SucSLINcT

Recently all my discussion on cinema with friends and randoms has shifted towards achieving simple answer to simple questions. For example, what is Cinema? Is it what Godard would like us to think, truth twenty four times a second? Or is Haneke’s opposing musing that film is twenty four lies a second to be believed? What is the future of Cinema? Is it going to become blander or more diverse? However, the question that I’ve found most intriguing has been where does film (or movies, cinema, the picture etc) exist? There seem to be many answers to this (on the screen, inside the viewer’s mind, somewhere in between…) but consider one that came from a woman from Liverpool eating a chip and chilli butty on the number 29 night bus: “inside the cinema” was her swift response, adding “y’know the buiding like” (the addition clearly for my benefit so I would understand that it was a joke). Before you think I’m about to slag off the northerners, I feel she has got something here. Plus she let me have a bite of said butty which was surprisingly rich in flavour.
I know with her answer she wasn’t trying to suggest that film is a self referencing art form with its centre residing in a kaleidoscope of Echer style drawings; she was proudly stating the obvious. And sometimes, as Sid Field would surely agree, the simplest and most obvious solution is the correct solution.Yet I’d like to think that “inside the cinema” could mean more than just an attempt at wit though and if you can be bothered to read on I will present some lukewarm analysis coupled with some amateur comedy and a hint of plagiarism along these very lines.

Actually fuck it, she’s right. Films exist in the cinema (or zavvi). Now, if only I could find those god damn tweezers!

Ben New

Mark David Chapman Was Nothing But A Patsy For The C.I.A And Jesus.

Chapter 27 and The Killing of John Lennon would never have gotten made if this man had any chance of parole. However, of the same token neither would they have gotten made if the American justice system wasn't so open to giving killers access to the media, for these movies share as their basis in 'fact' the many interviews granted by Chapman, beginning in '87, as well as the same eyewitness accounts of the assassination. It shows. Certain scenes are done verbatim to the point at which you find yourself wondering if it is the same actor playing that photographer, that doorman, that bystander.

However, there is no possibility of confusing the lead actors for the same man. Jared Leto and his stomach could never be mistaken for Jonas Ball's slimmed down Chapman; nor could either be confused for Mark David Chapman himself. Leto may have enjoyed his couple or three months Zellwegger-to-Bridget-Jonesifying, but it was for little merit. Maybe this reviewer has simply seen too many My So Called Life bootlegged dvds but the transformation wasn't complete. Granted, Leto may have benefitted from being in a better-funded picture, and being closer to the correct poundage, but there was little to differentiate the performances. The needless addition of Lindsay Lohan to Chapter 27 makes the decision (as if there needs to be one made) between the two movies even more difficult. Take it from me that your time would be better spent watching any of the actual Beatles movies than any of the examples of this new sympathy for a criminal/psycho genre. I even found Monster a bit morally objectionable, especially after such a good documentary had already been made about Eileen Wuornos' spree and subsequent plight. Hollywood has always loved violence, and in the last couple of decades it turns out it also loves a killer.

Alex B.

Part One of an Occasional Series: Things to be Written on One's Tombstone.

"Dear World. I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck."
(from George Sanders' suicide note)

"Nobody ever asked me to judge a fuckin' bikini contest..."
(Stevie Glasser-the old guy from ' Porn: A Family Business')

Alex B.

Generational Dislocation, The Sequel

Ever wanted to read the work of a guy trying really hard to say sorry, failing, then just trying to justify some shit and ending up with an act of imperfect contrition? Well, treat yourselves;

"Waking up with a horrible thought which is then quickly realised to be true by your surroundings evokes in people different reactions. Mine was to run (not without stealing a bag of Hula Hoops). Where to run?
Out on the street I walk what I thought westwards heading nowhere in particular. For some reason (maybe it was for sentimental reason, maybe it was out of convenience or maybe because in this post Spurlock world I new the balance of E numbers, salt and sugar would give that giddy buzz to numb my inquisitive head) I marched, against my usual better judgement, in to McDonalds. It was the breakfast rush and I had plenty of time to eye up a sausage and egg McMuffun. In the reflective green interiors I realised how crumby I looked concluding that my answer to the ‘is this to take away?’ question would be a resounding yes as I needed to act fast and find refuge away from here.
Unsurprisingly, the thought of the cinema reared its head. It seemed logical to me (in retrospect it seemed logical in the filmic sense of my life. I wanted to become one of those peasants from Cinema Paradiso or feel as isolated as Anna Karina from Vivre sa Vie. I was looking at myself through the fictional eyes of a fictional director. Life however is not a film) so theatre land was the chosen spot, forgetting it was the fucking morning.
On arrival, even after the discovery of time, I though what do theses gigantic buildings have to offer me? I had a drunk super hero (which my mind thought was some knowing referential joke), A dark night (wait is there a theme going on?), the love guru (you’re shitting me) and Wall-e (bom fucking bom). The titles alone seemed to be reminding me of my actions, the exact opposite of the very purpose of coming here. Even during this time of confusion, I found myself laughing at Tom Cruise’s small handprint in a pavement slab; it was smaller than Meryl Streep’s. Oh, I was still drunk. I bought a paper and some water and headed home on the tube.
I read the sport pages. I didn’t want any stories that contained anything that would remind me of what I had done. I learnt we had won the final test against the Kiwis, I saw that that little 10 year old diver had fucked it in the Olympics and I read the usual guff about Ronaldo’s future at Man United. It was working! My mind was elsewhere. Yet at the back of my head, I was all knowing, I was merely super imposing these words and thoughts over more pressing matters. I was going over decisions I had made and asking why I hadn’t just gone home last night?
So then why? Sleep seemed to veto the conclusion of this answer, even though I knew the full force of the hangover was at the other end of my slumber.
I woke up to my phone ringing, I began a discussion about keys being handed over plus I was asked what I had got up to the previous night. I spoke in a nursery rhyme almost, was I trying to lighten the situation? Yes, trying to trivialise it. I heard the voice on the other end reply with my name in a slow manner. It filled me with fear. I got up and decided I needed to do something, something creative (whatever that means). I tried my video cameras but they were both still broken. I didn’t feel right about playing guitar and when I tried to write my thoughts returned to why. I saw my stills camera and I began taking photos. The flash would go off (as they always seemed to do when they are set to auto mode no matter how light it is) and each time it was blinding me slightly, I continued to take more and more photos. It kept me concentrating on the immediate moment of the frame in view, nothing else existed. I continued to snap and walk around my place taking pictures for the sake of taking pictures, to be doing something.
Eventually the battery wore out and charging it would take time. I was again left with ‘why’ going around my head. A sentence was forming: ‘why did you fuck over your friend’? Parts of me would defensively jump to my aid suggesting paper thin arguments justifying my actions. Other parts seemed to be triggering some spastic safety mechanism to laugh, but the majority of the time I felt stupid and despised.
The rest of the day I spent taking picture after picture, creating a photographic path around my house and surrounding area and (when charging the battery) watching extreme French cinema (this seemed to numb my senses as much as the photos did; the shocking tone more than the actual images). Unavoidably I was going to be alone with my thoughts before sleep, something even the great Kundera was unable to stave off.
Why then? I can only conclude that it obviously wasn’t my intention but I was overcome by a feeling of vertigo that I wasn’t strong enough to fight, wasn’t conscious enough to fight and wasn’t noble enough to fight. I took the easy route (do I think like electricity?) to appease those inner temptations and sidelined everything else. In short an asshole.
I finally made contact with whom I needed to apologise the next day. How I had ranted about the over use of text messages (and other forms of digital announcements), their ability to un-romanticise relationships and generally saturated communication. Yet, how quickly did they come to my aid and be my first thought.

Thanks for your reply."

P.S. Ben New is still loved and still loves all you ladies (the motherfucker).

Generational Dislocation

You know how your getting old? It's when you finally realise girls aren't complicated, they're just fucked up. It's when you realise your best friend is going to fuck the girl you had your eye on and were playing it cool with in the bed you were supposed to be sleeping in, leaving you with nothing but ball-ache and a long taxi ride across town. It's when you find yourself stood outside the 'hippest' club in town chaining off rollies thinking you'd rather be at home alone watching Peepshow on a laptop on your chest. It's the same thing that drives the DJ's inside the club to program Italo-Disco nights; their need for musical anachronism (claimed as somehow new) is fuelled by the same sense of dissatisfaction and contempt for contemporaries and contemporaniety. This sense of mid-twenties generational dislocation is to be differentiated from what makes teenagers potentially creative, or at least interesting subjects for Larry Clark movies. It doesn't drive kids to angst-ridden statementally heroic acts of genius/idiocy. It's what drives people in their twenties to spend whole mornings self-satisfiedly engaged in Blue Peter style acts of 'creativity' in order to don costumes every other weekend just so that they can bosh gurners guilt-free and dance to 80's 12 inch remixes from an era just too early and feel safe in the knowledge that it's ok to do that stuff if you don't really mean it. To be irony-clad is to be out of one's time. I guess as you get even older the feeling morphs into 'real' nostalgia as opposed to nostalgia for something you couldn't even legitimately pretend to have witnessed. Boomer's buy 10 cd Grateful Dead comps, this gen buys into sub-par Batman remakes and movies about toys they remember their older brothers had but they were too small to play with. It's the same feeling that drives kids like me to write these kind of State of the Union Addresses and think that anyone gives a shit.

Occasionally though some bastard does something so beautiful, even if it does contain a certain amount of irony and anachronism, it gives you hope for not only for Art after the triumph of postmodernity but for humanity itself. http://www.myspace.com/sweetbreadsounds

Some Stuff You Might Like to Gaspar Noe

His latest film (still in post production) Enter the Void is due out early 2009 and I, along with many fans, am eagerly awaiting this like a bunch of vigilantes waiting for an excuse to take the law in to their own hands. One of the reasons for this anticipation is Noe’s own words in an interview stating his ambition with this project in regards to film history, “enter the void will try to improve upon its predecessors and accompany the hero just as much in his normal state of awareness as in his altered states: the state of alertness, the stream of consciousness, memories, dreams ...”. Although this idea in film isn’t new, Noe suggests he wants to push the boundaries of cinematic language, create “the Magic Mountain which I, as a spectator, dream of riding on”. This is exciting news considering this is the man that produced the most shocking film of the first decade of the 21st century in Irreversible and the superb dark drama debut I Stand Alone (a film which led some critics to call him “some sort of genius”). I thought this an apt time as any to give some thoughts (mainly in respect towards the editing) on his previous works.
I was introduced to this director through watching Irreversible late night, alone a year or so after its (very limited) cinematic release. I had read bits and pieces about it being a very graphically depicted story but I wasn’t prepared for the sense of terror and blunt object to face style visuals. The next day I still felt the film’s affect on me, something which hadn’t happened since the days when my main income was some imaginary tooth merchant. Images would appear in my mind, the emotion of the film would manifest inside me, it really had restored the power of cinema in my eyes. On repeat viewings I began to realise the level of skill in terms of production and acting that was on show here. The use of digital editing is arguable the films biggest achievement. Nearly every single frame has been manipulated in some way, yet the film still looks and feels organic. The entire picture consists of six single takes which have been stitched together with some impressive hidden edits and bravado camera work (a lot of which Noe filmed himself) to create a film that feels instantly modern but not gimmicky. It also allowed Noe to ‘direct after shoot’ as the frame can be digitally moved to create new shots (the majority was filmed in super 16mm, giving a large area to crop and adjust in the edit). You really have to see how the camera zips from inside an apartment building to outside a night club in one seamless movement or how the camera moves in and out of a moving car during a frenetic taxi ride to understand.
It has been criticised for its ultra violent depictions, something the film is more than notorious for but I believe its lasting impressions come from the talented acting, which breathes real life in to the images conveying real emotion. I was even more impressed when I learnt it was largely improvised and shot within three weeks. It must be Monica Bellucci’s finest (if horrific) performance as the ill-fated Alex. Cassel and Depontel both give great turns as current and former lover of Alex depicting the different sides of the male condition.
It is very much a male film that taps deep into ones inner desires and fears; man’s right to seek revenge, man’s want for revenge? It’s a powerful cinematic experience that should be undertaken with caution as Noe gives you a skilfully crafted visceral dose of fear.
He also manages to squeeze in a scene at the beginning with ‘The Butcher’ (Phillippe Nahon) from his first film I Stand Alone, which impressively links the two worlds of his two features together, also resolving the open ending from that film in the process.
I naturally sought out this film which wasn’t available in the UK but, thanks to ebay, picked up a DVD copy distributed by Strand (a smudgy print I have to add) and watched it as soon as it dropped through my letter box. It definitely feels a more sedated work (maybe the fact that slow infrequent budget injections slowed the films production forcing a more regimented work flow) but still has the feel of Irreversible, that feeling of a real filmmaker at work and ultimately I believe a more complete picture.
It tells the story of an unnamed middle aged former butcher who (after a brief stint in prison) has begun to give up on life. He only sees things at the most cynical and primeval level and Noe forces us to see the world through these eyes. A subtle but powerful performance by Nahon brings this character and world to life as we head towards the climax of the film which is signposted by inter-titles giving you 30 seconds to leave the cinema or turn off your DVD player.
Again the editing is outstanding. A recurring editing theme deployed throughout is what I refer to as ‘bang cuts’ which resemble rapid, frame jumping cuts with camera movement accompanied by loud gunshot sounding audio. These type of edits aggressively punctuate the film, reminding you of cinema’s constructed nature and reflect the brutal thought process of our (anti) hero (He also audaciously uses one for an ellipsis in time).
A more subtle use of editing is also on display here which demonstrates Noe’s grammatical flair. For example, near the beginning of the film we move from a night time interior of a bedroom to the daytime interior of a butcher’s shop. Instead of a fade or dissolve, Noe uses an inter cut sequence of 4 images (both the spiked corners of the butcher’s shop interior, a close up of the Protagonists’ face and a mid shot of him and the other characters inside the shop) to move us between the two settings and give graphical representation of the protagonists’ inner feelings. It’s the filmic version of a brilliant writer who seamlessly links two paragraphs, something (unlike my co-blogger Abe) I could obviously improve on!
It wasn’t surprising to read that some critics had drawn comparisons with I stand Alone and Taxi Driver. Both films force us to view the worlds through cynical and sometimes evil eyes. I feel I Stand Alone however, dares to show you more, dares to probe deeper. It shows us a decaying world where all colour of life have been saturated so much that “entering the void”, as the butcher puts it, becomes a viable option.
The filmic life of the butcher doesn’t finish with I Stand Alone, his first outing was in Noe’s short (well medium) film Carne. Made before I Stand Alone, it depicts his earlier life and the incident that led to his imprisonment. Shot in near identical fashion, Noe’s superb attention to dramatic tension and brutal cinematic techniques are on clear display. The red and brown colour palate of these films are in complete contrast to Noe’s other collaborative short feature La Bouche de Jean-Pierre. Tackling the issue of paedophilia, it is obvious to glean that Noe isn’t afraid to take on difficult subject matter. After an attempted suicide by a middle aged woman leaves her hospital bound, her daughter is taken into care by a friend. The film focuses on the young girl as she deals with the absence of her mother, the advances of the friend’s partner and social isolation. It has an interesting editing style of whip pans and graphic matches coupled with loudly punctuated inter-titles (the latter technique resurfaces in I Stand Alone).
His other work includes numerous music videos (I suggest checking out the inventive video for Arielle’s Si Mince on youtube), the bluntly titled We Fuck Alone which was part of the Districted collection of short films about pornography. A horrifically gruesome but strangely funny short piece Sodimites (worth sitting trough for the rapid editing and roaming camera work), four poetic pieces called Eva 1-4 and films for the French government about safe sex.
So what does he have in store for us in with his new film? For the first time he has a serious budget, an experienced production team (the team that helped produce the Japanese Vengeance trilogy) and time. It certainly won’t be easy viewing but given the choice between easy bland cinema and challenging works of art I think I’m going to give the void a try.

Ben New

Some thoughts on La Dolce Vita

Ah Fellini... butt of many (affectionate) jokes, progenitor of what would become many arthouse-cliches. Despite having owned this movie for a long time it's taken enforced near-bedridden status to get around to watching it. I just didn't get along with 8 1/2. By that point I'd seen Last Year in Marienbad, a movie I still regard as the apotheosis of that kind of guys in suits/girls in gowns- films as much about architecture and mise en scene as anything else-picture. As my esteemed colleague Mr New is in the habit of quoting Seneca, I shall refrain. But considering the fact that I'd heard so much about the movie, even seen a lot of it before, in clip or homage-form I was surprised by how much there was to enjoy in this movie. Maybe it was the painkillers, or the fact I'd spoken all of about three words to anyone other than triage nurse all day. Maybe I just identified with the story of a dude struggling to reconcile what (and who) he does for a living with what (and who) he is really interested in doing.

Damn it, the last thing I need is another well-known, prolific European director to have to find some obscure, forgotten masterpiece in order to sound knowledgeable about.

Summer hours wasted

“£12.50, £12.50” My brain logs another complaint, “£12.50” but this time adding “you should have gone to see WALL-E instead”. This slight schizophrenic discussion was all happening on the my bus journey home after watching L' Heure d'été (Summer Hours) at one of London’s over priced art house cinemas. On paper the film looked ok as the assembled cast included Juilette Binoche (possible one of modern cinema’s greatest actresses) and Jérémie Renier (who I thought was outstanding in L’enfant). Also, the director, Olivier Assayas whose prolific genre crossing output has given him more than just an air of respectability, at least in his native country France. Yet the old book and cover cliché couldn’t apply more sweetly than here.
The film is very much a middle class film dealing with middle class issues populated by characters with middle of the road traits. It’s driven along by the decision that is to be made by three middle aged-some-things about what to do with the inheritance left by their recently deceased mother (who we meet at the beginning of the film during a birthday party in her honour. She is shown to be to be getting on a bit by proclaiming the gift of a telephone “too complicated”). Anyway, as the plot unfolds I felt the opposite of what a good film should do; instead of being drawn in I felt less and less a participant. For me this was evidenced towards the end of the film during a dinner scene between two principle cast members who share a joke. The camera lingered over the two of them laughing vigorously and I felt the director was trying to make a point about the devolvement of this couple and the devolvement of the story but what I actually felt was a complete lack of connection with these people. I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care if they kept the family heirlooms, I didn’t care if that vase is actually worth something and I certainly didn’t care about an unfunny joke! Maybe it was the intention of director Assayas as it has been rumoured that this could be the first in a series. Will this film take on a different form when viewed as a whole alongside the others? You know what? I don’t care. It would take something (to quote Dr. Raymond Stantz) of biblical proportions to retrospectively save this film.
Ultimately the film suffers from what Walter Murch might call a chimpanzee film trying to be a human film. This isn’t implying that it is a silly film trying to be too clever, what I mean (and Murch) is that it doesn’t know what it is. The end result is something of a family drama with little tension, comedy and, most importantly, no sense of empathy for any of the characters.
The film’s only saving graces are it’s eloquent cinematography photographed by Eric Gautier, giving the images a richness that the characters seem unable to match. And one scene where Binoche slowly and subtle demonstrates her sadness for the lose of her mother. But I’ll let you decide whether I thought this was worth the price of admission.

Ben New

ID4

Ok so this review may be a little tardy, but rating Independence Day on the rebound seems particularly apt since so much of the movie is recycled and rehashed from other sources. A contemporary review of Star Wars described that movie as 'a subliminal history of movies'. ID4 is no Star Wars, though Emmerich did once say Jedi was the template for the pacing of the movie. Star Wars utilized the syntactic and semantic elements of many genres, yet Emmmerich and Devlin restrict themselves to Sci-Fi, specifically 1950s Hollywood Sci-Fi. One could consider the film as a subliminal history of Hollywood B Sci-Fis, but that would credit Emmerich and Devlin with a level of sublety they patently lack (a conviction bourne out by the fact they have been unable to repeat the success of ID4 with the series of semi remakes like 10,000 BC that have ensued). Everything here is smash your head against the wall liminal, even down to the obligatory shot of someone watching an old genre picture on tv that gets shoe horned into every 'knowing' piece of Hollywood output since the seventies-in this case it's The Day the Earth Stood Still, it's like watching a clockwork mechanism inexorably winding down to self-satisfied stasis: Em and Dev cynically ticking boxes narratively and visually on their way to opening weekend cigars and blow-jobs.
Ok, I know shouldn't let myself get riled by Will Smith pictures from the mid-nineties. It's just not cool. But then neither is staying up until 4am watching Will Smith pictures then blogging about them the next day. It's just that Smith had a potential as an actor that perhaps only once since Six Degrees of Separation has he shown any intention of fulfilling: the movie Ali. And what is he doing now? Remaking Charleton Heston B-Sci-Fis (I am Legend), and badly at that. There was a time when Smith looked like he could become the new Sidney Poitier, talented, angry, respected. Now his idea of being cast against type is as a superhero, but get this-this superhero drinks! Smith is perhaps the ultimate in self-satisfied Hollywood dull now, without the crazy Oprah appearances, getting loaded with Vince Vaughn headlines of his peers he doesn't even get enough stick over his dalliance with Scientology. I just can't watch an episode of The Fresh Prince without the words 'WHAT A SHAME' flashing in front of my eyes. Other people have started Save Britney/Lohan campaigns, maybe I should start a Save Will Smith campaign. I don't think just taking down his agent would work. On the strength of his recent appearance on the Colbert Report he's too far gone and is need of drastic remedial attention to rid him of his leading man dependency. He'll do anything as long as he is in the lead role. I call it Wild Wild West syndrome. We/he need(s) an intervention people.
Right I'm off to register getwillsmithandstevecarellinaremakeofseenoevilhearnoevil.com

Alex B.