1. This past weekend saw the start of BAM's DREYER series. Friday's early show of The Passion of Joan of Arc was sold out and Sunday's mid-afternoon screening of Day of Wrath had a decent crowd, too. Over at The Auteurs' Notebook, I'm keeping a diary of sorts about the films I see after David Phelps introduced the series and compiled four "montages" of quotations. You can see the whole stream of Dreyer ideas by clicking this link. (There were also timely pieces by Jonathan Rosenbaum and Michael Joshua Rowin last week.) The selection below comes from Phelps.
["And likewise, Dreyer’s camera plays seer, invoking entrances and outcomes in scenes, but is as interested in the end result as the path getting there, an actor’s own hobble (what it’s like generally and what it’s like in this particular moment), as in the slow walks across Ordet’s rooms. Fate, but expressed in natural gestures, the expressions of a face or hand or body, if more slowly than is natural, all the better to see them. (Dreyer was John Cassavetes’ second-favorite director—after Frank Capra). Reality and unreality always overlap in Dreyer, as Anne finds herself in a confession’s lie (perhaps), as the shadow of the grim reaper in Ordet are the lights from a doctor’s car. Ordet’s whole point, said again and again, is that the soul expresses itself in the most material of everyday acts. Like walking. What would it look like for Orestes to enter Hades? Perhaps what it looks like for Mikkel (Emil Hass Christensen) to walk around the kitchen, into the coffin room. The body is the signature of the soul."]
2. Moving with the times, an interview with Jia Zhang-Ke by House contributor Andrew Chan for Film Comment, which is "uncut" online.
["I haven’t ever felt that I had a special responsibility to a particular audience. As an artist in China, my goal is to express what we have experienced and felt, but this expression isn’t limited, and isn’t just directed at viewers from any particular country. Part of the reason I started making films was to respond to cinema’s blind spots, its silences, on the kind of life I knew. I grew up in Fenyang, Shanxi, and lived there until I was 21. After studying film in Beijing for four years, I discovered that there weren’t any movies that had any relationship to my own life. I wanted to express all the memorable things that I had experienced, and I think this is still my primary responsibility as a filmmaker."]
3. That siren, Campaspe, probably doesn't need our nods when it comes to attracting your eyes, but I really dug this latest post: George and Bernard: Notes on a Scandal. I mean, it gets bigger, but, heck, look at this lead—
["Do you think George Sanders could have played Bernard Madoff?"]
4. Kim Morgan's got some ideas about an Erotic Rotting Rabbit. That is, that sexy lady on the phone in one of Polanski's wild, early ones that always makes me warble and wiggle. (All one time I've seen it.)
["The diseased atmosphere of Carol's womb is meticulously created with Polanski's use of camera angles, sound effects and images of clutter. "]
5. The Wrestler: A cinematic analysis in a 1989 Volvo station wagon 240DL is something funny at McSweeneys by Tyler Stoddard Smith. Grandma's got a point (from the passenger's seat) below. (If that doesn't do it for you, maybe this will.)
["Why didn't we stay for the last part? She was just about to jump on that Arab."]
Quote(s) of the Day:
[...]
all my originality consists in bringing fantastic beings to life by making them plausible, and, as much as possible, in putting the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible."
odilon redon - 1902 & 1909
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): The lion looks like it's enjoying a fantastic time.
Clip of the Day: Sometimes, the news is tough. Sometimes, this is the only way to react. Sometimes, three words is all it takes to work through your feelings.
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"Links for the Day": A selection of Links that will hopefully spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to ryknight at gmail dot com.
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7 comments:
Clip of the Day: So, does he kill them?
Nomi, I do not know. All I know is Ryan O'Neal is better than that. And that Norman Mailer is...something.
I’d like to submit another link for House reader consumption – a missive of sorts from the executive producer of the Seattle P-I’s new online-only effort that lays the groundwork for what’s to come.
I know that many are tired of the “woe is the wannabe paid critic” navel gazing, but this is a story with far more reach. The new seattlepi.com venture is something that anyone with even the slightest media junkie in them should have in the crosshairs.
No doubt, being handed the keys to a car with three blown tires is hardly something to celebrate, but you wouldn’t get that feeling from the missive above (full disclosure: Michelle Nicolosi is a friend). The benefit of the way things have unfolded in Seattle is that seattlepi.com has nothing to lose. They’re going to break the “traditional” rules of newspapering and even the nouveau rules. They’re going to do all the things that so many newspapers, just barely hanging on, don’t have the guts (or the resources) to try.
It might fail miserably. (Though if anyone can pull it off, it’s Michelle. And if any city will support it, it’s Seattle.) Regardless, in whatever time it has, this new effort is something that all print and online media outlets should pay attention to and learn from. If you care about newspapers (print or online), seattlepi.com is going to serve as a fascinating case study.
I actually think it is entirely possible to deliver that line believably.
Maybe he just gets together with Isabella Rossellini and avoids killing .. .. . ah, maybe Isabella is completely lying and is just trying to get her husband offed to get his money and knows the inflammable Ryan O'Neal will get the job done. Three innocent lives are destroyed. Luckily, just when we think evil Isabella's going to get away with it, Columbo steps in and catches her.
"Oh, man! Oh, God! Oh, man! Oh, God!...."
I had that same response watching The Happening.
"Oh Man!"
"Oh God!"
"Oh Man!"
"Oh God!"
I haven't seen that movie in years. Now I want to see it again immediately.
That lion is having a GREAT time. I realize that animals should be wild and free and etc., but more of them should be trained to ride in motorcycle sidecars as well. This is axiomatic.
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