Ulysses' Staring Contest. Too Long or too short?

Yes, Ulysses’ Gaze was 3 hours long, but I thought it was too short.

Here was a film that was dealing with
1) the history of the Balkans in the 20th century
2) the history of cinema
3) the life of a man

That kind of coverage needs at least 4 hours.

Am I the only one who would watch an extended director’s cut if it was released?

He cut have cut out the Fellini references and stick to his own voice for a runtime of 2 1/2 hours.

I’m not an expert on 8 1/2, but the comparison holds only to a point. Yes, Guido and A are both blocked directors that slide into fantasies of their pasts. But A is trying to transcend the bounds of his own worn ego, and that is where another hour could have fit.

Although, I’ll admit I have an all too forgiving patience with films. Far too many dragging wanna-be epics pass by my eyes unscrutinized.

I dont see any fellini in Ulysses Gaze really. And A’s flashbacks arent really imaginary i dont think. the preoccupation with cinema has more to do with its potential to record history rather than with the history of film per se. Angelopoulos is questioning the authenticity of representation within the constrainstd of the meditm

The original cut was over 4 hours apparently and no i dont think it is too long

I dont see any fellini in Ulysses Gaze really. And A’s flashbacks arent really imaginary i dont think. the preoccupation with cinema has more to do with its potential as a recording device -in this instance, the ability to bear historical witness-rather than with the history of film per se. Angelopoulos is questioning the authenticity of representation within the constraints of the medium, and the bias of the recorder/observer.

The original cut was over 4 hours apparently and no dont think it is too long

Joks, do you know of any chance that the 4 hour version will ever be available?

And do you think that when dealing with history, one can ignore the history of history (the recording of history(cinema in the film))?

It would have been interesting to see that in the film, if it isn’t already. Haven’t seen it in awhile.

No idea about four hour cut but i think Angelopoulos.is addressing the concept in an abstract way. trying to get at the ‘essence’.

It is a necessary shorthand

If he is referencing Fellini’ s 8 1/2, that would suggest an intent which should be linked to something else in the film – say, for example, the history of film.
I think the ‘block’ was due to the narrative complexity of getting the medium to cover what he is seeing, which he did accomplish, and is the genius of the film.
…questioning the authenticity of representation within the constraints of the medium, and the bias of the recorder/observer…
That too ^

It’s true that there are only slight similarities to “8 1/2”, and in general I would rather regard “Voyage to Cythera” to be Angelopoulos’ version of “8 1/2”. What I meant above is the use of scenes and images which are taken from films such as “La dolce vita” or “Amarcord”. I don’t regard this as a conscious device in regard to film history, but rather as a lack of personal vision that can be observed in various of Angelopoulos’ later films.

from “La dolce vita”

from “Ulysses’ Gaze”

That being said, I wouldn’t mind “Travelling Players” or “Alexander the Great” to go on for some more hours, and at least the former is said to exist in a six hours longer version guarded by Avantis. I kind of doubt we’ll ever get to see it though.

Back to the question of the film’s length. If you could see this four hour cut, what more would you like to see?

One of the things I would like to see is more scenes where A shifts into the “shoes” of one of the Manakis brothers, like in that interrogation scene. Possibly even when the brothers are filming those spinsters.

Interesting example Apursan​sar. If Lenin is Angelopoulos’ Jesus, what is his beached sting-ray? Or does the fragmented Lenin statue compress those images into one?

gee, I never noticed the similarity before…

Re OP: Imo, films are always the exact length they are supposed to be. Even when you hate a film, it is exactly the right length to produce that reaction.

Yes, the scene from “Landscape in the Mist” quoted by Robert above is another good example where Angelopoulos made use of Fellini’s Jesus.

We do have Lenin floating down the river, though I probably wouldn’t go as far to attribute the exact same meaning to it as to the stingray, even though both kind of stand for disillusion and the awareness that one has worshipped the wrong “God” or “religion” (la dolce vita / the communism).

""The ugly fact is books are made out of books. The novel depends for its life on the novels that have been written." -Cormac McCarthy

The same could be said for cinema.

Now, I don’t really want to get into a debate about aesthetics and originality, but the criticism against Angelopoulos that he is using another artist’s images opens Fellini to the same criticism. In that shot he is actually flinging another’s image in the air for his own purpose. And good for him, I love the opening of La Dolce Vita.

Sorry, I have a soft spot for post-modernism.

I think the crux of the matter is the medium, there’s a transgession in regard to Fellini’s film which isn’t the case with Ulysses’ Gaze. For the same reason Tarantino is frequently receiving negative criticism for copying scenes from other films while noone would criticize Tarkovsky for copying Breughel (or displaying his paintings). But my actual complaint is that Angelopoulos was once one of the great visionaries of European film, in his more recent works I got the impression that he relied too much on the visions of other directors.

Fair criticism. Now I must see Angelopoulos’ films from his prime. I’m only familiar with his recent films.

The ‘visions thingy’ doesn’t bother me, because I see it as mere content. It is how the form and structure produce a totality of feeling that matters to me.
Segueing back to the OP, changing a films run time has the unintended consequence of changing the totality of feeling.

I appreciated the whole film, a majestic experience, am happy with the length. Karaindrou’s music and Arvanitis’ cinematography outstanding as usual, and there’s always a lot to admire or watch with interest in the choreography and use of space.

To me the statue of Lenin sequence may be less original for following after Fellini’s Christ sequence, but something can be gained by the connection. It can be construed as a false God message, or a comment on the fault with building idols and icons to worship (verging on superstitious kitsch) but i think in Ulysses’ Gaze there is an elegiac beauty, a sense of loss as well as possible ridicule, and symbolising (not very subtly) a politically crucial period in European history, and the moment is part of reality too. This elegy brings to mind earlier cultural mythologising, Arthur in his barge to Avalon, and there was also Shelley’s how are the mighty fallen Ozymandias, so there could be a certain romanticism involved. I find the sequence beautiful and filled with different emotions. It also brought to mind Mizoguchi and i expect Ugetsu Monogatari- a film which Godard compared to The Odyssey among others- would have crossed Angelopoulos’ mind.

very interesting analysis of the Lenin statue, Kenji. Besides the things you already mentioned, I also thought one could interpret 20th century art into the statue. The fragmented statue is almost a cubist sculpture of Lenin

Ozymandias, time turning things to dust- The Dust of Time.

2 decades on from the fall of Communism we see a crisis in Capitalism- the God of consumerist greed has been shaken and found wanting, and now we have opposing impulses; the habit that’s hard to break and repressive austerity measures implemented from on high, alongside some groundswell growth in a wish for more equality. Communism couldn’t kill Christ (or at least a distorted version of Christ preferred by organised religion) and it’s been said Marx is making something of a comeback. Having a reminder of Fellini’s Christ is useful in many ways; he had more in common with Lenin than the Blair-Bush version would have us believe. Both Christ and Lenin have been distorted and undermined.

Angelopoulos now may seem to be regressing to old ground, some find his style mannered, but he has never been an artist of fashion, the shallow search for some distinctive “originality” that is merely kitsch going round in ever decreasing circles in a consumerist celebrity-obsessed age. For me, still a prophet in the wilderness.

Was Ulysses’ Gaze too long for the Cannes judges who preferred Underground? Did it lack vitality?

It helps to get a proper view of Angelopoulos’ development or stagnation from seeing the films in chronological order- which has sadly not been possible for most of us. So what may seem fresh coming to Eternity and a Day or Ulysses’ Gaze first can then seem repetitive in an earlier film! Still i wait for a few mail rental films in the dvd UK box set release, it’s just occurred to me it’s been a while since i actually bought a dvd box set. I’m especially looking forward to Alexander the Great, a film that’s not been well known internationally

I bring my own leftist politics to the film, of course. I see loss as much as satire in the Lenin sequence. Angelopoulos has hardly been a cheerleader of consumerism or fascism. We could also do well to remember that as Lenin’s head was being transported away, in the film we also have a brutal war going on in a region in which nationalism had boiled over. Tito kept deep-rooted resentments and tribalism in check but it was still there waiting to burst out again. Nationalism is one of our Gods, strong as ever. So much for the dream of international solidarity. Communism has fallen but in its place has hardly been a period of enlightenment. I regret not having gone on holiday to Yugoslavia in the 80s. I got talked into cheaper touristy Corfu. The bridge at Mostar had to be rebuilt, Dubrovnik too. The culture of the Balkans remains neglected and Greece, having followed the path of Consumerist greed as encouraged to do, is now left picking up the pieces, the solution imposed hardly a model which puts the good of the people above those with power. It may seem ironic that in London the protests came to a Cathedral caught off guard (having itself followed the ways of mammon) while certain individuals in the church have been rather more critical of the government than politicians from parties originally formed for the interests of the less well off. So again, the connection between Fellini and Ulysses’ Gaze is one i find fruitful

And the Greece that Angelopopulos shows is very far from the one the tourists see. Shallow values continue to triumph. Make-overs, face lifts, property developments, celebrity culture, these have ruled the TV screens in UK where obesity is rampant, while youtube and the net are filled with pettiness. The environment forgotten as we race headlong towards apparent catastrophe. All these things i think can be seen in opposition to Angelopulos and what was once a more optimistic political idealism. He’s seen in some quarters as taking himself too seriously but there is more than room for seriousness.

La Dolce Vita is relevant as ever- Christ a marketable commodity in an age of celebrity obsession and paparazzi, the gutter press digging into private lives, readers desperate for the latest look, gossip and sex scandal. The dangers to the establishment in Christ’s message have been successfully neutered. There’s a medieval painting The Garden of Paradise in which the devil is a small benign creature- now while the Christ of so much organised religion is big bucks, the real Christ is reduced to insignificance at the periphery while the message is trampled.

The distortion of Christianity and the shallowness of fashion are brought together in one of Fellini’s best and wittiest scenes, the Catholic fashion parade in Roma

Ulysses’ Gaze is filled with a sense of nostalgia- and when Angelopoulos met Tarkovsky, whose earlier film has something in common with Angelopoulos’ (not least with both Italy and the Balkans unusually misty)- they even argued over the national root of the word, both feeling it so keenly. Fellini’s version of nostalgia, eg Amarcord is a different matter. Was he more egotistical, especially once the name was in the title? Or less pompous and more adept at a populist game?

I think it’s more than opportunism transposing Fellini’s idea; Angelopoulos would know educated cinephiles would remember the Fellini scene, but extra weight can be brought through it, and the river and the stately progress suits Angelopoulos, who takes the long view of time and history, is receptive to nature. A river has a sense of the eternal, compared with transience of human politics, lives and the swift flight of a helicopter. Angelopoulos is interested in boundaries, as well as journeys and the sea- the river a natural one compared to more artificial national ones. And yet rivers also connect peoples along their banks.Taking an overview of the Balkans, beyond Greece. Is there enough love of rivers in cinema elsewhere? Anyway, many of my favourite directors love water and rivers.

Angelopoulos may seem too slow- some might say he should be more economical in making his points (and Bunuel might well have been more economical with the fashion parade than was Fellini) but form fits content, as Time is a major part of his message, our small place within a continuum, a flow of history with so many connections we can make with the past and drawing on cultures. Hence the seamless flow of a scene like the family gatherings in Ulysses’ Gaze, past, present and memories coming together. And Time as something we don’t respect, with our short-termism and daily rush. It’s good to have some longer films too, that give us real space to breathe, not fiited into the box office demands of the usual 2 hours or so. Though Hitch said the length of films should take into account the human bladder, which for a cinema screening is certainly a fair point. Now with dvds and home viewing we can enjoy films at our leisure. Susan Sontag made a point in promoting longer films, including Travelling Players. Then again, it would be a loss if films were no longer made for cinema audiences.

Wow, that’s a lot to chew on Kenji!

Nostalgia is important too in Eternity and a Day, to the point that some see a certain sentimentality softening his earlier intellectual rigour, but i find it very moving, more engaging on a personal level with the characters than some other films. Travelling Players no doubt asks more of the viewer.

Another example of the romantic mythologising in art linked to some elegiac feelings i get in the Lenin boat sequence in Ulysses’ Gaze is Turner’s painting The Fighting Temeraire (Being Tugged to her Last Berth to be Broken Up)- maybe the most popular British painting, but for some that admiration may be linked to nationalism and battle. In any event it’s a glorious sun. I’m not suggesting Angelopoulos should be viewed as one of the great romantics (!), just that Ulysses’ Gaze- the more so for Apursansar’s comment (Apursansar is really my film guru, even though we naturally have some diferences of taste etc)- has for me a sense of cultural wealth, not only of my own imagining i think. Andrew Horton’s book on Angelopoulos places him as the Last Modernist. That, like romanticised loss, denotes a man hardly in the centre of today’s film-making scene and fashion, but rather old-fashioned and out of keeping with the modern world, even if ironically a “modernist”.