1965 student film by Ridley Scott, with his older brother, and future filmmaker Tony Scott as the boy, and music by John Barry:
Category: movies
Andrei Tarkovsky on Art and on Cinema
The Politics of Gender in French Cinema
French professor Geneviève Sellier (Université de Caen–senior member, Institut Universitaire de France) gave a lecture “The Politics of Gender in French Cinema” at New York University’s La Maison Française on April 14th, 2010. Sellier is the author of Masculine Singular: French New Wave Cinema (Duke University Press, 2008; translated by NYU Professor Kristin Ross).
Here is the audio of that lecture:
“This is the enemy” — Godard on the disgusting culture of…
Jean-Luc Godard in 1988 at a press conference in Cannes after the first screening of the first two episodes of his very personal documentary, Histoire(s) du Cinema.
This video clip from Godard, which is not altogether clear, but which nonetheless resonates for me, reminded me of Neil Postman’s 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death in which he states:
[W]hat I am claiming here is not that television is entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience. Our television set keeps us in constant communion with the world, but it does so with a face whose smiling countenance is unalterable. The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining, which is another issue altogether.
To say it still another way: Entertainment is the supra-ideology of all discourse on television. No matter what is depicted or from what point of view, the overarching presumption is that it is there for our amusement and pleasure. That is why even on news shows which provide us daily fragments of tragedy and barbarism, we are urged by the newscasters to “join them tomorrow. What for? One would think that several minutes of murder and mayhem would suffice as material for a month of sleepless nights. We accept the newscaster’ invitation because we know that the “news” is not to be taken seriously, that it is all in fun, so to say. Everything about a news show tells us this—the good looks and amiability of the cast, their pleasant banter, the exciting music that opens and closes the show, the vivid footage, the attractive commercials—all these and more suggest that what we have just seen is no cause for weeping. (p 87)
Contrarian Criticism in the Round
“What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism.”
~ Octavio Paz
What is the role or the function of the film critic today? At the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) several film critics discussed the roll of film criticism and, in particular, the contrarian roll (or possibilities) that can be a kind of stance one takes, or might take, as a critic. The most important topic in this discussion, however, is on authority. It is an old topic and it is just as relevant as it has always been. If this discussion suffers, which it does, it is from the problem that always arises in rountable discussions: lack of focus combined with insufficient time allotted to any one thought. Still, it is an interesting look into the interests and ideas which motivate some film critics today.
In this roundtable the idea of authority is most closely linked to expertise. Film critics should be experts in film; they should know the obvious and the arcane, the new and the historical, the depth and the breadth. However, there are other ways that one can be an authority. For example, I would rather a film critic be wise, knowing philosophical (yea even theological) issues that trouble humanity, than merely a fanatical film goer who has seen everything three times. I would rather a critic be able to draw connections between cinema, the other arts, politics, sociology, and home economics than give me tantalizing gossip or merely personal reflections. I thing these critics would agree. Still, authority is ultimately something given rather than taken, and film critics these days tend to live in a tenuous state of existence as our society continues the march away from the idea that cinema is truly important or that critiquing a film is anything more than gossip or personal reflections. In other words, one has to truly love being a professional film critic to be a professional film critic.
>Two JLG interviews from 1980
>I used to be so non-plussed whenever I heard Godard speak. Now he makes more sense to me. In fact, he’s one of the few voices that seem to cut through much of the blather so typically understood as “talking about film.”
I like Dick Cavett, but I find his questions here to be only okay. Still, it is interesting to hear Godard talk about his work, etc.
This video is a bit more pedagogical and Godard is a bit more commanding. Still, it is quite interesting. Godard typically makes statements that are clearly designed to be slightly shocking, and he does that here, but I find his statements to ring truer now than I once did. Not sure why.
>Carl Theodor Dreyer: They Caught the Ferry, 1948
>I recently posted on Carl Th. Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), which left me stunned and profoundly moved like I have not been from a film in quite a while. Dreyer, however, had a spotty career and did not make many feature films. Most of his films where not popular either, though his reputation as a great filmmaker remained intact. He was the classic struggling genius. To supplement his income he occasionally made short films for hire. Below is a short that still shows his innovative eye and, maybe his tendency to push the limits of sound judgement in order to produce the necessary sense of realism.
The film is They Caught the Ferry (De nåede færgen, 11 min, 1948). The film was a work of propaganda to encourage drivers to not speed; there were no speed limits in Denmark in 1948. The question is whether the couple in the film will catch the ferry in this life, or the one that crosses over to the next.
In the documentary Carl Th. Dreyer: My Metier (1995), we hear from Jørgen Roos, the cinematographer on the film, about the story of its making, including his near death when they ran the motorcycle into a tree. Not once did they falsely speed up the action via film speed. All the action was filmed at full speed.
I believe that if I was a young man watching this film in the theaters back in 1948 I would have thought that riding a motorcycle that fast looked exciting. I would probably have wanted to go out and get myself a motorcycle right away. I doubt this film helped to reduce traffic accidents, though it is interesting to see what Dreyer did for hire. This copy has the characters speaking Danish, the subtitles in English, and voice over in Russian.
R. Bresson interrogation
This interview with Robert Bresson is both fascinating and disconcerting. It it set up (mise-en-scène) and conducted more like an interrogation than an interview. I love to hear Bresson talk about his work. I am also annoyed by some of the questions, or at least the way they are delivered. I feel as though I want to jump in as a friend and say to Bresson, “Come, forget about them. Let’s go get a drink.”
I imagine the producers of this show thought it would be more interesting if they umped on the “Pickpocket” theme and did the interview as though Bresson was being questioned by the police. What we get, though, is a couple of nobodies (let me know if you know otherwise) coldly demanding answers from a kind and thoughtful Bresson. I like the answers given by Bresson, but he could have been asked better questions.
>Robert Bresson: Four Nights of a Dreamer
>The video below is Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971) by Robert Bresson. It has never been released on DVD or VHS. This is a beautiful, simple film. It is based on Dostoevsky’s short story, White Nights. Bresson’s previous film was Mouchette (1967). He was seventy years old when he made this film, which I find interesting, given the story is, in part, about young love and is told so tenderly.
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=2079591657829882950&hl=en&fs=true
I love the moment when, while at the movie premiere, the daughter leans over to her mother and says, “We have fallen into a trap.” I am not yet sure if this film is as strong as Bresson’s best works, I tend to think no, but it might be, and I did find it compelling. There are stylistic moments that feel very much like Pickpocket (1959), but in many ways this film reminds me of Eric Rohmer’s work.
Why there is still a Bresson film unreleased on DVD leaves me non-plussed. I have notified the authorities.
Ploughed and harrowed: Watching films as a preparation for death.
I have been examining my inclinations lately regarding the kind of cinema I am drawn too. The fact that I do that, and say that I do that, marks me as a questionable character. Nonetheless, I am one of those types who cannot stop noticing my own thoughts, wonder about their provenance, and question their meaning. Naturally, if that is the right word, I prefer films that work along similar lines as my mind. In other words, I prefer films that give my mind time to think and reflect as I watch. I like slow films that carefully, and with nuance, build image upon image, and rely on subtleties and levels of meaning. I find action films the most boring of all films. This is strange because cinema is the art of movement. It is also strange because I love some action films quite a lot (e.g. Die Hard, 1988).
Though I came to film as did many of my generation, through Disney and television, through comedy and western, I took an educational turn down the path of art history, of philosophy, of the humanities, and so went the course of my mind. In college I was introduced to foreign films and they became a kind of revelation for me. I discovered I was sensitive to film as an artform as much as a way to tell stories and entertain. Sometimes viewing films became difficult for me as each scene, each pan of the camera, each edit evoked a multitude of thoughts. I would be simultaneously transfixed and distracted by a film. I would frequently not finish films, then, when I did, I would sometimes be overcome for days. Needless to say, this kind of film viewing is not typical, though I know it is not uncommon either. I will admit that it may be a kind of limitation, but it is who I am. It is also personally annoying at times. I find that I seek that “overcoming” kind of experience, even to have my life changed forever, and yet I fear it too. One does not wish the existential crisis to come, but one cherishes those that have come. One does not want one’s mind to be taken over, as it were, but one needs to be shaken. So I struggle between the desire to be profoundly redone by a work of art and the desire to remain safely as I am.
I have wondered why I seek out art for this purpose. I know art can be a distraction or a light pleasure. But I have often disdained art used for those purposes, though I know this attitude is incorrect, for art can function in many ways and for many purposes. Recently I realized how I have though about art; I cannot say it better than Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky:
The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good. (Sculpting in Time, p. 43)
To prepare a person for death, that is what I have sought; to be prepared for death. I am not morbid in this sentiment. I do not seek death. But I have been on a mission of sorts since my youth to seek the final implications of belief. I long for films (and any art) to take me there, or push me there. A film does not need to be heavy handed, nor does it need to be dark. It can be full of light and life, but it does, at least, need to reach into one’s soul, as it were, and open it up to a kind of receptivity. I long for that harrowing and rendering. that is why, in the face of so many competent and popular films, my reactions are so often a shrug of the shoulders.
It is not that I cannot be amused, but I cannot help but think that amusement means “without the muses.” To be amused to to stop thinking, to be diverted from the the realities and implications of existence. Life, as we know it in this whirling electronic age, has become a world of diversions. We all need diversions at times, but diversions are not only not hard to come by, they are thrust upon us with such repetition and force that it takes an active and committed individual to ward them off. I believe such a commitment comes from the orientation of one’s soul toward (or away from) the infinite—to borrow a word from Kierkegaard. To turn away from diversions into a powerful work of art, and then to let that work of art do its function, and to be receptive to that function, is a kind of antidote (though not a complete cure) to a life of amusements. It is not the only way, but it is one way.
There is, however, a caveat somewhere in all this. That is, one must be able to trust the artist, the filmmaker, if one is to be thus undone. I cannot, I should not, allow any artist to plough and harrow my soul unless I know that artist’s character. This may require one to push back against that first viewing, that sacred viewing that no one wants disturbed, and to take a cautious approach. This is why the choice to view one film over another, or to take a chance on a film, ought to be based first on who is the filmmaker and not the actor. It is the filmmaker who is accountable. It is the filmmaker who must be trusted. I like a great many films for various reasons, but this need to trust the filmmaker brings me back time and again to the likes of Bresson, Dreyer, Rohmer, Tarkovsky, and Renoir, and why I appreciate, but with caution, the likes of Bergman, Allen, Antonioni, and Tarr. I’m sure anyone reading this can come up with their own list of filmmakers.
Does anyone else think this way?
pilgrimakimbo 