Vinyl is heavy and Vitti is forever #47

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Who said "disconnected?"

Vinyl is heavy and Vitti is forever #43

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Get big or biggest

Vinyl is heavy and Vitti is forever #39

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Maybe don't

Vinyl is heavy and Vitti is forever #38

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Capelli tempo gravi

Vinyl is heavy and Vitti is forever #37

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Look what we did

Vinyl is heavy and Vitti is forever #35

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Missed you, babe

Vinyl is heavy and Vitti is forever #30

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Yes, you; I Cannes see you.

Vinyl is heavy and Vitti is forever #23

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Give it to me

Vinyl is heavy and Vitti is forever #20

by Ryland Walker Knight

—We believe you, promise.

Vinyl is heavy and Vitti is forever #19

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Quick, before we think.

Vinyl is heavy and Vitti is forever #15

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Use two hands

Viewing Log #11: I will drive us into the woods [9/7/09 - 9/13/09]

by Ryland Walker Knight

• Code 46 [Michael Winterbottom, 2003] # Samantha Morton is my wife. Or, she's just perfect at this bruised thing. The most poignant sex scene in movies?
  
• Suspiria [Dario Argento, 1977] Couldn't finish it, or start over, when I realized my eyes weren't lying last night: the DVD Netflix sent me is some half-assed non-mastered bullshit that looks like VHS. Will have to wait for the next time it screens theatrically since all I'm getting from this thing right now is color and The Goblins—and if half of that is blanched and degraded, no thanks.
  
  
• In The Cut [Jane Campion, 2003] # A revelation. A totally different, more complex movie than the one I saw in 2003. (Or, you know, I'm different.) Now I see plenty about being othered and threats of skepticism—and, um, gendered trust issues—that were beyond me before. Also, I had a couple of pretty awesome, in-depth talks about it before (enticing) and after (enriching) this second viewing. And, yes, it's sexy. Maybe, though, the wrong thing to watch before bedtime.
  
• Suspiria [Dario Argento, 1977] Started this and fell asleep shortly after the maggots, somehow, despite all that wailing.
  
• The Rainmaker [Francis Ford Coppola, 1997] # More rainy day do-nothing cable vision. But this one was better, tho equally dated and moderately maudlin, because of FFC's patience and crisp image-making. Quite a corporate movie, in any case, which seems fitting. Damon's got terrible hair and this is prime Jon Voight scene-gobbling.
  
• 12 Monkeys [Terry Gilliam, 1995] # So 1995 it's wild, and, really, just not as smart as it wants to be. I tweeted about this to some displeasure.
  
  
• La Religieuse [Jacques Rivette, 1966] Finished this. Wow: liberty is falling out of the world? Tough stuff. And, as ever, a perfectly "closed" and "pure" mise-en-scene that keeps things conceptual, no matter the brute and stark (physical) soul-pillaging unfolding in the frame. Karina is amazing, devoted.
  
  
• Gloria [John Cassavetes, 1980] # As I noted, I fell asleep shortly into the watch instantly viewing. Gena is kind of my hero, too, and I'm a boy.
  
• La Religieuse [Jacques Rivette, 1966] The first twenty minutes or so. Crazy theatrical. Quick take: want to see how it plays off Ne Touchez Pas La Hache and its irony, its repression.
  
• La Bête Humaine [Jean Renoir, 1938] Hastily, drowzily: more noire than bête, it's a fittingly anxious downer that begins in a furnace and plows nose-first into the grave, sooty future. It's best in wordless process, documenting the grime of the job, which becomes any job—plain labor's crud—turning me around a query: perhaps its narrative drive (its locomotion) is too psychological? The score, always operatic, undercuts that, though.
  
  
• Le Crime de M. Lange [Jean Renoir, 1936] Since I don't know much about history's specifics (most especially a timeline), I don't want to take the obvious allegorical/political reading too far. Better to trumpet the fluid camera, the charm of each character, the celebratory dinner that ambles out into the crime, the document of a banding bonding. Another "best movie ever."
  
• L'avventura [Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960] # For Mike, for this. Watching it again makes me feel like I've grown up a lot since the last time (somewhere in early 2006). We men may be evil, but I'd say the circuit of complicity fits. Still, after all that horseplay, I'd never expect a caress like that.

—Let's see how good a kissers we are

L'avventura: Mapping Monica

by Ryland Walker Knight

Seeing as this masterpiece is next week's Metro Classic and it stars VINYL's beloved Monica Vitti, Mike commissioned an image essay from yours truly to help sell the event. I was more than happy to oblige. You can see the work both at the Classics Blog or at VINYL IS IMAGES. My essay, however, doesn't quite address the theme of the series/week (as Mike laid out back here), nor does it address its own problem of fetishizing Ms Vitti, though Antonioni clearly has the same problem despite attacking men's lust and, yup, their proclivity to objectify women—even women they love, or think they love. Worst, I fear, is the picture of men treating women as disposable or interchangeable. It's not exactly a happy picture, if you, by some odd luck, haven't seen it and happen to be reading this blog. However, downer though it may be, it sure is pretty. And, of course, so is she. So, if this bit of furtive associations about space and faces (of one face) winds up enticing, and you live in Seattle: please, by all means, go see the film on a big screen with loud speakers. Otherwise, wait patiently for that new print that debuted at Cannes to make the art-house rounds. Again: click here to see my map.

Convergence for new gravities (7/30/09)

by Ryland Walker Knight

SFIFF52 #1: The Weekend

by Mark Haslam

I spent a good week staring at the line-up for the San Francisco International Film Festival, trying to decide what to see, what to skip. Making the decision to not see something, however, was near-impossible, especially with some 150 films from across the globe screening. So, as the fest kicked off last Thursday, I chose to not choose, to not plan. Instead, I'll wake up each morning, see what's playing, and, with perhaps some light research, pick a film to see. I'll report back here with my thoughts and my hopes that you in the Bay are enjoying the SFIFF52 as much as I am.

On Friday I caught Jonathan Parker's (Untitled), a satire of the contemporary art and music scenes. The film fails, I think, where most such satires fail: laughs come from a facile immediacy, from pointing at contemporary art as funny, silly, and stupid in and of itself. Parker knows the dedication that most of these artists have (being an avant-musician himself for many years), not to mention the sense of humor many artists have about their works. But the film misses these things. And when it tries to show them, we've been distanced too much to see the characters as anything but parodies—and ultimately too distanced to care.

Catherine Breillat's new film, Bluebeard, has two threads: one, a version of, “Charles Perault's 17th-century fairytale about a gloomy nobleman with a penchant for murdering his wives,” in Richard Avila's words; and two, a young child (named Catherine) with a penchant for tormenting her squeemish older sister by reading the gruesome story. A double story of sisters—two from the Perault story, two reading—the film wonderfully, subtely, Breillat-ly marries sexuality, wit, and self-consciousness. I'd like to write more extensively on Bluebeard, and I'd like people to see it. There's one last chance, this Wednesday. If it helps, check out Daniel Kasman's words after the film's World Premier in Berlin.

A new print of Antonioni's amazing, rarely screened 1955 film, Le Amiche, is a highlight of the Festival. It plays again on Tuesday at the PFA. It's Antonioni. Go.

[A note: Don't forget to check out further, different SFIFF52 coverage from VINYL buddies Brian Darr and Michael Guillen and Darren Hughes as well!]

No Claire Denis?

by Ryland Walker Knight

When Ed Copeland asked us to nominate 25 non-English films for a list to be voted upon by others I kind of dashed off my list. I have expressed some of my issues with lists here before. They rarely feel complete. Which is an impossible goal anyways, right? So my thought process was: I'll type out a bunch and then whittle it down to 25 or so. I initially only had about 30. I was surprised. Losing five wasn't too tough, actually, it was coming up with 30 I felt I could stand behind without any qualms that I found most difficult. So here's my list, silly as it may be, in the order they appeared in the email sent to Ed. After the first two the order is rather arbitrary but you can probably follow my train of thought.

Mirror
Rules of the Game
Playtime
Out 1
Celine & Julie Go Boating
L'eclisse
Persona
Fanny & Alexander
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
Stalker
Diary of a Country Priest
Au Hasard Balthazar
Contempt
Pierrot le fou
Masculin-Feminin
La Dolce Vita
8 1/2
2046
Talk to Her
Double Life of Veronique
Seven Samurai
Beau Travail
Law of Desire
Chung Kuo Cina
J'ai Pas Sommeil

I guess a fair ammount of my choices did not make the final list. The most shocking, to me, at least, was the absence of a single Claire Denis film (where you at Travis?!), and Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest. (And, yes, this list means I have now seen both Playtime and Celine and Julie. I cannot begin to express myself yet. I may have to shell out for both, though, when that fall disbursement comes through the pipeline.) But, you know, whatever, the list is good, fun. Lists are good and fun, even when they are frustrating endeavors for nerds like me who can obsess over idiotically banal, and minor, details. That is, nerds who niggle. (What a fun phrase! Alliteration!) If I were to spend more than five minutes on a list it would probably strain to look a lot "cooler" with less director repetitions and a broader scope of time, perhaps stretching back to include something like Le Million or throwing in one of those Mizoguchi films I fretted about a couple months, or so, ago. Or, if only we could stretch the timeline to include some Carlos Reygadas and Apichatpong Weerasethakul up in this. See: it's all silly. So, there's my list, for what it's worth. I know I'll think harder, and probably longer, about my next ballot for this project.

BTW: Jim Emerson is hosting the individual lists in the comments of this post on Scanners. He's a kind fellow. Enjoy. This is a helluva learning tool for a young film nut looking to broaden his or her horizons beyond the googleplex and Coca Cola. There's shit like art houses and red wine out there, too, and they're both delicious. But then again so is Coca Cola. Also, as Darren Hughes points out in the comments at Ed's site, this list shows how much the Criterion Collection has effected the shaping of the modern canon (notice the links above?). But let's not bring that word up again. That was really silly, right Zach?

The joy we're left with here and now.

I MEAN IT:

Loan your friend a wrench, see a movie on a big fucking screen, kiss your lover for an hour, eat a tunafish sandwich, or some hummus and pita, do a bedroom dance, maybe cry a bit, listen to this song, read your favorite poem a few times, slouch a little towards Bethlehem, give The White Album a spin, tread that thin red line of ______________, wrap me in your marrow, stuff me in your bones, take off the iPod, run to the park and toss a baby in the air, smile, drink a beer, cut your hair, cuss like a goddamned cocksucking sailor, chips and salsa, remember Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, read my silly tribute at The Daily Cal, delight in Dan Callahan's at The House Next Door, swim in a river, throw stones and baseballs and break sticks across your knee, gather yourself up and meet the sunshine. But once the sun has set, go inside and watch a great film on as big a screen as possible.

BIG SCREEN LOVE, BIG SCREEN LIFE
[RWK]

Visual Obit for the day: Bergman & Antonioni

more words later. --rwk

5 for the Day: Antonioni

by Ryland Walker Knight

For a long time I thought I didn’t get Antonioni.

[To read the rest of the article, click here, and you will be redirected to The House Next Door.]

And, some movie magic to tide you over until March 9th: