Quote for the Week

I read this a few weeks ago now, and I've not been able to get it out of my head since…

 

'Twice a week, watch a film about which you know nothing' – Mark Cousins, Outside the Bell Jar in Sight & Sound, April 2013.

 

I'm not sure I've quite put it into practice, but I've certainly taken it to heart.

Some Incomplete Thoughts on Incompleteness

From Dusk Till Dawn

In my last post, I touched briefly on the topic of the incompleteness of certain silent films, and the incompleteness of certain silent film viewing experiences. But a different kind of 'incompleteness' has been on my mind a lot recently too. More specifically, I've been thinking about it since I read Nick James' report from Berlin in the April 2013 issue of Sight & Sound. In his run-down of the festival, James lists Andrew Bujalski's Computer Chess as his ninth best film of the festival, before openly admitting to having only seen the first 45-minutes of the film. 

 

For some reason, this bothered me. Perhaps it falls down to the more common walk-out, which usually occurs when someone doesn't like a film – something else which bothers me. I have never walked out of a film, and never will. You don't judge a joke without hearing the punch line. And so it is with films. For instance, I can think of two experiences recently in which I've found the first hour rather a slog, only to be totally won-over and enthralled in the last third or so of the film (with the result that I now think highly of those films as a whole). I can even think of one film I hate which, when watching, almost won me over – and became all the more interesting for it. Films are, even at their most crass, artistic statements. Somehow, therefore, judging them without knowledge of the whole seems…wrong. 

 

I know this won't be a popular statement, but surely if you're going to have an opinion on something you need to be properly informed. I'm a big fan of Bujalski's work (and James', for that matter), so it's great to see the film being spotlighted in a magazine like Sight & Sound. But the film is listed as 92 minutes on IMDb – which means that James saw only half the film. And surely a lot can happen in half a film? It could derail into a total mess, or turn into a totally different film (imagine the impression you'd have of From Dusk Till Dawn if you walked out halfway through). 

 

In a sense, I've always (rather harshly) thought that if you don't see the whole of a film, you lose the right to have an opinion on it. I'm aware that by saying that I've probably just alienated every film critic reading this, but hopefully people will respect my right to have an opinion, even if they don't agree with it. I'm also aware that this becomes problematic when you come back to the idea of judging incomplete films. For instance, I never much cared for Metropolis until I saw the restored version, which went on to become the best film I saw that year. Perhaps this is a separate issue, perhaps not. 

 

Let's try and take another example. Would it be fair to judge the architecture of a 10 storey house based only on the first and second floor? Probably not. So why is it fair to judge a film from the first 10 or 20 minutes? In some ways, giving time to let the audience grow accustomed to the pace, themes and characters of a story is as important as having good foundations on which to build your house.  

 

As the title of this post suggests, I'm not trying to wrap up this thorny issue in one short blog post. I know that not everyone shares my vehement belief in viewing the complete work before forming an opinion – and I'm also still not sure how to reconcile this with wanting to form judgments of incomplete films. I just know that this is something which is important to me, which I've been thinking about a lot recently, and which I thought was worth commenting on here.

Quote for the Week

'Film form film form film form! can be a hang-up. Wasn't the lens open, letting light in – and all those living people? They made it through and onto film, onto videotape, onto a memory card. (Memory card is a sweet name.)' – Ken Jacobs, in his tribute to Jonas Mekas in Sight & Sound, January 2013.

Quote for the Week

Following on nicely from my last post, this:

 

'"If you know I am an unbeliever," [Pasolini] told a journalist in 1966, "then you know me better than I do myself. I may be an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief"'

 

Quoted in Divine Reality by Hannah McGill, Sight & Sound, March 2013.

Quote for the Week

'Today's almost hysterical, show-you-everything, keep-the-camera-moving, handheld, cutting-every-second style deprives the viewer of our trust in them' - Todd Haynes, quoted in All That the Miniseries Allows by Isable Stevens in Sight & Sound August 2011.

Quote for the Week

'It's the margin that holds the book together' – Jean-Luc Godard to Agnès Varda, as quoted in Sight & Sound, April 2011, page 10.

In Praise of Slow

In the latest issue of Sight & Sound (Volume 20, Issue 2), Jonathan Romney 'examines the appeal' of so-called 'Slow Cinema'. In his piece In Search of Lost Time, Romney posits that the 'founding texts of current Slow Cinema' are seen by some as being Béla Tarr's seminal Sátántangó (1994) and Werckmeister Harmonies (2000, and my film of the last decade). Although I am never one to dispute any praise of Tarr (who is, in my opinion, the greatest living filmmaker), I believe that it's possible to see if not a 'founding' text then at least a forerunner of the current wave of Slow Cinema as early as the 1960s. I am, of course, talking about Carl Th. Dreyer's Gertrud. So many of the tenets that Romney describes for Slow Cinema began with, and were at the time heavily criticised in, Gertrud. For instance, when Romney writes 'poetic, contemplative – cinema that downplays event in favour of mood...[in which] you become acutely aware of every minute, every second spent watching', he could very well be talking about Gertrud, and when he states that these films 'make cinema akin to statuary', it is as if he is using language purposely designed for Gertrud.

I suppose my point in saying all this is not that Gertrud was the spark that lit the flame of Slow Cinema, but merely that Dreyer can once again be seen as being years ahead of his time (perhaps unsurprising for the finest artist the cinema has ever produced).

While I'm on the subject of Dreyer and Slow Cinema, I must admit to still being surprised by the amount of praise repeatedly being heaped on Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light, a film which I struggle to see as more than, at best, a mediocre art film, and at worst, an insult to Dreyer. Whereas Ordet spends almost two hours devoted to creating the atmosphere and tone necessary to make its miracle truly miraculous in every way, Reygadas simply transposes that film's ending with seemingly little understanding, and certainly without any power or effect. With Gerry, Gus Van Sant showed that it was possible to channel a master filmmaker (in that case Tarr) and still come up with an original, inspiring piece of work. But not so with Silent Light. It's not even the fact that Reygadas borrowed the ending of Ordet wholesale that I find so offensive: it's the fact that he made the ending so out of place and drained it of its power.

I was once told on good authority that, after Silent Light's premiere at Cannes, Reygadas denied even knowing what Ordet was (though I do have to admit I haven't verified this, trusting as I do the authority who told it to me). However, by the time I saw the film at the London Film Festival, Reygadas had changed his story to something along the lines of 'I had a story that I didn't know how to end and I've always liked the ending of Ordet'. Whether this is in fact the case of a filmmaker downplaying his own process and refusing to admit self-awareness for his creative decisions is hard to say, but it's also very hard to swallow. Whatever the real reason for Reygadas' lifting of Ordet's ending (and even his admirers have to admit it is a straight-out lift and not a reference), the fact remains that without the steady hand of Dreyer driving the feature-length build up to the shattering conclusion, it simply doesn't work. When I saw Silent Light at London, I so desperately wanted to like it, to love it, yet I found nothing except an empty shell.

Thankfully, I had my DVD of Ordet waiting at home to restore my faith in the power of cinema.

Quote for the Week

'Back in 2002, when I asked [Soderbergh] if he was happy with Solaris, he commented: "it almost doesn't matter, because I'm really driven by process. I'm not a result oriented film-maker."' – From Split Personality by Demetrios Matheou in the December 09 Issue of Sight and Sound.

Quote for the Week

'A young roster of talent...has taken its place alongside Hungary's best-known film-maker, the mighty Béla Tarr (perhaps not so famous to the Oxford St retail outlet whose display racks rechristened the DVD of Tarr's seven-hour masterwork Sátántangó as Stan’s Tango)’. From The unblinking gaze by Kieron Corless in Sight & Sound, May 2009.

5 Classic Trailers

Last Friday Béla Tarr's latest masterpiece, The Man from London, finally 'opened' in the UK, on one screen in, appropriately, London. In place of a rant about why the hell it’s taken the film so long to reach theatres (or, rather, a theatre), I thought I'd write a post inspired by the film's sublime trailer. I first saw the film at Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2007, and in a fit of excitement over the prospect of being able to see it again on the big screen, I scoured the net in the hope of finding a trailer for it, and this is what I found:



Although this shot doesn't appear in the film itself, it still perfectly sums up the mood, the style and the themes of the film. In his review of the film in Sight & Sound, Michael Brooke talks about a similar shot in the film, commenting on the way that the camera movement has the result of making the protagonist appear like he's going nowhere, in that instance seemingly never getting any nearer a church which looms large behind him. On a metaphorical level, both the shot Brooke discusses and the shot used in the trailer perfectly encapsulate the film's theme of being trapped and of never being able to break free, to 'get' anywhere in life, while at the same time never losing site of the possibility of freedom from the daily grind. In other words, the very essence of the film has been distilled perfectly into the trailer, and thus even here the film's masterful synthesis of form and content are revealed.

As well as getting me excited about what a genius Tarr is, the trailer has also got me thinking about other great film trailers. The two that immediately sprang to mind were the ones for Bresson's L'Argent and Kubrick's The Shining. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the former online to embed in this post, but its mesmeric montage of cash machines slamming shut is really quite something, and it almost makes a purchase of the DVD worthy by itself. The trailer for The Shining is another one shot affair and is equally mesmeric, and which, thanks in no small part to its excellent use of music, fills the viewer with an ever increasing sense of despair as the shot continues:

Another trailer which I think has a really great use of music is the trailer for Scorsese's The Departed. However, the Scorsese trailer I've decided to include in my list is this one for Gangs of New York:

It may well just be because of my almost infantile love of this particular film, but there's something about this trailer which is just so exciting and thrilling. Or, in other words, it's another trailer which, for me at least, again perfectly encapsulates the film itself.

When I sat down to write this blog about trailers, I wanted to round my number out to five, because, well, it felt like a round number. With this in mind, I knew that I wanted to include something truly classic from the Hollywood of yesteryear. And so, as my final choice, I present you with the truly classic trailer for The Wolf Man. It's really not an exaggeration to say that they don't make trailers like this anymore... I leave it to you decide if that's a good or a bad thing...

Quote for the Week

I was all set to go with another Quote for the Week, when the new issue of Sight & Sound (December 08) dropped on my doorstep. Opening it up, I was confronted with this gem from none other than Ingmar Bergman himself, and was so blown away that I couldn't help but share it:

I cannot help thinking that the medium at my disposal is so fine and complicated that it should be able to illuminate the human soul more strongly, to reveal more ruthlessly, cover new realms of reality of which we are still ignorant...we who are engaged with filmmaking take advantage of only a fraction of an immense capacity. We use the little finger of a giant's hand and that giant is so far from harmless.

The quote is sourced in S&S as coming from Bergman's Self-analysis of a film-maker, included in the new book The Ingmar Bergman Archives from Taschen. I'm very excited about this book, having read The Stanley Kubrick Archives from cover to beautiful cover. If the Bergman book is even half as good as the Kubrick one, then I would say that it’s an essential purchase for any Bergman fan. And as the quote above suggests, Bergman is one of the most sublime of all filmmakers, so you should all be fans...

8½ Suggestions for Double Bills

In their August 08 issue, Sight & Sound celebrated the 'lost world of the double bill'. As well as alerting me to new films and pointing out similarities between films I already knew, the article also got me thinking about what double bills I'd have chosen or would chose, should I ever need to. And so, without further ado, I present you 8½ suggestions for double bills…

1) King of the Hill (1993) and Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
Although The Spirit of the Beehive would clearly be a more obvious choice to pair with Pan's Labyrinth, I've chosen Steven Soderbergh's criminally over-looked King of the Hill. In very different ways, the two films both show child protagonists using their imagination to help deal with the world around them (okay, so in Pan's Labyrinth it's likely the fantasy elements are real, but that's beside the point for the purpose here!).

2) The Trip (1967) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Upon it's release, Kubrick's film was advertised as 'the ultimate trip', and rumours abound to this day about people going to see the film merely in order to be able to drop acid during the Star Gate sequence. So, what better to accompany 'the ultimate trip', than, well 'The Trip'. Written by Jack Nicholson, directed by Roger Corman and staring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper (and made two years before Easy Rider) the film tells the 'story' of a TV commercial director (Fonda) having his first LSD trip (and yes, that's basically the whole story).

3) Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) and The Company of Wolves (1984)Both ostensibly horror films, these two classics each deal with the transitional period of a young girl on the verge of adulthood, and as such can be seen as clear companion pieces perfect for a double bill.

4) The Parson's Widow (1920) and Smiles of a Summers Night (1955)
Both Dreyer and Bergman have reputations as being directors of difficult, serious, and, dare I say it, austere works, but as these two films show, these reputations weren't fully justified. Not only touched with the genius and trademarks of their creators, these two films also show just how funny (and accessible) the filmmakers could be when they wanted.

5) People on Sunday (1930) and Before Sunrise (1995) and Quiet City (2007)
Okay, so I'm cheating a little bit here by suggesting a triple bill, but a double bill of any of the three films listed above would work equally well. Essentially, all three films tell the same story: two people meet at a train station (or, in the case of Before Sunrise, on the train) and then proceed to spend the next 24(ish) hours hanging out together. However, each film handles the narrative in a different way, and offers the story filtered through a different decade (20s, 90s and 00s respectively).

6) American Graffiti (1973) and Dazed and Confused (1993)
Again, two films with similar narrative outlines, set in different decades: here, a group of teenagers spend a final night together before heading off for college in the 60s, and the last night of school for the class of '77. Again, there are more differences than similarities, and a juxtaposition of the works offers us an insight into life as a teenage during the two periods in which they're set.

7) La Belle et la bête (1946) and Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Two fairytales about outsiders which are as powerful and as poignant for adults as they are for children.

8) Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and Mean Streets (1973)
Although Scorsese's love of old James Cagney films is well documented (not least by himself in A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies), I've never been able to find anything in which he directly talks about Angels with Dirty Faces, certainly the most clearly and typically 'Scorsesean' of the one's I've seen (if anyone reading this knows of anywhere where Scorsese has mentioned this film, I'd be grateful if they could let me know). The plot of Curtiz's film, about a group of 'dead end' kids caught between admiration for James Cagney's hoodlum and the attempts of Pat O'Brien's priest to keep them on the straight and narrow, sounds not only like perfect territory for a Scorsese film, but also like something straight out of the milieu of his early life. In a way, the choice of Mean Streets is a little arbitrary, and could easily be replaced with, say, GoodFellas or Who's That Knocking at My Door. However, as I intend to discuss in a future post, I think that Mean Streets contains a key to allowing an understanding of Scorsese as a spiritual filmmaker, and hence the suggestion of pairing it with Angels.

8½) Boccaccio '70 (1962) and RoGoPaG (1963)

The reason for this being a 'half' suggestion is twofold: one, I am only half suggesting it, and two, and I am perhaps only suggesting half of it (and of course the presence of Fellini also gave rise to the idea doing eight other suggestions). The problem with presenting this as a suggestion for a double bill is, moreover, also twofold: one, the two films have a combined run time of almost five and half hours, and second, well, some of the sections in these two portmanteau films aren't very good (RoGoPaG, for instance, contains the least interesting work I have seen by Rossellini). So, why suggest it at all? Easy: Fellini's The Temptation of Dr Antonio, De Sica's The Raffle, Pasolini's La Ricotta, and, to a lesser extent, Gregoretti's Il Pollo ruspante. Perhaps, therefore, the answer, as alluded to above, would be a partial screening, containing half of each film.

Quote(s) for the Week/Candlelight Part II

Last weekend I finally found the time to sink my teeth – no pun intended - into the new Masters of Cinema Vampyr DVD (which, by the way, is fantastic and also my hot tip for DVD of the year, if not the decade – seriously, this package takes a lot of beating). As is usual for me, after watching the film I then got started with the features and set about reading everything I could on the film, notably, in this case, David Rudkin's BFI monograph on the film. My schedule this week hasn't left me time to read much else, so, if you'll excuse the second Dreyer-orientated post in as many weeks, I'm going to nominate two quotes from Dreyer as my Quote(s) for the Week...

'How is it even possible to make two films of the same tenor right after each other? One puts too much into the first one to do that' – Carl Th. Dreyer, quoted in Waking Life by Casper Tybjerg, in Sight & Sound, September 2008.

'What interest me – and this comes before technique – is reproducing the feelings of the characters in my films...The important thing...is not only to catch hold of the words they say, but also the thoughts behind the words. What I seek in my films, what I want to obtain, is a penetration to my actors' profound thoughts by means of their most subtle expressions. For these are the expressions...that lie in the depths of his soul. This is what interests me above all, not the technique of cinema' – Carl Th. Dreyer, quoted in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 4th ed. by David Thomson, page 253.

While I'm on the subject of Dreyer and Vampyr: in his monograph, Rudkin points out another metaphorical use of candles by Dreyer. Here, Rudkin rightly deduces, the candles are being used as a metaphor for the 'protector' of the house [Spoiler Alert]: When the Lord of the Manor, the 'man' and 'protector' of the house, is shot dead, he drops his candelabra and his candles are extinguished. When Gray is asked to stay in the house, and thus take on the father's vacant mantle as 'man' and 'protector', one of the first things he does is light some candles, hence symbolising his assumption of this role.