Words are linear. Movies not so much, even though they are encoded onto strips of celluloid or served up as streams or spirals of digital bits.
The web is not so linear, actually. Hyperlinks in all directions are more like the interconnected synapses of the human brain than any other technology or art form I can think of. But sometimes when I try to convey something about my experience of movies -- filtered, as always, through reflections and contrasts between images, memories, themes, styles -- what I really want to do is make a movie about it. That seems like the shortest, most direct way from imagination to articulation. The movie itself (as Godard famously suggested) is the criticism, the analysis.
When I put together the images and commentary for my previous post, "Close-Ups: A free-association dream sequence," in celebration of the Close-Up Blog-a-thon at the House Next Door, that's what I was getting at. I just didn't have the tools to fully express what I wanted to say. Strike that. I had the tools, right here on my MacBook, but I didn't know how to use them.
One weekend and three long nights later, here's what I wanted to say. I will resist the temptation (you don't know how much I am tempted) to analyze my own cinematic essay, but I want you to watch it for yourself first. I'll translate it from web into movie and back into language later. This is a direction in which I want to move my film criticism.
Oh, and it's not a "literal" interpretation of the post. Some things just work differently on the motion picture screen than they do on the computer screen. Think of the first post as the original set of annotated storyboards, from which I felt free to depart whenever it felt right. The idea was not to overthink it, just to go with the flow and see where it led, like the ant-hole in hand / armpit / sea urchin / top of head sequence in "Un Chien Andalou." Enjoy -- and please leave comments, critiques, interpretations and questions! Just be sure to stay all the way through the end credits -- a minute or so of the six-minute running time....
UPDATED 10/19/07: While looking for a frame grab from "Black Narcissus" to honor the late Deborah Kerr, I discovered the source of an indelible mirror-image (you'll see) that I'd previously been unable to locate. It's now been incorporated into the movie.
Wow! Most impressive, at least as impressive as the themed montages they show every Oscar broadcast. Thank you for including the movies in the credits (I recognized about 80%, but not yet 100%, sad to say). I hope you make another one sometime!
It's a blog entry, Jim; but not as we know it!
Seriously, it's great, mate. Congratulations.
Jim, this is great, though I kept expecting http://www.geocities.com/Area51/5555/false_maria.jpg to pop up. I guess that's just my dream!
Remember Pauline Kael equating the reception of Last Tango In Paris to that of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring? Well, I'm not feeling as particularly hyperbolic as that, but even so, your iMovie was a marvelous and mesmerizing piece of work. This is exactly the kind of approach and sensibility we've been saying for a few years now that Internet film criticism could be capable of. I'm really excited to see you pressing forward with something like this, and seeing Peet producing his cartoons like Directorama. I really do believe we're witnessing and are involved in an important new phase in film criticism that can access the experience of seeing film in ways if not wholly new, then at least reponsive to the ways, as you said in the text portion of this grand post, that our brain free-associates and links imagery and fleeting moments for us to reflect upon as we will, courtesy of our interior projectors.
Jim, this was a wonderful thing to see just before going to bed. I can't wait to see what I dream tonight!
Pam: The False Maria (and Rotwang) pop up in my dreams, too! In this case, I must have forgotten that part the morning after...
Wow, Jim. I don't know what to say, except that this is a lovely, haunting experimental short, and that I'm honored beyond words that an event at my site had anything to do with it.
I hope you do more of these. You're really good at it.
I'll second all the compliments you've been getting for this wonderful video; I've only watched this once so far, but I'll most likely be watching this again to experience the connections you make between various films and images. And also for the Mahler---I love Mahler, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear you use music from his 6th and 9th symphonies (two of my favorites, particularly the former). It's about time someone used his music more extensively in movies...
I'm in awe. I knew the Close-up blog-a-thon was something special, but I think you just catapulted internet film criticism into a new realm. (Completely agree with Dennis Cozzalio.)
That is easily the best original web video montage I've ever seen. Most definitely a work that belongs in dreams. I don't know what more to say.
Thank you very much for igniting something in me.
Very impressive work, Jim! I think you are pointing towards a new direction in film criticism and the blogosphere. Godard would've been proud.
Jim, I meant to comment earlier. I absolutety love the video montage. Thoughtful, fun and beautiful.
My most favorite dreams are nightmares.
I've watched it twice now as it is my feeling to give true criticism one much get past the initial reaction.
I feel you hit the stride of the piece with the eye montage, especially with the opening moment of Buenuel's first and Polanski's credit slicing across the eye. There were enough long, chilling smiles in and around that I felt a connection could have been made, but wasn't. If it's dreams we're talking about, then sometimes those connections remain abstract and distant, and it's fine.
There were a few times in which your return to a previous clip that was used, almost like a coda, which to helped transition to another feeling or emotion. When you return to those moments it works best when it furthers the story, as in DeNiro's smile. I didn't however feel as pulled forward by the second "Sunset Boulevard" insert, the final one though was a nice image conclude on.
There are some moments in which you use movement nicely to hold our attention, again I felt it was used most wisely during the eye sequence.
The second most intriguing spot begins with the man in ice and ends on going into the mouth. Glancing through it again, I think as far as mood and effect goes, it was handled the best. Lingering on certain shots and not on others, nicely timed.
In a piece like this it's easy to say it's just a dream, but I felt like the mirror and hair sequence, the final sequence of the film, lacked the inspiration that flowed through the rest of the piece. It could have been in the fact that the end sort of dissipated, which is fine, but I've found with editing work like this it good, like a written essay, to pull all of the ideas throughout together (which it seems like perhaps you started to do, but the thought wasn't strong enough), before letting the image go, which is does nicely in the final "Sunset Boulevard" image.
It's a good bit of work though, effective. I would have to say you've beat me to the punch a bit as I was going to start editing pieces together, this is just a continued push for me to do so.
The critic has been critiqued.
Thanks to all. I'm already seeing things I'd like to tinker with and re-arrange and insert and re-cut, but my intention was to do this as quickly as possible (as I said, one afternoon learning the software and then three long nights), in the spirit of "Un Chien Andalou" (ant-hole in hand / armpit / sea urchin / top of head...).
Philip: I hope you will cut some stuff together! A couple film profs have suggested this could be used as a condensed example for a lesson about film techniques, which I think I may do in future blog postings -- about match-cutting and "shock" cutting, transitions, music, sound effects (the sound is much more complex than the images -- sometimes up to six tracks going at once), rhythm, etc.
P.S. The man in the ice (before "The Shining") is the man Julie Christie is thinking about in the opium den -- the Julie Christie who appears after De Niro in the opium den, not the Julie Christie who appears just before being put under anaesthesia in "Petulia."
Not exactly the same thing, but a friend just sent me a link to the following clip:
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=8956
and as soon as I saw it I thought of your film, Jim.
I really liked yours. Great choice of music.
Jim,
Sound is one of the more difficult things, so integral to the effect one wants to produce, and so difficult to place sometimes, but once it starts coming together, sometimes accidentally, it's one of the best feelings on the planet. But when you put the wrong sound with the image, you feel it, sometimes it can't be put into words, it just doesn't work.
One thing I do just to stay busy and creatively awake are actor's demo reels, a lot of the times from poorly produced short films. You have to almost reedit the film, put different music under to create an all new desired effect. I have on my blog right now a trailer I cut together for a show I'm in. It's kind of fun and a lot more promotional than this, but as far as getting across a specific look for a show that's been done a million times, it accentuates the differences nicely. Not to brag.
I'll let you know when I start cutting some things together.
What you've taken on here is, I think, the next important step in film criticism. We can now "write" using the very materials that constitute our object of study: moving images and sounds. But doing this demands re-thinking conventional critical forms. Lots of experimenting must be done, and yours is an important installment. Congratulations.
Upon reading your concerns, i came to the idea of using some of your arguments for my term paper.
Good work! I think you are pointing towards a new direction in film criticism and the blogosphere.