Informed and resourceful essays on cinema for cinéastes and art enthusiasts
Aronofsky’s Black Swan follows the mental disintegration of the ballet dancer Nina, who gets a part in the production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. She is fragile, innocent, fearful and pure, but lacks the feel for playing the Black Swan, while she is a perfect cast for the White Swan. In the performances of Tchaikovsky’s ballet,… Continue reading Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010) “Dionysiac Union With Art”
Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing. Aemon Targaryen Daenerys Targaryen is at Dragonstone, isolated and refusing to eat, looking worn out, pale, exhausted beyond recognition. She is well aware of Jon’s betrayal and the choice to confide with her sister, which resulted in Varys plotting to destroy her, possibly poisoning her in… Continue reading Game of Thrones “Dany’s Agony: Purification Through Fire”
In the thirteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, St Paul says: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I also am known”. In these St Paul’s words, practically the whole film Through the Glass… Continue reading Through A Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961) “Vision of God As A Spider”
I guess there is a certain amount of poking fun at certain characters, but that’s because there is something amusing about them or about the way they behave, so I guess you can say that’s poking fun at the character. But the character is your own invention, so who cares? Joel Coen Coen’s most elaborated… Continue reading In Joel Coen’s Words: “Torturing Fictional Characters”
I found Akira, a landmark animated film which introduced the Japanese animated films to the Western audience, to be an eclectic mess. During the first and even the second watching of the film it seemed that way. Later, as I managed to put the pieces together (and some parts of the film are fragments of… Continue reading Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988) “Destruction as the Cause of Becoming”
I tried to show the collapse of the Japanese family system through showing children growing up. Yasujirô Ozu Ozu’s post-war work, during the time when he made his most memorable films, is characterized by the same theme which is presented over and over. In his own words, he presents the “collapse of the Japanese family… Continue reading In Yasujirô Ozu’s Words: “The Change of Seasons”
For the second part of this list, I chose the title Melancolia II, which is also the title of the second Dürer’s engraving depicting a melancholic angel. This allusion to Dürer is only for stylistic purposes, since I chose another painting to depict a melancholic setting, Pieter Bruegel’s Hunters In the Snow. I chose this… Continue reading 5 Melancholic Films Which Can Inspire You Into Creativity (Melancolia II)
While interpreting Albert Dürer’s engraving Melancolia I, professor of art history Bonnie Noble writes: “Dürer’s intellect, introspection, and unrelenting perfectionism may have driven him to a state of melancholia—what is now known as depression. Dürer’s famed Melencolia I engraving of 1514 has been called the artist’s psychological self-portrait, and indeed the image does convey the terrible struggle… Continue reading 5 Melancholic Films Which Can Inspire You Into Creativity (Melancolia I)
In the final lines of the chapter “The spectacle of the scaffold”, in his book Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault writes about a great shift in the portrayal of criminals in fiction, which took place in the 19th century: “We are far removed indeed from those accounts of the life and misdeeds of the criminal… Continue reading Bronson (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2008) “Confessions of Britain’s Most Violent Criminal”
Spiritual nobility of soul and the sense of fraternity have melted together into slogans for the workforce. But every individual product is levelled down in itself as well. There are no longer any real conflicts to be seen.[1] They are replaced by the surrogate of shocks and sensations which seem to erupt from without and… Continue reading In Theodor Adorno’s Words “Caught In An Illusory Moment (at Cinema)”
