in the empty streets, together and following each other. Porumboiu is personal, speaks, personal in that we discover with him what is outside of him; discover beauty, the world, whatever that is. He's going to make masterpieces; he's already made two great to ver good films.
Junior Bonner
Sam Peckinpah - 1972
A rather cheery Peckinpah. Faces not too sweaty on an uncharismatic McQueen, shot closer, the further. Some flashbacks that operate, also with Peckinpah's slow-motion throughout.
There are some scenes of really self-conscious narration, very fast almost comical montage? Is this really Peckinpah's world? It's a bit miserable, but not in the usual way...
A rather cheery Peckinpah. Faces not too sweaty on an uncharismatic McQueen, shot closer, the further. Some flashbacks that operate, also with Peckinpah's slow-motion throughout.
There are some scenes of really self-conscious narration, very fast almost comical montage? Is this really Peckinpah's world? It's a bit miserable, but not in the usual way...
Monday, 1 August 2011
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?
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?
Fanny Och Alexander
Ingmar Bergman - 1982
It is Bergman's not hugely innovative, but by this stage deeply refined technique of some longer stuff mixed with a moving camera, on the face often, switching usually in cuts but sometimes in tracks face to face. We also have Nykvist manning the helm. His use of colour doesn't so much strike me but his masterful use of shadow remains; impressive, but there is a slight sense it is black and white work. Nevertheless, he knows how to film hands, and the shadows on the chin (nevermuind the gamma rays when the face turns towards the window).
Bergman is music, chamber music, Brahms (clarinet sonatas perhaps). He is smooth music, pre-modernist late 19th Century, with his moves of emphasis and the quick changes in tone, which can be ridiculous but also have a melodramatic truth. It is slightly, and perhaps entirely, that Bergman can't make up his mind; which is thematically one of the key ideas of his films.
Another hugely long late Bergman, 'Like Scenes From A Marriage' (which may not be the worst film I have ever seen, but is probably the most miserable to watch), but changes in tone mean I really rather enjoyed this. There is the mix of celebration, a little sickening but fine, and real brutality.
Thematically, it invoked chidlhood but expressive focusses on individual tastes, images, sounds, ways of looking at things. Bergman always wants to get closer, study the face, study the situation. Also, I was completely on the side of the Bishop. A good man, a certain man, which is an anathema to Bergman. Harsh, yes, but the Christmas we first see is after all the rich luxuriating distastefully, though the joy should be recognised. It is a tough thing to balance.
It is Bergman's not hugely innovative, but by this stage deeply refined technique of some longer stuff mixed with a moving camera, on the face often, switching usually in cuts but sometimes in tracks face to face. We also have Nykvist manning the helm. His use of colour doesn't so much strike me but his masterful use of shadow remains; impressive, but there is a slight sense it is black and white work. Nevertheless, he knows how to film hands, and the shadows on the chin (nevermuind the gamma rays when the face turns towards the window).
Bergman is music, chamber music, Brahms (clarinet sonatas perhaps). He is smooth music, pre-modernist late 19th Century, with his moves of emphasis and the quick changes in tone, which can be ridiculous but also have a melodramatic truth. It is slightly, and perhaps entirely, that Bergman can't make up his mind; which is thematically one of the key ideas of his films.
Another hugely long late Bergman, 'Like Scenes From A Marriage' (which may not be the worst film I have ever seen, but is probably the most miserable to watch), but changes in tone mean I really rather enjoyed this. There is the mix of celebration, a little sickening but fine, and real brutality.
Thematically, it invoked chidlhood but expressive focusses on individual tastes, images, sounds, ways of looking at things. Bergman always wants to get closer, study the face, study the situation. Also, I was completely on the side of the Bishop. A good man, a certain man, which is an anathema to Bergman. Harsh, yes, but the Christmas we first see is after all the rich luxuriating distastefully, though the joy should be recognised. It is a tough thing to balance.
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