Short essays on cinema
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”
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”
Title card: The breakthrough in medical science came in 1952. Doctors could now cure the previously incurable. By 1967, life expectancy passed 100 years. Never Let Me Go is based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro; the film describes the dystopian reality which takes place more than 50 years before the film was made.… Continue reading Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek, 2010) “Path to Completion”
William Faulkner once wrote: Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders. These words, from the novel Light in August, have the quality of a prose poem. Their meaning eludes me, just like the understanding of this documentary eludes me. Its elusion is associated with its nature, the articulation… Continue reading One More Time With Feeling (Andrew Dominik, 2016) “Nick Cave Speaking the Unspeakable”
Preliminary remarks: There are several different versions of Apocalypse Now, including the theatrical release, the Redux version which is 53 minutes longer than the original and the 259 minutes long “VHS” version, which is now all but lost. This article is based on the Redux version, while the ending of the VHS version will be… Continue reading Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) “Tragic Character of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz”
Introductory remarks: The painting selected alongside the headline of the article is Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's "Mountains and Houses In the Snow". His expressionism conveys the overstressed colors which are on the verge of puncture. For this article, white and its sublime horror presented in the painting are particularly interesting. The symbolism of this use of… Continue reading The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmack, 2006) “Auschwitz of the Soul”
Hiroshima Mon Amour, directed by Alan Resnairs, opens with a close-up of an arm and body amorously entangled. They are in the dark, their bodies are joined and small particles, resembling ashes or sand (as the sands of time), are falling and covering them. They are caressing and soon begin to glow, as they are… Continue reading Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alan Resnais, 1959) “…Nevers Mon Amour”
It is 1979 and in Manhattan the psychoanalyst is on acid, as well as the editorial staff of a comedy show and most likely half of the town Woody Allen is in love with. At the beginning of the film, his character Isaac talks about the decay of his times in regard to “drugs, loud… Continue reading Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979) “Monochromatic Nymph”
Luchino Visconti’s Death In Venice is an adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novel; it follows Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde), a composer who, due to ill health, comes to Venice. The film explores the encounter of true beauty amidst the decay – Venice is struck down by a plague toward the end of the film. The… Continue reading Death In Venice (Luchino Visconti, 1971) “Beauty Amidst Decay”
