Wes Anderson. The instances of insight into human behaviour and relationships are there; the quirky humour has its moments too. But on the whole you have to wait too long for both. And in between is nothing very much.
Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom
Breaking the waves
Solyaris (Tarkovsky)
Fanny och Alexander
Hiroshima mon amour
Az én XX. századom
This Is England
La pianiste
Latino bar
Krótki film o milosci
Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One) – Guillaume Canet
65/100
A decent contemporary French crime drama that’ll keep most pinned to their seats.
Intrigue and more intrigue – if you like that sort of thing.
Some of the pursuit and evasion sequences are really quite gripping.
Very well cast and acted. Well directed and edited. Production design and art direction both strong. Sound design good. Soundtrack choices are a bit hit and miss. The cinematography is solid but lacks mood.
As per my entry on the most overrated director post:
“Wes Anderson. The instances of insight into human behaviour and relationships are there; the quirky humour has its moments too. But on the whole you have to wait too long for both. And in between is nothing very much.”
Since offering that response, I feel at fault. I don’t think he’s the most over-rated director. Not by a long way. He’s perhaps just the filmmaker who frustrates me the most. Every time I’m recommended to watch one of his films, be it Rushmoore, Tenenbaums, Zissou or Darjeeling I make the effort. And the qualities are there, no doubting that. But they only amount to about 30% of the film in each case. And whereas with really poor filmmakers I switch off within the first five to ten minutes and avoid wasting my time, in Wes’s case, having recognised those qualities, I usually stick it out to the end hoping their frequency will increase. They don’t. He shares undergrad insights. He is not a visionary filmmaker. The moments of profundity do not make him profound overall. I won’t insult him by considering satire, because if his films are satirical then it’s kindergarten satire. So to the interpersonal relationships: here, very occasionally, there are moments of observation that rise above the rest for their insight, articulation and accuracy. These are the moments I wait for. Unfortunately in Wes’s case they just don’t happen often enough. That just leaves the quirky humour. It’s hit and miss. In a two hour film, laughs, wry grins and smirks amount to anywhere between five and fifteen minutes. The quality of the fruit and veg is better at the market.
I agree with Orpheus. In my lifetime people have continued to tell one another stories in pretty much the same way they’ve been doing so for millennia. Sometimes they’ll tell them in a non-linear way; they jump in at a too advanced point in the story then go back to explain prior events. Sometimes they go forwards too fast then retreat to fill in missing and essential detail. Mostly, they deliver their stories in a linear way. They begin somewhere, then this happened and this is how things ended. While that oral story-telling tradition continues – I don’t see it waning any time soon – the paradigm will be reflected in the way that the majority of cinematic narratives – both mainstream and non-mainstream – are structured.
Many of the films I love are linear. But just as I would be mortified if I arrived at the greengrocers and found apples the only fruit on display, so too would I feel a great loss if all but linear narratives suddenly disappeared. And I think that’s very much the point here. Choice. Speaking for myself, I like as wide-ranging a variety of “quality” as possible. I like to dip into Last Year in Marienbad one day and look at how Resnais is referencing Bergson. The next, I like to watch an experimental short by Brakhage or Baillie and appreciate colour combinations or textures or consider the way the film evokes a particular emotion in me and maintains it. The next, I like to look at how mainstream filmmakers are exploring non-linear structures like the hyperlink narratives of Babel, 21 Grams et al. Television dramas are becoming increasingly comfortable with non-linear structures (we shouldn’t neglect the interplay between television and film; it’s there even if we would sometimes like to disavow it). Audiences are steeped in both. What’s lovely is that “linear” isn’t the only way. What’s also lovely is that non-linear and experimental and non-mainstream aren’t the only ways.
I teach film theory and filmmaking to 16-19 year olds. And you know what? They’re exactly the same. They want to watch a British art house movie like This is England one night. They want to watch a variety of online shorts on BBCs Film Network the next. Another night they’ll go to the cinema and watch the latest Bond film. Their tastes are eclectic. They’ll come back from the Bond film and slate the elements they didn’t like. They’re very articulate when it comes to explaining where they feel they’ve been cheated in terms of poor character development or stolid plot. Another night they’ll watch a Russian blockbuster they’ve downloaded and managed to find the right subtitles for. And yes, they’ll also cruise the morass of kitch that comprises the bulk of Youtube. Youtube has it’s good points. Where film courses do not deal with an Abdykalykov or a Pelechian, independent filmmakers and cinephiles hungry for new inspiration can find excerpts of their works on the much blighted Youtube. Okay, the image quality sucks. But sometimes it’s just an idea or a change in the way we look at things that they’re after.
In response to the point about movements. Have they really given us as much as is claimed? The French New Wave is (deep breath) one of the most over-rated movements in the arts. The true visionaries either went against the grain of contextual movements (Eisenstein) or were simply working aside from a movement (Bresson, Tarkovsky, Bergman, Haneke, Costa etc.). Movements and visionaries do sometimes coincide – von Trier is a good example. Although I think von Trier would have been von Trier without Dogme 95.
Film hasn’t exhausted its form. Far from it. Film is an evolving medium. It worked out very quickly how it could successfully borrow from the narrative and stylistic elements already tried and tested by literature; it then went on to explore itself as a wholly different art form, one which has more in common with the plastic arts. It also explored itself as a time-based art form quite different from all the other arts. Considering it’s barely more than a century old, it’s doing fairly well I think. I yawn when I hear pseudo-intellectuals deploring the lack of progress in the medium and heralding its current demise. I can only assume they aren’t finding the films that are out there. I see new innovative and thought-provoking films all the time. In terms of distribution, the last decade has seen a much wider range of international titles become available. When I was younger it just wasn’t as easy to watch a social realist text by Hsiao-Hsien one night and enjoy the aesthetic paradoxes of Tony Takitani the next.
Another revolution is upon us. If you are a filmmaker, as I am, then Jim Jannard’s crusade to bring RED to the masses (well the masses of independent filmmakers not fortunate enough to have big production money behind them) is exciting. Bringing film technology that is capable of achieving the quality you need down to a price that is affordable is incredibly exciting. And yes, it will lead to an even greater number of cine-illiterates mass producing and uploading more kitsch. But it will also lead to more serious independent filmmakers who until now haven’t been able to practice their craft regularly enough because of the cost, being able to develop and hone their skills with more continuity. It will additionally lead to more very low budget, small crew productions which might try to find their way straight from the edit suite to the viewer. We’re at the dawn of an era where low budget does not have to equal low image quality. I’m glad I’ve lived to see that reality.
Thus we come to audience. I don’t know anyone who is exclusively satisfied with watching visual material on a screen two by three inches in size. Perhaps we will gradually move away from the extraordinary pleasure and experience that is the black box (the traditional cinema). But I think it will be towards bigger screens in our own domestic environments. We will simply re-create the big screen cinematic experience (on an albeit slightly smaller scale) in our living room and bedroom. Digital projection now means that a two metre wide image on a hang down screen in the living room isn’t out of the question financially. And when bandwidth and transfer rates allow films to be piped to us at the same quality as our music and with comparable download times it’s distribution companies that I fear for. We could be on the cusp of a filmmaker direct to viewer era. There will be a teething period, sure. In music, Radiohead and friends have kindly tested the waters for us. But when people realise that film art has to be paid for just like any other art, or you just get rubbish, they’ll pay. Pandora and Last.fm are good guides. I’ve bought more music since starting to listen to artists on those two sites than I ever did before. I think my tendencies as far as I’ve been able to find out are pretty much the norm. I try a load of stuff for free (either via Last.fm or by downloading mp3s from trusted blog DJs) – I listen to it all for a while, then discard a lot of it, then listen some more. It comes down to a handful of tracks that really move or inspire me. That handful I purchase via the NET. Those and only those artists benefit. The ones who gave me something special. I think that’s cute. If we’re moving away from remunerating en masse to remunerating more particularly it might be a huge shift in market culture, but I think it’s a good thing on the whole. As production costs plummet and we get closer to the possibility of an online edit happening on a laptop I don’t see why film couldn’t go pretty much the same way. People know that an artist just like any other worker needs to subsist that’s why in the case of artists they care about, artists who have inspired them intellectually or moved them emotionally, people usually remunerate willingly.
Think of how many CDs we had to buy not so long ago without having heard every track on the album. Thank fuck that kind of exploitation is over!
We are undergoing a revolution in filmmaking. Power is shifting. It’s gradual, but it’s happening. Look at the explosion in short features since DV. Yes, there are thousands upon thousands of short films made that could all be placed in one basket labelled “puerile”. But there are also a lot of very good films made. It’s harder and harder to get a short feature into one of the really prestigious festivals such as Clermont-F, Encounters or Berlinale because the quota of high quality product is growing. Go back twenty years and there were a lot of tired old narratives being shot for much bigger budgets on celluloid. I call that progression.
There will always be dross and there will always be quality. Just as we will always have MacDonalds and haute cuisine. There will be intelligent and non-intelligent mainstream and there will be intelligent and non-intelligent non-mainstream, just as there are up-market and down-market supermarkets and good and bad home cooking. Human beings like choice is what they like. Those that have tasted quality never forget that taste. They may surfeit on sugar for a while because they’re a bit wearied by life, but as soon as they’ve got their energy levels up they’re back on the good stuff.
@ Mao: If you read the post, I corrected my use of the word ‘overrated’ before you did. Perhaps you felt you had to underline my mea culpa. Allow me to explain: many around me rate Wes Anderson very highly. I’ve watched his films. I don’t rate him as highly as they do. Therefore for me, personally, he’s overrated. It’s a simple recipe, just don’t forget the salt.
What I wrote:
“…the qualities are there, no doubting that. But they only amount to about 30% of the film in each case. And whereas with really poor filmmakers I switch off within the first five to ten minutes and avoid wasting my time, in Wes’s case, having recognised those qualities, I usually stick it out to the end hoping their frequency will increase. They don’t.”
was a personal response to a post entitled, “Do you like Wes Anderson?” Am I to suppose that the question held some covert, encoded suffix to all readers that I failed to recognise or decipher? Something along the lines of: “Do you like Wes Anderson (only respond if you do)?”
Your argument is shaky. You begin strongly with, “Taste is ultimately taste.” Can’t argue with that. And my post concurs with your statement. I responded with thoughts linked to my own preferences. Then you suggest, “How can he be overrated for something he’s good at doing?” Now you’ve dipped your brush in the same purple paint pot you just told me not to use. You’re offering a personal opinion on the relative merits of a filmmaker’s work based entirely on your own personal set of criteria for evaluating what is “good”. Your cavalry are charging back at you.
“I find it hard to believe that you’re looking for epic visionaries in every bit of art.” My only problem here is an adjectival one. I would never look for an “epic” visionary. Otherwise, generally speaking, I am looking for something visionary in the film works I view. Generally, something very small, not “epic”, suffices. Such works are never a headache for me. Each to his own.
The second act of Hunger by Steve McQueen consists of a single scene. A confrontation between Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) and a Catholic priest (Liam Cunningham) during which the priest questions the principles behind Sand’s self-starvation campaign and tries to dissuade him from continuing.
If someone had informed me prior to the viewing of a scene comprising a twenty minute plus conversation about the morality of hunger striking between two men sat either side of a table in a spartan prison meeting room, I’d have had my doubts.
The encounter is utterly compelling from start to finish. The writing is exceptional and the performances breathtaking. The scene is perfection on a screen.
@ Mao: You strike a real note of harmony there. Between child beauty pageants and that AFI list I can’t decide which is the sillier: the former for encouraging abuse, the latter for its catastrophic parade of conceit and insane judging criteria. Or perhaps it’s the other way round… ;-)
I read an article like http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2002/may/25/cannes2002.cannesfilmfestival1
and I can understand Bradshaw’s point of view.
For me it was the first time I experienced ultra-violence in a film that didn’t feel gratuitous, and rape that didn’t feel titillating. The way the film first assails us so authentically with the horrors it needs to impart and then moves the viewer through ever-decreasing states of discomfort, via its backwards progressing structure, towards the original happiness lost I found both bold and sublime.
I guess I’ll make it a Dogme double bill with a couple of the lesser well known titles. Starting off will be Søren Kragh-Jacobsen’s “Mifunes sidste sang” followed, after some iced vodka and seasonal snacks, with Marius Holst’s “Øyenstikker”. Enjoy!
(I’ll be joining you all in the theatre so that I can fall in love all over again with Iben Hjejle in the first half and Maria Bonnevie in the second.)
I watched Chinese Bookie so long ago now that I’d have to scramble around to pull a story together in my memory and yet the feeling of the film…just reading Kyle’s comment above about the long scenes of the burlesque acts brought that feeling home to me again. That’s Cassavetes. He’s one of that pantheon of filmmakers who leaves a residue in you with their work and no matter how many years pass, it remains.
Sleepy Hollow (or “How to go out of your way to create mood with fancy production design and art direction, succeed in creating none whatsoever, and pale into insignificance beside the Disney original” – how sad is that!)
For me it would be a toss up between any of Tim Burton’s live action films (I have time for his animations) or any film that requires me to endure Winona Ryder’s horribly fake acting. I just can’t decide – both are too infernal too imagine.
I know you have to get down and dirty and commit to some hard graft before crying for help, so in Garage I’ve read all the posts in the following: Garage, Intro to Garage, Filmmaker’s Project and Sign-up. I’ve got a very rough context now about the project’s genesis and evolution, but am still in the dark about a lot of things. Can anyone help me out and point me in the direction of the best threads to read in order to get a better understanding of the key developments, how the collaboration is actually working now and the current shape of policy/philosophy?
Something amazing is clearly happening here. I’d just like to understand it better.
If the short answer is, “No. Just read all the posts for the last six months,” I’ll accept that. And apologies from crawling out from beneath my stone. :-)
I’ll join Grecco and Bobby. Those wonderfully directed fleeting encounters between Ghost Dog and Raymond, two men who seem to understand one another perfectly despite the barrier of spoken language. There’s hope for us all!
I love your account 5 and the ethos I feel all the way through it. That does give me exactly the kind of anchoring context I was hoping for and thank you very much for taking the time to explain. I’ll go through it again carefully and do some cross-referencing. I may have some more questions; I’ll try to keep them down in number and make them brief. I’m really glad you found your second wind and were able to make it through the transition from Garage to 05:00, and that I am able to read about your ongoing progress here. I think what you’re doing as a team is inspiring and heartening in equal measures. I’m a filmmaker and once I’ve really assimilated everything that’s going on and got a good angle on things I don’t think I’ll be able to resist getting involved. Kudos to you all!
Lauren, I’m guessing the “PROJECT 05” post you’re recommending me to read is the opening post of this thread (if it’s another, could you point me in the right direction)? I’ll go through it and what follows. Thanks for the tip.
Before I’m accused, I know some of the following have production dates of 2007 (I’m hoping to get away with this by virtue of the fact that they have Euro release dates of 2008). You’ll have to forgive me. It’s just that 2008 has been my cinematic annus horribilis. I’ve never seen so many films I didn’t like. So I’ve had to go back a bit.
Thankfully, I did see some I liked…
Control
The Savages
No Country for Old Men
Hunger
One that wasn’t anything phenomenal but had things going on that I’d like to support…
Shotgun Stories
And one that was pretty damn magnificent by anyone’s standards…
I invite you to describe your ideal for the way you will resource and watch your films a decade from now in the year 2018.
In 2018, I belong to an Independent Virtual Film Library and I’m given advice on media texts by a Virtual Librarian. Payment is graduated. As soon as I begin watching a title a transaction is initiated which is wired from my NET account to the individual filmmaker or independent production company’s account. The IVFL receives a small cut of all sales. As I continue watching, the transfer grows towards a maximum payment. If I stop watching at 6 minutes I only pay for 6 minutes.
Say, for example, I feel a desire coming on for something Russian – contemporary – made after 2015. My neurocircuitry isn’t in great shape and I’m feeling lazy. The IVFL’s doors are always open. Nice and quiet, elegantly designed, away from the garish hustle and bustle of the rest of the ether. A friendly Virtual Librarian always ready to help. Rather like the librarian at my local civic library back in 2008, the 2018 VL is a gargantuan receptacle of film knowledge and a great film conversationalist to boot. I begin with some loose criteria perhaps describing the mood I’m in, a theme, the impact on me made by a particular scene in one of my favourite films. The VL listens. Ah! That personal touch. I’m asked some leading follow-up questions. The VL is an expert at eliciting. After some invigorating discussion into which are drawn a couple of fellow VLs a selection of films is gathered and I’m left alone to browse. I follow some links to the intraweb spaces of a small production company in Norilsk and a couple of independent filmmakers in Moscow and Yekaterinburg, and I hop amongst the three absorbing ethos and aesthetic. I choose a social realist/memory crime hybrid by the Norilsk crew, fix myself a c-shake and settle down in a comfy chair. My living space darkens and the hyperscreen illumines.
It’s hard to think of an interesting hero who is entirely uncompromising. There are a number of mind-numbingly tedious heroes that are uncompromising. I guess in mainstream cinema I might start the thinking off with Andy Dufresne (The Shawshank Redemption).
Her performance in La Pianiste is exceptional. Her perfectly measured tightrope walk of emotional restraint produces a subtle, convincing and highly compelling portrayal of repression, in a what amounts to a masterclass in acting.
The opening montage of This Is England set to 54 46 Was My Number by Toots & The Maytals. The rude ska with its overtones of innocent protest together with the evocative tapestry of 80s reportage and media kitsch.
Famous for her sweeping idiocy, the Iron Lady told us, “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.” Shane Meadows’ beautiful film shames her with its truth about what happens if you try to negate the importance of societies and the communities they comprise. A fine cinematic testament to how wrong Thatcher was.
Every time I hear Toots now I see that opening title sequence and lament the crass arrogance and inexorable pride that was 80s Britain.
Well, while we’re at it, let’s ban cover versions in music too. Because hey, we’ve all heard Light My Fire destroyed. And yet, methinks sometimes both the original and the cover have something going for them (think Yael Naim and Tristan Prettyman’s takes on Toxic). Erm…really Abel. Come on. You have a cult following for an interesting but not particularly great film – made greater by Harvey’s paradoxically understated dramatic panache. If your original is good enough it’ll stand up to any rendition, as Britney’s does. Or are you cacking your pants that Werner just might show you how to suck a guy’s cock?
The Bridges of Madison County. I think the dynamic achieved between Streep’s character and Eastwood’s represents his strongest directorial achievement to date. But those idiot scenes with Francesca’s children!
Who do you think the most overrated director is? over 3 years ago
Wes Anderson. The instances of insight into human behaviour and relationships are there; the quirky humour has its moments too. But on the whole you have to wait too long for both. And in between is nothing very much.
Go to Comment
What's your Top 10? over 3 years ago
Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom
Breaking the waves
Solyaris (Tarkovsky)
Fanny och Alexander
Hiroshima mon amour
Az én XX. századom
This Is England
La pianiste
Latino bar
Krótki film o milosci
Go to Comment
Rate The Last Film You Watched over 3 years ago
Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One) – Guillaume Canet
65/100
A decent contemporary French crime drama that’ll keep most pinned to their seats.
Intrigue and more intrigue – if you like that sort of thing.
Some of the pursuit and evasion sequences are really quite gripping.
Very well cast and acted. Well directed and edited. Production design and art direction both strong. Sound design good. Soundtrack choices are a bit hit and miss. The cinematography is solid but lacks mood.
I won’t say anything about the ending.
Go to Comment
Do You Like Wes Anderson? over 3 years ago
As per my entry on the most overrated director post:
“Wes Anderson. The instances of insight into human behaviour and relationships are there; the quirky humour has its moments too. But on the whole you have to wait too long for both. And in between is nothing very much.”
Since offering that response, I feel at fault. I don’t think he’s the most over-rated director. Not by a long way. He’s perhaps just the filmmaker who frustrates me the most. Every time I’m recommended to watch one of his films, be it Rushmoore, Tenenbaums, Zissou or Darjeeling I make the effort. And the qualities are there, no doubting that. But they only amount to about 30% of the film in each case. And whereas with really poor filmmakers I switch off within the first five to ten minutes and avoid wasting my time, in Wes’s case, having recognised those qualities, I usually stick it out to the end hoping their frequency will increase. They don’t. He shares undergrad insights. He is not a visionary filmmaker. The moments of profundity do not make him profound overall. I won’t insult him by considering satire, because if his films are satirical then it’s kindergarten satire. So to the interpersonal relationships: here, very occasionally, there are moments of observation that rise above the rest for their insight, articulation and accuracy. These are the moments I wait for. Unfortunately in Wes’s case they just don’t happen often enough. That just leaves the quirky humour. It’s hit and miss. In a two hour film, laughs, wry grins and smirks amount to anywhere between five and fifteen minutes. The quality of the fruit and veg is better at the market.
Go to Comment
Boundaries of Filmmaking over 3 years ago
I agree with Orpheus. In my lifetime people have continued to tell one another stories in pretty much the same way they’ve been doing so for millennia. Sometimes they’ll tell them in a non-linear way; they jump in at a too advanced point in the story then go back to explain prior events. Sometimes they go forwards too fast then retreat to fill in missing and essential detail. Mostly, they deliver their stories in a linear way. They begin somewhere, then this happened and this is how things ended. While that oral story-telling tradition continues – I don’t see it waning any time soon – the paradigm will be reflected in the way that the majority of cinematic narratives – both mainstream and non-mainstream – are structured.
Many of the films I love are linear. But just as I would be mortified if I arrived at the greengrocers and found apples the only fruit on display, so too would I feel a great loss if all but linear narratives suddenly disappeared. And I think that’s very much the point here. Choice. Speaking for myself, I like as wide-ranging a variety of “quality” as possible. I like to dip into Last Year in Marienbad one day and look at how Resnais is referencing Bergson. The next, I like to watch an experimental short by Brakhage or Baillie and appreciate colour combinations or textures or consider the way the film evokes a particular emotion in me and maintains it. The next, I like to look at how mainstream filmmakers are exploring non-linear structures like the hyperlink narratives of Babel, 21 Grams et al. Television dramas are becoming increasingly comfortable with non-linear structures (we shouldn’t neglect the interplay between television and film; it’s there even if we would sometimes like to disavow it). Audiences are steeped in both. What’s lovely is that “linear” isn’t the only way. What’s also lovely is that non-linear and experimental and non-mainstream aren’t the only ways.
I teach film theory and filmmaking to 16-19 year olds. And you know what? They’re exactly the same. They want to watch a British art house movie like This is England one night. They want to watch a variety of online shorts on BBCs Film Network the next. Another night they’ll go to the cinema and watch the latest Bond film. Their tastes are eclectic. They’ll come back from the Bond film and slate the elements they didn’t like. They’re very articulate when it comes to explaining where they feel they’ve been cheated in terms of poor character development or stolid plot. Another night they’ll watch a Russian blockbuster they’ve downloaded and managed to find the right subtitles for. And yes, they’ll also cruise the morass of kitch that comprises the bulk of Youtube. Youtube has it’s good points. Where film courses do not deal with an Abdykalykov or a Pelechian, independent filmmakers and cinephiles hungry for new inspiration can find excerpts of their works on the much blighted Youtube. Okay, the image quality sucks. But sometimes it’s just an idea or a change in the way we look at things that they’re after.
In response to the point about movements. Have they really given us as much as is claimed? The French New Wave is (deep breath) one of the most over-rated movements in the arts. The true visionaries either went against the grain of contextual movements (Eisenstein) or were simply working aside from a movement (Bresson, Tarkovsky, Bergman, Haneke, Costa etc.). Movements and visionaries do sometimes coincide – von Trier is a good example. Although I think von Trier would have been von Trier without Dogme 95.
Film hasn’t exhausted its form. Far from it. Film is an evolving medium. It worked out very quickly how it could successfully borrow from the narrative and stylistic elements already tried and tested by literature; it then went on to explore itself as a wholly different art form, one which has more in common with the plastic arts. It also explored itself as a time-based art form quite different from all the other arts. Considering it’s barely more than a century old, it’s doing fairly well I think. I yawn when I hear pseudo-intellectuals deploring the lack of progress in the medium and heralding its current demise. I can only assume they aren’t finding the films that are out there. I see new innovative and thought-provoking films all the time. In terms of distribution, the last decade has seen a much wider range of international titles become available. When I was younger it just wasn’t as easy to watch a social realist text by Hsiao-Hsien one night and enjoy the aesthetic paradoxes of Tony Takitani the next.
Another revolution is upon us. If you are a filmmaker, as I am, then Jim Jannard’s crusade to bring RED to the masses (well the masses of independent filmmakers not fortunate enough to have big production money behind them) is exciting. Bringing film technology that is capable of achieving the quality you need down to a price that is affordable is incredibly exciting. And yes, it will lead to an even greater number of cine-illiterates mass producing and uploading more kitsch. But it will also lead to more serious independent filmmakers who until now haven’t been able to practice their craft regularly enough because of the cost, being able to develop and hone their skills with more continuity. It will additionally lead to more very low budget, small crew productions which might try to find their way straight from the edit suite to the viewer. We’re at the dawn of an era where low budget does not have to equal low image quality. I’m glad I’ve lived to see that reality.
Thus we come to audience. I don’t know anyone who is exclusively satisfied with watching visual material on a screen two by three inches in size. Perhaps we will gradually move away from the extraordinary pleasure and experience that is the black box (the traditional cinema). But I think it will be towards bigger screens in our own domestic environments. We will simply re-create the big screen cinematic experience (on an albeit slightly smaller scale) in our living room and bedroom. Digital projection now means that a two metre wide image on a hang down screen in the living room isn’t out of the question financially. And when bandwidth and transfer rates allow films to be piped to us at the same quality as our music and with comparable download times it’s distribution companies that I fear for. We could be on the cusp of a filmmaker direct to viewer era. There will be a teething period, sure. In music, Radiohead and friends have kindly tested the waters for us. But when people realise that film art has to be paid for just like any other art, or you just get rubbish, they’ll pay. Pandora and Last.fm are good guides. I’ve bought more music since starting to listen to artists on those two sites than I ever did before. I think my tendencies as far as I’ve been able to find out are pretty much the norm. I try a load of stuff for free (either via Last.fm or by downloading mp3s from trusted blog DJs) – I listen to it all for a while, then discard a lot of it, then listen some more. It comes down to a handful of tracks that really move or inspire me. That handful I purchase via the NET. Those and only those artists benefit. The ones who gave me something special. I think that’s cute. If we’re moving away from remunerating en masse to remunerating more particularly it might be a huge shift in market culture, but I think it’s a good thing on the whole. As production costs plummet and we get closer to the possibility of an online edit happening on a laptop I don’t see why film couldn’t go pretty much the same way. People know that an artist just like any other worker needs to subsist that’s why in the case of artists they care about, artists who have inspired them intellectually or moved them emotionally, people usually remunerate willingly.
Think of how many CDs we had to buy not so long ago without having heard every track on the album. Thank fuck that kind of exploitation is over!
We are undergoing a revolution in filmmaking. Power is shifting. It’s gradual, but it’s happening. Look at the explosion in short features since DV. Yes, there are thousands upon thousands of short films made that could all be placed in one basket labelled “puerile”. But there are also a lot of very good films made. It’s harder and harder to get a short feature into one of the really prestigious festivals such as Clermont-F, Encounters or Berlinale because the quota of high quality product is growing. Go back twenty years and there were a lot of tired old narratives being shot for much bigger budgets on celluloid. I call that progression.
There will always be dross and there will always be quality. Just as we will always have MacDonalds and haute cuisine. There will be intelligent and non-intelligent mainstream and there will be intelligent and non-intelligent non-mainstream, just as there are up-market and down-market supermarkets and good and bad home cooking. Human beings like choice is what they like. Those that have tasted quality never forget that taste. They may surfeit on sugar for a while because they’re a bit wearied by life, but as soon as they’ve got their energy levels up they’re back on the good stuff.
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Boundaries of Filmmaking over 3 years ago
Which models of economics would they be?
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Do You Like Wes Anderson? over 3 years ago
@ Mao: If you read the post, I corrected my use of the word ‘overrated’ before you did. Perhaps you felt you had to underline my mea culpa. Allow me to explain: many around me rate Wes Anderson very highly. I’ve watched his films. I don’t rate him as highly as they do. Therefore for me, personally, he’s overrated. It’s a simple recipe, just don’t forget the salt.
What I wrote:
“…the qualities are there, no doubting that. But they only amount to about 30% of the film in each case. And whereas with really poor filmmakers I switch off within the first five to ten minutes and avoid wasting my time, in Wes’s case, having recognised those qualities, I usually stick it out to the end hoping their frequency will increase. They don’t.”
was a personal response to a post entitled, “Do you like Wes Anderson?” Am I to suppose that the question held some covert, encoded suffix to all readers that I failed to recognise or decipher? Something along the lines of: “Do you like Wes Anderson (only respond if you do)?”
Your argument is shaky. You begin strongly with, “Taste is ultimately taste.” Can’t argue with that. And my post concurs with your statement. I responded with thoughts linked to my own preferences. Then you suggest, “How can he be overrated for something he’s good at doing?” Now you’ve dipped your brush in the same purple paint pot you just told me not to use. You’re offering a personal opinion on the relative merits of a filmmaker’s work based entirely on your own personal set of criteria for evaluating what is “good”. Your cavalry are charging back at you.
“I find it hard to believe that you’re looking for epic visionaries in every bit of art.” My only problem here is an adjectival one. I would never look for an “epic” visionary. Otherwise, generally speaking, I am looking for something visionary in the film works I view. Generally, something very small, not “epic”, suffices. Such works are never a headache for me. Each to his own.
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BEST SEQUENCE OR SCENE FROM ANY FILM(CAN BE AN OPENING OR ANYTHING ELSE) over 3 years ago
The second act of Hunger by Steve McQueen consists of a single scene. A confrontation between Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) and a Catholic priest (Liam Cunningham) during which the priest questions the principles behind Sand’s self-starvation campaign and tries to dissuade him from continuing.
If someone had informed me prior to the viewing of a scene comprising a twenty minute plus conversation about the morality of hunger striking between two men sat either side of a table in a spartan prison meeting room, I’d have had my doubts.
The encounter is utterly compelling from start to finish. The writing is exceptional and the performances breathtaking. The scene is perfection on a screen.
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Films that changed how you looked at cinema over 3 years ago
Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom
(Spring summer autumn winter and spring)
Exorcised sub-urbanity from me and inspired me to clean my life out.
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Do You Like Wes Anderson? over 3 years ago
@ Mao: You strike a real note of harmony there. Between child beauty pageants and that AFI list I can’t decide which is the sillier: the former for encouraging abuse, the latter for its catastrophic parade of conceit and insane judging criteria. Or perhaps it’s the other way round… ;-)
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Films you love but most people hate. over 3 years ago
Irréversible (Gaspar Noé)
I read an article like http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2002/may/25/cannes2002.cannesfilmfestival1
and I can understand Bradshaw’s point of view.
For me it was the first time I experienced ultra-violence in a film that didn’t feel gratuitous, and rape that didn’t feel titillating. The way the film first assails us so authentically with the horrors it needs to impart and then moves the viewer through ever-decreasing states of discomfort, via its backwards progressing structure, towards the original happiness lost I found both bold and sublime.
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FANTASY ARTHOUSE DOUBLE FEATURE over 3 years ago
You guys have pre-empted all my ideas.
I guess I’ll make it a Dogme double bill with a couple of the lesser well known titles. Starting off will be Søren Kragh-Jacobsen’s “Mifunes sidste sang” followed, after some iced vodka and seasonal snacks, with Marius Holst’s “Øyenstikker”. Enjoy!
(I’ll be joining you all in the theatre so that I can fall in love all over again with Iben Hjejle in the first half and Maria Bonnevie in the second.)
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Killing of a Chinese Bookie over 3 years ago
I watched Chinese Bookie so long ago now that I’d have to scramble around to pull a story together in my memory and yet the feeling of the film…just reading Kyle’s comment above about the long scenes of the burlesque acts brought that feeling home to me again. That’s Cassavetes. He’s one of that pantheon of filmmakers who leaves a residue in you with their work and no matter how many years pass, it remains.
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Movie's you just don't like. over 3 years ago
Sleepy Hollow (or “How to go out of your way to create mood with fancy production design and art direction, succeed in creating none whatsoever, and pale into insignificance beside the Disney original” – how sad is that!)
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Films you love but most people hate. over 3 years ago
I have to partially support Eraserhead here. I’ve encountered a great deal of animosity towards Eraserhead. So I think the post is valid.
(For the record, I’m neither a lover nor a hater of the film)
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What Is "Movie Hell" For You? over 3 years ago
For me it would be a toss up between any of Tim Burton’s live action films (I have time for his animations) or any film that requires me to endure Winona Ryder’s horribly fake acting. I just can’t decide – both are too infernal too imagine.
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00:00 > 05:00 over 3 years ago
A plea.
I know you have to get down and dirty and commit to some hard graft before crying for help, so in Garage I’ve read all the posts in the following: Garage, Intro to Garage, Filmmaker’s Project and Sign-up. I’ve got a very rough context now about the project’s genesis and evolution, but am still in the dark about a lot of things. Can anyone help me out and point me in the direction of the best threads to read in order to get a better understanding of the key developments, how the collaboration is actually working now and the current shape of policy/philosophy?
Something amazing is clearly happening here. I’d just like to understand it better.
If the short answer is, “No. Just read all the posts for the last six months,” I’ll accept that. And apologies from crawling out from beneath my stone. :-)
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Jarmusch over 3 years ago
I’ll join Grecco and Bobby. Those wonderfully directed fleeting encounters between Ghost Dog and Raymond, two men who seem to understand one another perfectly despite the barrier of spoken language. There’s hope for us all!
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00:00 > 05:00 over 3 years ago
I love your account 5 and the ethos I feel all the way through it. That does give me exactly the kind of anchoring context I was hoping for and thank you very much for taking the time to explain. I’ll go through it again carefully and do some cross-referencing. I may have some more questions; I’ll try to keep them down in number and make them brief. I’m really glad you found your second wind and were able to make it through the transition from Garage to 05:00, and that I am able to read about your ongoing progress here. I think what you’re doing as a team is inspiring and heartening in equal measures. I’m a filmmaker and once I’ve really assimilated everything that’s going on and got a good angle on things I don’t think I’ll be able to resist getting involved. Kudos to you all!
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00:00 > 05:00 over 3 years ago
Lauren, I’m guessing the “PROJECT 05” post you’re recommending me to read is the opening post of this thread (if it’s another, could you point me in the right direction)? I’ll go through it and what follows. Thanks for the tip.
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The Best Films of 2008 over 3 years ago
Before I’m accused, I know some of the following have production dates of 2007 (I’m hoping to get away with this by virtue of the fact that they have Euro release dates of 2008). You’ll have to forgive me. It’s just that 2008 has been my cinematic annus horribilis. I’ve never seen so many films I didn’t like. So I’ve had to go back a bit.
Thankfully, I did see some I liked…
Control
The Savages
No Country for Old Men
Hunger
One that wasn’t anything phenomenal but had things going on that I’d like to support…
Shotgun Stories
And one that was pretty damn magnificent by anyone’s standards…
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
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Cinema in the year 2018 over 3 years ago
I invite you to describe your ideal for the way you will resource and watch your films a decade from now in the year 2018.
In 2018, I belong to an Independent Virtual Film Library and I’m given advice on media texts by a Virtual Librarian. Payment is graduated. As soon as I begin watching a title a transaction is initiated which is wired from my NET account to the individual filmmaker or independent production company’s account. The IVFL receives a small cut of all sales. As I continue watching, the transfer grows towards a maximum payment. If I stop watching at 6 minutes I only pay for 6 minutes.
Say, for example, I feel a desire coming on for something Russian – contemporary – made after 2015. My neurocircuitry isn’t in great shape and I’m feeling lazy. The IVFL’s doors are always open. Nice and quiet, elegantly designed, away from the garish hustle and bustle of the rest of the ether. A friendly Virtual Librarian always ready to help. Rather like the librarian at my local civic library back in 2008, the 2018 VL is a gargantuan receptacle of film knowledge and a great film conversationalist to boot. I begin with some loose criteria perhaps describing the mood I’m in, a theme, the impact on me made by a particular scene in one of my favourite films. The VL listens. Ah! That personal touch. I’m asked some leading follow-up questions. The VL is an expert at eliciting. After some invigorating discussion into which are drawn a couple of fellow VLs a selection of films is gathered and I’m left alone to browse. I follow some links to the intraweb spaces of a small production company in Norilsk and a couple of independent filmmakers in Moscow and Yekaterinburg, and I hop amongst the three absorbing ethos and aesthetic. I choose a social realist/memory crime hybrid by the Norilsk crew, fix myself a c-shake and settle down in a comfy chair. My living space darkens and the hyperscreen illumines.
What’s your poison?
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The Hero over 3 years ago
It’s hard to think of an interesting hero who is entirely uncompromising. There are a number of mind-numbingly tedious heroes that are uncompromising. I guess in mainstream cinema I might start the thinking off with Andy Dufresne (The Shawshank Redemption).
And I’ll continue thinking about non-mainstream…
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Isabelle Huppert over 3 years ago
Echo Nessa.
Her performance in La Pianiste is exceptional. Her perfectly measured tightrope walk of emotional restraint produces a subtle, convincing and highly compelling portrayal of repression, in a what amounts to a masterclass in acting.
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Movies That Should Be In the Criterion Collection over 3 years ago
Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom
Spring summer autumn winter and spring
Dir. Ki-duk Kim
Beguilingly simple and aesthetically stunning it burrows benignly into the soul and years after viewing, meaning continues to surface from its depths.
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Your favorite title sequence over 3 years ago
The opening montage of This Is England set to 54 46 Was My Number by Toots & The Maytals. The rude ska with its overtones of innocent protest together with the evocative tapestry of 80s reportage and media kitsch.
Famous for her sweeping idiocy, the Iron Lady told us, “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.” Shane Meadows’ beautiful film shames her with its truth about what happens if you try to negate the importance of societies and the communities they comprise. A fine cinematic testament to how wrong Thatcher was.
Every time I hear Toots now I see that opening title sequence and lament the crass arrogance and inexorable pride that was 80s Britain.
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Bad Lieutenant Remake over 3 years ago
Well, while we’re at it, let’s ban cover versions in music too. Because hey, we’ve all heard Light My Fire destroyed. And yet, methinks sometimes both the original and the cover have something going for them (think Yael Naim and Tristan Prettyman’s takes on Toxic). Erm…really Abel. Come on. You have a cult following for an interesting but not particularly great film – made greater by Harvey’s paradoxically understated dramatic panache. If your original is good enough it’ll stand up to any rendition, as Britney’s does. Or are you cacking your pants that Werner just might show you how to suck a guy’s cock?
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Favorite Films In Which the Heroes Die over 3 years ago
Since most heroes make me cringe, and just to seize an opportunity to praise something mainstream…
Terminator 2
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GREAT FLAWED FILMS over 3 years ago
The Bridges of Madison County. I think the dynamic achieved between Streep’s character and Eastwood’s represents his strongest directorial achievement to date. But those idiot scenes with Francesca’s children!
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The Hero over 3 years ago
Sometimes it’s staring you right in the face. Nameless in Hero.
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