Thanks, Michael, as ever. And: no doubt, no doubt....

2008-11-12T11:05:55.093-05:00

Thanks, Michael, as ever. And: no doubt, no doubt.

Great write-up, Ryland, congratulations! And--as ...

2008-11-11T12:44:00.000-05:00

Great write-up, Ryland, congratulations! And--as ever--thanks for the shout-outs.

Well, if it didn't do it for you, that's too bad. ...

2008-11-10T21:51:18.252-05:00

Well, if it didn't do it for you, that's too bad. I think, however, Desplechin is quite attuned to the film medium and its capacities. It's true his films feel (this is redundant) overtly abundant but I think that if you're vibing with the picture, it's a pure delight; however, if you're annoyed, I can see how that could get excruciating--especially with something like _K+Q_--since these films don't quit (until they do). His formal tricks, too, are rather sly--I'm thinking of all those cars arriving at various stations (houses, hospitals, literal train stations) punctuated by fades, not cuts, which layer that liminal space--or his will to jump around within the temporality of any given scene to give it another jab of emphasis. I understand this can be tiresome. And his techniques go against a lot of the long-take school of thought, but this violence (within the story as much as against story and against form) get at a certain vitality that's missing from a lot of the let's-get-dour long take stuff.

(That said, there's a lot of life in some of those long-take films. To look at a film from this year: _Le voyage du ballon rouge_ is full of life, full of activity, within a single, uninterrupted frame. That scene with the piano tuner is truly phenomenal, yummy, lovely. And, of course, I like a lot of the dour long-take stuff; heck, my home-base blog has Tarkovsky as a mascot image! I love Pedro Costa! And, yet, again, those guys know how to manipulate the edit.)

What's curious is that I, too, think of the novel when I think of Desplechin's storytelling techniques; but I think it's a good thing. It's as if every second is a fight to find some kind of interiority behind words, behind meaning, behind the face we present the world, even though there's an awareness that this will can only fail (or lie) and that things just happen and collide and overlap and get fucked up. Things also work out, from time to time, as in the ending of _K+Q_. I'm sure there's a better argument for his appropriation of novelistic tendencies (something about that magnanimity towards his characters as individuals, something about the spilling out of storylines getting hemmed in by the limit of the cinema frame and the limit of representation, as clued into understanding, that film provides over against the pure imagination of words on a page), but I think it boils down to his investment in film's possibilities for narrative and for form and how they interact (I feel this is all obvious) that makes his novelistic flights work within these films. I hear _Esther Kahn_ is more adventurous, more radical, and may challenge this (or maybe it will confirm it), but I cannot report on that as of this moment. However, once I see it, I hope to.

In any event: thanks for reading!

I thought Kings and Queen was excruciating to sit ...

2008-11-09T10:29:00.000-05:00

I thought Kings and Queen was excruciating to sit through. It was as if Desplechin doesn't know the difference between a movie narrative and a novel. Every time I kept thinking it was over, it would trail off on another subplot. On and on forever.

I'm sure there was a good 2 hour movie in there somewhere...

Comments on The House Next Door: Baggy like a house, and running away: Playing catc...

Thanks, Michael, as ever. And: no doubt, no doubt....

Great write-up, Ryland, congratulations! And--as ...

Well, if it didn't do it for you, that's too bad. ...

I thought Kings and Queen was excruciating to sit ...