Kathleen Murphy has written a stunning piece over at Testpattern called "The Haunted Palace." (I've been waiting weeks for it to appear so I could send you there.) Although primarily about Alain Resnais' "Last Year at Marienbad," the article moves through those haunted corridors, into Stanley Kubrick's Overlook Hotel, passing through doors (and walls) into the worlds of Max Ophuls, Luis Buñuel, Josef von Sternberg... As you wander through the maze of this "Lady from Shanghai" hall of mirrors you'll catch glimpses of ghosts around every corner -- not just the phantom images of particular movies, but insights into a spectral world Dave Kehr has described as "the lost continent of cinephilia."
From Kathleen's magnificent guided tour of the grounds:
Once upon a time, movie-loving folk actually, in the words of Susan Sontag, "arranged their emotional and intellectual lives around an art that was 'poetic and mysterious and erotic and moral all at the same time.'" We thrived on films such as "Vertigo" (1958), "L'Avventura" (1960), "Jules and Jim" (1962), "Vivre sa vie" (1962) -- works that, like [Ophuls'] "Letter From an Unknown Woman," plunged into the very DNA of the cinematic imagination. We happily drowned, not in narrative alone -- or even at all -- but in the seductive images, spaces and faces conjured by the formidable magic of the medium....
.... Still, there's a horror movie at the heart of every film about love and art. Death's always abroad in these environs, a reaper whose scythe eventually edits everyone out of the picture. Our avid gaze consumes the images we love; if we take them in, perhaps we will become them. Movies are haunted houses -- full of dead people who come to life again and again for our pleasure."If we take them in, perhaps we will become them." Is there a finer description of cinephilia, or of our need to consume art, to make it part of our own experience, to incorporate it into our psyches, to perhaps even become wiser, broader, better human beings through our exposure to the transcendent? She's at the heart of darkness here -- the darkness of the sanctuary (a movie theater, a home, a hotel room...) in which we view these flickering, mesmerizing images. Movies create illusions and shatter them, mimic dreams and usurp them.
I don't know about you, but I get shivers from exploring these cinematic environs -- and from reading words like Kathleen's that offer not just a perfectly situated window frame through which to view them, but that present a doorway beckoning you to enter...
Jim, perhaps this is a coincidence, but did you see Channel 4's meticulous tracking shot recreation of the Shining set? http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/03/channel4.kubrick
Wow, just finished watching a great Kubrick promo from Channel 4, then I see this article! Have a look at this. Very cool!
Great piece. And freaky, too, as I was about to send you a link to this:
Promo, shot from the point of view of Stanley Kubrick, to promote a More4 season of the director's films.
Not sure if the link I provided earlier works so just pasting it as text:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2008/jul/03/channel4.television
"If we take them in, perhaps we will become them." Is there a finer description of cinephilia, or of our need to consume art- yes there is. "We went seeking greatness in movies, and were most often disappointed. We waited for a movie like the one we wanted to make, and secretly wanted to live." Godard. From Ebert's review.
First off, that channel 4 promo was killer.
I think the most profound thing Murphy had to say was this: "Still, there's a horror movie at the heart of every film about love and art."
Otherwise I was very much distracted by the hyperbole of the piece, though in theory I agree with every word she said and will probably add this film to my netflix.
I also found her grand statement "Once upon a time, movie-loving folk actually, in the words of Susan Sontag, "arranged their emotional and intellectual lives around an art that was 'poetic and mysterious and erotic and moral all at the same time.'" to be kind of funny, because she references movies from the late 90's. Sort of diminished the concept for me. Though I do think that there are plenty of filmmakers now that attempt this kind of visual encapsulation of the audience - even films that some might think are silly fluff (The Fifth Element, Dark City). The camera may not sit still as long, but the visual motifs still exist and the practice is just as universal (or perhaps still more foreign *word play*, meaning these ideas have been practiced more over seas(?)) as it was.
I also realize that this blog is an extension of the one about how important stories don't have to be to the movie. L'Age D'or, my friend, L'Age D'or.
I love that three of us, independent of each other, posted that link. Bloody nerds!
Man, I hope this new Marienbad print means that its getting the Criterion treatment soon.
No doubt that was inspired by the long tracking shot from Nicholson's bathroom to the set in Vivian Kubrick's Making the Shining.
Maybe they also saw this promo for TCM (much less elaborate, but a similar idea):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC0_2O8mH-Y
This is why David Lynch is one of my favorite directors.