posts tagged ‘cinema’
Another thing to learn about tears
24 July 2011 • out of context
tags: cinema, death, love, quotes, religion
“I’m supposed to cry and all that junk, but I’m pretty sure I’ve cried all the tears I had out of me by now. The last time I cried was at grandma’s funeral (…) and that’s when I figured out that tears couldn’t make someone who was dead alive again. There’s another thing to learn about tears: they can’t make somebody who doesn’t love you anymore love you again. It’s the same thing with prayers, I wonder how much of their lives people waste crying and praying to God, trying to make things that happened unhappen. If you ask me, the devil makes more sense than God does, I can at least see why people would want him around: It’s good to have somebody to blame for the bad stuff they do.”
The Discipline of DE
17 April 2011 • watchings
tags: cinema, conscience, control, fiction, patterns
This short film by Gus Van Sant is so absurd in a sort of [search for proper adjective] way that it reminds me to Peter Greenaway.
The script is based on The Discipline of DE, a short story by William S. Burroughs from the book Exterminator!
Lo Sublime
29 March 2011 • out of context
tags: books, cinema, mathematics, perception, pleasure, quotes
“Kant distinguía dos especies de Sublime, matemático y dinámico, lo inmenso y lo poderoso, lo desmesurado y lo informe. Ambas tenían la propiedad de deshacer la composición orgánica, una desbordándola, la otra quebrándola. En lo sublime matemático, la unidad de medida extensiva cambia tanto que la imaginación ya no logra comprenderla, choca con su propio límite, se anonada, pero da lugar a una facultad pensante que nos fuerza a concebir lo inmenso o lo desmesurado como todo. En lo sublime dinámico, es la intensidad la que se eleva a una potencia tal que ciega o aniquila nuestro ser orgánico, lo deja aterrorizado, pero suscita una facultad pensante por la cual nos sentimos superiores a aquello que nos aniquila, para descubrir en nosotros un espíritu supraorgánico que domina toda la vida inorgánica de las cosas: entonces ya no tenemos miedo, pues sabemos que nuestra «destinación» espiritual es lisa y llanamente invencible”.
La imagen-movimiento
Gilles Deleuze
Ediciones Paidós
Watchings
6 March 2011 • watchings
tags: activism, apocalypse, capitalism, cinema, consumism, control, copy, data, documentaries, economy, music, politics, sound, television, tv series
• The Walking Dead (2010)
Frank Darabont
• Sound in Context (2009) [watch]
• The Social Network (2010)
David Fincher
• Remington Steele, Seasons 1-5 (1982-1987)
Robert Butler and Michael Gleason
• The Eye of the Heart (2003)
Mark Kidel
• Artscape – Stephen Vitiello – Listening With Intent [watch]
• The New Sound Of Music (1979) [watch]
• SYGNOK & The War For Radical Computer Music (2011) [watch]
• The Future of Art (2011) [watch]
Who said art has to cost money?
30 January 2011 • out of context
tags: appropriationism, cinema, consumism, economy, plagiarism, politics, quotes
“I once found a little excerpt from Balzac. He speaks about a young writer who stole some of his prose. The thing that almost made me weep, he said, “I was so happy when this young person took from me.” Because that’s what we want. We want you to take from us. We want you, at first, to steal from us, because you can’t steal. You will take what we give you and you will put it in your own voice and that’s how you will find your voice.
And that’s how you begin. And then one day someone will steal from you. And Balzac said that in his book: It makes me so happy because it makes me immortal because I know that 200 years from now there will be people doing things that somehow I am part of. So the answer to your question is: Don’t worry about whether it’s appropriate to borrow or to take or do something like someone you admire because that’s only the first step and you have to take the first step.
(…)
Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or they had another job. I have another job. I make films. No one tells me what to do. But I make the money in the wine industry. You work another job and get up at five in the morning and write your script.
This idea of Metallica or some rock n’ roll singer being rich, that’s not necessarily going to happen anymore. Because, as we enter into a new age, maybe art will be free. Maybe the students are right. They should be able to download music and movies. I’m going to be shot for saying this. But who said art has to cost money? And therefore, who says artists have to make money?
In the old days, 200 years ago, if you were a composer, the only way you could make money was to travel with the orchestra and be the conductor, because then you’d be paid as a musician. There was no recording. There were no record royalties. So I would say, “Try to disconnect the idea of cinema with the idea of making a living and money.” Because there are ways around it.
You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money.”
Mis problemas con Amenabar
28 January 2011 • readings
tags: cinema, comics, humour
Nunca he sido mucho de leer cómics, pero “Mis problemas con Amenabar” lo tenía pendiente desde hace tiempo por una razón muy simple, pero como no soy muy dada a soltar improperios contra nadie que cada cual saque sus conclusiones. Hacía tiempo que no me reía tanto yo sola…
Los autores del susodicho son Jordi Costa y Darío Adanti y está editado por Glénat.
Pastiches
26 January 2011 • out of context
tags: books, cinema, fiction, quotes, television, tv series
“En efecto, casi todas las series son muestras de puro bricolaje, es decir pastiches de referencias tomadas de aquí y allá, provenientes de películas, de otras series, de cómics o de obras literarias, una colección de alusiones, homenajes, plagios, guiños, etc”.
Exponential growth of stupidity
26 January 2011 • out of context
tags: cinema, consumism, control, music, quotes, television
“I have a completely schizophrenic relationship with television. (…) The exponential growth of stupidity and vulgarity is something that everyone has noticed, but it’s not just a vague sense of disgust – it’s a concrete quantifiable fact (you can measure it by the volume of the cheers that greet the talk-show hosts, which have grown by an alarming number of decibels in the last five years) and a crime against humanity. (…) And since you are exploiting my Russian penchant for confession, I must say the worst: I am allergic to commercials. In the early Sixties, making commercials was perfectly acceptable; now, it’s something that no one will own up to. I can do nothing about it. This manner of placing the mechanism of the lie in the service of praise has always irritated me, even if I have to admit that this diabolical patron has occasionally given us some of the most beautiful images you can see on the small screen (have you seen the David Lynch commercial with the blue lips?). But cynics always betray themselves, and there is a small consolation in the industry’s own terminology: they stop short of calling themselves “creators,” so they call themselves “creatives.”
And the movies in all this? For the reasons mentioned above, and under the orders of Jean-Luc, I’ve said for a long time that films should be seen first in theaters, and that television and video are only there to refresh your memory. Now that I no longer have any time at all to go to the cinema, I’ve started seeing films by lowering my eyes, with an ever increasing sense of sinfulness (this interview is indeed becoming Dostoevskian). But to tell the truth I no longer watch many films, only those by friends, or curiosities that an American acquaintance tapes for me on TCM. There is too much to see on the news, on the music channels or on the indispensable Animal Channel. And I feed my hunger for fiction with what is by far the most accomplished source: those great American TV series, like The Practice. There is a knowledge in them, a sense of story and economy, of ellipsis, a science of framing and of cutting, a dramaturgy and an acting style that has no equal anywhere, and certainly not in Hollywood.”
Chris Marker, originally published in Libération, March 5, 2003. Documentary is Never Neutral