Manufacturing Dreams from nocoastfilms on Vimeo. “No other art-medium–neither painting nor poetry–can communicate the specific quality of the dream as well as the film can. When the lights go down in the cinema and this white shining point opens up for us, our gaze stops flitting hither and thither, settles and becomes quite steady. We … Continue reading »
Filed under film theory …
dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y
My friend Alex Provan has an interview with Johan Grimonprez in the interview issue of Bidoun. dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y was part of the screening schedule for my senior seminar in documentary production, paired with One Day in September, and I loved it instantly. You should probably read Alex’s interview, then watch both films.
Minimalist Realism, Showing What You See, & the Female Eye
Wendy & Lucy dir. Kelly Reichardt, 2008 The portentous opening shots of trains in Wendy & Lucy leave no doubt exactly where Wendy Carroll (Michelle Williams) is headed, but the hour and twenty minutes we spend with her over the few days she spends in an unnamed Oregon town are no less entrancing. (Un)necessary brief … Continue reading »
The Wire, auf Deutsch
I can’t even imagine what this must be like to watch. The chief dubber explains: When one is otherwise paying attention to synchronization in dubbing, it’s a straight speech, that means no throaty voices, nasaly voices, “spuckeklacker” (stuttering/lisping). You really try and make sure this doesn’t happen or you simply don’t end up using these … Continue reading »
TIE Retrospective, 2009
All you need for cinema to happen: A room with an audience, all facing the same direction, a source of light projecting above their heads, and darkness. -Christopher May, director, TIE There is a pause, space of black and silence, purposefully left between the short films. I describe to Jennie the need for a moment … Continue reading »
Auteur Theory
These two films (which I saw back to back the past two nights) struck me as prime examples of auteur theory. Take that for what it’s worth.
Escape or Liberation?
GLASS: A portrait of Philip in twelve partsdir. Scott Hicks, 2007 “Writing is an antidote to the chaos of the world around you.” So said an unnamed writer, friend of Philip Glass. Philip muses, “Is art, then, escape or liberation? Is sanity also escape?” This, the end of Scott Hicks’s documentary, neatly wraps together what … Continue reading »
Encounters at the End of the World
Werner Herzog dedicates his latest film, Encounters at the End of the World, to Roger Ebert — a film about Antarctica that is not another film about penguins. At one point, however, the question of whether insanity might exist in the penguin world is raised of a long-time penguin researcher. The answer? Footage, accompanied by … Continue reading »
The Wanderings of My Subconscious
or The Kale Birther, A Crowded Train to New York and Chicago, The Hectograph, and The Predator I imagined a woman who doesn’t want a baby, births kale instead. I climbed over the heads of people on an aisle-less train, trying to get my bags. The hectograph churned in the background. The Predator enveloped everything … Continue reading »
Zizek in a new film
Slavoj Zizek, certainly one of the most fun film theorists to read — if you’re into that kind of thing — has become a movie star himself once again, this time in a film by Sophie Fiennes. It’s called The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, and focuses heavily on the psychosexual fantasy world with which the … Continue reading »