expanding the frame on international cinema

ANGELA
SCHANELEC
PAUL
VERHOEVEN
EDUARDO
WILLIAMS
ABBAS
KIAROSTAMI
JOHN
AKOMFRAH
RUTH
BECKERMANN
PAT
ONEILL
PETER
HUTTON

CAN/US $5.95

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63

PM #0040048647

OCTOBER 20NOVEMBER 5, 2016

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Photo Credits: Cinemax: 45, 47; Criterion Collection: 39, 41, 42, 43; Desperate Optimists: 36, 37; Festival del film Locarno: 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 55a, 60, 61, 63; Filmgalerie 451: 12, 15; Pat
ONeill: 24, 25, 27; Les Films du Losange: 65; Melbourne International Film Festival: 32; MK2: 53, 55b; Mongrel Media: Cover, 6, 9; Smoking Dog Films; Courtesy of Lisson Gallery: 56,
59b; Smoking Dog Films; Courtesy of Lisson Gallery. Photography Jack Hems: 59a; Toronto International Film Festival: 2, 28, 31, 73, 75, 77, 79; Viennale: 48, 51

Nocturama

68

Features
and Interviews

60
FESTIVALS

Locarno (I):
Challenges

By Jay Kuehner

THE RULES OF THE GAME

63

Paul Verhoevens Elle

FESTIVALS

By Adam Nayman

39

Locarno (II):

DANGEROUS WOMAN

Correspondences

SAYING SOMETHING

Gilda and Hollywood Burlesque

By Jerry White

The Films of Angela Schanelec

By Alicia Fletcher

12
By Blake Williams

16

42

65
BOOKS

NO TWO-LEGGED CREATURE

Shared Life:

THE WANDERER

Orson Welles Falstaff

ric Rohmer: A Biography

Eduardo Williams The Human Surge

By Samuel La France

By Christopher Small

By Leo Goldsmith

19

67

Columns

GLOBAL DISCOVERIES ON DVD

and the Return of Roman Porno

80

By Christoph Huber

EDITORS NOTE

EXPLODED VIEW

24

45

THE HILLS HAVE EYES

TV OR NOT TV

Pat ONeills Where the Chocolate Mountains

There Will Be Blood:

By Jordan Cronk

Steven Soderberghs The Knick

WEAPON OF FLESH
Shiota Akihikos Wet Woman in the Wind

By Jonathan Rosenbaum

Malcolm Le Grices Berlin Horse

By Sean Rogers

28

By Chuck Stephens

Currency

SEHNSUCHT

48

Ruth Beckermann on The Dreamed Ones

DEATHS OF CINEMA

72

By Andra Picard

What the Water Said:

NOCTURAMA

Peter Hutton (1944-2016)

By Blake Williams

32

By Michael Sicinski

GAINING GROUND
Its After the End of the World, Dont

53

You Know That Yet?

DEATHS OF CINEMA

By Chris Fujiwara

Before and After the Revolution:

36

74
SNOWDEN

By Robert Koehler

Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016)

76

By Quintn

LAVENIR

PRODUCTIONS OF SPACE

By Adam Nayman

Films by the Desperate Optimists

56

By Kate Rennebohm

FILM/ART

78

Farewell to Storyville:

DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST

John Akomfrahs New Essays

By Steve Macfarlane

By Phil Coldiron

Congratulations
to Ralitza Petrovas
GODLESS for the
Pardo doro 2016

EDITOR AND PUBLISHER

Mark Peranson

EDITORS NOTE

ART DIRECTION AND DESIGN

Vanesa Mazza

While wracking my brain about how to ll this space, I came across two realizations, one

MANAGING EDITOR

perhaps more obvious than the other, which I will explicate briey below.

Andrew Tracy

This is a good year for debut lms. Bulgarian director Ralitza Petrovas Godless was

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

the somewhat surprising winner of the Golden Leopard in Locarno. The lm was the

Tom Charity, Christoph Huber,

Dennis Lim, Adam Nayman

unanimous favourite of the jury, one of whom opined that it is a masterpiece that will be

MARKETING COORDINATOR
AND FINANCIAL MANAGER

judge for yourself. This issue also features an analysis of Teddy (sorry, couldnt resist)

Jennifer Scott

as important to cinema history as Barbara Lodens Wanda (1970), so please do see it and
Williams The Human Surge, also a Locarno prizewinner, a lm that surprised no one
who is familiar with Williams shorts. (Petrovas shorts are also worth checking out.)

WEB DESIGN

Both Godless and The Human Surge will screen in Toronto, as will Johannes Nyholms

Adrian Kinloch

beguiling Swedish oddity The Giant (also highly recommended) and others I have yet to

COPY EDITING

see that hold some promiseincluding some Canadian titles! Which means its time for a

Jack Vermee

reminder to visit cinema-scope.com to relive our annual TIFF blowout, where there will
be more than 150 reviews of lms posted for eternity or until the internet ends, whichev-

Cinema Scope (ISSN 1488-7002) (HST

866048978rt0001) is published quarterly by
Cinema Scope Publishing. Issue 68. Vol. 18, No. 3.
Fall 2016. No parts of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. All articles
remain property of their authors. Submissions are
eagerly encouraged. Distributed in Canada through
Disticor Direct, Magazines Canada, in the US
through Disticor, and worldwide through Annas
International. Cinema Scope is found online at
www.cinema-scope.com. For advertising information, call Mark Peranson at (416) 889-5430 or email
[email protected]. Subscriptions are available for $20/4 issues, personal, and $40/4 issues,
institutional (plus HST). American subscribers
please pay in American funds. Overseas subscriptions are available at $40 US / 4 issues.
Subscriptions by credit card are also available
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Publishing, 465 Lytton Blvd, Toronto, ON, M5N 1S5
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publications mail agreement no. 40048647.
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er comes rst. (And, of course, next issue will as usual feature more extensive coverage
of a selection of our favourite titles, debuts or otherwise, such as Matas Piieros Hermia
& Helena, Joo Pedro Rodrigues The Ornithologist, and Gastn Solnickis Kkszakll,
to list a few accented examples.) Other rst lms to which I would also like to youre
your attention are Dane Komljens All the Cities of the North (briey covered in the pages
that follow), Theo Anthonys Rat Film (ditto), Kris Avedisians Donald Cried, and Kiro
Russos Dark Skull. And lets not forget Ted Fendts Short Stay, itself the focus of coverage
in Cinema Scope 66.
This is a good year for Isabelle Huppert. And, yes, I sense the rhetorical statement already forming at your collective lips, Tell me something I dont already know. Agreed:
which year of the last decade hasnt been a good year for Isabelle Huppert, she of the
(according to the always-reliable IMDb) 130 onscreen credits, 65 wins, and 32 nominations? (Maybe 2010, when Madame Huppert only appeared in two not-very-memorable
lms, but I would argue otherwise, as she also had a guest-starring role on Law & Order:
Special Victims Unit. Maybe she was acting on stage in New York at the time and found
herself with a day off.) Appearing in at least ve lms in 2016, with three of them playing
at TIFF (one appearing on the cover of this issue, Paul Verhoevens Elle), Huppert continues to operate at an superhuman pace, as the next year will nd her in lms by Hong
Sangsoo (not the one in Toronto, and not the one after that, but the third one), Michael
Haneke, and Serge Bozon among others; she has clearly reached the point where she has
become a axiom of the arthouse cinema. Id like to see her direct some day, but, in her
own way, she does enough directing as it is.
And Ive done enough writing. But a few housekeeping points: keen readers will also
note two extremely important changes to the magazine, as part of our continuing desire
to present as attractive a package as possible to our readers. At long last I have nally

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council

for the Arts which last year invested $19.1 million in
writing and publishing throughout Canada.

relented and allowed for italicized lm titles in article subheadings; to be honest, it just
looks better. Also, I decided to give the TV column an actual name, because, why not.
Plus, as Im sure you will pick up on, if you are holding a hard copy in your hands (and
why arent you?) it follows an article relating to Shakespeare, and its very hard to resist
an opportunity for a horrible pun.
Mark Peranson

We also acknowledge the support of the Ontario

Arts Council.

THE RULES OF
THE GAME
PAUL VERHOEVENS ELLE

BY ADAM NAYMAN

In Elle, Michle (Isabelle Huppert) slaps her adult son in the face,
sleeps with a hammer under her pillow, deliberately smashes into
her ex-husbands car and later pepper-sprays him, accidentally
crashes her own car, buys a gun, and forces a much younger male
employee at her video-game company to show her his penis as a
penalty for insubordinationand thats only a partial inventory
of the ways in which she acts out over the course of the lm. Its
unclear whether Michles relentlessly aggressive behaviour is in
response to her having been sexually assaulted in her home by a
masked assailant in the very rst scene of the lm, or the result of
psychic wires that got crossed a long time ago; the key is that Paul
Verhoeven doesnt ask us to choose. Yes, Elle is a movie about a
woman who gets raped, and to some extent, the very specic ways
in which she reckons with that experienceincluding, after some
hesitation, an attempt to discover the rapists identity and take revenge. But its more accurate to say that, as its title implies, Elle is
simply a movie about a woman, full stop. As skillfully and awlessly
acted by Huppert, who at this point can seemingly do no wrong with
a halfway decent part, Michle is one of the strongest and strangest
movie characters in a long time.
Working from a surprisingly witty and literate script by David
Birkewhose previous credits on Gacy (2003) and Freeway Killer
(2010) didnt exactly prepare us for thisVerhoeven has nessed
Philippe Djians 2012 novel into a hybrid comeback vehicle for
himself and a showcase for Huppert, who supposedly coveted the
role from the beginning of the development process. Imperious
despite her dinky stature and almost always in motion, Michle
is a well-coiffed powerhouse who slices through her domestic and
professional environments like a well-honed blade, albeit one
with (c.f. former Verhoeven accomplice Joe Eszterhas, who knows
from knives) a jagged edge. Nothing slows her down or softens her
up, but its not necessarily condence that drives her so much as a
inty inscrutability that is by turns amusing, disturbing, admirable,
and absurd. Unlike Hupperts title character in Michael Hanekes
La pianiste (2001)a lm whose sadomasochistic shadow surely
falls over certain parts of Elleshes not a pathological case, nor is
she any sort of symbolic gure. Michle evinces a variety of postfeminist stereotypesbourgie culture-vulture, man-eater, sleek careeristwithout fully inhabiting any of them, and her ability to take
in stride both serious trauma and workaday annoyance feels like its
own form of bristling deance.
If La pianiste comes to mind because of Huppert, Elle is more
generally reminiscent of another Haneke joint, Cach (2005), from
which it borrows both its well-heeled Parisian setting and insinuating multimedia (sub)textures, with baroquely violent video games
swapped in for creepy surveillance videos as ontological counterpoint to the main action. Verhoevens admiration for Haneke
makes sense insofar as theyre both artists who enjoy using genre
to implicate their audiences, except that the Dutchman isand always has beenmore honest and up front about what attracts him
to extreme images and situations; it would never occur to him to
hover judgementally above the fray. (The inclusion at one point of
a YouTube fetish video for those who like seeing bugs being crushed
underlines this, and also directly and hilariously invokes Starship
Troopers [1997].) Haneke typically works very hard to reach the
conclusion that people are self-interested hypocrites living in denialbasically, that theyre assholes. For Verhoeven, thats not an
insight, its a given, and after that a jumping-off point.

Taking its cues largely from Hupperts beautifully vituperative

line readingsmany of them viciously sotto voce in the company
of Michles ostensible loved onesElle is very funny, and in ways
that are new for Verhoeven. In his breakthrough Turkish Delight
(1973), the director torqued Jan Wolkers downbeat realist novel
into a springy, New Wave-inected picaresque that pitted beautifully bawdy young Amsterdam hipsters against tight-assed emissaries of his countrys middle-class repression; the push-pull between
eshy rebellion and buttoned-up decorum was a warning shot
across the bow of Dutch society. Crossing the ocean for RoboCop
(1987), he unmasked a decades technocratic cruelty and ended by
literally going for the jugular. Forty years later, Verhoevens point
of view has pivoted away from impudent critique (in both his Dutch
and Hollywood lms) towards a more relaxed line of attack, which
started in the little-seen experimental mini-feature Tricked (2012).
There are scenes and scenarios in Elle that are completely outrageous, including the revelation of Michles Gothic family history,
which not only explains to some degree why she doesnt go to the
police after being attacked but also makes unexpected incursions
into exploitation-ick territory. Yet the overall impression is of the
serenity and elegance of plot points and reversals whirring away
and locking tidily into place, even as the essential messiness of life
Michles, certainly, but also potentially anybodyskeeps oozing
into view like an uncauterized wound, or blood bubbling to the surface of an ivory-white bubble bath.
On the level of craft, Elle is excellent, with clear, gleaming digital
cinematography by Jacques Audiards usual DP Stphan Fontaine
and eet editing from Job ter Burg, who cut Verhoevens Black
Book (2006) and seems allergic to drag (the tightness is also a byproduct of the script). The long-standing claims of Verhoevens classicism, which started around the time he came to Hollywood, dont
really square with the agile DV aesthetic on offer here (Fontaine had
two HD cameras going at all times). However one would describe
the styleId call it glossy, Buuelian quasi-realismit is simply
a means to an end, because Elle is essentially a drama of ideas, expressed dialectically via each of Michles major ongoing relationships, including at least two men who she suspects might secretly be
her attacker.
If there is one scene that fully claries Verhoevens project, and
also crystallizes his true inuences, its a late exchange between
Michle and a female neighbour, who has plenty of reason at that
point in the story to give her a wide berth. Instead, standing together in the middle of a quiet suburban street, the two women
have an exchange thats at once startling in its everything-on-thetable frankness and chilling because of the extra little bit thats
being withheld, or only acknowledged in a sideways way. That the
quasi-confessional aspect of the dialogue is framed by a plastic statue of Jesus not-quite-hiding in plain sight is very Verhoevenits
in line with the resplendently full-frontal Christ manqu in The
Fourth Man (1983), or RoboCops climactic walk over the water to
nish off his foe, or the myriad crucixes adorning Black Book. But
the philosophy (such as it is) that passes between the characters and
hangs over the nal shots is nally very close to the humanist equanimity of Renoirs La rgle du jeu (1939), and its famous maxim that
Everybody has their reasonsa ruthlessly pragmatic worldview
located precariously between indulgence and indignation, and thus
right in the sweet spot of a director who somehow always manages
to have it both ways.
7

Cinema Scope: The original plan was for Elle to be shot and set in
the United States, correct?
Paul Verhoeven: Yes, absolutely. When I was sent the book, I
recognized the name of the author, Philippe Djian, because there
was another movie based on one of his novels, Betty Blue (1986). I
didnt know his work, though, because hed written 30 books, one
every year. My producer Sad Ben Sad sent me Oh and asked me
if I was interested in making a movie out of it. I thought, OK, this
is different. I havent done something like this before. It was more
character-oriented. The human beings were more important than
the action. And I thought it would be interesting to do a movie in
Parisor at least at the beginning, when I got the book. When we
started to talk about it, we came to a different conclusion, which
was that it might be interesting to a general international audience, and we should make the lm in the US. There was a writer
that I knew in Los Angeles and who I was working with on another
project that didnt go forward; his name is David Birke, and I like
him very much. Hed done a really good rewrite for me of another
script. I asked David to do the script, and we translated the whole
novel into English for him. We discussed it, every chapter, what we
liked in it. We had the understanding that it would all be American,
whether it was going to be Chicago, Boston, or New York, or whatever. It could have been Seattle or something. Im more European
than American, but David is fully American, so I just let him go, and
he transformed it. We were all satised, and we thought it was really good. Maybe a bit provocative or dangerous, but that was very
attractive, I thought. The morality, or the lack of morality, attracted
all of us. Sad tried to see if he could nd American nancial partners, and I was looking for an American actress who was willing to
play the part, which is audacious of course. We found out that on
nancial terrain and artistic terrain there was no enthusiasm, neither from the actresses nor the nanciers. Nobody wanted to participate in this venture.
After a couple of months, Sad called me and said that this wasnt
going anywhere in the United States. We had approached ve or
six top, A-list actresses and they all immediately refused: No, no,
no, absolutely not, we wont do this. So we realized we were on the
wrong track. It seemed to be impossible to do it in the US. But from
the beginning of the projectfrom the very beginningI had had
conversations with Isabelle Huppert. I talked to her in Berlin, at
the festival there. And she was really enthusiastic about the book,
and really wanted to do it. Now, confronted with the enormous lack
of enthusiasmor fearfrom the American side, we decided to rewrite the script, and put it back in French, back through the French
lter, with a French writer. We had to translate things back from
the cultural deformation that we had applied to the novel. That
took another month at least. Then we found out that in France,
there were zero problems with nancing it. We had an actress who
was not afraid of the part, or the nudity, or the amoralor nonmoralattitude of the main character! From that moment on, after
re-Frenching it, there were no problems anymore, and it was a
smooth route. Everything was very fast after this long loop through
the American culture. We ended up with a French lm about French
culture that was very close to the French book.
Scope: Was the video-game subplot part of that cultural deformation? That seems like a very American invention, although I
suppose they play video games in France, too.
8

Verhoeven: That was not in the original novel. In the book,

Michle is the CEO of a company that writes scripts. She has 20
writers working for her, doing scripts for television, and she supervises, sometimes in a very harsh way. We felt that in a movie, talking
about scripts and stories and all that stuffabout characters and
dramatic structurewould be extremely boring for an audience. My
daughter told me that it should be something better than that. Shes
a painter, and she suggested changing Michle to somebody who
is in charge of a company that makes video games. I asked David
what he thought, and he turned out to know everything about video
games. He likes video games. He plays video games. He knows the
grammar of games and how you talk about them, and the tricks of
the trade. So we changed it immediately!
Scope: Some of the imagery in the video game is similar to
Starship Troopers, especially the alien with the tentacles. It looks
like the Brain Bug.
Verhoeven: We invented a video game for the movie, but we were
shooting in the offices of a Paris-based video-game company and
we used some of their material. We didnt have the money to create something totally new. That would have been way beyond our
budget. We adapted one of their games that they had launched a
year before. We started to realize as we were working that the video
game was a kind of counterpoint or a parallel to the main issue of
the lm, which is rape. We made the story of our video game mirror
the main narrative.
Scope: In the video game, though, theres this very obvious ending
with this triumphant act of vengeance, where the warrior woman
is reborn
Verhoeven: The Dark Force, yes.
Scope: But Michles story doesnt play out that way
Verhoeven: Well, it depends. You can see itand I saw itthat
there is a sort of a divine punishment at the end. I looked at it that
way. Its very important how Michle looks at the end of the last
scene. The way Isabelle Huppert looks, in her eyes, there is a touch
of a smile. She is not shocked. Shes like, Well, you had this coming. In some way, she is triumphant.
Scope: Id say that Elle is more dependent on a single character
or a single performancethan any of your other movies, even Katie
Tippel (1975) or Showgirls (1995), which also have these female protagonists. Michle is sort of the whole movie.
Verhoeven: Thats because I had an actress of superb quality.
Shes one of the most talented actresses in the world. I knew that
because Id seen so many of her lms. Isabelle taking the part added
a level to the movie that I doubt I would have gotten anywhere else.
Scope: The point of the movie seems to be that Michle never
backs away or retreats from the things that are happening to her.
Its strange to see a movie about a character whos going through so
much and who remains totally self-possessed the whole time.
Verhoeven: She refuses to be victimized. I think she sets the tone
of the movie from the very beginning. We dont see the rape; we
see the aftermath. And then she gets up, she starts to clean up the
broken cups on the ground, and takes a bath, and orders sushi. And
thats her character. She says: OK, this happened to me. She fought
the guy, but he was too strongwe see that in the ashback. But she
refuses to be the victim. When she goes to dinner with her friends,
she says that she was raped, and when they start to comment on it
she stops the whole conversation two seconds later to order. They

react with shock, and she doesnt want that to happen. Shes with
her lover and her ex-husband, and yet she refuses to be thrown into
the part that shes been given, of somebody who has been raped.
Scope: Youve never had female characters who let themselves be
victimized, though. The women in your Dutch movies always ght
back, and they win.
Verhoeven: Thats true of the men, too. The male character in
Turkish Delight loses the love of his life to another guy, and then
when she dies he takes the wig hed given her and throws it in the
garbage. He survives. He refuses to stop his life because this horrible thing has happened. He wont accept it. Thats true in Soldier of
Orange (1978) too. In all the movies I did with Rutger Hauer, hes
a survivor.
Scope: I guess I was thinking more of Rachel in Black Book.
Verhoeven: Its true. I dont know if its female-oriented, but in
general, the Dutch movies are about survivors.
Scope: And what would you say about the various men in Elle?
Verhoeven: Theyre not so great. Michles ex-husband is ineffectual, and her son is a bit silly. He doesnt see that his girlfriend is
dominating him from the very beginning.
Scope: Theres a real focus on parental relationshipsand guilt
in the lm. Michle is very critical of her son, but shes also coping
with the legacy of her father and the embarrassment of her mother
dating a younger man. The family dynamics are complex
Verhoeven: We took all of Michles relationshipswith her
son, her mother, her father, her husband, her daughter-in-law,
her secret lover, and the rapistvery seriously. For me one of the
key aspects of the movie was drawing all those relationships, because I usually dont go that far with my characters, or with them

interacting in that way. If you look at Basic Instinct (1992), we dont

know anything about Michael Douglas partner, or even about
Michael Douglas! Here, I thought it was good to go deep inside a
group of people, where Michle is at the centre and they all move
around her. Thats in the novel, though, and thats what attracted me to the novel, which is that it was partly a thriller, and partly
social commentary.
Scope: You told me last year that you were a big fan of Cach,
and I thought that Elle was like Cach without judgment. You dont
judge the characters for what they do.
Verhoeven: No, I try to let them be.
Scope: I also thought of Jean Renoirs La rgle du jeu.
Verhoeven: That was the lm that I had in mind while I was
shooting Elle.
Scope: Really?
Verhoeven: Yes! I mentioned it many times to the actors, who
knew it of course. They were all French, so the reference was easy
for them. La rgle du jeu was extremely modern in 1939, and it still
is. The way that the wife of the main character talks to her husbands
mistressesthat was the sort of talk that I was going for.
Scope: Youve never made a totally class-based comedymaybe
parts of Turkish Delight, but theres a level of social observation
thats different here. The satire isnt as broad as it is in, say, Starship
Troopers. Its lighter and maybe more realistic.
Verhoeven: Its a look at the bourgeoisie. Thats a word in French,
right? Not quite aristocratic, but not working-classthe people
are bourgeois.
Scope: So you could also cite Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie
(1972)
Verhoeven: Thats the other lm! Youre on target. Thats the
other movie that was in the background the whole time. I think Sad
sent me the book because he thought I could work in a Buuelian
way. Belle de jour (1967) was one of the movies that I studied
very closely.
9

KKSZAKLL
U NA PELCULA DE GAST N SOLNICKI

FILMY
WIKTORA

BAL

Scope: Whats Buuelian in Elle are all of the dreams, or the daydreamsMichles fantasies. She keeps slipping into these reveries
throughout the movie, which is strange, because I dont know if
there are dream scenes in any of your other movies. There are hallucinations in RoboCop.
Verhoeven: There are dream scenes in The Fourth Man. For the
rest, no. I do like Buuels dreams, and I like Ingmar Bergmans
dreams, especially in the movie about the old guy, Wild Strawberries
(1959), which is a very beautiful dream! But in movies, dreams need
to be at that level, or else its a bit kitschy. In this case, her dreams
are sort of wish-dreams, like when she kills the guy with the ashtray.
She thinks of what she could have done.
Scope: Theres a very unusual mix of memory and desire, and a
kind of fantasy projection.
Verhoeven: Its sort of her wish-fulllment.
Scope: Some people haveadmiringlydescribed Elle as a rape
comedy. I think that the movie is funny, but in your other movies, I
think rape has been treated very seriously: its a big part of Spetters
(1983) and it also happens in Showgirls, in a scene thats meant to be
incredibly ugly. I wondered what you thought of Elle being called
a comedy.
Verhoeven: I think its stupid when they describe it as a rape
comedy. That suggests that the rape is comic. Its a movie about
life, and where things are happening simultaneously, or one after the other. There is violence everywhere. There is sexual abuse
everywhere, 1,800 times a day in the US. These things happen. And
then at the same time people are going to parties and to restaurants,
and they have fun with each other, and they make love, and theyre
basically amoral. It all happens together. So the movie is about the
rape, but its also about how people live. I think I look at it in a critical way, or maybe in an amused way. But I dont ever look at the rape
in an amused way. The rape is extremely harsh, direct, and violent.
Theres nothing comical about it!
You have to accept that life consists of several elements at the
same time. If you say rape comedy, its a refusal to accept reality,
or an attempt to put the movie into a genre. Its not a genre movie, and there is no genre that you could put it in. Its three or four
different things. Basic Instinct is genre. Its a thriller with a lot of
genre. Elle is about rape, and the response to it, by a very specic
woman, who has been through very specic, horrible things in her
life before that. She has relationships, and love, and hate, and interests that have nothing to do with the rape. The movie is also about
what Michle does in the world. With genre, you have to stay inside
something. I try to break with genre all the time.
Scope: The idea of Michle in the worldis that why you
changed the title of the book from Oh to Elle? Because its totally
about her?
Verhoeven: The original title is Oh and I thought it wasnt a good
title. David said we should change it to Elle. Its funny because we
have an elle with Isabelle. And Michle is also an Elle, right?
Scope: Can you talk about working with Isabelle? Ive noticed
that even when she works with strong directors, like Claire Denis
or Michael Haneke, she sort of takes over what we see onscreen. I
think shes an example of an actor as an auteur, and I wonder if that
was a different sort of experience for you, even after so many other
movies and different sorts of movie stars.

Verhoeven: I had no problems with Isabelle ever. We agreed on

everything. We didnt discuss the part, really. We talked maybe half
an hour about it, and maybe a bit on the set or in the makeup room.
Wed talk about what we were doing that day, but with Isabelle I sort
of just let her go. I thought that the less I said, the better I could get
from her. She went so deeply into character, and I put my condence in whatever she would do, even if it was breaking or changing
the script. She would do that stuff. She would do things from other
scenes, or continue with scenes after they were over, and I let her do
it because she was so into that person. I had more condence in her
ability to perform and to express than in my own directorial supervision. I was so amazed by what she was doing that I often forgot to
say Cut. It was so good, and better than what I had in my head, and
better than what I thought could happen. It was extraordinary. Ive
never seen so much strength and inspiration in the right moments.
It all came out of her being the character, and I tried to use every
moment that she gave me.
Scope: Is this sort of collaborationor this sort of moviewhat
youre hoping to duplicate going forward? You told me last year that
you keep watching Hollywood blockbusters because you want to see
how theyre using digital special effects. Do you want to do something special effects-driven again?
Verhoeven: I dont want to make oneor maybe I would do that
if there was something, a script, that could be innovative, and so
I wouldnt feel like I was doing the same thing that everyone else
has been doing for the last ten years. I have the feeling that weve
exhausted the possibilities of special effects. Nothing amazes me,
or suggests another possibility. That doesnt mean that somebody
wont come up with something beyond what we see every week in
the theatre. I want to be prepared, if necessary, to do something
with special effects, but it has to be something new.
Scope: Elle is the rst lm youve made to be invited to Cannes, or
at least to play in Competition there.
Verhoeven: Basic Instinct was at Cannes, but it was shown as the
opening-night lm. It didnt compete.
Scope: So maybe this is the beginning of a phase where youre ofcially an art lmmaker.
Verhoeven: If it could go in that direction in the next couple of
yearshowever much time I havethen I would certainly do that.
Im much more interested in people than I was before. I look more
at people, and the way that characters treat each other, and betray
each otherit was all in my movies before anyhow, but more so now.
I would love to move in that direction, and I would love to stay there.
The industry doesnt give you what you want, though. You have to
nd the book. You have to nd the script. Something challenging,
something that hasnt been donein genre or outside of itI would
take it. I wont sit for ten years until something like this comes
again. That would be silly. Youre lucky to get a book, a script, and an
actress like we did in Elle. Its comparable for me to Turkish Delight
or to RoboCop. The moments where you get a present like this are
rare, and its rarer that youre able to do it, or that youre inspired to
do it. Sometimes you make movies because you make movies, and
thats it. Youre waiting for the real challenge.
Scope: You sound as if youre up for anything.
Verhoeven: If I like it, I think can do it. And if I like it very much,
then I will do it.
11

The Dreamed Path

SAYING
SOMETHING

The Films of Angela Schanelec

In his 1959 essay La parole quotidienne, Maurice Blanchot effectively describes the common experience of existencethat fact
of being and living through ones own everyday agenda, ones own
distinct condition, however relatively ordinary it may seem with
respect to any othersas essentially always active in light of its
fundamental indeterminacy. To participate with and experience
the world, as we automatically and necessarily do as long as we are
living, is to operate in an often undramatic yet nonetheless mobile
progression through the present, towards something unstable and
energized; the presentthat tugging war that wavers between our
recollection of the past and our anticipation of possible futuresis

BY BLAKE WILLIAMS

never a static thing. Its always becoming something new. And yet
those quotidian details that dene the majority of our experience
of reality are also the ones traditionally deemed the least worthy
of narration, especially in cinema, because, as we are conditioned

The everyday is platitude (what lags and

falls back, the residual life with which our
trash cans and cemeteries are filled: scrap
and refuse); but this banality is also what
is most important. It brings us back to existence in its very spontaneity and as it is
livedin the moment when, lived, it escapes
every speculative formulation, perhaps all
coherence, all regularity.
Maurice Blanchot

to enjoy it, its a medium in which signicant things happen, one

after another, according to a discernible logic that ultimately
means something.
Its not surprising that Blanchots terms have frequently been
evoked in discussions of lms by Chantal Akerman (most notably in Ivone Margulies 1996 book Nothing Happens), and they are
comparably germane with regards to the notoriously evasive lms
of German lmmaker Angela Schanelec. Theres a sizeable difference, though. Whereas Akermans lms mimic our experience of
the everyday by immersing us in complete presentations of those
tasks, behaviours, and spaces that dene a milieuall concrete
representations of moving and thinking through time, in real
timeSchanelec evokes our desires for moving beyond realitys
uncertainties and banalities, arousing our curiosities about the

12

totality of an experience or a characters psychology by presenting

tives will play out, but the details are so impressionistically pre-

us with narratives that elide the details, the camera angles, or the

sented that the import of their structures is entirely diminished.

words that might deliver us to somewhere or something that is be-

Cars drive, dreams are recounted, couples glance and dine, but

yond the ordinary. Like Godard, Schanelec presents us with only

the essence of our experience is located not in concerns over what

enough narrative so that we feel our desire for narrative, and, as has

might happen next and how that will be shaped by our memory of

already been thoroughly and convincingly argued by Berlin School

whats already been shown, but rather in observations that are more

super-scholar Marco Abel, she places us in this liminal state from

elemental: noticing who is in the company of whom, the uctuating

the rst frame to the last, by obfuscating her characters attempts

degrees of pleasure and (dis)satisfaction these individuals exude as

to communicate with one another. (I dont understand, usually

a product of that company, or, most signicantly, the frustrations

uttered in response to someones earnest effort to articulate their

we might have felt when we heard something we could not see, or

inner turmoil, is almost certainly the most frequently spoken line

saw something we could not articulate.

of dialogue in her movies.)

Lest we suspect otherwise, this modus operandi is conrmed as

The depiction of characters failing to communicate, though, is

intentional in the movies self-reexive nal scene, where its two

only part of the strategy. As was evident from the very rst sequence

narratives dont so much as converge as unexpectedly and some-

of her rst feature, the 47-minute dffb graduate thesis I Stayed in

what surreally combine agents. The writer, Nadine (Schanelec), and

Berlin All Summer (1993), Schanelecs lms demonstrate her prefer-

Marias boyfriend, Louis (Tobias Lenel), meet at a cafe to discuss

ence for abstracting cinematic communication to the viewer as well,

Nadines short story (presumably the one we heard at the start of

stunting the ow of narrative information via highly selective fram-

the lm). His observations and criticisms are meant to imitate what

ing, discordant matches between sound and image, and precisely

many (especially the detractors) would probably make toward the

measured elisions of and deviations from the ostensible plot. In the

lm itself: its short, is over before one can engage with the char-

rst minutes of I Stayed in Berlin, a womans voiceover, spoken atop

acters, lacks clarity, and one can only get a sense of its purpose as

an imageless, monochromatic grey screen, describes the dispirited

opposed to fully experiencing it. (He also, amusingly, thinks it

thoughts and feelings of a woman who is stalking a man (who she

lacks editing, no doubt nodding to the lms reliance on long takes.)

may or may not know) around town. At some point shortly after the

Nadines response to his remarks is instructive: she would rather

title card shows up on that grey screen, there is a cut to a woman

her work evoke memories, and compares her aims to how one might

(acted by Schanelec) typing at a typewriter, suggesting that what

hear and love a piece of music, fondly remembering the context in

were hearing is her internal monologue as she presses these words

which she heard it and the feelings it evoked, despite perhaps hav-

to paper. That probable resolution to this initial mystery is thrown

ing forgotten the lyrics or its overall shape. Its apparent, then, that

into doubt, though, when the next cut shows us another, different

I Stayed in Berlin was meant to function as an artists statement in

woman pensively lying in bed somewhere else, the voiceoverstill

addition to being an autonomous dramatic piece in its own right,

goingnow calling out all the mundane tasks and events on the per-

and its a testament to Schanelecs commitment to the explicit and

sons to-do list. Is this woman the source of these words were hear-

implicit philosophies it presents us that we can still, more than 20

ing? Or are these words describing her story? (And if so, will we now

years later, reador rather, feelher lms in these terms.

watch this story play out, or are we picking up where the voiceover
account stops?)

In the decade-plus since she graduated from the dffba period

during which she would complete ve signicant, under-travelled

After further complicating this conundrum with an additional

features: My Sisters Good Fortune (1995), Places in Cities (1998),

set of cutawaysrst taking us back to the writer (who is now no

Passing Summer (2001), Marseille (2004), and Afternoon (2007)

longer typing but instead changing her shirt), then returning to the

Schanelec continued to assert, rene, and experiment with the

woman in bedthe voiceover drops out and gives way to a new audio

mechanisms by which she could show stories without actually tell-

track. This one, which is seemingly diegetic (at least, we now hear

ing them, and has thus been faithful to the idea that literal com-

room tone), features the voice of a man (offscreen) who is discuss-

munication is irreparably decient. These are lms in which social

ing a painting acquisition with another man (also offscreen). At the

transactions of virtually any kind are not only insufficient for for-

end of their conversation, one of them walks into the room where the

ging or maintaining connections, but can be toxic to those means

woman lies in bed (though he remains offscreen) and begins a dia-

as well. Instead of words, precisely framed actions achieve a greater

logue with her, wherein she asks him whats on the paintingthat is,

currency. Bressonisms have been evident in Schanelecs work from

asks him for an image that might animate or excite her interest into

the beginning, but, starting with Places in Cities, his hand begins to

his businessonly for him to deny her request, teasingly replying,

feel more conspicuousas a formal inuence, yes, but perhaps even

Oil paint. The man leaves while the other stays, and the woman,

more so as a tool in her toolbox, or a word in her vocabulary. This

who we learn is named Maria, announces a scheme, perhaps jokingly

is most clearly acknowledged when Places protagonist, Mimmi

but perhaps not, to steal the painting that they were just discussing.

(Sophie Aigner), expresses her love to a boy, Nicolas (Jrme

Thus, in the span of ve minutes, Schanelec introduces us to no

Robart), with whom shes just met and had a one-night stand (de-

less than three possible narrative trajectories that her lm might

picted so glancingly youd be forgiven for not realizing it even oc-

follow, all of them proposed by words and ideas spoken by people

curred), by substituting the morning afters sweet nothings for a

whose faces we either havent seen or cant be sure of, and all work-

summary of Dostoyevskys White Nights, a novel that was adapted,

ing to release us and the characters from the anti-dramatic stasis

of course, by Bresson for Quatre nuits dun rveur (1971)a lm that

depicted on the screen: a woman sitting and typing words; a woman

lends Places both its moon-kissed aesthetic and its painfully disillu-

lying in bed; and a woman changing her shirt. Two of these narra-

sioned romanticism.
13

But more than a feeling, Schanelec and Bresson share a belief in

extramarital affair. No matter, were now treated to distended re-

the opacity of their actors interior worlds as an essential compon-

hearsals of a stage play with a spare, neo-Victorian mise en scne,

ent of their procedures. Figures in the frame, devoid of a discern-

fashion shoots at a washing-machine factory, and, nally, Sophie,

ible awareness of intention or conict, are always complicated by

back in Marseille, in a police station recounting a reported mug-

their anti-hierarchical positioning with respect to any other sign

ging for investigators. Ripped from the narratives initial account

or gesture. These lms project almost nothing, making it our obli-

of a burgeoning relationship and tossed into a wilderness of activity

gation, as spectators and as subjects, to see into and through them,

we have no handle on (coincidentally, Marseille screened in Cannes

to (not) psychologize the image, so that every thought and emotion

the same year as Tropical Malady), the present reasserts itself, and

contained therein can nd its way back to us. Bresson enabled this

the primacy of interpretative thought in the face of the unknown is,

with his singular brand of shot reverse shot, emphasizing oblique

again, affirmed.

angles and the cut to signify the act of seeing that we participate in;

Consequently, details that earlier seemed innocuous become

Schanelec only further distances the viewer by doing away with shot

loaded and potentially signicant. Marseille, a city of immigrants,

reverse shot editing almost entirely. The long take reigns supreme,

traces of Mediterranean noir bubbling to the surface, strangers be-

every cut revealing to us a new image, something or some angle that

coming Others and femmes now potentially fatal. Pursuing happi-

we have not yet seen, and time becomes essential to our efforts to

ness is dangerous, and who, really, was in that car on the highway?

grasp any given shots spatial dynamics. Favouring tight, closed-in

Playing along, Schanelecs conclusion to this now-mystery invents

compositions, Schanelecs framing lets gures slip into and out of

a crime, which we never see and may have never taken place at all,

the composition, their glances often obscured either by silhouette

and hinges the fate of a woman who weve nearly forgottenthe

or precise blocking, strengthening our faith in sonic information,

lms protagonist, Sophieon an increasingly critical Q&A session

including, once again, language and communication.

with offscreen interrogators. First speaking to them in German

This account needs to also make room, though, for the other

through a translator, Sophie nally switches to French (not her na-

signature motif of her narratives: their thematic and structural

tive tongue) and becomes more lucid, yet her words more abstract.

bifurcations. These forks and parallelisms productively and often

Finally, out of nowhere, she says I want to listen to musicthe

imperceptibly work to divide our attention between two places, two

lms nal line before an endless silence, and a reprise of Schanelecs

characters or sets of characters, or two temporal realities (one of

philosophy of cinema logic that states that emotion itself can rescue

which tends to be illusory, imagined, or dreamed), and they, along

Sophie from the burden of memory (of recollection) and liberate us

with her arrival on the scene in the mid-90s, have consequently

from drowning the lm in our arbitrary explications. Instead, we

given critics an avenue to interpreting Schanelecs work as a re-

drown with Sophie in a sea of her own tears, owing for minutes

sponse or subtle polemic against Germanys reunication. That

before she is released back into the world, after which she ends the

is, that her lms embody dualities and broken relations between

movie by walkingominously, defeated, and exuding some notion

loving individuals as a kind of allegorical expression of the coun-

of dignitytoward the ocean.

trys re-conjoined psychologystill fractured from the trauma of

Two lms later, Schanelecs Orly (2010)a lm that seems to have

that initial severing, and now reeling to reassert some semblance

been taken up as the consensus pick for her weakest effortfeels

of liberation amidst the looming spectre of neoliberalism. But this

more like a schematic exercise than a major work. Eavesdropping

mode of reading Schanelecs work tends to feel specious, likely be-

on an Altman-esque assortment of disparate players, the structure

cause the narrative material is so sparse that any effort to ascribe

hops around its transitory non-place (an Orly terminal) to com-

this or that as symbolic of something or other will necessarily be

pose a breakfast sampler of undeveloped narrative excerpts that we

taking great, usually far-fetched leaps. Instead, the coupling of ele-

know from the outset will be presented as fragments. A minor mis-

ments in her lms seems purposefully designed to provoke com-

stepthough at least its instructive, a kind of state-of-the-union

parison, i.e., interpretation, as another device for dissatisfying our

address that reminds us how were meant to watch her moviesit

desires for a deeper understanding of our experiencesfor placing

was followed by a six-year hiatus (prompted by difficulties achiev-

ourselves in a closed, logical system of meaning.

ing funding for her next project), the longest gap in her career, set-

Take Marseille, in which a German woman, Sophie (Schanelec

ting the stage for her long overdue return with The Dreamed Path,

regular Maren Eggert), swaps ats with a woman in the southern

perhaps the freshest and most profoundly emotional lm that shes

French port town for reasons well never know, photographs the

ever made. In a crisp, 4:3-framed digital presentation, and featur-

city, acquires a car, and befriends a charming mechanic (Alexis

ing line deliveries and behaviours more affectless (or, if youd rather,

Loret). For the rst two reels, its the most conventional plot

more Bressonian) than usual, Schanelec not only stays true to the

Schanelec has drafted by a mile, complete with a central, clearly

aesthetic and philosophical tactics that made up the foundation of

lensed protagonist, personality traits that seem designed to earn

her work, but ups the ante on them in nearly every sense. True to

our sympathies (and, for the most part, they do), and even manifest

its title, The Dreamed Path conates reality with dream states, past

desires and hopes. Its a narrative that generates anticipation in

with present (or is it present with future?), and desire with exis-

us, for her, and thus has us looking beyond the present. Then, as if

tential dread, all producing an amorphous, exceedingly enigmatic

waking from a daze, Marseille snaps and breaks. We nd ourselves

trance lm masquerading as a puzzle lm. Puzzles t together; this

dropped somewhere in Berlin, Sophie now backgrounded, and a

does not.

new, married woman named Hanna (Marie-Lou Sellem), a the-

The tradition of depicting dream logic in art-minded lmmaking

atre actress, emerges as an object for our contemplation. Hannas

inevitably leads one back to the SurrealistsDulac, Clair, Dal,

husband, Ivan (Devid Striesow), works as a photographer, bring-

Buuel, et al.and its useful to relate the philosophies of that

ing us back to Sophie, along with vague intimations of a possible

movement to those found in Schanelec. In his quest to gain access

14

to his unconscious, Andr Breton and other heads of the movement

found the eventual resolution of dreams and reality to be the formation of an ideal, absolute reality, which he attempted to access
by automatically scribbling down, in words but also images, those
ideas and archetypes burrowed deep within us that the conscious,
thinking mind obscures. Similarly, they turned to dreams, hallucinations, and other altered states where the subconscious ascended above cognitionbeyond thought, beyond culturewhere
they believed they could glimpse some real, perhaps insane, but
nevertheless more Truth-ful and affective form of information.
To achieve this in lm, they broke away from material reality, but
usually by juxtaposing and superimposing traces from the world,
rather than distorting or abstracting it. Even when the Surrealists
deployed shock tactics (via cuts to uncannily related images), they
did so by heightening our perception of quotidian details, not by resorting to fantasy or some other immaterial ction.
If we follow this route, experiencing and understanding The
Dreamed Path becomes a far less daunting task than it may seem
on its surface, precisely because meaning can beperhaps ought
to beall but negated in favour of tuning in to its affective logic. In
the lm, were introduced to two vagabonds, a couple (Thorbjrn
Bjrnsson and Miriam Jakob), who makes ends meet by covering
doo-wop oldies like The Lion Sleeps Tonight in a parking lot,
while overhead a banner promoting Greeces forthcoming accession
into the EU aps and utters on a windy daya detail that places us
somewhere around 1981. Later, after Bjrnssons character returns
home to be with his fatally injured mother (whos suffered an accident), another temporal marker emerges: a news broadcast showing footage of eeing East German refugees scrambling to the West,
signalling that were participating in an allegorical mode of thought
that, once again, concerns structural bifurcation and reunion. The
next time we see a temporal marker, Jakob is receiving a letter
summoning her to Berlin for a traineeship at the French School in

Angela Schanelec in Afternoon

August 1989; the deliberately sustained mystery of where we are in

history is lifted, and Germanys reunication is reasserted as a key
agent in the lms network of meaning-creating signiers. This sta-

they merely become buried and repressed by the necessary partici-

bility is again almost immediately disrupted when, moments later,

pation in the present, which is at its most valuable when it precludes

accompanied by her young son, Jakob lies down in a wooded path to

recollection, allowing us to forget.

close her eyes for a rest, and the lm resets to focus on a new, as-yet-

With The Dreamed Path, then, Schanelec deploys images and

unseen cluster of characters. More minutes go by, and Schanelec

striking moments as a form of salvation from tragedy, and she

nally unveils our new temporal placement in the presenti.e., ap-

perversely does so while simultaneously levelling them against

proximately 2015by casually showing a modern taxi cab parked

repeatedly emphasized remnants from a tangible, increasingly

behind a passing Berlin tram.

painful past. Among the lms visual ideas intended to distract our

However invisible they are, these temporal leaps were taken

consciousness from contemplation: a strand of toilet paper caught

through (which may number anywhere from one to four by the

in the skirt worn by a ctional police officer (Eggert), slapping furi-

movies halfway point, and which in some way resemble the absurd-

ously in a breeze as she climbs an arid hill during a lm shoot; a

ist ellipses of Un chien andalou [1929], albeit without the courtesy

cast healing the fractured arm of a girl who mostly needs her feet

of intertitles) are foregrounded in our cognitive engagement with

to do what she loves; a young girl endearingly tonguing a disabled

the goings-on, and, in a typically non-hierarchical and democrat-

boys leg wound after he crawls out of a swimming pool; and an im-

ic fashion, become equal to every other narrative elementfrom a

probable re-emergence of a character wed long since left behind,

mans devastation after the loss of his mother and his displacement

un-aged and wearing the same clothes, receiving an interpretive

from his girlfriend, to a womans awaited return to Berlin after who

dance of physical therapy while a remix of Disclosures You & Me

knows how many years away. Time, then, beyond language, be-

plays on the soundtrack (perhaps [still] diegetically). And despite

comes the decisive medium that negotiates and complicates char-

this impressionistic turnthis indiscriminate deluge of piercing

acters emotional relations to one another, and Schanelecs avoid-

momentsSchanelec keeps our experience in check, provoking us

ance of distinguishing between now and then insures that the

to occupy a mental space where, yet again, we are inclined to think

impact of every loss, every ruptured relationship, is held in an eter-

towards a story, even as our bodies say we can (if not ought to) sur-

nal suspension. The sensations of loss and absence dont disappear;

render to its oneiric bliss, and abandon its tides of loss.

15

THE WANDERER

Eduardo Williams The Human Surge

BY LEO GOLDSMITH

From the bottom of the sea, across a city, and into the
stratosphere; from the moon, through a deserted city,
deep into the forest, and down into a hole in the Earth.
Argentinian director Eduardo Williams recent short
lmsCould See a Puma (2011) and I forgot! (2014)
follow strange trajectories both over and through
landscapes. With his newest lm and rst feature, The
Human Surge, winner of the main prize in Locarnos
Filmmakers of the Present competition, he takes us
from a dark domestic space in a ooded city across
three continents, through the networked tunnels of
an ant-hill, before emerging, nally, in the uorescent
glare of a lab for inspecting tablet computers.
Williams cinema is one of vectors: across borders,
networks, and states of being. These routes are not
simply migrations, although social, economic, and
geographical impermanence is certainly central to
his logistical mapping of his young characters lives.
Rather, Williams lms follow a system of intersect16

ing lines and pathways that carry us beyond the mundane surface of

light of a house in Buenos Aires before sending us out into what

reality to other places entirely.

seems like the aftereffects of a raging monsoon. In this rst section

While studying at Buenos Aires Universidad del Cine and then

of the lm, Williams character subsists in a hapless supermarket

Le Fresnoy, Williams rened a distinctive style across a set of in-

jobbefore, were later told, being redwhile his friends make

creasingly ambitious short lms. An early work such as Tan atentos

ends meet by half-heartedly stripping and sucking each others

(2010) focuses on extending and elaborating certain rhythms and

dicks on some kind of webcam marketplace. Its here we meet the

longueurs: afternoons spent in interstitial roadside spaces or wan-

protagonists of the lms second section in Maputo, Mozambique,

dering the aisles of a convenience store descend into evenings of

who are even more half-hearted in their efforts at online self-

hanging out, fucking around, walking, exploring. This peripatetic

display, opting instead for a more nebulous combination of office

tendency emerges right away in the wild, 360-degree panning that

work and risky migratory labour. This sort of work remains the

opens Alguien los vio (2011) and in the oating, faltering long takes

theme of the lms nal section, in which a set of uprooted characters

that make up the bulk of both lms running times. These lms

(are they lovers? strangers?) traverses a jungle in the Philippines in

convey a sense of being lostboth geographically and, maybe, emo-

search of home, a place to relax and swim, or a cyber caf.

tionallybut in his more recent lms, Williams adds the slightest

Unstructured downtime seems to ll up the cracks of the

semblance of narrative, with his characters, who are almost invar-

lms many forms of labour: webcam sex work, industrial labour,

iably cute guys in their early 20s, talking about jobs or relation-

desk-jockeying, manufacturing. And all of these types of work seem

ships or tattoos or nothing in particular. More recently still, this

to bear an ambivalent relationship to the networked digital spac-

restlessness seems to have infected the lmmaker himself: I forgot!

es that the lms characters on all continents are constantly (and

takes place entirely in Vietnam; The Human Surge rambles from

usually unsuccessfully) trying to access. The Human Surge creates

Argentina to Mozambique to the Philippines. But, ttingly, these

a sense of continuity across widely disparate places, a continuous

milieus are rendered by Williams as a set of unfolding landscapes,

unrolling of geographic space held together by an ambivalent sense

alternately distinct and alien in their local particularity and at-

of interconnectedness through technology. Characters seem root-

tened by the similarity of their socio-economic backdrops: bland

ed in particular spaces and ecologiesof media and relationships,

technocapitalism, precarious employment, or rural spaces in the

as well as of natural surroundingslending the lm that curious

process of becoming urban, if not falling back into entropy.

mix of sensations peculiar to the experience of travel: excitement,

Darkness and light, change and repetition, variation and same-

confusion, boredom, fear, uncertainty. And through its obsessive

nessThe Human Surges rst dim, grainy shot nds us in the half-

real-time attention to its characters often banal activitiesdrift17

ing imperceptibly between work and play (or hovering somewhere

sire to remain, as it were, in the dark, is the key to the lms subterra-

between both simultaneously), as well as its indiscriminate cross-

nean pull. In a sense, The Human Surge offers as a possibility for cin-

ing of borders and mixing of languagesthe lm maps a diffused

ema a true sense of being lost, not just through the by-now common

landscape of contemporary precarity, one thats both physical and

use of improvisation and non-professional actors, nor through an

virtual, hyperconnected yet fragmentary.

over-investment in contingency (much less the real), but as a kind

Even the lms cinematography takes up this notion of migra-

of principle that guides both the experience of making lms and the

tion in its play with formats. Williams and his cinematographers

experience of watching them. There is a high degree of uncertainty in

Joaquin Neira and Julien Guillery have lmed each section with

even the most basic components of Williams process. For some of his

distinctand distinctly hybridmoving-image technologies: for

recent lms, for example, he has deliberately worked in places where

the rst section, Super 16mm; the second, shot using a Black Magic

he didnt speak the language (Vietnam for I forgot!, for example), only

camera, then lmed off a monitor in Super 16mm; and the third,

translating the dialogue much later during editing.

simply RED digital video. Uncertainty and obscurity is thus built

The Human Surge, in its transit between languages and cultures,

into the very colour and texture of the images, which shift imper-

offers its performers a similar freedomthough of course Williams

ceptibly from the concrete to the oneiric, pivoting between the

retains the right to shape and rearrange the characters words dur-

articial and the organic, the pixel and the grain, the uid and the

ing editing. Still, this sense of openness to misdirection, this sense

rigid. This sense of the indistinct and the opaque seems to infect

of searching and maybe not quite nding, leaves its mark on the

the lms cinematography as well. Images are forever plagued by a

lms unsteady rhythms. Even the lms emphasis on groups rather

curious haziness: gures are often difficult to discern, and, even in

than individuals utterly scrambles any notion of a clear narrative

full light, characters complain of the heat while swimming about in

arc. Always decentralized and unxed, Williams structure ensures

what seems like a permanent dusk. The colour palette shifts from

that the precise contours of each relationship or sense of causality

grainy blacks to dim blues and oranges, as if the world has descend-

indeed, even a straightforward idea of whos who and whats exactly

ed into a permanent shadow, only occasionally pierced by the glar-

going on at any given momentremain ambiguous, and often liter-

ing illumination of a laptop or mobile screen.

ally hard to see. Situations develop, but often come to no apparent

And this shifting sensibility is, of course, intrinsic to the cam-

climax. Conversations lead nowhere, play out on one end of a cell-

eras relationship with the characters, as well: always roaming,

phone (HiWhats up?I dont knowMaybeYesOK), or lurch

deliriously unstable, and unabashedly imperfect. If 21st-century

forward in short aphoristic spurts. One character offers this, seem-

cinema effectively began with a camera oating dreamily after Shu

ingly just to himself: I wanted to say somethingbut then I lost

Qi along a uorescent-lit Taiwanese overpass at the start of Hou

track of my own thoughts. Sometimes I allow some words to carry

Hsiao-hsiens Millennium Mambo (2001), or with the Steadicam u-

me far away and I end up in the exact same place where I got lost.

idity of similar shots of the back of characters heads in lms by the

One could, I suppose, read into this sense of being lost a kind of

Dardenne brothers, The Human Surge seems to offer an important

critique of contemporary lifeof a world destabilized by the ravages

update, multiplying its wayward pathways and unmoored charac-

of technology, its inhabitants always living in isolation from one an-

ters, randomizing their points of intersection, and permanently

other. And, indeed, the lm dangles such possible interpretations,

detaching the camera from its place of stability and control. The

with its implication of a future much like the sterilized and bright-

wobbly, handheld indeterminacy of these shots gives them a rather

ly lit computer lab we see at the lms end, and through occasional

different expressive function: generating an ever-unfolding mise en

comments about a future in which, as one character augurs, silence

scne, a kind of worlding around the protagonist that subverts the

will sound like a crowded food court. But these concerns dont quite

traditional sense of the usually implied authorial position. Were

approach what Williams seems to be getting at; his lmmaking is

not even sure, for much of The Human Surges running time, wheth-

far too slippery for this. Rather than placing their subjects in a par-

er we are looking at characters or subjects: though presumably a

ticular social space or critical framework, Williams lms instead

ctional narrative, the physical and psychological triangulation be-

tend to locate their subjects in a kind of atmosphere, even a kind of

tween camera, cameraperson, and subject suggests the voyeurism

ecologyof relationships to other humans and other species, and

of documentary. Random passers-by inquisitively gaze back into

to technologies and to landscapes. This is perhaps why The Human

the lens in street scenes as if puzzling over the same questions: Who

Surge expends so much time leading us through so many of them:

are you and what are you looking at? We are always shadowing the

domestic spaces and economic zones, elds and forests, basements

characters as if were one of them, lingering behind them as they

and communications cableseven, in a surprising set of dissolves,

traverse their respective landscapes. Pasolinis notion of the free

seemingly all the way through the centre of the Earth.

indirect discourse of the cinemathe sense that the camera takes

Nature is a kind of technology, Williams has said, and in this

up an ambiguous point of view between rst and third-person per-

sense the lm regards the world as a series of networks, its elements

spectivesreturns in The Human Surge as the permanent condition

as so many media. Roots and underground passageways connect

of an era in which ubiquitous media and 24-hour visibility are none-

spaces in the same way as bre optics and mobile networks; air,

theless no guarantee that one will ever be seen.

earth, and urine are as much media as electricity and the cinema

In an interview for MUBIS Notebook, Williams said: This type

itself. This surge, thenoffered so boldly by the lms title, but

of image can also create the sensation of not knowing where you are

somehow submerged in the lms laconic tempomight be less sin-

supposed to look and at the same time can attract you by the constant

gularly human and more general, more difficult to properly catego-

movement that creates a melody between surprise, variation, and

rize. In Williams lm, this pulse of energy is everywhere, running

connection of different spaces and bodies. And, indeed, this dance

through and between all of the subjects: human, animal, material,

between confusion and seduction, between a desire to know and a de-

ambient, and machinic.

18

It could have been another quiet day in the country, but it wasnt
meant to be: Shiota Akihikos Wet Woman in the Wind starts with
an idyllic shot of a forest glade dappled with sunlight, the only
hint at the absurd convolutions to come being a chair positioned
incongruously at the edge of an unpaved crossing. On closer inspection, that chair is surrounded by a tiny pile of debris, slyly anticipating the human otsam to be observed in the next 77 minutesstarting with formerly respected Tokyo playwright Kosuke
(Nagaoka Tasuku), whom failure and excessive sexual promiscuity has driven to the countryside for self-reection. Coming
around the corner, cart in tow, he picks up the chair, to be added
to the eclectic collection of items adorning his makeshift isolated
country home.
Next, reading a book on a pier by the water, Kosuke is distracted by a woman bicycling through the industrial port landscape
and right into the water, her bike toppling over. Unfazed, Shiori
(Mamiya Yuki) steps out next to him, casually pulls off her wet
T-shirt to wring it out, and strikes up a one-sided conversation,
ignoring Kosukes helpless irritation about this breast-baring in-

WEAPON OF FLESH
Shiota Akihikos Wet Woman in the
Wind and the Return of Roman Porno

truder: You live here? I have nowhere to go. At this pointthe

credits have started runningKosuke simply tries to walk out

BY CHRISTOPH HUBER

on the situation. Too late. You think you can escape me, but you
cant, Shiori says, neatly summing up her purposeful escalation
plan for the brief runtime of Shiotas funny and light-hearted but
also deeply felt movie, whose motto might be the sentence emblazoned (in English) on the T-shirt Shiori has slipped out of so naturally: YOU NEED TISSUES FOR YOUR ISSUES.
This is the perfect opening for a lm that leads off a reboot of
the venerated tradition of Nikkatsus Roman Porno line, a special
strand of sex lms the major Japanese studio focused on from
1971 onwards. Television had conquered the Japanese market,
and the beleaguered cinema companies had to branch out, relying on exhibition and real-estate deals. The solution, to bet on
comparably cheap and protable lms in the so-called eroduction business, proved revelatory. Many commentators claim the
19

Left, top, and far right: Wet Woman in the Wind

Right: Lovers Are Wet

invention of Roman Porno saved not only Nikkatsu, but the entire

Clearly a cinephile aware of the Roman Porno tradition, Shiota

Japanese lm industry from imminent disaster. Forty-ve years

conceived Wet Woman in the Wind as a heartfelt tribute to some of

later, the protability of movies (at least as cinema goods) is ever

its nest hours, while shaping the material according to personal

more in question, while the internet has made access to moving sex

proclivities. After the lm was justiably selected for this years

imagery of all types not just easier, but basically allows you to en-

Locarno competition, the lmmaker put this into (historical) per-

joy it for free, following any whim. Yet some of the best lms in the

spective: In the beginning, the power of the police was frequently

world are still regularly made by Japanese directors specializing in

brought to bear against Roman Porno lms. Accusations of obscen-

sex lms (for instance, Sato Hisayasu or Zeze Takahisa).

ity were leveled against their cinematic expressions, resulting in a

In 1988, Nikkatsus Roman Porno line was shut down quickly

long-running legal battle. The public were not entirely accepting of

and unceremoniously, its mode of production made obsolete by the

these so-called adult movies either. In fact, when I sought permis-

emerging adult home-video market. The end of continuous produc-

sion for the usage of a certain piece of music in Wet Woman in the

tion, coupled with a few other bad business decisions (including in-

Wind, I was told: It could never be used in such an antisocial and

vestments in overrated golf courses), led to the prestigious Japanese

vulgar lm. The treatment I received was belittling and insulting.

company ling for bankruptcy in 1993, to be resurrected three

Nevertheless, I am deeply moved that my antisocial and vulgar

years later as a subdivision of electronic games giant Namcoan

new lm will be screened at the prestigious Locarno International

acquisition exemplifying the still-current state of movies on the ra-

Film Festival, because it represents the festivals positive recogni-

dar of popular entertainment in general. Completely restructured,

tion of not only Wet Woman in the Wind, but also the cumulative his-

todays Nikkatsu nevertheless can consider its back catalogue of

tory of Roman Porno itself.

Roman Porno productions a major asset in the international mar-

Case in point: Locarnos Histoire(s) du cinema special sidebar

ketplace, surely boosting their decision to revamp the Roman Porno

screening of a Roman Porno classic accompanying Shiotas reimagi-

label for the second time, after a two-shot in 2010.

nation, Lovers Are Wet (a.k.a. Twisted Path of Love), made in 1973 by

Five directors have been assigned to work in the old house style:

genre god Kumashiro Tatsumi, is indeed the ideal companion choice,

write and shoot in less than two weeks, aspire to a length of un-

not only vindicated by Shiotas own enthusiastic response: It is one

der 80 minutes, and work with complete freedom so long as the

of my favourite lms in the Nikkatsu Roman Porno canon, as well as

sex keeps coming on a regular basis, the traditional rule of thumb

among Kumashiros works. This movie taught me that the bodies of

being at least once per reel. Apart from Sono Sion (established as

actors, and their movements, can create eeting cinematic miracles.

one of Japans leading risqu lmmakers on the festival circuit as

Once seen, it can never be forgotten, and in my opinion, it is one of

well as in popular fan circles) and Nakata Hideo, famous for The

the best possible works to demonstrate the amazingly high quality of

Ring (1998) and other horror hits (though truly overqualied for

Nikkatsu Roman Porno to the international lm community.

the Roman Porno revival given his history: he started out as an as-

To fully appreciate Shiotas achievement, a look at the Roman

sistant at Nikkatsu back in the day, working closely with director

Porno canon (and Kumashiros choice contributions) is in order.

Konuma Masaru, one of the movements leading lights and subject

The term itself is usually cited as an abbreviation of romantic por-

of Nakatas 2000 docu-tribute Sadistic and Masochistic), the quintet

no, though some scholars say it derives from the French roman

consists of Shiraishi Kazuya (The Devils Path, 2013), Yukisada Isao

pornographique, a more betting etymology when one actually

(Go, 2001), and, luckily, Shiota.

looks at most Roman Porno outputnot least that of Kumashiro,

20

both a typical and a very special case. Tellingly, despite consid-

of modestly budgeted sex lms that offered a bit more runtime and

erable critical acclaim, Kumashiro is brushed aside with a half-

decidedly higher production values than their indie pink compet-

sentence in Donald Richies revised version of A Hundred Years of

itors could afford, usually around 7.5 million yen (about $75,000

Japanese Cinema, where he is branded as a director with literary

US, twice as much as a normal pink lm), with much-touted all-

pretensions seemingly adrift in an endless sea of movies whose

colour deluxe widescreen treatment. Other studios briey jumped

only goal was titillationan accusation bandied about since the

the bandwagon (like Toei coining its Pinky Violence line) but

Japanese production of pinku eiga or pink (soft-core sex) lms came

Nikkatsu had the most lasting impact, with more than 700 lms (ac-

into its own in the 60s, inspired by US sexploitation.

cording to Jasper Sharp; others claim a four-digit gure) produced

The major breakthrough was Flesh Market (1962) by Kobayashi

in-house during Roman Pornos 17-year reign.

Satoru, whose pioneering pink work was to be buttressed by what

Usually shown on triple bills in Nikkatsus own theatre chains,

some sources claim to be 400 more lms in the eld, making him

a pink night out would consist of two echt Roman Pornos plus one

one of the most prolic directors in an already industrious lm

independent pick-up. Thus, the series was launched officially on

nation. More controversy surrounded Daydream (1964) by noted

November 20, 1971 by Nishimura Shogoros Apartment Wife: Affair

Kabuki theatre director Takechi Tetsuji, a black sex comedy about

in the Afternoon, though it shared the double-bill spotlight with

an artists erotic visions under anesthesia in a dentists office, dis-

Hayashi Isaos Castle Orgies (a.k.a. Eros Schedule Book: Concubine

tributed by a major studio (Shochiku). One controversial shot con-

Secrets), both inaugurating long-running Roman Porno cycles. (The

taining an offensive glimpse of pubic hair caused the intervention

Apartment Wife series about the sex life of working-class people

of government censors, leading to obscuration by a fuzzy white

tallied 21 record-breaking lms up to 1979, while Hayashis opus

dotthe precedent for the fogging common in Japanese erotic

spawned eight Edo period-set Eros Schedule Book eroductions.)

cinema. Even more outrageous, as Japanese critic Sato Tadao not-

Aided by well-trained crews used to Nikkatsus conveyor-belt out-

ed, Takechis follow-up Black Snow (1965) used sex to make a politi-

put, technical quality was upheld valiantly, mostly by former as-

cal statement, resulting in a high-prole obscenity trial against the

sistant directors now fully promoted, like Nishimura, who by the

director that qualied as a major battle between the nations intelli-

early 60s had already assisted Suzuki Seijun, Nakahira Ko, and

gentsia and establishment.

Kurahara Koreyoshi, who himself contributed to Roman Porno

Takechi won the lawsuit, and the publicity surrounding the trial

with Sunset, Sunrise (1973). Next to Kumashirowho had actually

helped to pave the way for a pink-movie boom, with major gures

debuted as a legit director in 1968 with Front Row Life (a.k.a. Life

like Wakamatsu Koji (just having quit Nikkatsu to establish his

of a Striptease Love), but failed and subsequently retreated to come

own company) specializing in a more potent mixing of sex, vio-

into his own with the Roman Porno genresome of the most nota-

lence, and politics, while Mukai Kan pioneered a soon-dominant

ble mainstays in this eld include Tanaka Noburo (former assistant

S&M soft-core subdivision in lms like Sexy Partners (a.k.a. Lustful

to, among others, Imamura Shohei), Sone Chusei (the most noted

Companions, 1967). The unexpected successes of pinku eiga, which

Suzuki disciple), Kato Akira (fresh off assisting Yamamoto Satsuo),

had been mostly an independent affair for its rst decade, provided

and Fujita Toshiya (another Kurahara assistant, who characteristi-

a business model for the majors when Nikkatsu seized on the Roman

cally alternated Roman Pornos with action, coming off Nikkatsus

Porno idea, parlaying its assembly-line production of action and

Stray Cat Rock series and triumphing with his Lady Snowblood clas-

other genres in the 60s into a steady stream (roughly six per month)

sics in between).
21

No assistance was needed to provoke another censorship scan-

tard impulses, Roman Porno was not averse to art, not to mention

dal. The ban of Yamaguchi Seiichiros Love Hunter (1973) led to a

progressive ideas, especially about women. Tanaka Noburos richer

long-winded obscenity trial that was a major source of inspiration

Nikkatsu production A Woman Called Abe Sada (1975) easily holds

for Kumashiro, even as Yamaguchi unmistakably had dramatized

its own against Oshima Nagisas more famous (certainly in the

his own situation in Love Hunter: Desire (1973) before he was called

West) version of the story, In the Realm of the Senses (1976); Tanakas

into court, emerging vindicated in 1978 (or 1980, if you count the

polyphonic, passionate, and touching treatment contrasts sharply

prosecutions futile appeal), at which point hundreds of Roman

with Oshimas hardcore illustration of the death drive, and both

Pornos and the allure of the scandal had long since turned the tide.

were equally acclaimed by critics at home. Still, no Roman Porno

By then, Konuma had successfully initiated an S&M cycle (strongly

director made the celebrated Kinema Junpo top ten list as often as

connected to novelist Dan Oniroku) with Flower and Snake (1974),

Kumashiro, whose The World of Geisha (1973) was even hailed as a

while Sone perfected the Angel Guts formula following the man-

great movie by Franois Truffaut: The acting is perfect, and the

ga work of Ishii Takashi. Hasebe Yasuharu translated his action

lm is humorous. In its praise for female beauty and derision for

proclivities into controversial Violent Pink terms with his mid-

male stupidity lies the generous spirit of Jean Renoir.

to-late 70s Rape!-fests, twisted by heirs like Kurosawa Naosuke

Although Kumashiro was established, also amongst critics, as

(Zoom In: Rape Apartments, 1980) and Yamashiro Shingo (Female

the King of Roman Porno almost within a year, J. Hoberman still

Cats, 1983) into stylized perversions. Ritually compared to Dario

couldnt help noting Kumashiro was unmentioned in any major

Argento in the West, the whole development was emblematic of the

English-language history of Japanese cinema on the occasion of a

ero-horror overlap that peaked during the decade.

belated New York retrospective by the Japan Society in 2001, while

In many peoples minds Roman Porno is very artistic, noted

plausibly comparing the directors mix of formal sophistication

Nakata Hideo when recalling his apprenticeship days for Tom Mes

and crudely telegraphed emotions, as well as dark humor, political

and Jasper Sharps The Midnight Eye Guide to Japanese Film, but

backbeat, and skilled deployment of limited resources to similarly

in reality, I was treated almost like a slave. We worked for very long

prolic lmmakers like Sam Fuller and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

hours with a low budget, shooting a 60- [to] 70-minute-long fea-

The digital age has since ameliorated the lack somewhat, allowing

ture lm in just seven or eight days, and we often didnt sleep for 36

for a more ne-grained appreciation of Kumashiros uniqueness.

hours or so. It was a very hard, tough job. Sometimes we had to shoot

His breakthrough hit Ichijos Wet Lust (a.k.a. Following Desire, 1972),

in the crowds, so we had to hide the camera. Yet for all its rich and

starring famous stripper Sayuri Ichijo as herself, naturally perform-

diverse (and often quite beautiful) genre brutalizations and bas-

ing her notorious routines, established key themesamongst other

explore

Newly restored Blu-ray and DVD special editions

from The Criterion Collection
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Pans Labyrinth Boyhood
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum Cat People The Executioner
Blood Simple Valley of the Dolls Dekalog
www.criterion.com

22

things, celebrating freedom of expression by basically ejaculating

into the face of censorship. In addition to Lovers Are Wet, Kumashiro
would go on to do hilarious things with shape-shifting black bars
and other inventive things to taunt the mandated hiding of genital
areas usually accomplished via strategic blocking.

Simultaneously, Ichijos Wet Lust also celebrates female physical

desire and physicality, but Kumashiro typically couples emotional
highs with detachment, repeatedly asserted in disillusioned portrayals of a sex trade that (like the censors, Kumashiro pointedly stresses) turns the same women into objects, as in Street of Joy
(1973), a correlative to Mizoguchi Kenjis Street of Shame (1956).
Superbly condensing the Marquis de Sades roman pornographique
epic Justine into the Roman Porno Woods Are Wet: Woman Hell
(1973), Kumashiro makes his critique of power most manifest, not
least in a perverted sex murderers accusation: What you accept as
ethical is contrived by those in authority so they can control people. Yet for all its profound darkness, Woods Are Wet also attests
to Kumashiros playful side, as in another unforgettable bit of dialogue about sexual transcendence: Like a donkey fucking a hippopotamus. Kumashiros Black Rose Ascension (1975) is predicated
purely on pitch-black pinku self-satire (though the resident Roman
Porno director is modelled after Oshima), and The Woman with
Red Hair (1979), a fted, impressive-depressive study of sexually
triggered responses, sees the protagonist singing to his own penis.
Kumashiros near-remake Die Frau mit dem Roten Hut (translating as The Woman with the Red Hat, 1984) channels its own brand
of absurdity simply by being transposed to Bavaria via a GermanWakamatsu co-production.
Although Kumashiro was inclined towards literaturehe tackled the Divine Marquis as well as major Japanese writers (in 1974
alone both Tanizaki Junichiros oft-lmed The Key for Nikkatsu
and Bitterness of Youth, after Ishikawa Tatsuzo, for Toho)he
was an instinctively cinematic creature, preferring an intense
handheld-camera style with Brechtian interpunctuations. These
structural gambits play off against an appreciation of his actors
seemingly unadorned physical and performative investment, celebrated in extended takes: for example, Oh! Women: A Dirty Song
(1981) features singer Uchida Yuya as an asshole would-be rock
star who could be the Japanese twin of Rip Torns abusive and selfdestructive country singer in Daryl Dukes Payday (1973). Like a
Rolling Stone (1993), Kumashiros swan song after years of declining
health and increasingly sporadic production, still sticks in the brain
decades later as one long body-mind trip of yakuza stabbing and
compulsive cleaning. Whereas Kumashiros women mostly manage
to channel a life force, these men, like the overwhelmed guy meeting The Woman with Red Hair and the self-denying anti-hero of
Lovers Are Wet, gravitate towards destruction and dissolution, the
latter moving from a mishap involving lm cans, setting up cinema
as ironic contrast to (and insightful comment on) life, to possibly
ending up literally dead in the water, stabbed in the back, and skiddingwoman in towinto the sea on his bike.
Which brings us back to the beginning of Wet Woman in the Wind,
whose rst landscape shot already plays like a Kumashiro homage.
Shiota channels his predecessor in theme, content and, occasionally, form, but registers bitter insights in a completely different, resolutely upbeat register. Retired artist Kosuke has ed to the countryside like the protagonist of Lovers Are Wet, and is also reminiscent

of the self-indulgent rocker in Oh! Women: A Dirty Song, which even

contains a phone call (during sex) which Shiota mirrors in a tonguein-cheek reverse angle. Given to intellectual pretensions, not least
about himself, Kosuke recedes into his ivory tower while wild
wolves howl outsidea reminder of the real world both ominous
and funny, as Shiori keeps calling herself a dog, emphasizing the
pleasure aspect of (wo)mans animalistic side. The artist demands
solitude to think deeply, while Shiori keeps re-intruding in ever
more comical and excessive ways, until Kosuke has no choice but
to relent. To give out more details would mean to spoil some of the
lms nest surprisesoften coming via sly juxtapositions with or
complications caused by sharply characterized supporting playersnot to mention curtailing some of its best gags, all delivered
in a uent yet slightly nervous tone, bolstered by Kida Shunsukes
percussive jazzy score.
This is quite a surprise from Shiota, who, like classic Roman Porno
directors, was rst noticed as an assistant, on Kurosawa Kiyoshis
rst (pink) features in 1983 and 1985. At Rikkyo University, where
Shiota studied screenwriting under Yamatoya Atsushi (who wrote
many Roman Porno scenarios), he met Kurosawa, and together they
embarked on 8mm lm experiments and were regulars at the lm
club. Sam Peckinpah, Robert Aldrich, and Don Siegel were directors that Id admired as the gods of movies since I was in elementary
school, Shiota told interviewer Johnny Ray Huston. My respect
for them isnt a result of meeting Kurosawa Kiyoshi and being inuenced by him; rather, we became collaborators because we shared
a passion for the same type of lms. Apart from Richard Fleischer
and Joseph Losey, Shiota also cites Russian Vitaly Kanevsky as an
inuence on his early work dealing with youthful protagonists,
like Moonlight Whispers (1999), which rethinks droll manga-style
romance through sadomasochistic pleasure, and the tightly controlled alienation study Harmful Insect (2002), a major festival
breakthrough. After that, Shiota consciously embarked on bigger
commercial fare, including a fantasy action blockbuster drawn from
Tezuka Osamus manga series; Dororo (2007) was popular, but the
clearly intended sequels never came.
The opportunity to tackle other challenges has clearly come back
with Wet Woman in the Wind, its adult, always amusing battle of attraction and repulsion played out in ever more hilarious variations,
from Kumashiro-like songs through deadpan dialogue (notably
with a totally badass surfer) or puzzling and curious cuckold interludes to the choreographed chair ght. Of course, this includes
ever wilder sex, habitually practiced even while working, phoning,
or eatingit becomes the art of life. (If making delectable coffee is
art, then is having delectable sex an art too? Shiori teases her boss
early on, with predictable results.) Meanwhile, the supposed soulbalm of cultured art is profoundly ridiculed via acting advice, especially concerning amateur attempts to stage a Kosuke play, whereas
the bad poetry passionately recited by an ordinary workman sees
him rewarded with one of the sweetest payoffs in recent cinema.
Unlike love, delectable coffee, or delectable sex, false art remains
powerless in the face of an escalation process whose punning literalness in the resolution comes off as surprisingly liberating rather
than heavy-handed: the director gets fucked (hopefully repeatedly)
while awesome sex brings down the (makeshift) house. The wild
wolves may still howl outside, but the power of sexuality can set you
free. For a moment, that is.
23

Where the Chocolate Mountains

THE
HILLS HAVE EYES
Pat ONeills Where the
Chocolate Mountains

With its reputation as an all but unbroken atland, one tends to forget that Los Angeles is surrounded almost entirely by mountains.
Extend outward into the deserts of Greater Los Angeles and the
number of mountain ranges on record increases as exponentially
as the heat index. Images of Los Angeles, particularly those lmed
by Hollywood, may be known for their shape-shifting ability to assume characteristics of other municipalities, but theres no mistaking the regions larger topographical thumbprint. That mountains
gure prominently in the work of Pat ONeill, whos been making
experimental lms in, around, and about Los Angeles for over half
a century, should come as no surprisehe remains perhaps the
greatest and most prolic chronicler of the American Southwest the

BY JORDAN CRONK

city has ever produced. From pictorial motif to thematic talisman,

the mountains of Southern California hold a near-spiritual signicance in ONeills oeuvre. It makes sense that hed someday make a
lm concerning one of the regions true geologic enigmas.
The Chocolate Mountains stretch in a southeast direction across
the Colorado Desert, straddling the divide between Imperial and
Riverside counties, forming in turn the northeast bounder of the
Salton Trough. This 60-mile region, almost totally closed off to the
public, is home to the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range,
a 50-mile clearing utilized by the US Navy and Marines to test
aerial bombing and weapons technology. So it goes that Where the
Chocolate Mountains, ONeills rst feature in over a decade, is not
a lm about its eponymous locale, per se, but a lm about the idea
of the Chocolate Mountains; most viewers are likely unaware that
these particular mountains even exist. It therefore matters little
that at no point in ONeills lm do the Chocolate Mountains actually appeartheyre as much a structuring absence as a thematic
lodestar, a device through which to mentally coordinate the viewers
imagination. Indeed, enough can be gleaned from ONeills dense,
multivalent compositions (achieved through various superimposition and digital animation effects) and sound designer George
Lockwoods chilling, disorienting sound mix to convey an image of

24

the mountains as something inhospitable and potentially hazardous. One need not be privy to the lands covert military operations
to gather that over the hills something sinister is likely transpiring.
A noted photographer and visual artist, ONeill began studying
lm as a graduate student in the early 60s at UCLA, where he built
his own optical printers while experimenting with various forms
of artisanal animation. His early short, 7362 (1967), a psychedelic
animation made with a contact printer and the high contrast, fourdigit lm stock of the same name, is steeped in the tradition of
visual music, a lineage that local forebears Oskar Fischinger and
brothers John and James Whitney had helped establish and to which
ONeill quickly added a signature all his own. He would spend much
of the 70s teaching at the then-recently founded CalArts, during
which time he would produce a series of seminal 16mm works by exploiting the untapped potential of optical-printing technology. Its
here where many of ONeills unique aesthetic and thematic traits
can rst be glimpsed. To his rudimentary animations, ONeill was
now adding original footageoften of various rural and urban Los
Angeles locationsstate-of-the-art visual effects, and, in ever increasing fashion, repurposed excerpts from anonymous industrial
lms, B movies, and classic Hollywood features, pioneering a new
kind of hybrid cinema combining landscape photography, archival
nonction, and elements of the surrealist avant-garde.
This amalgamation of interests places ONeill rmly within
the sect of expanded cinemaand, more precisely, within what

Top: Trouble in the Image

Bottom: Sidewinders Delta

Gene Youngblood termed synaesthetic cinema, in which divergent forms entwine with holistic force, prompting an extrasensory
conception of the moving image. What unites such seemingly volatile constituents is, in ONeills case, a singular sense of rhythm,
space, and structure: many of these lms are constructed as quasicompendiums, in which specic themes, techniques, and settings
are utilized as organizational agents, lending a sense of harmony
to each piece. Saugus Series (1974) uses its handful of repeated elements (ink, ngers, water, leaves) to string together seven numerical episodes of natural wonder before culminating in a kaleidoscop-

25

ic swarm of dancing colour formations. Drawing on the iconography

ONeills most celebrated lm, the 35mm feature Water and Power

of the western, Sidewinders Delta (1976) submits a succession of

(1989), takes as its theme the shrouded history of Los Angelesmu-

arid desert landscapes to an array of superimposition and matte ef-

nicipal development and mobilizes a kind of moving-image diorama

fects. Perhaps its most celebrated sequence is a time-lapse shot of a

composed of urban and desert landscape portraiture, domestic inte-

storm-riddled Sierra Nevada over which ONeill lays a nondescript,

riors, found footage, staged enactments (often performed by ONeill

semi-transparent building; the movement in the frame quickly be-

himself), and visual and aural cues sourced from classic genre lms.

gins to defy the laws of physics as clouds and background elements

In addition to its implicit kinship with Polanskis Chinatown (1974),

remain visible through the structure while moving vehicles disap-

an unmistakable reference point, the lm refashions scenes and

pear behind its porous facade.

dialogue from von Sternbergs The Last Command and The Docks

Densely layered compositions become the de facto subject of

of New York (both 1928), DeMilles The Ten Commandments (1956),

Foregrounds (1978), which utilizes, amongst other things, win-

and, most extensively, Edgar G. Ulmers Detour (1945). Ulmers lm

dow frames, rock formations, and suburban architecture as solid

provides Water and Power with a vaguely explicated infrastructure

representational objects around (and through) which to situate

built around a suggested suicide and a subsequent police investiga-

additional planes of movement, light, and shadow. The lm ends

tion that takes the lm from the city to the valley and back again.

with a shot of 35mm celluloid draped over a tree branch, its indi-

(Many of these associations are illustrated via voiceover passages

vidual frames animated by ONeill as if spooling through a pro-

lifted from Ulmers lm, though ONeill has written of the more

jector. Following a quick cut, were transported into the scene wed

spiritual correspondences between the two works as well.)

previously been watching unfold in miniature; captured from the

As ever, ONeills aims are decidedly non-narrative, but theres an

passenger seat of a moving car, the shot travels swiftly along the

abiding logic and thematic accord to Water and Power, as there is to

Santa Monica coastline, with palm trees cascading across a mono-

much of the lmmakers mature work, that speaks to a sense of pro-

chromatic horizon. In his book The Most Typical Avant-Garde:

grammatic design inherited from the Hollywood tradition. (It was

History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles, David

also, crucially, his rst collaboration with longtime sound designer

James astutely notes the similarity between this shot of the dan-

George Lockwood, whose expressive and detailed mixes are as com-

gling lm strip and the image of a clock folded over a barren branch

plex and ingratiating as ONeills visual composites.) Emerging and

in Salvador Dals The Persistence of Memory, further underscoring

receding as if culled from the citys collective unconscious, these

these lmsconnection with Surrealism and the temporal and tex-

snippets of scenes and conversations propose discrete dramas that

tural complexion of pre-war visual arts. In short order ONeill had

never fully take hold, but together advance a speculative dialectic

established a distinct aesthetic personality, one whose sensibili-

that nds further articulation via ONeills intricate montage. Here

tiescultivated from an abiding interest in numerous intersecting

the time-lapse and step-printing effects are more nuanced (antici-

disciplinescontinued to nd new expression through the spirit of

pating the temporal consolidations of Peter Bo Rappmund, whose

his surroundings, and vice versa.

Psychohydrography [2010] is a direct descendent), the impositions

While such inuences persist in ONeills workin an artist

more uid, the juxtapositions more legible, the lms city-desert

statement for Where the Chocolate Mountains, he reiterates that his

dichotomy rendered in lyrical passages reecting both the accel-

lms are an attempt to open up a space between the quotidian and

erated rate of industrialization as well as cinemas role in shaping

the incrediblehe soon began to look to the medium itself, and to

memory even as it remakes history in its own image.

Hollywood in particular, for inspiration. Concurrent with his own

Water and Powers genre intimations have since emerged as a

output in the 70s, ONeill lent his special-effects skills to a num-

primary facet of ONeills two subsequent long-form 35mm works,

ber of independent lmmakers (including Melvin Van Peebles, as

Trouble in the Image (1996) and The Decay of Fiction (2002), their

well as several aspiring African American directors studying at

engagement with classical forms paradoxically pushing the artist

UCLA, a movement of artists now known as the L.A. Rebellion),

further aeld. The former, a kind of anthology lm comprised of al-

before moving into the industry at large with commissioned work

most two decades worth of accumulated materials and primitive

on such lms as The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Return of the Jedi

animations, coordinates its montage around ample western imagery

(1983), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), and Felix the Cat:

and recurring footage of a large-scale studio production. The latter, a

The Movie (1988). This initial brush with mainstream lmmaking

feature-length noir lmed in and around Los AngelesAmbassador

appears to have held practical as well as creative interest for ONeill,

Hotel, is not simply an homage to but a full-on reanimation of a

who, like many local experimental lmmakers of the era, nanced

once-vibrant setting. (In addition to hosting a number of early

his personal projects through the supplemental income earned

Academy Awards ceremonies, it was also the site of Robert Kennedys

from his studio work. But just as important was the unconscious

assassination in 1968.) Working for the rst time with profession-

inundation of popular imagery upon ONeills imagination, and his

al actors, ONeill lmed original scenes sourced from the lexicon of

exposure to the narrative and stylistic economies that character-

vintage crime melodramas and superimposed the black-and-white

ize Hollywood cinema. ONeills work has henceforth been dened

footage atop newly shot colour sequences of the Ambassadors va-

by its relationship to the multi-billion dollar industry founded just

cant corridors, in effect repopulating the hotel with ghosts of its sto-

over the hills from the modest Laurel Canyon home where the artist

ried past. In a similar fashion to the reappropriated clips in his prior

then resided. Already nascent in the material and geographic char-

lms, we only catch tantalizing glimpses of the lives of these glam-

acter of his early lms, this prolonged deconstruction of Hollywood

orous individuals as the camera tracks by open doors, down endless

iconography and archetypes has since resulted in a number of am-

hallways, through ornate ballrooms, and across the dining room of

bitious works, each one a ghostly simulacra of the commercial mod-

the famed Coconut Grove nightclub, conversations wafting gently

el and its capacity for dramatic intrigue.

through the air and swiftly into the recesses of history.

26

Where the Chocolate Mountains

In many ways The Decay of Fiction represents the logical conclu-

ing the path to the mountains from the city to the desert, with eerily

sion of ONeills extended fascination with Hollywood lore and the

chromatic images of the Los Angeles River basin (shades of Water

mechanics of storytelling. An equally uncanny late-career triumph

and Power), the multiple interlocking highways snaking forth from

for the now 77-year-old maverick, Where the Chocolate Mountains

the hub of downtown, and the industrial outskirts of the city leading

ventures not into the past, but into the unknown, re-employing a

into the less dened expanses of Pasadena and Riverside County.

more abstract aesthetic palette with aims at conjuring the spirit

Individual frames are often mirrored and bisected, with prismatic

(rather than simply an image) of the ineffable. Its also ONeills rst

images of esh and ONeills naked body forging a corporeal dimen-

entirely digital work, and as such stands not as a culmination of a

sion amidst what is an otherwise distinctly dystopian, largely unin-

lifetimes worth of advances, but as a potential rebirth. Like many

habited landscape.

veterans of the avant-garde (most notably James Benning and

By several measures ONeills darkest and most harrowing vision,

Lewis Klahr, but also Mark Lewis, Scott Stark, and the late Andrew

the lm, lumbering along as if powered by the citys crumbling utili-

Noren), ONeill has transitioned from celluloid to digital primarily

ty mainframe, stakes a path littered with re, neon emanations, and

as a matter of economics. Where the Chocolate Mountains sports an

rivers of industrial detritus. Always a crucial component to the tex-

appropriately au courant sheen, offering a seamless diegetic cohe-

ture of ONeills work, Lockwoods contributions are here at their

sion that sets it apart from even the most meticulously rendered

most potent and undeniable, his soundtrack an unsettling mlange

of ONeills lm works while managing to maintain the integrity

of electrical shrieks, church bells, whirring turbines, and muf-

and spontaneity of what Grahame Weinbren has called the artists

ed voices. (Repeated cries of Alicia can be partially deciphered

irrational images.

on a number of occasions, suggesting another noirish framework

The lm creaks to life with a deceptively crude sequence follow-

through which to read the lm.) Intertitles do their part to tease a

ing a black circle across the laminated surface of a large, rotating

narrative, but their associative aura (Yvonne walks alone; Hell

wooden cone as a high-pitched signal transmits a Morse code-like

isnt really all that bad) do little except lead to more desolate dead

tonal pattern. According to ONeill, the cone is a kind of archaic

ends. Betting its ambiguously worded title, Where the Chocolate

representation of NASAs high-tech apparatuses. In any case, a pair

Mountains, like many of ONeills most transcendent lms, is ul-

of these spinning strobiles appear frequently and conspicuously

timately more about the journey than the destination. Depending

throughout the lm; their methodical orbit in the opening sequence

on ones perspective, the lms hellre progression could be viewed

appears to set the entire lm in motion, not unlike The Man in the

as an act of artistic immolation, evidence of political paranoia, or

Planet achingly summoning the activities on Earth in Eraserhead

an outgrowth of psychological unrest. For me, its proven a rather

(1977), itself a nightmarish evocation of Los Angelessometimes al-

sanctifying experience, a trip into a shadow realm of the American

ien atmosphere. In the absence of visual evidence, ONeill has made

psyche and its most unassuming enclaves in which reality remains

a lm about the Chocolate Mountains that approaches their strange

just beyond the hills of perception. Finding your way back is half

mystique from an oblique angle. Once again, we appear to be chart-

the fun.
27

SEHNSUCHT

Ruth Beckermann on The Dreamed Ones

BY ANDRA PICARD

This longing, these sighs from soft pillows, I

am happy, endlessly happy, to be so filled with
this thought. Maybe you will come, maybe you
will walk through the door and take from me.
I am so ready to give.Ingeborg Bachmann,
Letters to Felician (July 6, 1945)

Cinema is synonymous with longing. Projections of desire, eeting

moments of past experience replayed, forbidden fantasy, formal
beauty smouldering or abstractthere are countless ways in which
lm is imbued with, but also transmits, expressions of longing. Its
singular relationship to time allows cinema to bridge great distances, to spur on existential enquiry, to transcend reality and proffer
alternate modes of existence but also, as clichd or as glib as it may
sound, to alter or affect the ways in which we see and feel the world
around us.
One of the years dreamiest lms is also one of the most elegantly
and ingeniously realized lms on longing: Ruth Beckermanns The
Dreamed Ones. Revisiting and resuscitating the deeply complex,
longtime clandestine correspondence between the two great postwar German language poets, Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-73) and Paul
Celan (1920-70), Beckermann has moved outside of her distinctive
essayistic mode and into a sensual, more amorphous one where the
choreographed, improvised, and unexpected meet. Excerpting passages from the estranged duos relatively recently published letters
(which took the form of postcards, telegrams, and posted letters with
attendant poems), Beckermann conceived a clever, conned mise en
scne whereby an audio recording in a studio also becomes a sort of
sance where the poets words and feelings are spoken and embodied

28

by young, contemporary surrogates, whose own fascination with

the epistolary exchange we seemingly witness in real time.

Cinema Scope: Despite conicted feelings of voyeurism, I immediately bought the French version of Bachmann and Celans cor-

Forging a work of profound beauty about the timelessness and

respondence when it was published in France in 2011. Were their

universality of love and heartbreak (and yes, cyclical hatred and

letters to one another available in German earlier? In many ways,

social divisions), Beckermann employs passages from this extraor-

a great number of their poems were missives to one another, were

dinary, compulsively readable, and cumulatively wrenching two-

they not?

decade correspondence to reveal an impossible love wedded to the

Ruth Beckermann: The correspondence was published in 2008;

trauma of the times. The war had just ended, but its horrors never

it provoked quite a buzz because nobody knew of the intimate re-

would for Celan, a Jew from Cernowitz whose parents perished in

lationship between the two most important German-language po-

the Holocaust, or for Bachmann, whose father was a Nazi and who

ets after 1945. There might have been rumours in literary circles. I

felt as though she lived among the mad and the assassins. Both dis-

certainly didnt know anything, but immediately read the volume.

proved Adornos claim that poetry was impossible after Auschwitz,

First, because I love the work of both Bachmann and Celan, but

each reinventing a soaring yet personal poetic lyricism, though the

those letters captivate you from the rst page. They put so many of

barbarism Adorno cited would certainly wend its way like wounds

ones own thoughts and feelings, doubts and longings, in the most

through both lovers, who were born into opposite factions. He was

rened and accurate language.

the victim, but that dynamic shifted and swayed with the power

Scope: I remember the controversy that accompanied the pub-

plays of their relationship; the hurt and despair would often resur-

lication of Susan Sontags letters (by her son), when many thought

face and oscillate. The letters are revealing and intimate, but also

that private correspondences should remain private for the sake

extravagant in their yearning and their professional pursuits, rang-

of the dead. In the case of Bachmann and Celan, these letters are

ing through jealousy, regret, avowals of love sickness, vulnerability,

lled with truly private declarations of love, despair, desperation,

and undying Sehnsucht (especially on behalf of Bachmann, as Celan

and anger, and oscillate between proclamation and confession. The

married another woman and had a child in Paris). Both, it turns out,

overwhelming beauty of the exchange and the extreme nature of its

were driven letter writers and even included their companions in

unfortunate circumstance lend a mythic, and, yes, dreamy quality

their writings. In fact, Bachmanns rst major work at the young age

to it. How did you confront these issues when you decided to make

of 18 was a collection of love poems entitled Letters to Felician, the

this lm? Or perhaps you have a different take on the letters?

enigma of this person still debated by scholars. The correspondence

Beckermann: For me, this love story is paradigmatic. It is a mod-

between her and Celan harbours a more pragmatic quotidian feel,

ern love story, a love story happening after the catastrophe, the

but also a more tragic and hopeless dimensiontheir longing nev-

Shoah. Imagine those beautiful young people who belonged to two

ertheless became a crutch to help carry on living.

collectives that had been enemies a couple of years ago falling into

Ingeniously seizing upon both the captivating power of their cor-

each others arms in the spring of 1948, and in Vienna of all places.

respondenceits prose, but also its confessional natureand the

It is also modern in how they view the Other. The Other as a

distance that time and transference inevitably instill and conate,

stranger, someone you will never fully understand. In his rst letter,

the lm depicts the intimate reading of some of Bachmann and

which is the poem In Egypt, Celan already shows her the limits of

Celans letters to each other. A dreamy, sensual dance transpires be-

their possible relationship: You should say to Ruth, to Miriam and

tween two young, winsome actors, who beautifully get caught up in

Naomi: I sleep next to her. He remembers those Jewish women and

the exchange, and, perhaps in each other, as glimmers and glances

he tells his lover that he does. Her place is the place of the stranger.

give way to goosebumps. Staged like a recording for an audio book or

I had no problem whatsoever concerning intimacy. I think those

radio play in Viennas venerable Funkhaus (betting as Bachmann

letters are somehow ctional; they partly invented their love by writ-

and Celans rst encounter took place in a still-divided Vienna just

ing letters. In fact they spent only a couple of months together but ex-

after WWII), the letters are delivered by theatre actor Laurence

changed letters for 20 years. Written words can be very intensevery

Rupp and enigmatic singer-songwriter Anja Plaschg, who performs

eroticand they can hurt a lot more than spoken ones. Both of them

as Soap&Skin in Austrias alternative music scene. (Plaschgs in-

struggle to express their feelings as accurately as possible.

tensity is something to behold, her gaze teary and concentrated

throughout.) While The Dreamed Ones is largely structured like a

Scope: You co-wrote the script with literary critic Ina Hartwig.
How did you collaborate?

cross-cutting Kammerspiel, the lm also soars in cutaways to the

Beckerman: We discussed extensively to nd out what was im-

duos smoke breaks and languorous pauses between sessions, which

portant and what was not; for instance, we left out all names and

are light and irty but also terrically fraught with awkward ten-

events concerning the literary world. The lm should work with-

sion. Time becomes elastic, and banality is quickly usurped as the

out even knowing who Bachmann and Celan were. We met several

lm convenes the spirits of our forlorn lovers, who are absent but

times as Ina lives in Germany, but mainly sent each other every new

certainly not gone from this world. With astonishing economy, con-

version of the scriptat least 25 I think.

dence, and grace, and in effortless deance of documentary/ction

Scope: I read that you had initially planned to lm in various lo-

conventions, The Dreamed Ones testies not only to the strength of

cations where the two poets had lived, Vienna, Paris, Rome, etc

sustained longing, but of cinemas powers of transcendence and its

but that the intensity of the actors in a cloistered space convinced

ability to renew our faith in borderless romantic love in an era of

you to focus on one location. Can you discuss the lms structure

effluvial epistolary e-mail exchange. The alternately universal and

and the transformations that occurred on a lmic level prior to and

specic dimensions of the lm also ensure a mysterious urgency for

during production?

today, which is best left unspoken, for it is perhaps just too overtly
romantic a sentiment.

Beckermann: The main idea was to lm in a sound studio: two

very young actors who play speakers on the radio recording the cor29

respondence for an audio book. We chose a radio studio because the

her grand Viennese apartment, but also to Hanekes La pianiste

radio was the leading media of their time, from the 50s to the 70s.

(Huppert again!) and his great use of the Wiener Konzerthaus.

It was very important for the distribution of their work. Bachmann

What is the historical place of the Funkhaus in Vienna?

worked as a correspondent for Radio Bremen when living in Rome,

Beckermann: I like the Kammerspiel! My lm East of War

and Celan was invited many times to read his poetry in German

(1996), about the memories of former soldiers of the Wehrmacht,

radio stations.

takes place in one exhibition hall. I like reduction; it helps us to fo-

But I also planned to lm in a very associative way, at the places

cus. Maybe this is one of the main powers of cinema today, to help

where they had written the letters: Vienna, Paris, Rome, Berlin,

us focus instead of dispersing our thoughts in all directions. The

Ischia, and Zurich. The idea was to show a Europe of today with so

Viennese Funkhaus was opened in 1939 by the Nazis but had been

many people belonging to different ethnicities, religionsWhile

built before. The frescos on the walls of Studio 3 had also been paint-

preparing for the main shooting I lmed in several locations, but as

ed before the Nazis took over. In this building, history was written

the main shooting approached, I secretly hoped that we would not

or spoken. And now they sell itthey believe in synergy, meaning

need the outside world. When we very rapidly assembled the rst

putting all the media together on a hill outside the city with a big

rough cut I knew that this was it: we want to stay in this beautiful

newsroom and streamlined journalists.

studio with paintings on the wall. The paintings are our windows to

Scope: This is the rst time that you worked with actors and

the world. We want to have time and space to explore the inner world

moved into the realm of ction. Was there a level of extempori-

of our poets and the relationship that develops between the actors.

zation in the interstitial scenes between the readings or was it

Scope: Celan and Bachmanns relationship is a devastating

largely scripted?

onea veritable impossible love that ebbs and ows but never ex-

Beckermann: Casting took a long time because I wanted to work

tinguishes itself despite fate and their own choices inevitably keep-

with actors who would be able to improvise. There were no rehears-

ing them apart. But there is always movement in their relationship,

alswe lmed from the rst day. Our deal was that we lm them in

their respective physical displacements, but also the growth of the

the pauses, when they go outside to smoke or when they chat in the

relationship (and sometimes even its regression), which takes on a

corridors. We had prepared the locations where we wanted to shoot,

fascinating shape in the letters. I feel like this movement is superbly

e.g., the canteen or the music rehearsal in the big auditorium, but

captured in the handheld cinematography by Johannes Hammel

also the beautiful staircases. However, large parts of the dialogue

who is also a lmmaker in his own rightwho is so intimately close

were spontaneous. Sometimes I threw a sentence at them to lead

to the actors and attentive to every gesture and glimmer. One also

them in a direction, and sometimes they ignored me.

senses the slight tremor in the cameramans hand as a witness to

Scope: Lets talk about the casting for a moment. Laurence Rupp

life unfolding, and here, a sort of transference across time and

is a trained actor from the Burgtheater ensemble and Anja Plaschg

space. What had you discussed with him about this approach?

is a singer-songwriter with a sort of brooding reputation, who

Beckermann: Many people would agree that it was a devastat-

makes music that is haunting, beautiful, and somewhat dark. Both

ing relationship because they never really lived together. Im not so

Rupp and Plaschg are terric in the lm, light at times and supreme-

sure; sometimes a fugitive physical encounter reverberates more in

ly intense at others. One truly senses that they are being affected

our life than a steady relationship. Bachmann never let him down.

and transformed by the letters and the intimacy of the setting. How

She had a great talent for friendship. And their relationship is re-

did you decide upon these two, and how did you work together?

ected in their poetry and letters: Isnt that a successful relationship too?

Beckermann: I was immediately intrigued by Anjas personality.

She is very intelligent and sincere. As this was my rst time with

Johannes and I discussed a lot andas Johannes would put it

actors I hesitated to work with a non-actress, but I always came

we made the right decisions. The handheld camera is one of them.

back to her. It was really hard to nd a young man for the role. Today

I didnt even allow a tripod on the set. Its too tempting to use it

young actors are more on the sportive side, and I was searching for

for a master shot. The lm needs to breathe, and therefore using a

someone who would feel the letters. At the same time they had to be

camera on a tripod was too academic. We had solutions for all the

different character types.

scenes, a precise decoupageand of course we changed most of it

Their approach to the text was very different. Anja had read a lot

on set. With Johannes this is possible. He is very intuitive and ex-

and thought a lot about the relationship, Laurence had done some

ible. When the camera is on his shoulder, he works with his whole

biographical research and relied on his professionalism. In the be-

body and not only with the brain. Im always looking for something

ginning, he didnt take her seriously as an actress, and she didnt

rough, something alien to break this digital sterility of the image.

take him seriously as a person, but that changed; they complement-

Thats why there is this travelling shot lmed in a taxi on a rainy day

ed each other wonderfully.

using a ip camera.

Scope: In one of the lms most memorable scenes, the two are

Scope: After seeing your lm for the rst time in the Forum at the

sprawled on the oor listening to James Browns Its a Mans

Berlinale, I thought about how The Dreamed Ones partakes in a pan-

World on an iPhone as Plaschg sways with her hands stretched up-

theon of Viennese lms, whose locations are charged with historical

ward, lost in a sort of wistful reverie. The reections and framing of

and cultural meaning. I recalled images from Werner Schroeters

that long shot are incredible both from a formal and aesthetic point

Malina (1991)an adaptation of Bachmanns novel, a work of

of view, but also metonymical in a sense as theres a lovely align-

auto-ction from 1971which also harbours a cloistered quality as

ment with the painted pastel murals depicting lovers in repose.

Bachmanns character (played with brutal, physical intensity, and

breathless mania by Isabelle Huppert) is so often self-conned to
30

Beckermann: We shot it through the window of the Regieraum.

So they really forgot us, forgot work and time.

Scope: You must have formed some pretty strong opinions about

ods of communication (from telegram to e-mail), not to mention

the two of them! I remember while reading the book being struck

the lack of privacy, which pervades the world today. The lms inter-

by Celans professional jealousies and vulnerabilities and think-

stitial scenes are so clever in that they awaken a correspondence to

ing about how terribly human he sounded. But I could not help but

another era without doing so in a blatant and obvious way. Did any

feel for Bachmann, who longed for a man who created a family unit

of these issues become a frame of context for you?

without her. All these entanglements are so heartbreaking, yet one

Beckermann: I am convinced that our feelings are the same

also comes to reect upon how desire is so crucial in ones life. His

today, even if written in e-mails or text messages. Im not some-

exile was crushing, and what if he was her real home? That sounds

one who longs for a so-called better past. Even then people like

so awfully unfeminist in a way, but all that longing was funnelled

Bachmann and Celan were big exceptions. What I regret is that even

into some of best poetry ever written and she continued to be a pow-

if long love e-mails are written today, they will be deleted and never

erhouse until she died.

bound into a book.

Beckermann: Youre so right. She was a powerhouse. She was full

of contradictionsvulnerable poetess and lover on one side, and

Scope: Do you see this lm as a turning point in your career, the

beginning of new goals as a lmmaker?

highly talented networker and pragmatic strategist on the other. In

Beckermann: With every new lm I try to explore a new eld, a

the beginning, my sympathies were more on his side. On the side

new form. The older one gets the harder it is to nd something new.

of the Jew, the victim, the exiled. Then I found out that their ght

Right now I am making a lm with found footage, a compilation

was also about who is the bigger victim. Of course he is, but at the

about Kurt Waldheim and the art of forgetting. When the former

same time he was very cruel with her and thus made her a victim.

Secretary General of the UN presented himself for the elections as

Im not sure if she was his big love, but he was certainly hers. Among

president of Austria, the World Jewish Congress brought up allega-

her many lovers, he had a unique position. We put an epilogue in

tions about him having hidden his wartime record. What interests

the lmsome sentences written by Malina. The manuscript was

me is, on the one hand, showing a politician who built his career

nished when Celan committed suicide, and she added a fairy-tale

on lies, who was the perfect opportunist whether he served in the

description reecting upon their relationship. This ended with the

Wehrmacht or at the UN. On the other hand, there is the phenom-

sentence: He was her life. She loved him more than her life.

enon of using anti-Semitism as a tool to win the elections as some

Scope: Themes of love, hatred, and heartbreak are of course uni-

politicians use xenophobia for the same goal today. But working on

versal. But the lm is relevant to our times above and beyond this

The Dreamed Ones was so wonderful, so fullling in many respects,

whether in grappling with the distance of exile, cycles of violence,

that Im very tempted to try another ctional approach in one of my

which are sadly replaying, and the dramatic changes in our meth-

next movies.
31

GAINING
GROUND
ITS AFTER THE END OF THE WORLD, DONT YOU
KNOW THAT YET?
BY CHRIS FUJIWARA

Gaining Ground, a series presented at the 2016 Melbourne

International Film Festival, comprised six lms that were directed by
women and that were lmed entirely or partly in New York City during
the 70s and 80s. The festival literature billed the lms as deant declarations of independence that changed independent cinema forever, but if its hard to watch these movies today without being reminded
of how much American independent cinema has changed since they
were made, its doubtful whether these particular lms, innovative and
admirable as they are, had much to do with the changes. Each of the
six lmsElaine Mays A New Leaf (1971; not an independent lm, but
OK), Claudia Weills Girlfriends (1978), Susan Seidelmans Smithereens
(1982), Kathleen Collins Losing Ground (1982), Lizzie Bordens Born
in Flames (1983), and Sara Drivers Sleepwalk (1986)represents less a
blow to previously existing cinema, or the clearing of a path for women
to follow, than a promise that was to go unkept. It suffices to consider
the sporadic, unfullled nature of the careers of all six directors, and
the curtailment of their chances to direct, to suspect that American
independent cinema has massively failed.

Girlfriends

32

As I watched them one after another, it struck me that each of the

among whom can be seen Steve Buscemi, imply a post-everything

six lms unfolds in the aftermath of some devastating event, wheth-

ghostly deadpan put-on.) Driver lms it in lush colours as a sleep-

er in the lives of the main characters or in society. This feature of

walkers paradise where, by roundabout chance, kidnapped chil-

their narratives, together with the stranded nature of the lms and

dren get deposited back next to their mothers.

the lmmakers in their historical and commercial contexts, confers

on these lms the quality of post-apocalyptic artifacts.

From so many ravishingly beautiful scenes, its hard to pick favourites, but I would mention three in particular: the Tourneurian

At one point in Smithereens, Wren (Susan Berman) tells Paul

sequence of Nicole walking alone at night through a succession of

(Brad Rinn) of her last nights dream: the Earth has been blown up

sidewalks and stairwells; the scene in which a cohort of office ma-

ve years previously, and everyone is oating around on its pieces,

chines, abandoned by their human masters, switch themselves back

ignorant of the catastrophe. The dream appears to suit the scat-

on and take part in an electric bacchanalia; and the shot in which

tered, mobile existences of the lms characters. Disaffected New

the green of a Rolling Rock bottle on a kitchen table in the fore-

Jerseyite Wren has, it would seem, barely shown up in Manhattan

ground matches the green of Ann Magnusons blouse in the back-

looking for a band to manage when she is already plotting with mu-

ground, while, criss-crossingly, the red of a fruit-juice box rhymes

sician Eric (Richard Hell) to blow New York for the promised land

with the red of Magnusons hair. (A few moments later, an overhead

of Los Angeles. Paul, having ed Montana to reach New York, cant

shot out a window reveals a boy in a red T-shirt leading a green bird

wait to head for New Hampshire. In Smithereens, New York is an un-

on a leash.)

glamorous stopover, art is business, and the real business is somewhere else.

A New Leaf, also a lm of greens, begins with the end of an era.

Told that hes spent all his money, trust-fund millionaire Henry

In Smithereens, something agreeable comes out of the confron-

Graham (Walter Matthau) bids a sad goodbye to his favourite

tation of a soft image (the result of a blow-up from 16mm) and what

restaurant, his club, his sports car, and his butler (George Rose).

could be called soft technique (moments of not-displeasing awk-

Lacking skills, ambition, and interests, Henry is unemployable; the

wardness in staging, cutting, or camera movement) with the nerv-

only way for him to exist, he decides, is to marry a rich woman. Fate

ous hardness of the Lower East Side of the era. The blandness of

drops in his path Henrietta (Elaine May), a shy, klutzy heiress with

Seidelmans style undercuts the lms potential harshness. To be

a love of botany. Henrys plan is to win her heart, marry her, and

sure, Smithereens deals in a kind of lightweight moralism, whose

kill her.

mouthpiece is the inoffensive, hapless Paul. But instead of con-

One can but lament the fact that A New Leaf was taken away

demning Wren for her relentless selshness and willingness to ex-

from May by Paramount during a protracted post-production and

ploit others, the lm invites pity for her.

cut from about three hours to 102 minutes, denitely against her

Lizzie Bordens Born in Flames takes place ten years after the

wishes (she led suit against the studio to try to stop them from

downfall of the Democratic Party in the United States and the as-

releasing their cut). A New Leaf comes across as a lm of scenes

cendancy of the Social Labor party in a bloodless War of Liberation

perhaps Mays cut would have seemed less disjointed and episod-

that obviously has done nothing to change the gender, race, and

ic, more uidbut since all the scenes are great it feels strenuous

class divisions in American society. Its a lot like a Peter Watkins

to complain. The opening scene is worthy of Ben Jonson: Henrys

lm, mixing narrative scenes, documentary scenes (detourned and

attorney (William Redeld) tries to explain to Henry that hes

made to serve the ctional conceit), and scenes in which characters

brokea concept for which their shared language, adapted to an

address the public through the media. Formally, its a urry of short

unreal situation, has no terms. Later, Henry meets Henrietta at a

episodes that are shot in a rough-hewn style, implying great urgen-

tea party, where shes rst seen doing a Jerry Lewis routine with a

cy, and that characteristically dont conclude, but just get pushed off

teacup. When Henrietta, to the horror of her hostess, spoils the car-

screen by the next comer. At the end of Born in Flames, the World

pet (Henrietta is as inept with food as poor Jeannie Berlin in Mays

Trade Center is blown up, a coup that propels this unsettling work

1972 The Heartbreak Kid), Henry seizes the opportunity to come

into an uncomfortable limbo between past and future.

to her rescue, sweeping her out of the embarrassment shes created

The broken and chaotic New York of Born in Flames and the

with a awlessly written and delivered envoi: Madam, I have seen

self-aestheticizing anti-glamour of the late 70s lower East Side as

many examples of perversion in my time, but your erotic obsession

caught in Smithereens can still be recognized in the locations of

with your carpet is probably the most grotesque, and certainly the

Sleepwalk, but Sara Drivers manner of lming them marks a tri-

most boring, I have ever encountered.

umphant formal shift. Driver has the knack of photographing real

The lm is highlight after highlight. Trying to talk her out

Manhattan exteriors at night as if they were a couple of soundstages

of marrying Henry, Henriettas crooked lawyer (Jack Weston)

on an RKO backlot. The lm is based rmly in the reality of office

pauses in the middle of a tirade to apologize to Henry for clam-

work and apartment life, but the resolute stylization of lighting

bering over his divan. The wedding-night scene, in which Henry

and design, movement and gesture, tilt Sleepwalk toward a delicate

helps Henrietta master the Grecian style nightgown in which

alternate reality in which the more outlandish happenings in the

she has ensnared herself, is funny just to think about. Later, ar-

dreamlike scenario can be accepted by the viewer without protest,

riving to take possession of his wifes Long Island mansion,

just as the onscreen characters, principally Suzanne Fletchers

Henry nds it in a state suggesting that the beggars in Viridiana

typesetter/translator Nicole, accept them with fatalism.

(1961) have had the run of the place for the past several months

The world of Sleepwalk is as post-apocalyptic as that of

Smithereens and Born in Flames, only its quieter and less ashy

(servants smoke on duty; the chauffeur and a maid make out on

the oor).

about it: its a world going through the motions of just being a world.

Mays lm would have been blacker than the version that exists.

(The mannerisms and speech patterns of the small-part actors,

Among other things, Paramount cut two murders committed by

33

34

Henry, including the poisoning of a tap-dancing blackmailer who

Eli Wallachs rabbi and the hitchhiking dancer (Amy Wright) whom

doesnt appear at all in the released version. But even without the

Susan takes in for a while as a roommate, the lm builds up much

murders, A New Leaf is remarkably harsh. That Henry can even

enjoyable ambiguity.

contemplate killing Henrietta is disturbing, since, as worthless as

Arguably both the richest and, with Sleepwalk, the most neglect-

he is, Matthau and May also make him so attractive (and Henrietta

ed of the lms in the Melbourne series, Losing Ground is the sole

is as charming as she is ghastly). May wants to move past all the

feature lm of Kathleen Collins, who died at age 46 in 1988. The

trite wayssentimental or cynicalof looking at the story, to get

lm is the study of a brilliant African American couple, Sara (Seret

to where Henry and Henrietta can shake up the viewers compla-

Scott), a philosophy professor who has passionate fans among her

cencies. The humour of the lm, never merely bitter, is complex and

students but who laments her own reasonableness (Nothing I do

sophisticated; and if its cruel, its cruelty is sane and lucid, free from

leads to ecstasy, she complains), and Victor (Bill Gunn), a painter

the need to shock.

whose normal social mode is a supremely sunny ebullience that

The lm leads to a moment of resignation in which Henry utters

apparently leaves Sara little room to test her own capacity for joy.

one of the most beautiful lines of iambic pentameter ever written for

Victors complete freedom to dene his reality initially seems more

a lm: I have no mind as far as I can tell. These words express the

attractive than what appears in Sara to be uptight and defeated re-

miracle toward which the lm has been moving: Henrys Zen accept-

sentment, but, as Losing Ground unfolds, it becomes clear both that

ance of the emptiness and absurdity of an existence in which an ass-

Victor is taking advantage of male privilege to dominate and dimin-

hole like him and a nut like Henrietta can end up with each other. The

ish Sara and that he relies on her steadiness to ground his ights. In

ending of A New Leaf is at once a disillusioned revision of such hap-

the lms nal section, as a Rohmerian lawn party gives way to bit-

py-ever-after endings as those in It Happened One Night (1934) and

ter recriminations, Victor degenerates into a gure of petty mean-

The Philadelphia Story (1940), a breathtaking discovery of slapstick

ness, while Sara nds her chance for redemption in the stylized and

at comedys heart of darkness, and a mystical moment of Renoirian

transcendent reality of a lm shoot in which a student has asked her

transcendence whose only possible explanation is the ow (disrupted

to participate as an actor.

though it is by Paramounts cutting) of the whole lm.

Unfortunately Ive made the progress of the narrative sound pret-

The two title characters of Claudia Weills Girlfriends are room-

ty cut and dry, but there is nothing formulaic about the performanc-

mates Susan (Melanie Mayron), a photographer who does bar mitz-

es (Gunns is a tour de force for a charismatic actor; Scotts is sharp

vahs and weddings for money but aspires to bigger things, and Anne

and surprising) or about Collins script and direction. Its remark-

(Anita Skinner), a would-be writer. Early in the lm, Anne sidelines

able how uid Losing Ground is, how much it respects the complex-

herself into an extremely bourgeois marriage, leaving the bereft

ity of language and expression, and how many questions it raises

and confused Susan to shoulder alone the responsibility for driv-

about the ways of self-knowledge and about coming to knowledge of

ing the narrative. Yet the promise of the title lingers in the mind,

others. Its also explicitly concerned with how such knowledge can

building up Anne into a gure potentially equal with Susan and

be conveyed in art, and, more particularly, cinema. When youre

charging the pairs intermittent get-togethers with much the same

dealing with people, you have to think of light differently, Victor

thematic weight as attaches to the reunions of Jacqueline Bisset

says. He is echoed later when, during the shooting of the student

and Candice Bergens characters over the course of George Cukors

lm, the John Carradine-like out-of-work actor played by Duane

Rich and Famous (released three years later, in 1981). Despite this

Jones asks Sara about the purpose of the scene they are working on,

somewhat latent portentousness, the relationship between Susan

and she replies, Something to do with the relationship between the

and Anne is part of a way of life that, in fragmentary moments, Weill

characters, the space, the light. The line could be heard as making

evokes and collects without requiring things to link up, determine,

fun of a certain cinephilic posture, but it also says something about

and resolve. One of the best of these moments depends on the silent

Collins own knowledge that cinema was more than just a transpar-

recognition by Annes husband (Bob Balaban) that, with no role to

ent medium for her characters dialogue.

play in a are-up between the two girlfriends, he has nothing to do

but resume his role of babysitter.

The student-lm-within-the-lm is shot outdoors on what appears to be an abandoned college campus in New York. The depopu-

Girlfriends evokes a lifeworld of barely-genteel poverty, also

lation and abstraction of the setting link Losing Ground to the tacit

known as perpetual student life: in a memorable moment, Susan

post-apocalyptic theme of the Gaining Ground series, conrming

perches a matboarded reproduction of a vintage Lucky Strike ad

a cinematic imagination, which in various ways all six lmmakers

on the topmost of a stack of cardboard moving boxes, then puts a

share, that sees New York and the larger world beyond as a space

small potted plant in front of the poster. Along the way the lm is

to be dismantled and remade. That these lmmakers were mostly

distinguished by the sheer uncomfortable normalcy of the social

unable to benet from the consolidation of American independent

interactions it shows: Anne and her husband, who have acciden-

lm as a commercial institution in the 80s and 90s indicates both

tally included nude pics of themselves among slides of their North

the structural sexism of that institution and the extent to which in-

African trip, each separately pointing out to Susan that the coffee

dependent cinema hardened into a set of styles, genres, and themes

theyre serving is Moroccan. The lm is full of gently accurate ob-

for which these women showed little affinity. (Seidelman, after fol-

servation of social types: the nice but noncommittal attitude, some-

lowing up Smithereens with the 1985 hit Desperately Seeking Susan,

where between indifference and weak mentorship, of Susans fe-

saw her career ounder in desultory big-budget work and TV, and

male photographer acquaintance; the effusiveness of the magazine

has not found her way back.) Isolated from the mainstream of inde-

art editor who breezes over Susans objection to having her work

pendent cinema in the US, the lms in the series belong to a cinema

cropped. With its more prominent secondary characters, including

of still-unrealized possibility.
35

PRODUCTIONS OF SPACE
Films by the Desperate Optimists

In the funny, lyrical, and hyper-reexive documentary Further

BY KATE RENNEBOHM

Beyond, the latest work from Irish duo Christine Molloy and Joe
Lawlor (a.k.a. the Desperate Optimists), two voiceover artists
named Denise and Allan belie their professional designation by appearing onscreen throughout, recording narration for what seems
to be the Optimists next projecta biopic of Ambrose OHiggins,
a amboyant, freebooting 18th-century Irish migrwhile occasionally offering their own, somewhat pushy asides to the unseen
lmmakers (Isnt that the music from your last lm? Youre just
using it as a temp track, right?). Early on, Denise (presumably now
reading from her script) observes how all stories inevitably need to
take place somewhere, offering examplesan interior location,
an exterior location, a park, a mall, a leisure centrewhile matching images ash by to accompany the words. A passing reference
to Cervantes then elicits an interjection about the immodesty of
throwing literary references into conversation: Why, Denise wonders, did she just lie about not knowing the provenance of William
Carlos Williams line no ideas but in things? While the lm then
whisks us on to the next topic of discussion, the placement of this
seemingly random aside after the preceding geographical musings
offers a veiled version of the Optimists mantra: for no ideas but in

Above: Further Beyond

Top right: Mister John
Bottom right: Who Killed Brown Owl
36

things, read no identities but in places.

This concern runs throughout the pairs long collaboration,
predating their turn to lmmaking 15 years ago. Originally from

Dublin but working in London since the mid-80s, Molloy and

Lawlor specialize in the aesthetic equivalent of human geography:
their live pieces with local community groups during their earlier career as experimental theatre artists, their video installation
pieces for the early days of the internet, and their lms, short and
long, have all examined the life of places, and the lives those places
shape. (Another VO comment from Further Beyond offers a telling
clue as to the origin of the pairs turn to lmmaking: The camera
happens to be very good at capturing place.) In their 2003 internet piece Catalogue, 26 entries are given for an alphabet of London
streets, each entry a POV shot of the area fused with a text monologue describing a local individuals experience of it (an instance:
alongside a small, low-res DV shot of the grey outer London suburb
of Barkings Axe Road, a young couple fantasize about how they had
vowed to leave this shithole).
In 2003, a commission from the London Borough of Eneld to
make a short lm about a newly refurbished park allowed Molloy
and Lawlor to exchange DV for celluloid, but the increased costs for
lm stock and crew (which consumed most of the $20,000 budget)
compelled them to devise a working method that would become the
foundation of their lm practice. Filming would take place over only
a single day; working with local community groups, the lmmakers
would recruit their cast from whoever showed up on that day, with
no one turned away; the shoot would occur in a public place; and
each lm would consist of a single shot. Beginning with the Eneld
commission, Who Killed Brown Owl (2004), the Optimists would
continue this method in nearly a dozen subsequent lms that they
would later collectively title the Civic Life series. In these works,
beautiful 35mm anamorphic shots, uidly travelling via a roaming
crane or Steadicam, mix with the performative aws of day-playing
non-actors (no Bressonian modelling here); near-tableaux compositions of almost still bodies share time with frontally framed shots
of faces, which evoke the aesthetic of documentary or news interviews more than that of a classical close-up.
This latter motif points to Molloy and Lawlors interest in the interview as a proxy for the true communication that so often seems
absent from civic spaces. In Leisure Centre (2005), the camera follows a young man through the locker rooms and corridors of the

the neighbourhood involved in making it, turning the movie theatre

newly opened leisure complex in the Ballymun area of Dublin as

itself into a lived civic space. As both onscreen work and offscreen

he speaks in voiceover about his fears for his newborn daughter: he

event, the Civic Life lms reveal communal space not as a vanished

is broke, he will fail at fatherhood, the world will crush them both

relic of the past but as a latent (and travelling) potentiality waiting

with its lack of possibility. But as he emerges into the bright pool and

to be materialized.

picks up his water-winged infant, his female partner addresses him

The political project of these lms seems all the more estimable

on the soundtrack: think about how things will be six months from

and urgent now, in our post-Brexit world. Locality, in these cir-

now, she says; things will get better; one day, this will seem a time

cumscribed spaces of the borough and the neighbourhood, stands

of nothing but possibility. In the bodiless space of the voiceover,

in sharp contrast to nationalism and its notions of immutable

Leisure Centre and the Civic Life lms as a whole both illustrate and

identity. The communities in the Civic Life lms (and, really, all of

attempt to assuage the solitudes that exist within the space of the

Molloy and Lawlors work) are made up of immigrants, foster chil-

social; they at once celebrate the idealistic belief that public spaces

dren, middle-class parents, elderly people. There is, on the face of

can bring a genuine community into being, and recognize that these

it, no sense in their being part of the same community in the rst

spaces can so easily come to reect the failure of that hope.

placeindeed, a sense of uncertainty about whether this is, or could

Molloy and Lawlor have cited early UK lm pioneers Sagar

be, their community in the fullest meaning of the term tends to be

Mitchell and James Kenyon as inspirations for the Civic Life lms,

the one thing that marks individuals as members of a community

and like those local pictures that the Mitchell & Kenyon compa-

in the rst place. In Moore Street (2004), a woman recently arrived

ny shot at the turn of the century, the ptimists primary audience

in London from an unnamed, Swahili-speaking country airs her

for these works has always been the people who actually appear

suspicions about her ever coming to belong there, and even of

in them. When shooting was completed, the Optimists would take

the word belonging itself (Some crazy ideas can be wrapped up

over a theatre in the local multiplex to screen the completed lm to

in it).
37

The renegotiation of identity that is bound up in this privileging

narrative cinema are not Molloy and Lawlors concern; rather, it is

of the local over the national comes to the fore in the Optimists rst

the environments that Gerry nds himself in (including the envi-

two features, Helen (2008) and Mister John (2013). The summation

ronment of the art lm) that hold their attention.

of the Civic Life series, Helen turns on a remarkable, heartbreaking

Further Beyond thus offers another stylistic switch-up in the

turn from non-actor Annie Townsend, whose faint, wavering voice

Optimists career, while extending their perennial lines of interest.

issues forth from a body that stubbornly refuses to retreat from

(The pair has touted the lm as their rst documentarya joke, no

the camera, or the world. Townsends Helen is a high-school sen-

doubt, on the fact that theyve long conceived their lmmaking as

ior who is asked by the police to play the role of her vanished class-

documentations of group performances.) Born in Ireland in 1720,

mate, Joy, in a reconstruction video tracing the missing girls last

the lms ostensible subject Ambrose OHiggins rose from a youth of

known movements. Over the course of the lm, Helen gets to know

poverty and aristocratic dispossession in the homeland to become

Joys parents, begins to wear her clothes, and becomes close with

an itinerant trader in the New World; a commission in the Spanish

her boyfriend, all while negotiating her imminent departure from a

army and successful campaigns against the Indians eventually led

group home, and the foster-care system at large.

to him being appointed Governor of Chile. But as with Mister John,

In expanding the Civic Life template to t a feature-length narra-

the real subject of Further Beyond is less the details of OHiggins life

tive, Molloy and Lawlor nd a remarkable and surprising depth of

than the conventions of the biopic, as Molloy and Lawlor set out to

emotion. Rather than a story of an abandoned young woman trying

methodically undermine the standby devices of both the documen-

to adopt anothers identityto step into the comfortable and loving

tary and ctional versions of the genre. In addition to their verboten

life she has never experiencedHelen is ultimately about its hero-

showing of their VO artists Denise and Allan in the act of recording

ines unique suitability for the part she plays; or rather, her suitabil-

their omniscient commentary, the Optimists further cast a Chilean

ity to this new, uncharted phase of a life that has been interrupted.

actor as the Irish OHiggins (Allan: Youre having Jos play him? I

Helen quietly and gratefully accepts her role as a stand-in for Joy,

mean, I could think of three Irish actors who could do it?); intro-

sharing all but the love lavished on the absent girl, because she truly

duce OHiggins life story through a patently false shot reverse shot

doesnt know what she is missingas she tells Joys boyfriend, she

conversation, built from pro-lmic recordings obviously made in

doesnt know what its like to be told that she is loved.

different times and spaces, between Allan and his bored elementa-

Mister John hinges on a similar narrative to that of Helen: Gerry

ry school-age son; prominently feature an elderly Irish couple who

Devine (a fantastic performance from Game of Thrones Aidan

know nothing about OHiggins gabbing about how he might have re-

Gillen) arrives in Singapore to deal with his brothers impending

ceived his (self-given) title of Baron of Ballynary; and, late in the

funeral, leaving his recently estranged spouse and child in London;

lm, give an OHiggins expert the chance to expound on his subject,

his brothers Chinese widow offers Gerry a place to stay; and he

but deny him the courtesy of sync sound for his pontications.

begins to slowly try on his brothers possibly shady life, one piece

As with all the Optimists prior work, place is a key theme in

of clothing at a time. As signalled by their use of professional ac-

Further Beyond, but here the question shifts from how spaces might

tors, as well as the exceedingly well-worn narrative trope of a man

make or remake people to how we might nd a someone long gone by

(always a man) exchanging his life for that of an exotic-seeming

revisiting the places through which theyve passed. This becomes

other, la Antonionis The Passenger (1975), the Optimists here

especially clear when the lm bifurcates along two narrative lines:

exchange the structuring elements of the Civic Life lms (non-

alongside the story of OHiggins and the embedded questions of

professional performers, a rapid and rigorous shooting method,

how to represent it, the story of Lawlors deceased mothernamed

voiceover commentary) for the trappings of a more traditional, re-

Helensurfaces by way of a video interview with the elderly Helen

alist art cinema: the lm slow but not to an extreme, elliptical but

from the Optimists last theatrical piece, recorded 18 years pri-

hardly unreadable, unsettling but also humorous.

or. We hear about how she was sent, unaccompanied, across the

But as per the Optimists palimpsestic method, Mister John is less

Atlantic from New York to Ireland at 11 months old to live with an

a move into mainstream art cinema than a knowing, self-reexive

aunt; how, like OHiggins, she dreamed of travelling to a different

engagement with that forms history and conventions, rather akin to

place; and how she returned to New York at 18.

Gerrys entre into his brothers life: each appears to be able to slip

At a later point in the lm, in what at rst seems to be a digression

into the others shoes with ease, but every subsequent action fails

from Helens story, our VO artist Allan begins to muse about how

to develop as expected. When Gerry travels to the lake where his

the New York skyline looks in certain scenes like Elia Kazans On

brother drowned, the music and mood portend imminent drama,

the Waterfront (1954). We see the park in Hoboken where Brandos

which arrives in the form of a snakebite, but rather than an existen-

Terry Malloy once picked up the white glove of Eva Marie Saints

tial confrontation with mortality, Gerry is left only with a day-long,

Edie, and the church where Terry received advice from Karl

venom-caused, and very uncomfortable-looking erection. Mystery

Maldens Father Barrywhich, as it turns out, was located direct-

and danger seem to be around every corner, but neither Gerry nor

ly across from the boarding house where Helen found lodgings. She

the lm every really nd it. Promising to get loaned money back for

felt at home there, were told, because she realized that she had seen

the widow, Gerry follows a ridiculous German expat around; a two-

this church in the moviesand accordingly, we nd Helen in the

punch st ght ends with the German getting Gerry patched up at

two lms, older and newer, that capture this once strange land that

the hospital, and then giving the money back. Exotic sex would seem

suddenly and surprisingly became a home to her. For the Optimists,

to be on offerone of the highlights of the lm is a hilariously blunt

and perhaps optimists at large, actual places and lm places can

discussion between Gerry and a transgender hostessbut Gerry ap-

mingle: both are waiting to be mined for the thoughts, dreams, and

pears largely unfazed by and uninterested in it (and an attraction to

hopes someone may have had there; both offer a geography of the

his brothers widow goes only as far as a kiss). The typical payoffs of

people they, and we, might become.

38

DANGEROUS WOMAN
Gilda and Hollywood Burlesque
BY ALICIA FLETCHER

They once had a shootin up in the Klondike

When they got Dan McGrew
Folks were putting the blame on
The lady known as Lou
Thats the story that went around
But heres the real low-down
Put the blame on Mame, boys
Put the blame on Mame
Mame did a dance called the hoochy-coo
Thats the thing that slew McGrew
So you can put the blame on Mame, boys
Put the blame on Mame

Put the Blame on Mame, composed by Allen Roberts and Doris

burlesque was premised on the sexualized performer talking back,

Fisher for Charles Vidors Gilda (1946) and performed at a key

verbally affronting an audience of both genders while suggestively

point in the narrative by Rita Hayworths eponymous, too-hot-

on display; by the 20s, the (predominantly male) managers, im-

to-handle femme fatale, attributes three cataclysmic eventsthe

presarios, and booking agents who controlled the burlesque cir-

Chicago re of 1871, the 1886 Manhattan blizzard, and the 1906 San

cuit effectively silenced female performers by progressively doing

Francisco earthquaketo a single seductress intent on tormenting

away with this talking back trope. Tellingly, when the late-30s

her male admirers. At once celebratory and cautionary, the song

crackdown on burlesque led its top talent to look to the lm indus-

links Hayworths volatile performance to an older tradition of fe-

try for employment, it was the male performers who supported the

male sexual display: the burlesque revue, an art form predicated on

female star attractions, those granted the masculine prerogative

the aunting of wanton women who are placed on a pedestal while

of speechcomics such as Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Jackie

simultaneously being feared and reviled. Further, the songs ref-

Gleason, and Red Skeltonwho successfully found themselves a

erence to Mame dancing the hoochy-cooa play on the Hoochie

berth in Hollywood. While Gypsy Rose Lee, burlesques biggest

Coochie dance, rst introduced to Americans at the Chicagos

star, was able to land roles in ve lacklustre Fox productions be-

World Fair in 1893links Hayworths performance to a signicant

tween 1937 and 1938 (the studio refused to credit her by her stage

development within burlesques history, as the Hoochie Coochie

name, instead using her birth name Louise Hovick) and performed

is widely cited as introducing the striptease as a key element of

a sanitized rendition of one of her ecdysiastical monologues in

the form.

the all-star revue Stage Door Canteen (1943), by the 50s she was

In his 1991 study Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American

settling for bit parts, including in Nicholas Rays Wind Across the

Culture, Robert C. Allen emphasizes the seismic shifts in the in-

Everglades and Gerd Oswalds Screaming Mimi, both from 1958.

terpretation of burlesque over the century of its popularity, from

(The latter lm, starring Anita Ekberg as the eponymous exotic

the 1830s to the 1930s, and traces how it contributed both to key

dancer, features Lee as a nightclub madam who is booed off stage

concepts of female performance and the correlative subjugation of

after performing an interpretation of Put the Blame on Mame.)

women both on stage and off. Popularized in Britain in the 1830s as

The slow squeezing out of burlesque in the late 30s coincided

an extension of the music hall, burlesque originally featured un-

with its tentative absorption into Hollywood lms, as risqu back-

ruly woman who mocked the conventions of theatre or opera for

ground if not as an art form unto itself. While, at the top of the heap,

comedic effect. It wasnt until the 1890s that the focus of burlesque,

Dorothy Arzners Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) and William Wellmans

both in the UK and in the US, centred on the female body, and strip-

saucy, Barbara Stanwyck-starring 1943 murder mystery Lady of

teases, as such, did not factor in until the 20s. Prior to that, the

Burlesque (based on Gypsy Rose Lees pulp novel The G-String

most provocative of acts might feature a performer removing her

Murders) are prime auteurist objects, even they fail to truly capture

glovesa motif that Hayworth mirrors in her iconic striptease dur-

burlesques contradictory embodiment of attraction and repulsion,

ing her Put the Blame on Mame act.

allure and disgust, beauty and monster. Its thus that the glossy

As with vaudeville and musical theatre, burlesque found a formi-

Gilda became the unlikely cinematic embodiment of burlesque, de-

dable rival in moving pictures, and the spread of movie palaces in

spite eschewing the seamy peeler palaces of Times Square for the

the 1920s, especially in urban areas such as New York, drove many

posh nightclubs and casinos of Buenos Aires.

burlesque revues out of business. It was during this period that strip-

Caught cheating at a casino, down-on-his-luck gambler Johnny

tease was added as a last-ditch effort to draw audiencesan innova-

Farrell (Glenn Ford) is brought under the wing of Ballin Mundson

tion that yielded considerable success, for a time. Over the course of

(George Macready), who cleans him up and employs him as his

the decade, burlesque rebounded, so much so that it found a strong-

right-hand man. Arriving at Mundsons glamorous casino, Farrell

hold in Times Square, taking over the leases of multiple failed venues

meets his employers new wife Gildawhom, unbeknownst to

for theatrical revues. By the early to mid-30s, the salacious new style

Mundson but quickly known to us, was Farrells loved and hated

of burlesque had become a hugely popular form of entertainment,

partner in an affair gone seriously sour. Assigned by the morbidly

but it was that very popularity that helped to seal its fate. Looking

jealous Mundson to surveil his wanton wife, Farrell is forced to en-

to cash in on real-estate value in Times Square, city officials, backed

dure Gildas constant taunts, shameless irtations, and sly insinua-

by New York Mayor LaGuardia, sought to rid the city of burlesque

tions that she is carrying on multiple affairs. Attempting to rid both

revues. Falsely citing a rise in sex crimes in areas where burlesque

himself and Mundson of this gorgeous gorgon, Farrell submits to

held court, authorities hit the burlesque industry with a series of

Gildas cunning advances, only to be caught in the act by his boss.

raids (one of which served as the subject of William Friedkins The

Betrayed by his apprentice and wife, Mundson fakes his death, leav-

Night They Raided Minskys [1968]). In 1937, burlesque was dealt its

ing Farrell to marry his supposed widow. After the wedding, Farrell

effective death blow when ve performers from Minskys Gotham

punishes Gilda for her sexual transgression by trapping her in a

Theatre on 125th Street were convicted of indecencynot because

loveless, unconsummated marriage.

of their various states of undress, but due to the suggestive music

and soft lighting that accompanied their performances.

Absent any other recourse, Gilda opts to defeat Farrell by proving him absolutely right about her. Strutting tipsily out on to the

From the very beginnings of burlesque, it was this element of

casino oor, she belts out Put the Blame on Mame andwith the

suggestiveness, rather than nudity per se, that sent reformers into

simple yet innitely suggestive removal of gloves and necklace

a tizzythe promised but eternally deferred gratication of desire,

demonstrates not only that she can neither be contained nor con-

woman as both object on display for the male gaze and sneering

trolled, but that she is exactly the vicious, amoral provocateuse

withholder of that which they most yearned to gaze upon. Classical

Farrell brands her as. Embracing the identity of her archaic prede-

40

cessor, Gilda warns men of her own power to destroy while relishing that power; she talks back to the men (and more specically
the man) who have made her the embodiment of their misogynist
fantasies by performatively taking that fantasy to hyperbolic new
heights. Absent any overt indecency, Gilda effectively cuckolds
Farrell with her performance, highlighting both his sexual and
moral impotencewhich, humiliated by her display, he instantly
attests to all the more by violently dragging her off the stage and
striking her.
While Gildas back-talking is ironically undercut by the dubbing
of Hayworths vocal performance (the studio declined her request
to use her own voice), it is Hayworths physical performance that
most assertively evokes burlesques gender complicationand, correspondingly, elevates Gilda to that rare Hollywood stratum of masterpieces created in the absence of a master. While director Charles
Vidor (who two years prior to Gilda had worked with Hayworth on
the Gene Kelly musical Cover Girl) was far from a slouch, one would
be hard-pressed to contrive an auteurist narrative around him;
and though the lms other departments were staffed with more
high-prole talents (cinematography by Rudolph Mat, costume
design by Jean Louis, and a script assist from an uncredited Ben
Hecht), it is Hayworth who assures the lm its legendary status.
Yet while Gilda has become the lm most synonymous with
Hayworths name, it was a signicant break from the roles for which
she had previously been best known. After racking up dozens of

trance, in which she whips her mane of red curls up from below

credits in small roles from the mid- to late 30s, Hayworth began to

the frame in response to Mundsons inquiry as to whether shes

gain some traction in the early 40s, most notably as the respectively

decent, makes much of her bared shoulders.) The black strapless

sophisticated and small-town seductresses in Blood and Sand and

dress Hayworth wears during Mamewhich Jean Louis mod-

The Strawberry Blonde (both 1941). Cover Girl and a pair of charm-

elled on John Singer Sargeants infamous Portrait of Madame X, a

ing musicals with Fred Astaire, Youll Never Get Rich (1941) and

depiction of the real-life high-society adulteress Virginie Amlie

You Were Never Lovelier (1942), highlighted her talents as a dancer

Avegno Gautreauboth covers the star and somehow magically en-

and marked her as a more vivacious specimen of the peachy-keen

hances her exposure. Tight and form-tting (Hayworth was corset-

all-American girl. Gilda, however, established Hayworth as the

ed to minimize her post-pregnancy body, having given birth three

exemplar of the monstrous beautya role that her soon-to-be

months prior to the production), the garment was something of an

ex-husband Orson Welles would exploit to its fullest one year lat-

engineering marvel: Jean Louis constructed a supportive harness

er when he cast her as the cold-hearted temptress in The Lady

sewn into the dress underside, maximizing the low-cut effect while

from Shanghai, and which Hayworth would continue to embody in

ensuring that Hayworth could move freely without fear of slip-

such lms as The Loves of Carmen (1948, also directed by Vidor),

page, popped seams, or breached zippers, even as the gown seems

William Dieterles Salome (1953), and Curtis Bernhardts musical-

precariously perched on the brink of said wardrobe malfunctions

ized Maugham adaptation Miss Sadie Thompson (1953), wherein

throughout the stars unfettered performance.

she added song and dance to a character previously articulated by

Men go to bed with Gilda, but they wake up with me, said

Gloria Swanson in Raoul Walshs silent Sadie Thompson (1928) and

Hayworth in an oft-quoted remark, illustrating the distance be-

by former burlesque performer Joan Crawford in Lewis Milestones

tween the shy and cagey actress and the role that immortalized

early sound version Rain (1932).

her. At once captivating and grotesque, Hayworths dangerous

Though she did not possess Crawfords burlesque bona des,

hyperfemininityas with Marilyn Monroes pneumatic, doe-eyed,

Hayworth was no stranger to the form. Her mother Volga Hayworth

faux-innocent version of samedid much to entrap the actress in

performed with the Ziegfeld Follieswhich, while some ways dis-

her unfortunate personal life. While living out the (self-)destruc-

tant from burlesque proper, represented an upscale version of

tiveness that she embodied in Gilda, Hayworths many attempts to

burlesques performance structure and premise of feminine dis-

talk backwhether through rebelling against Columbia studio

playwhich is where she met Ritas father, the Spanish-American

head Harry Cohn and his manipulative contractual constraints or

dancer Eduardo Cansino. From the age of 12, the mature-looking

marrying into the court of the Aga Khanultimately failed to free

Hayworth was dancing with her father in his stage act, travelling to

her. Like the complicated, compromised, and ever-shifting bur-

Mexico and throughout the US, and would certainly have encoun-

lesque tradition, femininity in Gilda is at odds with itself. When, in

tered burlesque performances just as the striptease was adopted as

the happy ending of the picture, Gilda and Farrell walk away from

a regular feature.

that casino together, its clear that their real ending cannot be a

Beyond the lms famous stripless striptease, throughout Gilda

Hayworth is lmed to appear as if she were nude. (Her iconic en-

happy onenot with such a dangerous, unruly woman in control of

such a morally bankrupt man.
41

NO TWO-LEGGED
CREATURE
Orson Welles Falstaff
BY SAMUEL LA FRANCE

In the twilight of Elizabeth Is reign, when many of the plays of a

novice William Shakespeare bore the names of the Virgin Queens
royal predecessors, the theatre was divided into two distinct but
not wholly autonomous spheres: the public playhouse, huge openair amphitheatres that accommodated any groundling willing to
shell out a pence for a staging of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Lyly, or Kyd;
and privately owned indoor theatres, where limited seating pushed
the price of entry up to attract the patronage of a much wealthier
clientele. Despite this bifurcation, the same plays were performed
in both spaces, and actors companies depended on aristocratic or
royal benefactors to protect them from laws against vagabondage.
This carnivalesque yoking of lowly troupes of players and playwrights with the crme of the courts marked a slackening of other-

42

wise ercely guarded class distinctions in Tudor England, allowing

Welles innovative engagements with Shakespeare were, of

a playwright like Shakespeare to pounce upon cultural misalliance

course, a part of his legend. From the all-black Voodoo Macbeth

in conjuring a character like Sir John Falstaff, a knight who bucks

and Fascist-era Julius Caesar he mounted on stage, to his Poverty

the court in favour of the commoners. A big-hearted and big-bellied

Row rendering of Macbeth (1947) kitted out with authentic Scottish

scamp whose wicked wit is matched only by his insatiable desire to

burrs and an Othello (1952) that survived an absurdly extended and

wet his whistle and dip his wick, Falstaff is both a living rebuke to

fragmented production process to ultimately win its maker a Palme

the hypocritical decorum of Henry IV (once Henry of Bolingbroke,

dOr, Welles had proven himself to be a masterful, if highly uncon-

whose ascension to the English throne was shrouded in suspicions

ventional, interpreter of the Bard. A decade after managing the

of illegitimacy) and the self-appointed custodian of Henrys heir

alchemical trick of turning a black-face performance into Riviera

apparent, Prince Hal. In the expansive empire of his girth, Falstaff

gold, Welles had nally worked up the guts (both gurative and lit-

contains multitudes; he is the low-comic and the high-dramatic all

eral) to take on the part of Old Jack Falstaff on screen in a cine-

in one, a petty rogue who towers like Rhodes Colossus above a king-

matic counterpart of Five Kings, the ambitious compendium of ve

dom in turmoil, bestriding the world of knights and lords willing to

Shakespeare history plays that he had originally staged (to rather

stain the ground red to realize their ambitions, and that of the com-

disastrous reviews) in 1939.

moners, knaves, prostitutes, barmaids, and conscripts who in their

thousands make up the salt of that earth.

That Chimes at Midnight opened to an equally tepid response

was largely due to its technical liabilities, including a frustrating-

The original poster for Orson Welles 1965 Chimes at Midnight

ly asynchronous soundtrack. Despite those limitations, the lm

(now being released in a new restoration from Janus Films and the

began to rake in the esteem of critics and audiences alike, much of

Criterion Collection) makes literal Falstaffs gurative immensity,

it due to Welles embodiment of the cheerfully tragic protagonist.

depicting him as a chuckling behemoth, armed to the tits, a sea of

Clarity is the word Richard Brody uses to describe Welles ex-

miniature soldiers split by his ironclad mass while Doll Tearshed

pression as Falstaff in Chimes, and this is no doubt the result of the

(Jeanne Moreau) and Mistress Quickly (Margaret Rutherford) take

director-stars intense admiration for his protagonist: according to

shelter between his tree-trunk legs. This image has less to do with

Welles, [Falstaff] is the greatest conception of a good man, the most

Welles own penchant for self-aggrandizement (powerful though

completely good man, in all drama. And does he ever present him

it may have been) than it does with the director-stars esteem for

as such: for Welles, Old Jacks goodness was linked to his obstinate

Falstaff, a character that Welles had spent a lifetime admiring,

adherence to the tenets of Merrie Olde England, the age of chival-

chasing, and ultimately perfecting. In Falstaff, Welles found a kin-

ry, of simplicity, of Maytime and all of that, as the lmmaker put it.

dred spirit, a jovial rebel whose preordained banishment from the

Falstaffs virtue is his private rebellion against the despot Henrys

company of his beloved Hal may, to some extent, have reected

(John Gielgud) autocratic new order, a joyless regime of warmon-

Welles own estrangement from the royal circles of Hollywood and

gering and oppression endorsed by a sycophantic nobility looking to

New York City.

better their own fortunes via the spoils of war.

43

The amplication of class distinctions effected by this political

Yet despite the buffoonish knights pettiness, foolishness, and

sea change can be felt throughout Welles design. Chimes largely

lowly deceptions, Welles maintains (and even amplies) the pa-

uctuates between the warm delights of Falstaffs turfthe Boars

thos of Falstaffs sad fate by making Sir John a blind witness to

Head tavern, with its timber framing, sacks of mead, and throngs

Hals cold-hearted machinations. In the aforementioned mock-

of working girlsand the stone-cold royal court occupied by a de-

play, Falstaff is given a glimpse of his destiny: Banish not [old Jack

pleted Henry and his doting entourage. Falstaffs costume changes

Falstaff] thy Harrys company, says Falstaff in his jesting impres-

throughout the lm help to reinforce the irreconcilability of the two

sion of Hal; I do, responds Hal-as-Henry, before he breaks the il-

arenas: usually garbed in owing, stained undershirts that bet his

lusion and tells Falstaff, with quiet intensity, I will. Early in Part I

favourite pastimes, Falstaff becomes a gure of absurdity when he

of Henry IV, Hal reveals his intention to abandon Falstaff in a solilo-

is forced to don his capacious armour to participate in (rather, hide

quy, speaking of a sun (n.b. the blatant homophone) that surrounds

throughout) the Battle of Shrewsbury. Even the kings heavy crown

itself with foul and ugly clouds so that it might seem all the more

has its symbolic value manipulated: acting in a mock play where

resplendent when those engulng vapours depart. Welles trans-

they impersonate Henry, Falstaff and Prince Hal (Keith Baxter) use

forms this private avowal to an open confession in Chimes as Hal

a cooking pot as the crowning part of their regalia. When Hal, be-

delivers the speech in direct conversation with Falstaff, who stands

lieving his father to be dead, prematurely takes and dons the crown,

behind the Prince with a heavy expression on his face. This stag-

a revived Henry pathetically wanders through the halls of his im-

ing, repeated by Gus Van Sant in his Chimes-inspired hustle-&-blow

mense castle in search of his top, raving about his sons deception

epic My Own Private Idaho (1991), marks a small but critical trans-

and the chaos that his rule will bring.

formation of Falstaff from a nave victim into something completely

A few weeks before production was to start on Chimes, Welles

different: he becomes a twice-fooled father, whose optimism for the

discussed how close-ups would feature in his new lm: When the

absolution that Hals rule will bring leaves him unable, or unwilling,

camera moves away from the faces, it covers period settings and ac-

to recognize the increasingly martial cast of his adopted sons mind,

tors in costume who are only going to distract from the real thing.

and the bloody fate that awaits him and his countrymen by way of

But the closer we keep to the faces, the more universal the story

the soon-to-be kings lust for conquest.

becomes. Yet while the intimacy engendered by Chimes parade of

The strongest virtues that Welles nds in Falstaffhis unre-

black-and-white close-ups is at odds with the regal tableaux and re-

lenting loyalty, his gift for merrymaking, and his imperishable

splendent militarism of Laurence Oliviers Technicolor epic Henry

goodnessare those very qualities that will destroy him when they

V (1942), Welles could not resist the temptation to make use of

run up against the treacherous cliffs of monarchical ambition. The

those landscapes and sets available to him to heighten the dramat-

ebullience and pride that Falstaff exhibits as he bursts into the

ic effect. The enormity of Henrys castle is felt in the (overdubbed)

court upon hearing news of Hals coronation remain ingrained on

echoes of verse declaimed by the players, while the beams of light

the old mans anguished face even as the new king coldly rejects him

pouring in through narrow lancets reinforces its lack of warmth, its

(I know thee not, old man). The force of that dismissal is so strong

literal and spiritual emptiness. Though they make a cheap substi-

that Falstaff drops to genuect, a mixture of admiration and deep

tute for the environs of early modern Eastcheep, the Spanish loca-

sorrow on his weathered face, like a father who might have wished

tions Welles employs for the Battle of Shrewsbury do provide their

less, not more, of his son. The temporary link between the nobility

share of stunning vistas and striking visual opportunities. When

and the common folk, the hope of a gentler future is shattered, and

the rebellious Hotspur (Norman Rodway) rouses his men with a

there is nothing left for Falstaff to do but wander off with his life

ringing call to arms before charging into battle, Welles shoots them

spared, go to his sickbed, and die. The gallows glimpsed in the lms

from an extreme low angle, with nothing but the tips of soldiers

opening credit sequence wont be necessary here: a simple turn of

pikes and an overcast sky to serve as background. Set against the

the shoulder does the trick.

celestial expanse above, Hotspur looks ttingly triumphant in his

From Charles Foster Kane to Hank Quinlan to Gregory Arkadin,

most glorious hour just prior to his tragically ignominious fall, even

Welles revelled in playing characters whose grand aspirations are

as that same empty, vaulting sky silently comments on the absence

ultimately outweighed by their tragic aws. Falstaff, on the other

of any of these actors divine claim to the throne they covet. There

hand, aspires to no such greatness: he is great, standing tall in his

is little room for Gods will in a kingdom founded on regicide and

lthy boundlessness, his roots rmly planted in the fertile earth

rife with murder.

that bore him. In Chimes at Midnights nal shot, as Falstaffs

Beyond its scenes of conspiracy, glory, and battle, there is a very

enormous coffin is carted off to a likely common grave, the camera

simple story at Chimes root: that of a young man and his two fa-

cranes and slowly tilts up, a reversal of Welles legendary opening

thers. As against Henrys incessant and vocal disapproval of his

shot from Touch of Evil (1958), where a downward crane focuses in

wayward son, Falstaff demonstrates a genuine reverence and love

on a convertible that will soon become a coffin. The frame is con-

for Hal, even though he is far from a candidate for Father of the Year.

sumed with the dark soil that will soon welcome Falstaff, whose cor-

Beyond the witty insults that y from his mead-soaked lips, Sir

pulent carcass will provide more food for worms than Hotspurs

John lies, cheats, and steals his way through life, accepting bribes

or Henrys or any other fallen heros ever could. For Falstaff, much

and dodging debts whilst preaching about the injustices he endures

like the man who played him, the passage to heaven and glory

to an increasingly unsympathetic Hal. This succession of decep-

may not be through the limitless ambition of the sky and its wing-

tions culminates at Shrewsbury, when the cowardly Falstaff takes

scorching sunit might instead be found in the dignity of having

false credit for besting Hotspur in man-to-man combat after having

passed through a life lived without compromise, before passing

played dead and watched Hal slay the rabble-rouser.

through the humble doorway of an oversized grave.

44

T V OR NOT T V

| BY SE A N ROGER S

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Steven Soderberghs The Knick

Steven Soderberghs much-ballyhooed departure from feature

Of course The Knicks earnest realism could not be further from

lmmaking initially came accompanied with word that hed launch

Sot-Weeds jokiness, but thats also because of the respective ar-

into a work of small-screen historical ction: a serialized adapta-

tistic traditions (and periods) the two works evoke: while Barth

tion of The Sot-Weed Factor, John Barths postmodern brick of a

constructs Sot-Weed as an homage to Sterne and Fieldings 18th-

novel set in colonial Maryland. Though Soderberghs Sot-Weed

century romps, Soderbergh and company offer a gory accentuation

is still forthcoming, the series that has materializedThe Knick,

of the sordid realities and foredoomed narrative trajectories of

a medical drama set in New Yorks Knickerbocker hospital at

19th-century naturalism. Where the show does, perhaps predicta-

the turn of the last century, where advances in surgery arrive in

bly, take leave of its literary model is in its abandonment of the pos-

bloody waves as quickly as the oods of immigrants into Lower

itivist impulse underlying naturalism, the airing of societys ills the

Manhattanechoes the curious contemporaneity of Barths play-

better to heal its sickness. We live in a world of endless possibility,

ful, metactional satire, if considerably less of its tone. As with

says Clive Owens obsessive Dr. John Thackery early on (tellingly,

Barth, Soderbergh and the shows writers (creators Jack Amiel and

on the occasion of his mentors suicide), but The Knick is a series

Michael Begler and producer Steven Katz) do not impose a mod-

predicated on failure, the bloody path to Progress on the operating

ern sensibility on the past so much as rediscover how that past was

table a dark mirror of the ruthlessly modernizing society outside

already modern.

the Knicks walls.

45

Small wonder then that the period the show depicts feels so

these is Dr. Algernon Edwards, a Harvard-educated, Paris-trained

of the moment. The Knicks world of endless possibility (her-

African-American surgeonplayed by Andr Holland as a man

nia operations, telephone calls, motorized ambulances!) is also a

ghting to hold himself upright, bearing up under a lifetime of in-

Gilded Age on the brink of disaster, rife with economic inequality,

sults and slightswhose role as Thacks second-in-command comes

institutionalized racism and misogyny, complacent or corrupt-

hard-won and often contested. Algy grew up sharing a bond with

ed powers that be, and new technologies that threaten to entirely

Cornelia Robertson, the scion of a major benefactor to the Knick,

overhaul conventional ways of life. True, the same could be said of

whose household employs the doctors parents as menials; Juliet

almost any other period of modernity, and several recent American

Rylance portrays Cornelia with cautious, beleaguered determina-

television seriesfrom the classical Mad Men to the phony Fargo to

tion, shoulders slightly bunched together as she watches yet anoth-

the well-meaning Show Me a Hero to the fractious The People v. O.J.

er of her unfashionable crusades (on behalf of impoverished, sickly

Simpson (proled in Cinema Scope 67)all mine their respective

immigrants, or racial equality at the Knick) crudely rebuffed, if not

pasts to show how the conicts that drive them are more relevant

dismissed out of hand owing to her being a woman.

than ever. The Knick, however, differs from this cohort in that its de-

Besides Cornelias upper-crust familyher father Captain

limited structure (two seasons of ten one-hour episodes), neat pat-

Robertson (Grainger Hines) is a shipping magnate whose philan-

terning (beginning and ending with a failed surgery and suicide),

thropy masks his ethical failings as a robber baronthe shows de-

and inimitable style (each episode is directed, shot, and edited by

mographic circles also include recent immigrants such as the Irish-

Soderbergh) combine to make a hybrid of stylish cinematic auteur-

born Cleary and Sister Harriet (Chris Sullivan and Cara Seymour),

ism, serial-TV sprawl, and mini-series concision the likes of which

an ambulance driver and a nun who develop a touching connec-

have not yet been seen.

tion as they surreptitiously peddle abortions; the louche, dispas-

There are ways, to be sure, that The Knick adheres to as similar

sionate Wu (Perry Yung), a second-generation Chinese-American

a template as its prestige-courting counterparts. Owens Thackery

who diversies as a pimp, loan shark, and opium dealer; and social

is one of those dualistic anti-heroes beloved by the Tube, a genius

climbers like the oleaginous Barrow (Jeremy Bobb) and inscruta-

surgeon whose ceaseless (and credulity-straining) medical discov-

ble Nurse Elkins (Eve Hewson), he looking to enrich himself by

eries and triumphsthe appendectomy, the separation of Siamese

skimming from the hospital coffers, while she awakens to materi-

twins, a cure for syphilisare fuelled by his addiction to cocaine.

al desires after an upbringing spent in deference to her Kentucky

From the opening case of placenta previa (neither mother nor child

preacher father.

survive) to the secretive surgery for inguinal hernia (the patient

Again, cutting across such a wide swathe of society is hardly a

expires) to the unorthodox galvanic treatment of an aortic aneu-

unique televisual strategy: its David Simons stock in trade, the

rysm (another fatalitythe show makes much of the corpses created

province of most medical dramas, and the MO of Soderberghs

for progress sake), there can be something of a disease of the week

clunkily didactic 2000 Oscar winner Traffic (which is far more of a

quality to Thacks roster of patients, cavalierly treated as though

piece with television structure and shorthand than The Knick). But

they were problems to be solved, like so many ingenious Mad Men

Soderbergh and his writers refrain from harping on the characters

ad campaigns. Like that show, too, The Knick can indulge in tut-

allegorical stature. Edwards is not merely a stand-in for the histo-

tutting the past for its more obvious moments of shortsightedness,

ry of Black America, or Cornelia an avatar for women, or Robertson

e.g., using todays hard drugs as yesterdays anesthetic (the rst-sea-

for Empire, or the racist eugenicist Dr. Gallinger (Eric Johnson) for

son nales rack-focus on a bottle of heroin is unforgivably corny), or

Trump Republicans: the lmmakers ensure that these characters

submitting patients to X-rays without protection (you dopes!).

are always seen as beings who are inextricable from the social fabric

More often than not, though, The Knick strains to avoid the hide-

of their own, very specic world.

bound conventions of quality TV. When it forgoes the moralistic

This fabric is never less cohesive than in the seventh installments

high ground of hindsight, the show succeeds at creating a real sense

of each season, extended and bravura set pieces that see virtually all

of wonder about the relics of the past. A vacuum cleaner, a bicycle,

the characters plunged into a race riot in one episode, and in the other

a stereoscope all seem miraculous, while a blackface minstrel show

attending a fundraising ball. The show orchestrates these extraordi-

is more shocking for being staged with unexpected, matter-of-fact

nary events to collapse social strata, so that characters cooperate or

bluntness than for any goading of the modern-day spectator (by

intermingle in unwonted, utopian ways (following the events of the

script or camera). While the show occasionally succumbs to easy

riot, love affairs that disregard caste and class are kindled) before

shock value (as with the swift bloodshed that climaxes the rst

mores and prejudices destroy those relationships once again.

season), its depiction of violence is typically less of a rousing show-

Through these set-piece sequences (and, indeed, during any giv-

stopper than it is distressing and self-destructive. (The bout that

en scene of the show), Soderberghs camera staggers and waltzes,

ends the third episode, lled with freeze frames and stripped of

cutting only sparingly as it lurches from one traumatized victim

sync sound, becomes alienating and pointless rather than stirring

of violence to another in the operating theatre or its between the

and kinetic.)

oddly paired dance partners at the ball. The long take has recently

Most crucially, thoughand despite the ferocious, dgety excel-

become American televisions go-to signier of aesthetic worth and

lence of Owens performancethe show is ultimately less interested

artistic seriousness (a ploy that is admittedly even more pretentious

in its tortured genius of a protagonist than it purports to be. Thacks

in much recent cinema), from the Steadicam raid in True Detective

decisions and aberrations do not drive the narrative; he is subject

to the hallway ght scene in Daredevil to the crane shot laying bare

to the same social and economic forces that buffet everyone else in

the drug-smuggling operation in Better Call Saul. Showily out of

the impressively broad dramatis personae. Most prominent among

the ordinary, the long take isnt supposed to belong to televisions

46

vocabulary: in a utilitarian language largely composed of quick

Still, the shows technical airlike its allegorically rich inves-

two-shots and medium close-ups, the long take is conspicuous by

tigations of capitalism, colonialism, race, class, and genderis sub-

design, its duration and the evident labour behind it both intended

sumed beneath the purer pleasures of melodrama. (This was the

to impress.

succs de scandale of naturalism, too: Nana and Sister Carrie may

It wasnt always thus. The kind of highly choreographed techni-

have literary merit, but they also boast those famously salacious

cal bravado that the long take now represents was once de rigueur in

storylines.) Strip the show of its tony themes and dcor and squint

televisions rst Golden Age, when live broadcasts required actors,

at the gore and sex and pulsating Cliff Martinez score, and The

camera operators, editors, and directors to pull off well-practiced

Knick represents soap opera at its nest. (Who will bed whom? How

high-wire acts on a regular basis (the complicated staging and drift-

soon until their debts and double-crossing catch up with Barrow

ing cameras in the lengthy shots of a Playhouse 90 teleplay are some-

or Robertson?? Will Dr. Edwards be forced to abort his own child,

thing like Eisenhower-era Hou Hsiao-hsien). Fine-tuned rehears-

whom hes fathered with the white, high-society heiress???) I admit

als and elaborate blocking were exigencies rst of all and expressive

to gasping out loud at one of the nal episodes revelations, some-

as an afterthought. In such a context, the long take appeared as a

thing both unforeseen and deviously logical: the sequence presents

matter of course, a tool of necessity rather than a decadent ourish.

a shocking voiceover emanating from a confession booth, while the

This is Soderberghs approach to the method as well, and it con-

camera, detached, tours the cavernous cathedral. Its one of the

nects The Knick to television history more than to the directors

shows most obvious and demonstrative moments, staged and cut

cinematic background: here, lengthy shots are a method to speed

something like the emptied-out ending of LEclisse (1962), and its

up production, not to show off. Shooting digitally, often handheld,

almost as guttingbut its power comes rst from the twist of the

in low light and on extensive and labyrinthine sets, Soderbergh

plot, and only secondarily from its outr stylistic choices.

minimizes the long takes uniqueness, making it seem prosaic rath-

In this sequence, as at the end of the show as a whole, the manip-

er than lyrical, utilitarian rather than ostentatious. The camera

ulators and schemers come out the victors, at least in the short run.

often just lingers on one face in a scene, observing the reactions

The show cant rewrite history, after all, which piles up wreckage

that cross it: Sister Harrys anger and resignation and desperation

and failure (all those dead patients) more often than pointing the

when her moonlighting as an abortionist is discovered, or Barrows

way to progress. The forward-looking Thack may resign himself

self-satisfaction in a board room as his plans come to fruition, or

to catastrophe and failure, in the endThis is all we are, he says,

Cornelia confronting her father about their companys dirty deal-

looking at his patient dying on the table. But there was a promise

ings. The technique is fundamental to the series, lending the cos-

of progress that he once held dear, and which Cornelia and Dr.

tumed proceedings a kind of Bazinian authenticity: its period-piece

Edwards pursue apace, into the next century, past the end of this

trappings, shored up by real space and time, come to seem convinc-

second season. It is this vision of a more perfect futureof endless

ing and recognizable, something close to the way we experience

possibility and breakthroughs, however hard-wonthat The Knick

our present.

unearths in the past, and reminds us of now.

47

DE AT H S OF CI N EM A | BY M ICH A E L SICI NSK I

WHAT THE WATER SAID

Peter Hutton (1944-2016)

In his 1995 interview with Scott MacDonald published in A Critical

Cinema 3, Peter Hutton made a general assessment about his lms,
one that has been quoted quite a bit in the weeks since the lmmakers death. Lets take a moment and consider it: Ive never felt
that my lms are very important in terms of the History of Cinema.
They offer a little detour from such grand concepts. They appeal
primarily to people who enjoy looking at nature, or who enjoy having a moment to study something thats not fraught with information. The experience of my lms is a little like daydreaming.
In another interview with MacDonald, conducted in 2007 (published in MacDonalds collection Adventures in Perception), he and
Hutton discuss the non-narrative lm work of Abbas Kiarostami,
in particular his 2003 lm Five. Hutton makes some interesting
remarks about the late Iranian master, in particular noting that,
due to his stature in the world of cinema, Kiarostami was free to
do anything and it would be taken with a certain degree of seriousness: Hutton compares it to Picasso doing ceramics or neckties.
He goes on to offer his judgment (quite correct) that Five is not a
revelatory avant-garde work, though by no means without interest.
Hutton and Kiarostami passed away within nine days of one
another, Hutton on June 25, Kiarostami on July 4. The men were
contemporaries, Kiarostami a mere four years older than Hutton.
48

Given that the importance of Kiarostamis cinema is beyond question, we are implicitly asked once more to consider Huttons own
self-assessment. How marginal (or minor, to use Tom Gunnings
old category) were Peter Huttons contributions to the history of
lm? What did they offer us, apart from a respite from the sensory
assault of modern media culture?
Granted, that in itself is not exactly nothing. Kiarostami,
too, strove for such an aim, and in one of his own oft-cited selfassessments remarked that he felt okay if people fell asleep during
his lms. Some very good lms might prepare you for sleeping or
falling asleep or snoozing, he told A.V. Clubs Sam Adams. Its not
to be taken badly at all. This has everything to do with the relationship between lm, as a set of light (and maybe sound) impulses and
the rhythms of the body. If we acknowledge that the pace of most
cinemaits cuts, movement, sound/image relationships, and the
cognitive meaning-making all that speed requiresis a kind of labour (assertions made by thinkers as ideologically diverse as David
Bordwell, Gilles Deleuze, and Jonathan Beller), then lms that
move slowly, that offer a respite or a detour for the body and mind,
are actually a form of counter-cinema.
Huttons lms, humble in their aims and artisanal in their approach to lmic craft, are in fact a very major part of the History
of Cinema, at least inasmuch as we choose to dene it as a humancentred practice, not fundamentally dened by industrial criteria
of speed and predictability, use and exchange value. These are lms
that observe broad natural phenomena. They bring the forces that
are larger than us, like the ow of rivers or the changing of seasons,
within the frame, making visible those elements that engulf us.
Seen from that perspective, Huttons movies are actually action
movies of the highest order.
Over the course of his career, Peter Huttons work underwent several phases, all intricately intertwined. His lmmaking evolved from
a diaristic style into a more urban-symphony approach, shifting decisively toward the land- and riverscapes for which he is best known,
and nally taking a brief semi-ethnographic twist at the very end.
His lms were primarily black and white, but he started working in
colour in the last 15 years of his career. The one constant was silence.
Hutton stands, alongside Stan Brakhage and Nathaniel Dorsky,
among the most important lmmakers in the experimental canon to
commit so fully to absolute silence. All the same, Huttons rst lm,
In Marin County (1970), is a sound lm, his only one. Its a lm about
environmentalism, well-shot but relatively undistinguished.
Soon afterwards, Hutton made his rst signicant cinematic
work, the extraordinarily titled July 71 in San Francisco, Living at
Beach Street, Working at Canyon Cinema, Swimming in the Valley
of the Moon. This is a personal work, diaristic in approach without
necessarily focusing on Hutton as a narrating subject. July 71 is as
much a record of the daily experiences of light and shadow as it is a
catalogue of domestic life. More involved with straight photography than Brakhage, but far more engaged with tactility and the
plastics of the image than Jonas Mekas, this early work embraces
the mundanemaking bread in the kitchen, riding bikes by the San
Francisco Bay, hanging out in a cheap-looking at with friends,
plucking a game fowl for supperwhile also paying attention to the
wind, water, and trees that surround these eeting moments.
Huttons attention to the rich textures of black-and-white celluloid are already in evidence in early works like New York Near
Sleep for Saskia (1972), Florence (1975), and the New York Portraits
(1978-90). But here we begin to see Huttons fascination with the
single shot as a monad of meaning. He starts separating his shots

with black leader, and editing with an open, almost anti-associative

mode. New York Near Sleep resembles Dorsky in its combination
of quotidian detail and formal deliberation, each image seemingly
held apart from those around it. Florence nds Hutton exploring
his fascination with landscapelarge, turbulent skies and receding horizons, somewhere between Turner and the F.S.A. But much
of Florence consists of sharp-angled interiors, studies of light and
shadow that gracefully fade into abstraction.
The two most interesting lms of Huttons early period are, in a
sense, transitional. Both operate in almost opposite modes, but the
seeds of later approaches are witnessed in both. Images of Asian
Music (A Diary from Life 1973-1974) (1973-74) is very much in the
diary mode of July 71, the difference being that it is a record of travel rather than a study of domesticity. Shot while Hutton was working as a merchant seaman in Thailand, the lm begins in a manner
very much like the later Hudson River work. We begin with water,
and then are aboard a craft at sea. But Images of Asian Music tends
to focus more on the men Hutton was working alongside, their camaraderie and downtime activities. Once ashore, Hutton explores
Thailand in a manner both conventional (Buddha heads, temples,
reworks) and more in line with his own prerogatives (the shoreline, the forest, people moving down distant roads).
Organized as if Hutton shot it sequentially, like any traveller
would, Images of Asian Music provides a glimpse of Thailand processed through Huttons private image bank. By contrast, Boston
Fire (1979) is a small masterwork that looks piercingly at precisely one thing. In deep, rich black and white, Hutton shoots from a
distance, from ground level, as reghters struggle to extinguish a
blaze. The ames in the night, combined with the failing structure
of the building, provide the drama of light and shadow in the lm,
while the billow of smoke plays the role that would customarily be
occupied by clouds or fog. A nearly perfect distillation of Huttons
aesthetic, Boston Fire also harks back to the earliest days of cinema.
It is an actualit, an observational eight-minute record of a dramatic human event. And, in terms of Huttons mature lms about the
Hudson River, Boston Fire serves as a kind of inversion. Instead of
humans struggling to move across a placid natural surface, here it
is nature that is the (destructive) agent, with humans desperately
trying to beat it back.
These transitional gestures, and the disparate strands of
Huttons creative personality, all coalesced in his New York Portrait
series, the three lms that denitively announced Hutton as a major lmmaker. In the telling, what these lms achieve sounds quite
simple. Each of them, in its own way, adopts the urban poem/city
symphony template as a kind of skeleton or container. Within that
framework, Hutton is able to incorporate exquisitely wrought images from his other working modes: the seascape, the skyscape,
the diaristic studies of human behaviour, and the modernist blackand-white abstraction. In New York Portrait: Chapter One (1978),
Hutton uses high contrast footage of the skyline as a kind of backbeat. Against this visual riff, we see hazy pavements, mammoth
cumulonimbus formations, street scenes, and the piercing whiteness of the negative space between skyscrapers. Misty rain, or the
shimmering puddles where a city bus has just left the framethese
are the action shots in the New York Portraits. There is indeed a
sense that Hutton and Dorsky are operating in the same rareed
zone here, but their work could hardly be more different. Huttons
use of contrast and abstraction are subtle, but they are unavoidably
dramatic. Where Dorsky works to tamp down those punctums that
disrupt the equality of his shots, Hutton knew when he had a special
49

image, and in the New York lms especially, he was not afraid to let
them pop.
Following New York Portrait: Chapter Two (1981), Hutton went
to Hungary and made Budapest Portrait (Memories of a City) (198486). Possibly the most nondescript lm of his career, Budapest resembles a series of architectural and historical studies that are
then livened with admittedly lovely portraiture. We can see Hutton
experimenting with geometry and anti-associative editing, but in
large part this lm is a bit of a dry run for his trip to Poland, which
yielded better results. But perhaps most signicantly, Hutton began sticking closer to home for the next phase of his lmmaking,
the longer works that would cement his importance once and for all.
In 1985 Hutton started teaching at Bard College in Annandaleon-Hudson, NY, a professorship that marked a decisive shift in his
lmmaking. (At Bard, Huttons colleagues included Peggy Ahwesh,
Kelly Reichardt, Jackie Goss, Ben Coonley, and Ephraim Asili.)
Being largely rooted in one place, as academics often are, Hutton
began exploring the very specic dimensions of his immediate environs. He turned his attention to the Hudson River, not only as a
body of water in a landscape, but also as a subject of depiction within art history. What sort of light does Upstate New York generate,
and the area around and through the Hudson in particular?
Looking at the Luminist paintings of the Hudson River School
painters Thomas Cole and Frederick Church, Hutton made lms
inspired by their treatment of natural light. What would it mean
to introduce photographic means, along with time and movement,
into this examination of landscape as light? In his Landscape (for
Manon) (1987), Hutton continues his work in the free-associative
style and slow accumulation of disparate views that we see in the
New York Portraits and the early lms. But here he focuses exclusively on the big, bold skies, dense cloud formations with rays of light
piercing through the image, and a matter-of-fact treatment of the
pictorial sublime. Like Stieglitzs Equivalents series, Landscape
makes the sheer variety of clouds into a formal principle. In 1991s In
Titans Goblet (named after a Cole painting), Hutton focuses exclusively on turbulent skies over landscapes, the slow-building tension
of fog over hills or the moons solidity plastered against the diffuse
vapour of clouds. With these lms, and their dense, inky imagery,
Hutton has found secure footing in the painterly approach that will
come to dene his mature work.
After those lms, however, Hutton went abroad to make one
more lm in the earlier vein. Lodz Symphony (1993) is one of his best
lms, possibly because by calling on his previously honed skills
the diary, the traveloguehe was also ltering them through his
contemporary interests in light, grain, and the almost celestial perspective on everyday phenomena. His study of urban Poland feels
at times a bit like a poetic riposte to Dziga Vertov. We see chimney
sweeps on the rooftops, but they are patiently individuated. We go
inside machine shops and factories, looking closely at industrial
processes, but with a slightly soft focus and off-kilter framing that
turns these movements into abstraction. These are the reveries of
the tired worker, dignied but unheroic: Joris Ivens Regen (1929)
rather than Kino-Pravda (1922) or Ballet mcanique (1924).
From that point on, Hutton began making his key Hudson
River lms, starting with Study of a River in 1996. Still working
with high-grain black and white, the lmmaker produced a multiperspectival lm of the Hudson, almost sculptural in its insistence
on total coverage. From one shot to the next, we see aerial views,
close-ups of the water, lateral tracking shots heading down the river,
misty fog and ice oes, boatside views through valleys, shots from
50

the shoreline and from bridgesIts as if Hutton were cataloguing all

the possible approaches one could take in rendering images of this
natural feature.
From here, Hutton made his bold leap. Time and Tide (2000)
is Huttons rst colour lm. In it, we see the Hudson River chiey
from the perspective of the professional seafarers who navigate
the Hudson for their livelihood. We see an extended shot from the
bow of the ship, down at the frozen water, ice chunks broken like
massive panes of glass as the freighter breaks its way through the
surface. We then see the ship go by in its entirety, cutting through
the icy water, along with the centre of the screen, from bottom to
top. Hutton shows us the gap in the ice healing itself after the ship
passes through, as if the river were zipping itself up. From there, we
explore various parts of the ship, and those parts of the Hudson we
can see from the ship. Much of Time and Tide is observed through
portholes, not only providing a circular cast to the usual rectangular lm image, but also making Huttons maritime colour palette
blue-gray, iron black, the occasional stripe of red paint across a vessels hullseem all the more vibrant against the dark, round frame
of reference. Over the course of the lm, winter ends, and along the
journey we see the shoreline, cradled in dense forest and various
factories.
Uncharacteristically, Time and Tide begins with found footage,
specically a 1903 Billy Bitzer reel called Down the Hudson. This is a
gesture we would more expect from a Ken Jacobs or Ernie Gehr. But
Huttons choice does indicate a certain fealty to early cinema, with
its silence, of course, but also its pre-Griffith organization. Editing
was not a going concern; instead there was concatenation, one reel
after another, side by side but not inexorably connected. This is a
way to think about Huttons arrangement of shots, usually separated by brief intervals of black leader. There is no argumentation, no
build within Huttons cinema. There is only drift, in both the denotative sense (slow, oating movement) and the colloquial one (a
general idea or shared orientation about what the lm is, without
absolute specicswe catch Huttons drift).
This sense of assemblage or concatenation led to increasingly
complex lms in the latter part of Huttons career, works whose coherence was staked less upon the man behind the camera and more
upon the ability of a viewer to form temporary, provisional relationships among semi-autonomous images. Because of his abiding interest in landscape, Hutton was often considered alongside James
Benning in terms of avant-garde masters of the rst part of the 21st
century. But it seems to me that his suspensive approach to montage has much more in common with Nathaniel Dorsky. Looking
at Skagafjrdur (2004), for example, Hutton moves us around
not through or acrossa northern Icelandic landscape. Each shot
maintains an internal integrity; it invites, but does not demand, a
connection to those around it. Hutton brings everything to bear
here: Hudson River skies, shots of moving water, low hillscapes, distant shots from the shore depicting tiny crafts dwarfed by the massive expanse of nature. Moreover, Skagafjrdur combines colour
and black-and-white imagery, resulting in a veritable compendium
of attitudes toward painterly light.
It was with his last two lms that Hutton brought all of these perceptual resources to bear on a somewhat new style of lmmaking.
In the simplest terms, I suppose one could call At Sea (2007) and
Three Landscapes (2013) documentaries. These lms certainly contain more human activity, and more explicitly social and economic
interaction, than anything Hutton has done since the days of Asian
Music or the New York Portraits. But as you would expect, they



communicate in a manner that is substantially different than those

works we usually think of as documentary. Huttons last lms show
us concrete details about labour. They exhibit contrasting circumstances and life-worlds between the West and the global South. But
they are not declarative, nor are they poetic essay lms. Although
Three Landscapes shows certain affinities for Harun Farockis dialectical mode of social observation (cf. In Comparison, 2009),
both Three Landscapes and At Sea share more with other nonargumentative lmers of fact, such as Robert Fenz, Ute Aurand, and
the late Mark LaPore.
At Sea begins at a shipyard in South Korea. Fully embracing his
newfound colour scheme, Hutton gives us a sharp, Constructivist
photographic primer. Shot by shot, we move from the long distance
of entire ocean liners being loaded with metal cargo boxes, all the
way in to close-up images of the hull, the engine, and the crane that
lifts a piece of iron into place for welding. By the end of the rst part,
Hutton provides integrated views of the whole portcrane upon
crane, ship after ship. In a sense, the rst 20 minutes of At Sea offer an introduction not only to the rest of the lm (which nds us
aboard another freighter), but Huttons maritime lmography as a
whole. After the voyage, Hutton provides a quite unexpected coda.
On a shore in Southeast Asia, we see the rusted-out hull of a decommissioned vessel. This time, we are watching in silence as local
scrappers take the ship apart for whatever meagre pittance they can
earn. At Sea, then, displays shipping within its life cycle, but does
so without facts or judgment. The shots form a limited narration
regarding a capitalist process, while also providing enough space
between the shots for less deterministic rumination
Three Landscapes goes further in this direction. It is admittedly
a strange nal lm for Hutton, given that it indicates a substantially new direction that the lmmaker never got the chance to fully

explore. Divided quite absolutely into a triptych, Three Landscapes

is Huttons rst lm since Lodz Symphony not to approach a body of
water. Instead, we see still, somewhat Benning-like shots of the industrial Detroit, followed by a study of an agricultural/farming area
surrounding the Hudson River Valley, concluding with the cracked,
arid salt ats of Ethiopia. There is an odd uniformity to the camera
angles in Three Landscapes. Hutton keeps his tripod on the ground,
usually at either a middle or greater distance. His shots of silos, oil
tanks, and metal stockyard structures call to mind the generic Rust
Belt taxonomies of Bernd and Hilla Becher, while his surveys of farmland tend to keep the horizon low and the sky big, the clouds billowy.
Humans are present but small in stature, until part three. In
Ethiopia, Hutton adopts an unexpected intimacy with the camera,
shooting in close-up among a group of people sifting through large
sheets of salt and stone in order to collect them, presumably for trade.
For a change, individuals are engaging directly with the landscape,
sorting it and breaking it apart with their hands. (This is the sort of
close labour that we would have once found in part two, which is now
dominated by industrial tractors and combines.) In the nal shots,
Hutton shows us the nomadic workers heading off in the distance,
their camels forming a small travelling line across the horizon.
These shots directly echo Huttons frequent images of ships gliding
across the Hudson, made small by the enormity of the natural world.
In his travels (the trip to Ethiopia was sponsored by the late Robert
Gardner), Hutton found fundamental similarities between the landscape in his own backyard and one a continent away. But, as with the
Asian men demolishing the ship for scrap, Huttons look at the salt
gatherers was not one of Western appropriation. These images, the
last of Huttons lmography, arguably sum up his career, although in
truth Hutton was looking upon the future of us all. We toil in the margins, we gather up our wares, and trade with whomever we can.
51

52

DE AT H S OF CI N EM A | BY QU I N T N



Near the end of his life, Abbas Kiarostami decided to make a lm

about the birth of cinema in order to say something about its future. One of his last lms was a one-minute and 25-second long
short made as part of Future Reloaded, a project from the Venice
Film Festival conceived in 2013 to celebrate its 70th anniversary. Kiarostami decided to remake Auguste and Louis Lumires
Larroseur arros (1895), sometimes considered to be the rst cinematic comedy. Kiarostami copied almost literally the Lumires
one shot, although there are some technical improvements that
summarize the evolution of the media: basically montage, sound,
and colour, but also the use of the digital camera. In separate shots,
we see a small camera on a tripod and a little boy behind it, rst
laughing while watching the story of the sprinkler being sprinkled,

BEFORE AND
AFTER THE
REVOLUTION

Abbas Kiarostami (1940-2016)

and then moving away from it after saying Cut.

In 1895, montage was around the corner with Griffith. Sound and
colour were not easy to implement, although these improvements
were also in the air. But showing the camera at worksprinkling
the sprinkler as a cameramanis an idea of a different sort, an idea
that exceeds the machinery and enters a philosophical or aesthetical realm, implying both technical progress and modernity. With
its recursive ending, Kiarostamis Future Reloaded short also suggests that the great discovery made since the Lumires is that the
most interesting thing about cinema is cinema itself. That was one
of the keys of Kiarostami as a modern lmmaker: like children do,
he wanted to play, knowing what lay inside that intriguing toy and
using it to its full capacity.
There is so much more in that minute and a half that one may
consider it to be both an abridged testament, and a fount of further questions. For a start, Larroseur arros is proof perfect that
53

the Lumires made ction lms as well as documentaries (its well

had in common was their enthusiasm for lm censorship, but even

known by now that the 1895 Workers Leaving the Lumire Factory

so Kiarostami adapted to both and managed to survive as an artist

was carefully staged). But even if the frontier between documen-

before and after being acclaimed in the West. Neither regime ever

tary and ction was blurred from Day One, Kiarostami explored

jailed him, although his lms were banned in Iran for long periods

it with endless imagination. In Kiarostamis mature period espe-

and he had some difficulty travelling abroad. But he was a cautious

ciallysay, from Where Is the Friends Home? (1987) onthere is in

man, and he didnt look for trouble.

every lm a second narrative which takes the form of the spectators

I had the chance to meet Kiarostami once, in Yerevan in 2005,

intrigue about the true nature of the story being told, or the ctional

when Jafar Panahi was already clashing with the government and

status of the characters and the situation.

his safety was endangered. Kiarostami, who was a friend of Panahis

Kiarostami made many movies with people playing themselves,

and also helped him to make lms, told me that Panahi was wrong,

and in 10 on Ten (2004) he remarks with pride about his decision to

that he shouldnt confront them. In that word, them, you could feel

use non-professional actors as often as possible and the ability of

the ominous presence of the dark forces of the Islamic bureaucracy,

the digital camera to catch reality in the most direct and unobtru-

but Kiarostami thought that it was no use ghting against them di-

sive way. But, perhaps to prove that things are not so simple (and

rectly. This attitude had a correlation in his lmmaking. For many

also that he was far from a simple man), he evidently never intend-

years, he worked at the Institute for the Intellectual Development

ed his words to be taken completely at face value. In Shirin (2008),

of Children and Young Adults, a shelter that allowed him to learn

about a hundred professional Iranian actresses (plus Juliette

and practice lmmaking and that provided him with the alibi that

Binoche and some men as extras) pretend to be watching a lm in a

his lms had educational value. Toothache (1980) may be a simple

movie theatrebut the lm they are supposedly watching does not

hygiene spot, or a metaphor with subversive intentions. Orderly or

exist, and Shirin was not shot in a cinema. (On top of which, his last

Disorderly (1981) seems to be about the use of behaving collectively

two features Certied Copy [2010] and Like Someone in Love [2012]

in a right way: we see that schoolboys board a bus in less time when

were made outside Iran with professional crews.)

they make a line than when they ght to get rst to their seat. But

Shirin is a ne example of the pleasure that Kiarostami took in

then, when we see automobiles in a street crossing, they always be-

manipulating the resources of cinema, in using the toy in the most

have selshly, leading to chaos, despite the efforts of a policeman

unexpected ways to fool the sprinkler/viewer. As opposed to the

who tries to direct the ow. Even more interesting is the fact that

Lumire lm, in Kiarostamis version of Larroseur arros you can

the boys look happy when they board the bus pushing each other,

see the boy calling the shots behind the camera. His presence both

and sad and lifeless when they obey the rules and do it properly.

reminds the viewer that a lm is impossible without a director

Its as if Kiarostami held a double view on the worldor, better

andby violating the old taboo that holds that cinema is an invisible

put, a view that comprised both obedience and rebellion, a man of

device invented for the purpose of recording nature or theatrehe

order who was at the same time thoroughly fed up with it. This dou-

shows that lmmaking is a specic art in and of itself.

ble view takes a curious twist in First Case, Second Case (1979), made

But even though he loved deconstructing the cinema machine,

right before the Revolution and then modied to t the new political

Kiarostami didnt conne himself to an abstract approach to his

situation, though it was banned under the Khomeini regime. The

trade. He was trained as a painter and a photographer, and land-

lm begins with a small event where a teacher punishes a group of

scape and people appear in his work with a remarkable degree of

students. Kiarostami then asks politicians, artists, clergymen and

purity. Very few lmmakers showed animals and children with

education experts for their opinions of the incident, showing the

such pleasure, and there are very few lms that so exquisitely dis-

tension in that particular historical moment, even inside the rev-

play the beauty of landscape as Through the Olive Trees (1994) or

olutionary side. In another twist to his conceptual Moebius strip,

Certied Copy, the title of which plays ironically with the ambiguity

Kiarostami creates a very original documentary from a ction, us-

of the double nature of cinema. (Certied Copy is a perfect example

ing public gures to secretly expose his own contradictions around

of Kiarostamis love for eroding narration, in this case by remaking

the rights of the State and the rights of the community, around obe-

Rossellinis Voyage to Italy [1954] as if the protagonists was a mar-

dience and resistance. Kiarostamis previous ction lms like The

riage pretending not to be one.) The mise en abyme, clearly implied

Experience (1973), The Traveller (1974) and The Wedding Suit (1976)

in the Future Reloaded short (after all, there is a lmmaker showing

deal with similar themes in a more intimate way, not related to ide-

the boy making the lm, but this real lmmaker is in turn shot by a

ology or morality. These are lms that concern individual freedom,

third one...), can be applied to Shirin: What if we show Kiarostamis

and the desire of their stubborn protagonists to have it their own

movie to a real audience and record their behaviour? What if we

way against the advice of their teachers and elders. Going after a

pretend to show a fake Kiarostami lm to a crew of actors? What

fancy suit or a ticket for a football match, these kids are reminiscent

if the women then cry as they do in Shirin? While falseness appears

of early nouvelle vague characters, with their angry quest for free-

to dissolve the movies, truth may appear in them unexpectedly to

dom and a different place in society.

touch reality in the deepest ways.

For Kiarostami, that age with its stubborn desire is the last au-

After making fun of the adult, the kid in Kiarostamis Larroseur

thentic time in human life, a moment where an artist can still ex-

is persecuted, chased, and receives his punishment, a gentle spank-

pose the beauty of individual existence, a kind of beauty especially

ing. In the end, order is re-established and the sprinkler resumes

absent in grown-up people and urban life; from there on, everything

its sprinkling. Kiarostami had his particular relationship with

is bleak. Kiarostamis darkest lm is his rst feature made outside

authority, an issue not unimportant for a lmmaker whose career

the institute, The Report (1977), whose main character is a corrupt

spanned two successive authoritarian regimes, the Shahs dictator-

civil servant who abuses his wife and little daughter and whose life

ship and then the theocratic revolution. The one thing both regimes

is completely wrecked. The protagonist, full of anguish and despair,

54

is no worse than his colleagues and the society around him. In a

way, its a lm that clamours for a revolution of some kind.
A revolution came, and Kiarostamis life was transformed in unexpected ways, maybe more professionally than personally. He continued living in Iran, but after a rather silent decade making short
lms and documentaries, Where Is the Friends Home? premiered in
Locarno. It was the rst of ve lms, stylized versions of his early
material that made him a master in the eyes of critics worldwide.
Where Is the Friends Home? was followed by Close-up (1990), Life
and Nothing More (1991), and Through the Olive Trees; he won the
Palme dOr in 1997 with Taste of Cherry, and his reputation was
denitively established. Kiarostami also ourished when he decided to shoot in rural landscapes, and beneted from larger budgets
thanks to French co-producers.
The middle-aged Kiarostami became a humanist, the kind of
artist from a peripheral country thats well-suited to Western
admiration. Generally speaking, his kids became cuter, his peasants purer, his landscapes more magnicent, his pace lighter, and
his plots more kind, even if he dared to enter dark territory as in
Taste of Cherry, a lm that deals with suicide, a subject that had

Where Is the Friends Home?

rst emerged in The Report. One could also argue that Where Is the
Friends Home? is a horror lm in disguise, a lm that starts almost
as a joke and becomes closer to The Night of the Hunter (1955) in the
way it torments its main character, a boy lost amidst the rigidity and
lack of understanding of teachers, relatives, neighbours, and the
forces of naturebut in the end, parents are not so harsh, teachers
are not so cruel, and judges are not so threatening.
Iranian lmmaker Ra Pitts told me that Kiarostami once saw
part of one of his lms, and his advice was, You know, you shouldnt
kill people. A director needs a very special permission to kill a character. According to Pitts, Kiarostami then looked above to point to
the one that should give that permission. In fact, Kiarostamis characters dont die, at least on screen. There is maybe an exception in
Like Someone in Love, where the old man may or may not be killed in
the last scene, but the experienced Kiarostami viewer will almost
certainly conclude that the death doesnt happen. Its only one more
of his rather undecided endings, the most famous being the one in
Through the Olive Treesbut then again, like all of us, in that lm he

Ten

wanted the boy to get the girl.

Adult men might be doomed in Kiarostamis lms, but what
about women? Except for The Report, when he discovered the powerful Shohreh Aghdashloo and cast her in the role of the abused

asked always to be translated), and to preserve this impersonation

wife, women never played a signicant part in his early lms.

with grace. In the meantime, he tried to understand the history of

Neither did they in the famous lms from the 90s, the only differ-

cinema in which he was supposed to play a part. Kiarostami doesnt

ence being that the women who appeared had their heads covered

seem to have given much thought to the subject in his early years,

after the Revolution. But from Ten (2002) onwards, women enter as

but at this point he started thinking and talking about Godard,

a main focus in Kiarostamis lmography. As characters, they share

Hitchcock, and Rossellini. His reading of lm history turned out to

with men their issues with adulthood and modern life, but they lack

be an apt one, because nally he approached Ozu, to whom he paid

power and are more exposed to suffering. Women suffer like hell in

homage explicitly in Five and obviously in Like Someone in Love. He

Ten and cry a lot in Shirin, but suddenly Kiarostami became also a

shared with Ozu not only a love for playfulness and the lightness of

master in showing the beauty and expressiveness of Iranian wom-

his games with the camera, but the same kind of sad gentleness, the

en, and he did the same in his two last features with non-Iranians

acceptance of a given order and a quiet anger against it. Like Ozu,

Juliette Binoche and Rin Takanashi, who likewise suffer the ego-

he thought that after childhood society takes all freedom and joy

tism of men and the oppression of society.

from human life, and that the duty of an artist is not to make things

Maybe Kiarostami was initially surprised by his success in the

worse. It makes perfect sense that his picture about the future of

West, and in his last years the self-taught lmmaker had to learn an-

cinema was a return to the Lumires just to state that a hundred

other part of the trade: how to behave like a master, to show wisdom

years later cinema is still one and the same, but should be made with

and modesty, to give interviews (although he spoke English well, he

young eyes in order to stay alive.

55

F I L M/A RT | BY PH I L COL DI RON

FAREWELL TO
STORYVILLE
JOHN AKOMFRAHS NEW ESSAYS

He began sifting through his store of images

for a story to recount to them, shielding this
place and its particularities from their imaginations.John Keene, Counternarratives
Just because it is possible to invent a narrative
excuse for the way something presents itself
doesnt, I think, mean that it is narrative.
Hollis Frampton

56

The Airport

Situated at both the conceptual and temporal centre of John

world in which such an act may amount to little more than ad reve-

Akomfrahs rst feature, Handsworth Songs (1986), are images not

nue in the end.

from the protests and riots in Birmingham which gave the lm its

Harrowing photographs do not inevitably lose their power to

title, but rather from the events the following month in the North

shock. But they dont help us much to understand. Narratives can

London neighbourhood of Broadwater Farm, where the death of

make us understand. Photographs do something else: they haunt

Cynthia Jarrett from heart failure during an unnecessary raid on

us. This summary of the potential usefulness of violent images giv-

her home led to anti-police protests and street ghting, and even-

en by Susan Sontag in her long essay on war photography, Regarding

tually the death of a policeman. Akomfrahs footage shows a group

the Pain of Others, must be tested against the exponentially growing

of almost exclusively white photographers and cameramen jockey-

number of images in circulation: the daily number of images posted

ing for the closest view while nervously focusing to get their shot

online has grown by an order of four decimal places in the last dec-

of a sidewalk memorial before cutting to a brief image of a surveil-

ade. Creating images has become a nearly automatic activity, and

lance camera and nally to a long view of the lengthy procession as

while their consumption is now the dominant public ritual in the

a whole, which an onscreen title identies as The Funeral of Mrs.

West, it remains true that they dont help us much to understand.

Cynthia Jarrett. The dialectical movement through these shots

For Sontag, the image is justied in the face of its descriptive short-

marks a highpoint of clarity and complexity of montage conceived

comings by taking its ability to serve as the material for an archive

on Eisensteins model, passing from the global problem of a cul-

built as a guard against navet, a bulwark which would ensure that

ture ceaselessly demanding more images of everything through the

no one could deny the worst. The more images available to this ar-

point where such a culture becomes indistinguishable from the to-

chive, one supposes, the better: as Sontag notes, a greater number of

tal coverage of a repressive state, and nally to the confrontation

images of violence and suffering cannot be taken to convey any in-

which the lm itself enacts between the images presented by the

formation about whether a given period is more or less brutal than

medias coverage of the anti-police events of the fall of 1985 and

the past. Indeed, the power of images in this model does not depend

those of a popular cinema capable of matching, and indeed, exceed-

upon their being viewed. To this end, the social role Sontag envi-

ing the power of such images of control and oppression. The model

sions for images would appear to obtain: only the most reactionary

of media consumption and production practiced by Akomfrah in

individuals today continue to deny the existence of the violence

his early lms has been, wittingly or not, adopted globally by var-

delivered daily around the world in the perverse name of law and

ious bodies of popular resistance which have proven the continu-

order. There is ample evidence. The trouble is that the potentially

ing importance of maintaining such ows of counter-hegemonic

haunting image, after all, remains an image, and it aims as images

force, ows which now regularly operate at the level of instant

do today for the widest circulation possible. The moment an image

international visibility.

ceases to deal directly with the individual viewer and addresses

Of course, the relevancy of a practice does not guarantee against

itself to the task of haunting a culture at large, it risks becoming

new problems arising, and one need look no further than the spec-

unspeakably banal. We are briey and together struck by images

tacle of Donald Trumps relationship to the media to see the ease

such as those of Omran Daqneesh or Alan Kurdi, but whether one

with which a purely formal conception of such criticismthat is,

hopes they will prick a sympathetic consciousness, or, more hope-

one lacking an adequate theory of historyslides into the service of

fully still, help grow sympathy where it is not yet found, a pair of

the most vicious racism and nationalism. And while it would seem

fundamental problems must be dealt with: dening the relationship

that there is at least some positive value in the existence of imag-

in our image-glutted culture between a haunting image and a banal

es that capture, for example, the American states violence against

one, and reconciling the power held by language with the recent and

its own citizens, one must weigh whatever this value is against the

exponential increase in the power claimed by images.

health of a culture in which the circulation of images of black death

John Akomfrahs recent lms provide useful opportunities for

is steady enough that Ezekiel Kweku could only bitterly admit in

working through both of these problems. He has, happily, grown

the opening of American Horror Story, written in response to the

exceedingly productive in recent years. Following quickly on his

videos showing Baton Rouge police killing Alton Sterling, At this

acclaimed presentation at last years Venice Biennale of a mul-

point, I am a critic of images of men like me, dying. Im a connois-

ti-screen installation on aquatic commerce and disaster, Vertigo

seur. We nd another connoisseur in the gure of the technocrat

Sea, he premiered a trio of lms earlier this year in exhibitions

selling the latest in wearable camera technology to the local police

at Bristols Arnolni and Londons Lisson Gallery, two of which,

department, though the comforting delusion of their contribution

The Airport and Auto Da F, then travelled to the latters recently

to historys progressive march towards justice alleviates anything

opened Chelsea outpost, where they comprised the core of his rst

like the concern evident in Kwekus careful unpacking of the me-

solo exhibition in New York. While remaining concerned on the lev-

chanics of such images, which leads nally to the assertion that for

el of subject matter with topics Akomfrah has dealt with regularly

these videos to prick the conscience, that conscience must already

across the last three decades, these lms mark a signicant depar-

value the lives of those who are dying. If these images are failing as

ture in their excision of two components which have consistently

interventionist gestures, theyre nonetheless doing booming busi-

shaped the form of his lms: found footage and the testimonial in-

ness: the rst four YouTube results for Alton Sterling total more

terview. And though these lms prove less overtly concerned with

than ve million views, and include uploads by ABC, CBS, and CNN.

the essayistic construction of arguments achieved so often with

The dgety cameraman lmed by Akomfrah at Mrs. Jarretts funer-

brilliance in his earlier works, they nevertheless t snugly into

al nds a distant, aching echo here in the gure of the citizen torn

Jean-Pierre Gorins description of the essay lm as the meander-

between the desperate desire to drag injustice into the open and a

ing of an intelligence that tries to multiply the entries and the exits
57

into the material it has elected. Having offered early elaborations

lating audiences with relaying the mismatched gazes that might ul-

of a number of approaches which have become commonplace in

timately connect the artistes, as its cast is credited, of The Airport

the most sophisticated nonction lmmaking (his inuence can

with the refugees of Auto Da F, the complete picture which

be felt in the work of artists as varied in sensibility as Hito Steyerl,

might offer common ground exists, for now, only as virtual. Where

Ephraim Asili, Rachel Rose, and Thom Andersen), Akomfrah has

Handsworth Songs or Seven Songs for Malcolm X (1993) performed

now conceived a new form for the material he has elected: a musi-

the critical operations necessary to correct a faulty narrativethe

cal portraiture of mute gures based in the rhythmic and harmonic

intent being that of the journalist, or historianthese new works

movement amongst, between, and within multiple screens of often

have concerned themselves with forms of memory.

breathtaking images which move in and out of phase with the lms

The Airport, three wide screens of images glowing with

equally dense soundtracks. The beauty that once emanated from

Mediterranean light so heavily ltered it approaches the blue and

the clarity of Akomfrahs insights into the dynamics of history has,

gold tints of early cinema, follows the course of a day in the area of

over the course of the last decade, steadily been modulated into the

Athens abandoned Ellinikon International Airport, though this

stuff of the lm itself, affording new vistas onto the problem of how

temporal conventionalthe story which arcs from early morning

and why images stick with usa concern which must occupy a criti-

through sunsetis deployed to unconventional ends, acting more

cal position in any sufficient conception of an ethical image culture.

like a frame, situated at a great distance, which allows gures from

The Airport opens with an epigraph taken from James Baldwins

across the 19th and 20th centuries to mingle in the same ction-

1979 essay Of the Sorrow Songs: The Cross of Redemption.

al space, in a day. Playing the Bloom role is an astronaut in full

Written as a review of a recently published volume of jazz history,

outer-space gear, whose face is obscured by a dark-visored helmet

the piece is rather a free-ranging consideration of what can be un-

that frames its surroundings in its place. As the astronaut wanders

derstood at all of black American music and the richness it brings

the spaces of the airport, he approaches but never achieves any

to life if one fails to face the fact that it begins, as he writes, on

connection with these variously chic individuals. There is an older,

the auction-block. And yet, as Baldwin concludes and Akomfrah

ponytailed man in modern eveningwear who spends a considerable

quotes, Music is our witness, and our ally. The beat is the confes-

amount of time with our guide, including an extended sequence in

sion which recognizes, changes and conquers time. Then, history

which the two explore a collapsed building, which rhymes with the

becomes a garment we can wear, and share, and not a cloak in which

underground structure nally reached at the heart of The Zone in

to hide: and time becomes a friend. This model for understanding

Tarkovskys Stalker (1979). Two men and two women in the light

the haunting capacity of an object or idea does not concern itself

suiting and patterned silk of the 60s stalk the airports runways

with an audience in need of either ethical maintenance or an emo-

individually and in pairs before coming together in a moment that

tional x, but rather takes an acknowledgement of suffering as the

recalls the endless stroll of Buuels Bourgeoisie. There is a cheaply

basic fact of solidarity, the unit out of which the rhythms are built

costumed gorilla, rst seen hammering away at an ax with a stick,

that might sustain hope for the future and alleviate the pain of

who performs one of the lms most startling gestures by simply

the present.

crossing from the leftmost screen to the centre, one of the only in-

Baldwins essay lands briey in its course on an obscure melo-

stances of such continuity in either work, and certainly the most

drama from 1947, Arthur Lubins New Orleans, noteworthy only for

pronounced; it is disorienting in much the same way as the famous

the presence and performances of Billie Holliday, Louis Armstrong,

early cut in 2001 (1968), from which the ape seems to have arrived.

and a long list of star session players lling out the house band. Late

Such a method of reading these images amounts to the produc-

in the lm, as Holliday soundtracks the exodus of her fellow black

tion of what Frampton identies as narrative excuses: lacking

performers with Farewell to Storyvillethe lm dramatizes the

sufficient context to understand this ow of guresthere are

closing of this historical red light district, shuttered here out of

also a man and two women in the garb of Edwardian travellers, a

the spite a politically inuential white mother feels at her daugh-

woman in a crimson dress who holds her body as if always on the

ters dating on the wrong side of townthere is a brief shot which

verge of dance, and another who rst appears in a graveyard and

neatly sketches the relationship between The Airport and Auto Da

seems throughout to be in mourningwhile presuming that the

F: the camera slowly tracks towards the tuxedoed gure of its light

fact of the cameras interest itself conrms the existence of some

skinned protagonist (the Mexican actor Arturo de Crdova), owner

rational narrative capable of accounting for everything in a lm.

of Storyvilles biggest casino and one half of the romance which has

We might consider the gure of the auteur to be the lms master

brought about his neighbourhoods demise, as he stands on a balco-

excuse, and its worth noting that Akomfrah does not credit him-

ny and gazes down on the suffering he nds himself implicated in,

self with any specic action in the end titles to either of these lms.

and the strength overcoming it in the form of Hollidays song. This

This slipperiness is furthered by The Airports dense soundtrack,

small gesture of the camera marks the duration of his coming to see

which surrounds news reports on Greeces involvement in global

that this strength is beyond his comprehension; it is, from a differ-

events from the Korean War through its own ongoing crisis, with

ent angle, an image of him coming to be haunted.

music ranging from Bach, to Callas performing Tosca, to a suite of

In New York, The Airport and Auto Da F were projected on the

traditional Greek folk songs (at least some of them sung by the ar-

shared wall dividing the two theatres constructed within the

tistes themselves). At times, the sound and image tracks come into

gallery: long, narrowish rooms with three benches each, anked

a conventional harmonyas in the sequence in which the astronaut

on either side by spaces hung with large C-type prints of extracted

and the Edwardian ladies sit in the vicinity of a phonograph as the

frames. (The presentation in London was, by all accounts, quite dif-

soundtrack plays Callas singing the Vissi darteand at others

ferent; it seems to have put the lms into more direct conversation.)

they split in near parallel, offering the space to consider what force

Considered as two sides of the same plane, the lms task the circu-

continues to hold them together at all.

58

Top: The Airport

Bottom: Auto Da F

With its title invoking public burnings and eight chapters bearing headings such as Brittany 1762: Huguenot devil worshippers
not allowed here and Bridgetown 1946: Leaving was only a matter
of time, Auto Da F returns an urgency absent from The Airport,
whose calm tracking shots are matched by the steady drift of its
montage. Though the two lms compositional approaches are consistent, Auto Da Fs two screens invite more direct visual contrast,
most notably between the recurring images of sentimental items,
such as a stuffed animal and suitcases, washing up in the surf (often in crisp black and white against the clear light of the bulk of the
lm), and moments such as the extraordinarily choreographed sequence in which the camera pans around a courtyard as individuals
pass in and out of the frame along tangents to the curve described
by the cameras direction. The former performs something like the
opposite of inventing narrative excuses: the power of such images
depends on their banality, the degree to which they are found to be
too awful for words, a power with which they foreclose on the possibility of any description that might allow for a more full understanding of the situation they condensethe death of migrants due
to the hideously unsafe seafaring conditions many thousands are
forced to risk every day. The latter pan is but one of many instances
in these lms in which Akomfrah captures a sense of friendly time,
the rhythms of the camera and the space and the people clicking
into syncopation, which we might also call solidarity, and dening
the movement which shuttles between action and idea.
59

F E ST I VA L S | BY JAY K U E H N E R

LOCARNO I

CHALLENGES
With its boldly stylized design, looking otherworldly but extracted

UAE, is treated to an abstract ethnography by the Italian artist

from the all-too-real, and replete with excessnot least a purring

known for his documentation, in typically broad strokes, of ritu-

pet cheetah lounging on ornate carpet and riding in a luxury sports

alized gesture and choreographic labour (San Siro [2014] explored

car, and a brotherhood of Muslim bikers astride sparkling chop-

the industrial anatomy of Milans sporting temple; Il Capo [2010]

persThe Challenge could double as a wayward lm-festival ad-

witnessed a marble quarry under excavation by machine and a lone

vert. Yuri Ancaranis Filmmakers of the Present Special Jury Prize

chief conductor in the Apuan Alps). Grounded in observational

winner is embalmed in a garish yellow colour scheme, not unlike

realism, yet strangely plush in its austerity, the nominal tale of a

Locarno itself come festival time. The garish artice evinced by

Sheikh falconer travelling to Qatar for a weekend tournament be-

the lms production stills owe more to its chosen milieu than its

comes a hypnotic study in contrasts: the wild and the tame, the gild-

mise en scne, a compositionally stark, visually expansive render-

ed and the barren, ennui and excitement, technology and nature.

ing of an ancient treatise, De Arte Venandi cum Avibus (On the Art of

The sense that The Challenge intends to give an arching expres-

Hunting with Birds), manifest in the modern Arab world. The gloss

sion to the prestigious history of falconry among aristocracyal-

of the Festival del lm Locarno not dissimilarly disguises the more

luded to in the opening scenes bombastic scoreis soon dispelled

daring content that lies within: while icons are trotted out nightly

by an underlying feeling of banality, materialized in deliberately

on the Piazza Grande, a future wave is simultaneously being incu-

framed images of robed men idling on their cellphones, or in new

bated within the Concorso Cineasti del presente; indeed, such chal-

SUVs that tread the burnt sienna desert. (The personication of ve-

lenges are presented throughout the festival program.

hicles becomes something of a cherished motif of the lm, conceived

In The Challenge, the seemingly archaic sport of falconry, and

of equal parts Walter Hill and Jacques Tati.) The manning of falcons

perhaps more conspicuously its desert culture of devotees in the

provides the ritual proceedings with incidental intriguethe lm is

60

clearly more interested in the peregrine nature of humansthough

such informative minutiae as the birds donning of tted leather
hoods reads perilously close to a symbolic sight gag for the viewer
but ultimately not the inscrutable practitioner. Still, The Challenge
excels in tapping the particularly uncanny sensation of a blinded
bird perched inside of an aircraft mid-ight. Ancaranis strain of
desert anthropology depersonalizes its subjects at the expense of a
universalizing view, the timelessness of the landscape belittling the
endeavours of men. The lm baits the mythic with the mundane. The
technological leashing of the feral presents its own sublime paradox,
just as vicarious hunting in the absence of any discernible appetite
provides us with a curious look at the wages of satiability, a model
of our own modern existential challenge. Less severely, the lms
pageantry strikes an unforced semblance, sans birds, to the weekend
culture of American sporting events and arena-rock parking lots.
Exoticism is purely contextual.
Swap the falcons prey of pigeons in the Qatari dunes for the
Norway rat in the streets of Baltimore, or the spectre of a historically infamous Native American on the run in the palm desert of
California and a sidelong inquiry into communities both natural and
engineered begins to emerge, in Rat Film and Pow Wow respectively.
Companion lmsslotted in the festivals vital Signs of Life section
both investigate their peculiar habitats by unconventional means,
eschewing the condemnable tone of so many urban and suburban
Left: The Challenge

dystopian critiques while allowing for multivalent sources to artic-

Top: Destruction Babies

ulate the lm as a site more than a subject.

Bottom: Mister Universo

Robinson Devors Pow Wow concerns, in a digressive fashion, a

host of desert denizens residing in the Coachella Valleywhere country-club golf courses are abutted by Native land, the earth alternately parched or verdant with irrigationwho deliver a collective oral
history of this frontier in all its contradictions. The speculative and
specious sense of truth echoes the liberties taken by the lms latent
source material, Harry W. Lawtons 1960 book Tell Them Willie Boy
Is Here (and the subsequent Abraham Polonsky lm starring Robert
Redford), about the famous manhunt of a Paiute Indian on the run.
The lms lone Native voice, a Cahuilla man, recounts without irony
how family members were enlisted to play Natives in the lm. The

61

peregrinating POV gathers, through rather random sampling, the

Competition entry Mister Universo, seemingly descended from

cultural vestiges of the legend passed through generations; in one

the stock mythology of Fellini but quite contrarily possessed of its

iteration, it appears to live on as a country-club drinking diver-

own bracingly modest realism, by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel,

sion, with whites adorning feathered headdresses, riding golf carts

who have crafted a small world from the hard-luck trailer dwellers

drunkenly into the dusk. Aerial pans reveal a modern suburban wil-

outside of Rome. A narrative strand that would appear contrived

derness subdivided and scored by competing histories, while faux

is instead graced with an extemporaneity derived from documen-

chapters attempt to map the adaptive strategies of the people of

tary, as Tairo Caroli reappears from La Pivellina (2009) as a varia-

the desert empire. Theres plenty of irony to mine in the plaid-pants

tion of himself, his lions sick and dying, his talisman stolen, and his

lifestyle and retiree mindset, but the tone remains circumspect

only ally a superstitious red-headed contortionist with an aching

(there are dead bodies found amid the palm groves, after all), and

body whom he promises, someday, to marry. A road trip in search

the results inconclusive, as if Devor got necessarily lost looking for

of Arthur Robin, the former Mister Universe who might bend him

his thesis but wisely kept the camera rolling.

a new good-luck iron, is occasioned by little more drama than the

Theo Anthonys debut Rat Film repurposes the proverbial dictum

everyday: a bend in the road where the forces of gravity seems to

of a 50-foot wall: show me a three-foot garbage can in Baltimore and

have reversed; stove-top espresso with members of the extended

Ill show you a rat that can leap an inch higher, so the lm begins.

family; an arm-wrestling match; an overheated radiator that gets

Not merely pest, pet, snake food, or science study, the rat becomes

repaired by an uncle who couldve been a singer; a brief encounter

conveniently symbolic of that which has historically troubled the

with a chimpanzee who appeared in Fellini and Argento lms; a

city to this day; this is something all too easy to identify but nev-

nap on his grandmothers sofa; cousins who sew his tattered black

ertheless near impossible to eradicate. Attempts at systematic

leather jacket; and a few leads to the whereabouts of The Black

elimination have, in the end, revealed less about the scourge and

Hercules, as Robin was known. Tairos eventual meeting with his

more about the people: it aint a rat problem, its a people prob-

hero is revelatory for its lack of hyperbole: Arthur Robin lives in a

lem, attests Harold Edmund, veteran extermination officer for

trailer with his wife and works in a roadside safari park near Milan

the Baltimore Rat Rubout program, with whom journalist-cum-

(circus and amusement parks are, in the lms view, synonymous

director Anthony was fortunate to hitch a ride; the guys clearly a

with melancholy). Implored by Tairo to bend one last iron, the af-

character. The moral test of a government is how that government

fable octogenarian strongman concedes, Even time passes for me.

treats...those in the shadows, declared Hubert Humphrey, presum-

Like the gravitational anomaly in which water appears to ow up-

ably not thinking of rodents. But in what could otherwise have been

hill, Covi and Frimmels work acts like a force of nature, showing

a Herzog-approved study of marginalia played for eccentricity, Rat

what remains when the luck and the muscle have run out.

Film refuses the lure of a quick x (peanut butter wrapped in turkey

Also a Filmmakers of the Present winner (for Best Director),

slices, as it were) and digs into the dark recesses of the citys history

Mariko Tetsuyas Destruction Babies, meanwhile, is so pointed-

of institutionalized urban segregation. Shedding light on a collec-

ly nihilistic that it might very well prophesy the future of youth,

tive rat hunt, the lm incidentally illuminates something entirely

which makes it all the more cautionary as a tale of juvenile vio-

more pestilent: the abhorrent treatment of unwanted populations.

lence. The lms slug-fest premise pummels the viewer into a state

Contrary to its subjects own legacy, Douglas Gordons portrait

of submission, which may very well serve as a perverse version of a

of Jonas Mekas, I Had Nowhere to Go, unfolds with scarcely any im-

comfort zone for future generations already weaned on the pain of

ages at all, the mostly black screen serving as a memory hole from

abandonment, alienation, or bullying. Has there been a more com-

which Mekas voice recounts his displacement from Lithuania dur-

pelling lm about violence, Japanese-style, since Kitano showed

ing WWII and eventual migration to the US. Leaving the viewer

up on the scene? Having been beaten up by a group of students

with seemingly no place to go (the lm demands to be listened to)

in his hometown, young Taira (former Cannes Best Actor win-

may seem like a provocation, a form of protest against the 21st cen-

ner Yagira Yuya) disappears, to the dismay of his younger brother

turys proliferation of images and cursed conditions of perpetual

Shouta, only to reappear on the city streets as a lm monster like

migration and exile, but its just as well a sensible move for a lm

weve never seen before: Taira blatantly provokes ghts with both

about a lmmaker who, camera in hand, shot his way out of oblivion

weak and tough guys, pummelling them into submission indiscrim-

to become the avatar of the American avant-garde. The disembod-

inately. Even when bloodied, he refuses to bow; he merely gets up

ied, lilting tenor of Mekas still-broken English guides the viewer,

and, with a sadistic grin, throws himself at more random foes for

but Gordons strategy of stripping the image still runs the risk of

another turn at pain. The cycle of violence is ceaseless, rooted as

being about his own didactic framing device of Mekas otherwise

it is in the rationalized justice of retribution, to which no one in

humble, and humbling, account. For all of his harrowing experienc-

the lm appears immune. Tairas cruelty assumes a pathetic di-

es, there is hope in the way Mekas, making his way west, considers

mension in his relentless pursuit of contact, albeit of a most pun-

the simple act of buying a hat, his plain spoken deliveryI looked

ishing kind. It also proves contagious, as a helpless onlooker sees in

at labels attached to brims of hatstapping a particularly incalcu-

Tairas ruthlessness a potential cure for vulnerability, and begins

lable magnitude of freedom by way of the inconsequential. The title,

exploiting the bouts for exhibition on social media, and an excuse

in Mekas conguration, refers to the pleasure of no longer needing

to tap into his sadistic side. Mariko redenes the notion of gra-

to be somewhere.

tuitous violence in an era when the pursuit of personal pleasure,

An unt lion-tamer quits his circus and sets out on the road

however painful, has become unalienable, and most likely spon-

in rural Italy in search of a lost iron amulet, bent by a notorious

sored. All that remains to be done is cringe, preferably in public, at

strongman years before. So goes the wandering premise of the

the horrors.

62

Correspondences

F E ST I VA L S | BY J E R RY W H I T E

LOCARNO II

CORRESPONDENCES
All the Cities of the North

Some of the most interesting lms at this years Festival del

lm Locarno tended to be those where ction and documentary werent so much as coming together as falling apart. Call it
productive decay: as the seams and edges of these works started to show, you could see the emergence of something that was
not just new, but also uncanny in its familiarity.
Thats certainly the case with Dane Komljens debut All
the Cities of the North, which begins as a kind of study of two
gures in a landscape, although here the landscape is a distinctly modernist Yugoslavian group of abandoned concrete
buildings. At one level there is a cryptic, tender love story unfolding, one that is as notable for softly-lit shots across the
bodies of sleeping men (with waves on the soundtrack, no
less) as it is for interiors in these buildings, all empty gas cans
and giant, awkward tarpaulins. At the same time, though,
there is a meditation on the effects of Yugoslav idealism on
the landscape we are seeing and on the world outside. Short,
essayistic montages of photographs explain the construction of the buildings for the Lagos International Trade Fair
by Yugoslavian architects, and of the city of Brasilia, where,
the voiceover tells us, engineers built a neighbouring city
63

for their families out of the junk from the bigger project. That is,

What Correspondences documents, really, is a group of multi-

of course, whats going on here: a sometimes connected lm about

lingual readers coming to know de Senas work better, access-

two men trying to live together amidst ruins is being built out of bits

ing his interior life in small fragments. The use of a tableau aes-

and pieces of sometimes connected, sometimes completely separ-

thetic makes the lm feel something like a globalized version of

ate images and patterns of images (including essayistic sequences,

the Lumires, and thats what leads the mind towards the word

high lyricism, moments where a lm crew intrudes). Clearly this

documentary when trying to describe whats going on here.

aggressively bric-a-brac approach has its roots in the experience

But as with the Lumire material, thats both precise and inad-

of Yugoslavia itself: the federation of nations that promised an end

equate: not up to evoking the paradoxes at work in the way that

to nationalism. The lm itself was shot in Montenegro, near the

the material looks, the way its put together. These small snap-

Albanian border, while the dialogue and voiceovers are in Serbo-

shots of letters, these actualits that, given that de Sena died in

Croatian. Expanding on this choice of setting during the Q&A,

1978, arent very actuelle, are attempts to evoke the sense of exile,

Komlijen wrestled with his own sense of Yugo-nostalgia, noting

not its reality. That evocation of sense memory is, of course, what

that for his generation (he was born in 1986) there is a tendency to

poetry is built for; what the Lumires promised to show us, as

see the potential in the idea, to long for the possibilities inherent

Gomes clearly knows quite well, is that cinema has that in its DNA

in living in a country whose very organization seemed to aspire

as well.

towards internationalism.

Of all the straight documentaries that I saw at Locarno, the

But as the credits point out, the lms narrative, such as it is,

one that seemed the most at war with itself, the most desirous of a

alludes to Prince Marko and the Fairy, an epic poem important in

similar split, was Nicholas Wadimoffs Jean Ziegler, loptimisme

Serbian culture. Komijen also spoke in the Q&A of his desire to

de la volont. This is ostensibly a portrait of the great Swiss hell-

queer that classical narrative, although he didnt need to try too

raiser, author of early works of post-colonialism like Sociologie

hard, since the poem is already full of homoerotic suggestiveness:

de la nouvelle Afrique and Le pouvoir africain (1973), friend of Che

One kissed the face of the other: such loving brothers were they

Guevara, and more recently chair of high-prole UN committees

/ Then Marko on Dapple yearned to sleep; he spake to his brother

on food and predatory banking. For the Swiss left he is something

sworn / Vovoda Milosh, heavily by sleep am I overborne. / Sing

of a hero, embodying a kind of broad internationalism that is un-

to me, brother, and cheer me. Seeing those lines actually makes

stinting in its criticism of global capitalism and of the US in specif-

large sections of All the Cities of the North seem like a very faith-

ic. Wadimoffs lm mostly alternates between the halls of the UN

ful adaptation of this medieval epic, which is startling given that

and the streets and tiny apartments of Cuba, and for much of its

the lm is, overall, pulling so hard in the direction of modernity,

running time is a Ziegler in action peek into his work. But once

internationalism, and fragmentation. Thats the quiet genius of the

the preliminaries in Cuba are squared away, Wadimoff ends up

work, really: making something that is fully medieval and yet also

frequently at odds with his subject. He stays offscreen, but there

present in contemporary Serbian nationalism into something total-

are frequent arguments about the state of Cuban democracy, on

ly invested in the lingering fragments of late 20th-century, proto-

which Ziegler is notably unyielding. When Wadimoff presses him

globalist idealism.

on the lack of press freedoms there, he surprisingly doubles down

Rita Azevedo Gomes Correspondences is similarly dened by a

and says, Come on, man, do you need the Tribune de Genve to

rag-picking sense of heterogeneity, although its proto-globalization

live? OK, three Cuban newspapers, nobody reads them, and thats

looks very different indeed. The lms jumping-off point is Jorge

just ne.

de Senas poetry and his letters to the aristocratic poet Sophia de

Thats far from the only time that the subject refuses the lm-

Mello Breyner Andresen. Both the poems and the letters are deli-

makers entreaties to criticize his Cuban hosts in such viva la

cate, precise evocations of the consequences of Salazars Portugal,

revolucin terms. The lms last act is mostly devoted to Zieglers

which de Sena left in 1958 for Brazil, where most of the material

hospitalization in Cuba, and hes obviously happy that the lm crew

we hear on the lms soundtrack was written. Gomes, who works at

gets to see the Cuban healthcare system from the inside. You can al-

the Cinemateca Portuguesa, mixes in quite a bit of Super 8 footage,

most feel Wadimoff wincing, knowing that hes been brought into a

which gives the lm a duly nostalgic ambiance. But most of the lm

situation that will show how decent a place Cuba is after all. During

is given over to tableaux of people reading the letters or the poems,

this sequence, though, as throughout the lm, he pans frequently

sometimes in Portuguese but also in Spanish, French, and Greek.

over to Zieglers wife Erica, who seems faintly amused by the old

What is most striking throughout these recitations (and there are

mans pronouncements. Shes obsessed with death, like all the

a lot of them: the lm is 145 minutes long) is the delicacy of inter-

people here, he says of someone he had met earlier. Like you are,

iors: sitting rooms, small back gardens, messy kitchens. All of that

she corrects. After he praises his nurse, she agrees, saying, She is

is rendered with rich earth tones but otherwise quite plainly, and so

disciplined and well-trained. You need to be the same! Erica emer-

makes for a potent parallel to the grainy Super 8 material. It isnt all

ges, nally, as the lms analysis-bearer. Less than an indictment of

nostalgia for the homeland. One sequence in a small, simple apart-

Ziegler, Wadimoffs lm nally coalesces as a sympathetic portrait

ment has on the soundtrack a letter wherein de Sena speculates that

thats often undone by a sense of loving impatience. That he lets

from his perch in democratic Brazil hes more able to understand

this all hang out, bringing it to a ne point during a climax where he

whats going on in Portugal than Andresen: Maybe I know more

knows hes been had, makes this one of the most unusual docu-por-

than you.

traits Ive seen in quite a while.

64

B O OK S | BY CH R I ST OPH E R SM A L L

Lamour laprs-midi

SHARED LIFE
ric Rohmer: A Biography

n paper, a biography of French cinemas most elusive offscreen presence reads as a wrongheaded exercise, an uphill endeavour seemingly set against the spirit of its subject. As with the recent proliferation of Jacques Rivettes
Out 1 (1971), the release of this biography in English is a
moment in which a previously obscured gureor an ob-

ject, in the case of Rivettes conspiratorial opusis drawn into the

light. For both, obscurity has always been fused into their existential fabric. ric Rohmer was the invention of a notoriously private
literature professor named Maurice Schrer. Behind the lmmaker
responsible for some of Frances most protable low-budget lms
was a fake name, a hidden private life, dates and details of a precinematic life willfully fudged in what little biographical detail was
known. In spirit, Rohmer seemed more like a gure familiar from
the literature that he loved, taught, and adapted into movies; closer
in spirit, perhaps, to a Hollywood craftsman inventing and distorting his own extra-cinematic myths.
But the effective aspect of this new biography by Antoine de

Baecque and Nol Herpe is exactly that its far-reaching research

respects the boundaries of these two men. We emerge with a slim
65

but sufficient degree of detail regarding Schrers personal life and

(their topics of conversation were rarely in the realm of the cinema,

a wealth of it as it pertains to the path trodden by ric Rohmer, a

less still his own), while living a quasi-bohemian existence in the

name Schrer began to use only in his early 30s. Schrer taught in a

daytime. Rohmer was a mystical elder gure who, with a Warhol-

Lyce outside Paris and wrote the novel lisabeth, ou Les Vacances

like cadre of young starlets (Rohmer considered total celibacy the

during the war; Rohmer directed more than 20 feature lms and

key to his success in this eld), spent his afternoons over tea in the

edited Cahiers du Cinma at its polemical peak. The biography

office of Les Films du Losange, his Paris production company. While

covers every period in Rohmer-Schrers life, arranged in roughly

Rohmer was becoming one of Frances most acclaimed lmmakers,

chronological sections (the overall arc is respected, if not the order

Schrer never told his mother that he was a director, fearing that it

of individual periods). Often, events and productions will be allud-

would bring only shame.

ed to in advance of their allocated indexical section, meaning that

His movies, meanwhile, express a moral universe in ux, with

his life and lifes work is registered by a more allusive approach,

characters caught in the contrasting pulls of a double life. The

connecting ideas and obsessions in measured swoops between dif-

dilemma characterizes lms as diverse as Triple Agent (2004),

ferent time periods. Frequently, it feels as if each chapter is a new

Lamour laprs-midi (1972), and Conte dhiver (1992)each is a

essay, that the book itself is a patchwork of discontinuous studies

variation on the theme of the double life as an unsustainable di-

and histories of ric Rohmers life, and that it might well have been

version from regular living. Rohmer, a conservative able to live out

written at different periods and under different auspices.

this dialectical existence in real life with little apparent trouble,

The strength, then, is that this achronological outlook emphasiz-

proposes alternatives to radical change, ranging from pragmatic

es the patterns that reverberate through Rohmers body of work

existential reappraisals (libidos rejuvenated by the possibility of

the way, for example, the new towns of Cergy-Pontoise and Marne-

measured adultery in Lamour laprs-midi or 1970s Le genou de

la-Valle in, respectively, LAmi de mon amie (1987) and Les nuits de

Claire) to the occurrence of a Griffith-like miracle (the ending of

la pleine lune (1984), anticipate the 90s lms preoccupation with

Conte dhiver) and nally to the crushing failure of this dialectical

landscape and architecture. It is then possible, too, to connect these

ideal (explicitly in Les nuits de la pleine lune, implicitly in his late

with the spirit of the documentaries that Rohmer made in the mid-

masterpiece Conte dAutomne [1998]). Rohmers gentle conserva-

60s for educational television and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

tism compels him to mask these irresolvable struggles in clear-cut

which are seemingly the products of similar passions. The book

resolutions; as in Hitchcock, the lengthy justications in which

gives an excellent impression of the recurrence of these waves of

characters indulge are insufficient to explain the true emotions of

inspiration, and generally does a ne job of reimagining the atmos-

the lms.

phere that gave rise to the lms themselves. Like Ozu, Rohmers

As his creations approach the moment when things are in dan-

movies are not the uniform object that their repeated motifs, con-

ger of changingas a revolution in their own thought or feeling ap-

secutive cycles, and critical opinion suggest, and, also like Ozu, its

proachesthey recede from it into the safety of their everyday ex-

the reputation of a handful of arthouse favourites that has deter-

istences. What Frdric is eeing when he runs away from Chlo

mined for him the reputation as an artistic stalwart.

[in Lamour laprs-midi] is perhaps less carnal sin than the threat of

The 70s, for instance, were as intense a period of experimenta-

being caught in a trap, conscated by the other, torn away from the

tion for Rohmer as it were for his leftist contemporaries in the nou-

position of eternal dreamer, write de Baecque and Herpe in their

velle vague. The old conservative who found acclaim late in life bore

chapter on the Moral Tales. Its a key idea that the writers are un-

only the production model in mind, never shying away from new

derlining: that Rohmers lms take place in a theoretical landscape

approaches. The paradox of the man was that he believed mod-

dreamed up by his neurs as a space in which they can act out their

ernism was just a recovery of the classical on its original terms

fantasies before retreating into the safety of their domestic lives.

that was his ideal as a lmmaker and as a critic. Tradition is the

The real-life split between two personalities and two parallel lives

true modernism, he is quoted as saying. The work of art [as] self-

that Schrer sustained until the day he died (a moment movingly ac-

sufficientthat is how we return to classicism. Rohmer was oust-

counted for in the book) his alter ego repeatedly and emphatically

ed as editor of Cahiers for his refusal to prioritize publicity for the

shows to be unsustainable.

growing nouvelle vague over studies of classical cinema; he was the

The end comes as suddenly as the ending of a Rohmer lm, as

old guard of a vanguard movement. Indeed, he produced his biggest

quick and random as the razor-sharp appearance of one of his

hit, Ma nuit chez Maud (1969), around the same time that many of

time-stamp intertitles. In the book as in the lms, the weight of

his comrades were out in the streets. Somewhat remarkably, the

thought, dialogue, and feeling vanishes in an instant, juxtaposing

book suggests that Rohmer was touched by May 1968, even if the

the loaded atmosphere of philosophizing and ponticating with

demonstrations did nothing to move him to political action. During

a return to silence and stillness, as would Rohmers lms from La

one of the demonstrations Rohmer is described as a spectator at a

collectionneuse (1967) to Les amours dAstre et de Cladon (2007).

distance...interested, intrigued, sometimes amused, sometimes ir-

In the movies, it is always as if the lm in question were but a ref-

ritated...watching history pass by, remaining a conservative in his

uge, an outpost, a dalliance in which the characters can recover

life and in his ideas.

part of themselves, which the brutal quiet of the ending appears to

The split between dual domestic existences that characterizes

reaffirm. The book ends with a couple of matter-of-fact details, the

the biography of Rohmer-Schrer is also the central preoccupa-

image of a life bifurcated between the two families of Rohmer and

tion that shapes Rohmers movies. For the majority of his adult life,

Schrer, and, nally, with a return to the mans own words, as if

Schrer lived in quiet austerity at home, vacationing in the same

to suggest that his private life, once again, is disappearing behind

place every year, relaxing in the evenings with his wife and two sons

his work.

66

GLOBA L DISCOV ER IES ON DV D | BY JONATH A N ROSEN BAUM

DVD AWARDS 2016

IL CINEMA RITROVATO

JURORS: Lorenzo Codelli, Alexander Horwath, Lucien Logette, Mark McElhatten,

Paolo Mereghetti, and Jonathan Rosenbaum. (Although Mark McElhatten wasnt
able to attend the festival this year, he has continued to function as a very active
member of the jury.)

BEST SPECIAL FEATURES

Coffret Nico Papatakis (France, 1963-92)
(Gaumont Vido, DVD). A comprehensive and
cogent presentation of a neglected lmmaker
from Ethiopia and a singular cultural gure
in postwar France who ran an existentialist
cabaret, produced major lms by Jean Genet
and John Cassavetes, gave the German singer
Nico her name, and made many striking lms
over four decades. (JR)

BEST DVD SERIES

Coffret Collection 120 ans n.1 1885-1929
(France, 1885-1929) (Gaumont Vido, DVD).
To celebrate its 120 years of activity in the
lm industry, Gaumont has published a series
of nine beautiful box sets that summarize the
whole history of cinema. Divided by decades,
the box sets consist of 20 to 35 DVDs with
the most representative lms marked with
a daisy symbol. The editions include lms
made by Alice Guy, Louis Feuillade, Dreville,
Duvivier, Gabin, Louis de Funs, Pialat, and

Deville, but also masterpieces by Losey,

by Louis Delluc (Les documents cinmato-

Fellini or Bergman that the French company

graphiques, DVD). This remarkable box set

co-produced. Furthermore, each box set in-

presents almost all of the lmed work, previ-

cludes a DVD with the most famous original

ously unpublished on DVD, of Louis Delluc,

soundtracks of the period and a booklet de-

who was one of the rst lm critics and the

scribing the history and the achievements of

rst French lm theorist. His career was too

the production house. (PM)

shorthe died at 33, in 1924but here we discover the importance of his lms, which equal

BEST BOX SETS

those of his friends Marcel LHerbier, Jean

Epstein, and Germaine Dulac. (LL)

1) The Carl Theodor Dreyer Collection

3) und deine Liebe auch / Sonntagsfahrer

(Denmark, 1925-64) (BFI, Blu-ray). Not the

(Germany, 1962-63) by Frank Vogel / Gerhard

rst Dreyer collection to come along, but one

Klein (Edition Filmmuseum, lm&kunst

that consolidates, expands, and in some ways

GmbH, DVD). Little is known about the East

improves upon some of the scholarly achieve-

German cinema, and these two lmsa

ments of its predecessors. Included are Master

drama by Frank Vogel and a sad comedy by

of the House, Day of Wrath, Ordet, and Gertrud,

Gerhard Kleinare a real surprise. They are

the rst two presented in alternate versions,

contemporary with the construction of the

and a good many rst-rate extras. (JR)

Berlin Wall in August 1961, and have very clev-

2) The Jacques Rivette Collection (France,

erly introduced this construction into their

1971-81) (Arrow Academy, Blu-ray & DVD).

scenarios without falling into political or pa-

This box presents a whole subcontinent of

triotic propaganda. The editing is performed

cinema: the labyrinthine work of Jacques

with the usual care of Edition Filmmuseum

Rivette in the 70s. At the centre is his 13-hour

Munich. (LL)

magnum opus Out 1eight feature-length episodes full of conspiracy, blackmail, and the

THE PETER VON BAGH AWARD

mysteries of theatre. The short version, Out 1:

Spectre, and three additional features (Duelle,

Frederick Wiseman intgrale Vol. 1 (US,

Norot, Merry-Go-Round) are also included,

1967-79) (Blaq Out, DVD). The biggest author

as well as a ne book and further bonus mate-

of the most beautiful documentaries in the

rials. For cinephiles, this edition is the mag-

second half of the last century has personal-

ical diamond that the characters in one of

ly brought together in this box set, produced

Rivettes lms are searching for. (AH)

in France, the rst volume of works chronicling his career. This edition represents a

BEST CONTRIBUTIONS TO FILM HISTORY

unique occasion to rediscover works, like for

example his damned Titicut Follies, an in-

1) Underground New York (Germany, 1968)

credible debut that caused immense outrage

by Gideon Bachmann (RE:VOIR Video Paris,

in America and Europe. The lm is followed

DVD). An exceptional reportage from the crib

by 12 Wiseman documentaries, organized

of the underground movement, at the peak

chronologically and well-restored. (LC)

of its outburst. The young lmmaker Gideon

PERSONAL CHOICES

Bachmann, who afterwards wrote the biographies and became a close friend of such
auteurs as Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo

Note: All of these selections, with the excep-

Pasolini, understood the importance of the

tion of Mark McElhattens, are drawn from the

eeting moment during which artists like

nominated entries.

Jonas Mekas, Andy Warhol, Shirley Clarke,

and others were becoming popular. While

LORENZO CODELLI: Jornal portugus:

their friend Michelangelo Antonioni was pay-

Revista mensal de actualidades (Portugal,

ing them a visit with a smile on his face, the

1938-1951)

streets were invaded with violent demonstra-

(Cinemateca Portuguesa Museu do Cinema,

tions against the war in Vietnam, and cock-

IP, DVD). The Cinemateca Portuguesa re-

tail parties were being held at the Museum of

stored and took note of a complete collection

Modern Art. (LC)

of a notorious newsreel made during the dic-

by

Antnio

Lopes

Ribeiro

2) Le chemin dErnoa; La femme de nulle

tatorship of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar. A

part; Fivre; Linondation (France, 1921-24),

philologically accurate work, an impeccable

68

example of historical research and extreme-

cluding the Cinastes de ntre temps episode

ly important for the education of future de-

on Jancs directed by Jean-Louis Comolli,

scendants, this work testies to the atrocities

and a booklet with essays by Martin Scorsese,

that other countries still wish to keep secret

Marina Vlady, Nol Simsolo, and Jancs him-

from the eyes of the public.

self.

ALEXANDER HORWATH: Ex aequo, in ho-

JONATHAN

nour of the underappreciated eld of audiovi-

Different / A Bagful of Fleas (Czechoslovakia,

sual historiography, the great box set Jornal

1962-63) (Second Run Features, DVD). Vra

portugus: Revista mensal de actualidades;

Chytilovs groundbreaking and innova-

and in honour of all the poets who practice

tive early feature, a daring and exhilarating

an anarchist historiography, Ernest Schmidt

mix of ction and non-ction whose editing

Jr.s Wienlm 1896-1976 (Index, DVD).

principles helped to inspire both versions

ROSENBAUM:

Something

of Rivettes Out 1, is coupled with her earlier

LUCIEN LOGETTE: Shooting Stars (United

documentary A Bagful of Fleasthe fourth

Kingdom, 1928) (BFI, Blu-ray & DVD).

invaluable Chytilov release to date from this

Anthony Asquith began his career with one

wonderful label, which has more recently de-

of the best movie-studio lms of the dec-

voted its rst Blu-ray to Pedro Costas Horse

ade, showing us the process of lming in two

Money, in a superb edition.

instances with constant invention in direc-

I would also like to cite the controver-

tion and great boldness in the script that goes

sial but gorgeous and impeccably presented

beyond the customary happy ending. The

Moana with Sound released on Blu-ray by

copy is superb in reproducing the black and

Kino Lorber, a beautiful (and, for me, justia-

white and grey velvet. This rst feature an-

ble) way of reviving the Robert Flaherty silent

ticipates Asquiths other silent masterpieces

classic.
***

such as Underground (1928) and A Cottage on

Dartmoor (1929).

A few postscripts about the above:

MARK MCELHATTEN: The Films of Jack

Shortly after our awards were announced,

(Canadian

it was pointed out on Facebook that some of

Filmmakers Distribution Centre, Blu-ray &

the titles on the Wiseman box set have non-

DVD). This overlooked yet essential release

removable French subtitles.

Chambers (Canada,

1965-70)

from 2015-16 includes all of the major lms

Regarding the superb Nico Papatakis box set

of Canadian painter and lmmaker Jack

(which incidentally includes optional English,

Chambers, as well as a fascinating extra.I say

French, and Greek subtitles for everything,

this sincerely and without provocation: for

including all the extras), one ideologically

myself and for a great many other lmmakers

revealing limitation that occasionally crops

of several generations, Chambers The Hart

up in the extras is the semi-falsehood that

of London is the most important and belov-

Papatakis was Greek, an identication clearly

ed lm in existence. No other lm expresses

arrived at through a kind of media shorthand

what it means to live in the domain of time,

that elides the fact that his mother was a black

within history, in the esh in this realm on

Ethiopian (and his father a Greek stationed

earth in such a powerful and unique way. A

in Ethiopia). Like the endlessly regurgitated

lm of eerie tenderness and the familiar un-

half-truth that Barack Obama is black, which

canny.

also elides his mothers racial identity, this is

an excellent illustration of the fact that the

PAOLO

MEREGHETTI: Mikls Jancs

strangulated discourse of American political

Collection (Hungary, 1963-87)(Cinmathque

speechaccording to which the military oc-

Franaise/Clavis Films, DVD). This edition

cupation of Iraq becomes the Iraq war and

consists of ten lms made by the Hungarian

Donald Trumps Make America Great Again

lm director in the most prolic period of his

becomes a politically correct version of

career, the 60s and 70s. To such well-remem-

Make America white againis an interna-

bered features as The Round-Up, The Red and

tional phenomenon.

the White, Red Psalm, and Silence and Cry

The nominees for Il Cinema Ritrovatos

are now added six short lms never released

annual DVD awards are made by a commit-

before, a rich amount of bonus materials in-

tee headed by the festivals director, Gianluca

69

Farinelli, but not by any of the jurors, and are

by one of the participants, Twilight Time pro-

further limited by those whose producers are

ducer Nick Redman, as a Herrmann master

willing to furnish six copies of the release to

class, and one of the best appreciations of his

the jurors. The timing of both these releases

work that I know (although it also goes into

and news about them adds more complica-

some detail about the virtues of CinemaScope

tions. For this reason, among others, it seems

and Fox studio craft during this period). The

worth citing here just three of the many re-

same release includes, along with some more

cent (or recent) releases of historical im-

expendable extras, the welcome possibility

portance that werent contenders this year:

of watching the lmHerrmanns only westernwith an isolated musical track.

(a) Pioneers of Africa-American Cinema

(USA, 1915-46) (Kino Classics, Blu-ray). A

***
I havent yet caught up with Paul

ve-disc collection including 19 digitally re-

Verhoevens Elle, but in the meantime the

stored features, a good many short lms and

appearance of his 2013 Dutch lm Tricked

other extras, and an 80-page illustrated book-

on a Kino Lorber DVD offers a fascinating

letclearly a major resource, meticulously

blend of mixed agendas. The rst 34 minutes

curated by Charles Musser and Jacqueline

of this 89-minute feature consist of a tire-

Najuma Stewart.

some, repetitive, conventional, and poorly

(b) Fritz Langs two-part adventure epic

structured making-of documentary about

The Spiders (Germany, 1919) (Kino Classics,

a fascinating narrative experiment launched

Blu-ray).

by Verhoeven, in which he and screenwrit-

(c) Le 6 juin laube (P.O.M. Films/ditions

er Kim van Kooten scripted only the rst

de lil). A bilingual (French/English) book

ve minutes of a 55-minute erotic comedy-

and DVD including a restoration of Jean

thriller and invited the public to script the

Grmillons 56-minute 1946 documenta-

restor, more precisely, to submit hun-

ry, the full text of the lms dialogue and

dreds of possible developments, out of which

Grmillons commentary, and a detailed

Verhoeven, van Kooten, and co-writer Robert

historical essay about the lm by Franois

Alberdingk Thijm selected the proposed input

Albera. Also included on the DVD are sepa-

of 397 other participants. But the 55-minute

rate interviews with Jean-Marie Straub and

lm they arrived at, which immediately fol-

Paul Vecchiali about the lm, in French but

lows the documentary, is happily everything

without translation.

that the documentary is not: thrilling, cogent,

***

beautifully structured and paced, and often

Shortly before the death of Bernard

hilarious, packed with intrigues, multiple iro-

Herrmann in the mid-70sspecically, a

nies, and plot twists that are served up with

few days or weeks before he ew to the US to

Verhoevens characteristic cheerful vulgarity.

supervise the recording of his nal score, for

I assume that part of the reason why the docu-

Taxi Driver (1976)I arranged a meeting with

mentary is several times longer than it has to

him in London to watch rushes from Srail,

be is to esh out the lm proper to a conven-

the rst feature of Eduardo de Gregorio (1942-

tional feature length, but whether or not the

2012), at Eduardos request, to see whether he

repetitive boredom of this documentary is

would be willing to write a score for that lm.

deliberateas a way of enhancing the virtual

He arrived with a secretary, clearly in misera-

perfection of the lm that follows itis hard-

ble health, and after the screening he dictated

er to gauge. Either way, this isnt quite major

to her a series of numbers that I eventually

Verhoeven, but Ive rarely seen 55 minutes of

realized were the blueprint for a possible or-

storytelling put to better purpose.

chestration, followed by estimates of French

***

studio costs. He intimated at the time that

Even though it has a conventional and pro-

hed felt hed been screwed nancially on one

saic ending, Joseph L. Mankiewiczs 1946

or more of his Truffaut scores, which I as-

Somewhere in the Nighta paranoid noir about

sumed was part of the reason why he declined

a postwar amnesiac that I saw for the rst

to score Srail.

time on a newly mastered, high-denition

I couldnt help but recall this meeting while

French PAL DVD (as Quelque parts dans la

listening to the audio commentary of four

nuit)generates almost as much poetic anx-

Herrmann specialists on Twilight Times Blu-

iety in its earlier stretches as a Val Lewton

ray release of Henry Hathaways Garden of

quickie. Even the relative anonymity and sto-

Evil (1954)a discussion accurately described

lidity of lead players John Hodiak and Nancy

70

Guild contributes to this edgy ambience

after this column is published), illustrated

(which is also the case with such Lewton play-

with clips from the lm. This commentary is

ers as Kent Smith and Frances Dee), while the

packed with fresh information and many crit-

more familiar secondary cast (Lloyd Nolan

ical insightsperhaps the most important of

and Richard Conte) tends to veer the plot in

which interrelates all the multiple missed and

more formulaic directions. The script (by

failed connections and miscommunications

Howard Dinsdale and Mankiewicz, adapt-

between characters in the lm with the mul-

ed by none other than Lee Strasberg from a

tiple editing mismatchesand its a pity that

Marvin Borowsky story) has a good deal of

Criterion didnt commission an entire audio-

the Mankiewicz avour, but the best part of

visual essay from someone like Kevin B. Lee

the story exudes the kind of formless dread

to spell this out in fulsome detail. But this is

that goes beyond the seeming rationality of

quibbling: the luminosity of the restored col-

the director/co-writer.

ours in Resnais tragic mosaic about recon-

***
I cant agree with James Quandt in his ac-

structed postwar France suffice to make this

an essential release.

companying essay that Muriel (1963) is Alain

The same could be said of Criterions

Resnais greatest lm, even though its clear-

concurrent Blu-ray release of Resnais and

ly one of his most ambitious and important

Cayrols 32-minute Holocaust lm Night and

works, and the harsh response it received

Fog (1955), thanks especially to an excellent

in France at the time of its release (which

feature-length 2009 documentary about the

Resnais once described to me on the set of

lm by Jean-Louis Comolli, which focuses on

Stavisky,) must have been one of the most

an interview with historian Sylvie Lindeperg

painful experiences of his career. Curiously

that eloquently outlines the lms historical

enough, the fascination of the lms extreme,

basis and post-production difficulties. But

difficult, and sometimes alienating fragmen-

there are still for me two gaping lacunae in

tation is matched by a couple of the extras on

the understanding of both Resnais and Cayrol

the Criterion Blu-ray, especially the excerpts

that persist on these discs (as they do in prac-

from a 1980 documentary (Une approche

tically all of the English-language texts Ive

dAlain Resnais, rvolutionnaire discret) and

read about both Night and Fog and Muriel): 1)

a 1969 TV interview with Delphine Seyrig. In

a fuller sense of Cayrols literary career, and

the former, one of the two interview subjects

2) an adequate appreciation of what made

(screenwriter Jean Cayrol) is identied, but

Resnais, to my mind, the most courageous

the other one, who is featured more promi-

and adventurous lmmaker in all of French

nently, isnta confused and confusing lapse

cinemaa director who literally reinvented

that evokes the faulty memory and awkward

himself (and the art of lmmaking) on every

gestures of Seyrigs character. The latter ex-

lm project that he undertook, even more so

tra is perfectly coherent and valuable on its

than Jean-Luc Godard.

own terms, but it happens to come from a

Regarding Cayrol, I have for many years

lengthy and quite wonderful French TV show,

treasured his 1959 novel Les corps trangers

Linvit de Dimanche, that I was lucky enough

(published in the US in a Richard Howard

to see live while I was living in Paris. All of

translation as Foreign Bodies) as one of the

this show was devoted to Seyrig, and much of

few nouveaux romans whose play with nar-

it was related to her experiences in New York

rative conventions cant be written off as

with the Actors Studio; despite the fact that

any sort of formalistic exercisea rst-

the relevance of this experience to Muriel (for

person novel with the most unreliable narra-

me, Seyrigs greatest lm performance) could

tor imaginable, whose cascading lies and their

be debated, I wish the Criterion people could

exposure offer perhaps the most cogent por-

have found a way of including the entire pro-

trait of the German occupation of France that

grama precious document that deserves a

Ive encountered. And though Ive only just

full revival.

acquired and started reading Cayrols earli-

Theres also an interesting 1963 interview

er (1954) novel Lspace de la nuit (translated

with Hans Werner Henze, who composed the

by Gerard Hopkins as All in a Night)availa-

lms operatic score, but by far the most use-

ble as a free download at archive.org/details/

ful extra is a 27-minute interview with French

AllInANightit already seems clear that the

lm historian Franois Thomas (whose mas-

alternation between third and rst person in

sive book of interviews with Resnais collabo-

its opening pages is comparably unsettling

rators should be appearing in France shortly

and purposeful.
71

NOCTURAMA

Bertrand Bonello, France/Germany/Belgium

BY BLAKE WILLIAMS

To waste no time: Bertrand Bonellos

Bonellos latest has more in line with action

a fashion icon in Saint Laurent (2014), and it

Nocturama has nothing to say about either

painting, slathering onto its broad canvas

likewise presents time as indenite, oppos-

Nick Cave or the Bad Seeds, and, more cru-

an all-over mlange of genre iconography,

ing conceptions of the present as concrete or

cially, is not a lm about terrorism. Perhaps

pop appropriations, and historical reference

ahistorical even as it works to augment the

a strange assertion, the latter, given that

points, and navigating through it all with

gravity of the present happening. Bonellos

the movie spends all 130 of its sublime,

impulsive shifts in attitude. Structurally, its

choice method for achieving this is through

stomach-churning minutes in the company

neatly divided into two distinct partsthe

shaping the lms timeline into something

of a crew of young men and women who are

performance of the attack and its aftermath

that, were it to be graphed out, might resem-

in the process of executing a meticulously

and splits its time between its initial laby-

ble a lightning boltworking through nar-

coordinated bomb attack on Paris. But here,

rinthine tour of the Paris Metro (lines 1 and

rative events from one vantage only to fold

as in Julia Loktevs Day Night, Day Night

13, in particular) and a selection of symbolic

back and re-show the same temporal moment

(2006) and Kelly Reichardts Night Moves

sites that collectively tell a very particular

again (and again). Many of his time warps are

(2013)two other semi-recent arthouse lms

narrative of the citys cultural and revolu-

accompanied by either the reappearance of an

that showed terrorism but were ultimately

tionary legacies (Frmietthes bronze Jeanne

onscreen time stamp or a repeated music cue,

more concerned with matters pertaining to

dArc statue, the Ministre de lIntrieur, the

but many others arrive unmarkedespecially

the psychology of paranoia, the fundamen-

Paris Bourse, and the Tour Total) before hun-

when Bonello moves us further back in time,

tal complexity of morality, and the aura of

kering down, in its harrowing second half,

such as an extended detour through the in-

their respective landscapesideology as a

inside the eerie connes of a fancy depart-

itial planning stages for the attackdestabil-

question or line of enquiry is provocatively

ment store. The former movement, recalling

izing our footing on already tremulous turf.

mitigated in favour of purer, more abstract,

Rivette, maps out a mental matrix of a mod-

Tempting as it is to call Bonellos montage

and affective expressions. This isnt to say

ern metropolisits infrastructure geared

Cubist, it owes just as much to Futurism,

that ideology is absent in Nocturama; on the

toward best accommodating a tradition of

positing that the world as we perceive it is

contrary, its everywhereall-encompassing,

commerce, or a commerce of traditionand is

always in motion, requiring multiple lines of

total, and naland yet the lms reticence to-

largely constructed from long, wordless pas-

force to convey the sensations of simultaneity

ward obviously stating a position, its profound

sages showing gures moving swiftly, grace-

that dene every developing situation. That

ambivalence toward passing the judgment

fully, through this complex system of inter-

his repetitions tend to favour moments of

on radicalism that a post-Hebdo and post-

connecting routes, tunnels, and itineraries.

violence, re-subjecting us to and distending

Bataclan audience perhaps desires, is glaring

Its a furiously cynical tour of Paris, and

traumatic instantsor instants that become

and improbably bold. So much so that our ef-

also a disorienting onenot so much spatially,

traumatic after so many exposures, whether

forts to access it must re-route and search for

but temporally. Nocturama is the third lm in

via dreams, hallucinations, or stylistic coups

alternative entry points if we are to be able to

what can be called Bonellos modernity tril-

de cinmasuggests Freud, perhaps, but

answer the question of what this movie even is.

ogy, following his lush portrait showing the

will nevertheless likely lead many to deem

At least with regards to what it is com-

shuttering of a n de sicle Parisian brothel

Bonello sadistic. The lmmaker has never

posed of, Nocturama is many things. Initially

in LApollonideSouvenirs de la maison close

been one to shy away from those historical

pitched as an action lm, it turns out that

(2011) and his soulful, shattered portrait of

phenomena and cruelties that we are always

72

in the process of reiteratingperhaps wilful-

and 28 Days Later (2002), shelters its players

extinguished, devoid of agency or singularity

ly, perhaps not. Like Saint Laurents compul-

in an environment that offers them the possi-

or lasting import. That almost every charac-

sion to replace Moujik with more Moujiks, liv-

bility of unlimited consumptiona utopian

ters nal words include either a declaration

ing becomes a domain for representations of

no-where away from the panic thats likely

of love for another individual or a cry for heav-

ideas of happiness. If anything, his pleating of

befallen the outside world. Decorated with

en tells us precisely where Bonello locates our

time in Nocturama in these instant replays of

mannequinssinister automata, frozen in an

avenues for achieving the eternalthat is,

the lms most piercing moments and events

innite pose of life being lived, and, telling-

outside of time, in anothers acknowledgment

is Bonellos earnest yet complicated attempt

ly, wearing the same clothes as several of the

of us as essential and irreplaceableand ren-

to evoke some feeling of our desires for the

charactersthe space behaves like a haunted

ders the heinous actions that they committed

eternalfrom Jeanne dArc to the French

mansion rolled in designer sheets, crawling

in the movies rst half as not merely wrong-

Revolution, through May 68 to now and for-

with the walking dead. Imagined apparitions

headed, which is obvious, but as the product

ever. It was bound to happen, right? says/

arrive in dreams, impossibly delivering infor-

of the very soul-denying institutions that they

wishes Adle Haenel in her cameo, because we

mation from the past into the present; bodies

are revolting against. It was bound to happen,

wantneedto believe that we are participat-

dissolve into thin air; and, just because, reec-

indeed, and it is bound to happen again. And

ing in a history that will remember us the next

tions of lights in windows drift out of place,

so, to offer another, nal reiteration, we can

time it loops back around and happens again.

into space. Imitation likewise takes over

return to that most critical and painful line

Thus, when the kinetics of Nocturamas

masks and costumes are donned and make-up

uttered in the last gasps of LApollonideIf

literally explosive rst half give way to the

applied; Shirley Basseys glorious My Way

we dont burn, how will the night be lit?

hushed stasis of the off-hours department

is lip-synced, gloriously; and, why not, theres

which is, one, about as Romantic a phrase as

store (shot in La Samaritaine, also a memor-

even a re-enactment of The Shinings (1980)

has ever been spoken, and two, can be seen as

able location in Holy Motors [2012]), its only

most iconic shotall as a way of exorcising our

an entire embodiment of Bonellos view of life

tting that Bonello transforms the movies

cultural past in hope that it might obscure the

as a force for other and future lives. Applied

relationship to reality into something clos-

sorrow of deaths inevitability.

again, now, to the dreamers of Nocturama

er to that of a horror lm. Cloistered in this

Nocturama is not about death itself, though,

who literalize this utterance and the movies

paradise of state-of-the-art material goods,

as much as it is an attempt to channel our

title, blazing so that we might see into the

Nocturama, following in the tradition of zom-

wills to escape the deterministic mechanisms

night more clearlyreveals this picture as a

bie lms like Dawn of the Dead (1978/2004)

that render existence as something already

tragedy of the highest order.

73

SNOWDEN
(Oliver Stone, US)

BY ROBERT KOEHLER

If Snowden, director Oliver Stone and screen-

a staffer at the CIA with remarkable cyber

Snowdens sudden departure from the US to a

writer Kieran Fitzgeralds version of the

skills and then later as a consultant employed

hideout in Hong Kong, his arranged meetings

Edward Snowden affair, is remembered for

by private clients partnered with the NSA,

with lmmaker Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo),

anything, it will be as the rst Hollywood

Snowden witnessed rst-hand and helped re-

investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald

movie that turned Barack Obama into a bad

ne this growing surveillance network.

(Zachary Quinto), and Guardian reporter

guy. Time was, back in the day when Obama

As many non-Americans know by now,

Ewan MacAskill (Tom Wilkinson), and the

walked on water, there was a thing you could

Stellar Wind and the NSAs other metada-

intense discussions and communiqus involv-

call The Obama-Era entertainment. Danny

ta-gathering systems spied on many other

ing these four, with Guardian editor Janine

Glovers President in 2012 (2009), for exam-

nations citizens, including close US allies

Gibson (Joely Richardson) personally battling

ple, is positively Obama-esque to the core. A

and its leaders (most notoriously, Germanys

with key White House national security g-

decade before Obama, Hollywood had already

Angela Merkel and Brazils Dilma Rousseff,

ures. Consider the rising paranoia by the hour,

imagined a black man in the Oval Office with

and even, much to his embarrassment, the

as Snowden grows more and more certain

Tommy Lister Jr. in The Fifth Element (1997)

UKs own David Cameron). Although the

that he will be arrested before the Guardian

and Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact (1998).

NSAs projects were initiated under the

can publish stories based on the spy les that

(The best and funniest is Terry Crews wild

Bush Administration by Vice President Dick

Snowden has smuggled. Consider Snowdens

POTUS in Mike Judges prescient Idiocracy

Cheney, they were accelerated under Obama.

wild ight to Russia and his absurd, Beckettian

[2006].) Since there can be a cultural lag to

Its still difficult to gauge what was worse: the

lockdown in the Moscow airport, followed by

our political movements, the new rom-com

shock of the network and its universal pene-

his virtual disappearance. Consider the pro-

piece of Obama nostalgia, Southside With

tration that Snowden revealed, or the shock

found political thunderclap felt around the

You, and the TIFF-premiering Barry, capture

of Obamas responsibility for what some term

world, which, in Germany at least, was known

the young Barack and the happy side of the

the end of privacy.

as Der Shitstorm, conjuring deep German

Obama Era while coinciding with the recent

Snowden, though, contains another shock:

memories of Nazi and Stasi surveillance.

that Stone (of all people) somehow turns

The movie that we have in front of us is a

Snowden, on the other hand, takes us back to

all of thisand moreinto a square, boring

faint murmur of the politically explosive enter-

the bad old days of the Obama Administration,

movie. Its impossible to read the primary

tainment it could have been. At almost every

when it oversaw and defended the most ne-

text upon which Fitzgeralds script is based,

step of the way, Stone opts for the uninterest-

farious worldwide surveillance of citizens to

Guardian reporter Luke Hardings breath-

ing, even risible choice. When Gordon-Levitts

date. The top of the top-secret US spy agen-

lessly written and meticulously researched

Snowden arrives for his rst day at the CIA,

cies, the National Security Agency (NSA), had

The Snowden Files, and not imagine a whop-

whom should he run into but Nicolas Cage as

constructed, post-9/11, a broad and unfet-

per of a nail-biting thriller. Consider the irony

a grizzled spy instructor, sending out a (false,

tered system of data-gathering that didnt just

and paradoxes of Snowdens (played with ne

it turns out) note that Snowden is actually a

target specic security and terror threats to

sobriety by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) personal

thriller-comedy. Then theres the theatri-

the homeland, but swept up communications

evolution from a right-leaning Republican

cal glowering of Rhys Ifans as Snowdens

across all digital platforms, from everywhere.

libertarian utterly devoted to his govern-

spy handler Corbin OBrian (an obviously

The systems program, codenamed Stellar

ment to a right-leaning Republican libertar-

ctitious version of Snowdens actual boss,

Wind, collected metadata on countless num-

ian cyber-liberator and traitor. Consider

Keith Alexander), who teaches his young

bers of citizens without a legal warrant. As

the cloak-and-dagger suspense involving

genius about the deep, awful truths of post-

uptick in Obamas domestic popularity.

74

9/11 national security. Ifans will contin-

Snowden tick. But Poitras captured this far

hotel scenes are used as mere framing devic-

ue to pop up during the course of the two

better and more economically in her lm

es for the relationship movie. What actual-

hours-plus, more or less playing the stock

Citizenfour (2014), shot mainly in the Mira

ly transpired in Gibsons officeleading to

spymaster-in-hat-and-suit

for

Hotel in Hong Kongs Kowloon district

her decision to publishwas one of the most

Stone in conspiracy lms past by Max von

where Snowden met with his journalist co-

dramatic and bravest episodes in recent jour-

Sydow and Donald Sutherland, and looking

conspirators, passed along his smuggled les,

nalistic history, one that easily ranks with

sillier with each appearance.

and conducted his rst on-camera interview,

the tensest moments in the Washington Post

Stone and Fitzgeralds most fateful and

with Greenwald interviewing. Not only was

newsroom during the early reporting on

disastrous choice, though, is to devote large

Poitras able to bring out, sometimes in clas-

Watergate. Stone stages these scenes like an

slabs of their story to Snowdens dreary and

sical painterly portraiture, many essences

afterthought, leaving a growing question of

uninvolving relationship with his longtime

of Snowdens personalitythe calmness of

why he wanted to make a movie about Edward

girlfriend, Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley).

his conviction, his ability to convert an-

Snowden in the rst place.

This angle was chosen presumably to human-

ger into a political analysis of the erosion of

The only lasting notionother than Stones

ize a humble and reclusive computer geek,

Constitutional principles, his subtle sense of

desire to remake Born on the Fourth of July

but the result hijacks the narrative, turn-

humourbut her lm also captured the hot-

(1989), to which this bears some clear resem-

ing what should be a tense thriller freighted

house pressure building up in the hotel room.

blanceswas that he could be the rst estab-

with rich political and ethical themes into a

Hardings book makes that room into one

lishment Hollywood director to stick it to

Lifetime movie of the week. Its bad enough

of the two centres of an extraordinary drama.

Obama. Theres something subversive in this,

that Gordon-Levitt and Woodley have the

The other room is Guardian editor Gibsons

in a way, but it doesnt energize the routine

onscreen heat factor of ice cubes (her fault,

New York office, where she nds herself ne-

nature of the enterprise, and in no way helps

not his); worse, they have little to play with

gotiating between increasingly terried and

audiences understand the wider implications

once its repeatedly established that shes a

exhausted journalists and a justiably par-

of the grave political threats arising from a

playful sort who just wants to live life, and

anoid source, and the full force of a White

security state with no legal levers to stop its

he just cant tell her anything about what

House learning that the NSAs golden goose

blanket invasion of privacy. The good news for

he does because, well, he works for the

is about to be unleashed in public. Snowden

everyone elseincluding other lmmakers

State Department.

performed

doesnt ignore this natural setting for a crack-

interested in the subject is that the denitive,

The intent of this kitchen-sink dross is

erjack movie, but it weirdly underplays it,

comprehensive Snowden drama has yet to

to provide more insight into what makes

almost as if it cant be bothered. Instead, the

be made.
75

LAVENIR

Mia Hansen-Lve, France

BY ADAM NAYMAN

A decade after her youthful debut Tout est

France), she looks more like a member of the

Wes

pardonn (2007), the now-35-year-old Mia

undergraduate tribe than their high priest-

Mendoza, Hong Sangsoo, Marco Bellocchio,

Anderson,

Claire

Denis,

Brillante

Hansen-Lve has become a veteran. But shes

ess. Beginning with an unexpected estrange-

Serge Bozon, and Paul Verhoeven, among oth-

always been an old soul. Her lms are rife with

ment from her philandering husband (Andr

ers, as well as playing Catherine Breillats sur-

scenes of teenagers being forced to confront

Marcon), circumstances nudge Nathalie fur-

rogate in an auto-biopic; is there another actor

hypocrisy and loss well ahead of schedule, and

ther into the orbit of the younger generation,

alive with such auteur cachet?) The script and

shes very good at capturing the split-seconds

embodied by an attractive former student

the acting are nicely complementary of one

where cleanly diagrammed idealism either

(Roman Kolinka) whose anarchist collective

another throughout; Hansen-Lves selection

comes up short or melts away into the rear-

respectfully welcomes her into the fold. She

of an academic milieu serves and is served by

view mirrorpartings of such sweet sorrow.

ts in, but only to a point, and theres the rub.

her stars credibly intellectual comportment.

The title of Un amour de jeunesse (2011) thus

Where Eden (2014) was a slightly unnerv-

In a movie where pretty much everybody on-

resonates as a kind of artistic mission state-

ing fable of youthful stasis about a DJ who

screen has not only read Adorno, Horkheimer,

ment, although it gets rened and reframed

seemingly refused to agethe Mixtape of

and Levinas but also possesses dog-eared rst

in Lavenir, which has a very differentand

Dorian Graythis mostly superior follow-up

editions lled with underlined passages of

more distancedrelationship to nostalgia. In

contemplates the ache that comes with mov-

text, Huppert nds a way inside the talking

her fth feature, Hansen-Lve obliges herself

ing inexorably forward. Compare the lms

points, as if animated by philosophys inher-

for the rst time to gaze forward even as her

two opening shots: Edens spookily beautiful

ent excitement.

sexagenarian main character is compelled to

harboured submarine has been replaced by a

The waning of hardline radical values is a

look back, in anger and acceptance, at what

boat motoring toward the horizon line, seen

running motif here, as Nathalie ruefully re-

has already come and gone.

through glass, dimly.

calls a pre-marital sojourn in Russia (I was

Essentially a one-woman show, Lavenir

As Hansen-Lves rst truly grown-up

disenchanted by the end) and is preoccupied

stars Isabelle Huppert as Nathalie, a formi-

protagonist, Nathalie offers a very different

more generally by the problem of adaptabil-

dably brilliant professor of philosophy whose

identication point than her winsome ado-

ity, i.e., if its synonymous with compromise.

long-standing desire to have her charges

lescent antecedents. (The character is report-

The tenured professors commitment to

think for themselves rather than recite rhet-

edly based on the lmmakers own mother, a

curriculum is challenged early on, when the

oric by rote has won her a passionate campus

teacher who separated from her husband later

unctuous new marketing managers hired by

following. Splayed out on the grass at the

in life.) Huppert, of course, gives Nathalie the

her publisher present her with a style guide

park with a semi-clandestine study group

lived-in, multi-dimensional credibility that

describing possible glossy layouts for a new

(the lm is set in 2010, during the pension re-

has marked all of her recent performances.

philosophy textbookone of several me-

form strikes that affected universities across

(Since 2009, shes acted for Michael Haneke,

thodically worked subplots meant to give the

76

slender narrative some meaty conceptual tex-

The question of whether true subtleties are

priate to its selected musical subculture. The

ture. Dont misinterpret, Nathalie warns

so readily perceived surely applies, and, in a

soundtrack selections in this comparative-

her students after assigning a challenging

way, Hansen-Lves sincere determination to

ly quiet and reective movie here are more

passage by Rousseau, and these marching

make meaning is the real subject of the lm,

judicious, and several of the needle drops

orders could also be directed at the audience,

which not only contains several exchanges

draw blood, including Woody Guthries work-

even if they might need them a little less

about the irreconcilability of spiritual and

ing-class heroic My Daddythe perfect car-

than anticipated.

secular values but permits its characters to

seat sing-along for prosperous lefties off on a

It may be that the difference between a

freely debate about the true nature of reality

jaunt to the countryand Donovans Deep

metaphor that feels magical and spontane-

(in Eden, the biggest and most signicant ar-

Peace, which washes over the soundtrack at a

ous and one that betrays its craftsmanship is

gument within the EDM community was over

moment when its eponymous invocation feels

simply a matter of style, and Hansen-Lve, for

the merits of Showgirls). Rather than trying to

especially unlikely for Nathalie. Hansen-Lve

all her gifts, doesnt quite have the sleight-of-

draw a line (or thread a skewer) between the

even gets mileage out of Unchained Melody,

hand to bring off, say, the symbolic black cat

apparent pretentiousness of the people on-

reclaiming it from its post-Ghost clich via a

named Pandora that Nathalie inherits from

screen and the lmmaker behind the camera,

lovely cover by forgotten doo-woppers The

her mother (Edith Scob) halfway through the

it might be better to see them as existing along

Fleetwoods, which frames a nal moment of

movie, a possible homage to the mythologi-

a similar continuum, which allows at least for

graceful repose. It may be that Hansen-Lve

cally monikered kitty in Inside Llewyn Davis

the possibility that some of the scripts many,

is too softhearted to let her story end on a

(2013). But she can also conjure up moments

many reading-list references comprise a form

truly discordant note, but theres a genuine

of real, insinuating potency, as in a beautifully

of highbrow satire. And if theyre not meant

complexity to the nal image that belies its

conceived (and acted) scene where Nathalie is

satirically, then give Hansen-Lve credit for

sweetness. Nathalies embrace of old roles

compelled to describe the events of her moth-

taking Nathalies mtier seriously, and trying

in the face of a destabilized life is cathartic,

ers life and realizes shes simultaneously nar-

to nurture a tradition of explicit philosophi-

but its also a form of surrender. And as Denis

rating her own story as a mixture of prophecy

cal discourse in modern French cinema de-

Lenoirs camera recedes into a carefully bi-

and cautionary tale, or a pan across a muddy

rived from Rohmer and Eustache.

sected domestic composition, the boundaries

beach in Brittany whose grayed-out expanse

At 97 minutes, Lavenir is both more suc-

between the past, the present, and the future

takes on a lunar aspect as a backdrop to a pas-

cinct and shapely than the jumbo-sized Eden,

shimmer and blur together in a way that sug-

sage of intense alienation.

which had a droning, run-on quality appro-

gests that nothing ever really slows down.

77

DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST

(Julie Dash, US)

BY STEVE MACFARLANE

making Daughters: Eulas unborn daughter

It arrives as both throwaway moment and

of American Playhouses impressive features

photo-historical anachronism: dozens are

lineup, which includes Victor Nuezs A Flash

quite literally functions as a medium, a next

adorned in white on a sand dune, whiling

of Green [1984], Gregory Navas El Norte [1983]

angel of history, brokering visions of past and

away the hours before dusk; a girl is passed

and Joyce Chopras Smooth Talk [1985].) In a

present. Dissension between sound and im-

a 19th-century stereopticon, brings it to her

Los Angeles Times interview, Dash said she

age can at times produce a nagging question

eyes, and sees images in motionglimpses of

wanted to take the African-American ex-

of a bigger story left in what the Peazants call

a city on the mainland, an urban environ-

perience and rephrase it in such a way that,

(with a laugh) scraps of memories: when one

ment of horse-drawn carriages and musta-

whether or not you understood the lm on

of the sisters rides off with her lover on horse-

chioed street salesmen. Theirs are the only

the rst screening, the visuals would be so

back in the lms nal minutes, a bereaved

white faces to appear in Julie Dashs ensem-

haunting it would break through with a fresh-

relative wails in anguish by the boat.

ble psychodrama Daughters of the Dust, which

ness about what we already know. Indeed,

At risk of viewing Dashs lm through a

centres on the women of the early-20th cen-

every tracking shot and languorous zoom in

cinephilic lens, Nana makes a fascinating

tury Peazant family, Gullah people based in

Daughters carries a psychic weight; this is

inverse of Jo Van Fleets Depression-era ma-

South Carolinas Sea Islands, descendants of

poetic or lyrical lmmaking from when

triarch in Elia Kazans Wild River (1960), an-

saltwater Africans believed to have been

cameras were heavier and apertures smaller,

other hardened survivor who refuses to leave

captured from West Africa. The lm sees the

before entire movies were shot on Steadicam

her island communitythis time, in the face

clan assemble for a celebration on the eve of

(a camera language that may have long since

of a Tennessee Valley Authority dam project

a northward migration, but the moments

oxidized itself from long-take overexposure

repped by a typically hapless Montgomery

optimism nds itself tested by Nana Peazant

and the lure of innite non-linear editing.)

Clift. What forges Nanas onscreen character

(Cora Lee Day), who refuses to leave the home

If Dash and cinematographer Arthur Jafa

is not the rugged individualism eulogized by

village in Ibo Landing. Daughters voices (if

found themselves under pressure to coun-

Kazans period melodrama, but a tragic pes-

not entirely embodies) conicting sentiments

teract several centuries worth of histori-

simism that can be traced back to the land

between two narrating generations: Nana is

cal erasure in the space of 110 minutes, it

itself, and the markers/memories of slavery.

one, the other is an unborn child (Kai-Lynn

doesnt show. Each of the women comprising

The deep indigo staining the characters n-

Warren)visible through a camera viewnd-

Daughters beachside chorus must negotiate

gers in Daughters rst half saturates the en-

er, but not to the naked eyewho dips in and

their own relationship to the departing/arriv-

tire frame in later passages, a seductive leit-

out of the story as if to bedevil its turn-of-the-

ing family heritage, in terms either interior or

motif for a whole generations retention of the

century rationality.

verbal (via the lms call-and-response mon-

memory of hardship.

After a decade-plus of grant-funded re-

ologues). While Nana is suspicious of aban-

Daughters damns precedent altogether,

search, Daughters was shot on location over

doning the traumas of slavery, Eula Peazant

sidestepping the broad strokes of African-

three weeks at a cost of $800,000, the bulk

(Alva Rogers), pregnant with the unborn

American history familiar from so many

of that funding provided by PBS American

child, comes to see her grandmothers ideal of

textbook historical dramas set during the

Playhouse, who kept broadcasting rights but

a pure woman as just that: something that

era of antebellum slavery or the 60s Civil

had no theatrical distribution apparatus.

never existed in Ibo Landing to begin with.

Rights Movement. With its Tempest-like in-

(With its labyrinthine narrative and thick di-

Dash stated in multiple interviews that she

vocations of wrathful waters (the Sea Islands

alects, Daughters is perhaps the furthest-out

had the impending century on her mind while

were subject to a punishing hurricane nine

78

years before Daughters takes place, and

statements about blackness or the lived ex-

that it was highly unlikely for a black woman

they were hit by Hurricane Hugo in the mid-

perience thereof. Her extraordinary short

of Mignons power to ever exist in Hollywood,

dle of Daughters shoot), the lm also ts

lm Illusions (1982) shows a day in the life of

either then or ve decades later.

alongside quincentennial reconsiderations

Mignon Dupree (Lonette McKee), a mixed-

Just as Daughters is at once a foreign lm

of Columbus arrival to the Caribbean. Bryan

race Hollywood executive passing for white

thats inalienably American, Dashs screen-

Springers documentary Spin (1995) briey

during World War II. While her attempt to get

play allows the camera eye to visit overlapping

details a New York news channels attempt

her boss interested in a lm about US soldiers

spaces in memory and space in fell swoops

to interview a Cherokee Nation historian

using Navajo code talkers zzles, an unctuous

per Eula, a cathartic recognizing of a lineage

about Columbus, only to abort the segment

white officer threatens to expose her after she

that has made it possible to see in more ways

after he mentions Columbus tenure as gover-

declines his advances. Mignons rebuttal is

than one. This refractory idea is interrogat-

nor of the Hispaniola colonya period when

nothing short of a manifesto:

ed even more sharply in the 30-minute dance

thousands of indigenous islanders had their

See, lieutenant? I never once saw my boy

lm Praise House (1991)made by Dash

hands chopped off for failing to bring gold to

ghting over there for this country, on lm

with the group Urban Bush Women for Twin

their Spanish overseers. (Ridley Scotts 1492:

in a picture. Making this country. Because

Cities public television just after Daughters

Conquest of Paradise [1992] reallocated these

your scissors and your pacing methods have

wherein a young black woman literally con-

despicable acts to a snivelling peripheral vil-

eliminated my participation in the histo-

vulses at her mothers gravesite, possessed

lain played by go-to bad guy Michael Wincott,

ry of this country! And the inuence of that

by the burdens of history and consoled in

exonerating Gerard Depardieus Columbus as

screen cannot be overestimated, do you

performances that span three generations

one of historys decent guys who happened to

understand me?

of hardship. As with Daughters, whats po-

be in the wrong place at the wrong time.)

If extra-literarily literal, the speech is of

litical about these images is the void of cine-

In a 2014 discussion with bell hooks, Jafa

a piece with the 40s tropes Dash employs to

matized memory against which they cushion

called Steve McQueens 12 Years a Slave

weigh Illusions plotline against its subtext

themselves: Dashs feature debut is that rare

(2013) an abomination, and stressed the

against Mignons inner world altogether.

history lm that knows images lie, yet pro-

need for a black gaze measured by something

Illusions uses the hoariness of studio-era lm-

vides a wealth of them anyway. The scads of

other than its proximity to white power or

making to interrogate several preconceptions

repertory packaging aligning Dashs lm with

the traumas of antebellum slavery. Like her

about popular entertainment behind closed

Beyonces Lemonade provoke a fascinating co-

contemporaries Haile Gerima and Charles

doors, and the failed promises of postwar pro-

nundrum: if we are seduced by these Tumblr-

Burnett, Dash has always strived to make

gress. Even if Mignons code-talker movie did

ready tableaux at the behest of the lms text,

lms that do not equivocate in positioning

eventually get made (in the unfortunate form

everything that was radical about Daughters

themselves against what she called, in a 1979

of John Woos Windtalkers [2002]), Dash con-

of the Dust in 1991 will remain so upon its

interview with UCLAs The View, external

ceded to lmmaker Yvonne Welbon in 1991

re-release.
79

EX PLODED V IEW | BY CHUCK STEPHENS

black horses, shadows and negatives, looping

MALCOLM
LE GRICES
BERLIN HORSE

and layered. A zoetrope, a merry-go-round,

then the colours kick in: Muybridge on mushrooms. Le Grice fans the ames. Brian Eno
made the soundtrack: the plinky, refracted
cascade of a waltz cadence, spinning in upon
itself forever, repetition is form of change.
(No horseyfooting.)
Le Grice has described Berlin Horse like
this: The lm is in two parts joined by a central superimposition of the material from
both parts. The rst part is made from a small
section of lm shot by me in 8mm colour, and
later relmed in various ways from the screen
in 16mm black and white. The black-andwhite material was then printed in a negativepositive superimposition through colour lters creating a continually changing solarization image, which works in its own time
abstractly from the image. The second part is
made by treating very early black-and-white
newsreel of a similar subject in the same way.
That early newsreel is rather more specic than Le Grice lets on: its a lm called
The Burning Stable, made in 1900 by Cecil
Hepworth (born 1874), one of the founders
of the British lm industry and, moreover,
a man roughly coeval with the arrival of
cinema itself. Hepworths father was a magic

It is clear that the growing predominance of simple

geometric forms and angular
planes in the art of this period reflects the exterior shape
of the mechanical world. But
there is also a clear trace of
the artists fascination with
the dynamic problems of
speed, change and fragmentation themselves, reflecting the
new experience of travel and
communication.
Malcolm Le Grice

Malcolm Le Grice is speaking there of the

lantern showman, and by 1897, scarcely two

Italian Futurism of the early 20th century,

years beyond the inception of motion pictures,

as he does extensively throughout the intro-

the young Hepworth had already penned a

duction to his 1977 volume Abstract Film and

book on the new medium. Hepworth went

Beyond, one of the key texts on experimen-

quickly on to lm the rst adaptation of Alice

tal cinema of its era. And though Le Grice

in Wonderland in 1903, and with Rescued by

painter, professor, lmmaker, founder of the

Rover (1905) invented that axiom of the cine-

London Filmmakers Co-operative, and one

ma, the dog star, and enjoyed huge nancial

of the pillars of late 60s/early 70s Structural

success. He also had an affinity for chaos in

lmlights on the name Boccioni but once

his conceits: one of his popular comic shorts

in that intro, he might well have lingered:

was called Explosion of a Motor Car, in which a

Umberto Boccionis fascination with the

Sunday drive is blown sky high. In The Burning

dynamic problems of speed, change and frag-

Stable, men rescue horses from a burning sta-

mentation themselves, specically as they re-

ble; whether the scene has been staged or not

lated to his volumetric analyses of horses gal-

is unclear. Le Grice repositions Hepworths

loping in splintered thunder in paintings like

conagration as both an origin story of the

The City Rises (1910) and Charge of the Lancers

cinemathose ames as the mediums rst

(1915), could well be seen as having laid a

illuminationsand as a house already on re:

framework for Le Grices own slow-burning

the cinema of narrative and illusion in need

1970 lm/video/multimedia recording/dou-

of immolation and held in such sour-pussed

ble projection event, Berlin Horse. In that six-

disregard by the Structural/Materialist lm-

and-a-half minute masterpiece of cinematic

makers Le Grice once spearheaded. One need

serialism, someones four-legged friend runs

not feel so saddled: watching Berlin Horse

round and round a small corral in a village

now might just make you think of those eb-

near Hamburg called Berlin (not the city) un-

ony-and-ivory muzzles breathing furious

til time slips a gear and the world bursts into

and steamy near the opening of The Hateful

ame. Horse becomes horses, white horse,

Eight (2015).

FILM & MEDIA ARTS

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during #TIFF16
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Sprache. Kultur. Deutschland.

COMING SOON FROM

Certain
Women

Dancer
Directed by Steven Cantor
IN SELECT THEATERS
STARTING SEPTEMBER 9

Directed by Kelly Reichardt

With Kristen Stewart,
Michelle Williams, Laura Dern

ON DEMAND
SEPTEMBER 16

OFFICIAL SELECTION

Sundance Film Festival, New York Film

Festival, Toronto International Film Festival

IN THEATERS OCTOBER 14

King Cobra

Evolution

Directed by Justin Kelly

Directed by Lucile Hadihalilovic

With Christian Slater, James Franco,

Garrett Clayton, Keegan Allen,
Molly Ringwald, Alicia Silverstone

With Max Brebant, Roxane Duran,

Julie-Marie Parmentier
OFFICIAL SELECTION

OFFICIAL SELECTION

Toronto International Film Festival

Fantastic Fest
New Directors / New Films

Tribeca Film Festival, Outfest

IN THEATERS &
ON DEMAND OCTOBER 21

IN THEATERS &
ON DEMAND NOVEMBER 25

Things to Come

NOW ON DVD, BLU-RAY

& ON DEMAND

Directed by Mia Hansen-Lve

With Isabelle Huppert
WINNER

Berlin International Film Festival Best Director

OFFICIAL SELECTION

Toronto International Film Festival, New York

Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival

IN THEATERS DECEMBER 2

THE MAN WHO

KNEW INFINITY

WEINER

TALE OF TALES

CITY OF GOLD

IFCFilms.com
/ IFCFilmsOfficial

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