Quest for Magic of Cinema

Sculpting in time with Tarkovsky

2009-01-06T15:47:00.001Z

Arguably thematically linked last two films of Andrei Tarkovsky and the documentary film ‘Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky’ help me to properly conclude my portfolio at a high note. (This is a documentary film made with the footages that were shot at the set of Andrei Tarkovsky’s last film ‘The Sacrifice’ by the assistant cameraman Arne Carlsson. Previous interviews of Tarkovsky and the voiceovers excerpted from Tarkovsky’s book ‘Sculpting in time’ supplement the film further.) I do not venture here to totally rationalise my reverence for Tarkovsky’s films, but just skim through them to point out few points of their magical harmony of the form and content. (Anyway, I believe that any particular analysis of Tarkovsky’s films may seem a kind of skimming through in a different perspective. His films are designed to deliver empirical experiences for viewers. The audience must connect and feel the film with introspective contributions.)

As a known fact, his themes are utterly significant in quality and magnitude at many viewpoints that concern the human condition. ‘Nostalgia’ (1982) and ‘The Sacrifice’ (1986) share the theme of ‘salvation of the world from evil’, but in different contexts. Many critics have ostensibly remarked that ‘Nostalgia’ is solely made to convey Tarkovsky’s expatriate feelings while he was living in Italy as a political exile. If we accept this as the main theme, (of course I concede that it is a co-theme) we have to disregard major elements of the film as useless and extraneous. Accordingly, many critics also have criticised Tarkovsky for this uncommitted crime. Ironically the documentary film, ‘Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky’ also serves the same theme, portraying Tarkovsky’s relentless effort of saving his artistic endeavour from intangible evils such as financially driven production problems, the lack of artistic communication and his then frail personal health at the set of ‘The Sacrifice’. (On top of the more tangible communication problems with his Swedish and English cast and the crew.)

‘Nostalgia’ is woven around a Russian poet ‘Andrei Gorchakov’ who undertakes a research in Italy (in and around St. Catherin’s sacred spa) about a Russian self-exiled musician. He of course struggles with his nostalgic past, but this ‘past’ cannot be that far because evidently he has left his country as recently as two weeks (almost every critic I read has dismissed this point). Therefore, his nostalgia needs to be connected with more deep preoccupations than his recently left country. Besides, when an opportunity arises to go back to his country, he voluntarily denies it as he has a different agenda. Resolving this mystery, soon Gorchakov identifies himself with ‘Dominico’ who is condemned as a lunatic by locals. Dominico had dedicated his life to save his family first, but later ventures to save the whole world by setting himself on fire as a sacrifice (as Alexander sets fire his house in ‘The Sacrifice’).

Gorchakov also conforms to him, by crossing the sacred pool while keeping a candle alight continuously as Dominico requested. Tarkovsky lets us experience the same tension that Gorchakov felt by shooting that scene in a famous uninterrupted long take.

“…In the eyes of ‘normal’ people he (Dominico) simply appears mad, but Gorchakov respond to his idea - born of deep suffering - that people must be rescued not separately and individually but altogether from the pitiless insanity of modern civilisation…” (Tarkovsky, 1989)

In harmony with this fundamental plot, ‘Nostalgia’ deals with its Character’s and Tarkovsky’s nostalgic preoccupations lyrically and experimentally. Defying dominant filmmaking, most of the shots or formal elements don’t serve the film’s plot directly. The form and especially the utilised techniques for ‘Nostalgia’ may seem contrived and pretentious for naïve eyes at first. However, in such a case, the intimidating and magical artistry of Tarkovsky is vigorous enough to speak for itself and any honest viewer would retreat to admit their own shortfall in comprehension, than degrading the film. Moreover, they are at the service of ‘exploring the conflicts of past and the presence’ of main characters. Tarkovsky’s eye (the camera) doesn’t pursue his plot and characters fixedly but strives to discover the conflict between time (that makes the past and presence) and the memories of his characters. Consequently, the camera gazes or travels lastingly (long takes) at lyrical spaces without pursuing the actions of the characters, and characters appear into the frames in illogical moments and places. This is totally different from Ceylan’s some of slave characters of visual compositions as he hasn’t encompassed such themes in his above discussed films. These explorations have been further reinforced by the montage images from character’s memories that are treated with de-saturated tones. However, Tarkovsky magically blurs the borderline between the present and past memories to evoke more complex emotions by using camera movements, colour treatments, music and montage.

Tarkovsky’s swansong ‘The Sacrifice’ also comprises the same fundamental theme of ‘Saving the world from evil’ more transparently. ‘The Sacrifice’ can be considered as Tarkovsky’s homage to Bergman. He shot the film in Sweden (in Gotland where Bergman shot his many films) with Bergman’s veteran actor Erland Josephson, Bergman’s lifelong cinematographer Sven Nykvist and production designer Anna Asp. It also shares thematic and stylistic relationships with Bergman’s films. But, Tarkovsky changes his ‘form’ this time from ‘memories and time’ to ‘dreams and time’. Under this light, we can even observe that Tarkovsky safeguards his lifelong cinematic theme of ‘sculpting in time’ consciously in his ‘form’.

The magnificence of ‘The Sacrifice’ is the way Tarkovsky employs the ‘ambiguity of time’ to provide totally different philosophical perspectives with a single film. The main plot of the film is entwined around a solitary atheist named ‘Alexander’ who is on the verge of insanity with his introspective preoccupations. Subsequently, the film shows a sequence of events which are not defined whether dreams or reality clearly. In this segment, Alexander and his family get to hear about an apocalyptic nuclear disaster and become disorientated and hysterical. Alexander turns a theist and prays to god that if he can avert the disaster he would sacrifice all, belongs to him. He also sleeps with an alleged witch who seems to have the power of preventing the disaster. When he awakes after a sleep, everything seems averted and in return according to his promise to the god, he sets his house on fire and starts to act mute.

Most critics and the commentators have interpreted this story completely religiously and affirmed that the whole film is a superstitious narrative, along with the obvious dream sequence. Some disputes the beginning of the dream and argues with different interpretations or conclude that film is evasive (Steffen, no date; Pavelin, no date). However, Tarkovsky has been far ingenious and makes distinctions. He clearly marks the film with meaningful colour tones to distinguish the dream sequence with the real drama, especially for rationalistic viewer’s sake. The place he has marked the beginning of the dream (Objectivity to subjectivity) with de-saturated tone is the most compatible moment for the rationalistic interpretation. (Just before Alexander and his family become aware of the disaster). Accordingly, including the scenes which atheist turning into a theist and all other superstitious elements go into the dream sequence. When Alexander awakens, no one else seems to know anything about the disaster (as it’s a whole dream according to this interpretation) but he is now insane enough to set his house on fire for other’s surprise. If this is a dream sequence, Tarkovsky’s atypical melodramatic drama of wails and hysterical acting of the cast also become well-justified. But, viewers who don’t seek and care for tangible evidence, but prefers the religious story, still can consider the whole story as a non oneiric narration!

In ‘Directed by Tarkovsky’, Tarkovsky’s meticulous attention to detail is well-documented. He further articulately explains his magical principals in filmmaking in his interviews. His discussions about artistic problems, principles of film acting, concepts related to the cinematic time are revealed in parallel to the making of ‘The Sacrifice’. He has courageously removed some magnificent and painstakingly well-done shots and sequences, recognising their superfluity for sculpting the film inside the boundaries of the film’s ‘form’ (In a way this seems the Tarkovsky’s greatest personal sacrifice). Thus he demonstrates his maturity as a responsible filmmaker, and his scrutiny with the cinematic conciseness. Even though, film scholars have identified a range of common repertoire under Tarkovsky’s name, (long takes, camera tracks, long shots) he always changes their functional roles to match each of his films’ artistic needs. For instance, graceful camera movements and long takes of ‘Nostalgia’ have been employed to travel through ‘time and memory’ back and forth. In ‘The Sacrifice’ long takes and camera movements serve to develop ambiguity of time and space (to expand and contract the time).

The hidden magic in 'Caché'

2009-01-05T12:20:00.001Z

Michael Haneke’s film Caché (Hidden, 2005) is one of the triumphs of contemporary cinema in my eyes. First and foremost, all his films deserve respect for their sober choices of societal subjects. Secondly, his mature and graceful rendition that is perhaps unaffected by the vulnerabilities of youth, seal the sophistication of his works.

Caché tells the story of a hypocrite named Georges who defies dealing with his past sins. Georges is a celebrated TV presenter who disseminates and shapes social viewpoints. (Thus, Haneke subtly lets us learn that his values are the contemporary ones that French society celebrates.) When he has been challenged with his past by a series of nuisance videotapes, his cynical mind ceaselessly resists to compromise, fails to trust anyone and only moans in self-pity. Georges’ tormenter who reaches him ironically through the TV screen is an Algerian (Majid), orphaned by the Georges’ parents, owing to young Georges’ insistence when he was six. When ‘Majid’ who now seems repelled to a lower class, suicides in front of him, Georges doesn’t bother sympathising or considering what drove Majid to do so, but just calculates the repercussions for himself. Haneke masterly overlays and connects this simple story on the suppressed French guilty conscience on the1961 Paris massacre of Algerian demonstrators. [On 17th of October 1961, ‘Paris massacre’ - allegedly killed more than 200 Algerians by the French police at a peaceful rally against the French government.] Furthermore, these two characters and the plot also work as an allegory for France and Algeria in their infamous confrontation in colonial times. Peter Bradshaw (2006) extends Caché even to “a compelling politico-psychological essay about the denial and guilt mixed into the foundations of western prosperity”.

The form of Caché has been naturally discovered from its contents by Haneke’s artistry. The opening prolonged gaze at Georges’ house that first seems too stylistic pretentious art-house shot, suddenly becomes well justified when the video fast-forward lines appear on screen. It shatters our preconceptions and establishes Haneke’s theme of TV identity that fuses well with seemingly untreated HD imagery. This further enforces us to be alert to the conflict between the real story and the images from the tapes, a brilliant simile for the presence and the repressed past.

In spite of our attempt to carry on watching the present story, suddenly we realise that we have been dealing with the images from the tapes. Contrariwise, Haneke also merges TV imagery with the real story. When Georges concludes one of his TV show, we can hear that the director calls (from the background) to keep the camera on, titles to roll on screen. However, the same camera (shot) follows Georges when he leaves the set after receiving a phone call. Another time, when we watch another TV show, Haneke turns them into a video stream on an editing system, which is being edited under Georges’ supervision. We feel same as Georges, when he has been distracted from his tranquil life by the threat of tapes sent by his tormentor.

Haneke demonstrates his humane maturity and grace when he deals with oppressed class characters. Against the common racial prejudice ideas, his young black characters (the boy at the street and Majid’s son) are more sensible, potential and physically harmless.

All the secrets, confusions and the order of revelations of Caché are not plotted to deliberately trick the audience, but to shatter the conformist perception. These revelations naturally follow the journey of the narrative and climax with the masterly done heartbreaking dreamy POV of Georges. The final ambiguous long shot of Georges’ son’s school lets us ponder over the conscience of future generation. However, if the audience is smart enough to observe, there is a meeting happening between Majid’s son and Georges’ son in that frame. This eliminates any sort of pretentious stylisation and proves Haneke’s brilliance in casually rationalising his actions like Bergman does (refer to ‘Wild Strawberries’).

Unlike Ceylan, Haneke always balances his camera according to his cast’s movements. This gives us the feeling of characters’ domination over the compositions whereas Ceylan’s characters seem somewhat slaves of the compositions in several occasions. This is convincing evidence for contents’ domination over the form. Furthermore, his effortless compositions with crude lighting are totally liberated from the film identity for a concrete reason. They need to be in parallel with the tapes that Georges received. Ultimately, the total film is another provocative video tape that Haneke send us to awake our dormant guilty conscience.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan's repertoire

2009-01-04T12:07:00.005Z

Contemporary Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan poses serious questions relevant to our quest with his internationally acclaimed three recent films. His persistent and evident experiments with the form and content of films and their modernist elements like self-reflexivity tempt us to explore the legitimacy of their mysterious and magical nature.

Obviously, unlike Ceylan’s ‘Three Monkeys’ (Üç Maymun, 2008), ‘Distant’ (Uzak, 2002) and ‘Climates’ (İklimler, 2006) were built upon seeming trifles of everyday life. In ‘Climates’, these are the painful events between a university lecturer (Isa) and his art director fiancé (Bahar) when they struggle to rekindle their relationship. In ‘Uzak’, it is some irritant experiences of an urban bourgeois photographer (Mahmut) when an unemployed proletarian (Yusuf), who happen to be his distant relative seeks his help. Personally I consider ‘Climates’ as the peak of Ceylan’s creative arch and definitely the best model for his style so far. It is not the bleak story or the significance of obvious content that make ‘Climates’ a magical film. In that case, there are more intricate and seminal films made on crushed personal relationships more elaborately. (Ex: Michael Curtiz’s ‘Casablanca’, Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Winter light’, Alan Resnais’s ‘Hiroshima mon Amour’) Like those films, ‘Climates’ doesn’t comprise comfortably penetrable grand themes like war, politics or ontological matters. However, as most good auteur films, Ceylan’s idiosyncratic style and its consequent formal elements too cue us to penetrate its involuntary contents and the themes that go beyond its simple story. The exclusivity of ‘Climates’ is that these cues mostly derive from the formal elements than the apparent content.

‘Climates’ follows the minimalist story-telling style as closely as all other Ceylan films. [The minimalism can be well understood when considered as a stylistic reaction to the expressionism (Moore, 1980, p.176). With expressionistic films, the audience should work hard to grasp the meaning of exaggerated or symbolised content. Instead of accentuating events dramatically, minimalist director subdues the drama, sometimes excessively to elicit an emotional reaction from the audience.] With minimalist/structural films (structure dominant), the audience endeavours to shape up the scarce content “constantly anticipating, correcting and re-correcting” with the guides entailed by film’s structure and formal elements (Gidal, 1976).

Under this light, appreciating ‘Climate’ becomes more pleasurable. Even from the beginning, film eludes dominant filmmaking norms and keeps nagging the audience to recognise its distinguished style. Most of the shots last little longer than the audience would expect. That extra time is always filled up with some subtle details or remarkable human expressions that reminiscent of an anthropological documentary gaze. Most of the time, the camera is relatively static or interlocked with the subjects. Even in the motorcycle ride scene, the couple is interlocked with the moving frame in order to attain a relative immobility.

However, against this stillness, Ceylan always brings many references from outside the frames with partially framed or out of focus subjects and well-planned sound effects. The consequent conflict between these external references and Ceylan’s obstinate static frames builds-up a persistent gritty relationship between the film and its audience. In this way, Ceylan finds an alternative method to tether his audience’s attention to the film without using a turbulent story.

Furthermore, Ceylan deliberately plots surprises for his audience from time to time. But, without weaving clever story-twists following the dominant practise, he reveals his surprises mainly with mise-en-scene or editing. For instance, in the beach sequence, Ceylan skilfully plays tricks with audience’s suppositions. Firstly, a realistic situation turns out to be a dream, when Isa tries to suffocate Ebru with sand. Secondly, when Isa declares his decision to part with Ebru, his speech is initially portrayed as a self-confession or a preparatory speech, with the aid of Isa’s ‘POV’ like long shots of ‘Ebru’. Suddenly, a different angle uncovers Ebru listening to Isa beside him and previous ‘POV’s become imaginary views of Isa. Later, in the sequence of Isa’s encounter with his ex-lover Serap, a long take of Serap turns out to be a shot through a mirror to audience’s surprise. The peculiar lovemaking scene between Isa and Serap develops into a long single take, until Ceylan decides to cut it, consuming considerable time of the film. Again, in the final intimate scene between Isa and Ebru, Ceylan deliberately avoids giving away any conventional erotic imagery and instead dwells on petty objects and seemingly irrelevant shots. These aspects are hardly derived from the natural demands of the story, but become evidence for Ceylan’s excellence in structural filmmaking. All such devices inevitably draw audience’s attention to the Ceylan’s filmmaking and open up a portal to his underlying and possibly involuntary theme, ‘anxiety of filmmaking’.

The self-reflexivity of ‘Climates’ doesn’t end there. Especially in building up the movie, Ceylan crams it with many self-reflexive elements. He casts himself and his wife for the main roles. His actual parents act as the parents of his (Isa’s) screen parents (Bradshaw, 2007). He makes Bahar’s role an art director and finds the opportunity to create a ‘film in a film’ situation. In many occasions, Isa’s involvements in photography and extensively beautiful landscape photography (that is arguably not an essential insistence of its narrative though may work as good selling elements) also contribute to underscore its self-reflexivity.

With the underlying theme of ‘anxiety of filmmaking’ and self-reflexivity, the contents of ‘Climates’ also become more meaningful. However trivial, Ceylan’s minimalist story also complies with his intangible theme cohesively. Ebru is a reluctant victim of demanding, attention-seeking and selfish characteristics of Isa’s full-size ego, whereas Serap is a conformant victim. At the expense of others’ feelings Isa endeavours on testing his self-importance. Logically, according to the dominant filmmaking practice, some critics have pointed out that these roles (mainly Isa) were rather underdeveloped and hence are difficult in justifying what drives his decisions (Pais, 2007; Elley, 2007; Redzovic, 2007). However, as explained this elusive nature of Isa’s character in story terms becomes more coherent and metaphorical when considered coterminously with Ceylan’s physical participation in the film in ‘modernist’ self reflective terms. Isa is simply the projected ‘self’ (mirror image) of Ceylan and hence Isa’s sources of decisions lie outside story terms, or more correctly lie in Ceylan’s filmmaking. Therefore, with the support of other self-reflective elements discussed earlier, ‘Climates’ also deserves legitimacy and a respected place in the film history as a ‘meta-film’ (a film on films), like Godard’s ‘Breathless’ or Fellini’s ‘8 ½’, which justified their elusive characters with self-reflexivity and considerable artistry. Furthermore, Isa’s functional service to the form of ‘Climates’ can be easily compared with Godard’s ‘Michel’ or Fellini’s ‘Guido’.

Like ‘Climates’, Ceylan’s ‘Distant’ and ‘Three Monkeys’ also highlight his distinctive filmmaking flavour strongly, sometimes superfluously. The slow and pensive phase, highly restrained and minimal camera movements, art-school inspired static compositions, painstaking long takes, accentuated sound effects and underplayed lifelike acting sometimes even start to breathe themselves and set a serious mutiny on Ceylan’s storytelling.

‘Distant’ also contains some self-reflexive elements along with its mentioned ‘Ceylan signatures’. Mahmut is also a photographer who has dreamt to become a Tarkovsky like filmmaker. Activities related to photography, out of focus imagery, extra-long takes and composition marvels inevitably draw attention to the filmmaking process. However, the film benefits by its style and manages to deliver more or less its tale without a major distraction. More than anything, the characters are really empathetic and their ennui is universally understandable. Ceylan’s brilliant utilisation of locations and metaphors of winter chilliness and overturned boats also blends well with his rendition. Moreover, Ceylan brilliantly squeezes hidden dramas out of daily trivial incidents cinematically (Ex: smoking and watching TV ). This minimalist form further succeeds to merge with Ceylan’s hidden theme of ‘cinema’ harmoniously, especially because this style also works as a brilliant simile for his trivial story.

Contrarily, Ceylan’s last film ‘Three Monkeys’ is made with a complex and profound story. The characters are taken from complex social and political contexts and demand scrupulous treatment without any superficial manipulation by the film’s style. The chosen story and its underlying theme are too dominant to be in harmony with Ceylan’s tenacious ‘filmmaking’ theme.

Consequently, Ceylan shows serious shortfall in story development when he is away from his comfort zone. He only picks the situations out of his story that he can deliver with his peculiar style, but eschew the decisive plot points without any explanations. Moreover, he overdoes even to develop a parable, implied by the title of the film, manipulating his characters’ natural and plausible directions. Peter Bradshaw (2009) aptly spells out this saying “Three Monkeys was an over-egged pudding, a film trying to be too many things in too many styles and moreover poised on the edge of implausibility”. As Servet uses his driver Eyup to shoulder his crime, Ceylan make Eyup to find someone to take on his son Ismail’s murder when the chance and the necessity for cover-up are quite illogical. Despite Ceylan’s original plot bearing a great potential to reflect contemporary Turkey setting truthfully, his arbitrary manipulation shatters our faith about the accuracy of his facts now, as we can see his distortions of content in favour of the formal requirements.

Nevertheless, Ceylan effortlessly tames his signature cinematic elements to tell his chosen story segments almost successfully. Furthermore, His masterly direction and his cast’s stunning naturalistic acting sufficiently rescue Ceylan’s artistic endeavour. Even without any support of character development by the script, his cast and Ceylan’s directing can conjure up evocative and complete characters on screen with their advance gestures and expressions. Especially when Eyup smells Hacer’s infidelity, in the bedroom scene, their subtlety of acting and screen chemistry is magical. Thus, rather than the multifaceted whole, film’s elliptical segments survive themselves as brilliant short stories with the Ceylan’s unique treatment, displaying his magical ability to excel incidental dramas.

Thus Ceylan shines with his finesse particularly in his own artistic territory so far. His fixation with cinematic craft still seems to be a burden to him in delivering a Tarkovskian or Bergmanesque (Bradshaw, 2009) comparable classic. Ceylan’s method somewhat appears to be like filling the preconceived form with content, unlike Tarkovsky or Bergman. A film like ‘Climates’ can benefit with this burden by its nature, but to transcend this relentless theme of ‘cinema’ more freely, I believe Ceylan should allow formal elements to stem from the decisive content naturally.

I am done with Godard’s Breathless…?

2009-01-03T23:38:00.000Z

When I first watched Jean-Luc Godard’s debut and one of the first French new wave films 'Breathless', it was completely a perplexing experience for me. I was totally excited with its energetic and magical novelty in spite of something underlying which I couldn’t comprehend by myself alone. Then I had the opportunity to read few books and some online articles about the French new wave and Godard, with the new stimulus of viewing 'Breathless' in order to untangle the magic of 'Breathless'. What I confronted was really fascinating and caused to change some of my arbitrary ideas about cinema. Some think comprehension of film must totally rely on what have been given within the film. But I was surprised to see how much light we could shed on a film with the knowledge of its background. However, still there should be enough cues within the film to provoke someone to pursue this course.

Some of the main tenets of the film are the very reasons which sailed the French new wave. New wave pioneers insisted that film directors should keep complete creative control all over their works (auteur theory) and should develop their lifelong personal style while employing camera as a pen to author (Alexandre Astruc – La Camera-Stylo). Main influence for the new wave could be found in film journal 'Cahiers du Cinema' critics’ celebration of classical Hollywood cinema along with Italian neo-realism and thier strong denunciation of then pretentious literary style of French cinema. (Greene, 2007, p.23-29)

At the time, traditional cinema was predominantly based on narrative fiction driven by causality and the continuity of the time and space. Interestingly 'Breathless' came up with a story whose chain of events in very loose cause-effect relationship but closely resembling then popular film noir genre. (Bordwell, Thompson, 2001, p.366-371)

Michel Poiccard, (played by prominent and frequent new wave actor Jean Paul Belmondo) a petty thief steals a car and flees away to Paris with the idea of escaping to Italy with his briefly acquainted American girl friend Patricia Franchini (Jean Serberg). Meanwhile he impetuously kills a motorcycle cop who pursued him for speeding. Now a wanted criminal, in order to leave France, Michel endeavours to get some money from one of his colleagues who owe him for some previous trade. At the same time, he is desperate to convince Patricia to join him on his journey to Italy. However, when he is nearly about to receive the money from his colleague, Patricia turns him in and this leads to Michel being shot by Police.

Godard exerted so many innovations in staging his plot besides just filming the basic story with his day to day improvised script. In spite of its resemblance to 'Film Noir', most of the scenes of 'Breathless' are logically unconnected and have not been generated in order to tell the main story. (Bordwell, Thompson, 2001, p.366-371) For instance, the film contained a twenty three minutes long, - almost one third of the entire film – contentious 'bedroom sequence' inside Patricia’s apartment, which doesn’t complement the key story. (It is very hard to determine which values have been changed within this long scene, according to Robert McKee System. May be values of the audience?)

These divergences from the main story or use of alternatives to sole narrative form in the film making, which seemed deliberate compromise by Godard, was compensated with so many new innovations that no one had witnessed until this time. (Bordwell, Thompson, 2001, p.367) As an example, employing seemingly off-narrative sequences strongly facilitated to convey a crucial reality of the characters, flimsiness and futility of their existence, which had been already articulated by the widespread contemporary philosophical movement, existentialism. In the 'Bedroom sequence' besides bantering and trying to arouse Patricia sexually by Michel, they unwittingly but lyrically discuss their desperate and bewildering status as humans. By using these off-narrative segments crammed with ambiguous and rambling dialogues between his characters, Godard develops very strong existentialist condition in viewers mind.

There are several other attributes pervaded in 'Breathless', described by analysts as casual look and deliberate clumsiness of film making (Bordwell, Thompson, 2001, p.367) which helped to intensify this existentialist nature. Film was entirely shot on locations in Paris and lit by almost available lights instead of glossy studio lighting. Hand held camera movements are jerky and pictures look grainy and very casual. In numerous occasions characters fall in to shadows (this obscure their facial communication) as they are not supplemented with the matching lights to reach adequate exposures which exemplified recurrently in 'Bedroom scene' and almost silhouette building interior scenes.

Apart from that, a contravention of classical continuity editing is evident throughout the film. 'Breathless' radically introduced deliberate ‘jump cuts’ and ‘quick cuts’ to astonish contemporary audience. In editing of 'Breathless', all irregular and elliptical cuts were reinforced with uninterrupted sound track and flowing dialogues across the cuts to show that spent time is continuous. Consequently, the absence of continuous activity, that signifies the deficient and abstruse nature of the characters, has become inseparable and enclosed part of the narration.

Artistic implications of above technical actions (blatant iconoclasm with rejecting traditional techniques) certainly helped Godard to set 'Breathless' to be in parallel with its existentialist theme and to revolutionise the established norms of cinema. Furthermore, he wanted to show that making of the film is now governed by the new 'Auteur'. It is not the tradition, script or system anymore. Warren Buckland calls this “presence of Auteur”. (Buckland, 2008, p.85)

However, all the components Godard consolidated in to 'Breathless', which are inexplicable by just analysing its story telling or character development, tightly tangled and become explicable with Godard’s new vision of ‘documented realism’. (Greene, 2007, p.83) By the time, according to the classical narrative norms, film makers tried to capture ‘reality’ of the chosen narrative, disregarding that narrative is already a fiction. They considered that the techniques used to safeguard the continuity and the causality are the most imperative features of creating ‘reality’ of the cinema. (In order to preserve suspension of disbelief.)

Contrariwise, Godard believed that there is another imperative constituent of ‘cinematic reality’ as, what he thought ‘documentary aspect’. Consequently, he wanted to reach ‘reality’ more steps closer, and for him, the reality was the fact that he was making a film after meticulously studying the history of cinema. (Andrew, 1987, p.4) In this viewpoint, firstly he wanted to record and preserve the actual backdrop he was working. Therefore, primarily 'Breathless' captures the reality of Paris by shooting on location under as real conditions as possible in terms of lighting and mise-en-scene. Moreover, he lets his characters to act their actual ‘existentialist’ behaviour, emblematic of contemporary era in contrast to the values of his ‘narrative’ or ‘Film Noir’ vehicle. This cinematic self-reflexive nature of Godard Films has been called “Cinematic Essays” by himself. (Greene, 2007, p.85)

He may have chosen 'Film Noir' genre - then famous and praised by 'Cahiers du Cinema' critics - as his basis to cause irony as his presentation deviated from the genre significantly. Unlike typical Film Noir hero, Michel actually not dedicated to chase his goals ardently. Rather, he represents the real contemporary existentialist who doesn’t have any faith in his ambitions. Again, this causes to shake viewer’s expectations and highlight the contrast of ‘Godard method’ in contrast to 'Film Noir'. By doing so, Godard discriminates narrative component from its portrayed ‘documented realism’.

Besides this, Godard loaded 'Breathless' with many other allusions to cinema. At the beginning he dedicates his movie to Hollywood B movie Company ‘Monogram Pictures’ and set the backdrop to recall its American model. His protagonist is evidently inspired by Hollywood icon Humphrey Bogart and his charisma. His alias was taken from then novice Laszlo Kovacs who became a veteran cinematographer later. (Andrew, 1987, p.17) Godard acted himself as an informer in the film and casted well known French director Jean-Pierre Melville as the novelist Parvulesco. There are several instances throughout the film which demonstrate many known film posters and once, Michel and Patricia steal in to a cinema to hide from their pursuers. In this way, Godard recorded the ‘reality’ of his obsessive relationship with contemporary cinema and the backdrop caused to inspire ‘French new wave’.

Additionally, by over-intensifying and deconstructing the elements of cinematic grammar such as mise-en-scene, cinematography and editing, Godard alluded to various aspects of established norms of film making. (Andrew, 1987, p.13) Alternatively, he used this method to further classify what he sees as the ‘documented reality’. (What the audience can penetrate through visuals and sound, beyond its 'illusion of realty'.) In this standpoint, Godard even unfolds a second meaning for his blatant jump cuts and quick cuts. Being a recurrent disturbance to viewer, who naturally tends to pursue continuity, these cuts grab viewer’s attention in to cinematic fundamentals such as editing; hence alienates audience with the story being presented. Moreover, audience needs to be very alert to the filmic process in order to follow events take place on screen. In fact, it is said that Godard came up with the idea of imposing so-called ‘jump cuts’ while shortening the duration of the film in the editing stage. (Dawson, no date) By these conducts, Godard affirmed his indifference to traditional continuity or ‘narrative realism’ of the film. Cinematographer of 'Breathless' Raoul Coutard proves this by saying of Godard “He’d ask the script-girl what kind of shot was required next to fulfil the requirements of traditional continuity. She’d tell him, and then he’d do the exact opposite.” (Bordwell, Thompson, 2001, p.370)

To be supportive to this component of the film, Godard deliberately breaks the forth wall – the imaginary wall that separates the audience from the film - several times. (Actors look at the audience and leave their characters for few seconds.) By implementing this, in a way Godard reminds his audience that they are just watching a movie and the characters were just acting the roles but under more ‘true realistic’ conditions. In parallel, this induces the audience to feel stirring and more engaging, therefore difficult to be just a passive observer.

Uninterrupted long takes and practising intensive mise-en-scene were some of the techniques that had been already advocated by a prominent theorist André Bazin who inspired the new wave. In his famous 'What is cinema?' volumes, Bazin argues that film makers can attain more ‘documented’ cinematic reality with long takes opposed to montage driven sequences. (Greene, 2007, p.19-21) Interestingly, besides extreme short takes and numerous moderate takes, 'Breathless' comprises several uninterrupted extreme long takes. These sequences work brilliantly to heighten the uninterrupted and documented realism as Bazin assumed. But it is not difficult to assume that Godard didn’t treat this as a hard rule as he employed many extreme quick cuts as well. However one of Godard’s other motives could be pretentiously emphasising one of the most discussed features (Mise-en-scene) of film making at the time.

As the above discussion, containing an illogical narrative and disjointed scenes, having an informal look, deliberate clumsiness in photography and editing, shooting on locations with available lights as rejecting high profile studio system, quality of being a self reflexive filmic essay and more than anything else, attaining success by doing so, definitely shattered formal film making norms practiced by the time. That was one of the functional aims of Godard as a new wave director.

Secondly rather in an artistic point of view, he wanted to discover a new cinematic style to successfully convey the contemporary existentialist behaviour, imbued with his characters. (Uprooted, illogical and almost flat nature of characters)

Third aim was portraying his ‘documentary realism’ which analyses the relationship between what have been projected on to the screen and the realty of film making. (As painters studied their very own practice of painting in their artworks.) Here unlike any other film artist, Godard chooses to deliberately reveal his 'contrivance' in order to get audience's attention in to the very process of film making and to show the presence of 'auteur'. Therefore, I think ‘film making’ is the main theme of 'Breathless' as ultimately this factor makes this film a unique one. However the magic of this film is how Godard managed to fuse all these aspects in to one single, still entertaining film. And it was his first film! But, as he says it is "the culmination of a decade’s worth of making movies in my (his) head” (Andrew, 1987, P.4)

Reference list:

Andrew, Dudley (1987) Breathless, Rutgers University Press

Bordwell, D. and Thomson, K. (2001) Film Art – An Introduction. 6^th edn. McGraw‐Hill

Buckland, Warren (2008) Teach Yourself - Film Studies. 2nd edn. UK: Hordder Education

Dawson, J. (No date) À Bout de soufflé (Breathless). Senses of cinema. Available at: http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/01/19/breathless.html (Accessed 18 June2009)

Greene, N. (2007) The French New Wave – A New Look. UK: Wallflower Press

Wild Strawberries and other arts

2009-01-02T22:27:00.005Z

As the fusion of all art, film encompasses various features from other arts to build up its incredible potential. All types of visual arts, performing art, literary art and most complex art of all, music (with its never ending ambiguity) can contribute their heritage to further enrich film as an art. If a single film can convince me about this contribution and magical power of the fusion of art, it is Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries.

Wild Strawberries is a wellspring of resources to various directions and subjects. Film exudes a splendid insight in to the relationship between one’s inner-self (anima) and outer-self (persona), two of the main psychological components of human existence. (Jungian psychology) Furthermore, film exposes how people’s necessities and agendas shape their social relationships. These are the parts of film’s functional value. However the most important part is (in related to what I’m studying right now), to be most effective in conveying this insight, film takes the full advantage of the ‘coalition’ of its form (structure) and the content (story elements). In other words, if we detach the content from its form, there is nothing much to be surprised, in contrast to how effective that same content in the context of how it has been conveyed. This is the value of its ‘magical’ form.

This film meticulously portrays and analyses retired and widower medical Professor Isak Borg’s series of dilemmas in just concise ninety minutes. These include judgmental dilemmas on his various past relationships and actions, present relationships with his daughter-in-law, son, maid and very old mother, journey partners and dilemma on impending death. Bergman uses a simple story as his vehicle to communicate these complex expressions. But this story and the setting is just an iceberg of the magical depth of the film.

Retired Doctor Isak Borg travels to Lund (a Swedish town) by his old car with his daughter-in-law Marian to receive an honorary degree. During the trip, he involves in a shocking discussion with Marian about his attitude towards her and his son. While their visit to his once old summer house (where he used to see Wild Strawberries) he recalls his lost love with cousin Sara. There he again meets a young girl called Sara with two young boys who hope to join him with the journey. Then he visits his very old and strange mother with Marian. After a near road accident, a bickering couple joins them and evokes Borg’s memories about the relationship with his late wife. All these incidents along with series of complex dreams cause him to see his life differently.

I think the most interesting feature of Wild Strawberries is Bergman’s creative implicitness in dealing with the filmic language (story elements, mise-en-scene, montage with music and sound effects). This cinematic subtlety let him to drive the film in three different main courses simultaneously.

First one delivers the denotative narration of the film. Anyone who can’t assimilate the connotative meanings of the film can still enjoy the basic film with its simple and almost linear story without any obscurantism. It has its own narrative highs and lows with enough suspense to satisfy the audience. Characters are well developed and so easy to empathise with. According to Robert McKee system, this denotative story can be classified as an arch plot. (McKee, 1998, P.44-55)

Second important route of the film lies with its metaphoric constituents. In elaborating protagonist’s series of complex dilemmas, Bergman employs few veiled allegorical events as cinematic tools. Some of these come in dream sequences and others confront as disguised characters who meet Borg in his journey. They subtly and gracefully represent assorted aspects of Borg’s internal dilemmas and evoke different ironic emotions in him and in audience. Ironically, despite their allegorical significance, with the dexterity of Bergman, they merge in to the denotative narration effortlessly. As James Monaco explains, (Monaco, 2000, p.158) when achieved properly, this is the risk of the film medium (as it could be inconspicuous) and the beauty (or magic) of the medium as well (with its depth of subtlety).

Third route of Wild Strawberries can be explained with film’s reflexive or introspective attributes with Bergman. We can untangle this puzzle by studying then Bergman’s attitudes and background. Bergman gave his own initials ‘I.B’ to his main character (Isak Borg) and casted his favorite film director and his father’s close friend Victor Soyostro. It is said that Bergman had an unhealthy relationship with his father at the time. (Bergman Face to Face, no date) This helps to rationalise the hostility and reconciliation of father-son relationship in the film. Then why shouldn’t we think that Bergman wanted to cast his ideal Swedish director under his control in order to conquer the (film) world? And to prove that how clever he is by making a masterpiece! (Now everyone knows Victor Soyostro as the ‘Isak Borg’ actor than a Swedish film director.) However, with all these aspects, Wild Strawberries can be also considered as miniplot and antiplot as well. (McKee, 1998, P.44-55)

In achieving this success, Bergman radiates his mastery in various other arts. His script is simply a great piece of literature. There is no dialogue you can leave out or think differently as they were used economically, only to achieve what only dialogue can achieve. All dialogues are well thought, well planned and designed to serve its multivalent routes with incidental sarcasm, humor, hatred and compassion. This can be explained with Bergman’s life-long close affection with literature and stage plays. (Bergman Face to Face, no date) However the most magical aspect of dialogue is how those dialogues generate more enhanced or more ironical extra meanings when juxtaposed with other cinematic aspects of the film like acting, cinematography, editing and music.

In the same way, Bergman exploits various elements of mise-en-scene to make this a magic piece. Framing, compositions and lighting are heavily influenced with the heritage of visual art, mainly painting. There are many frames that can be easily compared with celebrated paintings. (One famous instance is pictorial and thematic similarities with Edward Munch's painting series themed "Jealousy".) Camera movements and implications of lighting help to draw audience’s attention to its diverse and insightful elements within the frame most effectively. Anything revealed or conveyed, serves the audience at the most correct time. Transcending denotative meanings of dialogue, Bergman manipulates his cast to state ironic subtext through their facial expressions, gestures and mannerisms.

Symbolism used in Wild Strawberries is a vastly discussed subject. But again the magic is the way Bergman join his symbolism as an inseparable constitute of the main narrative of the film. His use of symbolism is not abstract or foreign. He rationalises them causally in the context of his main narration. As an example, the handless clock that Borg dreams, confronts Borg later in the film as a representation of an ornament he had seen in his childhood. (His mother shows it to him, when Borg visits her.)

I think explaining what represent what in Wild Strawberries is a never ending task. It can be done in many different levels, many different tools and various approaches. It is a rich fountain of resources to psychological, philosophical and aesthetical discussions and many other subjects. Ultimately, how can Bergman create this cosmic masterpiece when cinema had just passed half a century? Is it his sole personal brilliance? I hate to think so because that is something we can’t snatch out of him. Therefore I would like to attribute this to his thorough command of other arts.

(I hope to elaborate this article further in future)

Reference List:

McKee, Robert (1998) Story, Substance, structure, style and the principals of screenwriting. London: Methuen

Monaco, James (2001) How to Read a Film, Movies, Media, Multimedia. 3rd edn. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press

Ingmar Bergman| Face to Face (no date) Available at: http://www.ingmarbergman.se/page.asp?guid=CE908300-3447-444A-ACEE-3C768F870066 (Accessed: 26 June 2009)

Antonioni ‘Blow-up’ Language of Cinema

2009-01-01T20:25:00.000Z

Michelangelo Antonioni’s Palm d'Or winner ‘Blow-up’ (1966), mysteriously twines filmic-codes around its philosophical theme reinforcing the expressionistic power of cinema. His theme may be interpreted as ‘ambiguity of reality’ or ‘fallibility of human perception’ according to one’s philosophical viewpoint. One can name ‘Blow-up’ as an existentialist art-house piece, a satire of a modern life or as an adventurous thriller. ‘Blow-up’ comprises materials for many interpretations and its form and many employed techniques are metaphors for its philosophically fueled theme.

‘Blow up’ contains many extraneous sequences that seem unconnected with the main plot, but tempt us to pursue the meaning or the relevance (fashion photography scenes, club scenes, sex and drug orgies). However, if we consider that the film’s unique theme is ‘fallibility of human perception’, there should not be an essential meaning or a relevance to what you see on the screen always. It is up to the audience making meaning and connections with their own viewpoints. These features have infuriated or alienated reviewers who have not grasped the theme by the elements of film’s form but read only by its contents. Thus Antonioni exploits this theme and the form of ‘Blow-up’ to cram the film with fashion elements and other rock n’ roll identity of existentialist London in 1960s and makes it also a financial success.

The ambiguity of Blow-up starts with its anonymous protagonists. Names are not important as the film develops on universality than particularity. As Aristotle said the plausibility is important than the actuality in art (Heath, 1996). Therefore, we can empathise with characters by just understanding their actions. We immerse ourselves in the thriller of ‘Blow-up’ without seeing an actual murder. Antonioni provides clues to his protagonist to develop arguably an illusion. We as the audience, steal them for the same purpose, building stories!

The scene of ‘the photographer blowing-up his photos’ is a wonderful visual thriller in the history of cinema. No dialog is uttered or no music is played back to hype the suspense. Antonioni exploits the story-telling potential of visuals with the power of montage. All over the movie, Antonioni plays games with the representational power of cinematic language. For instance, when the photographer searches the dead body in the park, Antonioni cuts to a photographer’s conventional POV shot from his face, when he looks up. In the same shot, camera moves back to the photographer and consequently the shot becomes an objective shot. With such effects, he questions our preconceptions and fallibility of perception.

Though his protagonist immerses himself in an imaginary world vigorously with false incentives, Antonioni distinguishes these elements with cinematic tools masterly. For instance, Antonioni shows parables to reveal the futility of people’s impulsive actions and meaningless pursuits. In the famous ‘Yard Bird’ (a music group) club scene, the protagonist fights severely with the crowd to grab a piece of a celebrity guitar impulsively. Later he leaves it at a roadside, when no one is interested anymore.

All of the erotic scenes of the film are also climaxed with certain lethargy and infertility in spite of their vigorous beginning.

Antonioni’s compositions are also arranged to heighten the curiosity but to distract the concentration. Most of the time he places oblique foreground objects over his subjects to keep the subjects away from the audience. Especially, with graceful camera movements these obstacles build up distracted effects. In many frames, he breaks the harmony of colours with a distractive dissonant colour objects. These elements reinforce the enigmatic nature of the film.

Even in dialogues Antonioni underscores his characters’ imaginations. When his protagonist says “I thought you were supposed to be in Paris” to one of his models while they are in a London club party, she answers that “I am in Paris” under the influence.

However, to solve the puzzle of ‘Blow-up’, Antonioni provides many more clues if his audience is smart enough to grasp. He establishes group of playful mimes who travel around the city time to time (seemingly anarchic university students). Towards the end of the film while baffled photographer is staring at them, they start a miming Tennis match. At first it seems amusing, but as the time passes it turns out to be so realistic. Eventually, photographer is also forced to join their activity. Even the audience cannot resist it as Antonioni lets us hear the sound of the tennis ball. This enlightens us to recognise our ability to construct palpable experiences on impalpable imagination. Thus Antonioni encompasses entire essence of the film in to a seemingly abstract but highly apt metaphor, as the closure of ‘Blow-up’. Even though such an element seems foreign and contrived, Antonioni arranges the form of ‘Blow-up’ to be receptive for external sub plots harmoniously. This suggests that the whole film with its magical form is a blown-up fable to the elusive theme of ‘Blow-up.

Welcome

2009-01-01T02:10:00.001Z

Welcome everyone! I am going to dedicate this site for, as it says, my quest for "magic" of cinema as a part of my learning process (Carl is welcome to call this a 'research'). The word 'magic' may also sound more or less romantic than academic at first, but I think it is appropriate as I set my task to demystify it rather than mystifying. (Anyway, no one ever has disagreed upon attributing mystery words to cinema.)

It's apparent that we encounter enough of "cinema" as an inescapable part of our global culture. We see films. We read about them. We work in the industry. Unfortunately or fortunately I am not particularly interested about those as a whole. (But I too know that circumstances won't let me eschew them.) However, with the term "magic", I refer to a unique area of 'cinema' (or film making more specifically) to me. When I read about films I encounter the description 'culturally significant'. Then some films are 'seminal' and 'influential' or 'watershed' films. I enjoy most of these films, though some of these films have not necessarily displayed what I call 'magic'. Therefore let me explain what I have figured out so far about what makes me surprised and exciting in terms of this cinematic 'magic'.

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary explains the term "magic" as "the secret power of appearing to make impossible things happen by saying special words or doing special things". Interestingly, this explanation itself provides me a good clue. -appearing to make impossible things happen- This implies that the process of making 'impossible things happen' or 'this secret power' could be a trick, as it only appears to be. Then what are these seemingly 'impossible things' subsequently become possible and what are these 'special words' and 'special things' that you need to use for inflicting 'magic' in the context of cinema?

Firstly, to make things clear, I rule out all special effects, superficial visual and aural gimmicks or anything related to those, done with the 'intention' of surprising or convincing the audience. (I admit that they need a substantial amount of skill and talent and consequently I have a separate reverence for this technology bound area.) Secondly, and I would say most importantly, I exclude 'contrivance'. This is really a delicate area. Sometimes I am tempted to think that my whole 'study area' should predominantly lie on the classification, identification and refining what I call 'magic' out of sheer 'contrivance'. In this context, my 'cinematic magic' are basically the 'moments' or 'whole films' that display 'genuine and effortless' artistry or 'organic' quality without any revelations of 'contrivances' and the process of triggering this. This is the area of 'film making' that I am intrigued with (or makes me happy to be alive) at the moment.

As anyone can imagine, defining and recognising 'contrivances' out of what I call 'magic' could be a very risky, subjective and debatable process. Then it is very tricky to grasp and articulate the most successful meanings of 'genuine', 'effortless' and 'organic' in the context of cinema. In this perspective, I think that it is vital to study some traits of 'cinematic magic' as I see.

I particularly like the established meaning of the word 'magic' and 'magician'. It helps me to explain my preconceived idea and approach of cinematic magic or the trick - yet to be discovered and probably a lifelong quest! When we watch a magic show, no one expects magician to demonstrate supernatural powers. Everyone is agreed that it is a spectacle or an artifact (unless they are really naïve) which involves talent and illusions (ultra 'contrivance') but with good intentions. The show is a struggle between the magician and the audience. Magician is trying to hide the way he does his magic and audience is trying to comprehend the way he perform his magic by grasping his mistakes. But ultimately what audience pays for is their total defeat!

Furthermore, after a successful magic show, everyone can analyse the implications and impact of the show, but not a word about how he achieved his magic. (No room for analysing his techniques as 'contrivance' is completely hidden.) So, what matters is not how uncontrived something, but how good you are in hiding the ‘contrivance’ as the artist. Is technicality of cinema should be different to this?

In film making, how to create these magic moments may entail with myriads of facts. Therefore, as the main area of interest, with my interest of graphic design as well, I would like to choose the 'study of film semiotics' to be my approach. But most importantly, I treat this as just an approach with the awareness of the importance of all other authoritative factors like politics, social relationships, technology and aesthetics. Fortunately, with semiotics (as some of the most successful film theories were backed by semioticians - James Monaco: How to read a film) I hope I would go through a brilliant portal to study the ‘form and function’ of cinema in the above mentioned contexts.

to be continued...