Krzysztof Kieślowski

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Dylan
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:28 pm

#26 Post by Dylan » Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:02 pm

I personally had no idea people were so split on Kieslowski, particularly since "Red" placed #5 on the Lists Project...but maybe I should've expected the backlash, as every other thread about Kieslowski on these boards has a few naysayers, and one thread (“Kieslowski Retrospectiveâ€
Last edited by Dylan on Wed Jan 03, 2007 12:23 am, edited 7 times in total.

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Michael
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#27 Post by Michael » Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:13 pm

[quote]The bottom line of my fascination with this director: the metaphysical assurance of Kieslowski lends an almost mythic quality, with human frailty and interwoven destinies always at the center of the discussion. Every minute of “Redâ€

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Dylan
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#28 Post by Dylan » Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:20 pm

Are you planning to watch or maybe revisit Blue anytime soon?
I definitely will, as its been nearly five years since I've seen it (way back when I first started treading into foreign film, and I thought it was interesting then, but I'm more than looking forward to what my reaction will be today).

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exte
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#29 Post by exte » Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:45 am

skuhn8 wrote:Yet another post condemning a filmmaker for the audience that attaches itself to him. If Amelio and d'Olivera don't get the recognition they deserve then that just sucks and I'm going to stop going to church now cause clearly God didn't make it all nice and fair. But living in this region and having seen the Decalogue I fail to see what the "Strained Seriousness" has to do with the reality this filmmaker emerged from. Do you say the same about other filmmakers from behind the former Iron Curtain? And not the Soviets cause they built the stupid thing and have a significantly different experience. Do you know about the history/environment that they emerged from--I'm sure you do, but are you taking this into account? that it isn't the same as the Central American or Paraguayan or Nigerian approach to parsing and reintroducing their respective sense and sensibility? The propensity for escapism, compiling/creating signs/signifiers into a code that'll be readily understood like the prison tapping system between politicals ala Koestler's Darkness at Noon....yeah, it can seem overwrought at times, but if you watch KK's early films and especially the Decalogue you can see the progression, or at least I saw Red as a consistent evolution in his ouvre. I forget who it was that said that the sum total of a filmmaker's films comprise a single film or narrative but KK definitely fits the bill. Musical motifs and emotional themes overlap and repeat, albeit at times less subtle than other times.

I finished watching Red an hour ago after seeing the slamming it was taking on this thread (which surprised me). Many filmsters will certainly feel that they have 'graduated' from the more pedestrian art film fare brought to us by KK, but he's certainly no slouch. And I don't see how he can be compared to these other filmmakers mentioned just the same as it would be absurd for me to say Tarkovsky sucks because he gets more lip service than Zoltan Fabri or Jiri Nemec or whoever I put on a higher pedestal than the guy who brought us the incredible Rublev, but also the bloated dead-body washed up on the beach fart called Nostalghia (yeah, talk about KK making a KK-derivative film, or Godard making an over-Godardian film--how many times do we need to see Erland Josephson 'dramatically' falling down in an AK film?! [quickly ducks as large blownglass projectile filled with life-sustaining water flies past head...followed by a mysteriously drifting white shirt which in turn sets off a rain of white feathers]).

That HerrShreck finds the film unstimulating I can understand as it's a matter of experience--to each their own--if it doesnt work for you then so be it, blahblahblah...but to slam something because it appeals to such and such a crowd (and is it really the responsibility of the masses to seek out and raise the real pioneers? Ok, this gets into the whole 'should we blame Spielberg for making a profit on his films). And do you really think that Miramax, the evil corporate entity, really skewed the realization of this guys vision? I highly doubt it, so why not give that commodification jazz a rest. KK made a film that you don't dig, so there's no need to make him out as a capitalist whore.

But I can see the temptation to categorise him as art film for the masses, not unlike what happened to Amelie. If we compile a Child's Primer to Art House Cinema there would probably be a debate about who comes after the Coen Bros.: Almodovar or KK. It's approachable. Henry and Mildred in Shitberg Pennsylvania can watch Red on a recommendation and not be offended and maybe even have a half dozen lines of conversation: "It's certainly beautiful"--"yeah, there's that certain..."--"yeah, lots of red"--"no, I mean that certain jew no say quaw about it"--"Yeah, I know what you mean: and lots of red. Wonder if most people notice that about it."

Dylan, thanks for bringing it up. Nice post.
Fantastic response. This is why I love coming to this forum...

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devlinnn
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#30 Post by devlinnn » Wed Jan 03, 2007 4:01 am

I love to experience how severe and unexpected personal tastes can change - must change - and develop over time. To share these changes with friends, to fight and engage with loved ones, with the hope at the end of it all a few will stick around to buy another round is one of life's great joys. The emotional bruises taken are but medals.

With this in mind, I went back to view Red a few months ago, after being slightly alarmed at how dreadful I now found Veronique when viewing the recent DVD. Personal favourites since original release, I hadn't fully realized how much my own taste with Kieslowski had changed over the years. Not quite the 'OK, OK, OK, I mean, I loved it when I was at Radcliffe, but I mean, all right, you outgrow it, you absolutely outgrow it.', but something closer to when you catch up with someone you were once nuts about, but no longer have the desire to even tug their elbow.

Kieslowski's (later) images and dreams just no longer click in the mind's eye. Where I once found great beauty and love in his use of Jacob, all I now see is a gent in his 50s with unrequited lust and desire to get into the young girl's pants. Nothing wrong with that, but what's on show is too precious, too un-real, to get lost and fussed in. I couldn't give a flip anymore about the characters that inhabit these worlds. (Although I still love the casting of Jean-Louis Trintignant and the leaves that bury his surroundings)

Which is kinda-funny as I go back to the early stuff, and especially The Decalogue, and find myself more than ever wanting to share time with these people - their desires, thoughts and dreams.

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HerrSchreck
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#31 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Jan 03, 2007 7:33 am

At the risk of leaping to the defense of someone quite capable of defending himself, skuhn (seriously here) I don't see where Dave condemned the filmmaker based on the audience that's attached itself to him (though I think it's fair to condemn the filmmaker for becoming attached to audience-attachment to him when that attachment causes an atrophy of creativity and development in the director's work).

What if for example Hendrix halted the heavy fucking inner-life that hatched those spacy sounds in his head because he sensed his audience only wanted to hear endless variations on PURPLE HAZE? No-- Hendrix rebelled against audience expectations, fought against playing with his teeth & humping his amps time & time again even though his manager pushed him into it. And thank god he did. And he continued to become even more popular and wealthy. We get the masterpieces of AXIS, ELECTRIC LADYLAND, and all the wild new influences... Band O fGypsies, etc, which make his first album with HAZE seem even wilder.

This is not about "selling out". It's about turning a snapshot of an innovator's style during a singular moment of success into an artistic insurance policy-- a commodity if you will-- to guard against the possibility of a flop.

Pre Veronique, KK seemed to be making the films that bore very little relation to marketing, trends within the film industry, media hum and buzz and chitchat, the clinking of glasses and dry sucks on ten foot long cigaret holders, twinkling diamond earings pulling down 40 pound sticks of wealthy old women fresh from Place De beauty parlors and flumping around on 5 inch bitch pumps & in tight cocktail dresses-- his films were based on the state of the monstrously active inner life of he and his screenwriter. An almost conscious divorce from all that is Hollywood, cliche, and empty or posed. Post VERON, I see a major KK awareness of the publics awareness of KK, an awareness of how the public perceives-- and what it likes about-- KK's films, a KK awareness of what the public considers The KK Style... and a desire to reinforce that awareness, and, rather than destroy stylistic expectations via more astonishing innovation, a tactical repeat of old ground.... again and again and again. Thus a loss of a formerly fierce originality.

Clue to art detectives: sometimes those above-mentioned audiences like and want crap. It happens sometimes. Hence the resentment when one feels like a kickass, seriously powerful director gets seduced and glubs glubs glubs down the cocktail drain. It's a mistake-- and it can happen when success brings major contrast in forms of adulation (those coming out from behind the Curtain quite vulnerable). I think Tarkovsky is a good example, though I think THE SACRIFICE is the pinnacle of his overwrought way too serious seriousness (though in all fairness the dude was dying and wasn't feeling awful funny). I like NOSTALGHIA though I had problems with it at first. But when this syndrome overtakes an iconoclast unawares and squahes a vibrant former propensity for Creative Variety-- it sucks, man. It's like losing a Real Good Friend. In KK's example he didn't turn out schtoinks like Scream Three or something, but he, in my opinion, stalled and repeated himself right off of the edge of creative vitality

And
Yet another post condemning a filmmaker for the audience that attaches itself to him.
, even if that were so, imo not as bad as YET ANOTHER post condemning a board member for his own rightful opinion.

marty

#32 Post by marty » Wed Jan 03, 2007 8:00 am

davidhare wrote:The Trois Couleurs have always struck me as cannily calultated pan-Euro bling for people like the Sydney Film Festival crowd who wouldn't know a real pioneer like Skolimowski or Fassbinder if they fell over him in the shower.
I think it's one thing to have an opinion but, I'm afraid, the above comment strikes me and I am sure a few others as being snobbish and elitist, the very thing that most cinephiles are renowned for. Next thing you know and Bela Tarr becomes stale because he can't get out of his rut of "serious Seriousness", whatever that means.

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HerrSchreck
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#33 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Jan 03, 2007 8:13 am

Mort, from one straight (me) dude to an (alleged)-other (you):

that's far too much delicate & tender silk-slipper-footed talcum'd sensitivity for a dude like you who rumbles around the site like a Monster Truck Rally On Crack bashing flicks that don't cater to you're uh, method of insertion. With that classic marty "because I'm telling my untarnished very true Truth, hurt feelings or offense when they arise must be disregarded because the martytruth rules all... the martytruth is by god the truth!!!"

Don't worry marty-- a little bit of decade after decade after decade of serious therapy and everything should be okay... eventually. I think.

marty

#34 Post by marty » Wed Jan 03, 2007 8:39 am

HerrSchreck wrote:Mort, from one straight (me) dude to an (alleged)-other (you):

that's far too much delicate & tender silk-slipper-footed talcum'd sensitivity for a dude like you who rumbles around the site like a Monster Truck Rally On Crack bashing flicks that don't cater to you're uh, method of insertion. With that classic marty "because I'm telling my untarnished very true Truth, hurt feelings or offense when they arise must be disregarded because the martytruth rules all... the martytruth is by god the truth!!!"

Don't worry marty-- a little bit of decade after decade after decade of serious therapy and everything should be okay... eventually. I think.
I'm sorry, you lost me after "that's far too much delicate & tender silk-slipper-footed talcum'd sensitivity for a dude like you...."

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sevenarts
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#35 Post by sevenarts » Wed Jan 03, 2007 8:42 am

HerrSchreck wrote:Post VERON, I see a major KK awareness of the publics awareness of KK, an awareness of how the public perceives-- and what it likes about-- KK's films, a KK awareness of what the public considers The KK Style... and a desire to reinforce that awareness, and, rather than destroy stylistic expectations via more astonishing innovation, a tactical repeat of old ground.... again and again and again. Thus a loss of a formerly fierce originality.
It seems to me like people are responding negatively to the fact that Kieslowski settled on a rather consistent style after Veronique, and rather than assuming that this is simply the point that he wanted to develop his style to, are assuming that it was some coldly calculated money-making move on his part. I think that's pretty absurd. You're of course entitled to your opinion of later Kieslowski (I find these films incredibly affecting and beautifully shot, myself), but you're not making aesthetic arguments so much as you're accusing the director of being a crass hack. And doing so, I'd wager, without any real knowledge of what the director actually was thinking while making these later films. There are plenty of directors who develop a style and then refine it over the course of multiple movies -- are they all simply playing to audience expectations? Every Godard film since 1990 or so has fit a pretty similar mold, but I would say that's a product of the accumulation of his interests rather than a conscious desire to produce what audiences want to see at the expense of art. And I think it's the same with Kieslowski's late films.

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skuhn8
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#36 Post by skuhn8 » Wed Jan 03, 2007 9:01 am

Well, first I'd like to address HerrShreck's post, or at least three matters that it addresses (I believe, hope I'm not misinterpreting):
a) the artist/filmmaker's responsibility to NOT repeat him-/herself, that is, to strive towards innovation. I totally appreciate the Jimi analogy and have to agree that an artist (and here I think we're both talking about the same 'artist', not the guy showing up, punching the clock and shitting out the third installment of Analyze This/That/Everything Else) has to reinvent himself, develop, take RISKS. Before I ever heard of Tarkovsky I remember taking umbrage when my pals slammed Jackie Brown because 'it wasn't like Pulp Fiction'.
That being said, I'm not sure that KK should fall under this criticism. That is, I fail to see an overbearing repitition EXCEPT for a KK-style of editing and visual presentation (and here I'd like to suggest checking out the editor's commentary on the box set as well as KK's cinema lesson--quite illuminating features.). Granted, he does rely heavily on eye-candy that can come off overbearing, but I easily see an impressive devolopment; now, in all fairness, I take the trilogy as a single film, so if Blue and Red smack of coming from the same cloth, well then well it should.

[[digression in brief defense of White: I was initially disappointed with White even though I was pretty well obsessed with Julie Delpy well before it came out. I suspect I was expecting Blue II: a Different Colour, a Different Girl, which it is anything but. If Blue and Red represent a KK style of dramatic color and bent towards the unrealistic (which I think they do) then White is the stripped down, leaner machine grounded in a reality that it's main character could easily find himself in--and I think this comes closest to "aren't we poor Europeans living in the new free market economy"--which I fail to see as being an unworthy premise.]]

b) watching an admired artist led astray by the almighty buck [or powers that be, angry wife, studio system--pick whatever variation of 'da man']. Yup, I agree. If you feel that KK got led down the primrose path then that's a legit disappointment. I just don't see that at all. Again, I get the impression from some of these posts (and I could very well be wrong) that we're using an ascendent popularity with the masses as evidence of selling out. Isn't this a little presumptuous? Is there anything to indicate that he altered his vision to conform with Miramax' expectations, or if not to an outside force, that he concocted some 'formula for success with the wanna-be artsy crowd' and then followed said formula? Are we using the similarity in style between Red and Blue as such evidence? Again, these films were scripted together and shot in less than a year.

c) skuhn8 is "condemning a board member for his rightful opinion". Rereading my initial post I can see that it reads much like a tirade and leans towards the belligerent, but my issue isn't with someone disliking such and such a film but with the argument they use to disqualify it. And it would be a shame if anyone needed to come to dh's defense or if dh himself saw need for defense in any sense as I wasn't attacking him but his argument. You've done the same in many of your posts, it's part of disagreement and discussion. That's why I specifically mentioned that I can't argue about Red not doing anything for you, that it leaves you cold. What I take issue with was slamming my beloved KK for appealing to such and such an audience and for "selling out" when I don't see that he did--well, he certainly sold himself short when choosing his medical plan.

And I don't have issue with this following quote, even though it could easily be applied to so many directors that many of us hold dear, because I think KK does come off strong, does come off...well, well-put: arthouse classique. Overbearing? (and I use this word with KK intentionally) Perhaps, but I believe heartfelt in that classic Slavic sense.
To put it more simply I don't find KK's work in the least bit formally interesting - it's prettily dressed arthouse classique, and I cannot get over a sense of highly manipulated and pre-planned emotional effects and mere pictorialism dressed up in mise en scene lite.
Bearing in mind that his pre-Veronique works were regulated by the whim of often oppressive politics, censors, and economics, it doesn't seem so terribly surprising that he went off a little like a kid in a candy store (eye-candy) with a penchant for the same flavors as before (an opportunity to reintroduce his favorite themes to a new audience for the most part completely unaware of his previous body of work--keep in mind that except for the Decalogue he had little reason to believe that his other Polish works would find such a large audience having missed out on the whole DVD potential). In that sense, his pre-Veronique period may be considered a selling out to the dictates of others in some way.

And, as a final note, Monsiour Shreck, you feeling ok? Your response was surprisingly restrained, civilized. Is your better half writing on your behalf?

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GringoTex
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#37 Post by GringoTex » Wed Jan 03, 2007 9:56 am

HerrSchreck wrote:The VERONIQUE blip was for him clearly a turning point to some degree where what was formerly interesting became a bit freeze dried and served with a flump by western cheers of "encore!"
I think KK was essentially doing the same thing in his pre-Veronique and post-Veronique periods- just that he switchd from Polish tenaments to glorious Euro settings and changed out his ugly Polish no-name actors for French hotties. His "mystical" mise-en-scene in context of drab Poland intrigues us. In context of French fashion, it becomes a little boring.

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#38 Post by MichaelB » Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:12 pm

GringoTex wrote:and changed out his ugly Polish no-name actors for French hotties.
For the record, these "ugly Polish no-name actors" included pretty much the cream of Polish acting talent of the time, including Krystyna Janda, Daniel Olbrychski, Jerzy Stuhr, Grazyna Szapolowska, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Boguslaw Linda, Olaf Lubaszenko, Jerzy Radziwilowicz, and many others.

They may well be "no-name" to you, but the Polish audiences for whom Kieslowski primarily made his pre-1991 films would regard them very differently. As would anyone even vaguely familiar with Polish cinema of the last thirty years.

munk
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#39 Post by munk » Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:31 pm

"ugly Polish no-name actors"

Nice cultural bias / entitlement or should we say cultural indoctrination, bleated so blatantly...

no further comment...

SOME of the so called cineastes here behaving like a typical rhetorical attention whores, plainly jumping on the bandwagon of crucifying any director at any given moment for the sake of critical trendiness.

It's SO COOL to dislike KK at the moment, the notion proves a critical progression into upper and limited to few stratum of reductionism.

Sufferers of delusions of grandeur =D>

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Mr Sausage
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#40 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:39 pm

munk wrote:"ugly Polish no-name actors"

Nice cultural bias / entitlement or should we say cultural indoctrination, bleated so blatantly...

no further comment...
Uh, no, if you're going to call people cultural bigots you had damn well better comment further, because insulting toss-offs don't cut it.

And the so-called "delusionals" of this thread have put more thought and effort into their posts than your one-note post of empty insults.

Though GringoTex was not using a smiley, I'm positive he made that comment with his tongue firmly in his cheek.
Last edited by Mr Sausage on Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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GringoTex
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#41 Post by GringoTex » Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:40 pm

munk wrote:"ugly Polish no-name actors"

Nice cultural bias / entitlement or should we say cultural indoctrination, bleated so blatantly...

no further comment...
One of the few failings of this great forum is a tendency to interpret posts literally and with Grave Intent.

munk
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#42 Post by munk » Wed Jan 03, 2007 3:01 pm

So please elaborate in plain English "ugly Polish no-name actors" ?

Tongue and cheek? How so?

I don't have any obligation to partake in any form or shape in this thread without carrying a load of input in order to respond. It's an open debate forum. I didn't use a word bigot, I indicated bias or indoctrination that could have been manifested consciously or subconsciously.

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Mr Sausage
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#43 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Jan 03, 2007 5:15 pm

munk wrote:So please elaborate in plain English "ugly Polish no-name actors" ?

Tongue and cheek? How so?
Because he doesn't actually mean what he's saying. You know, irony.
munk wrote:I don't have any obligation to partake in any form or shape in this thread without carrying a load of input in order to respond.
I don't understand a word of this sentence
munk wrote:I didn't use a word bigot, I indicated bias or indoctrination that could have been manifested consciously or subconsciously.
Bigot (from our friends at the OED): a person obstinately and unreasonably wedded to a particular religious creed, opinion, or ritual. In this case, I am quite right to say you indicated that he was a "cultural bigot"--ie. one unreasonably wedded to a certain (in this case Western) culture.

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#44 Post by terabin » Wed Jan 03, 2007 5:22 pm

I think what strikes me the most about Red is the relationship between the Jean-Louis Trintignant judge character and the Irene Jacob Valentine character. Although I appreciate the vibrant mise en scene (it may not be innovative, but it's certainly effective in conveying the happenstance tone of the film), it is the story itself that engages me. It's not that I identify wholly with either the Jacob or Trintignant character, but that I see the odd connection between them, a connection which seems to carry a lot of emotional power with it. By the time the judge reveals more of his past in the auditorium, I was completely hooked, so much so that the ensuing window flying open, which on paper is a cheesy, dramatic flourish, was rather an effective release of the characters' inexpressible emotions. No this is not a dull movie at all for me, nor is it a glossy shell of a better movie.

This is my favorite of the Three Colors Trilogy, and though its looks can be summed up by the red building-sized advertisement of Irene Jacob at the end, a throughly commercialized sensual image, this film is about the humanistic tendencies of the modern person amidst all of this gloss and coldness. Which is why Valentine helps the old woman push the bottle into the recycling bin when she had no help in the previous two movies, and it's why two completely different people, one old one young, one the voyeur one the model, etc., meet and connect when they shouldn't. Very relevant and uplifting idea.

marty

#45 Post by marty » Thu Jan 04, 2007 8:00 am

Despite the populism of the Three Colours Trilogy, I can almost guarantee that none of these films would be get a release in Australia now in 2006 mainly due to the commercialisation of arthouse cinema. The films would struggle to get a release in the US, save for NY and LA. I believe many great box office arthouse hits from the late 80s and 90s would struggle to get release now in 2006. In Australia, we have so-called arthouse cinemas screening A Good Year, The Da Vinci Code, The Devil Wears Prada and, believe it or not, Happy Feet!

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devlinnn
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#46 Post by devlinnn » Thu Jan 04, 2007 11:19 pm

davidhare wrote:In that enlightened country cinemas like Action Ecole, Accatone, Medicis etc are state subsidised. Could you imagine this happening in Australia under the fascists who govern us currently.
Way off topic here, but with the way ACMI is run down here, at least the fascists know where to stick it.

marty

#47 Post by marty » Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:38 am

devlinnn wrote:
davidhare wrote:In that enlightened country cinemas like Action Ecole, Accatone, Medicis etc are state subsidised. Could you imagine this happening in Australia under the fascists who govern us currently.
Way off topic here, but with the way ACMI is run down here, at least the fascists know where to stick it.
At least, ACMI screened the Matthew Barney films there and are screening this weekend, Kelly Reichardt's wonderful film, Old Joy.
davidhare wrote:
Despite the populism of the Three Colours Trilogy, I can almost guarantee that none of these films would be get a release in Australia now in 2006 mainly due to the commercialisation of arthouse cinema. The films would struggle to get a release in the US, save for NY and LA. I believe many great box office arthouse hits from the late 80s and 90s would struggle to get release now in 2006. In Australia, we have so-called arthouse cinemas screening A Good Year, The Da Vinci Code, The Devil Wears Prada and, believe it or not, Happy Feet!
But what do you blame the commercialization of Oz indie cinemas on? Palace and Village Roadshow? I really don't know.
The cinemas are party to blame but, then again, they need to make money and will not screen any films that don't make money. It's business, pure and simple. With box office declining in recent years, it has affected all films but those great little indie films don't make enough money any more for cinemas to screen them. Also, I believe audiences that used to go to mainstream cinemas in the 80s and 90s have now infiltrated arthouse cinemas looking for more intelligent films other than comic book adaptations. Those who used to attend arthouse cinemas in the 80s and 90s have now turned to DVD rather than going to see The Devil Wears Prada at their arthouse cinema. Also, the term "arthouse cinema" or whatever you want to call it has lost its meaning in today's cinema. Thank God for DVD and for a few daring, independent local DVD distributors.

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#48 Post by brownbunny » Fri Jan 05, 2007 2:40 pm

i'm stymied to wade through complaints that kieslowski's films are too ponderous, and are in affect hollow or cold, too dependent on pretense. i view kieslowski's films and experience a reverential, soulful warmth that pervades every part of my body. veronique, in my mind the apotheosis of his style and concerns (especially with fortuity and coincidence), can enrapture my interest whatever my prevailing mood may be. it has a wonderfully transfixing, hypnotic quality to it that very much reminds me of tarkovsky.

i remember a rather arduous and contentious debate regarding kieslowski that ruptured on a message board i formerly frequented, wherein the majority of people opined that kieslowski's films were too considered with style and conjuring emotions solely from a visual point. it's telling of how anathematized intellectualism has become, where anyone possessed of strong precocity or intellectual vigor is lambasted as a pretentious cad simply because it happens to frighten someone - the mere thought someone out there is smarter than you. i've heard that dreadful word inaccurately pinned to kieslowski for so long the syllables have been sapped of whatever meaning they may have had.

kieslowski's films feel deeply personal to me, and though they may not be directly related to him (character-wise), i cannot help but think and feel that it is the expression of a supreme artist. to me, scorsese's films (forgive the spelling, if it is incorrect) are cold and hollow, impersonal and without any qualities i would asign to great works of cinema, because to me they are merely adequate. they aren't bad, but i cannot with any degree of sincerity say his name could be said in confidence and company with names like tarkovsky, kieslowski or bergman - or anyone really on the criterion roster. i think kieslowski could have easily made goodfellas or casina, it would probably be like playing checkers to him, but scorsese could never have made something like veronique or the decalogue. (it reminds me of what dylan said to keith richards, "i could have written 'satisfaction,' but you could never write 'mr. tambourine man.'"). kieslowski's work is so singular and disparate, that he seems an inimitable director, at least to me.

the 3 colors trilogy, though limping slightly with blanc (and i do think that has its moments of greatness, but in company with bleu and rouge it's simply a lesser work), is tremendous to me. rouge might be the film i champion most out of all of them, but that's probably only due to the presence of irene jacob.

apologies for the tangent and seemingly unexpected scorsese tangent, but i've been laboring for some time over argument after argument about him, to such an extent, that my frustrations must have simply crept in.

anyhow, i recently found one of his early works on dvd and look forward to viewing it. i have yet to see blind chance, however.

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skuhn8
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#49 Post by skuhn8 » Fri Jan 05, 2007 2:53 pm

Now KK doing Goodfellas, that'd be interesting (if not incredibly ridiculous):
VO: "Ever since I was a kid"
rapid cut to milk bottle falling in slow motion, crashing, screen turns white.
Cut to: Deep CU of mothers eyes. Camera pulls back to view her trudging off dejectedly.
Cut to: Deep CU of Italian eyes, deepset, wrinkles around the edges. Camera pulls back...slowly...to reveal a golden Sicilian smile.
VO continues: "to be a wise guy".
Next five minutes includes 23 shots from ever whirling points of view W/O dialogue or narration.
KK is great, but he can't do Scor-cease and more than Marty can do Kiss-lovsky.

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brownbunny
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#50 Post by brownbunny » Fri Jan 05, 2007 3:31 pm

i suppose given the nature of my comments, i should've explained myself in a less puerile manner. i don't mean to imply scorsese lacks technical aptitude, i believe i alluded to the fact that his films were well-made, however they never seem anything more than adequate to me. every aspect of his filmmaking keeps me at arm's length, the foul body odour of his male characters, the way things look, etc. frankly, i'm not impressed that he moved a fucking camera through a dishwashing station. i remember von trier was talking about the meaninglessness of praise for things like that, how he was disgusted by the hosannas given to the first few minutes of touch of evil solely because of the camera movement. while i don't agree with nor emphasize this point with as much severity, that camera scudding through the ass-end of a restraunt will not alter the irrevocable fact that the characters in goodfellas are like lifetime movie characters - nor will his numerous edits and cuts and montages set to baby-boomer music make his films any more appealing to me.

perhaps part of my disdain for his work comes from the palpable lack of personality to me. yes, i know he likes violence - i don't sync that with character. it's difficult to articulate to someone who admires his work, i suppose, but his films never feel anything but average to me, and are in some instances - i apologize in advance for the use of so listless a word - silly. that's really the word that epitomizes it. perhaps it's also that i feel his films are symptomatic of what could be called "movie buff" syndrom. i don't mean cineaste or anything like that, i mean the guy that stops you at the water cooler during your brief little lunch break and harangues you about the weekend grosses. that kind of desultory, unsavory thing - blockbuster cards, troughs of popcorn, random quoting of scarface and ceaseless talk of studios and oscars (these people always know every single candidate and recipient of those dreadful things).

another part of my dislike and even derision of his films comes from the populist aspect; he's simply too popular. that's a bit of a joke, albeit a bad one, but it has some truth to it. i tend to like things that appeal to a smaller audience, and i notice that those particular films or books or bands, all tend to espouse a feeling that is distinct to them, something which requires the absolute acquiescence and patience, the sinews and network of veins and all anyone could ever surrender of themselves and give...that these things demand something from their audience. a thing can have broad appeal if it has a less than distinct mood, but when something is broad, proportionally, the personal and impassioned aspect of it is questioned.

additionally, and as a simple reiteration of what i said earlier, his name fails to carry the kind of weight he would like it to. he is a good director, but to me, there is something absent which prevents his ascension to the ranks and pantheon of our most sublime and transcendant directors. i believe this to be as a result of his inability to make a personal film, a smaller film with a more particular atmosphere. taxi driver is incontestably close, but i wager that's more because of schrader than anything else.

it's analogous to the case of someone like coppola (francis), who - as pauline kael quite rightly (for once) suggested, is incapable of making a smaller film - that he is better suited to direct a larger film in the manner of the godfather or apocalypse now. something like the conversation feels awkward for a coppola film, as it seems an american (and therefore more crass) restatement of what was done with blow-up (which i don't think to be one of antonioni's better films anyway). his talents are more suited towards the broader end of things. i think marty is similar in some sense.

after i see a scorsese film, i feel only that i have completed viewing a film. the film ends, the disc is ejected or the channel purged and changed; yet when i view a film (as i just recently did) like stalker, or last year at marienbad, i am incapable of expressing anything but momentary awe, a suspension of syllables due to the fact that all of my emotions and feelings and intellectual ditherings are hastily crowding to the forefront of my brain, imperiously shoving and caterwauling, trying to cope with something that they all ubiquitously deem beautiful, ineffable. when i viewed last year at marienbad the film lived inside of my head for days - immediately after the film ended my limbs were lame, motionless and immobile, beset upon my sides with a faint, vaguely numb feeling. i could barely bear to blink or move my jowls, despite the dryness that had swelled inside my mouth - unable to swallow, to move or think without conjuring some endless corridor, queue of angular trees, decorous hall bedecked with languorous, slack-eyed dinner guests, or some other image from the film.

this is, as clear as i can put it, what differs for scorsese and my reaction to his films. they are incapable of making me feel anything in this manner, they cannot astound or destroy my senses as resnais and countless others have - they are simply films to me, films that do not move nor flit beyond what they are merely capable of doing - entertaining. as should be stressed, nothing is wrong with this, but comparatively i favor one highly above the other. if i watch eraserhead, i breathe with it, if i watch veronique, it courses like ichor through my veins - these films and films like them open up the possiblity of beauty to me, and it is something simply to which scorsese is not predisposed.

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