American Decay and Urban Dreams

Moon opens in Chicago Tomorrow

2009-06-18T14:10:00.002-05:00

We over here at my house have highly anticipated Duncan Jones' (aka Zowie Bowie's) feature Moon.

Starring hottie Sam Rockwell, it is a mix of a whole bunch of Sci-Fi archetypes and doppelganger scariness.

Check out the site and the trailer here.

Worst road trip photos ever.

2008-12-06T12:45:00.004-06:00

CUBA MISSOURI TO CHICAGO IL - NOVEMBER 30 2008

Nostalgia in Film and Filmic Memorials

2008-12-04T14:43:00.001-06:00

I recently wrote a paper on memory and remembrance in film. This is the abstract/outline.

Nostalgia in Film and Filmic Memorials
THESIS:
Within film and video the filmmakers have the capacity to relive moments and experiences that are too far from reach in reality. Thus, film work has become a vehicle to memorialize the past, creating narratives with strong nostalgic overtones, plus a new breed of documentary, experimental documentaries using home-movies in order to re-tell the stories of those they have lost. Both are unique memorials to the past, and have the ability to transcend that of a stationery monument.

OUTLINE:
Nostalgic memories:
Narrative films that use nostalgia as a theme within the films.

Mystery Train by Jim Jarmusch (Elvis, Screaming Jay Hawkins, and Joe Strummer)
http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/59/59mysterytrain.html
http://www.kamera.co.uk/features/mystery_train.php

Badlands by Terrence Malick (the American dream, idyllic, 1950s)
Recycled Culture in Contemporary Art and Film by Vera Dika

Nostalgic Memorials:
The use of home movies in order to memorialize those we’ve lost.

Loss — Years after her father dies, director Kristen Nutile attempts to resurrect memories of him through old family movies. In a beautiful mix of grainy old footage, music and interviews with her family, she recreates a portrait of her father. We go on this moving journey with her to rediscover the past.

My Olympic Summer — In the context of his own cracking marriage, filmmaker Daniel Robin explores his parents' union. He discovers a letter detailing his mother's unhappiness, feelings which were then swallowed up by historical dramas that kept his parents together. So what truths are these home movies telling?
http://shortendmagazine.com/content/view/451/101/
http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/reviews.php?film_id=12974

THE PASSENGER
Kathryn Ramey
Documentary 2006, (16:00), 16mm on Video Chicago Premiere
A personal, experimental, 16mm film that addresses the filmmaker’s tenuous relationship with her mentally ill mother and her own reservations about pregnancy, birth, and parenthood.The physical reworking of the film’s surface serves as a signifying device for the process of building a life, becoming a mother, and repairing that which is broken between mother and child. The fracture between experience of a mother’s illness and memories of joys with her were literally sutured in the editing.
“At the funeral I was the only one of her children to speak. I said she had perfect penmanship and that she loved to dance and sing. The later were her gifts to me.” – Kathryn Ramey

DEAR ZACHARY:
A LETTER TO A SON ABOUT HIS FATHER
2008, Kurt Kuenne, USA, 95 min.
“A gut-wrenching true-crime story…a virtuoso feat.”—Peter Debruge, Variety
“One of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen…unfolds like a masterful thriller.”—Erik Childress, eFilmCritic.com

“Every last person who steps foot into a theater to see this will walk away changed.”—Alex Billington, FirstShowing.net
A tale of madness, murder, revenge, and thwarted justice plays out in escalating increments of horror in a documentary begun as the filmmaker’s tribute to a friend. The 2001 murder of personable 28-year-old Dr. Andrew Bagby by a 40-year-old former girlfriend prompted filmmaker Kuenne, his best friend since earliest childhood, to begin a documentary in the form of a letter to the dead man’s infant son. Fast-breaking events involving the ex-lover/accused murderer, the child, Bagby’s parents, and the law, take the film in an unanticipated new direction with Kuenne scrambling to keep pace with the unfolding of an emotionally powerful real-life drama of Shakespearean dimensions. Beta SP video. (BS)

Julen kommer!

2008-12-03T23:15:00.001-06:00

Blog Network:

Name:
American Decay and Urban Dreams

Topics:
film, culture, nostalgia

Join my network

Blog Networks

Things I have looked at online.
Enjoy!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule_log
Log.

http://www.ling.su.se/staff/evali/glogg.htm
Glögg.

http://www.christmas-cookies.com/recipes/recipe41.pepperkakor.html
Pepperkakor (på glögg)

http://www.kristallbeverage.com/home/jul.html
Julmist, yummy.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2092
Niles, IL attraction (other than WalMart=

http://www.chicagobotanic.org/wonderland/
Pretty, fint!

http://www.chicagolandchristmaslights.com/
God Jul!

http://www.lpzoo.org/events/zoolights08.html
I wonder what the animals think?

http://www.andersonville.org/index.php/events/julmarknad/details/7
Julmarknad, dricka glögg och tar fika!

http://www.andersonville.org/index.php/events/community-calendar/details/8-late-night-andersonville
Party on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas_Day
Put out your shoes!

http://www.christkindlmarket.com/
I love thee.

http://www.santascandycastle.com/shopcontent.asp?type=Visit
Hansel and Gretel, contemporary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus,_Indiana
Roadtrip

http://www.holidayworld.com/
Dear god.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/chi-worst-xmas-pg,0,7781979.photogallery
True.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Pickwick Theater & Cadillac Records

2008-12-01T08:51:00.010-06:00

Last night I took Exal (my roommate) to the suburbs to check out the chaos at Wal-Mart. We ended up at Bath and Body Works buying smelly things. Like candy apple hand soap in a penguin dispenser. Yes, I am turning into my mother. Anyways, we decided to keep going west on Touhy and stumbled into the suburb of Park Ridge, IL. And low and behold stood the Pickwick Theater. One of the remain open movie palaces. Built in the 1920's the theater is Art Deco style, with a hint of Aztec influence.
I looked up online and saw what is playing there and saw that opening soon is Cadillac Records. A film that I have been anticipating. Not out of sure happiness it was made, more because I curious how it is going to work out. I'm pretty hesitant because of the regular skepticism, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters and Beyonce as Etta James? Really? But having Adrian Brody as Leonard Chess might make up for it (dream boat). Being a huge fan of the Chess Records legacy and spending most of my time several blocks north the studio. A couple of years ago I even made an in-situ screenprinted shrine to Muddy and the boys of Chess.

I'll report back with how the outcome of this film is after I go to this beautiful theater this weekend.

Summer blues.

2008-07-26T20:29:00.003-05:00

I recently noticed that my summer is almost gone.
This is extremely depressing because I have gotten almost nothing done that I wanted to.
My movie has barely been started. I haven't been able to explore as much as I've wanted. And I'm still dealing with the same old problems.

What is really terrify is that my last year at school starts in less than 5 weeks. Which means that this next year is going to fly by. And I really hope I get the movie done. But then after that year what is going to happen?
I imagined I'd go to grad school, but I'm in no financial place to be doing so. The only way I could go to grad school next year is if I get a full ride or go to University of Texas in Austin, because I'd be in-state.

But I'm not even really sure if I want to do a production grad degree. Maybe I want to study history or film preservation. But a lot of this would mean leaving Chicago. Something I've become very attached to.

Maybe I should just chill out and work a bit harder at getting stuff done.
-September Undergraduate Film/Video Festival
-First feature: "Veracity: We All Shine On"

The last good movie I saw:
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Palme d'or 2006)

Song that keeps playing:
Goodbye to You by Scandal

Uptown Theater

2008-07-25T22:59:00.006-05:00

It's pretty obvious that I have a nostalgia problem. But I'm also prone to extreme fits of thirst for historical knowledge.

Today I read that the Uptown Theater is being sold at a foreclosure auction on Tuesday. This could be a very good thing, or a very bad thing.

I really hope someone buys it that wants to restore the theater and open it again for movies, plays, concerts. Some kind of theatrical epicenter. But it might be more likely that someone who wants to tear it down and put a Best Western there will buy it.

I guess we could find out soon. In the meantime I had checked out a book of pictures from the library of Uptown's gentrification/historical places where I found these great pictures of the theater.

It begins...

2008-07-18T13:20:00.004-05:00

I feel like everything is falling apart.

Rightly so.

Appetite for Destruction

2008-07-12T08:31:00.003-05:00

Last night I fell asleep during a TV pilot, I woke up I was really anxious and pissy on the living room floor at 1 AM and it started pooring outside. I heard a lot of thunder and lightning. And my roommate figured out I was still awake at 2 AM and she told me a tree fell on the garage.

I was really worried my car just smooshed. But it didn't. I took bad photos last night, but I got some better ones this morning. I just don't know how they're going to remove this beast. I put in a work order to City of Chicago, but they won't give a damn because it's in our backyard. As of right not our request status is Open, via the 311 online work order system.

----
In other news-
I left Logan Square recently, and relocated to Uptown. I'm digging it.

I start shooting my first feature on Monday, the cast and crew leave tomorrow.

I'm working on a retrospective with the Film Archive here, and learning a lot more about the sixties.

Have an incredible amount of nostalgia for the past still.

Summer fun.

The last movie I watched was: The Passenger. Jack Nicholson is hot. I think I prefer late 60s/70s Antonioni movies.

Undergraduate Film/Video Festival

2008-03-12T23:22:00.001-05:00

I found out today that I won the only $500 grant from my school (SAIC) government to direct the 2nd Bi-Annual Undergraduate Film/Video Festival. I directed and founded the festival last semester, and this money helps out so much.

I'm so happy, and so amazed at what I'm capable of sometimes.

Film as a Conceptual Nostalgia

2008-02-21T10:35:00.003-06:00

Film as a Conceptual Nostalgia

-The film director Jennifer Montgomery, when referring to the extinct film stock Kodachrome said, “A lot of people seem to have nostalgia for things they never experienced.” This statement sums up most of everything I experience in everyday life. Nostalgia for times I have never experienced. I’m in love with the sixties. But yet what for? For the music, the film scene, the community, the active role people were taking in society, and the massive amount of change that was happening. Maybe it is because it is a time before I experienced extreme emotional pain and loss. I revert back to a time I idealize in order to erase what happened in my lifetime, maybe to have some sense of comfort in knowing what is going on at that exact moment. Yet there is that feeling of history and longing I have embedded in my mind when referring to this past. I base everything I do on history. This past is mysterious to me and by working with it through my art I can try to formulate some kind of cohesion on why it means so much to me. In a way these new genre types categorize the films that I make: Mystery History and Optical Mystery.
-I’m also fascinated with other uses of history in culture. Like when songs are covered: for example “I Put a Spell” on you has been covered at least 50 times. I’m also intrigued in the fusion of media, music, and art in the 1960s. Mick Jagger and Jimmy Page were making music for Kenneth Anger. Cinema Verite filmmakers were capturing the protests and spirit of the times. Art and music became historic references for social change.
-I don’t think that the enthrallment with nostalgia is a new thing. I think for a long time people have been terrified by the present and are able to cocoon themselves into a safety net of the past. This has the potential to be a threatening problem to society and culture of today. There is no room for progress in this case. But this is hardly a national problem, yet.
-Yet as a filmmaker and artist the way that I deal with the nostalgic urge is to conceptually use film as a way to revert back to these eras I couldn’t experience. In a way it is a filmic Happening. If I cannot live this era I must create it. A reenactment of sorts.
-Let’s try an experiment right now.
-I want you to close your eyes and visualize the 60s.

-When I close my eyes I see grain, super saturated 16mm color or stark black and white contrast. I see neon signs, roadhouses, blues, heartache, powerlessness, and control. Travel, highways, Americana, and individualism.
-There is grit and humanism to everything that I relate to the sixties. I romanticize this era and I know that there was war, oppression, and similar issues we are dealing with today. There is violence and hate. But I can visualize it all. I see it in frames. And I’m intrigued that a time can have such stark correlation with image.
-Ultimately I realize I use nostalgia as an escape. The urge to run away from the present and drop off the radar is in the core of a lot of us. But film is an opportunity to escape and tell stories without disappearing. The ability to explore places and things that exist or have existed without experiencing them out right. This is why so many of us have an obsession with movies and film.

02/02 - James Joyce's Ulysses Project

2008-02-04T20:52:00.000-06:00

This was the script of a sync shoot I did Saturday:

YES BECAUSE HE NEVER DID A THING LIKE THAT BEFORE AS ASK TO get his breakfast in bed. He was dying on account of her to never see thy face again. All men get a bit like that at his age especially getting on to forty, he is now, so as to wheedle (swindle) any money she can out of him. No fool like an old fool. I just pressed the back of his like that with my thumb to squeeze back. Why can’t you kiss a man without going and marrying him first? You sometimes love to wildly when you feel that way, so nice all over you, you can’t help yourself I wish some man or other would take me sometime. When he’s there, and kiss me, in his arms there’s nothing like a kiss long and hot down to your soul, almost paralyses you, then I hate that confession. He smelt of some kind of drink, not whisky or stout or perhaps the sweetie kind of paste, they stick their bills up with some liquor. I’d like to sip those rich-looking green and yellow expensive drinks those stage-door johnnies drink with the opera hats. I tasted one with my finger dipped out of that American that had the squirrel talking stamps with father; he had all he could do to keep himself from falling asleep. I felt lovely and tired myself and fell asleep as sound as a top. The moment I popped straight into bed till that thunder woke me up as if the world was coming to an end. When he’s there they know by his sly eye blinking a bit. Putting on the indifferent when they come out with something, the kind he is, what spoils him. I don’t wonder in the least because he was very handsome at that time trying to look like lord Byron. I said I liked, though he was too beautiful for a man and he was a little. Before we got engaged, afterwards, though she didn’t like it so much, the day I was in fits of laughing with the giggles. O yes, that sometimes he used to go to bed with his muddy boots on. When the maggot takes him, just imagine having to get into bed with a thing like that. O Sweetheart May wouldn’t a thing like that simply bore you stiff to extinction, actually too stupid even to take his boots off. Now what could you make of a man like that? I’d rather die 20 times over than marry another of their sex. Of course he’d never find another woman like me to put up with him the way I do. Know me, come sleep with me. Some men can be dreadfully aggravating drive you mad and always the worst word in the world. What do they ask us to marry them for? Then he wrote me that letter with all those words in it. How could he have the face to any woman? After his company manners making it so awkward after, when we met asking me, “have I offended you?” with my eyelids down. Of course, he saw I wasn’t. He had a few brains. I could see him looking very hard at my chest. When he stood up to open the door for me, it was nice of him to show me out in any case. “I’m extremely sorry Mrs. Bloom.” Believe me, without making it too marked the first time, after him being insulted and me being - supposed to be his wife. I just half smiled. I know my chest was out that way at the door, when he said, “I’m extremely sorry” and I’m sure you were
Frseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefrong, that train again, weeping tone once in the dear dead days, beyond recall. Close my eyes, breath my lips, forward, kiss, sad look, eyes open. Adultery, that idiot in the gallery hissing the woman adulteress, he shouted. I suppose he went and had a woman in the next lane running round all the back ways after, to make up for it. I wish he had what I had then. Damn it, damn it. And they always want to see a stain on the bed to know you’re a virgin, for them that’s all that’s troubling them. They’re such fools too you could be a widow or divorced 40 times over. A daub of red ink would do or blackberry juice, no, that’s too purple-ly. I wonder was I too heavy sitting on his knee? I made him sit on the easy chair purposefully when I took off only my blouse and skirt first. In the other room he was so busy, where he ought not to be. He never felt me; I hope my breath was sweet after those kissing comforts. Easy, God, I remember one time I could scout it out straight. Whistling like a man, almost easy.

Who knows is there anything the matter with my insides? Or have I something growing in me getting? That thing like that every week. When was it last? And they call that friendship killing and then burying one another. And they’re all with their wives and families at home. I could look at him all-day long. Curly head and his shoulders, his finger up for you to listen. There’s real beauty and poetry for you. I often felt I wanted to kiss him all over. I don’t care what anybody says it’d be much better for the world to be governed by the women in it. You wouldn’t see women going and killing one another and slaughtering. When do you ever see women rolling around drunk like they do or gambling every penny they have and losing it on horses? Yes, because a woman, whatever she does, she knows where to stop. Sure, they wouldn't be in the world at all, only for us. They don’t know what it is to be a woman and a mother. How could they? Where would they, all of them, be if they hadn’t all mothers to look after them? What I never had. That’s why I suppose he’s running wild now, out at night, away from his books and studies. First, I want to do the place up. Someway the dust grows in it, I think while Im asleep. Then we can have music and cigarettes, I can accompany him first. I must clean the keys of the piano. It was leap year, like now, yes, 16 years ago, my God. After that long kiss I near lost my breath, yes, he said I was a flower of the mountain, yes. So we are flowers, all a woman’s body, yes. That was one true thing he said in his life. And the sun shines for you today. Yes, that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is. And I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could. Leading him on till he asked me to say “yes.” And I wouldn’t answer “yes” and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rose gardens and the Jessamine and geraniums and cactuses. Yes, when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used. Or shall I wear a red? Yes. And how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought, “Well, as well him as another.” And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again. Yes. And then he asked me, would I, yes, to say yes. My mountain flower and first I put my arms around him. Yes. And drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts. All perfume. Yes, and his heart was going like mad. And yes, I said yes. I will Yes.

-I'm afraid it is pretentious, but funny.

After that was done, Imamura blew my mind two more times. And yesterday I watched Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Charisma.

You're Charisma, baby.

Shadows and 02/02

2008-01-30T23:57:00.000-06:00

My notes from tonight's class with Jonathan Rosenbaum are all over the page. I was scribbling madly trying to absorb as much as possible. Maybe over doing it a bit. But of course, I've got the insane urge to suck the nectar out of this history and use it for my own good.

I was always weary of Cassavetes in the past. I'm not even sure why. But I liked Shadows a lot. Maybe because of the iconography. The architecture and structure of jazz NYC. Cassavetes made films with the artifice of reality and humanism. But at the same time extremely fictionalized. Shadows breaks 180, no eyeline matches (remember Straub: eye line matches is boring Hollywood shit.), editing all over the place. But the 16mm B&W dirty film with its sync off has an extreme reality to it, in the sense that you're so aware of this being an artifact and a document of the time.

Shadows, Cassavetes

Which brings up similar ideas to another class I am in called Bordering on Fiction. Our first assignment is to take Saturday (02/02) and create a piece that is teetering on the edge of fiction and non-fiction. It can be a document of Saturday, or taking an event that has happened on that day in history, and crafting a less than 5 minute film or video. I'll explain what I'm working on later, but I'm choosing a historical event, I'll say that.

Recently I am noticing that the line between fiction and reality is very thin, more so than ever. Imamura's A Man Vanishes was really woke me up from a narrative slumber, a film that seems to be a documentary until that world starts to fall apart and you no longer know what is real and what is fabricated.

Whenever I start thinking about this subject I think about an Antonioni quote a friend passed on to me:
"We need to be more violent to reality."

As for Shadows, it seems so raw and based in such a specific time and place, with the actors names the same as their characters, it could be taken for reality, easy. And maybe it should be.

Imamura

2008-01-28T22:25:00.000-06:00

Pigs and Battleships, Imamura

I can't really articulate how I feel about the Imamura movies I've seen during the retrospective at the Siskel. I was going to wait until it was over. But I can't.

If you're in Chicagoland - go, go, go - see these films. You may never be able to again.

Also Conversations at the Edge begins this week with a look at Zach Stiglicz' work, who passed away last year.

I also start class with Jonathan Rosenbaum on Wednesday, the first film being shown: Cassavetes' Shadows.

Slipstream

2008-01-18T21:58:00.000-06:00

Slipstream, Anthony Hopkins (2007)

10.14.07
Anthony, you are a great actor. But this film (Slipstream) you directed was terrible. I’ll give you props for trying to be experimental, but no, this is just awful. You aren’t David Lynch. I’m sorry, but I have no idea what to say. DO NOT WANT.
What is interesting though is to compare this film with the Schnabel film, both are Hollywood Experimental films, bordering on the edge of continuity, and sticking it to the man. Schnabel was able to do a good job of crossing that line, yet Hopkins went overboard.
By the way, what is up with no Q & A after the movie, Sir Anthony? Just an introduction doesn’t warrant that astronomical ticket price.

A Night with Udo Kier

2008-01-18T21:56:00.000-06:00

10.09.07
We went and saw Udo Kier talk at Columbia College. Kier is one of the jurors of the Chicago International Film Festival. He has worked with directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Lars Von Trier, and Gus Van Sant. He is supposedly a gay icon, but hates the term and would rather just be called an icon.
Kier has been in almost 180 movies, but still seems down to earth and loves his wine and his three dogs. He told us that no matter what you decide to do just make sure that you always respect one another.
Most of the talk Kier was being goofy and telling anecdotes of his life as a teacher of acting, and instead of staying in the confines of the class room he would teach in the forest. He told stories of Bjork, and how their scene together in Dancer in the Dark was completely un-scripted and just them talking.
I would also recommend to those of you who don’t know who Udo Kier is to go watch “John Carpenter: Cigarette Burns” in it Udo discovers the most beautiful film in the world (you are in for a treat!)
Kier is reported to have an amazing Marlene Dietrich impersonation as well.
Udo, you are an icon.

A Letter to Brett Morgen, the director of Chicago 10

2008-01-18T21:44:00.000-06:00

Dear Mr. Morgen,
Your film wasn’t half bad, but there comes a point when you gotta realize that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to make a movie about the sixties if you think that they don’t normally translate well on film. The people that are going to go see your film are the people that already know who Abbie Hoffman is and know about the ’68 National convention. Just because you have Eminem and Rage Against the Machine--covering the MC5 (when the MC5 is on the screen, c’mon! –Which makes some of us wonder, who are you going to get to cover Nirvana songs for your Kurt Cobain movie?) doesn’t make it more contemporary or accessible to younger audiences.
For that matter, when visiting an art school, you should know the people in your audience are kids that are learning and used to the idea of critique. So when you ask us what we truly thought of your movie, chill out, don’t start sprouting off some cover-up line that you are working in Brechtian tradition. You’re going around thinking that everyone has no clue what you are talking about and that by using rotoscope, oh sorry, motion capture, that will make it fresh. It’s history, and ultimately you can’t go rewriting it to make it “the most commercial and marketable” (as you advised us to do). Do you really think Hoffman or Rubin would agree with these comments?
But I mean, hey, good job on getting that Silver Hugo for Documentary, but maybe it’d be better if you stuck to your own advice and made fictional films.
Yours Truly.
The Society

A Walk Into the Sea

2008-01-18T21:33:00.000-06:00

A Walk Into the Sea, Esther Robinson

10.07.2007
Esther Robinson seemed to have a problem most filmmakers have, “How to structure the film?” In her film A Walk Into the Sea I found the story interesting, but she wavered many times with what she wanted the film to say. It jumped from a few common themes: the disappearance of her uncle, her uncle’s involvement in Andy Warhol’s Factory, Andy Warhol’s cronies at the Factory and all the relationships with Andy and Warhol putting his name on other people’s work. It would switch from storyline to storyline too frequently.
The story of her uncle, Dan Williams, is really fascinating. He was an artist in the sixties who had an affair with Warhol and made films at the Factory. Robinson uses interviews with all the key players in that scene to figure out who her uncle was and what happened to him. I found the interviews intriguing, but what I liked most about the movie was Williams’ own films that were shown. The interviews were shot in video with a gross film grain filter and sometimes you would hear her interviewing the people. Though she started the film explaining the story with voiceover, she never appears on camera, and the occasional voice from behind the camera was annoying. It felt too much like a school project with a good soundtrack. But at the same time it makes it this intimate story of her trying to fill this void in her past, and it seems kind of juvenile the way she is trying to answer these questions by rely on personal accounts of others.
I wish more information about Dan Williams existed. It was more of an overview of his life and his demise instead of who he was, which bummed me out a little. But I think it was a good idea to see what all these different sources had to say, but the execution could’ve been cleaned up. Though Robinson was able to invoke the need for me to want see the films of her uncle. She was able to give exposure to the forgotten films of her uncle, which is inevitably a tribute to him as an artist.

(Filmmaker Magazine did an interview with Esther Robinson: here.
While reading the interview I saw that she said, "There's this moment in Stranger Than Paradise where it goes to black in between scenes, and I remember sitting in this black theater thinking, “Holy fuck! You can do that?! You can just go to black?!” It literally changed my life. I went to NYU because of sitting in the black in Stranger Than Paradise."
As a filmmaker myself I have had that exact same revelation, and it was endearing to read.)

Never Apologize (An Evening with Malcolm McDowell)

2008-01-18T21:21:00.000-06:00

Never Apologize, Mike Kaplan

10.15.07

Today I’ve been listening to the soundtrack of O Lucky Man! on my Fisher Price record player. It’s a shame that this film seemed to slip out of people’s memory over the years. Finally it is getting a DVD release on October 23rd (ed. note: out now). The director of O Lucky Man!, Lindsay Anderson, seems to have been forgotten as well. Malcolm McDowell who was a close friend of Anderson’s and worked with him numerous times said, “Many people don’t even know who Lindsay is any more, and some of those people work at Warner Bros!” (Who refused to release the DVD for years.)
McDowell appeared at the Chicago International Film Festival to introduce and answer questions about Never Apologize, a feature length video of McDowell giving an informal lecture, more of a stage show actually, about his relationship with Anderson and the groundbreaking work they made together. Even though as a movie Never Apologize is basically just documentation and archive footage, but with McDowell there is never a dull moment. McDowell alone commands your attention and his ability to tell stories is amazing, along with uncanny impressions of other actors and directors.
It was endearing to watch McDowell express so much pure love for a director and mentor. McDowell said Never Apologize was “a love poem to a director” and it is exactly that. Anderson had started McDowell’s career by casting him as Mick Travis in If… a movie about students rebelling against their boarding school, in reality they are rebelling against England. It won the 1969 Golden Palm at Cannes, right around when the Paris Commune and student revolutions were happening. It marked that moment in history. McDowell became a star from that film, and it is the film that Stanley Kubrick saw and decided that McDowell would be perfect to star in his next film. A Clockwork Orange.
McDowell brought up the point, after the screening, that there are very few directors that care about actors, and Lindsay Anderson was one of them. McDowell saw Anderson as a teacher, friend, and mentor, which lasted longer than the times they spent on set together. Kubrick wasn’t like that at all, they’ve barely talked since A Clockwork Orange. McDowell came up with the idea for O Lucky Man! based on his experiences, as a coffee salesman, and Anderson didn’t dismiss him, they developed it together, with writer David Sherwin. Which doesn’t happen a lot, McDowell said he was a 20-something year old cocky actor who told Anderson, “We make a great team, let’s do another film together.” But Anderson didn’t brush him off, and O Lucky Man! became a definitive moment of British cinema.
Like Godard and Truffaut, Anderson was a film critic before he was a director, but somehow his name isn’t pushed onto film students and his movies aren’t overplayed in classes. Yet they should be, they mark a time and a history that is very important to England and to the era they represent. Like Godard to France and the sixties. Without McDowell, who knows if these stories of Anderson would be told outside of the realm of British Cinema critics and lovers? For McDowell to have that power to breathe life back into his old friend and pass that on to others is incredible. McDowell created the perfect homage to Anderson.

(Criterion is releasing "This Sporting Life" Anderson's first feature on January 22nd 2008)

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly

2008-01-18T20:05:00.000-06:00

these next few posts are from the chicago international film festival that were left unpublished by the magazine i was writing for, but they are dealing with films that are out now or available for rent.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel (2007)

10.12.2007
Julian Schnabel was originally an art star out of Brooklyn, New York. He got into filmmaking after his success as a painter. His debut film was the biopic of the artist Basquiat. His new movie, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, is the story of the French Elle editor (Jean-Dominique Bauby) who suffers a massive stroke and is diagnosed with “locked-in syndrome”. He is unable to speak or move. The only way he learns to communicate is through blinking.
The opening scene of the movie is all in the point of view of Bauby. The viewer becomes the character through the lens. The lens opens up and there is extreme overexposure and smearing of colors. There are rough edits that imply blinking and there is chaos and confusion, and the camera isn’t focusing, there is dizziness. But it’s all using the film conceptual as a sensory device. You, the audience, is waking up from a deep coma. Schnabel is using the camera in this way to make the viewer become attached to the character, who turns out to be kind of an asshole, but the feeling of experiencing what is happening to him is enough not to care. It creates an intense emotional bond with Bauby. Yet Schnabel does not show the character for the first 20 minutes of the film (other than a brief rock-n-roll styled flashback when it is revealed Bauby was the editor of Elle, with a Lenny Kravitz cameo in tow).
The scene where Bauby is revealed to the audience is after his one of his eyes is sewn up, to prevent infection (still point of view), so the eyelid covers the lens and the needle piercing the skin and coming through, then with a cut to black, and a pan around to uncover Bauby.
Janusz Kaminski (Chicago favorite, Columbia College alum) did an amazing job with cinematography; the colors are stunning and each shot is a piece of art within itself. Kaminski won the Technical Grand Prize at Cannes, while Schnabel took Best Director.
There is this question of Hollywood art cinema, which is this idea of independent filmmaking with unconventional camera style and editing. Which may seem really experimental to some people, but to a lot of the filmmakers it may seem pretty conservative. Yet I think it is still noticeable that this is something that probably seems really innovative. And for myself, at least, I think it is interesting to see this fusion of techniques to create a more provocative mainstream film. Editing shouldn’t have to be used just to create eye-line matches and continuity, but a conceptual feeling. Schnabel and Kaminski did a fairly good job of creating that synthesis. It had a narrative structured well enough for people to watch and not get tired of the techniques used, but I suppose it was “modern” enough for the viewer to take notice of them. Revealing that is a story being told to you through the lens. But it still is strange to hear that term, art film, in context to a Hollywood independent film.

Golden Globes

2008-01-14T10:09:00.000-06:00

The Golden Globes were announced last night. It makes me lose a lot of hope for the future of cinema. Growing up I always assumed that the award shows like the Globes and the Oscars represented the best films and actors picked by qualified judges, educated scholars, critics, and industry people. But over the years it just becomes more apparent that this isn't true. Sure, I'm satisfied with some of the winners of this years Globe, and I honestly can say I haven't seen a lot of the movies that were nominated. Why? Because it is not worth the time to go out and see a whole bunch of crap, when I have the opportunity to see much better films in Chicago.
(Unfortunately, like Jonathan Rosenbaum pointed out in his Critics' Choice 2007 article in the Chicago Reader most of the films that were worth seeing in Chicago were not even made in 2007.)

Without seeing the majority of the films I still have the ability to see the error in the Globes choices (in most categories).

Best Picture (Drama) to Atonement.
Some how this film beat out a number of actual good films that were released last year. Maybe the Globes think that nominating these films are credit enough. But Atonement beat out There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men, and Eastern Promises. Of course, I have not seen Atonement, but I don't really have any intention to see it. I haven't even seen No Country For Old Men or Eastern Promises yet (yes, I will see them soon), but I know that these films are going to be much more intriguing: visually and in the narratives. Same for There Will Be Blood, it was amazing cinematography and strong characters (see Best Actor). I don't think that we should be rewarding a film on their ability to sell a story that has been told before.

Best Picture (Comedy) to Sweeney Todd.
These films are probably great for enjoyment, but worthless to talk about.

Best Actor (Drama) to Daniel Day Lewis (There Will Be Blood)
Best Supporting Actor to Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men)
Best Supporting Actress to Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There)
This is where the Golden Globes got it pretty right. I guess this year the actors and actress were undeniably the showstoppers. Unfortunately their coworkers didn't get much credit, but these people really did a good job.
Since I haven't seen No Country For Old Men I'll just say that Bardem seemed like the only contender in his category, but Filmmaker Magazine has called it his, "tour de force performance." Cate Blanchett made I'm Not There, without her performance (and David Cross' Allen Ginsberg) the film most likely would've been a celebrity driven over edited shot at a "postmodern" film. Good job, Blanchett. And Daniel Day Lewis (other than being extremely sexy) was the perfect fit for Anderson's oil tycoon, though I would've liked to see Paul Dano at least nominated for his role as the preacher.

Best Director to Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and The Butterfly
Beating out the Coen brothers, I thought Schnabel did a good job with Diving Bell but I think I'd rather see credit given to Janusz Kaminski (cinematographer) or to Juliette Welfing (editor), but I guess I have a special place in my heart for artists turned filmmakers.

Other points of mention:

Coen brothers won Best Screenplay.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was awarded Best Foreign Language Film, which brings up a point of contention that I had with a friend when we saw the movie at The Chicago International Film Festival. Schnabel is an American director, telling a French story. What exactly makes this film have the ability to be considered a foreign film? Is it just because it is in a different language? Or is it because the production companies are predominantly French? And when do you decide to have the film be in the original language, when you haven't in the past? It's just a point to bring up.

Daniel Day Lewis and Dillon Freasier in There Will Be Blood

Lightning Over Water

2008-01-13T12:21:00.000-06:00

I've heard many directors say in order to make a successful documentary you must fictionalize it. Even though Cinema Verite may be a boring concept, there is something about the innocence of trying to create a film about reality, even if it is altered by the camera.
Wenders in 1980's, Lightning Over Water
As for Wim Wenders and Nicholas Ray's film, Lightning Over Water, which chronicles Ray last few weeks before his death of lung cancer, the film is extremely stylized and staged. Even though there is a rawness to it (Wenders said he could see Ray dying in the viewfinder), each shot was set up to provide correct lighting and shot/reverse shot editing techniques. The film was immensely well photographed, but what made the film feel authentic was the inclusion of Tom Farrell's videos that show behind the scenes of Wenders and his crew preparing the shots.
Some criticize Wenders for taking advantage of Ray and his illness, but I saw it as Wenders trying to let Ray complete one last film before his death, which was imminent.

Though I thought the best part of the film was the inclusion of Wenders, Ray, his wife, and Farrell watching (the now hard to find) We Can't Go Home Again, Ray's 1976 film about the 1968 democratic national convention that was rephotographed footage and extremely stylized. I wish I could find this film in its entirety because it seems like one of the most interesting artifacts from the '68 riots (instead of the duller grainy black and white documentation).