Zona (Projectorhead)

The eighth issue of Projectorhead is out, in which:

a few words on Geoff Dyer's Zona.

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.)

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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.

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"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

La piel que habito: Director's Notes

La piel que habito/ The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar, 2011)

Skin is the frontier that separates us from others: It determines the race to which we belong, it reflects our emotions and our roots, whether biological or geographic. Many times it reflects the state of the soul, but the skin isn't the soul. Although Vera has changed her skin, she hasn’t lost her identity. [...]

A story of these characteristics made me think of Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock, all of Fritz Lang’s films (from the gothic to the noir). I also thought of the pop aesthetic of Hammer horror, or the most psychedelic, kitsch style of the Italian giallo (Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Umberto Lenzi, Lucio Fulci…), and the lyricism of Georges Franju in Eyes Without a Face. After evaluating all these references, I realized that none of them fit with what I needed for The Skin I Live In. For some months I thought seriously about making a silent film, in black and white, with captions that showed descriptions and dialogue, paying tribute to Fritz Lang and F. W. Murnau. After doubting for months, I decided to go my own way and let myself be guided by my intuition — after all, it’s what I’ve always done — without the shadow of the maestros of the genre, and renouncing my own cinematic memory. I only knew that I had to impose an austere narrative, free of visual rhetoric and not at all gory, although a lot of blood has been spilled in the ellipses that we don’t see. I’ve been accompanied on this journey by José Luis Alcaine, the director of photography, to whom I didn’t explain what I wanted but rather what I didn’t want; he knew how to give the photography the density, the glow, and the darkness that suited it best. The composer Alberto Iglesias, the only artist I know without an ego; tireless, versatile, patient, capable of looking in one direction and then looking in the opposite direction if I wasn’t satisfied, always subject to the dictates of the story and my way of feeling it. And actors who were generous and precise, despite the obvious discomfort of some of their scenes. I’ll name them all: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet, Roberto Álamo, Blanca Suárez, Eduard Fernández, Susi Sánchez, Bárbara Lennie, and José Luis Gómez.

- Pedro Almodóvar, "Some Notes About The Skin I Live In", 

in TASCHEN's Magazine (Winter 2011/2012) [pdf]

Elena Anaya practices the "warrior" position, with a little help from Almodóvar
(Taschen's Magazine, Winter 2011/2012)

My TIFF #5

TIFF, ziua 8 / ziua 5 pentru mine:

Adem/Oxygen (Hans Van Nuffel, 2010)


V Subbotu/Innocent Saturday (Aleksandr Mindadze, 2011)

(Trailerul german e mai reuşit. Apoi, tocmai am descoperit că întregul film e pe YouTube, aşa că dacă ştiţi rusă puteţi vedea V Subbotu aici.)

*****

Din APERITIFF, ediţia specială:

I first attended TIFF in 2004, with two short films, Liviu's Dream and A Trip to the City, when I won the Best Romanian Film Award. I get quite nostalgic when I think of those times. The festival was small, with a somewhat closed circuit, you'd get to meet everyone, including people you couldn't see in Bucharest for years. They were all there. Those pioneering days, when we were all starting out and you couldn't feel the pressure that even I am experiencing nowadays, are still very dear to me.

- Corneliu Porumboiu, My TIFF

(de data asta, nu am furat sintagma "My TIFF" de la el ;))