Does anybody know anything about this DVD? It’s Korean but published by KINO FILM (I looked on KINO International’s site and it wasn’t there, so I guess it’s a different KINO). I can’t find any information. Here, it says it’s region-free and with english subtitles. Is it PAL or NTSC? It says it can be played worldwide, but doesn’t PAL and NTSC still come into play? Is it good? Is it anything?
Here is where it comes from:
http://www.kimchidvd.com/en/good/goods.jsp?good_seq=15489
For some reason the run-time is only 139 minutes here, and the only language they list is english.
Does anybody have this? Help me out here please. Confused.
Antonioni said Ugo was something of a robot. Of course Giuliana’s an opposite extreme, but still a robot who doesn’t intelligently question her fears. Is Zeller in the middle? I couldn’t say, I don’t really remember.
Aren’t all human’s either going to lay down and let this dehumanization… dehumanize them… like Ugo and the sheepish masses; or instinctively distrust it, suffer, and potentially fall away from everyone else like Giuliana?
If that’s the case then what is the purpose of this material progress, and why was Antonioni so accepting of it? Those who question it will suffer more than those who don’t. We all either end up with a blissful ignorance or a hellish lucidity. Actually it’s worse, Giuliana suffers a hellish ignorance. Where’s the good? Shouldn’t material progress only serve what’s inside people? I can’t believe Antonioni. Did anybody not sense a mistrust of the modern world? This is the only Antonioni film I’ve seen and you can see I’m confused. What is this film?
It could just be Giuliana’s perceptions. I found some of the style of the film to be a little cheap. Keeping the back of Vitti’s head in focus, whereas the world’s blurry and opaque. Also, I kind of agree with Tarkovsky about the use of colour in the film, that it’s unnecessary and pretentious. The grey fruit especially. So, I think it’s possible that it’s just Vitti’s view of the world. I don’t know.
I had been interested in Antonioni because of the endless talk of alienation and industrial modernity, and when I saw this film I just thought “Yes, those things are there. Those words”. But that’s all. I didn’t think it was very rich, that there was something I hadn’t seen or known before. No detail. Though I liked the panic surrounding the scream they heard, if it was real.
I’ve read a few things about the film, though nothing struck or enlightened me except for Antonioni’s own views. I hope I’ll have a better time with his other films.
Yes, I forget that Giuliana isn’t just ‘against’ this world by choice. It’s an irrational fear. Like Zeller’s description of deep sea creatures that frighten her. Antonioni said she was already neurotic and the world, Ugo’s world, was just another thing that set her off. But what then? What is the film Tannhowser? I hear only boring generalities about this film, and I fall all over myself when trying to understand.
I’ve seen it three times, and I don’t think I gained anything from the reviewings. I don’t expect answers, I expect something to hold on to. Some sort of progression, not a conclusion. Persona is my favorite Bergman film. I’ve only seen it twice but I feel I can dig through that film easier. I could be wrong (I hope I am) but it seems more rich than Red Desert. I’m only mentioning Persona because it’s also vague.
All great films can be opened up. No one seems to open this up. I remember Sorry I Can’t Help But Talk writing great things about Antonioni, but I’m not sure he spoke of Red Desert. He could probably rip it open.
Deckard Croix – I don’t need to feel connected to the characters, I love Godard’s later films. I expected some sort of wall between me and them, but the film itself eluded me. I just don’t know what he was doing. At first I was worried that I understood completely, that it was just nothing new to me. I had read other posts including the ‘abstraction & ennui’ one and it seems like I just got caught up in the ‘alienation/industry/bourgeois decadence’ baloney like so many others. I’m gonna see it again, hopefully without blinders.
And yes! Stupid to watch this first. The only reason I’m here is because my interest has rekindled after reading about Blow Up (specifically) and his trilogy.
Dada Weatherman – I guess the film just isn’t for me. I already saw all that in my first viewing. Like I said about seeing those ‘things’, alienation and industrial modernity; I heard the film was about all that… and it sure was… but that’s all I felt. It was what I heard it was.
Curious… was anyone ‘moved’ by it? I understand that a film doesn’t need to ‘move’ or make the audience fight back emotions. Just curious. Giuliana’s story was good. Romantic, idyllic, beautiful after all the smog.
The thing I liked the most was the ‘scream’ that’s heard. I remember hearing it and wondering if it was a scream, and dismissing it as machine-noise the second time it’s heard. And of course they argue over it, and what does it say about them? The 2 men are either ‘adapted’ or no longer able to feel human compassion (does it matter if it was real or not?)… or both. Ugo is adapted, but “something of a robot”. Giuliana’s worried… for another human being. Material progress is more and more indifferent to humans.
I haven’t seen this, so I’m talking out my ass… I’ve seen bits of it and I wonder why everyone likes the over-the-top style the film. They talk about the paranoia and atmosphere, but Kafka’s atmosphere and paranoia come from his events, not his style. He writes with an incredible clarity and simplicity; as if these strange events are not so unrealistic at all. I remember an Amazon reviewer said reading Kafka feels like going insane because of his neutral acceptance of these weird occurrences. I think Welles should’ve played it straight. The strangeness becomes incredibly muted when the style takes over. The scene with the painter for example. Imagine the girls looking through the cracks in the door and walls from a subtler approach. It would be easier to buy. I would’ve done it that way. More disturbing and paranoic than amusing. Is there something that would change my mind when I see it? A lucidity would increase the feel of the events which are strange enough.
I know he can do what he wants, but it seems to only dampen Kafka. I’m reading The Trial for the third time, and I’d definitely change things if I adapted it. I’d change what I didn’t understand, but I’d definitely keep the simple style. I love Bresson, and I think his non-style would be appropriate in this case. Nothing between the events and the audience. Remember, I still need to see it. I liked Citizen Kane and Touch Of Evil, so style itself doesn’t bother me; Kafka however is his own animal. I don’t see how so much style can be good for the story.
And don’t get me started about Strick’s Ulysses. In this case, the problem was that Strick only kept the events… as if Ulysses was only external action! Style is gargantuan in Ulysses and I can’t imagine the work that would go into translating Joyce’s systems and framework into images. What he did with literature would have to be done with cinema. Incorporating parallels with The Odyssey and Hamlet, body parts, colours, arts and techniques into different styles would be interesting and not 100% impossible with careful planning. Or how about removing it entirely from literature and building it entirely within the cinema? It can be done…
And Matt Parks, I’m not sure I agree with Welles’ comment about the ending. Maybe I’m just saying this because I really like the ending but I don’t think it’s entirely postholocaustically incorrect. Certainly not now, possibly then. I really want to see Haneke’s The Castle, though I haven’t read it yet.
And btw, I don’t really understand The Trial either after two and a half readings. It’s always re-readable though. I don’t really care about the parody/satire of an impenetrable bureaucracy, but the ideas about shame, guilt, grace, and absurdity in the Camus/Sisyphean sense. The ‘Before the law’ story is incredibly absurdist the way I remember it. Everyone has a door meant for them, yet impossible to get through. You must fight the impossible battle, and K. refuses to fight for far too long due to the absurdity. He rejects the proceedings entirely in the beginning, he bangs(?) Leni while his friggin’ case is being pondered by the lawyer. He’s a pompous turd and he dismisses the whole trial (Life?) because it’s beneath him.
Speaking of Ulysses and Sisyphus, Joyce’s Sisyphus is a man, Martin Cunningham, who constantly has to buy back his furniture whenever his alcoholic wife sells it. He was real too, which is another thing that would be incredible in a film; Something/someone that adheres to the constricting framework AND is a real person. I tell you, someone can and needs to do it.
I haven’t seen Portrait though it’s one of my favorite novels. Strangely, it seems like a film would be harder than Ulysses.
I haven’t tackled the Wake yet. I’ll probably read it alongside Anthony Burgess’ book(s?) about it. I’ve glanced through some of his explanations and it sound very interesting. I liked to dismantle Lynch’s dream films, though I’m not as much of a fan now. The Trial is rather dreamy but not abstract in that it adheres to the laws of reality (is that what abstraction is?). ‘Magic Realism’, they call it. That’s it: Welles took out the realism. Or naturalism or whatever. From what I’ve seen the film isn’t 100% illogical though Welles certainly takes liberties with our suspension of disbelief. Kafka pulled back as much as he could, Welles pushes to the edge and peers over it.
To be honest, I just consider film adaptations of everything I read, and I would personally do them like Bresson if I could. The Trial is already pretty Bressonian in style and so I thought it would be perfect. Naturally I keep thinking to myself “Welles! It’s not like that!” I can accept Godard’s liberal adaptations of novels, but when you’re going to keep it close to the novel and give it the novel’s title, you’re obviously begging for a careful comparison. The style will be called into question. Welles’ or Kafka’s? I’m wondering why he believed it should be done that way. He believed Kafka’s ending was wrong, so I assume he thought his style was wrong for the film. But why?
“…I’m afraid that it does remain a Welles film and although I have tried to be faithful to what I take to be the spirit of Kafka, the novel was written in the early twenties, and this is now 1962, and we’ve made the film in 1962, and I’ve tried to make it my film because I think that it will have more validity if it’s mine.” – Welles
I don’t think I can understand the ‘spirit’ of the film from the few scenes I’ve seen but, if I can I’d pretentiously argue that it’s different. Certainly is a Welles film. Could you imagine Fellini making The Trial? It seems like I’m of the ‘all or nothing’ mentality. He should’ve went nuts with it like Godard or Fellini, or played it straight.
The openness (not just in the fact that it’s unfinished but Kafka’s vagueness and nonexistent exposition) would make it murder to adapt. I wanted to try writing it, but it’s hard to be sure of anything. Why keep one thing, but change or omit another? It’s amorphous. All adaptations (not just filming the novel) would be wildly different. The uncertainty is great in the book, but not in tampering with it.
I haven’t seen Kafka or heard much of it. I’m looking at it on Wikipedia, and coincidentally it says it’s often compared with Naked Lunch. I just saw Naked Lunch last week, which got me to reread The Trial, and to come here. When Judy Davis shoots up on poisonous bug powder she says “It’s a very literary high.” “It’s a Kafka high. You feel like a bug”. Ian Holm is in both films as well. Strange. Also, both films are biopics of writers that mix their fiction into their lives.
Hehe, I saw in one of the other topics the joke about Polanski playing a cockroach.
I don’t agree with this “power of the human face” baloney. The human face in front of the camera and under control is not the human face. It’s false. Completely different from a real virginal face. I felt like I was ‘putting up’ with Falconetti. Trying to be moved. Of course the film itself has been eclipsed by it’s reputation and the clichés and boring generalities that everyone vomits up all the time. For this reason I felt like I was looking the other way, suspending disbelief. Not good. If people can’t see the difference between real expression and forced expression it’s only a sign that performance has been beaten over our heads for so long that it’s replacing true human nature. We often feel the need to appear like actors in a film. Phoneys dammit! I see it endlessly. Suspension of disbelief is a bad habit. Remember reality. Not a bad film of course. Not seen many silent films but Man With A Movie Camera is a favorite. Didn’t really like Greed because it’s just the novel on film. No interpretation. Buh.
I always lumped the water in with earth. Nature. Mouchette was drenched in the storm and lost her clog in the mud. Compare Mouchette with the other girls. Their perfume and motorcycles. She’s crouching in the grass on the side of the road. Mouchette is of nature, of the earth, and her oppressors are inseparable from the modern world. Her father and brother are introduced with the horrible machine noise of their truck, the girls on the motorcycles. Arsene and Mathieu with their even deadlier machines. Arsene has a friggin’ trap. I know that traps are not exactly modern but that fact does not betray the metaphor. But the woman with the coffee? I don’t know. And the old woman scene gives me the most trouble.
Mouchette tries to connect with this world and fails as has already been said. She comes close with the bumper cars. She gets thrashed around pretty badly but comes out alright until the slap. Even the farmer who you’d figure would deign to wave to a young girl, to acknowledge her existence, is on a machine, and of course does not wave. The loud cracks of the shotguns. Mouchette’s meek and earthy existence is threatened by horrible machines.
And institutions. All groups of people. By the way, Bresson was critical of the church. The film may not ‘denounce’ the church. Bresson said once, when he was making The Devil Probably, in his Paul Schrader interview, that he had a hard time feeling anything at church when other people were there. Understandable. The church (or all institutions) can be anathema to spirituality. Obviously.
I can’t come to any real conclusions about this film. It’s my favorite and I seem to only try to be moved by it again and again rather than think about it. I’m afraid to pin it down because it’d be ruined for me. Much of what has been said here is new to me because of that.
Funny that it’s my favorite of Bresson’s when it has the most technical flaws (I’m guessing). I assume the looping was necessary to lengthen the shot at the end. Also, no one’s mentioned the shot of the teacher pushing Mouchette. It was clearly sped up. And Mouchette’s tears are way too big and strange. Marie’s in Au Hasard Balthazar or Michel’s in Pickpocket are much more realistic. Though, Bresson said that Nadine Nortier really cried when she fed the baby. Maybe he’s mistaken because those tears are a waterfall.
Falconetti isn’t believable. That’s all. I know I’m watching a film, but I can’t help seeing effort. People don’t push out tears or emotion. They’re held back. Look at when Hossein Sabzian cries in Kiarostami’s Close-up. Falconetti doesn’t resemble a real person. I don’t expect reality, but to forget that Falconetti is performing is to pretend or be blind. I couldn’t be moved if I was pretending, and if I was almost moved when I saw it, it’s only because I couldn’t see clearly. I used to enjoy performances until I began looking at them. I haven’t seen his other films btw.
I don’t think it’s a bad film, though I don’t remember much of it. I just think the face is too false to be moved by. A virginal face is obviously just a face without pretence. Not Falconetti’s. An unadulterated face. There’s an enormous difference between true unplanned expression and performance. This film would die without performance, and of course, for me…
I don’t think a film should be 90% acting. Especially when I don’t buy it.
I’ve seen other technical flaws. In A Man Escaped Fontaine peeks over a ledge. As he leans back Bresson has what appears to be a tiny jumpcut where Fontaine’s fingers, which we can still see over the ledge, disappear. Maybe it was a small hiccup with those frames or Bresson wanted the shot to be longer and added a second shot onto the first but put the splice right before Fontaine could pull his fingers back.
Don’t specifically remember others, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen more.
Oh, and as for film being a representation, I understand. But I doubt Dreyer or many others thought of performance as a representation. Many people don’t think about performance at all, they think it’s an end, not the means to an end. Of course it’s rarely the means to an end either, just support. Didn’t Dreyer want people to believe Falconetti? Not see it as a representation? Most filmmakers don’t question acting, they just do it, it’s rarely an aesthetic choice. I suspect Dreyer just did it, not because he believed in performance as a representation of real emotion but… just cuz that’s how it’s done. I don’t see much difference between Falconetti and any other typical actress that mugs at the camera. Fellini’s style is a representation that we’re obviously meant to recognise as such, but performance is almost always taken as is. We’re supposed to just take Falconetti as she is. I did, but don’t now. This isn’t truth by way of the false, the falseness of her performance gets us no closer to any truth.
YES! LOOK! I just looked at some on youtube. Unbearable effort! Those damn eyes stretched open! No human on the planet does that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkWALDlvpdY Look at 2:37. ABSURRRRRRRRRRRRRD! When people start vomiting their pretentious praise of her I’m about ready to murder someone. I was the same; caught up in the bullshit praise before I ripped myself away from that machine. Her performance is a sledgehammer across the face. Any sensitivity to real human subtlety is smashed out of you when you see it. Everything is on show. RRRRAAAGGHHH!!! I’m still happy to hear further discussion.
“am i to infer that you believe that someone who (in her belief) carried out god’s will, only to imprisoned, starved, abused and psychologically tortured by god’s representatives, might display less emotion? a bulging of the eyes is just TOO MUCH?”
The performance betrays the context in my opinion. Yes, TOO MUCH. Joan is moving, Falconetti… ain’t.
Hehe, I do actually recall the draining. But like I said it’s because I was able to put up with Falconetti. I saw it before I started to think about what cinema is. Now I laugh inwardly and TRY to enjoy it.
A Man Escaped drains me, but it’s obviously not the performance, it’s the circumstance. Bresson didn’t put acting between you and Fontaine and his situation. I’ve seen Bresson’s Joan but it had no subtitles and I don’t remember it well. I don’t want to compare the two.
A performance I don’t mind is Binoche in Code Unknown. Even a simple paroxysm of fear that requires false expression didn’t annoy. No one would say she was better than Falconetti. I’m insane
As for Bresson, I don’t really agree with his approach but I obviously prefer it. The forced non-expressions are attempts at withholding everything so only real expressions will ‘accidentally’ escape. Charles in The Devil Probably, while withholding himself, can’t help smirking when he tells the psychiatrist he was spanked as a boy. Like real life. Unintentional. Bresson wants their real expressions to break his rule. It can’t always work, that’s the problem.
I understand it’s acting. Too much? Damn, I just realised this is another “Overrated” topic. The main thing is the power of the human face. I don’t see Joan in Falconetti. I just don’t see the best performance of all time.
The Baudelaire quote. The film should be beautiful. Falconetti is the film, and Falconetti is too much. Is a woman buried under makeup beautiful because or in spite of the makeup?
It’s a question of measure. I feel it’s too much. I’m never struck by big performances. De Niro should’ve beat Finch in 1976 oscars. Easier to be nuts.
Nothing new. I remember being slightly ashamed when I bought my first Dostoevsky book, afraid I’d be called a charlatan. More shame is heaped onto anyone that wants to try something than anyone who’s happy with a stagnant existence. No one who only watches garbage feels bad about it. This anti-intellectual, self satisfied inferiority and resentment is far more damaging to the masses than fashionable cinephiles.
Greg X said: “C’mon now Matt, Kois is taking a brave stance of standing against the tyranny of the .01% of the population who cares about films like Tulpan or Blue and making the demand that he, and the 99.99% of the rest of the population, no longer have to listen to those deluded martinets talk about some sort of higher values.”
Oh I know. It’s absurd that this 99.99% feels oppressed by the .01%. Someone would be more likely to cover up their love of Blue than oppress others with it. Kois is practically fighting smoke.
Yeah, he’s said that he wanted neutrality so that the context would allow the spectator to feel something in the characters without direct expression. But the way he did it, exhausting his models mentally and sometimes physically, seems to suggest a removal of all pretence. When you’re exhausted you don’t put on any masks. Also, it’s like silence: The only reason you want it is so you can break it. The first sound that breaks it can be heard clearly. The value of it is clear, like an expression that breaks through. Instead of a cacophony where all is muddled. His approach is many things. A neutralisation of all parts so that the only value is in the juxtapositons, the film itself. But one can’t deny that (some of) his models’ faces DID have value. Francois Letterier had something in his face. Nadine Nortier is an example of no expression whatsoever, on purpose (barring smiles) or unintentional. But he did say she really cried once. Bresson’s approach was complex. Why did he keep Charles’ smile?
best film about an unattainable women? over 2 years ago
Lilith.
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The Jacques Tati Thread over 2 years ago
i think my uncle is a pretty cool guy. eh breaks things and doesn’t afraid of anything..
Seriously though, that is a very cool site.
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there remaking it? over 2 years ago
Should not happen. What would Peckinpah say?
Just another cash grab, not a real film. Bloody Sam would be bloody furious that they’re exploiting all the work he put into this.
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there remaking it? over 2 years ago
Should not happen. What would Peckinpah say?
Just another cash grab, not a real film. Bloody Sam would be bloody furious that they’re exploiting all the work he put into this.
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Ok, admit you dozed off or slept while watching.... over 2 years ago
Holy hell. I don’t fall asleep.. or nap or anything. Never happened but obviously some pictures grab you more than others.
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Korean/KINO FILM DVD? What is this? about 1 year ago
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B004F6JACO/scifind0b
Does anybody know anything about this DVD? It’s Korean but published by KINO FILM (I looked on KINO International’s site and it wasn’t there, so I guess it’s a different KINO). I can’t find any information. Here, it says it’s region-free and with english subtitles. Is it PAL or NTSC? It says it can be played worldwide, but doesn’t PAL and NTSC still come into play? Is it good? Is it anything?
Here is where it comes from:
http://www.kimchidvd.com/en/good/goods.jsp?good_seq=15489
For some reason the run-time is only 139 minutes here, and the only language they list is english.
Does anybody have this? Help me out here please. Confused.
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Korean/KINO FILM DVD? What is this? about 1 year ago
Hehe.. does something smell fishy, or do you know firsthand that it’s best left untouched? Is the New Yorker DVD the only Region 1 version?
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I don't understand. Please help. 12 months ago
Antonioni said Ugo was something of a robot. Of course Giuliana’s an opposite extreme, but still a robot who doesn’t intelligently question her fears. Is Zeller in the middle? I couldn’t say, I don’t really remember.
Aren’t all human’s either going to lay down and let this dehumanization… dehumanize them… like Ugo and the sheepish masses; or instinctively distrust it, suffer, and potentially fall away from everyone else like Giuliana?
If that’s the case then what is the purpose of this material progress, and why was Antonioni so accepting of it? Those who question it will suffer more than those who don’t. We all either end up with a blissful ignorance or a hellish lucidity. Actually it’s worse, Giuliana suffers a hellish ignorance. Where’s the good? Shouldn’t material progress only serve what’s inside people? I can’t believe Antonioni. Did anybody not sense a mistrust of the modern world? This is the only Antonioni film I’ve seen and you can see I’m confused. What is this film?
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I don't understand. Please help. 12 months ago
It could just be Giuliana’s perceptions. I found some of the style of the film to be a little cheap. Keeping the back of Vitti’s head in focus, whereas the world’s blurry and opaque. Also, I kind of agree with Tarkovsky about the use of colour in the film, that it’s unnecessary and pretentious. The grey fruit especially. So, I think it’s possible that it’s just Vitti’s view of the world. I don’t know.
I had been interested in Antonioni because of the endless talk of alienation and industrial modernity, and when I saw this film I just thought “Yes, those things are there. Those words”. But that’s all. I didn’t think it was very rich, that there was something I hadn’t seen or known before. No detail. Though I liked the panic surrounding the scream they heard, if it was real.
I’ve read a few things about the film, though nothing struck or enlightened me except for Antonioni’s own views. I hope I’ll have a better time with his other films.
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I don't understand. Please help. 12 months ago
Yes, I forget that Giuliana isn’t just ‘against’ this world by choice. It’s an irrational fear. Like Zeller’s description of deep sea creatures that frighten her. Antonioni said she was already neurotic and the world, Ugo’s world, was just another thing that set her off. But what then? What is the film Tannhowser? I hear only boring generalities about this film, and I fall all over myself when trying to understand.
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I don't understand. Please help. 12 months ago
I’ve seen it three times, and I don’t think I gained anything from the reviewings. I don’t expect answers, I expect something to hold on to. Some sort of progression, not a conclusion. Persona is my favorite Bergman film. I’ve only seen it twice but I feel I can dig through that film easier. I could be wrong (I hope I am) but it seems more rich than Red Desert. I’m only mentioning Persona because it’s also vague.
All great films can be opened up. No one seems to open this up. I remember Sorry I Can’t Help But Talk writing great things about Antonioni, but I’m not sure he spoke of Red Desert. He could probably rip it open.
I just need to watch his other films.
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I don't understand. Please help. 12 months ago
Deckard Croix – I don’t need to feel connected to the characters, I love Godard’s later films. I expected some sort of wall between me and them, but the film itself eluded me. I just don’t know what he was doing. At first I was worried that I understood completely, that it was just nothing new to me. I had read other posts including the ‘abstraction & ennui’ one and it seems like I just got caught up in the ‘alienation/industry/bourgeois decadence’ baloney like so many others. I’m gonna see it again, hopefully without blinders.
And yes! Stupid to watch this first. The only reason I’m here is because my interest has rekindled after reading about Blow Up (specifically) and his trilogy.
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I don't understand. Please help. 12 months ago
Dada Weatherman – I guess the film just isn’t for me. I already saw all that in my first viewing. Like I said about seeing those ‘things’, alienation and industrial modernity; I heard the film was about all that… and it sure was… but that’s all I felt. It was what I heard it was.
Curious… was anyone ‘moved’ by it? I understand that a film doesn’t need to ‘move’ or make the audience fight back emotions. Just curious. Giuliana’s story was good. Romantic, idyllic, beautiful after all the smog.
The thing I liked the most was the ‘scream’ that’s heard. I remember hearing it and wondering if it was a scream, and dismissing it as machine-noise the second time it’s heard. And of course they argue over it, and what does it say about them? The 2 men are either ‘adapted’ or no longer able to feel human compassion (does it matter if it was real or not?)… or both. Ugo is adapted, but “something of a robot”. Giuliana’s worried… for another human being. Material progress is more and more indifferent to humans.
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Regarding the style... 11 months ago
I haven’t seen this, so I’m talking out my ass… I’ve seen bits of it and I wonder why everyone likes the over-the-top style the film. They talk about the paranoia and atmosphere, but Kafka’s atmosphere and paranoia come from his events, not his style. He writes with an incredible clarity and simplicity; as if these strange events are not so unrealistic at all. I remember an Amazon reviewer said reading Kafka feels like going insane because of his neutral acceptance of these weird occurrences. I think Welles should’ve played it straight. The strangeness becomes incredibly muted when the style takes over. The scene with the painter for example. Imagine the girls looking through the cracks in the door and walls from a subtler approach. It would be easier to buy. I would’ve done it that way. More disturbing and paranoic than amusing. Is there something that would change my mind when I see it? A lucidity would increase the feel of the events which are strange enough.
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Regarding the style... 11 months ago
I know he can do what he wants, but it seems to only dampen Kafka. I’m reading The Trial for the third time, and I’d definitely change things if I adapted it. I’d change what I didn’t understand, but I’d definitely keep the simple style. I love Bresson, and I think his non-style would be appropriate in this case. Nothing between the events and the audience. Remember, I still need to see it. I liked Citizen Kane and Touch Of Evil, so style itself doesn’t bother me; Kafka however is his own animal. I don’t see how so much style can be good for the story.
And don’t get me started about Strick’s Ulysses. In this case, the problem was that Strick only kept the events… as if Ulysses was only external action! Style is gargantuan in Ulysses and I can’t imagine the work that would go into translating Joyce’s systems and framework into images. What he did with literature would have to be done with cinema. Incorporating parallels with The Odyssey and Hamlet, body parts, colours, arts and techniques into different styles would be interesting and not 100% impossible with careful planning. Or how about removing it entirely from literature and building it entirely within the cinema? It can be done…
And Matt Parks, I’m not sure I agree with Welles’ comment about the ending. Maybe I’m just saying this because I really like the ending but I don’t think it’s entirely postholocaustically incorrect. Certainly not now, possibly then. I really want to see Haneke’s The Castle, though I haven’t read it yet.
And btw, I don’t really understand The Trial either after two and a half readings. It’s always re-readable though. I don’t really care about the parody/satire of an impenetrable bureaucracy, but the ideas about shame, guilt, grace, and absurdity in the Camus/Sisyphean sense. The ‘Before the law’ story is incredibly absurdist the way I remember it. Everyone has a door meant for them, yet impossible to get through. You must fight the impossible battle, and K. refuses to fight for far too long due to the absurdity. He rejects the proceedings entirely in the beginning, he bangs(?) Leni while his friggin’ case is being pondered by the lawyer. He’s a pompous turd and he dismisses the whole trial (Life?) because it’s beneath him.
Speaking of Ulysses and Sisyphus, Joyce’s Sisyphus is a man, Martin Cunningham, who constantly has to buy back his furniture whenever his alcoholic wife sells it. He was real too, which is another thing that would be incredible in a film; Something/someone that adheres to the constricting framework AND is a real person. I tell you, someone can and needs to do it.
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Regarding the style... 11 months ago
I haven’t seen Portrait though it’s one of my favorite novels. Strangely, it seems like a film would be harder than Ulysses.
I haven’t tackled the Wake yet. I’ll probably read it alongside Anthony Burgess’ book(s?) about it. I’ve glanced through some of his explanations and it sound very interesting. I liked to dismantle Lynch’s dream films, though I’m not as much of a fan now. The Trial is rather dreamy but not abstract in that it adheres to the laws of reality (is that what abstraction is?). ‘Magic Realism’, they call it. That’s it: Welles took out the realism. Or naturalism or whatever. From what I’ve seen the film isn’t 100% illogical though Welles certainly takes liberties with our suspension of disbelief. Kafka pulled back as much as he could, Welles pushes to the edge and peers over it.
To be honest, I just consider film adaptations of everything I read, and I would personally do them like Bresson if I could. The Trial is already pretty Bressonian in style and so I thought it would be perfect. Naturally I keep thinking to myself “Welles! It’s not like that!” I can accept Godard’s liberal adaptations of novels, but when you’re going to keep it close to the novel and give it the novel’s title, you’re obviously begging for a careful comparison. The style will be called into question. Welles’ or Kafka’s? I’m wondering why he believed it should be done that way. He believed Kafka’s ending was wrong, so I assume he thought his style was wrong for the film. But why?
“…I’m afraid that it does remain a Welles film and although I have tried to be faithful to what I take to be the spirit of Kafka, the novel was written in the early twenties, and this is now 1962, and we’ve made the film in 1962, and I’ve tried to make it my film because I think that it will have more validity if it’s mine.” – Welles
I don’t think I can understand the ‘spirit’ of the film from the few scenes I’ve seen but, if I can I’d pretentiously argue that it’s different. Certainly is a Welles film. Could you imagine Fellini making The Trial? It seems like I’m of the ‘all or nothing’ mentality. He should’ve went nuts with it like Godard or Fellini, or played it straight.
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Regarding the style... 11 months ago
@Matt Parks
The openness (not just in the fact that it’s unfinished but Kafka’s vagueness and nonexistent exposition) would make it murder to adapt. I wanted to try writing it, but it’s hard to be sure of anything. Why keep one thing, but change or omit another? It’s amorphous. All adaptations (not just filming the novel) would be wildly different. The uncertainty is great in the book, but not in tampering with it.
I haven’t seen Kafka or heard much of it. I’m looking at it on Wikipedia, and coincidentally it says it’s often compared with Naked Lunch. I just saw Naked Lunch last week, which got me to reread The Trial, and to come here. When Judy Davis shoots up on poisonous bug powder she says “It’s a very literary high.” “It’s a Kafka high. You feel like a bug”. Ian Holm is in both films as well. Strange. Also, both films are biopics of writers that mix their fiction into their lives.
Hehe, I saw in one of the other topics the joke about Polanski playing a cockroach.
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the passion of joan of arc 11 months ago
I don’t agree with this “power of the human face” baloney. The human face in front of the camera and under control is not the human face. It’s false. Completely different from a real virginal face. I felt like I was ‘putting up’ with Falconetti. Trying to be moved. Of course the film itself has been eclipsed by it’s reputation and the clichés and boring generalities that everyone vomits up all the time. For this reason I felt like I was looking the other way, suspending disbelief. Not good. If people can’t see the difference between real expression and forced expression it’s only a sign that performance has been beaten over our heads for so long that it’s replacing true human nature. We often feel the need to appear like actors in a film. Phoneys dammit! I see it endlessly. Suspension of disbelief is a bad habit. Remember reality. Not a bad film of course. Not seen many silent films but Man With A Movie Camera is a favorite. Didn’t really like Greed because it’s just the novel on film. No interpretation. Buh.
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Film Discussion on Mouchette 10 months ago
I always lumped the water in with earth. Nature. Mouchette was drenched in the storm and lost her clog in the mud. Compare Mouchette with the other girls. Their perfume and motorcycles. She’s crouching in the grass on the side of the road. Mouchette is of nature, of the earth, and her oppressors are inseparable from the modern world. Her father and brother are introduced with the horrible machine noise of their truck, the girls on the motorcycles. Arsene and Mathieu with their even deadlier machines. Arsene has a friggin’ trap. I know that traps are not exactly modern but that fact does not betray the metaphor. But the woman with the coffee? I don’t know. And the old woman scene gives me the most trouble.
Mouchette tries to connect with this world and fails as has already been said. She comes close with the bumper cars. She gets thrashed around pretty badly but comes out alright until the slap. Even the farmer who you’d figure would deign to wave to a young girl, to acknowledge her existence, is on a machine, and of course does not wave. The loud cracks of the shotguns. Mouchette’s meek and earthy existence is threatened by horrible machines.
And institutions. All groups of people. By the way, Bresson was critical of the church. The film may not ‘denounce’ the church. Bresson said once, when he was making The Devil Probably, in his Paul Schrader interview, that he had a hard time feeling anything at church when other people were there. Understandable. The church (or all institutions) can be anathema to spirituality. Obviously.
I can’t come to any real conclusions about this film. It’s my favorite and I seem to only try to be moved by it again and again rather than think about it. I’m afraid to pin it down because it’d be ruined for me. Much of what has been said here is new to me because of that.
Funny that it’s my favorite of Bresson’s when it has the most technical flaws (I’m guessing). I assume the looping was necessary to lengthen the shot at the end. Also, no one’s mentioned the shot of the teacher pushing Mouchette. It was clearly sped up. And Mouchette’s tears are way too big and strange. Marie’s in Au Hasard Balthazar or Michel’s in Pickpocket are much more realistic. Though, Bresson said that Nadine Nortier really cried when she fed the baby. Maybe he’s mistaken because those tears are a waterfall.
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the passion of joan of arc 10 months ago
Falconetti isn’t believable. That’s all. I know I’m watching a film, but I can’t help seeing effort. People don’t push out tears or emotion. They’re held back. Look at when Hossein Sabzian cries in Kiarostami’s Close-up. Falconetti doesn’t resemble a real person. I don’t expect reality, but to forget that Falconetti is performing is to pretend or be blind. I couldn’t be moved if I was pretending, and if I was almost moved when I saw it, it’s only because I couldn’t see clearly. I used to enjoy performances until I began looking at them. I haven’t seen his other films btw.
I don’t think it’s a bad film, though I don’t remember much of it. I just think the face is too false to be moved by. A virginal face is obviously just a face without pretence. Not Falconetti’s. An unadulterated face. There’s an enormous difference between true unplanned expression and performance. This film would die without performance, and of course, for me…
I don’t think a film should be 90% acting. Especially when I don’t buy it.
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Film Discussion on Mouchette 10 months ago
I’ve seen other technical flaws. In A Man Escaped Fontaine peeks over a ledge. As he leans back Bresson has what appears to be a tiny jumpcut where Fontaine’s fingers, which we can still see over the ledge, disappear. Maybe it was a small hiccup with those frames or Bresson wanted the shot to be longer and added a second shot onto the first but put the splice right before Fontaine could pull his fingers back.
Don’t specifically remember others, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen more.
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the passion of joan of arc 10 months ago
Oh, and as for film being a representation, I understand. But I doubt Dreyer or many others thought of performance as a representation. Many people don’t think about performance at all, they think it’s an end, not the means to an end. Of course it’s rarely the means to an end either, just support. Didn’t Dreyer want people to believe Falconetti? Not see it as a representation? Most filmmakers don’t question acting, they just do it, it’s rarely an aesthetic choice. I suspect Dreyer just did it, not because he believed in performance as a representation of real emotion but… just cuz that’s how it’s done. I don’t see much difference between Falconetti and any other typical actress that mugs at the camera. Fellini’s style is a representation that we’re obviously meant to recognise as such, but performance is almost always taken as is. We’re supposed to just take Falconetti as she is. I did, but don’t now. This isn’t truth by way of the false, the falseness of her performance gets us no closer to any truth.
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the passion of joan of arc 10 months ago
YES! LOOK! I just looked at some on youtube. Unbearable effort! Those damn eyes stretched open! No human on the planet does that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkWALDlvpdY Look at 2:37. ABSURRRRRRRRRRRRRD! When people start vomiting their pretentious praise of her I’m about ready to murder someone. I was the same; caught up in the bullshit praise before I ripped myself away from that machine. Her performance is a sledgehammer across the face. Any sensitivity to real human subtlety is smashed out of you when you see it. Everything is on show. RRRRAAAGGHHH!!! I’m still happy to hear further discussion.
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the passion of joan of arc 10 months ago
“am i to infer that you believe that someone who (in her belief) carried out god’s will, only to imprisoned, starved, abused and psychologically tortured by god’s representatives, might display less emotion? a bulging of the eyes is just TOO MUCH?”
The performance betrays the context in my opinion. Yes, TOO MUCH. Joan is moving, Falconetti… ain’t.
Hehe, I do actually recall the draining. But like I said it’s because I was able to put up with Falconetti. I saw it before I started to think about what cinema is. Now I laugh inwardly and TRY to enjoy it.
A Man Escaped drains me, but it’s obviously not the performance, it’s the circumstance. Bresson didn’t put acting between you and Fontaine and his situation. I’ve seen Bresson’s Joan but it had no subtitles and I don’t remember it well. I don’t want to compare the two.
A performance I don’t mind is Binoche in Code Unknown. Even a simple paroxysm of fear that requires false expression didn’t annoy. No one would say she was better than Falconetti. I’m insane
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the passion of joan of arc 10 months ago
As for Bresson, I don’t really agree with his approach but I obviously prefer it. The forced non-expressions are attempts at withholding everything so only real expressions will ‘accidentally’ escape. Charles in The Devil Probably, while withholding himself, can’t help smirking when he tells the psychiatrist he was spanked as a boy. Like real life. Unintentional. Bresson wants their real expressions to break his rule. It can’t always work, that’s the problem.
I understand it’s acting. Too much? Damn, I just realised this is another “Overrated” topic. The main thing is the power of the human face. I don’t see Joan in Falconetti. I just don’t see the best performance of all time.
The Baudelaire quote. The film should be beautiful. Falconetti is the film, and Falconetti is too much. Is a woman buried under makeup beautiful because or in spite of the makeup?
It’s a question of measure. I feel it’s too much. I’m never struck by big performances. De Niro should’ve beat Finch in 1976 oscars. Easier to be nuts.
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POOR JACQUES TATI 10 months ago
The Party was very Tatiesque. An outsider trying to break into an almost exclusive society. Birdy num num.
Did Tati expect Playtime to do well? Strange that no one saw it.
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Totally Vapid and Consumeristic Question About the Cover 10 months ago
I didn’t even think about it. It’s just a pulpy novel cover. I don’t think it’s bad at all.
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High Culture burn out: Fear and Film appreciation Part II 10 months ago
Nothing new. I remember being slightly ashamed when I bought my first Dostoevsky book, afraid I’d be called a charlatan. More shame is heaped onto anyone that wants to try something than anyone who’s happy with a stagnant existence. No one who only watches garbage feels bad about it. This anti-intellectual, self satisfied inferiority and resentment is far more damaging to the masses than fashionable cinephiles.
Greg X said: “C’mon now Matt, Kois is taking a brave stance of standing against the tyranny of the .01% of the population who cares about films like Tulpan or Blue and making the demand that he, and the 99.99% of the rest of the population, no longer have to listen to those deluded martinets talk about some sort of higher values.”
This.
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High Culture burn out: Fear and Film appreciation Part II 10 months ago
@Robert W Peabody III
Oh I know. It’s absurd that this 99.99% feels oppressed by the .01%. Someone would be more likely to cover up their love of Blue than oppress others with it. Kois is practically fighting smoke.
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the passion of joan of arc 10 months ago
@Jazzaloha
Yeah, he’s said that he wanted neutrality so that the context would allow the spectator to feel something in the characters without direct expression. But the way he did it, exhausting his models mentally and sometimes physically, seems to suggest a removal of all pretence. When you’re exhausted you don’t put on any masks. Also, it’s like silence: The only reason you want it is so you can break it. The first sound that breaks it can be heard clearly. The value of it is clear, like an expression that breaks through. Instead of a cacophony where all is muddled. His approach is many things. A neutralisation of all parts so that the only value is in the juxtapositons, the film itself. But one can’t deny that (some of) his models’ faces DID have value. Francois Letterier had something in his face. Nadine Nortier is an example of no expression whatsoever, on purpose (barring smiles) or unintentional. But he did say she really cried once. Bresson’s approach was complex. Why did he keep Charles’ smile?
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