FILMADRID & MUBI: The Video Essay—"Solar Quadrant"

A video essay reflection on the gaze of the sun in cinema.
Notebook

The Video Essay is a joint project of MUBI and FILMADRID Festival Internacional de Cine. Film analysis and criticism found a completely new and innovative path with the arrival of the video essay, a relatively recent form that already has its own masters and is becoming increasingly popular. The limits of this discipline are constantly expanding; new essayists are finding innovative ways to study the history of cinema working with images. With this non-competitive section of the festival both MUBI and FILMADRID will offer the platform and visibility the video essay deserves. The six selected works will be shown during the dates of FILMADRID (June 7 - 16, 2018) on MUBI’s cinema publication, the Notebook. There will also be a free public screening of the selected works during the festival. The selection was made by the programmers of MUBI and FILMADRID.

Solar Quadrant

by Luis Lechosa

Solar Quadrant reflects on the gaze of the sun in cinema. The film, in a cyclic and diagrammatic way, articulates dialogues between twenty-four authors. A montage that, like a clock, superimposes the images with the sun as its central axis.

***

Cuadrante Solar reflexiona sobre la mirada al sol en el cine. La pieza, de una forma cíclica y diagramática, articula diálogos entre veinticuatro autores. Un montaje, que a modo de reloj, superpone las imágenes teniendo como eje central el sol.


Time was fragmented.

The light divided the nights from the days. The stars helped cultures of antiquity to divide these natural intervals of rotation of the earth in hours. Twelve for the nocturnality of chaos and danger, and twelve more for the sun's divinity and the life it generates. The hours thus fragmented our time from all times and we turned back to look at the sun. 

But the hours were not enough. The precision of life required minutes and seconds; and then frames. Twenty-four per second between the light that strikes through the film and the darkness of space, which together generate the illusion of movement. 

Kurosawa, in a brave cinematographic act, during the filming of his film Rashômon (1950) dedicates the first direct gaze to the sun from a film camera. His ally in the cinematographic innovation is the shadow of a leafy forest in the way of the woodcutter. The risk that the Japanese filmmaker assumed was of his device being left to burn in flames, this risk allowed the portrait of the sun a posteriori by authors and authors of diverse sensitivities. 

The photosynthesis under the branches does not remain isolated in Kurosawa's courageous observation. As a counterpoint, Nathaniel Dorsky immerses us in his sensual world by recreating himself in the intermittent reflections of the sun on the water that in turn, projects an equally leafy but silent forest. His deep sense of introspection connects with the gaze through the branches of Stephen Broomer filling the forest with a luminous spirituality. 

Already in the city, Jennifer Reeves looks at the sun with certain agoraphobia. Between urban noises and buildings, she seeks an emotional experience that escapes from the social fabric in which she finds herself. Reeve's sun is one that waits for the clouds to stop covering it, generating a texture of nostalgia. Among the buildings of Tokyo in Sans soleil, Chris Marker, places a red sun in a lost place of memory that's either personal or global. 

Naomi Kawase by the poetry of her images, frames the sun in a window. Its rays appear inside the house and it's exclamation denotes an admiration from it's deep and sensitive intimacy. In a more physical way, but also from her window Sarah Pucill reflects on the materiality of the blinding light experienced with her body and the space of her apartment. 

The voice of Eric Pauwles emerges with the blindness of his camera's diaphragm referring to the cinema as "the only place where you can look at the sun and death to the face". It includes elements that take us into the complex inner world of the author, who faces the death of his mother. Like Bill Viola in The Passing, Pauwels takes a journey marked by the process of separation and configuration of one's identity. However, the video artist is abstracted within the beauty of his solar image devoid of narrative, but which places the star in a void of darkness, according to the loss of his father. 

Cinema, or art since it's inception, has traveled through self-referential paths. The looks of two authors like David Perlov and Guy Sherwin look at the sun from the window of a car. The first one looks at the horizon, returning to his town, stopping his camera in the sun, defining it as an optical illusion, full of self-knowledge. Sherwin, also from the car, makes an interesting memory exercise by placing himself in his daughter's point of view with the title "look - the sun is coming with us" in Messages

From the deck of a ship, Jonas Mekas wonders what the images he has recorded for his children will mean in the future. And there are others who also contemplate the solar star when it falls on the horizon of the sea. It's remarkable the dialogue that's generated between Eric Rohmer and Tacita Dean about the green ray that both portray with celluloid. 

They all looked at the sun carefully, sometimes focusing on a flickering frame of Rose Lowder, sometimes staring into the long skies of Hutton or Benning. Inside the room, the cosmos was watched without his presence. The sun was already on the screen, its rays coming from the projector, it's brightness from the film and the gaze of a camera. In the Solar Quadrant all those looks are united in one. Time started and was fragmented by looking at the sun. 

***

El tiempo se partía.

La luz separó las noches de los días. Las estrellas ayudaron a las culturas de la antigüedad a dividir estos intervalos naturales de la rotación de la tierra en horas. Doce para la nocturnidad del caos y los peligros, y doce más para la divinidad del sol y la vida que genera. Las horas fragmentaron así nuestro tiempo de todos los tiempos y de vuelta miramos al sol.

Pero ya no bastaban las horas. La precisión de la vida requería minutos y segundos; y después fotogramas. Veinticuatro por segundo entre la luz que incide a través de la película y la oscuridad del espacio, que generan juntos la ilusión del movimiento. 

Kurosawa, en un valiente acto cinematográfico, durante la filmación de su película Rashômon (1950) dedica la primera mirada directa al sol desde una cámara de cine. Su aliada en la innovación cinematográfica es la sombra de un frondoso bosque en el camino del leñador. El riesgo que asumió el japonés de que su dispositivo saliera ardiendo en llamas permitió el retrato al sol a posteriori por autoras y autores de diversas sensibilidades.

La fotosíntesis bajo las ramas no se queda aislada en la observación valiente de Kurosawa. Como contrapunto, Nathaniel Dorsky nos sumerge en su sensual mundo recreándose en los intermitentes reflejos del sol sobre el agua que proyecta a su vez un bosque igual de frondoso pero silente. Su profundo sentido de introspección conecta con la mirada a través de las ramas de Stephen Broomer llenando el bosque de una espiritualidad luminosa.

Ya en la ciudad, Jennifer Reeves mira al sol con cierta agorafobia. Entre el ruido urbano y los edificios busca su experiencia emocional que escapa del entramado social en el que se encuentra. Es el sol de Reeves un sol que espera a que las nubes lo dejen de cubrir generando una textura de nostalgia. Entre los edificios de Tokio de Sans soleil, Chris Marker, sitúa a un rojo sol en un lugar perdido de la memoria ya sea personal o global.

Naomi Kawase desde la poesía de sus imágenes enmarca al sol en una ventana. Sus rayos se asoman al interior de la casa y su exclamación denota una admiración desde su profunda y sensible intimidad. De una manera más física pero también desde su ventana Sarah Pucill reflexiona sobre la materialidad de la luz cegadora experimentado con su cuerpo y el espacio de su apartamento.

La voz de Eric Pauwles emerge con la ceguera del diafragma de su cámara aludiendo al cine como “el único lugar en el que puedes mirar al sol y a la muerte a la cara”. Recoge así, elementos que nos adentran en el complejo mundo interior del autor que enfrenta la muerte de su madre. Al igual que Bill Viola en The Passing, Pauwels realiza un viaje marcado por el proceso de separación y configuración de la propia identidad. Sin embargo el videoartista se abstrae dentro de la belleza de su imagen solar carente de narratividad pero que sitúa al astro en un vacío de oscuridad, acorde a la pérdida de su padre.

El cine, o el arte desde sus inicios ha transitado por caminos auto referenciales. Las miradas de dos autores como David Perlov y Guy Sherwin miran al sol desde la ventanilla de un coche. El primero, mira al horizonte volviendo a su pueblo deteniéndo su cámara en el sol definiéndolo como una ilusión óptica llena de autoconocimiento. Sherwin desde el coche hace un ejercicio de memoria interesante al colocarse en el punto de vista de su hija con el sobre título “look - the sun’s coming with us” en Messages

Desde la cubierta de un barco Jonas Mekas se pregunta que significarán en el futuro las imágenes que ha registrado para sus hijos. Y son otros los que también contemplan al astro solar cuando este cae sobre el horizonte del mar. Es destacable el diálogo que se genera entre Eric Rohmer y Tacita Dean acerca del rayo verde que ambos retratan con el celuloide.

Todos miraron al sol con detenimiento, a veces se concentraba en un parpadeante fotograma de Rose Lowder, otras se contemplaba en los largos cielos de Hutton o Benning. Dentro de la sala el cosmos era mirado sin su presencia. El sol cabía ya en la pantalla, sus rayos surgían del proyector, su brillo de la película y la mirada de una cámara. En el Cuadrante solar se unen todas esas miradas en una sola. El tiempo con el sol partía y se partía.

Archive material:

Rose Lowder. Bouquet 7.

Stan Brakhage. Creation.

Igman Bergman. Tystnaden.

Éric Rohmer. Le rayon vert.

Jonas Mekas. As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty.

Chris Marker. Sans Soleil.

Akira Kurosawa. Rashômon.

Jennifer Reeves. The Time We Killed

Stephen Broomer. Spirits in Season.

Naomi Kawase. Katatsumori.

Larry Gottheim. Mouches volantes.

David Perlov. Diary.

Paul Clipson. Feeler.

Nathaniel Dorsky. Variations.

Eric Pauwels. La deuxième nuit.

Andrei Tarkovsky. Solaris.

Joris Ivens. Une histoire de vent.

Peter Hutton. At Sea.

Guy Sherwin. Messages.

Werner Neues. Diwan.

Bill Viola. The Passing.

Tacita Dean. The Green Ray.

Sarah Pucill. Blind Light.

James Benning. Ten Dkies.

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The Video EssayVideo EssaysFilmadridTony ScottVideosFilmadrid 2018
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