Beautiful reading on the Irish border by the actor Stephen Rea…
Visconti
In a recent New York festival of restored Visconti films I watched the trilogy of German films: Death in Venice, The Damned, and Ludwig, all from the 1960s and 1970s. All with gorgeous cinematography. The Damned, about a family-owned steel and arms manufacturer and its collaboration with the Nazis is probably the darkest and most disturbing film I have ever seen, especially resonant because the rising nationalism and moral decadence of some leaders around the world today. Ludwig (of Bavaria) was the Directors cut, a surprisingly easy-to-watch, 4-hour long marathon.
Dystopia II
In the context of current debates about AI and inequality, Blade Runner 2046, a new sci-fi movie by one of my favorite directors Denis Villeneuve has special resonance. The film is set roughly 20 years from now, in an environmental catastrophe where most animal and plant life has been destoyed, where life is bleak and brutal for a large human underclass, and bioengineered "replicants" who have no empathy work as slaves. An extrapolation of some current debates about the future of technology. Villeneuve's movies are typically intelligent thrillers about identity. His plots unfold with subtle clues. This one has a thinner plot, gorgeously lit images, mostly horrible people, and not much character development. It is carried by an overall feeling of mystery and dread.
Dystopia
A splendid restored version of Andrey Tarkovsky’s film “The Stalker” (1979) is showing in New York cinemas. It’s a very conceptual film about hope, developed through texture and atmosphere. The setting: a day in a lush, green, but polluted landscape amidst industrial ruin. (Apparently downriver from a chemical factory in Estonia). Unconventional shots and moody music create the psychological tension.
Three men make their way into the Zone, a restricted and deserted area, where normal laws of nature no longer apply. One, an uninspired writer. Another, a scientist in search of a breakthrough. And the third, an unauthorized guide. The writer and the scientist want to visit a room in the Zone that reportedly grants visitors their deepest wish. As the journey progresses, the two travelers and their guide reveal their deeper motivations. The scientist, in fact, wants to blow up the room with a miniature nuclear bomb he is carrying, so that evil people can't reach it.
Beauty in many dimensions, with the a simple set.
I am not your Negro
Much of the current racial debate in the US seems to take place within the framework of law and order. The documentary "I am not your Negro", about James Baldwin, and directed by Raoul Peck, is different. Baldwin, a novelist, essayist, and playwright as well as civil rights campaigner, saw America's racism as a problem of "whiteness." As the FT explains:
“Baldwin’s genius was to identify more than 400 years of dehumanisation of black Americans as a problem indivisible from the dehumanisation of all Americans”
This is the best and most refreshing new documentary I've seen in a long while. The content is largely archival footage with a voice-over of Baldwin's writings from the actor Samuel Jackson. The story is shaped by an unfinished book by Baldwin about the lives of the heroes of the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers, all assassinated. Peck said he did not want a talking heads approach and his approach certainly gives the film intensity. The heart of the film is the voice-over.
The rules that bind
In a year of underwhelming new films, Arrival was almost impressive. The director, Denis Villeneuve, makes intelligent thrillers about big universal issues. I first came across him with his film Incendies, about war and violence, set in a place that could be Lebanon.
Arrival is about language and time. About how we are shaped by the language we use. (We build things and then they control us.) And about how we perceive time. In this story there’s a mixing of anticipation and memory. It’s very clever till the end, which should be more subtle.
Issue-based films that last
"Dr Strangelove" (1964) and "On The Waterfront" (1954) are two classic issue-based films that still resonate today. "Dr Strangelove", is a Kubrick movie about a mentally deranged general who orders a nuclear attack, feels scarily relevant in today's America. "On the Waterfront" is Elia Kazan's movie about the mafia's grip on the New York docks, which seems to persist. The New York Times reports:
““You will need another generation or two to get the mob out of this port, because they are very well entrenched,” said one longshoreman who requested anonymity because of a concern for his safety and his livelihood. Those who step out of line, he said, face being reassigned from high-paying jobs unloading container ships to the cruise ship terminals, where the work and the pay is far less.”
Legal Looting
Here is a powerful HBR video on a key economic problem which is little discussed but should be. In the US, where share buybacks are legal, profits are siphoned off by management to buy shares in the company they manage, instead of being reinvested. This is good for investors in the short term, and for managers who are typically paid more if share prices rise. But it slows innovation and economic growth, and has been a driver of rising inequality.
Light and mood
Cinematographer Mark Lee is a master of light, color, camera movement, beautiful but highly composed frames, and, as a result of all this, mood. He has worked with many of the top East Asian directors such as Wong Kar Wai (In the Mood for Love), Hou Hsiao-Hsien (Flowers of Shanghai), Tran Anh Hung (Vertical Ray of the Sun), and Tian Zhuangzhuang (Springtime in a Small Town).
Lee, with his camera, does nostalgia brilliantly. Whether it is the French colonial aesthetic of old Hanoi, the aesthetic traditions of old China, or Hong Kong before the rise of steel and glass skyscrapers. Typically, his films are intense psychological dramas. The beauty of his lighting and framing choices both reinforce the tension and relieve it. He often uses only available light or "natural" sources such as candles or lanterns. Many of his films are about women in society, and the rules that confine them. Sets are often tight spaces, a metaphor for the psychology of confinement. The camera movement often quietly focuses on people who are listening to others. The audience is reading their faces and gestures, which may be at odds with the conversation.
A recent retrospective of Mike Lee’s work at MOMA provided the opportunity to see some of Lee's lesser known films. They were all gorgeous but my favorite was Springtime in a Small Town, 2002. The set is a few rooms in a traditional Chinese house shortly after the second world war. The town and parts of the house have been damaged by Japanese bombers, a metaphor for the state of the couple who live there. Flowers of Shanghai 1988 is set in high class brothel. Here again the psychological drama takes place in a few opulent rooms. Set lighting is Carravagio-style with golden light and black shadowy backgrounds. The up-close shots and stealthy camera movement reinforce the oppressive environment. Vertical Ray of the Sun, 2002, in good Chekhovian style, portrays the daily life of three sisters and the passions simmering underneath. Scenes are highly composed in a few rooms, delicately feminine, and with gorgeous colors.
New world optimism
Many artists are preoccupied with representing the risks arising from rapid economic and technological “progress.” The Guggenheim Museum is exhibiting and optimistic take on this theme by Hungarian-born László Maholy-Nagy, sculptor, photographer, painter, filmmaker, and designer.
Maholy-Nagy, who lived 1895 to 1946, was eye witness to the first World War. Out of this harrowing experience he opts for hope - that in the future, science, and the fast-paced roll-out of new technology, together with rational thinking, can do a better job at improving people's lives. The Guggenheim’s cream, shell-like interior, as it spirals upwards to the light, is the perfect way to see the work of this optimistic artist unfolding as he experiments with abstraction via new photographic techniques, new film stocks, new materials (such as plexiglass), and new production processes.
What gets lost
In a New York show Chinese artist Cao Fei has some brilliant video installations commenting on what gets lost in the name of "progress" - in this case the fast-paced economic development and urbanization of China in recent decades.
"La Town" is probably my favorite piece. It's a nicely-paced video of scenes in a miniature semi-dystopian urban landscape in China. (It could be anywhere where urbanization has come too fast and without care.) The landscape is populated by figurines and the occasional Western brands such fast food chains. Cute touches with color and the brands brush against the otherwise bleak, gray landscapes. What brings these landscapes to life is the poetic and musical sound track- sometimes echoing Renais's use of voice-overs on memory and forgetfulness after a disastrous event in "Hiroshima Mon Amour."
Another video "Whose Utopia" shows workers doing monotonous, dehumanizing assembly work in a Chinese factory. In contrasting footage, Cao Fei asks these workers to act out their dreams. The result is always moving and sometimes very sad.
"Progress" out of sight
"Behemoth," a new documentary film directed by Zhao Liang takes us on a tour of environmental destruction in Inner Mongolia (China). Much like a celebrated film on the same theme also set in China, "Manufactured Landscapes" directed by Edward Burtynsky, Zhao Liang shows us images of disturbing beauty as the environment is literally blown apart in fast pursuit of economic growth. Here, open cast coal mines destroying the natural landscape as far as the eye can see – along the way destroying the nomadic life-style of locals that has been around for thousands of years. The coal feeds local steel mills that make the raw materials to build the miles of empty apartment buildings in China’s new“ghost” cities. We also see coal and steel workers in hellish conditions that destroy their health.
Zhao Liang uses poetry and allegory to tell his story. He has used verité in previous documentaries but, as he explained in a Q & A after a New York screening, he was so stunned by the ravaged landscapes that he needed new tools to convey his horror. The allegory doesn’t work perfectly, but it is sincere and fresh.
Another factor in my interest in this film was a visit to Mongolia in 2013 where large mining companies are developing huge open cast mines in one of the world’s last frontiers. The locations were remote and I was never able to see them. But I’ve been wondering what they might look like and this film gave me a taste. (The video link below is publicity from the Venice Film Festival and some is in Italian and Chinese with subtitles.)
Visualizing upheaval
I recently saw a magnificent restoration of Akira Kurosawa’s 1985 film Ran, along with a documentary by the director Chris Marker called A.K., providing a window on its production.
Ran is one of those powerful historical films about leadership and tragic human fallibility, relevant to all eras, and done with some sympathy. Ran combines the themes in Shakespeare’s King Lear with a story about a 16th century Japanese warlord. Hidetora is the main character, a brutal leader who has spent much of his life fighting other warlords to grab more land and power. In his old age he divides his kingdom among three sons but expects that his sons will pledge loyalty to him and each other. The youngest son argues that this arrangement won’t work, that the sons have been raised in a culture of violence, and that’s all they know. Like Cordelia in Lear, the youngest son tells Hidetora a truth he does not want to hear. By the end of the film the sons have killed each other – along with many others.
Ran was mostly shot on dark gray lava flows on slopes of Mount Fuji in Japan. Against this backdrop and with beautiful and intricate costuming, Kurasawa creates visually stunning, highly composed battle scenes. There is also a gorgeous score by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu.
Marker’s film covers Kurasawa’s art of directing: he marvels at the perfectionist director’s attention to visual detail and light as he works with long-time collaborators. A contrast in styles: Kurasawa’s tight plot and highly rehearsed scenes, alongside Marker, famous for his meditative and psychological essay commentaries on political and economic change.
Nature in the New World
I have just finished reading a wonderful biography by Andrea Wulf on Alexander von Humboldt a German naturalist. The most famous scientist of his time (he lived 1769 to 1859), his influence and inspiration stretched far and wide: from the research of Charles Darwin, to the foreign policy of Thomas Jefferson, to the revolutionary Simón Bolívar, to the nature poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Goethe. Apparently more things and places are named after Humboldt than anyone else.
According to Wulf he saw the earth as "a web of life" or "one great living organism where everything was connected.” During his Latin American explorations, thrillingly recounted by Wulf, he discovered a quarter of all plant species known at the time, he "came up with the idea of vegetation and climate zones that snake across the globe," and he invented isotherms – lines connecting places with the same temperature and pressure. He also issued prescient warnings about the effects of climate change. Witnessing local environmental devastation from colonial plantations he “warned that humans were meddling with the climate and this would have an unforeseeable impact on ‘future generations’.”
I hope someone makes a movie out of this book. In the meantime and on a related theme, I’ve also just seen a new narrative movie "Embrace of the Serpents" about the ravages of colonial rubber plantations and the destruction of indigenous civilizations on the Amazon. Shot in black and white by Colombian director Ciro Guerra, it has stunning footage of the river and its ecosystem. It is easy to imagine being there.
Thinking in silos
That explains it. For years I’ve been thinking that the Oscars mostly rewards boys-own films and I’ve wondered why the "Academy" is so skewed. From the Los Angeles Times:
“...academy voters are markedly less diverse than the moviegoing public, and even more monolithic than many in the film industry may suspect. Oscar voters are nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male, The Times found. Blacks are about 2% of the academy, and Latinos are less than 2%...
Oscar voters have a median age of 62, the study showed. People younger than 50 constitute just 14% of the membership…
The academy is primarily a group of working professionals, and nearly 50% of the academy’s actors have appeared on screen in the last two years. But membership is generally for life, and hundreds of academy voters haven’t worked on a movie in decades.”