Sunday, November 1, 2009

Vampyr/Carl Theodor Dreyer



WIKI: "Vampyr is a 1932 horror film directed by Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. The film was written by Dreyer and Christen Jul based on elements from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's In a Glass Darkly. Vampyr was funded by Nicolas de Gunzburg who starred in the film under the name of Julian West among a mostly non-professional cast. Gunzberg plays the role of Allan Grey, a student of the occult who enters a small village outside of Paris which is cursed by supernatural creatures known as Vampyrs who lure townspeople to suicide so they can become servants for the devil."

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Like a virgin, relax/Virginie Marchand

"A little trip to Goa, India, to escape bad stuff and return to the sea, the waves, the sacred cows, under the sun, sometimes the rain."

Monday, October 12, 2009

Sordid/Johnny Terris

ABOUT: "Canadian filmmaker and actor Johnny Terris started out doing short films in the late 80’s and early 90’s in Canada. Starting at the age of 14 and leaving home at 16 years of age his films viciously delved into trailer park comedy that centered on a comedic annihilation of family values and structure.
In 2005, he released Sordid; a grotesque experimental horror journey through death and rebirth which sold out the first 200 copies within a 24 hour period."

Monday, October 5, 2009

Serene Velocity/Ernie Gehr


Imdb: "Ernie Gehr's structuralist masterpiece SERENE VELOCITY is a hypnotic film which is nothing more than a rapidly edited, rhythmic piece consisting of two shots of an office hallway (one long shot, one zoomed-in close up)."

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Mr Hayashi/Bruce Baillie


ABOUT: "Bruce Baillie's innovative films grab the viewer with eloquent and rich imagery as well as a heartfelt humanism and concern for his subjects expressed through a lyrical sensibility.
The natural and intimate pictorial handling of Mr. Hayashi is characteristic of all of Baillie's work, especially the deeply moving Mass for the Dakota Sioux (1963-1964)."

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Giardini/Steve McQueen


The Guardian's review:
""Turner," said Steve McQueen at yesterday's opening of the Venice Biennale, "does not own sunsets, and he doesn't own Venetian sunsets." And so it is that the London-born artist, who this year represents the UK at the world's most important and unashamedly flamboyant art event, has dared to make a romantic, lyrical, melancholic film that shows Venice hazed through mists and sunsets, dripped in wintry rain.
It ought to be a cliche, but it is not, for the Venice of McQueen's minutely observed 40-minute film is not the Venice of St Mark's Square or humpbacked bridges over picturesque canals. His Venice is the Venice of the Giardini, the city's municipal gardens. In this park stand the pavilions, each devoted to a different nation, that are filled with art every other year during the Biennale – where, in the summer, art world types air-kiss and gossip. But McQueen's film was shot in the dim light of February, after the art from the last Biennale had long gone, the pavilions were boarded up and piles of rubbish lay scattered over the lawns and paths.
The plangent film, called Giardini, is already causing a stir at Venice as one of the most talked about of the 77 national offerings for the festival, which opens to the public on Sunday."

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Friday, September 4, 2009

no sex last night/Sophie Calle


WIKI: "In 1996, Calle released a film titled No Sex Last Night which she created in collaboration with American photographer Gregory Shephard. The film documents their road trip across America, which ends in a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. Rather than following the genre conventions of a road trip or a romance, the film is designed to document the result of a man and woman who barely knew each other, embarking on an intimate journey together."

Monday, August 24, 2009

Rythmus 21/Hans Richter


ABOUT: "Rhythmus 21 is Hans Richter’s first film…Richter went on to make Rhythmus 23 (1923)…and Rhythmus 25 (1925). In this first of the series, originally known as Film ist Rhythmus, he experiments with square forms. These forms appear in very simple to very complex compositions-from the beginning shots where the squares with the frame. The effect is a subversion of the cinematic illusion of depth."

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Live-taped Video Corridor/Bruce Nauman




"Nauman set two monitors above one another at the end of a corridor almost ten meters long and only 50 cm wide. The lower monitor features a videotape of the corridor. The uppermost monitor shows a closed-circuit tape recording of a camera at the entrance to the corridor, positioned at a height of about three meters. On entering the corridor and approaching the monitors, you quickly come under the area surveyed by the camera. But the closer you get to the monitor, the further you are from the camera, with the result that your image on the monitor becomes increasingly smaller. Another cause of irritation: you see yourself from behind. Moreover, the feeling of alienation induced by walking away from yourself is heightened by your being enclosed in a narrow corridor. Here, rational orientation and emotional insecurity clash with each other. A person thus monitored suddenly slips into the role of someone monitoring their own activities.

(source: Dörte Zbikowski, in: Thomas Y. Levin (ed.), CTRL[SPACE]. rhetorics of surveillance from Bentham to big brother, ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe 2001)"