A slightly streamlined version
this week as, although I've watched nine films, most of these have been for work
purposes (I'm researching a new project), and this means that the notes I've
made have been focused around a particular aspect of the films in question – useful
for me, probably not very interesting out of context. So, I'm going to hold off
from publishing them here. Maybe they'll surface in a future post, maybe in
another book – or maybe they'll stay private.
Due to my heavy workload, there have
also been films that I've seen and enjoyed (Spellbound
and Verity's Summer), which I've
simply not written anything about. So, only two this week…
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| The Legend of the Suram Fortress |
06/03/13
Watched The Legend of the Suram Fortress, which was astonishingly beautiful,
and quite extraordinary. I really responded to the tableau style and
quirkiness…though it feels like a film you need to experience. Writing about it, or trying to intellectualise it,
seems pointless. (This is not a criticism, but the highest form of praise).
10/03/13
Went the Barbican to (finally) see A Page of Madness. It was pretty much
everything I expected it to be – and everything I wanted it to be. It comes
across like a dizzying battering ram to the head. Since watching Sir Arne's Treasure last week I've been
wondering if silent cinema somehow had a faster conduit to the inner lives of
its characters, and A Page of Madness would
seem to support (confirm?) this thesis. There's something about the purity of
the medium when it was still silent, its use of a purely visual grammar, which
somehow opens up the soul of its characters in a way few modern films seem to
achieve. What's so striking about A Page
of Madness is the way it's all so
simply achieved: double exposures, whip pans, distorted mirrors, tracking shots
– it's hardly a fully equipped experimental arsenal… and yet the skill with
which these techniques are deployed, and the results achieved, are extraordinary.
It's all a bit too much to take in in one viewing (I don't think I could write
anything approaching a detailed plot synopsis) and yet the film, as a portrait of
madness, seems all the better – all the more effective – for the confusion. I
have a feeling that subsequent viewings may well confirm it as one of the supreme
achievements of the silent cinema. Truly masterful.
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| A Page of Madness |
Posts
4 comments:
Funny, I was just thinking I should ask if you'd seen 'A Page of Madness'. Remarkable film.
(the last thing I'd call it would be simple, though)
But did you see it without sound?
I ask because a) it's important to remember this would have been originally presented with a live benshi commentary and musical accompaniment, and b) the music on the version I saw was modern and very evocative.
Silent film was rarely intended as a purely visual experience. Having said that, 'A Page of Madness' is, as you say, an astounding demonstration of the singular power of cinematic imagery.
Sorry, yes – I didn't mean it was 'simple'. Quite the opposite. What I meant was it weaves its complex web from simple means (basic camera moves, etc). They're simple techniques used in extraordinary (and complex) ways.
The screening had live music from In the Nursery (so a modern score). But the music, good as it was, didn't make much of an impact – I mean, there's so much going on with the visuals that it's already a sensory overload. 'an astounding demonstration of the singular power of cinematic imagery' indeed.
I found this quote and thought of you:
"In 1914, a book by Arthur J Eddy appeared, Cubists and Post-Impressionists', saying that the art of the future would be more spiritual: the keynote of the modern movement was "the expression of the inner self, as distinguished from the representations of the outer world."
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