Zona (Projectorhead)

The eighth issue of Projectorhead is out, in which:

a few words on Geoff Dyer's Zona.

Closely Watched Trains #4 (Break My Heart)

Kurt Vonnegut:

"Last night, time and my body decided to take me to the movies. I saw The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which I took very hard. To an unmoored, middle-aged man like myself, it was heart-breaking. That’s all right. I like to have my heart broken."

(via Brain Pickings)

*

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)

The Nietzsche Connection

A Torinói ló / The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr & Ágnes Hranitzky, 2011)

+

Prin fiecare dintre ele [fotografii], fără greş, treceam dincolo de irealitatea lucrului reprezentat, intram nebuneşte în spectacol, în imagine, cuprinzînd cu braţele ceea ce este mort, ceea ce urmează să moară, aşa cum a făcut Nietzsche cînd, pe 3 ianuarie 1889, s-a aruncat plîngînd de gîtul unui cal chinuit: devenit nebun din cauza Milei.

- Roland Barthes, Camera luminoasă. Însemnări despre fotografie
trad. Virgil Mleşniţă, ed. Idea Design & Print, 2010, Cluj

It Is Margaret You Mourn For

Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011)

*****

Spring and Fall

To a young child

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Tu n'as rien vu à Hiroshima {re:post}

Source: decitre.fr

LUI

       Tu n'as rien vu à Hiroshima. Rien.

ELLE

       J'ai tout vu. Tout.

*****

Hiroshima mon amour (Alain Resnais, 1959)

Note: Originally posted on August 6, 2011.

LACONIA, or: Thinking Through Film

LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film (cover) / CINEMA sign in Cluj

I'm a gusher, which makes it difficult for me to sit down and write a coherent, cohesive text about the things I love or to even present at length the reasons for which I love that certain book, film, etc. I suppose that's perfectly evident from my latest text for Projectorhead. (Many thanks to Anuj Malhotra.)

*

I have read LACONIA twice and could read it many times more as I know that with each read there will be smth new to enthuse over, a new connection to be made. Masha Tupitsyn's writing is so insightful and powerful and addictive. Yes, addictive. Thanks to her blog, her writing is now part of my daily reading. Also: I cannot wait for her next book. Meanwhile, I got Beauty Talk & Monsters, which is a collection of stories told through movies. I'll just have to finish a bunch of others books before I can give it my undivided attention.

*

"Thinking through film." I cannot imagine any other way of thinking. I don't know any other way of thinking. Part of why I love LACONIA so much is that it validates this thinking through film.

+ MT's twitter: @lifeasweshowit
+ MT's blog: Love Dog

Catching the Big Fish with David Lynch

The sixth issue of Projectorhead.

In which I awkwardly (and poorly) try to explain why I love Kartina Richardson's video essays.

Also: I try my hand at reviewing a film book again. The victim is: David Lynch's Catching the Big Fish: Consciousness, Meditation, Creativity.

Many thanks to Anuj Malhotra.

Godard Is

source: Vertigo

Godard is the main character in the spring issue of Vertigo magazine. A must-read (via Film Studies For Free).

*****

And rescued from my drafts, a couple of other Godard links:

Something to look forward to: Introduction to a True History of Cinema and Television.

Till then:

+ Read a free chapter, on Masculin Féminin

+ Excerpts (in French) from the original text, Introduction à une véritable histoire du cinéma

The Lord

Lord of the Flies. Împăratul muştelor. Cartea perfectă de citit în paralel cu Battle Royale. Am luat cartea de pe raft însă nu cu intenţia de a o începe imediat. Nu. Acum era timpul pentru un film. Higher Ground. Higher Ground, în care Corinne (McKenzie Turner) primeşte de la bibliotecară acea privire not-for-kids-and-definitely-not-for-kids-who-go-to-church-on-Sundays când vrea să împrumute Lord of the Flies. Mai târziu însă, aceeaşi Corinne (şi totuşi alta, Taissa Farmiga) a învăţat să se ferească de cenzori.

Higher Ground (Vera Farmiga, 2011)

Mourir, mourir, mourir

Mourir auprès de toi (Spike Jonze, Simon Cahn & Olympia Le-Tan, 2011)


Spike Jonze: Mourir Auprès de Toi on Nowness.com.

+ Spike Jonze, interviu pentru NOWNESS
+ Olympia Le-Tan's tumblr

2 + 2 = 5

Two & Two (Babak Anvari, 2010) (short)

Doi plus doi egal cinci, sau lecţia despre dictatură.

(Two & Two (8 min.) se poate vedea gratis pe MUBI.)

On a lighter note: scurtul ăsta mi-a amintit de principiul "2+2=5", al lui Douglas Coupland:

Principiul "2+2=5": a ceda în faţa unei strategii de marketing care te vizează direct, după ce ai rezistat cu stoicism vreme îndelungată: "OK, bine, o să cumpăr porcăria aia de Cola. Acum lasă-mă în pace."

- Douglas Coupland, Generaţia X: Poveşti pentru cultura cu acceleraţie
(trad. Cristian Ionescu, Humanitas, 2008)

Obiceiuri hikikomori

"Shaking Tokyo" (Bong Joon-ho) in Tokyo! (2008)

Română:

În cinstea acestor noi cereale mi-am impus să mă aşez cum se cuvine la masa din bucătărie, cu tacâm şi şerveţel de hârtie. Cei care trăiesc singuri capătă pe nesimţite obiceiul de a mânca vertical: de ce să te deranjezi cu fineţuri când n-ai cu cine să stai la masă sau care să te critice? Dar lejeritatea într-o zonă poate conduce la dereglări în toate.

- Margaret Atwood, Asasinul Orb (trad. Lidia Grădinaru, Leda, 2008)

English:

In honour of this new cereal I forced myself to sit down properly at the kitchen table, with place setting and paper napkin complete. Those who live alone slide into the habit of vertical eating: why bother with the niceties when there‘s no one to share or censure? But laxity in one area may lead to derangement in all.

- Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

Tu n'as rien vu à Hiroshima

Source: decitre.fr

LUI

       Tu n'as rien vu à Hiroshima. Rien.

ELLE

       J'ai tout vu. Tout.

*****

Hiroshima mon amour (Alain Resnais, 1959)