erm you can buy a three hour version of Grin... on amazon, but if its originally 4 hours then I'd assume any argument would be damaged by the shortening? xxp
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 4 August 2010 22:30 (thirteen years ago) link
it's just as possible that the argument in the 1977 version was even worse!
it doesn't exactly have an argument, just kind of an idea that there was a non-aligned democratic-socialist left in the 1960s, particularly in czechoslovakia and chile, that failed because the US and USSR wanted it to fail.
it's not a fully coherent argument coz castro, not exactly non-aligned, seems to be pretty much a hero throughout -- not entirely, but pretty much.
― unchill english bro (history mayne), Wednesday, 4 August 2010 22:35 (thirteen years ago) link
well, ok, whatever the idea, it might be more fully fleshed out, which might make it more hateable - who knows, maybe that's why all that is easily available on dvd is Sans Soleil and a short film.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 4 August 2010 22:40 (thirteen years ago) link
it's not hateable exactly, it's just that CM has a reputation as a tip-top intellectual film essayist and this is a let-down. i guess i would rather see the original warts-and-all 1977 one, coz this one ends *really* abruptly with the collapse of the USSR. some of it is dazzling, but not enough! a lot of it is just speeches. the early travelogues don't do that.
― unchill english bro (history mayne), Wednesday, 4 August 2010 22:48 (thirteen years ago) link
i was watching that "letter to jane" thing last night and i was like "u know i really like film essays maybe" and i was thinking about this guy and i still havent seen anything beyond la jetee and sans soleil but i dled loin du vietnam and im gonna watch it tonight but then i was like o hey what other things should i maybe see (i dont even know if this vietnam thing is gonna be any good) also like agnes varda she doesnt have a thread
― plax (ico), Saturday, 22 January 2011 00:39 (thirteen years ago) link
harun farocki is ya boy
― rufus is a tity boi (donna rouge), Saturday, 22 January 2011 00:46 (thirteen years ago) link
if you can find jean-pierre gorin's southern CA trilogy anywhere, watch those, they are great
― rufus is a tity boi (donna rouge), Saturday, 22 January 2011 00:49 (thirteen years ago) link
orson welles' 'f for fake' (art forgeries!)
― rufus is a tity boi (donna rouge), Saturday, 22 January 2011 00:50 (thirteen years ago) link
haha i really like a lot of these too i guess
― rufus is a tity boi (donna rouge), Saturday, 22 January 2011 00:51 (thirteen years ago) link
oh ok thats the guy godard is talking to in letter to jane?
― plax (ico), Saturday, 22 January 2011 00:52 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah. they were both part of dziga vertov group (of whom i've seen one film; it was, uh, 'difficult')
― rufus is a tity boi (donna rouge), Saturday, 22 January 2011 00:56 (thirteen years ago) link
cool, i can never think of anything to watch when i wanna get a movie
― plax (ico), Saturday, 22 January 2011 01:00 (thirteen years ago) link
the gorin trilogy isn't on dvd in the states i think, dunno about anywhere else
but yeah, FAROCKI: if you like the marker vietnam film, check out HF's short 'inextinguishable fire' about american chemical companies and napalm manufacture in vietnam (then check out the paper i wrote about it as an undergrad, or, yknow, don't)
― rufus is a tity boi (donna rouge), Saturday, 22 January 2011 01:04 (thirteen years ago) link
Donna OTM. That Gorin trilogy is amazing. There were supposedly Criterion editions in the works, but I guess JPG had some sort of falling out with them. Janus did restore them, though, so I imagine they'll become available in some form. Farocki is also great. Inextinguishable Fire is the real canonical one. I like Workers Leaving the Factory and Images of the World and the Inscription of War better.
I've never regretted seeing a Marker film, but there are definitely ups and downs. I'd most strongly recommend Grin Without a Cat and Le joli mai on top of the ones you've seen.
"Film essay" is an increasingly capacious label, and people get pretty defensive about the parameters (you should track down Philip Lopate's (written) essay "In Search of the Centaur") . There are a million of these things now. Without thinking too long about it or worrying too much about definitions, I'd also suggest Patrick Keiller's Robinson trilogy, Jon Jost's early films, Thom Andersen's Los Angeles Plays Itself (which you can find on Youtube), Trinh T. Minh-ha's Reassemblage (which I believe is also on Youtube), anything by Morgan Fisher, anything by Bill Brown, Histoire(s) du cinema, Adam Curtis' tv work (start with The Trap maybe?). I'm forgetting tons of great stuff, but this is probably already more than you were looking for.
x-ps
― C0L1N B..., Saturday, 22 January 2011 01:10 (thirteen years ago) link
Isn't Letter to Jane a Vertov Group film?
― C0L1N B..., Saturday, 22 January 2011 01:11 (thirteen years ago) link
i think sans soleil is one of like three movies where ive gone back and watched the bits i fell asleep through
― plax (ico), Saturday, 22 January 2011 01:12 (thirteen years ago) link
i think it is, technically xp to c0l1n
shit yeah, 'los angeles plays itself' is fantastic (i watched it in chopped-up segments on youtube, which suited me fine given its length)
― rufus is a tity boi (donna rouge), Saturday, 22 January 2011 01:15 (thirteen years ago) link
Really liked Le Mystère Koumiko (1965) (on youtube) - the girl he interviews/edits/lets take over is 'mixed up' and, similarly, CM adopts that as a strategy on Japan. Could've been really embarrassing but its actually fab.
The BFI shop have that three hour cut of Grin Without a Cat NRQ talks about, or should I really try to torrent(?) the four cut (when I get into torrents) (assuming someone has that)
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 1 November 2011 22:06 (twelve years ago) link
From the description Grin... and Carlos would be the most exciting double bill, but also the most deadly for your circulation - maybe one to watch over a flight to Australia.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 1 November 2011 22:15 (twelve years ago) link
A/K is a curiously flat (not as a criticism) portrayal of a nice Japanese man who happened to have made a brilliant set of films. Surprising, but only watched aout half of it.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 4 November 2011 19:48 (twelve years ago) link
i don't agree with NRQ re marker's attitude to castro at all: he doesn't denounce him openly (he doesn't denounce anyone really) but he really isn't treated as the hero of the second half, anything but
― mark s, Friday, 4 November 2011 20:04 (twelve years ago) link
That Gorin trilogy is amazing. There were supposedly Criterion editions in the works, but I guess JPG had some sort of falling out with them. Janus did restore them, though, so I imagine they'll become available in some form.
eclipse set coming out in january btw
― vitameatawalloginavegamin (donna rouge), Friday, 4 November 2011 22:41 (twelve years ago) link
Watched Grin.. over Xmas and its a remarkable montage. Since then I've seen The Last Bolshevik, L'Ambassade (his other fictional film, which is wonderful although no La Jetee), If I had 4 Camels (in the same format as La Jetee but just the most exciting travelogue, as if someone showed slides from their world tour but its so well scripted, soundtracked and narrated -- like all his stuff, pretty much)
And I agree that Grin... doesn't make Castro a hero at all, but he doesn't demonise him either...although he jently mocks him (when he talks about how he taps the microphone when making speeches). So the 'portrait' makes his turns.
Allende 'made to look like a dick' also sounds wrong.
There is a HUGE universe to this stuff: Far From Vietnam, The Battle For Chile, Ivens' A Valparaiso, Statues Also Die. All great pieces of filmmaking he had a hand in producing or assisting, and which I've been v lucky to see in the last few months.
Has anyone here read his novel?
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 18 February 2012 13:58 (twelve years ago) link
Some stuff to chase here -- fairly gd piece in terms of info, although uncritical (how does the analysis in Hour of the Furnaces hold up?). I don't know if neglecting the 2nd part is exatly a wise move -- it doesn't support Peron wholeheartedly, it does look at his time in office as a halfway-house, an unfulfilled revolution. It does apply some of their analysis given in the 1st to comment on the situation in Argentina in the 2nd part. The film ends in interviews w/activists who were imprisoned and tortured, some harrowing stuff. Overall its quite a package.
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/49831
The film’s renewal of the economic-political treatise as cinematic form can be traced in many subsequent films whose activism operates through similarly diverse experimental energies: Godard’s Le Rapport Darty (1989), Raoul Peck’s Profit & Nothing But! Or Impolite Thoughts on the Class Struggle (2001), Erik Gandini’s Surplus: Terrorized Into Being Consumers (2003), Alexander Kluge’s Notes from Ideological Antiquity: Marx-Eisenstein-Capital (2008), Lech Kowalski’s The End of the World Begins With One Lie (2010) or John Gianvito’s Vapor Trail (Clark) (2010).
Has anyone seen much from this batch?
Quite a lot to unpack in the trade-off between style and activism, whether one can exist w/the other or not. Cash is needed, how is this funded and by whom? Interesting that Marker is only mentioned as collaborator and Grin... isn't mentioned...then there are narrative films of the 2nd cinema that work toward the struggle, surely? I know what the author means as not quite enough, but again, there is a hole there.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 23 March 2012 20:29 (twelve years ago) link
RIP
― Turangalila, Monday, 30 July 2012 10:29 (eleven years ago) link
RIP indeed. That link includes a video of the full version of La Jetée.
― Arvo Pärt Chimp (Neil S), Monday, 30 July 2012 10:31 (eleven years ago) link
Rest In Peace.
― EZ Snappin, Monday, 30 July 2012 13:30 (eleven years ago) link
odd that just yesterday I reserved The Last Bolshevik at the library.
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Monday, 30 July 2012 13:51 (eleven years ago) link
My rep for repping De Palma aside, Chris Marker is/was my very favorite director. RIP
― Eric H., Monday, 30 July 2012 14:00 (eleven years ago) link
oh shit.
RIP.
― woof, Monday, 30 July 2012 14:03 (eleven years ago) link
reap
― am0n, Monday, 30 July 2012 14:35 (eleven years ago) link
:(
― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Monday, 30 July 2012 15:13 (eleven years ago) link
RIP. Sans Soleil is a movie I haven't watched in several years but I'm thinking about it all the time.
― tylerw, Monday, 30 July 2012 15:29 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KalkgX5Igwo
― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Monday, 30 July 2012 15:30 (eleven years ago) link
I showed that video to a big time cat person and their response was "I want my 3 minutes back." I don't think I've ever come closer to crying at someone's wildly divergent take on a movie.
― Eric H., Monday, 30 July 2012 15:31 (eleven years ago) link
Last time I looked, there was a Marker-style cat painted on a brick facade near my old job on West 26th St; wish I had pointed it out to you, Eric.
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Monday, 30 July 2012 15:34 (eleven years ago) link
you should have said i want our years of friendship back xp
― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Monday, 30 July 2012 15:34 (eleven years ago) link
Instead, I tied her down and forced her to watch all 3 hours of A Grin Without a Cat.
― Eric H., Monday, 30 July 2012 15:36 (eleven years ago) link
All the while pointing out with every passing minute how awesome the movie is.
― Eric H., Monday, 30 July 2012 15:37 (eleven years ago) link
Ehrenstein parses and supplements CM's Wiki entry:
http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2012/07/30/christian-francois-bouche-villeneuve-aka-chris-marker/
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Monday, 30 July 2012 16:02 (eleven years ago) link
RIP. I've tried to hack Sans Soleil a couple of times but it always puts me to sleep; I ought to rectify that sometime soon.
― Simon H., Monday, 30 July 2012 17:34 (eleven years ago) link
don't hack it, watch it
― joaquin haus-partizan (s1ocki), Monday, 30 July 2012 17:34 (eleven years ago) link
usual bunch of Keyframe links (I wd esp point toward excerpt of Marker's piece on Vertigo that Glenn Kenny has):
http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-chris-marker-1921-2012/
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Monday, 30 July 2012 17:35 (eleven years ago) link
yes that was great
― joaquin haus-partizan (s1ocki), Monday, 30 July 2012 17:35 (eleven years ago) link
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7y98wx2H11rw6lx6o1_500.gif
― joaquin haus-partizan (s1ocki), Monday, 30 July 2012 17:37 (eleven years ago) link
oh, and the former Steve Shasta linked the Vertigo essay way above.
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Monday, 30 July 2012 17:46 (eleven years ago) link
that vertigo essay's incredible.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 30 July 2012 19:14 (eleven years ago) link
RIP, Cat-man.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 30 July 2012 20:46 (eleven years ago) link
RIP. Sans Soleil is such a beautiful movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d4_YKpMQLc
― wolves lacan, Monday, 30 July 2012 22:32 (eleven years ago) link
Brody, with a link to a 2003 interview that needs to be translated.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2012/07/in-memoriam-chris-marker.html
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 31 July 2012 00:43 (eleven years ago) link