Shadows and 02/02

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.

Golden Globes

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