RNL
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Post by RNL on Nov 20, 2006 3:03:15 GMT
I have Rohmer's L'amour l'après-midi recorded from TV. According to IMDb, it's the sixth in a series. Would I be missing anything by watching it having not seen the other five?
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Nov 20, 2006 4:14:29 GMT
4(2005/Ilya Khrjanovsky) [First Viewing] Three people meet in a bar, and lie about their occupations; later, one of them attends a funeral in the countryside.Quite possibly the strangest film I have ever seen. Netflix directly recommended this to me because I ranked "Eraserhead" so highly, and you can definitely tell how this film was heavily influenced by Lynch's film. Khrjanovsky paints a surreal nightmare of Russia, making it out to be a foggy land of industry, peasants, and a place where wild dogs roam free, and everything comes in fours. I highly recommend this film to everyone.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 20, 2006 4:40:45 GMT
I have Rohmer's L'amour l'après-midi recorded from TV. According to IMDb, it's the sixth in a series. Would I be missing anything by watching it having not seen the other five? Apparently not. I watched the fifth, I think; they're unconnected in terms of plot.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 20, 2006 5:13:33 GMT
Sátántangó Béla Tarr 1994 Hungary/Germany/Switzerland 1st time; DVD Inhabitants of a rural, post-communist Hungarian town are brought together by the arrival of a stranger, and the death of a small girl. The ebbs and flows of Tarr's epic film mean the viewer's interest, or attention span, comes and goes; it's probably best to make use not only of the two given intervals, but also of the twelve chapters which divide this laborious film. Because it is so slow, often with lengthy sequences without any kind of character interaction whatsoever, following what little narrative there is is especially difficult. Further evidence of where Van Sant found inspiration for his last three films: not only is there more shots imitated in Gerry, but the non-linear editing obviously influenced Elephant: and here, this coverage of events from different view-points seems to have no purpose other than to make the editing of the narrative compliment the way, in individual scenes, Tarr's camera moves through space. A lot of standout sequences happen to be involving animals of some sort: the opening shot, of cattle leaving a barnyard; a small girl force-feeding a cat rat-poison, with the cat struggling at first and then, when left alone, remaining still; and horses galloping into a town square and circling a statue, with three humans marching off into the distance; the penultimate chapter, in which two men edit a letter on a typewriter, with the camera circling them at a snail's pace; and, regardless of the expected ebbs and flows of such a difficult, ambiguous film, who can deny the power of the final moments, that crescendo of distant bells, and the slow descent into inevitable darkness?Persona Ingmar Bergman 1966 Sweden 3rd time; DVD After caring for a mentally ill patient, a nurse begins to have a nervous breakdown herself. Fantastic and fascinating, a film which evolves and rewards enormously when revisited. Shot in piercing black and white, its images will haunt and linger. Bergman explores cinematic illusion by means of a character's insanity: a conscious charade of mental illness in one character, the descent into frustration and identity confusion in another. Bold and daring, it has that rare, elusive quality of having been economically efficient - edited to the point of being inch-perfect in length and pace. Aesthetically resounding and psychologically profound.
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Nov 21, 2006 0:21:08 GMT
The Getaway(1972/Sam Peckinpah) [Nth Viewing] An ex-con is recruited to rob a bank, but the heist goes terribly wrong.Works almost entirely on Steve McQueen's 'King of Cool' persona, which is at an all time high in this film. Other than that, the first half is rather slow (except for the excellent opening credit sequence), and the robbery scene is not as suspenseful as it should have been. The score, like almost everything in the film, is very dated. But the second half is more energetic and more rewarding. The scene where McQueen destroys the police car is brilliant.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Nov 21, 2006 0:32:10 GMT
Persona Ingmar Bergman 1966 Sweden 3rd time; DVD After caring for a mentally ill patient, a nurse begins to have a nervous breakdown herself. Fantastic and fascinating, a film which evolves and rewards enormously when revisited. Shot in piercing black and white, its images will haunt and linger. Bergman explores cinematic illusion by means of a character's insanity: a conscious charade of mental illness in one character, the descent into frustration and identity confusion in another. Bold and daring, it has that rare, elusive quality of having been economically efficient - edited to the point of being inch-perfect in length and pace. Aesthetically resounding and psychologically profound. Persona (1966/Bergman) Capo got it about right, fantastic and fascinating. Having read the basic premise of the plot prior to my viewing, I had mediocre expectations, but those were almost instantly discarded by the first few moments of the film, so much so that I grabbed the DVD case and almost ejected the disc to make sure I was watching the right movie. These somewhat negative hopes for the film's potential were mostly created by my only previous Bergman film, Wild Strawberries, which I expected to like much more than I did. These two films represent one of the most dramatic visual and mental maturations of a director I've ever witnessed, almost to the point of questioning whether it's even the same man behind the helm. While Strawberries seemed to only dabble in the issues that are fully explored here, it also never strayed too far from it's roots in simple dramatic storytelling, a statement that could not be accurately applied to this film. Persona represents perhaps the best treading of the line between avant-garde and fiction film, next to only 2001. It's one of those films where I really came away feeling as though I'd actually learned something, not just been told a story, as Capo's been recently discussing over on the GBB boards. And jesus christ, I am in love with Bibi Anderson.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 21, 2006 0:49:07 GMT
Nykvist is definitely my favourite cinematographer.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Nov 21, 2006 0:52:04 GMT
You're probably right. I often have trouble seperating credit for the director and the cinematographer. Sometimes I think I should choose which films to watch based on cinematographer and not director. I get the feeling I could be a huge Tony Scott fan.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Nov 21, 2006 1:04:37 GMT
Yeah, but, in fairness, Bergman did direct Nykvist and storyboard the images, which are mostly quite rigid. Look at Nykvist's work with other directors, it's not up to the caliber of his work with Bergman (even the very Bergman-esque sequences he shot for Tarkovsky). They made a hell of a team. Makes you wonder how Wong's going to fare without Chris Doyle.
By contrast, consider how Béla Tarr can cycle through a half-dozen cinematographers on one film and have it turn out so visually coherent (he claims he's "very autocratic").
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 21, 2006 1:49:04 GMT
The ultimate cineaste's question... Citizen Kane, a film by Welles or Toland?
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Nov 21, 2006 2:22:32 GMT
Could it not, following the same line of reasoning, be argued that the set/production/costume designers outrank the cinematographer, seeing as he'd have nothing to photograph if it weren't for them? Or what about the lighting technicians? The DP may tell them what he wants, and they may have to do what he says to his satisfaction (as in the director/DP relationship), but they have to do it, and the DP can't shoot in the dark. I mean, it's basically accepted (by me, anyway) that the director is the primary artist in cinema. He's the "visionary", if you will. He's the final authority through which the artistry of all others involved must be filtered. But of course it's absurd to grant him sole credit. What about cinematographers-turned-directors, like Nick Roeg? Does the fact that they could create the images they request have any bearing on the amount of credit they should receive for them? Would it be preferable for a single person to do basically everything on the film? As on Tetsuo or Stereo. That's genuine individualist cinema in effect.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Nov 21, 2006 2:33:33 GMT
One thing to add here.
Special effects artists like Rick Baker, Rob Bottin and Tom Savini have to be given enormous credit for their work on films like Videodrome, The Thing and Day of the Dead. To be honest, I consider The Thing more Rob Bottin's film than John Carpenter's. He was actually hospitalised, suffering from extreme exhaustion when filming wrapped.
CG artists at the likes of WETAworks, too. They're so pivotal to films like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or King Kong.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Nov 21, 2006 2:40:08 GMT
Also interesting to note is the terminology used by filmmakers when discussing their films.
Peter Jackson and Béla Tarr always speak in the first-person plural. "We" this that and the other.
This comes from always working with the same people, I supposed. Though Cronenberg still talks about his films as though they're his alone: "Film-making is collaborative, but it's not totally collaborative."
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 22, 2006 0:02:49 GMT
Funny how of all the crew members that have been tossed around for brief allusion, nobody has mentioned the importance of the editor. Over the past few months especially I have been increasingly driven by the importance of editing, of the editor's role. How many can you name?
Not many; I can't for one, though Thelma Schoonmaker is always an obvious choice as Scorsese's editor.
Might it be fair that the the director's importance stems from having to communicate his visions through, at different stages of production, many different compromises or filters or "essential obstacles", be they his/her own visions or those of the scriptwriter? And so, I think, give or take depending on the production, the most important people the director will come across during a film, the most significant filter to whom he/she must communicate ideas and vision, are the cinematographer and the editor?
Or is it three stages, once the script has been written? Before shooting, the cinematographer; during shooting, the actor; after shooting, the editor?
The director is the only one needed at each stage of production; he/she is there at the beginning and there and the end, and without one, none of the others are needed.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 22, 2006 0:08:58 GMT
Anyway, today's screening was on "Art Cinema / Avant garde Cinema". How adamant people are to define and restrict things with definitions. I suppose that is to be expected on a unit called "Key Issues of Film Studies", though. Meshes of the Afternoon Maya Deren / Alexander Hammid 1943 US 1st time; big screen A woman dreams of being murdered by herself; she wakes up and is killed again. One of the most genuinely unsettling films ever made, in the feelings its askew cinematography conjures and the lingering tone left by Teiji Ito's score (added 1952). The entire thing is edited and shot so as to constrict the audience in every way possible. It'll probably give you nightmares - its imagery and general style of narrative is echoed by Lynch in Mulholland Dr.Gently Down the Stream Su Friedrich 1981 US 1st time; big screen Fourteen dreams from a filmmaker's personal journal are scratched in text onto film, coinciding with images of a woman swimming. Disturbing not in content but in the frankness with which its intimacy is achieved, this experimental short looks a lot like the kind of thing Greenaway likes to do - overlaying images and text so as to create a rich visual pattern; less about the logic of dreams and more to do with the actual content, it is daringly personal stuff; and entirely silent, which makes it often uncomfortable to watch.La strada The Road Federico Fellini 1954 Italy 1st time; big screen A simpleton is hired and exploited by a brute as he travels from town to town and circus to circus, and falls for him. A film all about humanity's need for love and companionship, without really knowing it; it is a decidedly downtrodden affair lifted throughout by Masina's portrayal of the woman taken for granted and led astray by whomever she might meet. It would be an annoying, rather obvious performance if it wasn't so fiercely controlled, and the circus scenes fetch up all kinds of similarities to Chaplin. Speaking of whom, its downfall is probably its undying need to gain its audience's love, flattering them with a sugary ebb and flow of emotions, and it isn't all that great to look at. Still of great interest, however, with lots of ambiguity and interesting scenes and characters - the Fool is one for discussion more than anybody.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Nov 22, 2006 0:21:26 GMT
Greenaway talks regularly about the shift in importance from the cinematographer to the editor, and considers the role of the editor now the most important in cinema, since every image can now be reformed in a million ways after it's been captured.
De Palma, however, claims that once the film's been shot the best you can do is "dress the corpse up".
But the thing about the editor is, that even as the possibilites further increase, the technology is further democratized. Any computer-literate person can edit basic video footage, and, indeed, anybody can operate a video camera. The importance of the cinematographer and the editor is relative to how visually creative the film (the director?) is, I suppose.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 22, 2006 0:57:40 GMT
I love editing my own films. It is one of the most creative, rewarding and exhaustive processes of thought I can think of. The most conclusive stage of filmmaking, and I must be there, to invest myself entirely. After I edit a film, after it's 'in the can', I feel completely empty, unable to speak, to think, to discuss what my film is about or what it involved or how it was done or what it even feels like to be finished.
Because poetry is the eviction of personality and emotion, as T.S. Eliot said. ;D
There's a fine line between being professional and personal, of knowing what works and what doesn't work; it's the first time since the original concept, or the scriptwriting, where the film takes some form of chronological or visual coherence. It's the first time things relate to one another, the first time you get a real sense of not only what the film is really about, but what you were or are trying to do with it... on a wider level, why you even are making films in the first place. You never have time to think of things like that during shooting - and you probably should ask those kind of questions before shooting, but when ideas are flowing everything seems good, so it's pointless, or rather very difficult, to ask those kind of questions at the beginning.
I wonder if Omar feels the same...
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Nov 22, 2006 1:12:19 GMT
Yeah, I enjoy editing too.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 22, 2006 2:25:16 GMT
I think editing is the rhythm of the film, it induces pace and cadence; it is from editing that meaning stems, in the form of narrative revelation or simple wit or something else. Which is why I am fascinated by filmmakers who don't use it conventionally, and why I would never dismiss them - Jarmusch, Ozu, Tarkovsky, Tarr, etc. It takes a lot to induce 'meaning' or evoke a response without editing. It takes a lot of confidence and ambition, I think, to try and gain a rhythm and thus maintain interest without a new energy investment or input of relief, which a new shot tends to offer.
Anyway, since Maya Deren's masterpiece Meshes of the Afternoon is still haunting me, I looked for it on YouTube. It might not hold up on having been compressed - so try your best to imagine it in a darkened cinema on the big screen, which might help explain why I was physically unsettled, finger-clutching, bum-adjusting, muscle-contrapting and all. Meshes of the Afternoon
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Nov 22, 2006 19:16:14 GMT
Shrek 2Andrew Adamson / Kelly Asbury / Conrad Vernon 2004 US 2nd time; big screen The ogre must race against time in order to retain his new wife, whose parents are plotting against him. So drenched in references to pop culture, and so reliant on audience awareness of such references, in ten years time this film might have fallen into complete obscurity; different actors play the same minor characters depending on which country it was distributed in, and it is so determined to be hip and of its time that it will soon be outdated. There are a few good visual gags here and there, most of them involving minor characters, but the humour is often forced and simply not funny; it doesn't even look all that astonishing.Les enfants du paradis Children of Paradise Marcel Carné 1945 France 1st time; big screen The Boulevard of Crime, 19th Century Paris: the lives of a stage actor, a mime, a whore, a thief, a nobleman and an actress intertwine, and cross again seven years later. Spellbinding for those who adore multi-layered scripts and visual frames packed with action and movement; it is entrenched in period detail so as to be seamless, and so riveting in its characters and exploration of acting and the entire notion of acting, that it belies its three-hours running time. Told in two parts; the first an interesting, extended means of expositing its characters, the second, set years later, bringing them back together again for a bitter explosion of love, regret and deep sorrow.First time I saw Shrek 2 was on a plane. You have to enjoy films on a plane. It's part of the laws of travel.
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