Tag: Cinema
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Yukio Mishima on Visconti’s “The Damned”: Dangerous Decadence
In its Wagnerian manner, its German grotesquerie, its transvestitism, its nervous insanity, its ponderousness, its symphonic sense of psychological danger, its worship of the body, its unceasing dramatic tension, its excesses, its obsession with hurling every single character toward tragedy and death, its ostentation, its sensuality, its love of ritual and ceremony, its intoxication, and…
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Norte, the End of History (2013): Lav Diaz’s Take on “Crime and Punishment”
The film title refers to the Philippines’ northern province Ilocos Norte, where Diaz’s film takes place. In this way, the narrative has a specific locus, it is, at least provisionally, a hint that it is bound to the territory and the nation of the Philippines. In many ways it is, but in many more, it…
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In Federico Fellini’s Words: Movies = Dreams
Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second, and you can hop from one place to another. It’s a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream. Federico Fellini…
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In Michael Haneke’s Words: Hidden
“I like the multiplicity of books, because each book is different in the mind of each reader. It’s the same with this film – if 300 people are in a cinema watching it, they will all see a different film, so in a way there are thousands of different versions of “Caché (Hidden)”. The point…
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In Béla Tarr’s Words: Evolution in the Understanding of Art, Life and Cinema
“At the beginning of my career, I had a lot of social anger. I just wanted to tell you how fucked up the society is. This was the beginning. Afterwards, I began to understand that the problems were not only social; they are deeper. I thought they were only ontological and when I understood more…
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Reunions on Christmas Eve in Satoshi Kon’s “Tokyo Godfathers”
Satoshi Kon’s wonderful anime depicts the Christmas Eve of three homeless bums (self-proclaimed) who listen to a public sermon and watch a play celebrating the birth of Christ, so they can eat afterwards. One of them, Gin, says: “Joy to the world, food has come”. Soon, they find a baby in the trash, and the…
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Silence (Martin Scorsese, 2016) “The Dark Night of the Soul”
Earlier this year, I wrote an article about this very film, “Last Breaths of Christendom in the Land of the Rising Son”, emphasizing the role of the Japanese state (Tokugawa Shogunate) and the Hobbesian reading which implies that the state proscribes the teachings and religions practiced by the populace; in this case the state religion…
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In Martin Scorsese’s Words: Cinema and Spirituality
When we talk about personal expression I’m often reminded of [Elia] Kazan’s film America America – the story of his uncle’s journey from Anitolia to America; the story of so many immigrants who came to this country from a very, very foreign land. I kind of identified with it and was very moved by it. Actually,…
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5 Films Inspired by the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales (Sleeping Beauty & Snow White)
Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales are now part of our collective imagination (I will not use Jung’s term “collective unconscious” since it is a bit problematic). Isabel dos Santos, the author of the article about Brothers Grimm “Reluctant Romantics”, writes: “Throughout the entire world, fairy tales have for generations played a significant part in children’s upbringing…
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Dionysiac Union with Art in Aronofsky’s “Black Swan”
Aronofsky’s Black Swan follows 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, the same ballerina sometimes…
Vigour of Film Lines 