OK Lauren. I'm doing a liveblog after your example. It is a very cold afternoon and I have nothing better to do than watch several movies hanging around my comp. I know I should do more with this, but it'll just be a rather dull running commentary on movies nobody is ever going to watch. Useless. But maybe fun.
1. British Sounds (1970)
Expectations/Intro.
This will obviously be like all the other Vertov Group agit-prop I have swallowed: long periods of boredom and a drifting mind interspersed with a few moments of wild curiosity, all in a very small, very pretentious package. Let me have it, Godard. Maybe liveblogging will give me something to do while I am bored.
It is a bit past 3 PM. Start.
3:09. Credits. Fist punches through the British flag which has the title (British -Images- Sounds). I am amused.
3:12. Car assembly line. Slow tracking shot. Loud work noises occasionally competing with a narrator spouting Communist lines about workers and the bourgeois. Already bored.
3:18. Some well-expressed thoughts on the worker and communism. But the original shot is still going.
3:21. I wonder if Godard considers himself a worker in the same way the people on this assembly line are workers...
3:24. Oh, I hate it when Godard does this: multiple sound tracks for revolutionary narrators. Guh. But there is a naked woman wandering on-screen now. Hmm... but perhaps the assembly line was more interesting.
3:26. Proletariat vs. Bourgeois eroticism.
3:32. The Pro-Capitalist reporter with the gap in his teeth is quite an artless touch.
3:40. FORD USA = FOR US. Interesting.
3:42. What are these guys talking about? I've been watching them for awhile now. Impossible to concentrate. I suppose that's the point.
3:45. The workers on the car assembly line can't afford the cars they make. These guys are cool, I see.
3:50. Students writing a song about Mao. Hopefully I'll never sink so low.
3:54. 'If a million copies of a Marxist/Leninist film is made, it becomes Gone with the Wind.' Lots of stuff on bourgeois and militant aesthetics. Why all these proclamations about society and cinema? It seems to me if Godard wanted real change, he could've been doing something much more productive...
3:56. ...Instead of singing about communism... I wonder what these students are like now.
3:57. "It doesn't mean bringing films to the people; it means making films from and through the people." There it is, the whole ideology behind the Dziga Vertov Group. I am still not sure what they expected to accomplish aside from self-righteousness (a vile quality!).
4:00. A bloody arm sliding through the earth. Is this symbolic of something? Oh, it's grabbing a red flag.
4:01. Two dozen fists. Two dozen British flags. Two dozen holes. "Mao!"
End.
Self-righteousness is dangerous. The film shows why this is true of the bourgeois. It doesn't much consider that this is true for the workers. Hmm... Workers have it bad. Minorities have it bad. War is bad. The bourgeois like it this way. The workers have to fight the rich. POINT TAKEN. At least it was short.
~~
Break.
~~
2. The Moon's Our Home (1936)
Intro.
Margaret Sullavan and ex-hubby Henry Fonda in a screwball comedy? How awesome is this going to be? Eh, maybe not so great, but should be the perfect palette cleanser to that last viewing.
Start.
4:21. Credits. I wish there were some supporting players I liked...
4:24. A picture about pictures. Oh no! "I won't, I won't, I won't!" Is Margaret playing a diva? A brat?
4:25. Nope. Awesome as ever.
4:32. "Anthony Amberton," stealing Cherry's show. Yes, it's Fonda. Romance better start on this train.
4:36. Dual image, back-to-back, Margaret and Hank are whipping on each other to their private helpers, although they have yet to meet. I think this is the first time I've seen this particular technique this early. I like it.
4:38. Aw, brushing each other's teeth right in each other's faces. When will that wall vanish?
4:42. "Movie marshmallow;" I love that term.
4:47. Ah, a respectable-marriage plot. Bring back Henry.
4:54. Fine way to be introduced. More carriages should carry Margarets. Fonda's not too bad, either.
5:04. A snowy countryside. What could be more romantic? "Did Cherry Elope?" Oh, it's a snowy December day in real life, too. I suppose there's romance in that (maybe I should go do something...).
5:10. Sledding is an art. Like piggy-backing? This sort of moment is a romantic comedy staple, certainly.
5:17. How many more times will Margaret get a face full of snow? Lots, I hope.
5:21. Old people sex? My imagination says Yes!
5:27. A skiing lesson; I know what's coming for Margaret...
5:29. ...And Henry's just made it a lot more interesting.
5:32. Best wedding scene. But now where will the story go? A conflict over her identity?
5:36. What kind of wedding night is this? You know, Sullavan and Fonda make a great couple. I wonder what they were like in real life... Uh oh, perfume. Explosion imminent.
5:44. Strange predicament. Absolutely perfect for those comic gods of Fate. Yes, here's the impossible and awesome hand of Comedy. The final scene is set...
5:57. "I'm tired of having my own arms around me." Silly ending, not nearly as satisfying as it ought to be, but the romantic in me is hyped nonetheless.
End.
I had nearly thought my Old Hollywood phase was over, but no, this is exactly what I need. Romantic comic fluff is necessary for my cinematic diet. Love it!
~~~
Break.
~~~
3. On purge bebe (1931)
Intro.
Renoir's first sound film. I expect it to be a comedy in the manner of La Chienne and Boudu. I'm going to have to rely on my French for this, so I won't understand what is going on. All this considered, I am still excited for it.
Start.
7:00. Credits. Michel Simon.
7:02. I see: a stuffy man working who refuses to interrupt his work. He questions the maid(?), confuses her, and then complains about her lack of intelligence as she leaves...
7:05. A woman--his wife?--enters and begins haranguing/teasing him (did she just ask about another woman?). Action is centering around the bucket... yes, I see what kind of comedy this is. I think I'll shut up for awhile.
7:19. Film seems to be keeping a theatrical structure. I suppose reading the play ought to help my understanding. Michel Simon just appeared. Back to being quiet.
7:28. Are those chamber pots these men are throwing? They are made of porcelain. 100 francs a piece? I am greatly amused and curious. I need to learn more.
7:33. Is it the kid that's constipated? I think so. At first I thought it was the wife. I bet Renoir had fun directing these actors.
7:51....Two men purged.
End.
Odd little film. I am going to go research it now.
~~~
Yes, those are chamber pots being thrown. Yes, it is the kid who is constipated (the mother is just obsessed with it). Fascinating. Renoir's test to prove his commercial viability and he passed.
~~~
End of liveblog. I am proud to have accomplished so little with it.
December 04, 2008
November 25, 2008
Thoughts about Adapting Theater
Separated from the society that created them, most classic plays can be judged now only by their literary merit rather than by any one production. I find this cinematically attractive. I once generally bought into the critical notion that filming theater was a bad thing, but it strikes me now as a worthy challenge, something to truly question the bonds of art.
Theater is compressed in space and time. It is the immediacy of the actors and sets that give the stage a powerful attraction; this is denied in pictures. In film the immediacy is within the image, and a stationary camera and verbose actor are oppressive.
Expository dialogue is the spring for plot and action in the confined space of the stage, and a truly marvelous actor can shatter an audience with a well-delivered speech. Through speech, an actor carves emotions into his or her audience. I once read a fair acclaim of Shakespeare's soliloquies--that they define what it means to be human. Such is the power of expository dialogue in theater.
Cinema still uses expository dialogue heavily, but the primary force of pictures is in action. The emotions one needed to shout to a theater audience can be displayed in a simple close-up--action moves pictures.
Mistakes are made in filming theater:
-giving importance to expository dialogue (this is a mistake in most narrative cinema, not just filmed theater)
-giving importance to strong performances (also another mistake of plain narrative cinema, although a "strong" performance usually just means playing a radical character (uh, like mentally handicapped characters))
-confining space and time the same way theater does it--a flat, lazy camera, sparse and poor editing, etc.
-staying true to characters and plot-points and overarching themes; this is the literary sin of cinema.
Plays, however, are still uniquely desirable cinematic subjects. In some ways they are condensed and concentrated, and in others they are bloated and overly drawn; it is the power of cinema to expand the concentrated and concentrate the expanded. If you haven't seen this coming, Chimes at Midnight (1965) is my model for the challenges of filming theater. Four plays are simultaneously condensed and expanded, rearranged, rewritten, developed and critiqued, all within a cinematically engrossing whole. Only film can do this, and only theater can provide such opportunity.
Films like Major Barbara (1941) and His Girl Friday (1940) have helped me fight my snobbery against filmed theater, too. Each is faithful to its source, but both achieve a rhythm and power that the stage could never possibly imagine. I won't analyze any of these just now, but they represent just how awesome the challenge of filming theater can be. Such adaptations say more about the nature of film and the stage than a writer ever could.
To finish off these notes, a couple of plays I dream of filming:
The Frogs by Aristophanes
Heartbreak House by Bernard Shaw
-something by Moliere-
I am keeping watch for plays that might be given an excellent modern and thoroughly cinematic reworking if given to an adept filmmaker (not many around these days...). Any suggestions?
Theater is compressed in space and time. It is the immediacy of the actors and sets that give the stage a powerful attraction; this is denied in pictures. In film the immediacy is within the image, and a stationary camera and verbose actor are oppressive.
Expository dialogue is the spring for plot and action in the confined space of the stage, and a truly marvelous actor can shatter an audience with a well-delivered speech. Through speech, an actor carves emotions into his or her audience. I once read a fair acclaim of Shakespeare's soliloquies--that they define what it means to be human. Such is the power of expository dialogue in theater.
Cinema still uses expository dialogue heavily, but the primary force of pictures is in action. The emotions one needed to shout to a theater audience can be displayed in a simple close-up--action moves pictures.
Mistakes are made in filming theater:
-giving importance to expository dialogue (this is a mistake in most narrative cinema, not just filmed theater)
-giving importance to strong performances (also another mistake of plain narrative cinema, although a "strong" performance usually just means playing a radical character (uh, like mentally handicapped characters))
-confining space and time the same way theater does it--a flat, lazy camera, sparse and poor editing, etc.
-staying true to characters and plot-points and overarching themes; this is the literary sin of cinema.
Plays, however, are still uniquely desirable cinematic subjects. In some ways they are condensed and concentrated, and in others they are bloated and overly drawn; it is the power of cinema to expand the concentrated and concentrate the expanded. If you haven't seen this coming, Chimes at Midnight (1965) is my model for the challenges of filming theater. Four plays are simultaneously condensed and expanded, rearranged, rewritten, developed and critiqued, all within a cinematically engrossing whole. Only film can do this, and only theater can provide such opportunity.
Films like Major Barbara (1941) and His Girl Friday (1940) have helped me fight my snobbery against filmed theater, too. Each is faithful to its source, but both achieve a rhythm and power that the stage could never possibly imagine. I won't analyze any of these just now, but they represent just how awesome the challenge of filming theater can be. Such adaptations say more about the nature of film and the stage than a writer ever could.
To finish off these notes, a couple of plays I dream of filming:
The Frogs by Aristophanes
Heartbreak House by Bernard Shaw
-something by Moliere-
I am keeping watch for plays that might be given an excellent modern and thoroughly cinematic reworking if given to an adept filmmaker (not many around these days...). Any suggestions?
November 13, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)