World Of Echo

Slow Cinema

"Filmmakers isolate time (as in the empty hallway shots in films by Yasujiro Ozu, images in which nothing appears to be happening); embody time (the “tirednesses and waitings” of Antonioni, as the philosopher Gilles Deleuze put it); make time stutter (the jump cuts in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless); slow it down (the long takes of Bela Tarr); and deconstruct it (as the avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs does). Without going too deeply down an academic rabbit hole let’s acknowledge that when we talk about ostensibly slow and boring films, the terms of debate extend beyond issues of entertainment.

Deleuze, for instance, distinguishes between pre-World War II cinema, in which time was subordinate to movement (the passage of time obscured through classical techniques like those of continuity editing), and postwar cinema, in which a direct vision of time emerges. In this new cinema — with its discontinuities, sense of interiority and seer-subjects — time appears “for itself,” becomes something movies confront even if their characters (and maybe we too) don’t know what it means. And so characters in L'Avventura wander around and forget that a woman has disappeared, and Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, stuck in her horror of a life turning tricks out of her dismal middle-class home, makes a meat loaf in real time we share. They are, as Deleuze puts it, “struck by something intolerable in the world, and confronted by something unthinkable in thought.” Sometimes a slow movie is just a slow movie, but sometimes it’s also a window onto the world." - M. DARGIS, 2011.

Access Granted

ACCESS GRANTED

Halfway through 2010, it has already been a really beautiful and unique year for music and film releases.
Here are the top 15 of each so far.






















TOP 15 DVD & BLU-RAY:

1. Red Desert - MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI
2. Close-Up - ABBAS KIAROSTAMI
3. Contempt - JEAN-LUC GODARD
4. Chantal Akerman In The Seventies - CHANTAL AKERMAN
5. 8 1/2 - FEDERICO FELLINI
6. Lola Montès - MAX OPHÜLS
7. Vivre Sa Vie - JEAN-LUC GODARD
8. Days Of Heaven - TERRENCE MALICK
9. Tetro - FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
10. The Beaches Of Agnès - AGNÈS VARDA
11. Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors - SERGEI PARADJANOV
12. Katalin Varga - PETER STRICKLAND
13. A Star Is Born - GEORGE CUKOR
14. Une Femme Mariée - JEAN-LUC GODARD
15. World On A Wire - RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER























TOP 15 MUSIC:

1. Nº 3 - JJ
2. Stridulum - ZOLA JESUS
3. Rhizomes - EFFI BRIEST
4. Thank Me Later - DRAKE
5. Have One On Me - JOANNA NEWSOM
6. Clinging To A Scheme - THE RADIO DEPT
7. Does It Look Like I'm Here? - EMERALDS
8. New Amerykah Part Two - ERYKAH BADU
9. Heligoland - MASSIVE ATTACK
10. Teen Dream - BEACH HOUSE
11. High Places Vs. Mankind - HIGH PLACES
12. Cosmogramma - FLYING LOTUS
13. Nothing Else - LORN
14. Things Fall Apart - MARK MCGUIRE
15. Love And Its Opposite - TRACEY THORN

Untitled

UNTITLED

I think one of the most underrated aspects of a film is the title screen. It is often the first thing we see in a film and goes a long way in forming our first impressions of what we are about to see. But not always.

In Apichatpong Weerasethakul's 2002 release, สุดเสน่หา (Blissfully Yours), the title and opening credits are not shown until an astonishing 45 minutes into the film. In his next film, 2004's unforgettable สัตว์ประหลาด (Tropical Malady), the titles show up a little sooner, after about 9 minutes or so. And then, there they are: simple white letters on screen in the most subtle way, reminding you that you are in fact watching a movie.

Until the '70's most films only had opening credits. Closing credits came after. Citizen Kane was notable for showing only the title and no credits whatsoever. Francis Ford Coppola also forewent titles in 1979's Apocalypse Now: the film's title did not appear until late in the film as graffiti.

Some of my favorite opening titles are those by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. His 1979 masterpiece, Die Ehe Der Maria Braun, uses red scripted letters, flashing and flickering, that eventually fill the screen. 1982's Die Sehnsucht Der Veronika Voss (my personal favorite of his) is equally gorgeous- with shadowy letters slowly fading, scrolling in and out diagonally across the screen.

Jean-Luc Godard is a master of titles, often using them throughout his films. Pierrot Le Fou's opening titles appear alphabetically, letter by letter. His 1967 film, Week-End, has my favorite titles of his. The opening titles tell us: "Un Film Égaré dans le Cosmos (A Film Adrift in the Cosmos)" and "Un Film Trouvé á la Ferraille (A Film Found on a Scrap-Heap)." The ending is just as beguiling, declaring: "Fin dé Cinema (The End of Cinema)." Godard is still using titles, as in his latest, Film Socialisme, which is sadly said to be his last. If this is true, then his final words to the world through cinema are "No Comment."

The images below are not the necessarily the greatest opening titles, but they are all very beautiful to me and represent each film perfectly.