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View image Ramin Bahrani on the set of "Chop Shop."

Ramin Bahrani's first two features, "Man Push Cart" and "Chop Shop," live and breathe like few other films these days. (That's why they're two of my favorites of the current century.)

In an interview at IFC Blog, Bahrani gives a beautiful description of the kinds of movies he values -- and, in the process, indicates what makes him such a fine filmmaker. Of course, I also happen to feel the same way about movies, so no wonder I like his so much:

Film is really 24 frames a second in the present, and I realize when you leave certain gaps, it allows space for the viewer to enter the film. That requires a viewer who wants to be engaged, who wants to have an emotional connection to a film, which should not be confused with films that elicit emotions like weeping and whatnot. You watch a certain movie, and the director puts you in a headlock through ways of dramaturgy, music, camera moves and excessive acting. It hits certain synapses in your brain and makes you cry, then you leave, and the next day you're having a hamburger and you don't really remember what the film was. Despite that those are the kinds of films that get lots of accolades and attention, it doesn't attract me as a person nor as an artist. I'm more interested in the ones — because of your participation — [that] seep into you, and two months later, are still a part of you. I don't know if I've accomplished this, but it's what I'm striving for.

What he describes -- that space that allows the viewer to enter the film -- is a quality I particularly treasured when going through "No Country for Old Men" with the audience at the Conference on World Affairs last week. Although the first time you see it you're aware of pulse-pounding tension, suspense and unforseen eruptions of violence, the movie is really full of breathing room. Long wordless sequences encourage you to get inside the heads of the characters and see things through their eyes, to experience what they're thinking and feeling moment by moment: the opening sequence (which I played once without sound so we could simply look at the progression of images, then see and how they play off of Ed Tom's voiceover); Lleweylyn following the trail of blood to the two trees in the desert; Llewelyn methodically assembling the tools he will need to place the satchel in the vent; Chigurh tending to his wounds in the motel bathroom...

But back to Ramin Bahrani. I like what he has to say about characterizations, too:

A lot of people say that I'm interested in marginal, immigrant or socially and economically poor characters... maybe? I don't find them marginal; I find them to be the majority. Most people don't live like Woody Allen characters. Those characters don't resemble most of the three billion people within the world. [...]

I get bored seeing the same characters again and again and again. I find it more engaging to learn about things I don't know a lot about, and I really do learn about them. I spent one and a half years hanging around the chop shop, talking to everyone. I did research into safe homes, a lot of which got cut out of "Chop Shop."... But with each film, I realize I'm not interested in explanation and excessive amounts of backstory to make the viewer say: "Oh, now everything makes sense to me. I can go home and feel good!" There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't interest me.

Interviewer Aaron Hillis asks him about working with nonprofessional actors and if he's inspired by Robert Bresson:

One hundred percent, but the big difference is that I want my actors to have emotions in the film; he did not. Of course, you can see non-actors, but also his use of sound, and the rigor of what you see and what you don't see. When [Alejandro] tells his sister, "Go to the left to the bathroom," I don't cut. Everyone else would cut. But Bresson told you, "Don't cut. Show it. " Rossellini, Kiarostami, none of the people I respect would've shown that girl down there because it cuts off the viewer's imagination.

If you're getting bombarded by [sights and sounds] every day, then I have to be slower so that it seeps into you. In fact, films 40 or 50 years ago could have had a faster pace. I think they wanted to. But today, they cannot. There are certain things I don't do in my life. I don't watch television, I don't see a lot of new films, I don't look at magazines, and I try to hide my eyes from billboards. [laughs] Going to Times Square makes me nauseous....

Still, he's into "Top Chef," for some of the same reasons I am: "How do they know what ingredients will make a certain taste? It's kind of like the film: simple elements put together to create a taste and an emotion as you eat it. I want to learn to be a better cook now."

Comments

I've always been fascinated by Bahrani's connections to Bresson.

He seems to be the only director willing to seriously carry on Bresson's unique torch.

I can't wait to catch "Chop Shop" - hopefully it will be out on DVD soon as I have a feeling it won't be in a theater anywhere near my location (Kentucky).

Posted by: Brandon Colvin | April 17, 2008 08:47 PM

I really want to see Chop Shop, but I always get a little irked when directors, however talented, disdain the art of melodrama, overacting, operatic camera movements, and dramatic music. It's hard to argue that you're going to forget The Seventh Seal or Once Upon a Time in the West by the next time you stuff a hamburger into your face.

Posted by: Gman | April 18, 2008 12:48 AM

And this may describe what I find so lacking in There Will Be Blood. I enjoyed the film on an intellectual level, but utterly failed to engage it on anything deeper: every dialogue choice, every bit of jarring music, all of it seemed designed to goose me into a preset response. I'm all for films being manipulative, but I dislike being railroaded.

Posted by: Ken Lowery | April 18, 2008 07:17 AM

Those quotes seem to be little more than well written BS and don't really offer much.

And can we drop it with No Country for Old Men soon? While far from my favorite film of the year I did enjoy it and found it very well made, but more than anything I am just apathetic to it at this point.

Posted by: lambman | April 18, 2008 01:13 PM

I have not seen either of this man's films, but he's certainly on my (ever long and constantly expanding) list. But I must agree with Gman there, here seems to be almost insulting styles that are not his own there. "Most people don't live like Woody Allen characters. Those characters don't resemble most of the three billion people within the world."
There are also billions of people that don't live like the characters in his films, you make art from what you know and your life experiences obviously, and Woody Allen writes about what he knows about, as does Mr. Bahrani. The whole point is showing people something that they've never seen.

And just to be contrarian I urge Jim to keep up with his writings on for No Country for Old Men, he is perhaps the film's greatest defender. When a truly great film like that comes out it is something to sing about. I still rave like an idiot for Munich and it's three years later, and I think three years from now I'll be raving about No Country for Old Men in a similar manner.

Posted by: Ryan Kelly | April 19, 2008 11:41 AM

Does he mean there are 3 billion people who don't live like Woody Allen characters but that the other 3+ billion do? Or are his stats just outdated?

Posted by: Dane Walker | April 19, 2008 01:32 PM

I've never seen any of Mr Bahrani's work, but he may be someone I'd enjoy. I like his thinking. But, and I don't mean to be snarky here, lately I cringe when a filmmaker namechecks Bresson. We don't need dozens of little Bresson's loose upon the world. It's always the most obvious examples of the master's technique we see on display: Motionless camera, non-expressive acting, the withholding of information, but nothing of Bresson's rigor, the burrowing in to an image and an idea, of a worldview rendered with poetic exactitude.

I have the very same response whenever I hear a filmmaker namecheck Cassavettes. Oy.

Posted by: Jim | April 23, 2008 12:19 PM