Dec 16
2015Carolee. Carolee. Carolee…
Raw meat, live sex and snakes: the dangerous art of Carolee Schneemann
Look, I know The Guardian ain’t Texte Zur Kunst, I’m just happy to see her get the press.
Fuses (still), (1964-67) 16mm film
Dec 16
2015Late Chrysanthemums
Sighed and yearned in equal measure, at Mikio Naruse’s Late Chrysanthemums yesterday. It’s research, because there’s a film I’m trying to make, and so far failing to make, which involves the impossibility of the Western mind every really getting to grips with what the **** a Geisha is. This film isn’t really about that culture. Instead it’s about of the lot of the older woman in Tokyo, post WWII. I’m feeling it.
Sisters are doin’ it for themselves – Late Chrysanthemums, 1954
Dec 14
2015Celine and Julie Go Boating
The inspiration for Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan, Jacques Rivette‘s Celine and Julie Go Boating (1977) has it all: Witchcraft, sandals, ghosts and magic sweeties. Boating here translates as taking a trip, en francais s’il vous plait. But at 3 hrs and 13 mins, best bring along yer ain sweeties…
Watch the trailer here.
Dec 14
2015Ben Wheatley
Oh when will you finish High-rise Ben? Early reviews were worrying, but I know it’ll be ok in the end.
In the mean time, I’ll be re-watching genre melting Kill List and the peerless A Field in England. Amy Jump’s writing is simply breathtaking.
Dec 14
2015Muriel Spark
And I’ll be having a break from Muriel for a while – if you’re to read just one, make it The Public Image. To be continued…
Dec 14
2015Eric Rohmer – A summer comes to an end… now
Finally, I have teased out the sun bleached, 80’s styled Rohmer box set as far as I can. Bring on the winter.
Full Moon in Paris (1984)
The Green Ray (1986)
Dec 07
2015
Dec 07
2015Chantal Akerman 1950-2015 on Film Studies for Free
Chantal Akerman
Film Studies For Free |
NO HOME MOVIE: In Warm Memory of Chantal Akerman (1950-2015)Posted: 06 Oct 2015 07:21 AM PDT
Unbelievable, unbearable news, but just confirmed by Libération. Chantal Akerman has died. Links to online, freely accessible studies of her work and to tributes to it will continue to be added below in the next days (as they will, undoubtedly, at KeyFrame Daily | Fandor, and elswehere). It’s the only way that Film Studies For Free can process this news…. Incroyable…. By / With Chantal Akerman
Studies of Akerman’s work
BERLIN: Testimony of a City by Andy Moore and Ian Magor
Using Chantal Akerman’s News from Home [1977] here the city of Berlin is the stage for another journey through another city. Reflective and reversing timelines encourage the visual to interact with the spoken testimony.
The portrayal of desire on the cinema screen is necessarily problematic. Too often it is an assertion of masculine power, sometimes an idealised notion of romance, rarely the reality of sagging mattresses and aching muscles. Chantal Akerman’s Je, tu, il, elle is set alongside two typical Hollywood portrayals of sexual passion.
The personal and the public. Private letters and open spaces. Home, exile. Chantal Akerman’s News From Home is often torn between personal introspection and visual ethnography. Here, its slow composure is put in to conversation with the chaos of Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi. Whilst the former tackles the personal and transcends towards the universal, the latter uses the universal to invoke a self-observating experience. If Koyaanisqatsi signals a life out of balance, News From Home tries to rectify that balance – in pace, in space and in the everyday. – Jessica McGoff
Belgian director Chantal Akerman gained world success with her masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) and consolidated her reputation with films like Toute une Nuit, Les années 80 and Le Marteau. In the early nineties Akerman shifted her career from strictly film into the arts. She participated, amongst other exhibitions, at dOCUMENTA 10 and 11. It dated from 1995 since Akerman exhibited in her native country with a massive retrospective. In Too Far, Too Close the M HKA presented an overview from Akermans oeuvre starting with the 1968 production Saute ma Ville and ending with her most recent work, Maniac Summer.
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Dec 07
2015Did I really miss out on an October post?
It’s not like I’ve not been doing anything. Really.
I’m researching and writing for a new film – about miscommunication, the screen and squishy, squishy eyes. Here’s a production shot for you. By 2016 it’ll be ready to go…
