Category: artmaking

the art of a "limited means" life

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We live is an age of great abundance for many. And yet, so many struggle for basic things, like shelter. Many of us, though not particularly wealthy by Western/Northern standards (I live in the U.S.), still live like kings compared to much of the rest of the world. And yet, sometimes we still know (I still know), at times, the struggle just to get by, especially those of us who have tried to support a family on a meager paycheck.

With those thoughts/experiences in mind (sometimes buried, sometimes glaring) I watched a fascinating documentary on La maison de Jean Prouvé (part of a great 4 DVD series called Architectures by ARTE France, distributed in the U.S. by Facets Video). I was struck by the simple story of a man who lost his business, faced into a difficult financial crisis, and had to then find appropriate shelter for his large family. His solution was to build on land others said could not be built on, use prefabricated pieces, ask his friends for help, and do it quick and cheep. What Prouvé created became one of the most famous, yet modest dwellings of the 20th century. The house is also both a challenge and an inspiration to me and my aspirations for someday designing my own house. But it is more than merely a question of design.

A few pictures will give some idea of the concept by way of the reality.

Front exterior
Looking out the front windows
One of the kid's rooms
The bathroom
The living room
The kitchen

As one can tell, the house is simple, though not exactly austere; the design is modern, though far from being overrun with ideology; and the space is very economical, giving what needs to be given without giving too much. It is truly an economy of means.

What I also like was how communal and personal the building became, and how it became that way out of necessity. Photos show the Prouvés and their friends hauling materials up the steep hills, laying foundations, putting up walls, and helping the Prouvés reach their goals.



My own philosophy, though still rather unformed, ranges toward the modern and the simple. I love quality and innovation. I also love the challenge, but so too do I love the finished product that can then be enjoyed. Although there are many aspects of Prouvé’s house I would do different, I often think about how much I have and want in contrast to what I actually need.

I believe design and art are central to the human spirit. I am only willing to give up beauty when it is absolutely necessary, and only for temporary periods, for beauty is like air. Some will not find Prouvé’s house to be a work of beauty. To each her/his own. For my part I find tremendous beauty in the simplicity and design of this house, but I also see an acceptance of one’s place in the world. Prouvé was able to achieve both. Live within your means, that is a kind of beauty too.

Jean Prouvé built his house in 1953. I find it an interesting coincidence that I began recently watching Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales. Rohmer began directing the loosely connect series in 1962. I won’t attempt an overview of Rohmer’s life or a critique of his films, but I will say that I find his circumstances of production to be equally as fascinating at those of Jean Prouvé.

In the beginning Rohmer had no money to make films. He had written one novel and then some stories. He was unhappy with how the stories turned out and he felt he needed to make them into films to adequately get across his ideas. Eventually he got what he needed, but only just. His films, especially the early ones, are excellent examples of an economy of means. He shot on a shoestring budget, often using small crews and working with friends. He also tended to shoot in limited takes and tended to prefer first takes. He rehearsed his actors relentlessly and then tried to not let them ask for more takes. Sometimes he used improvisation during rehearsals, but rarely in production. His first feature-length film, La Collectionneus (1967), was shot at less than a 2:1 ratio, which means that most of the takes were at most done twice, and many only once.

Rohmer’s first of his moral tales, La Boulangère de Monceau (1963), was shot MOS (silent), dubbing the audio in later and relying mostly on voice-over, on 16mm format, using found locations. Never released in theaters, this 20 minutes film was almost more of an experiment in style and production, but it clear set the tone for the later films.

Here is a brief look at the filming/story telling style of Rhomer. While we hear a voice-over we watch a simple moment based mostly on looks and glances that are fuller of meaning than the rather unemotional surface gloss might suggest.

When I compare Rohmer and Prouvé I see two driven men, singular in their ideas and ideals, producing great artifacts within strenuous limitations. I also see a mode of production, whether by choice or by acceptance, that is truly independent from larger financial/corporate interests. No one is completely independent, but smaller scales of production, working with friends and colleagues, forced to stay focused on the end goal, and beholden more to one’s own vision than to those of others, makes Rohmer’s moral tales and Prouvé’s family dwelling about as independent as one could hope for.

Some might say that Prouvé’s home is too simple and lacks too much. Some might say that watching Rohmer’s films is like watching paint dry. I know it is a matter of taste, but sometimes I would like to believe that not all taste is equal. Certainly, I find the final products of these two men more satisfying than so much else in this world. And that is what I look for in my own “limited means” life.

>Film Music & Architecture (metaphorically)

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Preface: I had anticipated this to be a much longer and more involved posting for the Filmmusic blog-a-thon over at Damian’s great blog, Windmills of My Mind. But alas, life does not permit me, so I’ve decided to post more of a question than a statement. I will formulate my half-baked ideas as I go. And, of course, in typical PilgrimAkimbo style I will use the Filmmusic blog-a-thon to write about something other than film music.

* * * * * * * * * *

If you are not a true film music aficionado, as I am not, I would guess you do not select your films primarily based on who created the score. And yet, if you find a film compelling, if you become emotionally involved watching a film, if a film haunts you or stays with you, very likely the film’s music played a significant role in helping you to end up where you did. We all know this to be true. It may also be true that a film’s musical soundtrack actually helps one to merely understand the film at all.

I want to propose a very simple metaphor for considering the role that film music plays in our experience of films. I propose that film music is like architecture. My question: does this make sense? When I say architecture, I do not mean the structural aspect of a film, such as editing, rather I am thinking of the way the design of a building or house or room affects one as one enters that room and lives out the story of one’s life. Maybe a better way of saying it is that film music is architectural. And maybe there’s a better word.

My argument:
Consider these three images of three very different interior spaces:

I have no idea where these interiors come from other than random images I gathered from the Internet. But it is clear that each are of clearly defined interior spaces, and that each space, though photographed from essentially the same angle, produce very different feelings. One can imagine a story taking place in each one, for example a scene of a father and son arguing over an inheritance, or a romantic kiss, or a burglary – it doesn’t matter. But more importantly, if one were to visit these places one would expect different things. In other words, the spaces themselves convey meaning about their use and their purpose. They would imply different narratives.

Now, if one were to meet someone and have a conversation in each of these spaces, though the denotative content of each conversation would be the same, the connotative meanings might take on slightly different shades due to the context of the rooms. This is one of the things film music can do for a film.

This point, though I admit it is meager, just might be more profound than it appears to the casual observer. To emphasize this point a little more, I like the following quote (from The most Beautiful House in the World by Witold Rybczynski) about how architecture speaks to us and guides us:

The symbolic meaning of architecture can be profound, as it is in the case with places of worship and important public monuments. But the language of buildings can also convey more mundane messages: where to go, what is important, how the building is to be used. It is easiest to discern this function if it absent or if it is misinterpreted. The stock scene in movie comedies in which a flustered visitor wishing to leave a strange home finds himself in the clothes closet illustrates precisely such a confusion. Like all humor, it is an exaggeration of the familiar; we have all had frustrating encounters with doors – not only identifying the right one but opening it once we found it. There is a bank entrance that I go through frequently but which always manages to confound me. The door is made of plate glass, and its pristine beauty is unsullied by visible hinges or pillars; the elegant handle extends the full width of the door. I always have a small struggle going through that door – sometimes I pull instead of push, sometimes I push against the hinge. I feel like taping a sign to the door – PUSH HERE.

Could we then think of film music as being, at least in part, like the sign that says “push here”? In other words, film music is an integral part of guiding us, like architecture does in the physical world, through the mental world of film perception. In a sense, film music can tell us “how to use” a film.

Architecture, that is, the aesthetic design of the spaces we live in – not merely their structural dimensions, produces an often taken-for-granted effect on our lives. In other words, the design of the buildings we inhabit affects the way we live, the way we think, our emotions, and the way we relate to others, and it does these things in often quiet and subtle ways, and sometimes in obvious and loud ways. As we act out our lives in and around man made structures we act within a kind of context circumscribed, and even proscribe to some degree, by these structures. They give us a context within which to act. I argue that film music performs much the same function. Like the overwhelming feeling one gets when first entering a cathedral so are the opening chords of John Williams’ Star Wars theme. The music not merely gets one’s emotions going, but it also tells us a lot of critical information about what we are about to see and how we should think about/approach the story.

If this is true, then film music is not merely an add-on to dress up a film, though it can be that for some films. Rather, film music is an integral part of how a film, as a whole, conveys its meaning(s). As one’s brain engages with the constructive nature of piecing together the film’s narrative from the various clues provided, the music colors that narrative and provides a kind of context for the descriptive, interpretive, and evaluative processes. But, because film music is typically not central to the story in the same way as is the acting or the cinematography, and because film music is typically non-diegetic (not really part of the story at all), that is why I am using the metaphor of architecture. Film music acts as a kind of “space” in which a story is played out. Change the music and you affect the story.

One could say that film music, though typically non-diegetic and non-visual, is similar to the film’s mise-en-scène. Visually films cue the viewer to mentally construct the story from all the visual clues presented. Do not films also do this with music? Of course they do. But the musical soundtrack does more than merely cuing the viewer to think of a particular scene as being romantic or frightening. Music can play a role in the overall “sense” of a film, such as time period, genre, etc. And like many other things in a film, music can act like a relatively open ended set of “codes” that both support and work counter to the desires of the filmmaker.

Once, when my wife took me to see a film of her choosing, one that I did not know about, I had a strong sense of what the film was going to be about from the moment of the opening chords of the film’s musical soundtrack. I leaned over to my wife and said something like: “Okay, so I can tell this film will be about X, and then X will happen, and then X and X and X, and finally it will end with X.” All that from the film’s music combined with the opening credits. And I was right.

Maybe the most fundamental aspect of music is its connection with human imagination. Music can enlarge the imagination by drawing out of it intuitive connections to the world and experience. To keep with the architecture analogy, consider the following two images of famous architectural settings:

Both of these constructions are highly evocative. They draw one into their spaces and they draw out of one’s mind certain emotions and feelings. A film’s camerawork can do the same thing, but so can its music, maybe more so. Now imagine having a conversation with a friend in either of these locations. The same conversation would not be the same given the change in surroundings, even if the differences are subtle. It is this way because of our “aesthetic sense”, that is, our innate ability to respond, even sub-consciously, to aesthetic objects and nuances.

About 13 years ago I wrote these words:

To say that the couch in your living room or the pictures on your walls have a profound effect upon your life may sound strange. But they do. The things we surround ourselves with, from the films we watch to the color and texture of our bathroom tile, influence the way we think and feel. The nature of this influence may be enigmatic, but we know it is there. We know that the aesthetics of MTV, its look and feel, influence the youth of our world. We know that the aesthetics of an art gallery encourage quiet contemplation, whereas the aesthetics of a video arcade do not. And we know that living in an apartment with dark brown walls has a decidedly different feel than living in an apartment with white walls. The look, texture, and sound of our surroundings influences us because of our aesthetic sense.

I believe that in the mental world of film watching, the film’s musical score can be much like that art gallery or those apartment walls. If this is true, then the decisions facing the filmmaker regarding the musical score are critical.

I am sure there are some who might consider non-diegetic film music to be nothing more than a kind of wallpaper – something to pretty up a film, to give it that extra something. For some films this may be true I have no doubt, but in general I think this position is wrong, for fimmakers and for viewers. On the other hand, film music is there to serve the film. For most films the story comes first and all the rest follows, often with the music being included last. I personally believe that filmmakers should not think of music as an “add on” to a film. Film music should do more than merely prop up existing scenes. Rather, film music should be a fundamentally integral part of film. Maybe directors should have the composers be a part of the scriptwriting process. I’m sure some do.

And there it is as promised: some half-baked ideas on architecture for the film music blog-a-thon. I only hope it isn’t so half-baked as to be like a pancake that is burned black on the outside and still runny gooey on the inside. But maybe it’s still just a pancake nonetheless.

untitled film post

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I was always glued to the television when I was a kid, and I loved movies. There was one show, The Million Dollar Movie, that played the same film over and over every night for a week, so you could really know it by heart. I remember stumbling across a bizarre futuristic film that was made up of nothing but still images except for one of the final scenes, which moved: it was Chris Marker’s La Jetée, which must have been on PBS when I was a teenager. I didn’t know it was meant to be science fiction, it was just very weird. Another time I had to go with my parents to a dinner party and wound up watching TV in the basement, eating my little dinner alone watching Hitchcock’s Rear Window while the adults partied upstairs. I loved all those vignettes Jimmy Stewart watches in the windows around him–you don’t know much about any of those characters so you try to fill in the pieces of their lives.

Cindy Sherman, The Complete Untitled Film Stills, MoMA 2003

 

For years I have been fascinated by Cindy Sherman’s famous/infamous Untitled Film Stills series of photographs. I am still fascinated.


#7, 1978


I have wondered if the pictures truly represent established stereotypes of female identity and societal norms for some serious artistic purpose, or are really the end-product of just having fun. I am inclined to think that they really are about having fun, about dressing up, about the strange joy of having one’s picture taken, and about having some control over that picture taking, and, of course, about pretending to be someone else. I am inclined to think the pictures do invite a more contemplative attitude, but are first and foremost about play. Then again, I might be wrong.

#10, 1978

A gang of artists would converge there to watch Saturday Night Live or Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. I’d be in my studio making up a character and then go out in character to join the party. I’d have put in all this energy into the makeup and I’d think, Why waste it. There’s a photo of me as Lucille Ball from that time: I had a wig that reminded me of her hairstyle.

Cindy Sherman, The Complete Untitled Film Stills, MoMA 2003

Then again, I might be right.

#13, 1978

Her fascination with self-transformation extended to her frequent trips to thrift stores, where she purchased vintage clothes and accessories, which suggested particular characters to her: “So it just grew and grew until I was buying and collecting more and more of these things, and suddenly the characters came together just because I had so much of the detritus from them.” Sherman began wearing these different costumes to gallery openings and events in Buffalo. For example, to attend a gallery opening, she dressed up as a pregnant woman. While there was an obvious performative element to this practice, Sherman never considered these outings “performances” in an artistic sense because she was “not maintaining a character” but simply “getting dressed up to go out.”

Amada Cruz, Movies, Monstrosities, and Masks: Twenty Years of Cindy Sherman, (2003)


#14, 1978

I didn’t want to make “high” art, I had no interest in using paint, I wanted to find something that anyone could relate to without knowing about contemporary art. I wasn’t thinking in terms of precious prints or archival quality; I didn’t want the work to seem like a commodity.

Cindy Sherman

#15, 1978


Ultimately, as I have experienced it, Sherman’s practice participates in what I have argued to be the opening of the subject to otherness (the baring of the circuits of desire connecting self and other in a dynamic of intersubjectivity) that gives what we might call postmodernism its most remarkable and particular antimodernist thrust. In feminist and phenomenological terms, the body, which instantiates the self, is a “modality of reflexivity,” posing the subject in relation to the other in a reciprocal relationship; through gendered/sexual performances of the body, the subject is situated and situates herself through the other.

Amelia Jones, Tracing the Subject with Cindy Sherman (2003)

#16, 1978

The subject, then, is never complete within itself but is always contingent on others, and the glue of this intersubjectivity is the desire binding us together (the projective gaze is one mode of intersubjectivity but functions specifically to veil this contingency by projecting lack onto the other rather than admitting its own). It is the intersubjective dimension of Sherman’s work that has largely been ignored (not surprisingly, since it exposes the investedness and contingency of every reading of her pictures – including this one).

Amelia Jones, Tracing the Subject with Cindy Sherman (2003)

#21, 1978


The work is what it is and hopefully it’s seen as feminist work, or feminist-advised work, but I’m not going to go around espousing theoretical bullshit about feminist stuff.

Cindy Sherman

#25, 1978


The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told.

Cindy Sherman

#35, 1979

I find it interesting that many of Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills do not follow any standard film aspect ratios: #35 above for example. I believe that one might almost not notice this fact because of the naturally evocative power of the image, and all her images. We are given the title and accept it as though it were from a film. We know it is not; we know it is entirely contrived; but then again, we know that all film is entirely contrived, that images of women (and men, and of ethnicity, etc.) are all contrived, all reductions in one sense of another. Sherman is giving us our stereotypes, our comfort and our curse. While we are looking at her, at her dressing up before the camera as though she were not herself, we are looking at ourselves. It does not matter whether one is a woman or a man, when one looks at the image, one is looking at oneself. That is why we do not see the faulty aspect ratio. There is nothing more fascinating to oneself than oneself.

#48, 1979

Why do images #48 and #50 remind me so much of David Lynch?

#50, 1979

The text between these images you can take it or leave it. If the images contradict the text, the images win.


 #53, 1979

Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.

John Berger, Ways of Seeing (1972)

I always though Berger was right. But I’m no longer so sure. And yet, I don’t doubt Berger.

#56, 1980

Not a final word: What is it I see in myself when I look at Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills?

I see myself looking at myself looking at a photograph of a woman knowing that I am looking not at herself, but at her creation. I see my psychologiocal self swimming in a sea of signifiers. I see myself as a moral agent who makes choices to believe, or not believe. I see that I, as a singular individual, am plural.

Before and After: A Sample

Gloria Swanson: before

 Barbara Stanwyck: before
Jamie Lee Curtis: after


You know the rest.

a glimpse at a mystery

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In Dokument Fanny och Alexander (1986) – a.k.a. The Making of Fanny & Alexander – the camera (our camera) observes the film crew at work. We are as a fly on the wall, and yet closer still. Like many great documentaries, this film is premised on letting the subject reveal itself over time, naturally, without manipulation. Except for brief intertitles offering some explanation (and providing section headings) the film merely observes the activities of shooting a film, and especially of the director interacting with his actors and crew. The film is a subtle and intimate look into the relationships formed between these individuals.

I was struck by the film’s beauty and power. For example, I love the moment when filming the deathbed scene where Emilie Ekdahl (Ewa Fröling) comes to view the body of her husband. We get to see the scene being filmed from different angles, with the director, Ingmar Bergman, working with his actors and cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, on pacing and blocking. We get a glimpse at the insides, as it were, of a masterpiece – as though we were visiting the construction site of a cathedral and were seeing stone set upon stone.

What is so remarkable about a work of art is that there is often something transcendent and unexplainable about the final product, and yet the making is just people doing what they do. Artmaking may be a calling, a gift, a burden, but it is also a very human, even ordinary, activity.

Here we have Emilie Ekdahl looking at her husband.

And here we have Bergman looking at Ewa Fröling as she plays Emilie.

One might think that an actor would struggle with the director being only a couple of inches out of frame watching every movement one makes, but Bergman’s actors seem to thrive on that intimacy. Bergman develops a trusting relationship with his key actors to such a depth that their acting and his directing work symbiotically, organically, fully in the moment. And yet, what one sees in this documentary are the functional, goal oriented, working relationships coming together to finish a project and create a product.

If one looks for a mystical connection flowing between director and actor one finds nothing – for we really only see, because the camera can only see, the surface of things. But, if one looks for pointers to the mystery of filmmaking, they are everywhere, and they all point to the end-product, Fanny och Alexander (1982) – a.k.a. Fanny & Alexander.

>2006 National Film Challenge Winners announced

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>Just a quick post: the 2006 National Film Challenge Winners have been announced. You can see the winners, and watch the videos here.

The film was awarded Best Directing (Phil Gerke directed it) and Best Production Design.

I wrote about this project, of which I played a very tiny part, before at: thinking & making & thinking.

Some images I snapped during the production can be viewed here.

Cinema Sublime: considering contemplative cinema’s relationship to the infinite

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Okay, the contemplative cinema blogathon is voodoo. I mean, I have been thinking about it too much when I should be working on my thesis. Bad, bad, bad. So here are more of my thoughts:

Contemplative cinema seems to have certain aesthetic traits. An excellent overview of the most obvious traits can be found at The Listening Ear: Defining Contemplative Cinema (Bela Tarr). I have also tried to triangulate somewhat on the traits with these posts on “Art Cinema” Narration: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. Then I tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to describe the distancing aspect of contemplative cinema by way of contrast here. And finally, I tried, feebly, to find some links to 20th century painting and contemplative cinema here. In some ways I feel my posts have only been scratchings at the surface and not really getting at the heart of the matter. I anticipate this post will also add to the scratching. Probably because I do not see a “solution” to the question of contemplative cinema, merely a myriad of signifiers in an ever expanding galaxy of meaning.

I firmly believe that contemplative cinema is not the sum of a set of unique traits – the long shot, narrative in the background, etc. – although there certainly are unique traits. Contemplative cinema must, I believe, come from a set of ideas – loosely organized and very arguable for sure. What those ideas are is too big of a topic for this post, but I have an idea that the ideas behind and underneath contemplative cinema are complex, very human, and have deep roots planted long before cinema was born.

Here’s just one possible approach to one kind of contemplative cinema.

The concept of the sublime and contemplative cinema
In the 17th and 18th centuries our (richer) predecessors trudged through Europe on their grand tours seeking that fullness of experience that would round out their lives and, if young, complete their educations. When confronted with the awesome grandeur of the Swiss Alps, these trekkers gaped in fearful admiration at nature’s terrifying and beautiful power. Trying to give name to the strange and conflicting experience of fearfulness and mutual attraction, philosophers gave it the name “sublime,” and then set out to argue about it from then until now. Edmund Burke and Emmanuel Kant both dove masterfully into the subject, but it is Schopenhauer who may have clarified it best for us when he listed off the stages of going from mere beauty to the fullest feeling of the sublime (taken from Wikipedia):

Feeling of Beauty – Light is reflected off a flower. (Pleasure from a mere perception of an object that cannot hurt observer).

Weakest Feeling of Sublime – Light reflected off stones. (Pleasure from beholding objects that pose no threat, yet themselves are devoid of life).

Weaker Feeling of Sublime – Endless desert with no movement. (Pleasure from seeing objects that could not sustain the life of the observer).

Sublime – Turbulent Nature. (Pleasure from perceiving objects that threaten to hurt or destroy observer).

Full Feeling of Sublime – Overpowering turbulent Nature. (Pleasure from beholding very violent, destructive objects).

Fullest Feeling of Sublime – Immensity of Universe’s extent or duration. (Pleasure from knowledge of observer’s nothingness and oneness with Nature).

For examples in painting we might look at Caspar David Friedrich’s Cloister Cemetery in the Snow (1817-1819)…


…or at JMW Turner’s Moonlight (1840)

In photography we might consider Edward Steichen’s The Flatiron (1905)…

…or Minor White’s Pacific, Devil’s Slide, California (1947)


I believe we can use these examples from other arts as part of the groundwork in understanding how the sublime might function within contemplative cinema.

Prior to the 20th century the sublime was found mostly in nature, which, for all its potential danger, is fundamentally morally neutral. But in the 20th century unimagined horrors were foisted on humankind – trench warfare in WWI, the Nazi genocide of European Jews, the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, and the list continues. I would argue that a shift occurred in the concept of the sublime to include the fact that human beings commit such horrors, both consciously and subconsciously, and that that inclusion has had a significant affect on the arts including cinema. In other words, one could extend concepts of turbulent nature, overpowering turbulent nature, and the immensity of the universe’s extent to the apparently overpowering aspects of human desire, the power of technology, and human evil. A fully engaged response to this reality could include a scientific approach where one just has to face up to the emptiness of human existence in a world created by time + matter + chance, or it could explore the soul as though on a sea of meaning both frightening and hopeful.

What I am saying is nothing new. However, I think the modern concept of the sublime, with its roots going back to 17th century, may offer pointers towards an understanding of contemplative cinema. For example, it is obvious the Bergman’s The Silence or Resnais’ Hiroshima mon amour are artistic explorations of a human response to the modern world from within a position of the nihilistic universe, but a more sublime film, such as Tarkovsky’s Stalker, might address the same concerns, but from a different vantage point. I would argue that that vantage point is not the scientific perspective of the individual in a cold universe, but the soul in relation to the infinite. This is not to say the Bergman or Resnais (in these examples) did not make contemplative films, but they do so by rooting the viewer in the narrative process and therefore in a materialistic world. I propose a sublime contemplative film calls the viewer beyond the narrative – and to me this seems to be a higher level of contemplation.

Another angle on the sublime might be:
The experience of the sublime involves a self-forgetfulness where personal fear is replaced by a sense of well-being and security when confronted with an object exhibiting superior might, and is similar to the experience of the tragic. The “tragic consciousness” is the capacity to gain an exalted state of consciousness from the realization of the unavoidable suffering destined for all men and that there are oppositions in life that can never be resolved, most notably that of the “forgiving generosity of deity” subsumed to “inexorable fate”. (also taken from

Wikipedia )

In this sense the sublime is an almost religious concept – one might think of the concept of fearing God (a combination of love, reverence, and trembling), for example. A contemplative film which has its roots in the sublime might then call on the viewer to transcend narrative construction (mentally speaking) in order to enter into a feeling of the “tragic consciousness” of the universe, and thus transcend narrative climax. The potential issue with this way of thinking, however, is the reality that the viewer’s response is personal, which is unique for each viewer. That is why I cannot go so far as to say the characteristics of contemplative cinema are a set of particular visual or narrative cues. But there may be characteristic goals.

Does it make sense to see contemplative film, then, as primarily non-narrative? One might consider Love Song (2001) by Stan Brakhage, an abstract, undulating, “hand-painted visualization of sex in the mind’s eye.” No doubt this short, purely abstract film seeks to produce an effect within the viewer. No doubt it calls of the viewer to be open to exploration of the self in some capacity. But what can we really say about it? In my opinion, sublime contemplative film still needs something more tangible to hang on to, and part of that tangibility is narrative, even while seeking to transcend narrative.

Love Song (2001)

 

Of course, a question raised by considering a film such as Love Song is whether or not sublime contemplative cinema succeeds by accurately representing something that is already sublime, or whether by using cinematic means, however so, to induce a feeling of the sublime in the viewer.

A better option may be to consider another Stan Brakhage film, Window Water Baby Moving (1962). In this powerful short film about the birthing process there is the natural narrative of the birth. Although told unconventionally, there is enough of a narrative, and just enough balance between abstraction and reality, that one can “enter” into the film more fully. This entering process then allows the transcending process to be more substantial, that is, it seems more likely that the viewer will end up in a different place at the end than at the start, psychologically and spiritually speaking. The sublime nature of the piece shines through in the combination of the beauty of body, life, and love with the graphic intensity of actual birth in bloody closeup.

Window Water Baby Moving (1962)

Interesting, Window Water Baby Moving is constructed via the often rapid juxtaposition of many different images, and thus potentially subverts the idea that contemplative film is necessarily and characteristically made of lengthy shots in which very little action takes place.

Finally, a cinema of the sublime is not a genre or style or even a set of aesthetic choices so much as it is a particular attitude to the place of human beings in the universe. How this plays out in the arts can be varied and fascinating. I believe the concept of contemplative film includes the concept of the sublime whether is is of primary emphasis or resides in the background. I’m sure much more can be said, but I will leave it there.

>found object(ive)

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>I love images like this one.

click to enlarge

I found this image at the NYPL Digital Library. As far as I can tell, it’s just a snap shot, probably from the 1920’s, of a film crew on the set in the midst of their work. As with all film sets, there are some people working and some people standing around, but everyone wants to be there (I’m projecting my own experience and desires onto the image I admit).

This image had no information attached to it; no film name, no director name, no year, etc. However, it seems to me that the person standing closest to the camera (to us) is the director, and it looks like that person has a monocle. Plus, it’s an Ufa set. Could this be F. Lang? As it turns out, it is Lang, according to this site. But I still don’t know what film they are making. Any ideas?

Anyhow, I have this image set as my computer desktop background for now. Helps to keep me sane.

>thinking & making & thinking

Published on by Tucker2 Comments

>Some unformed thoughts on the relationship between film criticism and film making, followed by a shameless plug.

Here’s the theory:
I am convinced it is good that those who think & write about films & filmmaking (including video/tv production) should also have some hand in actually doing the “making”; not in the specific film beings critiqued, but in the general process of filmmaking. My thought is this: Filmmaking is a complex craft, often collaborative and impossible to grasp all at once. The end product of filmmaking, the film, is also complex and impossible to grasp all at once. One has to focus on parts and try to related them to wholes. By dealing with the filmmaking process one may become more sensitive to the multiplicity of signifiers (to throw in a little semiotics) up there on the screen.

The interplay between the making and what is made is a fascinating topic, but that is not my point here. I believe that to be a good critic it may be helpful, not necessary but helpful, to have been a part of the process of solving the kinds of problems faced by filmmakers. I say not “not necessary” because any film under scrutiny must be taken as it is regardless of its means of production or even the intention of the filmmaker. The critic must attend to the film before her/him. However, production brings one closer the fact that filmmaking is a very human endeavor.

Unfortunately, I am unable to provide an example here of any “better than typical” criticism by someone who has also done significant production. So maybe my idea is bunk.

But I have to say production (film or video) is a hoot.

Now for my own shameless plug:
Years ago I used to make my living with film and television production. I have always wanted to get back into it, but for various reason have not.

Recently, however, I had the privilege of “tagging along” on the crew of a recent video production – I handled script continuity and took a number of production photos. The video is called All Sales Final and it was part of the 2006 National Film Challenge – The Premise: Participating teams have just one weekend to write, shoot and edit a short film or video. To make things interesting, each team is given a genre for its film, and a character, prop and line of dialogue that must appear in each team’s movie.

The National Film Challenge: http://www.filmchallenge.com/index.htm

You can see my production photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/cineboy65/AllSalesFinalFilmChallenge2006

All Sales Final