Its not irrelevant coz you have seen the film today; I just wish to extend the feel. Breathless (French: À bout de souffle; literally "out of breath", 1960) by Jean-Luc Godard remains one of my evergreen favorite films. Michel Poiccard, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo, remains a lovable thug with whom one will always identify, as long boys-as-men will fall in love with Jean Seberg, hopelessly...till he dances to death in the final scene (he knew it was coming within days and therefore considered it to be the adequate time to proposition an impossible love). Continue...

“I shook off the sweat and the sun. I realized that I’d destroyed the balance of the day and the perfect silence of this beach where I’d been happy. And I fired four more times at a lifeless body and the bullets sank in without leaving a mark. And it was like giving four sharp knocks at the door of unhappiness.”

The Outsider, Albert Camus

Break the Law
Scream your Thoughts
Pull the Gun
Shoot the Sun

Burn the Bridges
Scald the Beaches
On the Run
Beat the Sun

If you ask me why I wired and stole that car
I would say that I did it just to freak
Didn’t know that in the age of machines
It would turn out to be a lifetime hellbound trip

Shadows of shifting clouds
Fleeting like shapeless doubts
Neon-signs tell my stories
Newspaper astrologies

If you predict that a bad day lies ahead
I will rub my shoedust-disdain in your face
If you send your kafka-cops to trail my fate
I will boogey-woogie, Bogey to my death

Peep the Butt
Jump the Cut
Scoot to Hell
Cat the Bell

Syncopated
Synch belated
Pull the Gun
Shoot the Sun

If she tells me that I am not meant for her
I will tell her baby love me meaningless
If she nods her pretty crew-cut Renoir-head
I can drop the hat and stop the skirt-chases

The sky above is bleached to white
Someone shrieking like a kite
A kitten litters in the gutter
It is dead, I cross my chest

If you ask me if I church the bloody Sundays
I will say that you’ve got me baby wrong
I know God is that gutter-dead kitten
The chaplain's just a bored booky-moron

Think before taking a step
Step before thinking it late
Screw all bullshits
Raise the Hell

Grab the Girl
Grip the Gun
Sulk or Snarl
Shoot the Sun

I know I am not drifting in another movie
I know I have received no lines for me to speech
I know still I must traipse up-and-down the frame
I can see the sunglassed fool is in the game
I know he will give me away and lay the blame
Over the confused conduced striped-T-shirted dame
I know I will turn immortal and then I’ll die
I am trying to jump the cliff and then fly
I know I have waxy cursed daedalus-wings
I know I am throat-cut Orpheusinging
I know I am Mersaulting in the blanded beach
I know I am post-war cold-war Prometheusing!!!

Shit the beat
Beat the heat
Hit the nadir
Don’t retreat

Burn the Bridges
Scald the Beaches
On the Run
Beat the Sun

Break your Laws
Scream your Thoughts
Pull the Gun
Shoot the Sun

Disgusting … I’m done …

Jean-Luc Godard

Original 1963 trailer masterpiece for Godard's film Le Mépris or Contempt. It is an act of salesmanship and an end in itself.

This guy is so damaged and yet he has created so many amazing songs. You forget how far ahead of everyone he was when it came to song writing and arranging. And you look at him now and you can see he is so heavily medicated and yet his backing band is amazing with all of the arrangements. Check out both movies if you want to see something amazing.

Your Angry Filmmaker Tip.

When I was in Film School, I realized that film was so much more than I thought. It wasn't just a way to tell a story (which is still important); it was a way to truly communicate with an audience. To use film as a way of saying things. To protest, to educate, to enlighten.

- - from The Angry Filmmaker Survival Guide (coming really soon)

When I first went to film school I had modest goals, I just wanted to make Hollywood films, like the ones that I grew up with. When I got there I was thrown in with all of these people who said they were influenced by Godard, Fellini, Bergman and others. Film was considered an art form to these people and they all seemed very serious about what they wanted to do. When I had to get up in front of the class and say that I just wanted to make films to entertain you could’ve heard a pin drop. The faculty and a lot of the other students wrote me off at that moment. I had a few instructors that I couldn’t buy a decent grade from, because I was that guy “who just wanted to entertain”.

It was while I was in school and watching films that were not only assigned but were also being screened for other classes, or on weekends that I truly realized what film was all about. I had a conversion if you will. I realized that I didn’t know shit about film, film history or anything that was important. (Although I still think that Citizen Kane is not only NOT the best movie ever made, but it’s not even Welles best film.)

I felt like I was playing catch up the whole time I was there, and even the first few years I was out of school and working. Growing up I didn’t watch films, I watched movies. \Lots of westerns and war movies with my Father who rarely talked about fighting in WWII. If he did talk it was usually because we had just seen something in a film that he either agreed with or laughed at.

I don’t think the filmmakers of today have any knowledge of the past when it comes to films. They don’t believe that any films were made before 1985 and if any films were made they’re in black and white and boring. I think that’s why most of the mainstream movies are so bad today. Its one thing to know that the people who run the studios also have no knowledge of film history, but the fact that the filmmakers themselves are nothing more than “Commercial Directors” is something that really bothers me.

Directors are lauded for doing things with special effects and not for using film as a means of expression. It’s bad enough that young filmmakers today idolize filmmakers who aren’t very talented, (Yes I’m talking about you Michael Bay). I know that films have always been a business and the moguls would make commercial films to make money so that they can make movies that they felt were important, but when was the last time a film came out of Hollywood that was really important?

I love mindless entertainment as well as the next person, and I will go see Hell Boy 2 just because I thought the first one was a lot of fun. But I am getting sick and tired of being fed junk food by a bunch of people who wouldn’t know a smart and important film if it bit them in the … you know what I’m saying.

If you are serious about making films, then learn your film history. See classic and foreign films and draw inspiration from them. Don’t draw inspiration from bad TV shows you grew up watching, or from toys and computer games.

Give us a reason to go to the theater and not just so you can take our $10 and try to over whelm us with loud noise and special effects. After a while even the hungriest kid gets tired of nothing but Twinkies.

Other stuff.

Internet Special!!!!

Go to www.angryfilmmaker.com and check out The Angry Filmmaker Work Books. They are packed with lots of good info and are a real bargain at a mere $10 each or the set of three for $25 (plus S&H). If you order all three work books, (Pre-Production, Production, and Post-Production) before July 15^th, 2008 I will send you a free DVD copy of Kicking Bird. That’s all three books plus a Kicking Bird DVD for $25 + $9 S&H.

This special has gone so well that I am going to extend it to July 20^th, 2008!!!

And just a reminder, I am available to consult on your films.

What do you get out of the deal? You get the best value and advice in making your film. No matter what stage you’re in. I’ve been in the business for 25 years, working on everything from animation to live action, Independent features, Real Independent features, Hollywood studio stuff, and documentaries. If you check out my bio and filmography (www.angryfilmmaker.com/who.htm) you’ll see I’ve worked on award winning films, and films that never got distribution.

I will look at your work honestly and objectively. If there are problems, I’ll point them out, in a constructive way. No one wants to hear, “This sucks!” My goal is to guide you through the process, so that you can see what the problems are, and we’ll come up with ways to fix them. Check out (www.angryfilmmaker.com/consulting.htm.)

My Masters Class, Making the Extreme Low Budget Film has been re-scheduled for August 18^th thru September 5^th in Franklin, Indiana. Check out www.independentcinema.net for more information as it becomes available.

As always,

Talk later,

Kelley

www.angryfilmmaker.com

www.myspace.com/theangryfilmmaker

www.youtube.com/theangryfilmmaker

]]> http://cosmopista.wordpress.com/?p=58 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:36:54 +0000 paulo miyada http://cosmopista.wordpress.com/?p=58 “Com efeito, quando passamos hoje pelas cidades modernas, nós as encontramos sempre em obras. Creio que na Idade Média, antigamente, elas eram construídas durante trinta, cinqüenta anos, depois duravam um certo tempo e depois tudo mudava. Ao passo que hoje, quanto mais gente percorre as cidades, mais obras se vêem. Na Idade Média, creio que as coisas pareciam mais modernas às pessoas. Enquanto hoje tudo é ao mesmo tempo moderno e em ruínas. [...] Quando a gente toma um táxi, tudo nele está velho, a maçaneta está velha, e, no entanto, a gente está nos países mais modernos. Ao mesmo tempo que está nascendo, sente-se a morte muito próxima, as duas coisas estão um pouco relacionadas. Essa é a sensação que a América dá: a morte perpétua ao mesmo tempo que o nascimento.”

GODARD, Jean-Luc, "Introdução a uma verdadeira história do cinema".  São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1989 (primeira edição em francês: 1980).

A cura di Alessandro Dionisi

Articolo tratto dalla rivista Cinema Nuovo, anno 34, numero 2, aprile 1985

Je Vuos Salue, Marie, l’ultimo film di Godard che affronta in chiave moderna il tema dell’Immacolata Concezione, ha sucitato in Francia reazioni violente di un’intransigenza cattolica degna della migliore Controriforma. Maria, figlia di un garagista e giocatrice di pallacanestro, è innamorata di Giuseppe, autista di taxi. Vicino a una stazione di servizio passa Gabriele, un giovane dai modi bruschi, e Maria rimane incinta senza che nessuno l’abbia toccata.

Giuseppe, in un primo momento assalito dai dubbi, finisce per accettare la cosa. Maria partorisce un bambino che, appena cresciuto , riunisce attorno a sè una banda di “discepoli”.

“Qualcuno potrebbe meravigliarsi, dichiara Godard, “perchè mi sono allontanato da quello che faccio di solito. Ma non penso di aver dirottato. Quando ci si è sempre occupati della coppia, delle vicendi delle giovani, è inevitabile arrivare al prototipo di queste. In fondo il mio è un film sulla castità, sulla verginità. Maria è stata casta una volta. In seguito ha certamente avuto figli, di cui non si parla perchè non si deve parlarne: essa deve restare dietro la sua immagine eterna, quella della Vergine. Calcoli scientifici provano che la concezione a due persone ha statisticamente maggiori possibilità che quella a una sola. Qualcuno può credere al caso. Io no.

“Maria è stata ingravidata attraverso il mistero dell’operazione dello Spirito Santo , che il mistero dell’Incarnazione . Non bisogna questo con il dogma dell’ Immacolata Concezione , che significa concezione al di fuori del peccato”.

Il piacere di avere un figlio non coincide con il piacere sessuale, continua il regista francese.

“C’è qualcosa di più grande che gli uomini non conoscono e li rende amari. Per me la storia dell’Immacolata è naturalissima. Maria è una donna come tutte le altre, altrimenti altrimenti non si spiegherebbe questo mito così noto e ancora tanto solido. Per qualsiasi marito il problema è quello di Giuseppe. Deve aver fiducia nella madre di suo figlio, deve crederle nella parole. Se no dovrebbe scortare la moglie ventiquattrore su ventiquattro”. Il film, presentato in anteprima a Versailles, ha provocato disordini, clamorosi incidenti: fischi e grida di protesta, lancio di fiale puzzolenti, invettive; i cattolici, scatenati, tentano di invadere la cabina di proiezione intonando il Magnificant. Le proteste sono continuate anche il giorno successivo con l’aggiunta di telefonate minatorie e allarmi bomba. Un primo risultato è raggiunto: il film viene proibito in tutto il territorio comunale di Versailles.

Ma l’ira dei pii oppositori non si placa. La Confédération des associations familiales catholiques e l’Alliance générale contre le racisme et pour le respect de l’identité francaise et chrétienne chiedono al tribunale il sequestro su tutto il territorio nazionale, in quanto con tutte le sue sequenza sessuali il film risulta altamente “offensivo per la convinzione del 90% dei francesi che si dichiarano cristiani”.

Dalla parte di Godard, in sostegno della sua opera si sono schierati molti intellettuali e cineasti; lo stesso ministro della Cultura ha dichiarato: “E’ inaccettabile che una qualsiasi autorità, locale o nazionale, si sostituisca alla coscienza di ciascuno”. E il quotidiano Le Matin ha così commentato i fatti: “Millenovecentottantacinque anni dopo la nascita di Cristo la città di Versailles è stata teatro di un avvenimento di cui la storia dirà l’importanza: la rinascita della bigotteria più imbecille. Il corpo continua a suscitare scandalo. In questo paese ci sono sempre quelli per i quali la vera bellezza - quella che dà per qualche istante l’illusione dell’eternità - è fonte di spavento e scandalo. Una troppo improvvisa luce investe oggi questi ciechi: non è una buona ragione per privare tutti di essa”. Il tribunale di Parigi ha respinto l’istanza avanzata dalle sue associazioni cattoliche decidendo che Je vous salue, Marie, non deve subire nè tagli nè sequestri. Il film, dice tra l’altro la sentenza, “tenta un’attualizzazione moderna del mistero e del dogma dell’Immacolata Concezione” anche se utilizza “immagini di una nudità integrale e un verbo privo di delicatezza” . Se non ci fosse stata malafede da parte dei cattolici che hanno provocato tanto chiasso dice Godard, ” sarei piuttosto soddisfatto dello scandalo perchè questo ha permesso di parlare del film. L’artista è come il bambino, sempre contento quando la mamma guarda il suo disegno”.

“Per me Prénom Carmen e Je vous Salue, Marie sono stati due tentativi di andare a guardare sotto la sottana materna. Carmen è l’eterno femminino, Maria è l’eterno nel femminino. Maria è un personaggio più lontano . Nella storia sacra riscatta Eva , di cui Carmen potrebbe essere considerata una possibile discendente”
. I cattolici comunque, almeno quelli più arrabbiati, non si sono ancora arresi: alcuni di essi hano recitato il rosario di fronte al cinema dell’ Avenue des Champs Elysées, dove si proiettava il film di Godard. Intendevano esorcizzare il maligno oppure redimere l’iconoclasta e bestemmiatore Jean-Luc ? E’ rimasto u mistero. Forse è più facile rispondere a quest’altra domanda: se in Francia si tiene tanto al dogma dell’Immacolata Comcezione, che cosa accadrebbe in Italia, sede pontificia, nell’eventualità che il film fosse distribuito?

• Comic Book, by Serge Gainsbourg: The "dirty old man" of French pop, Serge Gainsbourg has played around with lots of different musical genres, from pop to jazz to reggae.  This album is a collection of his pop songs, and while I can never pick a favorite, his duets with Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin are always classics.
• French Women Don't Get Fat, by Mireille Guiliano: You won't find any recipes for the heavy pastries or rich entrees that we've come to expect from French cooking, but Guiliano packs her first cookbook with lots of wonderful recipes, sandwiched between anecdotes about French culture and cuisine.  The leek soup, fish en papillote, and homemade yogurt recipes have all worked their way into my regular rotation.  While this is a diet book, it is less about deprivation than about healthy eating, and the recipes are all well-balanced, easy to make, and delicious. 
• Short stories by Guy de Maupassant: Maupassant is a master of the modern short story, and is one of my favorite authors.  His stories dwell on topics such as sex and power in society (as in one of his famous stories, Boule de Suif) or horror (as in Le Horla).  As a short story writer he has never become as famous as some of his novel-writing contemporaries (such as Flaubert- who was also his mentor- or Zola), but his stories are well worth the read. 
• Masculin Feminin: I hadn't realized how much I love French film until I began trying to pick a film to write about for this blog post. I finally settled on Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin Feminin, because, in addition to being one of my favorite films of all time, it really is a great peek into French culture in the 1960's, and is also a landmark of the French New Wave film movement.  The plot focuses on the relationship between a young man just out of the army, and a young woman with aspirations of becoming a pop star.  And for you trivia geeks: Masculin Feminin also happens to be based on a couple of short stories by Maupassant. 
• Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources: (Because I couldn't pick just one French film!)  In contrast to Godard's urban 1960's France, these two films take place in the earlier part of the 20th century, in rural France.  The main character has dreams of becoming a florist, and when he discovers a hidden spring on his neighbor's land he plots to get the water for himself.  Jean de Florette tells the first part of the story, and Manon des Sources picks up where the first film leaves off.  The movies are wonderfully paced stories of obsession, greed, and revenge.  Set aside a chunk of time to watch both movies back to back; by the end of the first film you'll be anxious to find out how the story ends. 

If I hadn't quit smoking, I would light up a Gauloise.  Instead I'll probably just eat another croissant and have a glass of wine.  Do you have any plans for celebrating Bastille Day? 

-Irene

In the review, Stephanie Zacharek writes:

As Brody, a film critic and editor at The New Yorker, makes clear in the preface, he still believes in Godard’s relevance, claiming that the resolutely not-retired filmmaker, who has lived in Rolle, Switzerland, for the past 30 years, continues to work “at an extraordinarily high level of artistic achievement.”

That’s a lovely, optimistic sentiment, but one that much of Godard’s post-1967 output doesn’t deserve: Empty shadowboxes like “First Name: Carmen” (1983) or “Notre Musique” (2004) seem designed to alienate viewers rather than draw them closer, which is what happens when any artist begins to live entirely inside his or her own head.

I would counter that there's a difference between offering an "optimistic sentiment" and taking a generous approach.  Brody may be overreaching, and Notre Musique is undoubtedly a seriously flawed film, but to proclaim it an "empty shadowbox" is hyperbolic and shows a lack of generous attenuation to Godard's political/aesthetic reckonings.  Zacharek continues:

The second half of “Everything Is Cinema” covers the films Godard made after 1967, and it’s a very long half. Brody tries to energize us for this interminable home stretch.

So, the last, oh, forty years of an artist's career have been "an interminable home stretch" to an admittedly dazzling first ten?  Later:

Throughout his career, Godard’s political ideology has often amounted to little more than slogans, attention-grabbing sound bites...Although Brody repeatedly challenges Godard’s limited ideology, he does buy a little too readily into the notion that a work of art informed by political ideas is inherently more meaningful or more interesting than one with, say, a great deal of aesthetic inventiveness or emotional depth.

[...]

Godard’s political ideas have never been the strongest elements of his movies. Unfortunately, after 1968, they often became their focal point.

So, since Godard's politics were facile, it was unfortunate that he decided to focus on them.  

I think Zacharek hasn't bothered to distinguish the medium from the message.  From Gilbert Adair's review of the book:

As for the cinema proper, it was Godard who first conceived of editing as the art of disconti nuity rather than continuity. Godard who paid retrospective homage to the neglected icons of popular culture. Godard who proposed that the filmic image had to be flattened out for the sake of its own autonomy. And Godard who foresaw that that image was ultimately destined to dethrone the word as the irreducible unit of communication. Marshall McLuhan, another major theorist of such a revolutionary semantic displacement, continued to have recourse to words to describe the end of the word, whereas Godard used images and, if words, then words as images.

Assume that Godard's output is intended to be politically revolutionary (a notion that Zacharek implicitly seems to find fault with (as if real change would be as palatable as Breathless)), rather than a personal expression.  If words are less powerful than images, how does one begin to communicate complicated ideas, let alone complicated revolutionary ideas?  Words (sound-bites)-as-images was Godard's chosen path, and his breakthough was to reconcile and communicate words-as-image/film-as-image into a text.  Word - image - film = text.   

Two problems:  how to get beyond the surface level of the sound-bite (which Zacharek refuses to do), and how to make the sound-bite emotionally appealing.  I'd argue that the near-impossibility of the former grants the latter.  Godard may have thought that editing (a.k.a. the language of film) could be the thrust, but his revolution failed:  techniques and ideas were co-opted and neutered with no punch-back from the revolutionaries.  As such, the bulk of Godard's post-60's work has been a lament.  In this light, look at this clip from Notre Musique, which Zacharek called an "empty shadowbox":

I think Godard refuses to answer the question at the end because it misses the point.  The question is not whether digital can save cinema, but whether cinema can ever be saved, or rather, if cinema itself can save.  There's a wealth of sadness in this clip.  One might say it has "emotional depth."

Love me less, but love me a long time.

- Ismael Benoliel, Les Chansons d'amour

Hey, you got girlfriend Vietnam? Me so horny. Me love you long time.

- Da Nang Hooker, Full Metal Jacket

Louis Garrel & Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet - As-tu déjà aimé ?

[audio http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/20/1967807/08.%20As-tu%20d%C3%A9j%C3%A0%20aim%C3%A9%20.mp3]

For those of you who appreciate French music for its catchy pop melodies and inherent foreignness, Christopher Honoré's Love Songs (Les Chansons d'amour) might be the perfect film to start off a romantic evening that involves wine tasting and a fondue pot, you know, with all the calculated trimmings of a themed event. The only catch: turn off the monitor and leave the stereo on. The soundtrack, the foreground, the rest is mere background, the illusion of cosmopolitan sophistication is enough to satiate the Starbucks compilation palate. It's better leaving one's belief system in the French "tradition of quality" intact rather than shattering it through Honore's icy milieu of stock characters and tourist locales, not to mention, a preposterous suggestion that damaged grief brings about latent homosexuality, or perhaps mourning demands the "outing" of other bodies and orientations to hold on tight and fuck the pain away, or again, Ismael, the all-inclusive male figure was always a bisexual. Any of these scenarios could have been the case, but who gives a damn when the film squanders its chances to piece together the narrative threads in exchange for impromptu dalliances and nonsensical coincidences. The lyrics would've made Shakira cringe and laugh in agony..."Four pubes in the shower." At least in the heyday of French musicals, Demy was injecting frisky charm and dramatic irony into the Hollywood formula, and Godard broke down those same inane templates to form iconic sequences that are still the epitome of cool (See below). Honoré himself, a dedicated fan of that zeitgeist, took a more serious approach, then realizing his hip meter falling, he followed some needless detours and ended up somewhere between Paris and the land of lost convictions.

A signpost towards gay pride? Or a memorial of Timberlake before "4 Minutes"?

Enjoy the songs and think only of Anna Karina!

Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier, & Clothilde Hesme - Je n'aime que toi

[audio http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/20/1967807/04.%20Je%20n%27aime%20que%20toi.mp3]

Chiara Mastrioanni - Au parc

[audio http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/20/1967807/12.%20Au%20parc.mp3]

This is how you make a musical, pedantic lyrics aside.

New Book of Enoch [1:1]

I remember from the first moment I was taken up, at the moment of transition. I discovered something magical and for the first time, I had the impression that this required looking in a different way.  In other words, going along with the meaning of what unfolded before me. It was no longer a matter of being, but rather a kind of attentive poetry in play. I don’t know how to explain it. For me, all of a sudden, an understanding that every movement had a meaning and that it meant something other than itself.

This was an incredible sensation and it frightened me because I felt charged with a very important obligation: to do it well because it was extremely important and because I was chosen.  I felt I understood everything the angels understood, and I began to understand their questions.

* * *

______

Sources: Rilke, William Blake, Agnes Godard

Mas sem mais firulas, vou direto ao ponto. Dois diálogos me chamaram muita atenção no filme. Lá vai:

- O senhor disse agora pouco e fiquei me perguntando: porque a revolução não é feita pelos homens mais humanos?
- Porque os homens mais humanos não fazem revoluções, senhorita. Eles fazem bibliotecas.
- E cemitérios.

O segundo não é bem um diálogo:

- Se nossa época alcançou uma interminável força de destruição, é preciso fazer uma revolução que crie uma indeterminável força de criação que fortaleça as lembranças, que delineie os sonhos, que materialize as imagens.

Há quem diga que essa revolução já está em processo. Há quem diga que ela ja aconteceu e morreu. Também há quem diga que isso tudo é palhaçada. E há quem diga que uma nova ordem mundial instaura esses valores através do que Foucault, Deleuze, Negri e essa rapaziada chamam de Biopolítica. E aí?

Aikaisemmista tiedoista poiketen on päätetty, että palkinnoiksi jaetaan kolme Godard-elokuvaa, jotka ovat: Alphaville, Hullu Pierrot ja Made in U.S.A. Nämä elokuvat jaetaan juuri tuossa järjestyksessä, niin että ensimmäisen voittaa neljännen jakson kilpailusta, toisen viidennen ja kolmannen tulevasta kuudennen jakson kilpailusta. Joten pistäkäähän vastauksia tulemaan.

So I read on Eater that Amy Sacco, one of my favorite Amazon women, has closed her restaurant Bette. Having been a fan of Amy due to her role in bringing prominence to New York nightlife, one of the things I'd wanted to do upon moving to the City was hit up her establishments, Bette and Bungalow 8. I had an opportunity to go to Bungalow a few weeks ago for a friend's birthday, but I allowed minor issues prevent me from doing so. And now, with the closing of Bette, I've let another opportunity slip by.

When I really sit and think about it, this is all quite very sad. Not just that the restaurant has closed, but that so many things we consider institutions and take for granted are slowly fading away. Oh, sure, I'll visit next year. Oh, yeah, I'll do that next month. Oh, pshaw, I'll see that next week. Oh, man, I'll wait until tomorrow. But the fact of the matter is, none of these nexts are promised to us. We're all going to die before we do the first thing on our respective bucket lists.

So I'm making a pledge to do more things. To be more social, more active, more involved. And I'm talking about the little things that bring such joy, like taking a Sunday stroll through Central Park, or hitting up the MOMA, or having brunch at the place on Ninth Avenue that I always used to pass. I'm talking about seeing that Godard film that may be playing an exclusve engagement at a theater in the Village, or calling that sexy honey I met at Habana Outpost. Taking those trips to far away places like Los Angeles, Tokyo, Dubai, and Weehawken.

This is a promise I'm making to all of you, good people. And it's something that I hope each of you will do as well. Do more. Get out and experience life. Be adventurous. Don't wait for things to happen, make them happen. Write your own histories. That way, when your personal eras do come to their inevitable closings, you can stand there and proudly declare, "I did it."

Everybody knows all about psychoanaysis and its ideas on:
1) The unconscious mind in relation to the conscious mind (Ucs vs Cs)
2) Infantile Sexuality and Repression
and 3) Dreams as a road to the unconscious

In film theory, Laura Mulvey wrote a famous essay on the Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window titled Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema (1975). In it she examined the film according to theories of psychoanalysis (as well as the intersection of psychoanalysis and film with feminism). Her essay is still held up today as the most frequently re-printed essay in film theory of any kind.

I also had to hand in a paper comparing and contrasting Italian Neorealism with French New Wave cinema, as well as examine the artistic potential of the two genres by looking at two genre-specific films including Journey to Italy (Rossellini, 1954) and Masculin, féminin (Godard, 1966). Since I just spent enough time talking about film theory I'll spare you any excerpts from the paper.

Pics: Hitchcock's Rear Window, Rossellini's Voyage in Italy, and Godard's Masculin Feminine.

Con seguridad, los directos de Gary Louris y Ken Stringfellow fueron, junto al de Nacho Vegas, lo más destacado de lo que se pudo ver en la sala del Paraninfo de la calle Sevilla. Tengo una debilidad suprema por Nacho Vegas. En esta década ningún músico me ha emocionado tanto como el asturiano ex de Manta Ray. Canciones como Ocho y medio, Blanca, El hombre que casi conoció a Michi Panero, El jardín de la duermevela, Nuevos planes, idénticas estrategias, Días extraños y La pena o la nada —mi preferida— son auténticas obras de arte, profundos delirios del poeta de las emociones. Vegas —el cantautor de este siglo— puede presumir de haber creado buena parte de las mejores letras del panorama musical de nuestro país. Hay tanta literatura desgarrada en sus canciones que o te estremeces escuchándole o es que no eres persona.

«Entre el dolor y la nada elegí el dolor». Vertiginosa frase de Faulkner —el escritor de Mississipi la acuñó de otra manera que ahora no recuerdo—, cinematografiada por Godard y cantada por un acongojado Vegas. Valiente resolución del dilema pendiente: la nada o el dolor. Pienso que el mundo no se debería dividir ya entre oriente y occidente, ni entre ricos y pobres, ni tampoco entre conservadores y progresistas. No. Habría que distinguir tan sólo —y ese resulta ser, amigos, el Gran Tema— entre las personas que eligen la nada y aquéllas que optan por el dolor. Yo soy, evidentemente, de los segundos. Me quedo con el dolor. Sin dudar. Convencido de lo que estoy haciendo/diciendo. El dolor es algo, la nada no es nada. El dolor, aunque te puede acabar matando, es un motivo para seguir viviendo, y una evidencia de que estás vivo; pero la nada no te permite, siquiera, empezar a vivir. ¿Qué prefieres? Dime.

«Miro al techo que hoy ha vuelto a gotear; hacía tiempo que no llovía así. Y cada gota golpeando contra los cacharros de metal me hace pensar unas veces en sangre y otras veces en ti. Lo que en realidad viene a ser lo mismo. Lo que, por crueldad, viene a dar igual. O puede ser un ángel que una vez perdió la fe y fue expulsado, y que ha venido a agonizar justo encima de mi hogar y estas gotas sean sus lágrimas. O puede que sea hora de entrar ya en razón y llegar a comprender que dentro de este horror no hay literatura, no, y eso tú lo sabes bien a fuerza de caer en una trampa mortal que en el tiempo dura ya ocho años y medio. Seré muy breve; te quiero, y esto duele.» (Nacho Vegas, Ocho y medio.)

«Blanca llega hasta mi mente / jura que ella es diferente / y es hermosa hasta en su forma de mentir. / Quién sabrá lo que ella sueña / lo que siente y lo que enseña / la razón por la que hoy la vuelvo a ver, / Blanca eres tan cruel. / Y no olvides que / al despertar / siempre hay cuchillos en el cajón...» (Nacho Vegas, Blanca.)

Being severely low on funds, the majority of my film viewing has revolved around the American New Wave in the 1970s (frankly, I think we're far due for another one), jumping off of the viewing list from a book I'm crawling through, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. This film, George Lucas' first feature, based on a shorter film he made for school, nearly bankrupted American Zoetrope and so nearly ended his career before it began. I was not eager at all to watch.

I ended up liking the story presented here far more than I expected. The delivery, however, was no mark of greatness. In the film's commentary, Lucas says that the foreign feel of the film was exactly what he was striving for. He wanted to "make a film from the future, not about the future" which is a noble aim. The trouble is, to me, that this this and other aspects of the film are supposedly intended but not communicated, which makes me doubt the effectiveness of the method. While I do believe that the filmmaker owes only to himself, not an audience, the film medium is intended for communication. Otherwise, why not just shoot a movie and watch it in your basement. Godard often said that the mark of quality in a film is in the inability of an audience to comprehend it, something that I find monumentally foolish. If you release it, you obviously want others to see it. And, in releasing, if your only intention is to make others feel idiotic because they don't get something you never intended them to get, than what's the point? It is my opinion that we produce work as a form of giving to others, a concept or an idea or an emotion. You don't have to spoon feed it to the audience, but it needs to be out there.

My apologies, got a tad side tracked.

I would venture that Lucas wanted to communicate his ideas to the audience, not be stingy about them, but was perhaps too young a filmmaker to know how to put them forward most affectively. Or, perhaps his style at that point is something that simply doesn't stimulate me. My distaste is mainly in the fact that the two things I was most interested in, in the plot and world he created, were not played up as much as they could have been. First, there was an excellent criticism of both extremes of the political spectrum. In this underground world that THX inhabits, there is both the harsh conformity and invasiveness that characterizes far conservative regimes, especially now, but there are also references to China's re-education, therefore serving to blur the lines of communism and fascism. Supplementing this, is the vast consumerism of the Nixon and approaching Reagan administrations, as well as the heavy drug use of the 1970s. Though the drugs in this case were not for recreation but by government mandate, a case can still be made for the criticism of people who use drugs as a wall between a true and manufactured reality. Though these elements are obviously present, and the backbone for the story, they are also in an odd way shoved to the side. I wanted to see more drugs, more consumerism, and instead they were mentioned frequently by detached voice overs and only seen once or twice. This is mildly comical coming from someone who at the time put not value on dialog and all on image.

Second, I wanted to see more in regards to the love story that spurred on the action of the film, between THX and LUH. This, I understand, is a complex issue as love stories are often want to be consumed in sap and this film was attempting to be as detached and cold as possible. Still, it's something I want explored a little more. The entire point of the love affair was to raise these citizens out of their stupor and experience emotion as they never have before, yet we don't get to see much of them doing so. The only way we know they aren't on drugs is because they're able to have sex, which can easily be done apathetic and doped up.

Though interesting, this would certainly not be a film I'd want to sit through a second time, or recommend to others. If it were another filmmaker, I would say it was a noble first effort on the road to greater things. Considering this is George Lucas though, I'd probably have to pin this as a sprawling, pretentious bit of nonsense made by a man not yet ready to sell out to something he's better equipped for.

Steven Meisel, "State of Emergency" series for Italian Vogue

Pairing the works of late fashion photographer (in reality, a misunderstood surrealist master) Guy Bourdin with the glossy resume of his less worthy successor, Steven Meidel is like comparing apples and blood oranges. The strange fruit, an ancient citrus hybrid, with its bitter flavor and mesmerizing crimson color, shares an almost inescapable fact with a Bourdin "still life," leaving behind an unforgettable bruise that last for weeks and even years without the hope of amnesia as anesthesia. Still, the nameless collagists at The Image Archive wants us to believe in their nonexistent dialogue through the rhetoric of the photo essay (see video below), inflating the blase beauty of one with the iconographic might of the other. Establishing space in the first few seconds, we journey from physical landmarks to geographies less familiar, as shadows and shoulders collide into the unknown. It's a cleverly edited video, a readymade cliff-notes introduction that should, at least, invite viewers to approach two separate careers with enough biographical history on hand.

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While I'll credit Meidel for taking liberties with the typical fashion shoot, tackling contemporary political sentiments through high production values replete with statuesque supermodels and trendy couture, his radicalism whimpers like a caged beast, suitable for city billboards and the big heads at Conde Nast HQ---wholly accessible, rarely affective. Representative of his oeuvre, the photograph above intends to capture feminine duress under the police state, but what we have sadly is merely a pretty face under the boot of a fashionable fascist. Relying heavily on photogenic poses, Meidel never reaches for the tiny detail that would complicate the very subject of our attention. Terror evaporates just as her doll eyes signify nothing but the camera's reflection. In Bourdin's photograph, the curious finger on the ivory doorbell makes you wonder in fear of the revelation just to the left.

Bourdin, on the other hand, applied strenuous pressure to his creative process, like a ringmaster to a harem of Botticelli angels, he churned out snapshots of bodies, mangled and tested to their limits. No longer just mannequins primed to sell clothes, these were daredevil artists ready for the next Cirque du Soleil audition. Adding to this "enactment of the impossible," Tim Blanks (notable fashion writer) sums up Bourdin's death-drive:

Throughout his career, he remained an artist manqué, composing and reordering the elements he saw through his viewfinder until they matched the pictures he imagined in his head (and sketched in his notebooks). Except they never did.

As noted by other critics, Bourdin was obsessed with scenarios conjured by a childhood watching the film-noirs imported to France from Hollywood and informed by schooling in European art history. Never hesitating on aesthetic honesty over sartorial concerns, his repertoire (yes, i used the taboo R word) desires for a world of cinematic conceits, where female figures are obscured by frames and forces that pay little attention to their presence. It's almost like a picture taken by someone who happens to walk by a gruesome murder, indifferent to sensationalism, slightly aroused but never masturbatory. Comparisons to Stanley Kubrick are apt, but these are facile bullet points that could point to anyone, such as Godard or Varda, instead, a painting by Magritte should suffice as a teasing doorway to Bourdin's infinite fantasies, which themselves are self-effacing artifices. We recognize the amount of hard work behind the illusion, though looking at a mirror doesn't necessarily mean we're safe.

René Magritte's "Dangerous Liaisons"

Guy Bourdin made a series of 16mm "home" movies of his photo shoots, this happens to be my favorite.

As vezes eu me pego invejando algumas pessoas. Não uma inveja ruim, mas sim uma inveja boa, do tipo "po, que legal q essa pessoa é assim... queria ser também..."... As vezes me pego vendo alguns relacionamentos, que de fora parecem muito perfeitos. Sabe aqueles seus amigos que namoram desde o tempo do colégio? Eu sempre quis construir algo assim, do começo... do conhecimento à amizade, à paixão, ao amor... cada coisa em sua devida hora, seu devido lugar... Sim, sou meio viadinho quanto a isso... não invejo nem um pouco aquele cara "pegador" e não me arrependo dos meus poucos relacionamentos com significado versus aqueles muitos relacionamentos que não significam nada. Enfim, voltando ao tópico. Você vê esses casais, de vez em quando brigando, ou discutindo e algum tempo depois os vê abraçados... Continuando com a sessão "sou meio viadinho¹", eu gosto de romances... Enfim, muitas vezes assisto romancezinhos e também fico com aquela inveja de ter um amor pra toda a vida, ou ao menos um amor pra recordar (tha,  eu tenho um amor pra recordar...). O que me lembra novamente daqueles relacionamentos perfeitos que a gente as vezes conhece.

A questão é como todo um conjunto de idéias que temos sobre vários pontos que antes tínhamos como dogmas acaba caindo por terra aos pés de um filme de Godard quando vemos um desses relacionamentos terminar. As vezes o choque acaba por ser maior do que quando nós mesmos terminamos, e as vezes nos faz ponderar o quão insignificantes nós somos pensando "putz, eu aqui me achando o cara mais fossa do mundo, mas olha só isso!". Bom, eu quase sempre sou partidário da máxima "esqueça um pouco seus problemas e ouça um pouco o problema dos outros", mas sabe como é, de vez em quando temos que ser estes "outros".

Para concluir, crianças... Toda história tem dois lados; você nunca é o único detentor da verdade e nem da fossa, então não seja egoísta agindo como se fosse. NÃO OUÇA SEU MENTAL CHATTER. Isso é fato, ele sempre vai te foder. E termino deixando uma célebre frase de Vinícius.

"Que não seja imortal, posto que é chama
Mas que seja infinito enquanto dure."

¹ - Sou muito seguro da minha masculinidade, por isso me reservo o direito de fazer tais alegações sem comprometer-me.

O filme de 1985 conta duas histórias paralelas. A primeira é de Maria, sim! O filme conta aquela velha história na contemporâneidade. Aqui Maria é uma jovem como tantas outras, estuda, joga basquete e tem um namorado;  José, que no mundo moderno tem uma amante. O casal enfrenta problemas bastante comuns na atualidade como a falta de comunicação na relação. Bem diferente que à 2 mil anos atrás, Maria deitada em sua cama, se questiona sobre a sua posição, sua gravidez e sua castidade. Por isso, tal filme foi proíbido pela Igreja, que nega a sexualidade da mãe de Jesus e não aceita que Maria, representada pela atriz Myriem Roussel, pode possuir dúvidas e encarar o seu corpo naturalmente, sem preconceito.

Assim como na história original, Maria recebe a visita do anjo Gabriel, um personagem um tanto quanto exótico, e sua fiel companheira - que no filme representa a força e mistério das crianças. Gabriel tenta convencer José que Maria não o traiu e ainda é virgem. Hoje, além de um anjo, os médicos também podem fazer este trabalho.

Depois do nascimento da criança, "Jesus" dá as indicações do "grande" ser que é. Nesta fase, mais uma vez, Godard mostra os problemas de uma relação sem contato e sem comunicação, agora, no casamento de Maria e José. A mãe continua sendo o foco principal do filme e ainda vive suas escolhas do passado.

Enquanto Maria se questiona sobre si mesma, um professor de Ciências e sua aluna, com quem tem um caso, discutem a origem da vida na terra, a existência do ser e a busca por prazer e estabilidade.

Enfim, é impossível desvendar tudo o que há por trás de um filme de Godard. A falta de linearidade e as perguntas sem resposta dão toda a complexidade do roteiro e das relações humanas. O principal do filme nem é a história da adolescente que se vê grávida do nada, mas sim o que não tem resposta: a vida humana. Ao final de Je Vous Saluie Marie, as perguntas ficam: O que é pureza? A pureza é necessária? Responda você mesmo.

"I perched in discomfort on the end of my bed and announced 'I think if there's a woman with nothing on appearing on the screen no one's going to listen to the words', suggesting perhaps he could film our 'This Exploits Women' stickers on the tube. Godard gave me a baleful look, his lip curled. 'Don't you think I am able to make a c*** boring?', he exclaimed. We were locked in a conflict over a fleeting ethnographic moment.

[...]

As for Godard's intention of making a c*** boring, I cannot say except that a friend in International Socialism told me that his first thought had been 'crumpet' - until the shot went on and on and on, and he started to listen.'

(From Shelia Rowbotham, Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties, quoted in Colin MacCabe, Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy)

There's also something about it that reminds me of my Door Feather Door video, in which disjunct text, reading and images each simultaneously call on the viewer's attention so the experience is continually frustrated. It's worth keeping this in mind for these talks, for which I'm keen to avoid pandering to the viewer to provide a comfortable show.