I think it got launched by a joke about “boring art films” but there is a nice web site about these films:
http://unspokencinema.blogspot.com/
There is some good reading on that site including lots of suggestions for films to watch. I think there are some shared elements to these films that effectively create a language that you learn as you watch. You can very well enjoy the first one or two you watch, but after you have seen several, they all become richer.
One distinction is between minimalist films with no narrative arc at all, and those that do have a narrative structure even if it is abstract or not apparent at first. Takeshi Kitano’s “Dolls” is like this—you have to pay attention to the clothing to put it all together.
I think Jazz has some interesting questions, so I’d like to help steer the conversation back to what he asks.
Are there really more films like this than there use to be? Jazz just added Bresson, and, of course, there was Antonioni.
And do such films make use of more long shots and particularly very long shots? I assume that Jazz is not thinking about the sort of long shots in, say, “Eternity and a Day”?
Ok, so there are already some interesting threads on “Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles”. But I would like to focus on the ending, and particularly on how suitable the ending is for a film of that length and character.
So here’s the set up:
I generally love minimalist, contemplative, films where the camera stays still and has you just watch the characters being themselves. And I don’t mind length in such films since the time you spend with a character can take you to places that a faster paced film cannot get to. A good example of this in “Jeanne Dielman” is that we see her with the neighbor’s baby twice. The first time she watches over the kid with sufficient diligence, but no involvement or warmth. Ok, that’s fine—she’s competent but just not the goo-goo ga-ga kind of woman. But then we see her again with the kid on the last day after we have been watching the slow subtle deterioration of her routine. This time she tries to comfort the baby and woefully fails. I found that to be a stunning and crushing scene.
Up through that point I thought it was a fantastic film. But then after the hours we had invested in Jeanne and her life, the ending just felt like Akerman had thrown in the towel. In terms of suspense, I didn’t know how the film ended before watching it. But when Jeanne left the scissors on her bedroom dresser instead of putting them back in the kitchen drawer where they belonged, I knew she was going to stab the john, so there was no shock when she did. I didn’t have the sort of emotional involvement with the ending that I had with the scene with the baby. And worse, I’ve been thinking ever since about how annoyed I am with the ending instead of reflecting on Jeanne as I probably would have had the film ended in a more suitable—to my thinking—way.
Wow, AH, I think you just convinced me to restructure my viewing of these Asian filmmakers. And exploring this thesis gives me a reason to go back and rewatch some great films, like I haven’t watched Ozu in a while, and Lubitch in even longer.
Yes, I am interested in seeing some of her other work since “Jeanne Dielman” is the only one I’ve seen.
The stabbing seems very “movie-ish” like it was imported from a movie that DID depend on suspense and surprise. If taken literally and not symbolically, murdering the guy is an escape from her single-mom-head-of-household life since she will be off to prison next. But that seems rather thin for such a movie. I was looking for something less traditionally dramatic but more resonant with the small changes we see in her life and also the small changes in what the camera shows us of her life. This was the first time the camera went in her bedroom with the john; it had been shut out before. That opening created a lot of opportunities, I didn’t like the one Akerman chose.
If I had been editor, I would have suggested ending with something like the scene with the baby. Or perhaps, after giving the baby back to its mother, you could have had the same final shot—sans blood—of Jeanne in the dark room with the flashing blue light.
But going into the bedroom was interesting. On the first day, we didn’t see what she did with the john, but we did see her bathing. Although naked, she wasn’t sexualized. And her self-cleaning seemed obsessive. Washing off guilt? Or defilement? Only later do we see that she is that obsessive about all her routines. We don’t see her bathing again, just cleaning the tub after a bath. So one kind of revealing moment—bathing—is removed, and later, a different one—sex—is added. But by the time we get there we have seen her stand wordlessly and without affect as she waits for johns to pay her and leave. Since she makes no effort there to pretend she has any kind of interest in these men, I figured she also made no effort in bed to help these guys create any sort of fantasy and remained similarly passive and detached. The scene we get of Jeanne kinda responding, kinda pushing the guy off, isn’t what we would expect from the well oiled Jeanne of Day 1, but this is Day 3, and she has started to slip. So I guess I would end this scene either with Jeanne fleeing from the room or threatening the man with the scissors so that he flees from the room. Either way, she goes on living in that flat with her son, but her routine, and very possibly her income, is all smashed to bits.
I like threads like this. Here’s one I’d like to find:
Either late 80s or early 90s. It is one of those films with a bunch of rather directionless young people wandering around. In one scene a girl gives a monologue about how glad she is that she decided to “feel better” and that it was really great when she first started feeling better but somehow feeling better doesn’t feels as good as it did when she first started feeling better and maybe, yeah, feeling better is a bit of a let down. I don’t remember how good the rest of the movie was (I think it was alright), but that one scene was a perfect send-up of New Age/Self Help crap, and I’d like to see it again.
I know your film Spartacula, cannot quite remember the title….
IF the film is going to end in killing, I’ll grant you that that was the way to do it. Your reading certainly makes sense, but I guess I still feel it is a bit weak and a bit odd for an otherwise very potent and consistent film. I’ll mull it over, and hunt out some of her other work.
Oh, I certainly wasn’t looking for a conventionally tidy ending where all becomes clear. That would have been even more disappointing. I just have this nagging feeling that the film could have left me somewhere where I had a richer reflection on it. But the point of starting the thread is that I’m at least somewhat willing to be sold on the idea that the ending is actually very good for the film. I’d like to like the film as I was much impressed with the rest of it.
I resolved years ago to avoid any debate that runs the risk of falling into deconstruction, so dodging some nightmares from my grad-school days, I cautiously ask, isn’t it a bit problematic to interpret a film with material the filmmaker didn’t actually put into the film? That said, orgasm is a rather interesting idea. Still, even if it is from Akerman, it seems too arbitrary an assumption to be very satisfying.
I was definitely involved in the sort of meta-analysis you mention. Long takes from an immobile camera give you plenty of time to consider a scene in many different ways, and when these shots are repeated several times, it is natural to think about what we are being shown and how and what we are not.
Joe-
I like this discussion of routines. I’m disposed to take a feminist reading of it broadly instead of narrowly, so I don’t find much in the office/factory work vs homemaker view. But as a reflection on the sort of things that are the routines in our lives: how is turning a daily trick different than daily dishwashing? So I guess the question to consider with that is was it indeed something that happened with the john that caused her to start to unravel? There can be no definitive answer to that from the movie itself, but of all the routines in her life, the one she attacked was the sex work.
I’ve been meaning to watch “Black Narcissus”. Maybe I’ll move it up and get to it sooner while I’ll still have this film clearly in my mind.
Watergate certainly was the finest hour at the Post. It’s got has-been written all over it now.
I remember “Network” as rather buffoonish in way that would preclude taking it seriously. But perhaps it deserves a revisit. At the least, current media will have surpassed it in buffoonery. Perhaps it will seem quaint?
So the other film that I kept thinking about while considering “Jeanne Dielman” was “A Woman Under the Influence”. Again, Cassavetes is a very different sort of filmmaker. But I kept comparing what each filmmaker chose to show us of the process of the women breaking down. I don’t know that this helped me any, but my mind kept wandering back to it. In particular I was considering how Cassavetes ended his film as I was considering why I didn’t like the end of “Dielman”. Do you think there is anything useful here?
Hmm. I haven’t got to “Opening Night” yet. I do like to do that kind of comparison project, particularly one like you suggest that pairs up a “difficult” film with a classic that I haven’t seen in a very long time.
A film should stand for itself, isn’t the same as a film should explain itself. And anyway, people show up with different backgrounds, some shared with the filmmaker, some not. So no, I wouldn’t agree with your suggestion
I’d like to watch it over two consultative days and then watch “A Short Film about Killing” and “A Short Film about Love” on the two days after that. I didn’t see the two shorts until long after watching “The Decalogue”, and I’ve wanted to look at them all closer together.
I love film discussion since sometimes people give me interesting insights that I probably never would have come up with on my own. But, of course, you are not obliged to buy into what anybody says. Plenty of dumb ideas out there after all. But sometimes somebody will say something that really enriches a film. And, of course, there are quite a few films in the canon of greats that were not well received at first—people took time to figure them out and appreciate what was there. That’s the value of discussion.
I guess I mostly subscribe to the idea that there is often a difference between what a film actually does and what the filmmaker intended it to do. For that matter, the maker probably isn’t even aware of all his or her choices—there’s that “intuition” thing. So I don’t mind if I’m too dumb or uninformed to get something from a movie all by myself. If somebody points it out, and it then makes sense to me, I’m happy enough.
I’m much better at talking about movies I’ve just seen than ones I watched years ago—my photographic memory got fried doing all those things I wasn’t supposed to do. Since The Auteurs provides a public list of what people have posted to “wants to watch”, it seems like it would easy to start a thread that was a one-off film club to discuss a movie. Has anybody tried this and did it work ok?
If say at least four or five people wanted to try, we could select a movie, watch it within the next two or three weeks, and then have a discussion thread.
You are going to give a movie another go just to confirm it is bad? I feel like that is a waste of time. Anyway, some movies are bad because they are just incoherent. If a movie no longer intrigues me, I’m on the next one that I expect will be better.
Fair enough. If I consider a movie to be not any good, I’ll always have a reason I can give you. That might include a claim that it is pointless or incoherent. And maybe you could then explain the point to me. And I still might not like it, but you are right that that is a separate claim.
Yeah, I have “La Jetee” in my Netflix queue, so I could bump it to the top. Anybody else? Or is there another film you would want to do? I suppose we should stick with things that are in Netflix, but that’s not much of a restriction. Oh, and we could relax the deadline if somebody wants in on a film but cannot do it right away.
The Trend of Minimalist Plots over 2 years ago
I think it got launched by a joke about “boring art films” but there is a nice web site about these films:
http://unspokencinema.blogspot.com/
There is some good reading on that site including lots of suggestions for films to watch. I think there are some shared elements to these films that effectively create a language that you learn as you watch. You can very well enjoy the first one or two you watch, but after you have seen several, they all become richer.
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The Trend of Minimalist Plots over 2 years ago
One distinction is between minimalist films with no narrative arc at all, and those that do have a narrative structure even if it is abstract or not apparent at first. Takeshi Kitano’s “Dolls” is like this—you have to pay attention to the clothing to put it all together.
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Fassbinder For Beginners over 2 years ago
If you haven’t seen any, I’d suggest starting with “Marriage of Maria Braun”. Then after finishing the trilogy, branch out into his other work.
It worked well for me anyway.
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The Trend of Minimalist Plots over 2 years ago
WKW once summed his movies up as being about bad timing. You can go far with a simple concept like that.
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The Trend of Minimalist Plots over 2 years ago
I think Jazz has some interesting questions, so I’d like to help steer the conversation back to what he asks.
Are there really more films like this than there use to be? Jazz just added Bresson, and, of course, there was Antonioni.
And do such films make use of more long shots and particularly very long shots? I assume that Jazz is not thinking about the sort of long shots in, say, “Eternity and a Day”?
Go to Comment
Man, that ending....Jeanne Dielman over 2 years ago
Ok, so there are already some interesting threads on “Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles”. But I would like to focus on the ending, and particularly on how suitable the ending is for a film of that length and character.
So here’s the set up:
I generally love minimalist, contemplative, films where the camera stays still and has you just watch the characters being themselves. And I don’t mind length in such films since the time you spend with a character can take you to places that a faster paced film cannot get to. A good example of this in “Jeanne Dielman” is that we see her with the neighbor’s baby twice. The first time she watches over the kid with sufficient diligence, but no involvement or warmth. Ok, that’s fine—she’s competent but just not the goo-goo ga-ga kind of woman. But then we see her again with the kid on the last day after we have been watching the slow subtle deterioration of her routine. This time she tries to comfort the baby and woefully fails. I found that to be a stunning and crushing scene.
Up through that point I thought it was a fantastic film. But then after the hours we had invested in Jeanne and her life, the ending just felt like Akerman had thrown in the towel. In terms of suspense, I didn’t know how the film ended before watching it. But when Jeanne left the scissors on her bedroom dresser instead of putting them back in the kitchen drawer where they belonged, I knew she was going to stab the john, so there was no shock when she did. I didn’t have the sort of emotional involvement with the ending that I had with the scene with the baby. And worse, I’ve been thinking ever since about how annoyed I am with the ending instead of reflecting on Jeanne as I probably would have had the film ended in a more suitable—to my thinking—way.
So what you have got on this, pro or con?
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The Trend of Minimalist Plots over 2 years ago
Wow, AH, I think you just convinced me to restructure my viewing of these Asian filmmakers. And exploring this thesis gives me a reason to go back and rewatch some great films, like I haven’t watched Ozu in a while, and Lubitch in even longer.
Go to Comment
Man, that ending....Jeanne Dielman over 2 years ago
Yes, I am interested in seeing some of her other work since “Jeanne Dielman” is the only one I’ve seen.
The stabbing seems very “movie-ish” like it was imported from a movie that DID depend on suspense and surprise. If taken literally and not symbolically, murdering the guy is an escape from her single-mom-head-of-household life since she will be off to prison next. But that seems rather thin for such a movie. I was looking for something less traditionally dramatic but more resonant with the small changes we see in her life and also the small changes in what the camera shows us of her life. This was the first time the camera went in her bedroom with the john; it had been shut out before. That opening created a lot of opportunities, I didn’t like the one Akerman chose.
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I will watch anything that has ___ over 2 years ago
Yeah, David! The Frug!
I’d watch anything with Suzanne Charney dancing, or Ann Reinking.
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Man, that ending....Jeanne Dielman over 2 years ago
If I had been editor, I would have suggested ending with something like the scene with the baby. Or perhaps, after giving the baby back to its mother, you could have had the same final shot—sans blood—of Jeanne in the dark room with the flashing blue light.
But going into the bedroom was interesting. On the first day, we didn’t see what she did with the john, but we did see her bathing. Although naked, she wasn’t sexualized. And her self-cleaning seemed obsessive. Washing off guilt? Or defilement? Only later do we see that she is that obsessive about all her routines. We don’t see her bathing again, just cleaning the tub after a bath. So one kind of revealing moment—bathing—is removed, and later, a different one—sex—is added. But by the time we get there we have seen her stand wordlessly and without affect as she waits for johns to pay her and leave. Since she makes no effort there to pretend she has any kind of interest in these men, I figured she also made no effort in bed to help these guys create any sort of fantasy and remained similarly passive and detached. The scene we get of Jeanne kinda responding, kinda pushing the guy off, isn’t what we would expect from the well oiled Jeanne of Day 1, but this is Day 3, and she has started to slip. So I guess I would end this scene either with Jeanne fleeing from the room or threatening the man with the scissors so that he flees from the room. Either way, she goes on living in that flat with her son, but her routine, and very possibly her income, is all smashed to bits.
Go to Comment
HELP WITH A FILM TITLE over 2 years ago
I like threads like this. Here’s one I’d like to find:
Either late 80s or early 90s. It is one of those films with a bunch of rather directionless young people wandering around. In one scene a girl gives a monologue about how glad she is that she decided to “feel better” and that it was really great when she first started feeling better but somehow feeling better doesn’t feels as good as it did when she first started feeling better and maybe, yeah, feeling better is a bit of a let down. I don’t remember how good the rest of the movie was (I think it was alright), but that one scene was a perfect send-up of New Age/Self Help crap, and I’d like to see it again.
I know your film Spartacula, cannot quite remember the title….
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HELP WITH A FILM TITLE over 2 years ago
It is “Ha Ushpizin” by Giddi Dar. Yeah, I liked it too. Good characters and a bit unusual film.
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If your'e like me, and didn't really like Avatar, will you still pay the 3-d prices to see the sequel? over 2 years ago
Nope, I’m all done with all things Avatar.
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Man, that ending....Jeanne Dielman over 2 years ago
Kenji,
IF the film is going to end in killing, I’ll grant you that that was the way to do it. Your reading certainly makes sense, but I guess I still feel it is a bit weak and a bit odd for an otherwise very potent and consistent film. I’ll mull it over, and hunt out some of her other work.
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Man, that ending....Jeanne Dielman over 2 years ago
Oh, I certainly wasn’t looking for a conventionally tidy ending where all becomes clear. That would have been even more disappointing. I just have this nagging feeling that the film could have left me somewhere where I had a richer reflection on it. But the point of starting the thread is that I’m at least somewhat willing to be sold on the idea that the ending is actually very good for the film. I’d like to like the film as I was much impressed with the rest of it.
I resolved years ago to avoid any debate that runs the risk of falling into deconstruction, so dodging some nightmares from my grad-school days, I cautiously ask, isn’t it a bit problematic to interpret a film with material the filmmaker didn’t actually put into the film? That said, orgasm is a rather interesting idea. Still, even if it is from Akerman, it seems too arbitrary an assumption to be very satisfying.
Go to Comment
Man, that ending....Jeanne Dielman over 2 years ago
Greg-
I was definitely involved in the sort of meta-analysis you mention. Long takes from an immobile camera give you plenty of time to consider a scene in many different ways, and when these shots are repeated several times, it is natural to think about what we are being shown and how and what we are not.
Joe-
I like this discussion of routines. I’m disposed to take a feminist reading of it broadly instead of narrowly, so I don’t find much in the office/factory work vs homemaker view. But as a reflection on the sort of things that are the routines in our lives: how is turning a daily trick different than daily dishwashing? So I guess the question to consider with that is was it indeed something that happened with the john that caused her to start to unravel? There can be no definitive answer to that from the movie itself, but of all the routines in her life, the one she attacked was the sex work.
I’ve been meaning to watch “Black Narcissus”. Maybe I’ll move it up and get to it sooner while I’ll still have this film clearly in my mind.
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Network vs. All the Presidents Men for those who want an explanation over 2 years ago
Watergate certainly was the finest hour at the Post. It’s got has-been written all over it now.
I remember “Network” as rather buffoonish in way that would preclude taking it seriously. But perhaps it deserves a revisit. At the least, current media will have surpassed it in buffoonery. Perhaps it will seem quaint?
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Man, that ending....Jeanne Dielman over 2 years ago
Thanks.
So the other film that I kept thinking about while considering “Jeanne Dielman” was “A Woman Under the Influence”. Again, Cassavetes is a very different sort of filmmaker. But I kept comparing what each filmmaker chose to show us of the process of the women breaking down. I don’t know that this helped me any, but my mind kept wandering back to it. In particular I was considering how Cassavetes ended his film as I was considering why I didn’t like the end of “Dielman”. Do you think there is anything useful here?
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Brilliant marketing to The Auteurs. over 2 years ago
Those would indeed be great t-shirts.
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Man, that ending....Jeanne Dielman over 2 years ago
I wouldn’t quite say that I like him, but I am fascinated by his films. I’m working through them very slowly. And nobody wants to watch them with me.
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Man, that ending....Jeanne Dielman over 2 years ago
Hmm. I haven’t got to “Opening Night” yet. I do like to do that kind of comparison project, particularly one like you suggest that pairs up a “difficult” film with a classic that I haven’t seen in a very long time.
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I Have a Question over 2 years ago
A film should stand for itself, isn’t the same as a film should explain itself. And anyway, people show up with different backgrounds, some shared with the filmmaker, some not. So no, I wouldn’t agree with your suggestion
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What is the best way to watch this film? over 2 years ago
I’d like to watch it over two consultative days and then watch “A Short Film about Killing” and “A Short Film about Love” on the two days after that. I didn’t see the two shorts until long after watching “The Decalogue”, and I’ve wanted to look at them all closer together.
Go to Comment
I Have a Question over 2 years ago
I love film discussion since sometimes people give me interesting insights that I probably never would have come up with on my own. But, of course, you are not obliged to buy into what anybody says. Plenty of dumb ideas out there after all. But sometimes somebody will say something that really enriches a film. And, of course, there are quite a few films in the canon of greats that were not well received at first—people took time to figure them out and appreciate what was there. That’s the value of discussion.
Go to Comment
I Have a Question over 2 years ago
I guess I mostly subscribe to the idea that there is often a difference between what a film actually does and what the filmmaker intended it to do. For that matter, the maker probably isn’t even aware of all his or her choices—there’s that “intuition” thing. So I don’t mind if I’m too dumb or uninformed to get something from a movie all by myself. If somebody points it out, and it then makes sense to me, I’m happy enough.
Go to Comment
One-off film club? over 2 years ago
I’m much better at talking about movies I’ve just seen than ones I watched years ago—my photographic memory got fried doing all those things I wasn’t supposed to do. Since The Auteurs provides a public list of what people have posted to “wants to watch”, it seems like it would easy to start a thread that was a one-off film club to discuss a movie. Has anybody tried this and did it work ok?
If say at least four or five people wanted to try, we could select a movie, watch it within the next two or three weeks, and then have a discussion thread.
Go to Comment
I Have a Question over 2 years ago
You are going to give a movie another go just to confirm it is bad? I feel like that is a waste of time. Anyway, some movies are bad because they are just incoherent. If a movie no longer intrigues me, I’m on the next one that I expect will be better.
Go to Comment
I Have a Question over 2 years ago
Jazz-
Fair enough. If I consider a movie to be not any good, I’ll always have a reason I can give you. That might include a claim that it is pointless or incoherent. And maybe you could then explain the point to me. And I still might not like it, but you are right that that is a separate claim.
Go to Comment
One-off film club? over 2 years ago
Yeah, I have “La Jetee” in my Netflix queue, so I could bump it to the top. Anybody else? Or is there another film you would want to do? I suppose we should stick with things that are in Netflix, but that’s not much of a restriction. Oh, and we could relax the deadline if somebody wants in on a film but cannot do it right away.
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One-off film club? over 2 years ago
I have “Mouchette” sitting here at home, so I’ll be watching it in the next few days. Bresson is usually pretty discussion worthy.
It would be nice to have a tool to cross-reference our “want to watch lists”.
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