tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65549700758302416582024-02-19T22:50:40.589+00:00Cinematic Investigations'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-73642052643131323322011-11-03T21:30:00.002+00:002011-11-03T21:32:37.863+00:00Move overCinematic Investigations has moved to Wordpress! Please see <a href="http://cinematicinvestigations.wordpress.com">here</a> for a new review of Gillian Wearing's <span style="font-style: italic;">Self Made </span>and for all future investigations into the cinematic!'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-14250427534080827932011-10-11T17:03:00.004+01:002011-10-11T17:11:34.451+01:00It's Cinema, but not as we know it...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZdIHKSqLA18E7FCGV9sv7m1no0yTCH-n8vKVSSZgVD8uSz7gX_kBF3Q1170-tf5mkH2l3lc-LQ7EA0b0l3hIoAyG_AFTP157u3g3T1PHpUVUufsz4V6fS4ep07FDZjWft2pzCsZJvbFM/s1600/Leonardo-Live-header.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 146px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZdIHKSqLA18E7FCGV9sv7m1no0yTCH-n8vKVSSZgVD8uSz7gX_kBF3Q1170-tf5mkH2l3lc-LQ7EA0b0l3hIoAyG_AFTP157u3g3T1PHpUVUufsz4V6fS4ep07FDZjWft2pzCsZJvbFM/s400/Leonardo-Live-header.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662266762809083074" border="0" /></a><br />Recently I attended a screening of Troll Hunter at my local Picturehouse cinema – The Cameo in Edinburgh.<span style=""> </span>During the pre-feature attractions, my attention was particularly drawn to the a trailer for the latest live broadcast cinema event, which was not, as has become usual, promoting a National Theatre production, but instead something that could be considered to further blur the lines that once separated our established modes of spectatorship. Coming soon to a cinema near you … <i>Leonardo Live. </i> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The press release from May this year promised viewers; <i>Leonardo Live</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> will provide a unique opportunity for art lovers to share in the excitement of viewing 'Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan' the night before it opens to the general public.’ Several things bother me about this statement. Who are these art lovers who would accept an evening in their local Picturehouse above seeing the paintings in the gallery? What kind of ‘view’ will one get, witnessing the projection of a satellite broadcast, of paintings that are potentially hundreds of miles away? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In principle, I like the idea of making art accessible to more people, certainly not everyone will be able to travel to London to see these works, but surely this kind of event just presents a falsehood, that anyone in the audience won’t be able to say that they actually ‘saw’ the show? Simply a mediation of it, not art, not cinema, not even theatre, so what is it?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Leonardo Live continues a trend that was sparked by the success of the Metropolitan Opera’s live broadcasts, which in turn inspired the National Theatre to broaden its horizons, starting with <i>Phèdre </i><span style="font-style: normal;">starring Helen Mirren in 2009. The difference was, that NT Live promised a solution to the problem of static camera placement that initially conveyed staleness in the Met’s shows.<span style=""> </span>For </span><i>Phèdre and</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> subsequent NT Live productions, a separate team of director, camera operators, lighting director etc, were hired to create a show that would convey the drama to a cinema audience.<span style=""> </span>That means camera movement, hidden mics and different lighting cues. A review by <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/jun/26/national-theatre-live-phedre">Michael Billington</a> (The Guardian) of </span><i>Phèdre </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Live described the adaptation; ‘Robin Lough, using five multi-video cameras, also directed Hytner's production impeccably for the screen: the cameras took us inside the action, allowed us to see faces in close-up and framed characters against the blue cyclorama, investing them with an epic quality.’ Despite the positive critique, these comments seem only to confirm that perhaps broadcast theatre is still most successful when it resembles cinema, giving the spectator what traditionally, theatre could not offer – the close-up. We are thereby brought back to the question, what is it? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The time of clear distinctions between the arts and media is long gone. Where once film theorist and godfather of the nouvelle vague,<a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520242272"> Andre Bazin</a> discussed the notion of presence with regard to the difference between theatre and cinema, we now have art forms that merge indiscernibly with one another, backed by clever brand awareness and marketing. <i>Leonardo Live’s</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> promotion is clear in its message of the collaboration between The National Gallery, Sky Arts HD, Picturehouse Cinemas and Seventh Art Productions. This is a production where media converge, (in accordance with the theory of <a href="http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/06/welcome_to_convergence_culture.html">Henry Jenkins);</a> when perhaps it is not important to discern what it is we are seeing, at least in terms of coverage for those funding the project. Still, I wonder how </span><i>Leonardo Live</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> will leave the association of art history television behind to become ‘cinema’.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: normal;">Press release <a href="http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/press-and-media/leonardo-live">here</a><br /></span></p>'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-81156257082125301022011-09-20T21:29:00.005+01:002011-09-20T21:34:56.952+01:00No surprise that The Skin I Live In has many layers<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi0apTyi_L6UDSIpu3FcqMnNex6Pa8q1P4dyGdv-z5OJVz6bjK1AK2Uk6CEiOOVYq3PnKqdyJowqcqs08W4yZ8XKMXzkB9x142q7p7IyxpqL3qIJolfppwr1JuSH1gYEMh-pOThReiGk4/s1600/The_skin_i_live_in_blog-580x230.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 159px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi0apTyi_L6UDSIpu3FcqMnNex6Pa8q1P4dyGdv-z5OJVz6bjK1AK2Uk6CEiOOVYq3PnKqdyJowqcqs08W4yZ8XKMXzkB9x142q7p7IyxpqL3qIJolfppwr1JuSH1gYEMh-pOThReiGk4/s400/The_skin_i_live_in_blog-580x230.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5654542380429165794" border="0" /></a> <style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">Almodóvar once again envelops the viewer within a host of different visual motifs and references, in his latest work, <i>The Skin I Live In.<br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i> </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On this occasion, I feel that a short review would be enough for the great Almodóvar – just see this film. For all its baroque themes and aesthetics, even a professed Almodóvar sceptic would get some nourishment from this film. It is pure cinema. I say that in the sense that other arts forms are present and correct, with references to literature and such evocative music, not least of all fine art in the paintings by Titian and sculptures by Louise Bourgeois. The film has so much to offer the viewer, both as an aural and visual feast and all the while encompassing such grand themes as betrayal, revenge, passion and hysteria. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">As with the Spanish auteur’s previous films, such as <i>Talk to Her </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2002)</span><i>, Volver </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2006)</span><i>, All About My Mother </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(1999)</span><i> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and my personal favourite, </span><i>Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(1988)</span><i>; The Skin I Live In </i><span style="font-style: normal;">moves across many genres, and is all at once melodrama, horror, sci-fi and comedy. Now arguably the most successful Spanish filmmaker of all time, Almodóvar’s mish-mash cauldron of influences could almost be a genre unto itself - there is no doubt his work can be instantly recognised.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Discussion of these many references can be found in countless reviews and articles elsewhere (in fact it is very hard to review the work of a director who has been so widely discussed!), so instead I’ll concentrate my efforts on one particular pleasure of the film, namely the scopophilic one. A love affair with looking is demonstrable by the numerous inventive ways the characters are seen to engage in staring, spying and gazing.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Held captive in the Cigaral, Vera (Elena Anaya) wears a body stocking to protect her artificially engineered skin. The architect of this doubly layered outerwear is her captor, Dr Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) who has used transgenesis to grow a new super skin that will withstand burns and insect bites. Contained within the four walls of her room, Vera is the subject of camera surveillance, and is watched by Robert on a giant flat screen, reclining on her bed, much like the Titian nudes hanging on the walls of his home. It is because of this manifold mediation, that of seeing Vera in the frame of a widescreen TV, wearing a stocking to cover the skin that is not her original - that Almodóvar’s lingering shots of her eyes have such great resonance, as becomes apparent in the film’s revelatory third act. These gateways’ to the soul sparkle and emote, and it is testament to Anaya’s performance that she conveys so much with her eyes in a role that demands a great deal from her whole body.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Equally, in a case of mistaken identity, Zeca (Roberto Álamo) desires Vera after seeing her in one of the many smaller screens in the house’s kitchen and displays a fervent, frustrated, passion in his attempts to overcome the boundary that separates him from the object of his craving.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">In another beautifully directed scene, the problem of personal perspective and what is hidden from view is brought to the fore. At the wedding of a friend, Robert keeps an eye on his socially awkward daughter, Norma (Blanca Suárez). A series of shot-reverse - shots show Robert to be peering at Norma through the bodies on the dance floor, glimpsing her exchanges with her peers. In the meantime Norma is looking at a young man, who reciprocates her gaze. What follows is a masterful revealing of the actual and speculative events, as Robert infers one conclusion, and the viewer is made complicit in the real interaction between Norma and her young beau. This Hitchcockian sleight-of-hand is a pleasure to behold, as the foundations are laid for the characters dark intentions and even darker actions.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>The Skin I Live In </i><span style="font-style: normal;">offers much for the viewer to revel in. Especially Banderas, who shows how great his range, is when compared to his other collaborations with Almodóvar, </span><i>Women on the Verge… </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and </span><i>Tie me Up! Tie me Down!</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> (1990). He expresses a cool and distant presence, but one who nonetheless feels deeply for those he loves. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Still, for all its genre-bending inventiveness, the film is most successful as a horror, and it is the ideas and images expressed in that vein that will linger in my mind …</p><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3-9i3PBuylkXa5rccQOKeQ3B51RRAw9eBSs2dalXBaE5zF5Iibb7wr96SJboBP6qWqcMoKfVfWsZiYs2ypilRRtsO7cKFKREIVZUrm7AKRagRgArH9-rjqoA0AflYsMn5hiY8Vc2Z29I/s1600/The_skin_i_live_in_blog-580x230.jpg"><span><span></span></span></a>'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-27995010312737103702011-09-10T13:10:00.006+01:002011-09-10T13:26:33.803+01:00Life on Earth, no small concerns in Attenberg.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoXBY2IVqQjKL8ow8Ij5fVWKdieGhvAtzE24UkFqFCIZut4wE0lfxjpJU8khaeOecCTBxyXZkqXCmDNlC0HznvhwsBuczb5U0xoxXdvEWfzq-9WrtEvc04glG6-HSaToBe57f9UBQFYE/s1600/attenbergmasks.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoXBY2IVqQjKL8ow8Ij5fVWKdieGhvAtzE24UkFqFCIZut4wE0lfxjpJU8khaeOecCTBxyXZkqXCmDNlC0HznvhwsBuczb5U0xoxXdvEWfzq-9WrtEvc04glG6-HSaToBe57f9UBQFYE/s320/attenbergmasks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650704705066995794" border="0" /></a><style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">In <i>Attenberg, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">the producer of 2009’s </span><i>Dogtooth</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> presents another orally fixated exploration of the world, from the perspective of an isolated young woman.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Director Athina Rachel Tsangari has crafted a curious and detailed portrait of four people living in a Greek coastal town, built around an industrial plant. The film focuses on Marina (Ariane Labed) daughter of Spyros (Vangelis Mourikis), an architect dying of cancer. The film’s title comes from Marina’s passion for watching David Attenborough documentaries with her father, something that has lead to her habit of mimicking the animals in the programs (<i>Attenberg </i><span style="font-style: normal;">being a mispronunciation of the name by Marina’s friend Bella). In fact, it could be said that some of the most honest and poignant communication in the film derives from the more animal-like exchanges between characters. </span><i>Attenberg </i><span style="font-style: normal;">begins with Bella (Evangelia Randou) teaching her repressed counterpart to French kiss. Marina’s literal distaste for what she considers to be a repulsive act eventually overcomes her impulse to learn and the two women resort to ape-like displays of aggression in the grass. This scene, when considered in relation to the film as a whole, is actually the perfect introduction to th</span><span style="font-style: normal;">e central female relationship – intimate, inquisitive, partially depend</span><span style="font-style: normal;">ent and ultimately tinged with an instinctive jealousy. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqAfNyvG1hZBTsJEoVkq7Ktxz-wUANYqM4SyVAgzIZHk4-S_PLkWAUBrHhkpO9w454-CN9tD2MawAw-HDLKN-fRy-nMvSUsf0-yEmlS8ISHfLLGIEyQ2TQN3bv0rieSwcga7AGygcDsg0/s1600/ATTENBERG_STILL_04.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqAfNyvG1hZBTsJEoVkq7Ktxz-wUANYqM4SyVAgzIZHk4-S_PLkWAUBrHhkpO9w454-CN9tD2MawAw-HDLKN-fRy-nMvSUsf0-yEmlS8ISHfLLGIEyQ2TQN3bv0rieSwcga7AGygcDsg0/s320/ATTENBERG_STILL_04.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650705367904007634" border="0" /></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I really enjoyed <i>Attenberg. </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Initially I couldn’t verbalise why, but the more I think about it, the richer it gets, as the characters interactions with each other and their environment are actually beautifully composed gestural encounters, (Cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis also worked on </span><i>Dogtooth</i><span style="font-style: normal;">). It is telling that the themes of the film are the grandest; Marina comes to terms with adult relationships and responsibilities via her experiences of sex and death. Tsangari doesn’t explain why Marina has such a limited experience of life, other than in scenes between father and daughter in which Marina expresses her frustration at her Dad’s desire for her to get out of her comfort zone, despite him raising her in opposition to this. At one point she describes herself as asexual, and declares that she wished her Dad didn’t have genitals.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">It is in the portrayal of the sheltered central character that <i>Attenbergs </i><span style="font-style: normal;">similarity with </span><i>Dogtooth </i><span style="font-style: normal;">is revealed. In both films the absurdity of human behaviour in the 'adult' world, is exposed by young people seeing it for the first time. When Marina is eventually attracted to a man, (an engineer, played by Giorgos Lanthimos, director of </span><i>Dogtooth</i><span style="font-style: normal;">) their forays into lovemaking are made comically endearing by her instinct to narrate their actions as though they were animals in an Attenborough documentary. The oral fixation is shown in both base actions – spitting, and in word play as Spyros and Marina volley rhyming words back and forth eventually devolving into grunts and growls. This repetition of play and games is also present in the interspersed scenes of Marina and Bella marching along a neglected strip between houses, in a beguiling tribute to Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks. At first these sequences can seem too contrived, but on second thought are no less ridiculous than the other human rituals on display. Notable in this category is the detailed process necessary to allow Spyros to be cremated after his inevitable demise. In a scene weighted with pathos, we see the funeral director explaining the choices for the casket and the urn, and the irony of Marina’s insistence on a non-synthetic coffin lining for her allergic father.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Attenberg </i><span style="font-style: normal;">isn’t simply a study of human behaviour, however, nor is it entirely similar to </span><i>Dogtooth</i><span style="font-style: normal;">; Tsangari having created a funny, beautiful and sad film that also reflects on the ‘failed revolution’ in Greece, represented by the damaged and ruined buildings, and lamented by Spyros who (at least in the film) designed them. Ariane Labeds’ performance is both brave and tender, and it won her the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival. It is delights such as this and an almost music video style karaoke section with Bella and Marina that means the film will stay with you a lot longer than any mainstream coming-of-age tale. </span></p>'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-13011537883363503552011-09-01T22:23:00.005+01:002011-09-01T22:28:29.346+01:00Super 8 - a little bit super.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhmBqaX-vYOrCuCdcuuCAWAin2gkI84YjyqFjwp6C1EKhSfvpfoeAdRZeieLuctBeOrDTHeKQ3YLhY-GTwyXvNwCaeklRPL7RTO45k-HcTwJJGzIMPbXor-Rny5qGDfC2h_GMVGlhnBtE/s1600/super-8_420.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhmBqaX-vYOrCuCdcuuCAWAin2gkI84YjyqFjwp6C1EKhSfvpfoeAdRZeieLuctBeOrDTHeKQ3YLhY-GTwyXvNwCaeklRPL7RTO45k-HcTwJJGzIMPbXor-Rny5qGDfC2h_GMVGlhnBtE/s400/super-8_420.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647506007999327410" border="0" /></a>
<br /><style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Sec</style> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The director of <i>Star Trek </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2009) and </span><i>Mission Impossible 3 </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2006) once again demonstrates his immense love for lens flair in this nostalgic ode to films and filmmaking in the 1980’s.
<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Some may find it irritating, but I really appreciate a director who steadfastly adheres so an aesthetic choice, even if it makes little sense to the plot. What’s that in the sky? Is it a UFO? Nope, in this case it’s just light reflecting off the lens. Brilliant. Lenses are an important factor of the tension in Super 8, which sees a gang of early teens, in the style of <i>The Goonies </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(1985) or </span><i>E.T</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> (1982), investigate an alien presence in their small town in Ohio. Shot on a combination of RED digital, the eponymous 8mm and 35mm – the tradition of analogue filmmaking is very much at the heart of Abrams’ Spielberg distilled Sci-Fi. The tension comes from the deliberately 1980’s aesthetic - the production design seeming to owe so much to Spielberg’s 1982 classic, from the brown home interiors to the nod to the emergence of the Sony WALKMAN. This combined with the appearance of the grain on the filmstrip – a visible signifier of the pre-digital past. The grain is all part of the nostalgia, but this being a film made nearly thirty years after Elliot discovered an alien in his back yard, the effects are far from attributable to the analogue. As a result we get beautiful scenes of the chaos of small-town life looking as if it has been literally lifted from </span><i>E.T </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and a motion-capture CG alien running tearing up a train crash and running amok at the local gas station. What’s interesting is where the love of the grain colludes with the necessity of delivering a creature that will comply with a 21<sup>st</sup> century’s audience expectation. No longer can we be satisfied with Bruce the shark, in all his rubbery menace. Two scenes in the film show the gang watching super 8 films, in which the alien can be seen, all fluid movements of its spider-like limbs. Knowing that this is a digital effect, presented as supposedly the past within the time frame of the films’ events, juxtaposes old technology with new, in a brilliant demonstration of multiple mediation in the post-photographic age. We love the grain, but we don’t </span><i>need </i><span style="font-style: normal;">the grain in order to signify the past, we can fake it with digital effects. A film that is so obviously a love affair with past filmmaking practices belies its integrity through the force of invention. </span></span></p> <p face="times new roman" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p face="times new roman" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is not to say that the film isn’t hugely enjoyable. Though lacking originality – (any parent would be wise to simply sit their kids down with a screening of <i>E.T </i><span style="font-style: normal;">rather than this: it’s for those who can remember riding a Chopper or using a CB radio). Abrams creates enough thrills and humour to entertain for the duration of the running time. The choice to cast relative unknown’s as the kids, (with the exception of Elle Fanning as Alice who was last seen in Sophia Coppolas’ </span><i>Somewhere</i><span style="font-style: normal;">) is also an effective one and the chemistry between them as they bicker their way through making a zombie film and escaping death-by-alien is very entertaining.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately the film’s Spielberg-ness extends all the way to its conclusion, with the creature defying expectations based on its previous behaviour, in favour of a family friendly face-off between boy and deadly extra-terrestrial. </span></span></p> 'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-29014232870193339482011-08-29T14:02:00.022+01:002011-08-29T14:35:41.582+01:00Like, Slack ... er, films ...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5c9He2sy94wJXnxSnRcGpQ1N2cZkF85Lx1d38npa5ymleAsAKeS-yrlMW4K1qguwQd-ADwWwtpqK5cjcrTjKSk84O1sQRGW6L5qZyXP-ZH9DGS1uLp8HmRhKYzwrKKL8zTOhpEDMHIXI/s1600/spaced.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 221px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5c9He2sy94wJXnxSnRcGpQ1N2cZkF85Lx1d38npa5ymleAsAKeS-yrlMW4K1qguwQd-ADwWwtpqK5cjcrTjKSk84O1sQRGW6L5qZyXP-ZH9DGS1uLp8HmRhKYzwrKKL8zTOhpEDMHIXI/s320/spaced.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646269877422824594" border="0" /></a>
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<br /></span><style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Sectio--</style><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:times new roman;">- Got any plans for today? </span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">-I have got a bit of a project actually, I’m going to be as inactive as I can in order to really get into the psyche of someone who’s say, I dunno, unemployed, not just vocationally but cerebrally, to see if the predicament of enforced passivity actually exhausts itself, you know; does inactivity breed laziness? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">- Oh, right, are you gonna write an article about it? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;">- Nah I can’t be bothered.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Such is the wit of Jessica Hynes and Simon Pegg in <i>Spaced </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(episode ‘Help’ 2001), summing up in one exchange the apathy of the slacker in the millennial generation. In this particular episode, the inactive Daisy (Hynes) is berated for her passive attitude by her flatmate, Tim (Pegg) and landlord Marsha (Julia Deakin), eventually bated into going running with the latter, in an hilarious demonstration of competitiveness. In contrast to Daisy’s inertia, Tim and best friend Mike (Nick Frost) embark on an action-packed adventure to retrieve a caricatured portrait of the man about to assess Tim’s suitability to work for DarkStar Comics.
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<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Pegg, Hynes and director Edgar Wright’s portrayal of the twenty-something adrift in post millennium London is a brilliant example of a generation. A g</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i> </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">eneration post Gen-X, (Gen-Y?) no longer simply stepping back from their aimless lives and viewing them through the mediation of the video camera and reality TV as seen in Ben Stiller’s <i>Reality Bites </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(1994) or Cameron Crowe’s </span><i>Singles </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(1992) – literally seeing not doing. This generation is so steeped in pop culture, demonstrable via the ubiquitous screen: TV, laptops, mobile phone</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: normal;">s, cinema, that every moment of their lives is not simply an instant unto itself, but viewed as reference to some film, or game, or pop song, Just as Mike imagines breaking into the offices of Tim’s would-be boss as a scene from </span><i>The Matrix, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">or a heroic save by Brian (Mark Heap) is accompanied by the theme from </span><i>The Magnificent Seven </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and Daisy’s recollection of a netball match back in high school is narrated as a series of comic-book frames accompanied by the theme from TV’s </span><i>Grange Hill.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>
<br /></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Spaced</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">can be considered a commentary of what could ostensibly be called the sub-genre of the Slacker film, despite being TV. It sits at a mid-point between the cool passivity of Jarmusch’s </span><i>Permanent Vacation </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(1980) in which apathetic Allie wanders around Manhattan, dances to Charlie Parker and ignores his girlfriend and the so called Mumblecore movement that emerged in the past ten years, with such titles as Andrew Bujalski’s </span><i>Funny Ha Ha </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2002) and Joe Swanberg’s </span><i>Hannah Takes the Stairs </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2007).<span style=""> </span>In the latter movement the term slacker is taken to a whole new level in which so loose is the aesthetic that the presence of a script would be unthinkable.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbBKXtGgIlPqjieAKfc8VzQpKlRoWbwkkZ4reEIey49A3WMxbFwYvYX-IYehmjv2z7SQ_7zOutif_LDnAEIGOo7nA8pafB_L0F0rvViMiaHOyMh7gBllJfnyvWZ6EYuKGPSS6fyYLmb9Q/s1600/funny+ha+ha"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 244px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbBKXtGgIlPqjieAKfc8VzQpKlRoWbwkkZ4reEIey49A3WMxbFwYvYX-IYehmjv2z7SQ_7zOutif_LDnAEIGOo7nA8pafB_L0F0rvViMiaHOyMh7gBllJfnyvWZ6EYuKGPSS6fyYLmb9Q/s320/funny+ha+ha" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646268934980125970" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Perhaps the epitome of this genre is Richard Linklater’s 1991 film <i>Slacker. </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Structured as a relay-race of interweaving encounters with the (mostly) twenty-something inhabitants of Austin, Texas, </span><i>Slacker </i><span style="font-style: normal;">combines meandering mini-narratives with snapshots of philosophical, political and artistic opinions, all delivered in a typically earnest and impassioned style. Whereas Linklater’s style was criticised for this earnestness – the idealism of talking big and seemingly doing very little, seen again in later work such as </span><i>Dazed and Confused </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(1993), </span><i>Before Sunrise </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(1995) and </span><i>Waking Life </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2001) - the mumblecore movement is slack for reasons other than the inactivity of its protagonists. Most cite </span><i>Funny Ha Ha </i><span style="font-style: normal;">as the earliest and best example of the classic characteristics of the decade’s work in low-fi filmmaking. Characters played by non-actor friends of the writer/director, location shooting, loose framing, no script thereby leading to an overwhelming presence of hesitating interjections in the dialogue, e.g. “So, like, what do want to do?” “I, er, [sigh], don’t know, er, how ‘bout you?” and so forth. It is in the dialogue that mumblecore (the clue’s in the name) differs so greatly to the work of Linklater and his contemporaries Crowe and Kevin Smith who were so highly praised for their work as screenwriters, capturing the concerns and articulations of their generation.
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<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">In <i>Funny Ha Ha,</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> central character Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer), a recent graduate, wanders through a series of encounters with her peers, losing a job here, kissing her friends’ boyfriend there, and making to-do lists that will most likely never be accomplished. She is slack in every sense of the word. Non-committal, passive when confronted with her failings, apathetic about which image to be tattooed with, literally shutting down, unwilling to engage in conversation even, seemingly unable to articulate her feelings. Whilst watching this pathetic display of inertia I wondered whether the characters name was a reference to the Hitchcock film of the same, in which Tippi Hedren in the title role, is ‘broken’ by Sean Connery’s Mark Rutland, who considers that Marnie needs to be made passive and agreeable in order to function in society as a woman. The perspective in </span><i>Funny Ha Ha </i><span style="font-style: normal;">is not a particularly female one, as the pool of people floating around Marnie </span><i>all</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> talk and act as though ideas and opinions are not worth having.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
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<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">It is exactly this excruciating mundanity that has garnered praise for the mumblecore movement. Critics rarely demonstrate whole-hearted enthusiasm for the work of Bujalski, Swanberg, Greta Gerwig and the Duplass brothers, but note warmly, for example that ‘Bujalski's improv approach is gracefully married with a style that is not overly-dramatic, and therefore seems just a hair short of pure documentary’ (Robert Koeller, <i>Variety, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">2003). Mumblecore, (a term the filmmakers now dislike) can be at best be seen as being </span><i>like life, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">if your life involves being a partially employed, twenty-something graduate living in semi-poverty. The argument against these films being in the slacker genre is the hardworking attitude of the filmmakers, as Andrea Hubert noted in The Guardian back in 2007, ‘In five years, they have produced a total of 14 self-financed films between them’ now Mark and Jay Duplass work with the likes of John C. Riley and Marisa Tomei (</span><i>Cyrus, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">2010), where they transferring their improvisational directorial style to extract comedy from the super-awkwardness of the concerns of middle-aged singles. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">For my own part, I have little patience for the so-called realism on display in Bujalski’s work. I liked Joe Swanberg’s <i>Night’s and Weekends </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2008), if only for the sweetness of Gerwig’s performance (seen recently playing alongside Ben Stiller in Noah Baumbach’s </span><i>Greenberg, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">another wandering protagonist film). </span><i>Wah Do Dem </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2009) directed by Ben Chase and Sam Fleischner is a more successful portrait of a slacker, as musician Max (Sean Bones), recently dumped by his girlfriend finds himself literally alone and adrift on a cruise to Jamaica. The film almost loses itself to pointless repetition and an unlikeable central character, but is saved when this slack-jawed slacker gets his comeuppance for being arrogant enough to assume that the worst had already happened to him. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Whereas the mumblecore movement exposes the myth that doing little and having few responsibilities is cool and funny<span style=""> </span>- as seen in the work of Linklater, Jarmusch, Smith, Crowe and of course Pegg, Hynes and Wright, it is exactly because of this that I find it so unengageing. Slackers are at their most entertaining when thrust into action against their base desires, as seen in Greg Araki’s <i>Smiley Face </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2007), in which Anna Faris’s Jane eats her flatmates hash cupcakes and has to replace them, and pay back her dealer by 3pm. Even </span><i>Pineapple Express </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(David Gordon Green, 2008) managed to be intermittently hilarious for it depiction of stoner’s thrust into an action film. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The idea here being, and in of course <i>Spaced </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and Wright’s most recent </span><i>Scott Pilgrim Versus the World </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2010) that the inactive only relate to action in a mediated form. The characters only become active in their being removed from such action, i.e. un-real and within a fantasy/pop culture world. Inaction is moderated by a world they cannot in reality inhabit, unlike in mumblecore, where being and doing nothing are the only course, and that’s just plain dull.
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<br /></p>For a nice little parody of mumblecore click <a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ec2dc47000/the-dirty-garage">here</a>
<br />'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-35403618216650788882010-11-03T15:30:00.005+00:002010-11-03T15:42:15.392+00:00“What would you say if I said I hadn’t seen Evil Dead 2 yet?” - “I’d think you were a cinematic idiot and I’d feel sorry for you.”<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbkWg0wbcNElBGozy8nHFEh4F-HcuOaZCr0J8FY6m4X_WTplwl8bNh9zit2-2d2l1dFLHyNM6PBlx4PiPVo7C0cqhsEaLoWtMhbXiFTScCtOe02mwDRhIr63vNI7nZOg_IvmV9IiMojhA/s1600/evildead2_01.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 256px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbkWg0wbcNElBGozy8nHFEh4F-HcuOaZCr0J8FY6m4X_WTplwl8bNh9zit2-2d2l1dFLHyNM6PBlx4PiPVo7C0cqhsEaLoWtMhbXiFTScCtOe02mwDRhIr63vNI7nZOg_IvmV9IiMojhA/s320/evildead2_01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535346728414010626" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"> Bruce Campbell as Ash.<br /><br /><br /></span> <style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">S</span><span style="font-size:100%;">aturday night in screen one at the Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh was one of those special film outings: eagerly anticipated, enthusiastically enjoyed and remembered fondly: Sam Raimi’s 1987 horror comedy, <i>Evil Dead 2</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. I do feel sorry for anyone who wasn’t present to appreciate this fantastic piece of cinema.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The title of this post refers to the scene/passage in <i>High Fidelity </i><span style="font-style: normal;">when Rob tries to elicit advice from Barry about the likelihood of a person seeing said film after they had said they hadn’t seen it </span><i>yet, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(actually a thinly veiled analogy for whether Rob’s ex-girlfriend will sleep with her new man). During the screening of </span><i>Evil Dead 2 </i><span style="font-style: normal;">at the Cameo I couldn’t help thinking of Barry’s description of the film; “it’s so funny, and violent, and the soundtrack kicks fucking ass!” This is indeed true, I can’t think of a better way to summarise the films cult appeal, but the sheer pleasure that myself and the other cinema goers got from seeing it on the big screen (some for the first time, lucky swine’s!) warrants a more in-dept discussion of the many instances of greatness that the film has to offer.<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">For starters the film was screening at midnight on the eve of Halloween so the large audience in attendance were bound to be the kind who have seen it several times before and maybe own it on DVD, therefore there was a level of familiarity with certain scenes in the film. To begin with the mere presence of Bruce Campbell on screen as reluctant hero Ash, garnered a palpable sense of good will from the crowd, laughing during the re-cap on <i>Evil Dead</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> when he reassures his girlfriend Linda that they will be safe for their romantic evening in an abandoned cabin in the woods. A personal pleasure for me was the transparency of the technology: the magnetic wavy lines visible due to presumably a film-to-video-to-digital transfer. Knowing that this was the best copy available somewhat added to the cult nature of the screening.<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">For those unfamiliar with <i>Evil Dead</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><i>2</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, I’ll give a brief plot synopsis: man unleashes evil from beyond the grave and defends himself and other temporary inhabitants of a cabin in the woods, from the relentless onslaught of possessed demons and (normally) inanimate objects. This doesn’t sound like it would be particularly funny, but Raimi, Campbell et al managed to strike the right balance between horrific violence and slapstick comedy (more on slapstick later). Raimi literally employed any and every camera technique you can think of to enhance the otherworldly nature of his subject matter. When I say camera movement, I don’t mean simple dolly or zoom shots, but the actually strapping of the camera to ropes, planks and body parts in order to get the right shot. When Ash wakes up, face down in a puddle in the woods at dawn the shot is framed from above, as though observing Ash from the tree. Suddenly the camera spins and pulls away, in a movement that thematically mimics the twisted events of the previous night. Another inspired (or perhaps sadistic) shot is that of Ash being dragged backwards through the forest, being thrown in the path of branches and bushes. For this shot Raimi tied Campbell to the back of a truck facing the camera, and had him literally driven backwards. In order to have the right amount of foliage, Raimi had spare branches thrown at his lead actor; throughout the film Campbell shows amazing willingness to be put through a veritable mill of tough stunts and physical comedy.<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">One particular scene involving such physical comedy is what has become known to fans as the “Who’s laughing now?!” scene. Set in the kitchen, after Ash’s now possessed hand has attempted to strangle him, it sets about trying to kill him by any means necessary, giggling demonically throughout. The scene is pure slapstick, as Campbell smashes plates off his head and throws himself to the floor. Raimi has expressed his love for The Three Stooges, but the scene also resembles both Laurel and Hardy type pratfalls and Loony Tunes cartoons, demonstrating the films tone perfectly – the exaggerated performance in reaction to horrific events: the logic of, you have to laugh otherwise you’ll cry. The commitment Campbell shows to throwing himself about is on par with Donald O’Connor’s famous clowning in <i>Singin’ in the Rain </i><span style="font-style: normal;">when he sings ‘Make ‘em Laugh’.</span></span></p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />See 'Who's laughing now?!" scene, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzXk3nfEdMY&feature=related">here.</a><br /><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>Evil Dead 2</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> demonstrates a clear character arc in the transformation of Ash from traditional alpha male hero, to well-adapted demon slayer. As with the classic action film, our protagonist must overcome escalating challenges in order to save the day, and in the process he changes physically. Initially dressed in blue denim shirt and jeans, Bruce Campbell’s prominent chin and dark hair signal his seemingly Hollywood leading man masculinity. Once he has experienced the trauma of killing his demon girlfriend, and taking a chainsaw to his own hand, his appearance is understandably rough around the edges with ripped shirt and bloodied face. Eventually the horror of the evil dead expresses itself more forcibly on him, as he armours himself, replacing his hand with the chainsaw that claimed it, and eventually strapping a sawn off shotgun to his back. The final change comes when Ash is faced with evil made physical, and the shock creates a streak of white hair above his ear. Since the release of </span><i>Evil Dead 2</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and the sequel </span><i>Army Of Darkness </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(1992), these different manifestations of Ash have become subjects for collectable dolls, making available to buy: ‘Ash’, ‘Evil Ash’, ‘Medieval Ash’ and ‘S-Mart Ash’, further capitalising on the films cult appeal. The term ‘cult’ is perhaps too big to discuss fruitfully here, but it goes without saying that the screenings time and place seem to confirm its status. Only the fans or extremely curious would venture to the cinema at 11.15pm on a Saturday night to watch a horror-comedy.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Time is a playful element in <i>Evil Dead 2</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, as Ash sees a figure remarkably similar to himself in the pages of The Book of the Dead, prophesising that he will fall from the sky to save the people of medieval times from the evil that pervades their land. This page from the past predicting Ash’s future means that his adventure won’t be over after evil has been overcome. Instead the audience gets a hint of </span><i>Army of Darkness </i><span style="font-style: normal;">at the end of the film as Ash is framed centre - having shot a winged beast out of the sky the armour clad knights cheer him as their saviour, to which Ash’s response is that brilliant movie cliché, the hero’s wail: “Nnoooooooooooooo!”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">All this made for pure joy in the cinema that night. A collection of film fans familiar enough to bring a certain amount of participation to the experience: cheers and whoops during the montage of Ash armouring up for a fight, culminating in the much imitated and parodied (see <i>Spaced, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">TV, Edgar Wright) “Grooovy” line. Just as with the screening of Fred C. Newmayer’s </span><i>Safety Last! </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Starring Harold Lloyd at the Filmhouse earlier this year, this was for me, event cinema. The particularity of a single or limited screenings, coupled with an awareness of the rarity of its appearance on the big screen. I couldn’t help thinking of Sontag’s lamentation </span><i>The Decay of Cinema </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(1996), an essay in which she decries the increase of television and other viewing options. In it she claims that in order to truly experience a film you have to be ‘kidnapped’ by it, taken over by the size of the screen, the darkness and the communality of the auditorium. This was the feeling I had seeing </span><i>Evil Dead 2.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Despite the obvious special effects: the visible seams in Ted Raimi’s costume as possessed granny Henrietta, the far-from-seamless transition between actor Denise Bixler as Linda and her latex counterpart. None of that was important; in fact it was refreshing not to be watching a CGI heavy, uncanny, overblown farce. Or as Nick Roddick in </span><i>Sight and Sound </i><span style="font-style: normal;">recently wrote, about watching </span><i>Bullit, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(Dir, Peter Yates, 1968) ‘The result is far more exciting than the thrill-a-minute movies that have cluttered up this summer’s schedules’.<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Next time you see a late night or one-off screening scheduled at your local cinema – actually go to it! Don’t just think about it, do it, you will be rewarded for your enthusiasm for cinema. </span></p>'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-24854186224348490062010-10-21T13:55:00.007+01:002010-10-21T14:07:34.872+01:00Adventures at the London Film Festival<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAcXawUk2Xqdm4i_I5gt2yzxbZAN88ix0pmYMuA0Et7tO3ww7qFm2zgDI5kF5HY3tL8F-m3ecFYsevSMwxTrZPyi-ZH8f_EGauKfpWM23rLYRtWuO76IdkgR6At5fLIfoN2DOxZshxlRQ/s1600/nine_muses_02.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAcXawUk2Xqdm4i_I5gt2yzxbZAN88ix0pmYMuA0Et7tO3ww7qFm2zgDI5kF5HY3tL8F-m3ecFYsevSMwxTrZPyi-ZH8f_EGauKfpWM23rLYRtWuO76IdkgR6At5fLIfoN2DOxZshxlRQ/s320/nine_muses_02.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530484554531162770" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">The Nine Muses.</span></span><br /> <br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZgNXQZ13zCeuQxVUW-Wl5RBzbNFEPmIaMoOUX12oMFHJ8BnD6IahqDsM5H2uwATvIX-7HDPM2alKeNDhLHsi1FbgTrQlBxqswE_ObPY6LiQvOyZGQKPd7qh8vsgBX_4w6upHVkcfsCUA/s1600/silentsouls_gl.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZgNXQZ13zCeuQxVUW-Wl5RBzbNFEPmIaMoOUX12oMFHJ8BnD6IahqDsM5H2uwATvIX-7HDPM2alKeNDhLHsi1FbgTrQlBxqswE_ObPY6LiQvOyZGQKPd7qh8vsgBX_4w6upHVkcfsCUA/s320/silentsouls_gl.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530483275343884674" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-size:85%;">Yuliya Aug as Miron's wife Tanya in <span style="font-style: italic;">Silent Souls.</span></span><br /><br /><br /><style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Last week I boarded the train and headed southwards to England’s bustling capital to check out a selection of films screening at the festival. Choosing films based on the websites description is always a difficult enterprise as even the best recommendations are tainted by the bias of the individual programmers who selected them. They love the films, but will I? Then again, the spirit of a festival is to take a chance and see something you wouldn’t ordinarily see - relish the risk, rather than playing it safe. My choices were based on an attempt to not see American independents; I’d seen a lot of those at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. As much as it pained me turn down the chance of seeing Will Ferrell play it straight in <i>Everything Must Go </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(Dir, Dan Rush) I was rewarded with some quietly brilliant films. In the end my choices turned out to share similar themes, perhaps a result of the inherent fine-tuning that my tastes have undergone.<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Undergoing the festival triple bill is a pleasure that comes around only once in a while for me, so on Friday I opted to start my day at the Vue Leicester Square, wander over to Curzon Mayfair and end at the ICA. First up, a Russian film directed by Aleksei Fedorchenko about the traditions and rituals that have survived from the Merjan folk culture, which emerged at the former Finnish enclave that was incorporated with Russia during the rule of Ivan the Terrible. <i>Silent Souls</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> was ostensibly a road movie, following Miron, the director of a paper factory in Neya, as he and his friend Aist set out to give his wife a traditional burial at the place where they honeymooned. Along for the ride are two buntings, the birds which Aist carries with him on their journey. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Wonderfully paced and beautifully shot, every phase of the films narrative and composition gave primacy to the ritual processes of their mission, (of sorts) to return the body to the water. There was a tenderness to the cinematography that lent itself well to the humanist activity of these two men, carefully carrying out the preparations and ultimate cremation of Miron’s dearly loved wife. Some of these were entertainingly bizarre, such as their tying of string to the pubic hair, as is the custom to prepare a bride for her wedding, others simply showed the respect and preservation of both the Merjan rituals and the integrity of the marital relationship, with it’s emphasis on the coming together of two individuals. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The buntings that Aist carries seemed to serve as a representation of the audience to an extent, quietly observing the rituals of a fading culture and inevitably effecting the actions of the men, just as any observational perspective cannot help but influence the conclusion.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">At Curzon Mayfair I saw <i>Love Like Poison, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">a French film directed by Katell Quillévére about a young woman struggling with the contradictions of her Catholic family, separated parents and burgeoning sexuality. Again, beautifully shot, the film focused on fourteen year-old Anna (Clara Augarde) and from this perspective showed the ill-defined boundaries between youth and adulthood. Much like Miranda July’s </span><i>Me and You and Everyone we Know </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2005), the notion of the child as capable of understanding sexuality more competently than the adults was at the fore as Anna encounters both her granddads desire to feel the pride of his handsome youth, and the affection from some-time suitor Pierre (Youen Leboulanger-Gourvil), who politely celebrates Anna’s fast developing body. Despite the familiarity of the themes explored by the film, the directors assured direction ensured a freshness to the narrative, and though there was perhaps too obvious a connection to </span><i>Little Miss Sunshine </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2006) in it’s portrayal of the anarchic grandfather exerting a last rebellion through his granddaughters public reading of a dirty poem, this only exposed the cultural differences, however maintaining the comedic affect.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Lastly on Friday evening at the ICA I saw <i>Sandcastle, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">a film about a family in Singapore, fractured and coming to terms with personal and political history. Directed by Boo Junfeng, the film centres around En (Joshua Tan) an 18 year-old awaiting military conscription, who discovers the hidden alternative past about his parents, when his ageing grandparents hint that his late father was more radical than his repressed mother has led him to believe. Prior to the screening, actor Joshua Tan introduced the film and asked the audience to consider the film more as a coming of age tale than being deliberately political. Nevertheless the emotions felt by En as he discovers more about his own identity are effectively balanced with the gradual revelations of his parents’ involvement with anti-conformist protests. The film is also very touching and funny, particularly about the generational gap that can often come with regard to old and new technology. En’s look of disgust at the PC his Mother’s boyfriend buys him while he’s waiting for his Mac to be repaired brilliantly captured the sense of the frustrated adolescent, who feels like they know more than their elders. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">In parallel with En’s journey of self-discovery is that of his mother’s (played by Elena Chia) facing up to the person she once was, and the new strict etiquette that she lives by. The scenes between mother and grandmother were particularly affecting, as the younger generation learns to let go a little, and that responsibility doesn’t have to be a burden based on tradition and respectability. I really enjoyed the tone of the film, which was meditative at times, and paced to gradually reveal what En sets out to discover.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">My fourth and final film at the festival was <i>The Nine Muses, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">perhaps an essay film, though it could be considered docu/fiction too. The unclassifiable nature of the film was one of its many pleasures. Directed by John Akomfrah, this was a re-telling of the mass migration to post-war Britain, combining elements of archive film, quotation from The Odyssey, literary readings (as voice-over) from such sources as Beckett, Dickinson and Shakespeare, music extracts that ranged from pop, through tribal to classical, and newly shot footage that symbolically demonstrated the feelings of migrants on their arrival in Britain. Slow in pace, but tightly edited, the layering of images, voice and music conveyed the overall theme of loss, explored via memory. Akomfrah, who attended the screening and discussed it afterward, described his reasons for the using the extract of ‘The Nine Muses’ from The Odyssey. Intending to weave the narrative of the migrant’s journey, Akomfrah argued, based on not only testimony’s gleaned during research but his own family’s that this journey is literal, emotional and figurative as the individual adjusts to the new climate, culture and questions of assimilation or appropriation of new norms and values. I felt that the decision to create a tapestry of cultural influences combined with archive television (which included interviews with migrants and angry British natives) was a more meaningful and lyrical method, than a straight documentary might have been. </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Akomfrah talked of his desire to understand and make use of the literary texts that had come to influence him, saying that he loved Beckett, but why? And how had this influenced his previous work? With its strong focus on memory and trauma, <i>The Nine Muses </i><span style="font-style: normal;">clearly answers these questions, demonstrating the fluidity and variety of culture and influence.<br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Overall, I enjoyed my time at LFF; somehow I managed to see four films of high quality that expressed to me the important themes of memory, family, time and place.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div>'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-3868910257553008992010-10-01T12:38:00.005+01:002010-10-01T19:37:42.597+01:00A Slacker's Review: Scott Pilgrim Vs The World.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZYbHJ4YwoH99J9T3Ba7zIZ5DG5dqUz88Df0_MghsJU_w9VtxUdUJnucPRz-ytJW6scetFr2VoNhzBhmpgA_Q8KylnBZJHqUtZ0DCGZXwpi0KnMp_eyfu89PdEU98tkuWkGoAt0N_KRPc/s1600/Michael-Cera-and-the-cast-of-Scott-Pilgrim-vs.-the-World_gallery_primary.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZYbHJ4YwoH99J9T3Ba7zIZ5DG5dqUz88Df0_MghsJU_w9VtxUdUJnucPRz-ytJW6scetFr2VoNhzBhmpgA_Q8KylnBZJHqUtZ0DCGZXwpi0KnMp_eyfu89PdEU98tkuWkGoAt0N_KRPc/s320/Michael-Cera-and-the-cast-of-Scott-Pilgrim-vs.-the-World_gallery_primary.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523041864022596642" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Above, L-R: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Johhny Simmons, Ellen Wong, Alison Pill, Mark Webber.<br /></span><br /><br /><style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (2010) Director: Edgar Wright. Starring Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ellen Wong, Kieran Culkin, Alison Pill, Jason Schwartzman.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Edgar Wright continues his focus on the slacker as protagonist in this pastiche of video games, the Indie music scene, super hero movies, and generally everything pop cultural. Just as Tim and Daisy in Wright’s <i>Spaced </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(TV series, 1999-2001) were twenty-something’s, portrayed as lazy, partially employed, preoccupied with ‘Scooby Doo’ style adventures referencing everything from </span><i>Pulp Fiction </i><span style="font-style: normal;">to</span><i> Grange Hill, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">so too do Scott and his friends do very little between each bout of battle of the bands, with their own </span><i>Sex Bob-Omb</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and as Scott faces each of his opponents</span><i>.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> The plot is simple: Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is twenty-three, between jobs and living in Toronto with his gay roommate, Wallis Wells (Keiran Culkin). He’s dating a seventeen-year-old catholic schoolgirl called Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) but really wants to abandon his ‘fake’ nearly platonic relationship for the new girl in town, Ramona Flowers, (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). His problem is that in order to do so, he must defeat her seven evil exes, who are all intent on destroying Scott and controlling the future of Ramona’s love life. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Bryan Lee O’Malley’s original graphic novels, on which the film is based, are witty and energetic, drawn with an awareness of Manga-style naivety and Indie-comic book cool. The film follows the aesthetics of the books to the letter, mostly mimicking exact frames and panels, in some scenes the transfer from page to screen adds little, as in the ownership diagram in Scott and Wallis’s apartment, (though it must be said that adding little isn’t to be taken negatively, it simply demonstrates the brilliance of O’Malley’s work). In other scenes Wright really displays the seamlessness of the adaptation to the screen medium, the fight sequences are deliriously entertaining, blending video game choreography and bombastic cartoon-like action (see Scott being thrown 100 metres in to air by Lucas Lee (Chris Evans). Fans of Cera might be tiring of his repeat performances as the shy, awkward, nerdy but nice guy in everything from <i>Arrested Development </i><span style="font-style: normal;">to </span><i>Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">but in </span><i>Scott Pilgrim </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Cera’s character has an unintentionally oblivious edge, and he sticks closely to O’Malley’s creation. Scott is not a perfect gentlemen, he’s lazy and lacks compassion for the relationships he has left behind including the drummer in his own band, Kim (Alison Pill, continuing to be impressive since </span><i>Pieces of April</i><span style="font-style: normal;">), his ultimate victory comes from realising how he has wronged the people in his life. That sounds very saccharine when summarised in such a way but Wright avoids sentimentality through the clever distance that the film’s intertextuality provides. In fact, despite the call to action that Ramona’s exes provide for Scott, it is arguable that his innate slackerdom remains intact even as each victory is won, by the use of exaggerated video game fantasy sequences, which literally transforms Scott and his friends from ordinary inactive young adults into kick-ass super fighters. By defining action in these terms, both O’Malley and Wright have continued to characterise both the 20<sup>th</sup> and 21<sup>st</sup> century twenty-something as entrenched within the pop-culture they view and participate in. Just as in </span><i>Spaced, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Tim’s paranoid anxiety over his ex-girlfriend is played-out as a </span><i>Resident Evil </i><span style="font-style: normal;">style</span><i> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">zombie shoot-em up, or Daisy’s futile efforts to remain gainfully employed take her to a restaurant kitchen institutionalised by the Nurse Ratched-like manager, Scott moves from semi-active, bass-playing platonic boyfriend of a high-schooler, to hero of the beat-em up, collecting coins as each evil ex is defeated. The problems of the video game playing slacker can only be solved when made equivalent to the pop-culture that they absorb. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">All this is of course thrillingly entertaining, right down to the smaller comic touches, such as Julie Powers (Aubrey Plaza) ability to self-censor with an black cross appearing over her mouth when her anger at Scott elevates to cursing. Each of the actors is excellent, but Kieran Culkin, Ellen Wong and Anna Kendrick (as Scott’s sister, Stacey, rated ‘T’ for teen) deserve special mention for pretty much stealing the show from Cera. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Scott Pilgrim Vs the World </i><span style="font-style: normal;">is gleefully funny, with Wright proving that further to </span><i>Hot Fuzz, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">he is more than capable of handling proper action and shit. </span></p>'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-61776855734677499382010-04-13T22:29:00.000+01:002010-04-13T23:06:01.215+01:00Dear Cinema<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGK8rTeqR-0mF2yp12kP-H9av4oAxP3JI0Ds7yIsRkcnX00h2w4zNzvZ01YTBWHFiNtCF7tna4zNJ3zFXUYcfpacQK5_sV7wamiIhuAi6tHZf4jKoY6sEQlhW_7xtVd2HO2z1MMnIBkcY/s1600/safety-last-harold.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 248px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGK8rTeqR-0mF2yp12kP-H9av4oAxP3JI0Ds7yIsRkcnX00h2w4zNzvZ01YTBWHFiNtCF7tna4zNJ3zFXUYcfpacQK5_sV7wamiIhuAi6tHZf4jKoY6sEQlhW_7xtVd2HO2z1MMnIBkcY/s320/safety-last-harold.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5459746615266830386" border="0" /></a><br />I haven't blogged in a while, recent essay deadlines have kept me away from sprawling notes about the cinema, but tonight I write because I feel impelled to.<br />My reading of late has tumbled into the subject of cinephilia, having looked at Susan Sontag's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Decay of Cinema,</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>reading Nick James's editorial in <span style="font-style: italic;">Sight and Sound </span>this month seemed unusually prescient to my studies in general, one of those moments in research when you feel strangely clued in to current debate. I've also been thinking (and talking) a lot about choice. Mark Cousins recent column on the subject in the aforementioned magazine posed the question of how we are ever to decide what to watch, when so much is available to us.<br />If cinephiles aren't 'as special as we like to think we are' (James) and we have too much choice, is one cinematic experience (dare I use the word) de-valued in relation to the next? I may say that I saw a rare print of a Renoir, but that will be countered just as quickly by "ah, but did you see <span style="font-style: italic;">The Limits of Control?" </span>How can I begin to convey to you how wonderful it was to see <span style="font-style: italic;">Safety Last! </span>at the Filmhouse tonight?<br />This is what I really want to talk about. I headed out to the cinema with the Edinburgh sunset behind me and a spring in my step. I always get a self-conscious feeling when I walk about listening to music on my Walkman, I'm aware that tuning in to my own private soundtrack is akin to scoring my own movie in real- time, but as everyone seems to have this experience I'll let that go for the moment. I strode up the hill to the cinema in anticipation of seeing a classic of the silent age, and having bought my ticket, chatted to the usher and found my seat I looked back to check out the audience and the projectionist's booth.<br />The film has been restored from an old print and it was the new 35mm print that I saw projected in Cinema 1 tonight. Evi (the usher) told me that she doesn't like the digi-beta copy they have been screening in the smaller theatre, and this information further enhanced my excitement (or simply the myth) of the <span style="font-style: italic;">film</span> experience.<br />Having seen not enough silent films and never having seen a Harold Lloyd comedy, I could only imagine how my expectations would be met. Knowing that Lloyd et al did all their own stunts, no wires (that I could see) and no stunt doubles was simply amazing to see. The climatic climb up a sky scraper with the famous clock scene was remarkable, and the audience was laughing and letting out sighs of fear with me! Harold Lloyd had such an expressive face, and each gag is so well timed, I don't want to gush too much so I'll just say it was a joy.<br /><br />This is the crux of how I'm feeling at the moment, I don't feel I can put my finger on what it was to be in the cinema tonight, watching that particular film, call it magic if you like (maybe I will come to that) but when everyone clapped as the curtains closed on the screen, I felt present with my fellow film fans, and elated that each of us was still smiling and chuckling. Maybe you have had a similar experience, when you really felt the communality of the film experience? I had the same thing seeing <span style="font-style: italic;">Singin' in the Rain </span>in the same screen and there's really nothing like it.<br />I'm glad I chose to see <span style="font-style: italic;">Safety Last! </span>tonight, it was a tough decision, but it paid off, the reward of collective 'cine-love' as Sontag would call it. I wonder when I'll feel the same way again?'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-27034413313992747032010-02-07T12:55:00.000+00:002010-02-07T16:55:11.148+00:00A Post about The Host.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguRFn51p_wbDBL-9r1EZ8zHoDFQcuHxi3Zsy94gb44ytzPipk9tce0JXa1Deyxwv3cGM1UXXwgVSn0W7fPlLfigo75YFFEBd0VTGbAvpj0hOl4JSAyTDQVz672nBkEg53-GQqDVlK01JM/s1600-h/host.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 219px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguRFn51p_wbDBL-9r1EZ8zHoDFQcuHxi3Zsy94gb44ytzPipk9tce0JXa1Deyxwv3cGM1UXXwgVSn0W7fPlLfigo75YFFEBd0VTGbAvpj0hOl4JSAyTDQVz672nBkEg53-GQqDVlK01JM/s320/host.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435545215323185794" border="0" /></a><br />I have been (along with my fellow students) going through a process of articulating the why's and how's of our chosen areas of research. In fine tuning a proposal for my dissertation I have become frustrated in continually 'pointing' towards theories and work done by others, that I am not yet an authority on. The question that leaps from that is of course, will I ever be an authority on anything?! In being bogged down with this I sought solace in the Cinema, the place that is of course the inspiration and fascination that fuels all my interests and passion to begin with. I went to see <span style="font-style: italic;">Up in the Air </span>(Dir, Jason Reitman) on Tuesday afternoon, a time of day I particularly like to be in the cinema because the auditorium is usually very quiet and I get to be alone with the screen. It's a strange kind of worship, one that I related very much to Terrance Davies poetic description of screen in his film <span style="font-style: italic;">Of Time and the City </span>(though the cinema is a presence in most of his previous work too).<br />I don't really want to discuss the film; I liked it, though I can place it in a category of 'epiphany' movies when the central protagonist has some revelation about the way they should be living their life. In this case demonstrated with cliché and musical montage! Being in the cinema though - that was lovely, like going home and getting into slouchy clothes. Each screen is different though and I was in cinema 1 at Cineworld, which is laid out as a traditional half collosseum, so that when I sat in the middle seat half way down the rows I was facing straight on with the screen, unlike in other cinemas when some area of a stage or exit sign can be seen in relation to the screen. Relating directly to it's surface, I could see a few scratches on the screen too and this was something that almost improved the experience for me. Far from ruining the illusion that is highly sought after in film, the imperfection of the projected experience had the effect of bringing me closer to the mechanics of the cinema, appreciating all the combined elements that comntribute to the place I prize so highly.<br />This is a comfort, as I seemed to conclude, a year and a half after one of my film professors asked us new students whether we thought studying film will ruin it for us; that in fact I feel enriched by a more full awareness of all that encompasses the ' thing' that is film.<br /><br />With this in mind, films I have watched since last Sunday;<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The White Ribbon. </span>Michael Haneke<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Histoire(s) Du Cinema. </span>Jean-Luc Godard.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">An American Werewolf in London. </span>John Landis<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Sexy Beast. </span>Jonathan Glazer<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Host (Gwoemul). </span>Bong Joon-Ho.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Amadeus (Directors Cut). </span>Milos Foreman.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">28 Weeks Later. </span>Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Funny People. </span>Judd Apatow.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Sexy Beast </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Host </span>I watched as a double bill on Wednesday night, the former being a film I had intended to watch for a long time and the latter being one of my favorite films. centers around the Park family, and particularly Gan- Du, whose daughter Hyun-Seo is captured by the chemically mutated beast that emerges from the Han river one sunny afternoon. Unlike other monster movies that build tension by leaving the revealing of the creature to the second act, in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Host, </span>the camera loves the giant tadpole/slug beast, following it as craches around on land terrorising people as the laze on the grass enjoying the sunshine.<br />Gan-Du is first introduced to us, asleep in the food kiosk owned by his father. He is a slacker, lazy and inept, his hippyish blond hair marking him out as a non-conformist to the action of everyday life. It was with this perscpective that I re-veiwed <span style="font-style: italic;">The Host</span> on Wednesday, focusing on the characterisation of Gan-Du, his father, brother and sister.<br />Despite being portryed as lazy in the first instant, Gan-Du is quick to act when the beast begins to trample over the peaceful inhabitants of the riverside. Alongside an American man, he picks up slates and a traffick sign to attack the creature, even after he witnesses its ferocious roar as it devours both an overweight civilian and the American hero.<br />It is the tension between action/inaction and comedy/tragedy that makes the film such a captivating watch. Gan-Du's brother, Nam-il is derided by their father for failing to acheive success despite being college educated, something that Nam-il has a sense of bitterness about also, "I sacrificed my youth for the democracy of this country and they won't even give me a job".<br />Combined with this, Gan-Du's sister, Nam-Joo is a competitve archer; we see Gan-Du and Hyun-Seo watching her compete on television before the creature attack. Her problem however, is the inability to let go the arrow in time to make a winning shot; she leaves the competition with a bronze medal, for being too hestitant to act. Hie-Bong, the father, attempts to uphold some sense of honour, even if this expresses itself in trying to bribe officials in order to escape and rescue Hyun-Seo.<br />The family's ecape from quaratine is set to jovial acordian music, a tone of farce and comedy, rather than tense action scene, in keeping with a previous scene in which, greiving at the loss of Hyun-Seo, the family collapses on the floor wailing and weeping. It's tragic, but then somehow it all becomes hilarious, as though one kind of excess simply mutates into another.<br /><br />In the final scenes, our slacker and inactive family members, now separated are called into action for a showdown with the beast. Each of them is allowed to overcome their previous failings; action instead of inaction and all fuelled by their collective incentive to avenge Hyun-Seo.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span>'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-8847235125052739452010-01-24T13:48:00.000+00:002010-01-24T19:19:12.098+00:00Diversion Through Jurassic Park<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkpxXXwDP-AQgHYuQXwdidsRbIcKKk5bnu8nDK4jFBDc92866__Ou5kAt0-7LbZWrUuJTMLhs9-NARlSfx-55StI04F0pxugyR3zV_EiUP7iyyPnoNL-FPgU9cUB4Znm1v-FcJa31N3SI/s1600-h/DSCN1041.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkpxXXwDP-AQgHYuQXwdidsRbIcKKk5bnu8nDK4jFBDc92866__Ou5kAt0-7LbZWrUuJTMLhs9-NARlSfx-55StI04F0pxugyR3zV_EiUP7iyyPnoNL-FPgU9cUB4Znm1v-FcJa31N3SI/s320/DSCN1041.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5430303984305443890" border="0" /></a>I woke up this morning full of thoughts about what I might write on this blog today. My enthusiasm for research and learning is at a very high level at the moment, especially after I spoke to my professor about my dissertation ideas and was told that they weren't awful! That was all I really wanted when I imagined how our chat would go, I was simply hoping that I wouldn't be told to forget all the research and thinking I had done so far. In some ways I feel as though I'm setting out to solve a problem, or at least resolve the issues that have been concerning me for the past however many years.<br />Thinking is all I seem to do at the moment, and this week it may have been to the detriment of my reading. I had plenty of plans for reading but they seemed to get sidelined somehow as I thought through the main themes of my research.<br /><br />I've only just begun to read the texts suggested by my professor but their mere presence in my 'office' is like a calming force, re-affirming my interests and expressing far more articulately some of things I think about cinema and screens. For example, here is an extract from Anne Friedberg's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Virtual Window,<br /></span>'As the beholders of multiscreen "windows," we now receive images - still and moving, large and small, artistic and commercial - in spatially and temporally fractured frames. This new space of mediated vision is post-Cartesian, postperspectival, postcinematic, and posttellevisual, and yet remains within the delimited bounds of a frame and seen on a screen.' (7)<br /><br />For some bizarre reason I was thinking about this whilst watching Jurassic Park last night. Laugh all you like, but the technology to be seen in that blockbuster from way back in 1993, like many films, demonstrates the development of user interfaces that are designed to extend human vision. The scene in which Lex, a 'hacker' taps into the parks control system to turn the phones and door locks back on, first of all induces a giggle when she utters the line, 'this is a UNIX system- I know this!' but also displays a nice graphic that shows the viewer how Lex is able to 'see' the whole of the park all at once and simply click each icon to get progressivly closer to the location of the right control. For all that the graphic may be an unrealistic depiction of what a real system such as that might look like, the scene closely resembles an earlier one in which Hammond attempts to guide Sadler via a 'walkie-talkie' (I love that name) through the corridors of a bunker, using a blueprint map. Hammond acts as her eyes, and talks her through what he can see, in theory what she should be encountering in the bunker. After another dead-end is reached, good old Malcolm tells her to simply follow the pipes. Hammonds' vision, transferred to speech and mediated throught the radio transceiver is not adequate to guide Sadler and instead she relies on her own vision, likewise Lex's vision of the park is extended through a representational graphic that is mediated through the screen of the computer, being able to 'see more' she can control the environment in which she exists. That's the theory anyway.<br /><br />In terms of what Freidberg is talking about, and continuing my thoughts from last week, we can think of mobile phones and the ever present iphone and soon to be released Googlephone, as devices that we are constantly in touch with that which enables us to, 'see more'. Not only do we have graphics to guide us through text mesages, music stores and a connection to the internet allowing us to get information or images wherever we are, the aspect I find so facinating is the digital camera either by itself or on the moblie phone.<br />You will have done this at some point and if you haven't you might have seen someone doing it, but I'm always interested in the people who record videos of their experiences as they are happening, holding up a frame through which to view that which they can see and feel in that moment. I see this a lot at gigs and concerts, people holding up their cameras/phones to get a shot of the band. I wonder if that person would have the same experience if they had surrendered their recording device and merely relied on their unmediated senses of vision, hearing, touch etc, to experience the event.<br />The video they record may be for the use of an absent friend, and it will be sent as information to that person, and seen through one of the many 'windows' Freidberg lists. There just seems to be a fear that if we don't capture our experiences (and this is a reference to Sontag), they won't have really happened. We want to be able to look again, after the event and examine what our experience was, to be somewhat outside ourselves, looking in.<br /><br />The photograph, or rather image of a photograph above, I took when I was on the Southbank in London for the LFF. I was by myself and taking snaps of passers by in the bright morning sunlight, my attempt to capture an image of what it was like to 'be there'! I've posted it here because it captures an image of my presence though the shadow that I cast on the sand below the walkway. Thinking about the way we record our presence, and by that I mean how the individual records their presence not how the individual's presence is captured by others, I feel this photograph nicely demonstrates how I extended my vision first of all, by being able to see myself (my shadow), and then by photographing it and seeing my image cast on the sand and then framed by the window of my cameras' digital screen.<br /><br />These thoughts lead me to the requirement of more reading, so I will do just that.<br /><br />As an aside, other films/T.V series I watched this week:<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Nowhere Boy. </span>Sam Taylor Wood.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Arrested Development. </span>Mitchel Hurwitch<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Climates. </span>Nuri Bilge Ceylan.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Gleaners and I. </span>Agnes Varda<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Shoah </span>(first two hours)<span style="font-style: italic;">. </span>Claude Lanzmann.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">You, the Living. </span>Roy Anderson<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Cloverfield. </span>Matt Reeves.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">35 Shots of Rum. </span>Claire Denis.'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554970075830241658.post-91301389007544537672010-01-17T11:13:00.000+00:002010-01-24T13:44:59.693+00:00The First Tentative Steps into Blog-World.<span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The intention for this blog is to sketch out my ideas concerning the cinema, combining my academic research and personal thoughts. I have been studying part time for an Msc in Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh for 16 months now and I only now feel like I'm starting to think like an academic - though I could be wrong about that too. Beginning a blog is something I probably should have done ages ago, I love communicating and I talk a lot, as my friends and family will testify to! I have been wary of getting my academics pursuits out in the open though and have kept them safely within the boundaries of essay writing and discussions with my fellow students. Now is the time to fully embrace online publication and be brave in this new decade, to move on (but not away from) writing with my Imperial typewriter.<br /><br />This week I have read the last chapter of </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >Cinema 1</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> by Gilles Deleuze and the first chapter of </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >Cinema 2</span><span style="font-size:100%;">. I continued to read </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >After Photography</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> by Fred Ritchin and I began reading </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >An Introduction to Metaphysics</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> by Henri Bergson. My reading on the side is </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >Swans Way, </span><span style="font-size:100%;">the first book in Marcel Proust's six volume novel, </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >In Search of Lost Time.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Recently my interests have been moving toward issues of analog versus digital photography and film, hence my picking up Ritchin's book which is an accessible discussion of the implications, both positive and negative, of the so called 'digital revolution'. Starting this blog makes me feel a greater acceptance of the positive side of digital developments! Ritchin picks up where Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag began in addressing the way photography has transformed the way we think about the world and how we conceive of ourselves and our lives. We have moved far passed the issue of image manipulation that began with the act of posing for the portraitist, manipulating our expression and posture for that best version of ourselves. What we have now are hundreds of different versions of our image available to view through social networking sites so that we don't need that one perfect shot, we can always upload another photograph, maybe a different pose or the same one repeated on every night out in the pub. We interact with images now, click on one and it leads you to another in a simple gesture demonstrative of the way technology develops endlessly towards convenience.<br /><br />Images on the internet are like any information that's available to view, just like this blog which is another form of communication. The difference that Ritchin talks about is that we have come to expect information from the source, rather than to request it. Information is a basic right, now that so much is easily available online. This is one thing that bothers me about Facebook, that I may have 'friends' whom I don't ever interact with but I am able to view their activity and see images of them carrying on with their lives, without having to ask, "How are you?"<br />This is all carried out through our computers of course, we look at the screen and search for what we want, look at images and videos and have online conversations. We have an identity in the online world, conceived of through factual data; age, gender, date of birth, and through our projection of our personalities in the choices we make and personal information we put 'out there' on the web.<br /><br />I checked out Henri Bergson on the advice of one of my professors, as Gilles Deleuze had based his writing on Bergsons' theories. </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >An Introduction to Metaphysics </span><span style="font-size:100%;">is a fairly intimidating title but having read some Deleuze, and in thinking about issues of perception and identity, I could almost get to grips with what Bergson was saying. How do we conceive of ourselves? That is the important question here, and I feel my concerns may be, how does the cinema conceive of us? How do we conceive of ourselves through the cinema and the various other </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >screens</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> we interact with?<br />'There is one reality, at least, which we all seize from within, by intuition and not by simple analysis. It is our own personality in its flowing through time - our self which endures. We may sympathise intellectually with nothing else, but we certainly sympathise with our own selves.'<br />-Bergson (8).<br /><br />I'm going to have to leave these questions hanging here. In terms of our online selves and the one reality that we can truely know, Bergson would consider the internet to be a secondary, imperfect perspective, as it digests information and reduces it through analysis, 'we are not dealing with real </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >parts, </span><span style="font-size:100%;">but with mere </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >notes </span><span style="font-size:100%;">of the total impression.' (24)<br /><br />I hope that through this blog, my writing and my ideas improve and develop, and I appreciate any </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >constructive </span><span style="font-size:100%;">criticism readers may have to offer. At the moment I'm aware of my naivety in the face of new research and discoveries!</span><br /><br /></span>'Meta' Harri.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14762001366280003562noreply@blogger.com0