Meet Avery

by Ryland Walker Knight

She's learning to use her eyes, the light is still too bright
No poop in fact but yelps no less
No teeth in that trap to keep her polite

Some men dream #2

by Ryland Walker Knight

Small Black Room, Powell & Pressburger, 1949
shot by Christopher Challis

Convergence for sea abuse (7/1/10)

by Ryland Walker Knight

—Absichten sind ein Muss

Convergence for a plenty-pregnant invisible (10/20/09)

by Ryland Walker Knight

—The negative crowns every second.
(For Link, belatedly)

Sound off: sounds off. 'Formers, for the hell of it. A study in orange.

by Ryland Walker Knight

I.


—Dialed in close, dials deal back

II.



—Torn tumbling, aflame

III.


—Kick-spray'd escape (from the image)

Taste the cloud: 35 Rhums Rendez-vous #3

by Ryland Walker Knight

Tried to tackle a lot with this new piece on Denis' new film. You can read it here. It may be a little abstract, but, then again, when you're talking Denis, that seems unavoidable. One of the ideas I did not explore quite fully therein is one that came to me riding a train: riding a train often feels like floating, or hovering, as trains are not ever quite connected to their tracks—or they are, but briefly, forever connecting to a new space. And, sure enough, from the first shot in 35 Rhums, Denis has us hovering on a train. What struck me further about the hovering metaphor to describe her "cloud style" (as I name it in the linked-to piece) is how this suggests the feeling of the diffuse nature that typifies her ability to surround an event, to envelop a feeling, without much concretion and yet less explication. Somehow, here, she turns this into an invitation to think about tactics over against the denial of L'intrus and its globular and, agreed, baffling-yet-beautiful arrangement.

Though most shows are sold out, do click here to buy your tickets to see the film. If you see me there, feel free to say, "Hi." I guarantee I'll be in a good mood.

VINYL IS PODCAST #8: Find the best thing possible.

by Ryland Walker Knight and Daniel Coffeen

[Podomatic stream]
[Direct audio download]
[iTunes subscription available]
[Simple syndication subscription]
RWK here. When people ask me why I started this podcast, I routinely answer that producing these episodes is, in the most basic sense, a creative and fun way to hang out with smart people I like to talk to and to laugh with and to learn from—to just plain enjoy—aside from the fact that it's kinda easier (lazier? nah...) to just get together and rap on mess than it is to form coherent sentences that do not ramble and tumble and spill everywhere. As I wrangle my life into boxes and suitcases, I found time today to talk with my Good Personal Friend (and former professor) Daniel Coffeen. We had a few ideas and a few directions to try to pursue, but, as this fell together rather quickly (that is, last minute), we just winged it and let our talk meander all over our mind-maps through all kinds of topics: speed, affect, The Bourne Ultimatum, figures, Faces, cubist film, Esther Kahn, hurt, laughing, fear, Bad Lieutenant, the architecture of seeing, separation, Lola Montes, looking for a projection, creativity, pedagogy (and its failure) and glasses and a will to passion, among other jokes. The talk may get off topic (and veer too far into me), but I think this works (despite my constant stammering through a billion associations at once) for the simple fact that it was fun and we rully do enjoy each other's thoughtful (and hilarious) company. That, and I think we share some real good thinks. We hope you feel the same! Please, tell us things. For instance: don't you kinda agree with Nathan Lee? Please read more from the ever-estimable Craig Keller.

As for the songs this week: I'm too tired (defo too lazy) to load them up tonight. If you really want them, let me know. Otherwise, just enjoy the show! Cast that smile along with those ears over this way. Because, of course, that word "possible" is both an outcome and a value-judgment. Just like "catastrophe"...

Cutting into the world: La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc tears and tears, bleeds.

by Ryland Walker Knight

Dreyer cuts space apart to the point that it isn't even something to talk about. La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc has no need for spatial (or, for that matter, temporal) terms. Of course we're given the unity of the single day, and the stations of the cross, as it were, but every image in the film is expression; there's no real interest in representation. "The close-up is the face." It's a film of faces big and small and brimming and dead and burnt and crying and alive and inanimate. Hooks jutting across a frame are a face of terror and pain; the stake aflame with a cross behind, a face lifting us out of the world; the sacrament raised in prayer, a face of dignity; Jeanne's torn blanket a metonymic version of her, an echo of her arm's pump. It's as pure a film, as purely affective a film, as I have ever seen. But its grammar is miles from what PTA's been developing. In fact, not that this is fair or equivalent, his grammar seems much more akin to something like what Tony Scott habitually falls just short of despite his best efforts. It helps to have something to say, but, and I mean this, those last three Tony Scott movies, tied as they are to plot, deliver a lot of goods in purely formal registers; it reaches an apogee in Deja Vu's little room, and then loses itself, but pretty much the whole of Domino is fascinating, lively, expressive filmmaking. And Dreyer edits fast. (Much more interesting, though, than Tony over there.) In ten seconds you can see a baby suckling, Jeanne clutching a crucifix, the baby pull away from the tit, a man without a face pull away the cross from Jeanne's clutches, and the baby returning to the milk. A tidy circuit of give and take. It's phenomenal, really. I can't believe it's taken me so long to find my way to this master of cinema. Also, a hilarious footnote here: what a political film!


[We need reasons to believe in this world, even as we rend it open. Find more by clicking here.]

New Narrative. Excerpt from Harry, Zelda and Antoinette

by Marc Lafia

During the course of working on my Permutations project, I became fascinated with the idea of narration, where it happens and how. I had for some time been thinking about rules-based art, algorithms; a database cinema which I had been using in varied projects. But I wanted to proceed with these ideas in an internalized way, procedurally, not literally. I wanted to engage these strategies as approaches to shape and perform narrative. I had written a film scenario for Harry, Zelda and Antoinette and knew the dramaturgy very well. I wasn't getting any where raising money. So I thought how I can create an event of recording in with the permutations approach which become an event of narration with those things around me, folding them into a narrative, within which I was narrating and orchestrating the recording to such an end. The work consists of six parts each composed of some twelve to twenty multi-screen films. Here's an excerpt.

[Note: we understand that a youtube clip posted on a blog is not as striking as seeing the film/s projected on a white wall or a silver screen but we do hope you indulge our offer. Marc may try to upload this to imeem.com for a better quality image. Until then, here's this. --RWK]