Life Is a Dream: The Films of Raúl Ruiz is a two-part retrospective at New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center running this December 2-22, 2016 and resuming later in 2017.
Above: La chouette aveugle (The Blind Owl, 1987)
Over the next couple weeks, Notebook will be unfurling a series of tributes to Raúl Ruiz: along with some previously published articles, here in English for the first time, the bulk a compilation of new, shorter pieces from a few generous critics and Ruizians on favorite moments from a vast, subterranean filmography. This small, mock-filmography shouldn’t be taken as anything like a comprehensive grip on Ruiz’s films or even incomprehensive grip: the Rouge annotated filmography remains the essential, critical card catalogue. Instead, something like this collection of close-readings can probably only show the ways Ruiz eludes chronology and anything but a kaleidoscopic perspective onto his work. Hopefully it can hint at the many phantom Ruizes unconsidered here while pin-pointing some pivotal moments in a pivoting career.
As we publish the pieces in batches by decade, the links below will be updated as a kind of Table of Contents, and a full compilation of original language versions of the blurbs will be available as we finish publishing. We are happy to start at the end, with a couple reminiscences, and then move to the beginning or so with consideration of Ruiz’s 60s/70s work. Please enjoy, and feel free over the next weeks to contribute below your own memories, thoughts, hypotheses, proofs, ephemera, queries, presumptions, parries, criticisms, chimera, and codes.
CHILEAN MEMORIES by Jeronimo Rodriguez
- (En Español)
DON RAÚL'S RUIZNESS by Gonzalo Maza
LA MALETA (1963/2008)by T.C. Smith
DIÁLOGOS DE EXILIADOS(Dialogue of Exiles, 1975) by Catherine Grant (video essay)
COLLOQUE DE CHIENS (Dog’s Dialogue, 1977) by Maxim Pozdorovkin
ON TOP OF THE WHALE (1981) by James Quandt
CITY OF PIRATES(La ville des pirates, 1983) by Ignatiy Vishnavetsky
POINT DE FUITE (1984) by Gina Telaroli
MAMMAME (1986) by Joe McElhaney
BRISE-GLACE (1989) by Luc Moullet (in English and French / en anglais et français)
THE GOLDEN BOAT (1990) by C. Mason Wells
POETICS OF CINEMA (1994/2005) by Matthew Flanagan
SHATTERED IMAGE (1998) by Zach Campbell
“LOS DOS CAMINOS” / “THE TWO PATHS” by Cristián Sánchez Garfias
TIME REGAINED(Le temps retrouvé, 1999) by David Pendleton
COFRALANDES, CHILEAN RHAPSODY (2002) by Quintín
KLIMT (2006) by Adrian Martin
A CLOSED BOOK (2010) by David Phelps
MYSTERIES OF LISBON (2010) by Carlos Losilla
- (En Español)
KLIMT Y LA MUERTE RECOBRADA (Spanish language only) by Cristián Sánchez Garfias