I can't wait!!! Thanks to Kathleen for sending this my way. As she has perfectly noted, "All the classic Wes things are there - the monogrammed stationery, short declarative sentences, adults that act like children, children that act like adults, and Jason Schwartzman."
Last week composer Philip Glass and rock legend Lou Reed (see another post on him here) made an appearance at an Occupy protest in front of the Lincoln Center Plaza, where Glass's opera Satyagrahawas being performed. The opera is based loosely on the life of Gandhi, and its title refers to his concept of civil disobedience in times of social injustice.
The original video clips of Glass's and Reed's speeches were not of the best quality, but amateur artist Jean Thevenin produced a more sophisticated short film documenting the scene. The music is from Glass's song "Protest," which plays during the second act of the opera (and is strikingly similar to his score from The Hours).
Before he was a film director, Stanley Kubrick worked as a photojournalist. In the summer of 1949, he shot pictures for a story called "Chicago City of Contrasts" for Look magazine. Below are some of my favorites from the Chicago collection; you can see them all here.
The Museum of the City of New York and VandM.com have also teamed up to showcase and sell some of his best work as a photographer. The images are phenomenal--take a look here.
It's easy to see his photography roots in these cinemagraphs from his movies, too (Blogspot won't let me embed GIFs). They're awesome.
The Tree of Life--you can see my original post about the film here--certainly was a beautiful movie, no hesitation on the cinematography award there (side note: Lubezki also filmed Children of Men, which has some mind-blowing, super-long action shots without any cuts. He's awesome.). But is it too avant-garde for the Oscar community? Brad Pitt was great in it too, but I'm wary of Jessica Chastain's appearance on this list, although I haven't seen her other two movies.
And can Aaron Sorkin pull off best screenplay two years in a row? We shall see.
Also, apparently there's some controversy that the New York Film Critics Circle would not wait for Extremely Loud to be released before voting for the best films of 2011. Details here.
The world’s first hand-tinted motion picture was produced by Thomas Edison’s company, Edison Studios, in 1895, more than 115 years ago. The dancer, Annabelle Moore (1878-1961), was just a teenager when this film was released, and her dance caused both a sensation and a scandal. (Note the flashes of undergarment, all the way up to above the knee, about 29 seconds in.) The film is also worth comparing with a similar but much more delicately painted version done just five years later by the Lumiere brothers.
It's been just over three years since I studied in Buenos Aires, yet now, as a city-dweller, I think about my time there more than ever. I certainly owe my decision to move to Chicago to the five months I spent in BsAs, for I never would have been ready to live on my own in an urban environment had I not experienced that ciudad bárbara.
Anyway, the short below is a sweet tribute to Argentina's own Jorge Luis Borges. The song, "De Usuahia a la Quiaca" by Gustavo Santaolalla, is from The Motorcycle Diaries(it also is the most frequently played song on my iTunes because I like to play it on repeat any time I write a paper).
Before cable or the Internet turned us into the Big Brother of Hollywood stars, silent home videos captured the intimate lives of celebrities and were tucked away for safekeeping. A collection of films from the summer of 1965, belonging originally to Roddy McDowall, has recently surfaced on YouTube, and the videos are simply amazing. The 60s are my personal Golden Age, and these videos feed into my longing for the decade like woah.
I'm a fan of Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but I'll admit I'm a little wary of how it will adapt to the screen. Stephen Daldry has taken the directing reigns, however, and with his proven expertise with The Reader, The Hours, and Billy Elliot, we can only hope he's got things under control.It'll also be great to watch Tom Hanks again...it's been a while since we've seen him in anything decent. Slash Film has the details of the film in this First Look blog post.
First off, I actually do plan on attending Andrew Bird's sound installation at the MCA (Alexa, I'm hoping you can get me the member discount?!). Also, speaking of AB: he's written the score for the upcoming indie filmNorman. Check out both a sample of his exhibit and the trailer for the movie below.
Other Concerts I Want to Check Out and May or May Not Actually Attend:
I finally saw Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, that is, I finally experienced it, for the film demands much more of its audience than a typical movie. In many ways, the piece leans more toward the avant-garde, and certainly further studying is required to tap into the mind of Malick--without pressing the pause button, without studying the frame, without taking note of the biblical references and literary allusions, the film will leave you more perplexed than entertained or inspired.
Nevertheless, while it will take many more viewing to make sense of Malick's Palme d'Or winning film, I am sure of one thing: Tree of Life's cinematographic construction, in all its Kubrickian grandeur, undoubtedly lies alongside the narrative style of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Recall the opening lines of Joyce's novel:
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo...
His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face.
He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: she sold lemon platt.
Just as Joyce's stream of consciousness mimics the psychological patterns of a toddler's mind, so, too, does Malick's camera work jump cut from memory to memory within the same scene: we're not sure how much time passes from one frame to the next; the images race across the screen in a blur, come to a halt, linger, speed up again, slow down again--a whirlwind that is the process of remembering; shots from below place us inside the eyes of the child, making real to us the enormity of the sky above and the world around. We come to realize, then, that even as adults we still remain the tiniest, most insignificant of creatures in our vast universe.
Of course, this question of postmodern self-identity leads to the subject of morality and purpose--in our daily lives, in nature, in the history of Earth, in the infinite realm of space--which is perhaps the major component of The Tree of Life. This is when I must halt; I can say no more before studying the film again...and again.
In trying to decipher Malick's puzzling (I say that in all respect!) piece, I've gathered some articles for help. I'm going to have to find a copy of the most recent Film Comment to read Kent Jones's analysis of the film, as it's not available online. Here are some other posts with varying interpretations and reviews if you're interested:
