Short essays on cinema
„Crowds being only capable of thinking in images are only to be impressed by images. It is only images that terrify or attract them and become motives of action. For this reason theatrical representations[1], in which the image is shown in its most clearly visible shape, always have an enormous influence on crowds. Bread and… Continue reading In the Words of the Scholar: Gustave Le Bon “Cinema and Crowd Psychology”
The first European Christian missionaries landing in Japan… found their hosts totally unprepared for the message of salvation they brought. Not indifferent however. On the contrary, their preaching... though it was radically at odds with native beliefs, it was warmly received… Baptismal waters flowed. Japan might have gone Christian. But it was not to be.… Continue reading Silence (Martin Scorsese, 2016) “Last Breaths of Christendom In the Land of the Rising Son”
I never had a problem with genre because a genre actually is like a uniform - you put yourself into a certain uniform. But if you dress up in a police officer's uniform, it doesn't mean that you are an officer; it can mean something else. But this is the starting point, and the best… Continue reading In the Words of the Director: Wong Kar-wai “Film Genre as a Uniform”
Kenji Mizoguchi's Sanshô dayû is based on a folk tale taking place in the Heian period; Chinese and Buddhist influence, as well as the one of the Imperial power were at their summit. Mizoguchi is one of the greatest Japanese directors who created during the period of Japanese cinema which may very well be called its… Continue reading Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953) “Revolutionary in Buddhist Robes”
When we experience a film, we consciously prime ourselves for illusion. Putting aside will and intellect, we make way for it in our imagination. The sequence of pictures plays directly on our feelings. Music works in the same fashion; I would say that there is no art form that has so much in common with… Continue reading In the Words of the Director: Ingmar Bergman “Music and Film: Image of Poetic and Musical Erotic”
Bernardo Bertolucci's tour de force follows a fascist agent of the secret police whose assignment is to assassinate his former university professor. Set mostly in 1938., it doesn't deal with broader societal aspects of the rulling regime, it is a study of a personality, Marcello's, who willingly serves the fascist regime. When one of the… Continue reading The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970) “The Psychology of Fascism”
The bad education I received at school was rectified when I went to the cinema. My religion became the cinema. Of course one could create one's own belief system, and anything that helps or supports you in life can be seen as covering the function of religion. In that sense you could consider cinema my… Continue reading In the Words of the Director: Pedro Almodóvar “Cinema as a Religion”
We question a country’s self-mythology. Perfect town and perfect family are – like Westerners – part of America’s mythology, involving notions of past innocence and naïveté. But is it possible for innocence to exist while something heinous transpires elsewhere? David Cronenberg In David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence something heinous transpires underneath the presentation… Continue reading A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005) “A Veiled Body”
To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. Ralph Waldo Emerson We might add that this applies to the filmmakers like Paolo Sorrentino as well. Sorretino portrays the holiness of days passing and the divine in men with… Continue reading Youth (Paolo Sorrentino, 2015) “Fragments of Life’s Evening “
Manchester By the Sea is a masterpiece of modern American cinema. A cynic would say that a razor blade should distributed alongside the DVD version of the film, just like one music critic suggested regarding Leonard Cohen’s album Songs of Love and Hate. In that kind of reasoning there is a misunderstanding of the… Continue reading Manchester By the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016) “A Simphony.”
