Viewing Log #19: Sea salt swordfish [11/2/09 - 11/8/09]

by Ryland Walker Knight

— Beaming and leaning

• Last Year at Marienbad [Alain Resnais, 1961] # I could watch this movie a million times. A lot funnier than I remembered, though I remembered it being funny, I think. Another reason to own a Blu-ray player, no doubt. I wrote a smarter, funnier response over here.
  
  
• City of Sadness [Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989] Not quite the emotional experience I'd expected, though it easily lives up to its title, this picture made me feel, for lack of a better word, small. That is, my political world is much smaller, or narrower, and thankfully/paradoxically/obviously less totalitarian. Not that the picture need be enjoyed strictly for its political-historical import. Plenty, as ever with HHH, is just about life, about living, about letting things happen. There's so much communion in its eating scenes. That baby working its clumsy way around that table was out of this world delightful. The interstitial "exposition" inserts bouncing off of, and sometimes replacing, the inter-titles—as modes of communicating for the deaf but still-sponge-worthy Tony Leung, whose end-of-an-era bridge type acts like a silent cinema stand-in—made my Bazin crush flutter up. Fine first rep feature back in town. —Read Brian at Hell On Frisco Bay.
  
  
• Wings of Desire [Wim Wenders, 1987] # The morning after I grabbed one image before conking out, I watched the whole thing over coffee and toast under grey clouds behind the kitchen. Startled, I'm writing this before my Auteurs piece, and here I'll say that I'm confused and moved in equal measure. It stirred up a bunch of memories; it feels, for better or worse, more formative than many other films.
  
  
• Va Savoir [Jacques Rivette, 2001] The first half-hour, until Sergio meets the delicious blonde in the library. Then I got tired of the headphones and went to bed. So far: love how Balibar narrates her life. Nice echo of Léaud in Out 1. Also, this earlier Sergio appearance changes 36 vues a bit.
  
• Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell [Matt Wolf, 2008] Surprisingly artful, though its structure is pretty standard. I was moved, as ever, by Arthur's story and Wolf does some fine juxtapositions and compositions of his own, layering light in nice ways. Can imagine it plays well for audiences of both fans and neophytes, though the fans may want more than 73 minutes and the neophytes are probably won over and content with what's been assembled.
  
• Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles [Chantal Akerman, 1975] # Shopping, duh, for pix. Lookey here why dontcha.

Bunch your matter and count the pages.

by Ryland Walker Knight

Back to widget time. Really. Just want to sell some books, even if this internet thing is part of the reason why lovable stores like Black Oak (and Cody's, of course) are long gone. So, here's some stuff you should read, and probably own, if you haven't/don't already, along with some quick plugs for some DVDs (released and yet to be released) that I'll be bringing up and blogging about, again, in greater depth, soon. Cough:

• As inspired by his recent Fresh Air interview, which was amazing for how moving it was on top of how hilarious it was, I want to nod at what Tracy Morgan was helping sell: his memoir, I Am the New Black.
  


• Since I took off that Library of America collection, but couldn't leave off my man, here's a plug for the paperback I own of Pale Fire, which may be the best book ever.
  


• Georges Perec's Species of Spaces is pretty phenomenal, as is most of his work, and this Penguin edition is an affordable introduction to one of the great Oulipo brains (and hairdos) to create language fun full of wit and smarts. I think I like Perec more than Queneau, if that matters.
  


• Coming out of Bright Star the other day, I spent a lot of energy thinking about how much I wanted to read all kinds of Keats. I did not buy any, and may not yet, but I may check this Complete Poems and Selected Letters put out by Modern Library Classics. [Update: You can also get the poems, all of them, for free right here.] The Brawne-inspired poem that gives Campion her title is quite lovely, and Ben Whishaw reads it well; recites it well, too, laid against Abbie Cornish's breast. Still thinking about the film...
  


• And, for good measure, here's some movies I'll be writing about shortly: from The Criterion Collection, Wim Wender's perhaps-pinnacle (or a high point never touched again?), Wings of Desire, and Chantal Akerman's seminal structuralist block of routine-art that couches feminist politics inside a maze of linoleum and potatoes, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles; from the long-lost file (also the terrible art direction file), John Huston's final film, The Dead, adapted from James Joyce's short story of the same name (itself the final story of its Dubliners book), which I've recently re-read.