April 2010 Archives

The one complaint I heard the most about Ebertfest this year is that it's too much and too short. Is that a contradiction? Very well, Ebertfest contains contradictions. For now, I'm posting photos. Some concluding thoughts coming soon...

"Barfly" director Barbet Schroeder and Sunset Gun blogger Kim Morgan discuss Bukowski and Hollywood.

Meta: Writer-director Charlie Kaufmann ("Synecdoche, New York," right) watches David Bordwell (left) take a photo of the "Far-Flung Correspondents" panel (center, rear).

Roger Ebert introduces the " Far-Flung Correspondents" panel, moderated by Omer Mozaffer (Pakistan via Chicago, right).

Took the train down from Wilmette (well, Glenview) yesterday afternoon and, although was publishing new reviews on RogerEbert.com on opening night, I was able to watch the post-film discussions from my room at the Illini Union via Ustream. You can, too. And they've been archived here, as well.

A few notes, tweets, observations from Day 1 & 2:

I'll be blogging and reporting from Ebertfest in Champaign-Urbana this week. The fest runs Wednesday through Sunday and the schedule can be found here. Panels, film introductions and post-film discussions will be live-streamed here. And it's an all-star line-up: Eberts! Bordwell! Cohl! Seitz! Arikan! Morgan! Odienator! Phillips! Britt! Kohn! Barker! Pierson! Rosman! Poland! Voynar! And those are just some of the organizers and attendees. The roster of films and filmmakers is impressive, too. Give it a look.

"For me, the border between feature films and documentaries has always been blurred. 'Fitzcarraldo' is my best documentary and 'Little Dieter Needs to Fly' is my best fiction film. I don't make such a clear distinction between them -- they're all movies."

-- Werner Herzog, interview with Index Magazine, 2004
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"Aguirre, the Wrath of God" was the first Werner Herzog film I ever saw, back when it was released in the United States in 1977. It was one of the first films I ever reviewed, too (for my college newspaper, the University of Washington Daily). All I knew about Herzog at the time was what I'd read in an extraordinary profile by Jonathan Cott in the November 18, 1976, issue of Rolling Stone, which portrayed Herzog as a mad visionary in search of new images, not unlike the obsessed outsiders at the heart of his movies.

I couldn't stop staring at the haunting photograph that surrounded the article, from (as I recall) such films as "Signs of Life," "Even Dwarfs Started Small," "Aguirre," "Kaspar Hauser" and "Heart of Glass." They certainly didn't look quite like any movies I'd seen before. And essential to the spectacle was the knowledge that Herzog had gone to remote and exotic places in order to capture these images and bring them back into the cinema. They were unquestionably photographical realities (imagine Herzog speaking that phrase), not optical tricks created in post-production. The boat in the tree in "Aguirre" -- the one the feverish characters could no longer recognize as real -- was an actual boat in an actual tree, not a miniature or a matte painting. Even the photographic effects -- the time-lapse clouds flowing through the mountains like a river around boulders in "Kaspar Hauser" "Heart of Glass"; or the high-speed "ski-flying" (high-altitude, long-distance ski-jumping) footage that allowed Walter Steiner to float through the air in "The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner" -- were actual recordings of real-world phenomena.

"People should look straight at a film... That's the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates. And film culture is not analysis, it is agitation of the mind. Movies come from the country fair and circus, not from art and academicism."

-- Werner Herzog, 1978 interview quoted in
John Sandford's book, "The New German Cinema" (1980)

We knew it was going to be interesting. Seeing "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972) for the first time in 25 years (even though I'd seen it many times before) with Werner Herzog, Ramin Bahrani, Roger Ebert and a Conference on World Affairs Cinema Interruptus audience in Boulder, CO, last week reconfirmed that not only is Herzog a magnificent, instinctive director, but a first-class showman in the carnival tradition, a compelling speaker and storyteller, and a wonderful actor. Some of the wild tales he related to the audience in Macky Hall are, I'm told, also on the director's commentary track of the American DVD of "Aguirre" -- and some I've heard him tell many times over the years, but there's nothing quite like hearing Herzog spin his spiels in the flesh -- even (or maybe especially) when he's a booming voice in the dark.

... to write anything last week at CWA where there's hardly a moment to breathe (gasping at the mile-high altitude aside) between panels, conversations, lunches, parties, receptions (and -- for me, anyway -- precious sleep). You have to understand: I often go days without actually seeing or speaking to anybody; all this socializing is exhausting for me. I'll be looking back at the experience this week, but in the meantime, in case you missed it, Roger Ebert writes about the first day's Cinema Interruptus with Werner Herzog, Ramin Bahrani and "Aguirre, the Wrath of God."

(Above: Photo by Roger Ebert. And aren't Ramin's new frames terrific?)

I'll be in Boulder this week for another round of the Conference on World Affairs.

I will be part of these panels, on such diverse topics as dogs and international politics (that's one subject), ad hominem mouthpieces in the media (Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly), the politics of "Avatar," blatant and condescending forms of racism, and why we go to the movies. My pal Julia Sweeney will be joining the ranks of participants. And I get to be on two panels with the fantastic Ike Wilson, who's also delivering the keynote!

Oh yes: Ramin Bahrani will be returning for the Cinema Interruptus (last year he guided us through his own "Chop Shop") -- this time exploring, shot-by-shot, Werner Herzog's "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" with Herr Herzog himself, Roger Ebert (who, I hope, will be using his Mac voice), the audience, and me. I plan to handle remote control responsibilities to the best of my ability (pausing for questions and comments, rewinding and re-playing) -- but, for the most part, I intend to shut up and learn something. And, as usual, I know I will. And, whenever I get a chance, I will be posting (and tweeting) about it...

Eyes, frames, lenses, doorways, windows, photographs, mirrors, smoke, hands, flesh, water, power...

There are movies I count among my best friends, with whom I have loved, learned, and grown. This is one I treasure most. (Only for those who know their way around "Chinatown.")

[notes to come]

a labor of deepest love, for Mrs. Mulwray and Gina Namkung (1937, 1974, and counting...)

... and, of course, for Matt Zoller Seitz, Kevin B. Lee, Steven Boone...