Running out of glue...

Collage, collage, collage, I've run out of glue. I've run out of ink too. Waiting for the postman to bring them, hopefully they arrive tomorrow. If not, I have to buy some in a regular shop. Bloody expensive. I used to have liquid glue, very cheap, but that soaks the paper and makes it wavy. So now I use pritt sticks from amazon... Please feel free to use this idea. Okay. Examples...

Scala Beyond - Filmbar70 presents A Very British Apocalypse: NO BLADE OF GRASS/THREADS

Shocking evening at Roxy Bar & Screen, I left speechless. There were two films presented by Filmbar70. After the nuclear war training video the evening was introduced, we watched a part from The Changes, the trailer of The Day of the Triffids, of The Day the Earth Caught Fire, and a Filmbar70 teaser. The first feature was No Blade of Grass. The intro music is great. Listen to it: Roger Whittaker - No Blade of Grass. An ecological disaster creates panic in society people flee from the cities and are forced to fight for their survival. With guns. It is quite explicit and honest, with a successful rape scene and ultra violence, but still entertaining. Many times ridiculous but gives a lot to think about. Mixed up narrative. Flashbacks. The Rolls Royce advert. The graphic birth scene. Experimental special effects! Beautiful photography, I think it connects to Antonioni. The closing music is great. Listen to it: Roger Whittaker - No Blade of Grass.
After a short break a very effective introduction set the mood for the next film: Threads. Silence throughout. This film goes all the way. There is no entertainment here, no jokes, no fake scenes. 
What connects? I heard a shocking Hiroshima story on RadioLab - Double Blasted. Also, if you haven't seen, watch animated short The Big Snit. After the show a girl suggested me watching The War Game, and I recommended her Glen and Randa. Yesterday morning I was reading tweets of Alejandro Jodorowsky sharing his ideas on preserving life on the planet. On my bicycle I was thinking: 'Why the fuck do we need so many cars?' there are cars everywhere, with only one person sitting in most of them. Why do we need so much concrete? Why not redesign the whole city? Instead of pulling up skyscrapers for useless bankers and building all these cars, which are being thrown away in few years time anyway, Break the concrete, plant trees. Walk, cycle. Why rush? Who said we have to run everywhere, like crazy. Unhealthy. Insane. Slow down.

Don't miss 'Filmbar70 presents Eerie Down-Under Double Bill' at Roxy Bar & Screen on Thursday 30 August at 7.00pm.

Scala Beyond - The Duke Mitchell Film Club presents August Birthday Blow-out!

The Duke Mitchell Film Club. 5th birthday. I read the declaration. It was my first time there, at The Lion pub. As no friend showed up, I decided to learn using my camera. Until the screening started upstairs. There were nice lights, good music in the background, pictures of drive-in theatres on the screen like this and this, this, this, this... What would it be like screening a film onto a fractured, rusty drive in screen? The evening of fun started with Evrim's introduction and an intro film, and then we could choose between two 'Trailer Trash' compilations to see. We watched the first one, collected by Alex, which was the first one that was screened at the first screening of The Duke (if I remember well). Please watch these. Massacre Maffia Style, second time I see this trailer and now I want to see the film as well. And I really want to make a film with a shotgun scene in it. That is for sure. Or a film about a guy who wants to make a film with a shotgun scene in it. Bucktown. Shotguns! The Pink Angels. South indian rock & roll musical. Vibraton. Hot Rods to Hell. Police Women. The Young Runaways. Carmen BAby. Quiz for prizes. Then we chose to see Ducked and Covered, Australian survival guide to post apocalypse. Then, quiz for prizes. You were shown stills of board games/video games and had to find out which film they were made of. Images like this. Dawn of the Dead board game. Twin Peaks board game. Friday the 13th video game. It's interesting to see this stuff. Texas Chainsaw retro video game. Halloween. Waterworld . Escape from New York. Board game cover design. More trailers. Heartbreaker - great music, people tapping their feet, nod, tap. Buckstone County Prison. Meet the Hollowheads. Murder by the Book. Dark Incal. Phantom of the Ritz. Angel. Make sure to watch The Room.

Then came more fun. Commercials collected by Alex. Commercials of Stan Freberg, Jeno's Pizza Rolls for instance, and more. Psychedelic Levi's commercials narrated by Ken Nordine, this here for example, and this. Good to see it on youtube to get the idea, but on a screening you get good quality, large scale, darkness, people to share the experience with and someone passionate and alive who talks you through stuff, and many of the films are rare finds and are not available online. Dark, nightmare flavor commercials by Joe Sedelmaier, Federal Express, Southern Airlines (disgusting quality),  Wendy's, and another one. I hate commercials. These are interesting. And there were more, but I can't find them...  Then came more commercials. Hagoromo tuna. Streetsounds 18. AFri Cola. Evrim's slots with Allstate Insurance commercial,  Rabies commercials, a pushchair safety animation, Play Safe - Kites and Planes,  nuclear war safety video, escalator safety Stand still!, Billy Blunders,  electricity can kill.

A Day with the Boys to give an end to the evening, a rather dark mood short photographed by Laszlo Kovacs. Image is so powerful on its own. Experiment. Film and experimentation for its own sake.

Thank you for yesterday, great show! I wouldn't have got a fraction of this fun in a normal cinema.

The Duke Mitchell Film Club is doing a 16mm night on 26 Sept, and a Night of the Trailer at Roxy on 23 Sept. Watch the teaser here.

Scala Beyond - Savage Cinema presents THE COMPANY OF WOLVES / PAPERHOUSE

I just got back from Roxy Bar & Screen where I saw two fantastic films screened by Savage Cinema for Scala Beyond. Kids' films for adults. Both are recommended. I'm not sure what to write, but I'll try to jot a few notes down. Homemade elderflower cordial. First film was The Company of Wolves, a Little Red Riding Hood story. Full of surreal scenes. Giant mushrooms, psychedelic colours, rainbow. Forest, magic items, fantasy. The dining scene was my favourite. Quite a few funny fake effects. What is the reason for its sexuality? There is a link that connects to this film and subject: The Childrens Bizarre (got it from Today is Boring Adam).
Then after a short break came Paperhouse, a girl's dreams respond to her drawings, we move back and forth between her dreams and wakeful states. Dreams are dreamlike, absorbing. Now, opposed to the previous movie, there is very little sexuality here on the surface, the girl even looks and dressed as a boy. Why?
It was great to see two good films I have never heard of before.
The sofas are much much much more comfortable than the wooden chairs when it comes to watching a movie. I would fill the room with sofas, or pillows. Quality of the screening was perfect, enjoyed both films. thank You
I'm very sleepy, I want to dream.
Meet you there!

Scala Beyond - Pub Space presents THE RULES OF ATTRACTION/AMERICAN PSYCHO

Went to The Hanbury Arms yesterday with Ted, a future film producer friend, to watch two films written by Bret Easton Ellis. The pub is in a very calm, quiet area, it had a Sunday mood. Beautiful summer day. There were about 20 people watching the film upstairs. Very cute room with its own bar, available for free hire (call 02072882222 to book). After a couple of pints we sat down to watch the movie - The Rules of Attraction. American college drama, quite cheesy. Beautiful people everywhere having orgies, eating drugs, and having problems, crying a lot. The less pretty is killing herself straight away. There was a song I liked: The Cure - Six Different Ways. I have two questions. Why was the guy having a Full Metal Jacket smile? What is the meaning of Terminator riding by at the end of the film? I was looking forward to watching American Psycho as I haven't seen this film before. Enjoyed it. Especially the film look of the movie. I would like to find out how is that crisp texture is made. Must be very costly. After leaving the pub it was great to see people enjoying the warm night on the streets of Angel. Thank you Pub Space. You should have seen the guy on tube next to us, drawing childish sketches into a notebook like crazy. Probably was on the way to chop someone up with an ax.

Scala Beyond opening Film Jam

The Scala Beyond film festival opening night was great at the Roxy Bar yesterday night. I wanted to put a review or reflection together to share my thoughts on the event and the films. It was free entry with a free cocktail and huge sofas to lie in. Film clubs that take part in the festival were introducing themselves and were screening their carefully selected shorts and trailers. First, Cigarette Burns Cinema was screening The Lie Chair by David Cronenberg, first time I saw it, a thriller, featuring a couple of funny murderous grandmas. Worth to watch. So good to hear other people laugh at odd scenes in the background. Hot summer night. 29th Oct to 3rd Nov at Leicester Place - says a short, quite disturbing advert, a nurse pushing another man in a wheelchair screaming in a straitjacket.. I forgot what is the advert for. Filmbar70 screened film teasers with music selected from the 70s. I haven't seen anything of those before and now I want to see all of them. This was true for the whole evening. Rare selection throughout. This was one of the teasers on giallo, check out the rest on youtube, amazing music. Watch this 70s commercial - ICI Fibres, was shown by Filmbar70. Then we saw a reading of a story, Late Night Story - Tom Baker 'The Photograph' , again, the darkness and the huge screen helps engaging, and the reading is something we don't often see today but so powerful, it is up to the viewer to visualise the characters, to connect the lines, imagine. There are no mistakes, fake, unreal scenery, I don't try looking constantly behind the scenes, it is only the story and my imagination, emotion. The 'spooky', 'magic realism' continues on Monday at Roxy Bar at the Night of the Psychotronic Soundtrack . Beautiful red curtain separates the screening from the pub, and you can somewhat hear the pub noise in the background, social feeling.

BFI Flipside brought Skinflicker, a training film made on how to kidnap a minister. In New Wave style. Characters were speaking to the cameraman, who was also involved in the story, very realistic, monologues reminded me of Godard. Tarantino might have seen this before Reservoir Dogs. I loved the silent 8mm footage, the image speaks for itself.. How to program films? (I was thinking) Why are these films being shown? Passangerfilms brought two films on whale hunt, one was Vive La Baleine by Chris Marker - I love, love, love La Jetee and I haven't had the chance to see another film of his - beautiful, the narrator talks to whales, telling their story in history and their relationship with humanity. Killing whales, killing ourselves, we want to slaughter all of them as fast as possible. Gives you another perspective on looking at animals. Whaling in the Antarctic was the next film, by Charles Swithinbank- a British glaciologist in 1949. I believe it is from his own personal records but came to light as part of the British Library Oral History of Science project. Black and white footage of a hunt and the carving up of whales. Somehow, it is watchable, probably because it isn't red, and an old footage, and the filmmaker talks you through the process. Surreal experience. Tiny people chopping up a giant, meat everywhere.  http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/  Have a look at  The Whale Hunt by Jonathan Harris , a photographic project he did in Alaska, might be interesting. London Short Film Festival - submissions are open until the middle of september, if you have a film, please submit it. Or make one. They screened a short animation by Robert Morgan - Bobby Yeah. Horrible, horrible, disturbing... improvised story, quality construction, well made. I didn't understand what is the point of screening purely disturbing stuff, then when someone shared his opinion at the Q&A, then I thought: it could be the point. Ask the audience what do they think and feel, make it interactive, so we can figure something out. As a way of getting out of that repressed, dark hole. What do they think the story is about, what is the meaning, who are the characters, what can we do with this, 'What the fuck?' Days are Numbers  came on with refreshing teasers of 70s films with music after the animation, I recognised the Hungarian version of the Soviet anthem, was the Elvis film that run underneath Hungarian as well? Codename: Dragonfly to follow. Suitcase Cinema presented another Chris Marker film - Valparaiso, straight from 16mm, a poetic documentary on a Chilean city, it has a Neorealist feel to it. It is really special to see it from the analogue projector and to hear the rolling noise in the background. Video Tape Swap Shop screened a must see film the Catman, one of the funniest things I ever saw. So bad. I love the idea of 'creating cult films' out of unknown. They will screen The Holy Mountain remade entirely out of dogs footage in Deptford, 25th of August. The last one for the evening, morning, was the Duke Mitchell Film Club with a selection of rare trailers found and mixed by Alex. Trailer for Black Panther Warriors, Strike Commando, Fun and Fury (subtitled for the first time by Alex). Tune for Two. Santo Gold was introduced - to a very joyful, energetic audience, and I don't remember what was the last thing, but it was fun. It is the Duke's 5th birthday celebration on Wednesday, check out their program.

Thank you Scala Beyond, great experience, fill the land with cinemas!! 

Shape

Style and content in Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari

The aim of this academic essay is to explain how the style and content of Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari are representative of its time and place of production. I wish to present the findings of the relevant research in an objective manner. As the subject of the research I chose the film Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari. One of the most important reasons for research is to broaden my critical and historical awareness of cinema as an art form and as social institution. When I started this essay I had several questions in my mind such as – ‘What is style (form)? What is theme (content)? How do they work in film? How do they work in my chosen film?’. Practical ways of filmmaking, construction and visualisation of stories, graphical representation of moods, feelings and psychological states are of my interest.

I first read about this film in the book Film as a Subversive Art by Amos Vogel, who writes ‘this extraordinary work - in terms of impact, one of the most important films ever made – is a metaphysical construct disguised as a melodramatic thriller’ (Vogel, 2005, p.53). After watching the film while taking notes of my thoughts related to it, the starting point of my research was the college library where related books are available to be read. The Cinema Book by Pam Cook was suggested in the essential reading list of the brief as it is a good source of information for any film related research. In fact, it contains essays on German cinema, German Expressionism, art cinema and on Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari. The film was produced in Germany, 1919. Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari is considered the first and most important film of German Expressionist cinema, which lasted a decade. It is a black and white silent film with the runtime of 78 minutes. It is a good example for analysing form and content. It requires a general understanding of the concept of expressionism, which is a rather deep subject.

The content of the film mainly comes from its two scriptwriters Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer who first imagined their story on screen. Their story is about a somnambulist hypnotised by a mad scientist that makes him commit murders in a small town. According to Siegfried Kracauer, they wished to express their feelings toward the system they lived in. The Czech Janowitz ‘settled in Berlin, met Carl Mayer there, and soon found out that this eccentric young man , who had never before written a line, shared his revolutionary moods and views. Why not express them on screen?’ (Kracauer, 1974, p.63). They saw connotations in this story for their situation at the time in post war Germany. The mad scientist Caligari and the somnambulist Cesare represented the relationship of authority and the individual, where there is a lust for domination and violation of human rights. (Kracauer, 1974, p.65). ‘According to the pacifist minded Janowitz, they had created Cesare with the dim design of portraying the common man who, under the pressure of compulsory military service, is drilled to kill and to be killed’ (Kracauer, 1974, p.65). By the time it reached production – in the Decla studio - the initial story was framed with a framing story where Janowitz and Mayer’s idea is a hallucination of a deranged person while Caligari is sane. The framing story was against the writers’ intentions and created controversy. The theme of the film was conventional and typical of the detective films produced at the time. The original script, which was lost and then recently found, adds to debates regarding the form of the film. Robinson writes that ‘There is no inherent Expressionist content in the original scenario’ (Robinson, 1997, p.39).

The Expressionist style, which breaks with convention, was added as a dressing of the content. A number of factors contribute to the final outlook, which is the work of a group of people rather than a single author. There were discussions regarding the style of the film. To achieve success and to impress the audience of the time the designers of Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari decided on using an expressionist outlook, which was currently fashionable on stage. Painters Hermann Warm, Walter Rohrig and Walter Reimann were hired to design the settings for the film. Production leader Rudolph Meinert ‘wanted the style and production to appear crazy… as crazy as could be. The film would then be a success as a sensation, regardless of whether the press turned out negative or positive, whether the critics killed it or praised it as art – either way the experiment would be in profit’ Warm (cited in Robinson, 1997, p.22). The designers studied recent stage settings in theatre, especially those of Max Reinhardt. Apart from the designers, decisions of the producer, work of the director, authors comments, audience expectations, recent artistic fashions and budget were affecting production. After pre-production, initial sketches and plans ‘shooting began at the end of December 1919 and lasted till the end of January 1920’ (Robinson, 1997, p.24).

What is the Expressionist style? In Robinson’s book I found a description by John Willett that highlights the broadness of the term:

Expressionism is normally:

1.     a family characteristic of modern art, literature, music and theatre, from the term of the century to the present day

2.     a particular modern German movement which lasted roughly between 1910 and 1922

3.     a quality of expressive emphasis and distortion which may be found in works of art of any people or period (cited in Robinson, 1997, p35)

Expressionist literature and painting was concerned with the visual realisation of emotion and the images in the mind. Dark psychological subjects such as paranoia, anxiety, or the fear of cities, authority and machines were often depicted. Expressionist painters in the beginning of the 20^th century opposed Impressionism and opposed realism. Painting was used to communicate more subjective experiences of the world rather than to create principally correct images. Photographs were already able to capture visual correctness. Expression of emotions, moods, psychological states were in the centre of expressionist art. Comparing paintings from the two different perspectives highlight important differences. The Origin of the World by Gustave Corbet from 1866 is an almost photographic representation of a nude, in which the main attention is on the technical aspects and on the principal correctness of the creation process. Kirchner’s Nude in Orange and Yellow shows no respect to classic principles, uses unrealistic colours and the emphasis is not on the technical aspects anymore. Colours and shapes become symbolic and represent an inner point of view of their creator. By the time of producing Caligari, Expressionism in Germany became commonly accepted. ‘Far from being a strange, frightening challenge for the public, then, expressionism seems to have offered a positive attraction at the moment when Meinert and Wiene adopted the proposal of Warm, Reimann and Rohrig to do Caligari in Expressionist style’ (Robinson, 1997, p.38).

By analysing a scene I wish to reflect on possible perspectives I found in different writings on the film’s mise en scene (decor and scenery, lighting, acting, filmic attributes etc.). The scene starts with the text ‘Night Again’ at about 39 minutes and lasts until 44. There are no people at the fair, the protagonist sneaks silently up to Caligari’s house where the doctor and the somnambulist are both asleep. Then (at the same time in the story) we see the somnambulist walking down an empty street making his way to his next victim. It is an unearthly situation, plays with the mind, the viewer wonders how is it possible for the somnambulist to be in two places at the same time. The scenery reminds me of watching a theatre play on stage. Background environments (streets, city landscape, windows etc.) are painted on in an unusual way, which is not following the rules of reality. It seems to be an expanded view of stage performance with closer viewpoints. The shots were made in studio environments with constructed props. Acting is again unrealistic, body gestures are exaggerated, characters have heavy make-up. It is ‘robot-like, as if the false curves and movements of the decor being duplicated by the protagonists’ (Vogel, 1974, p.53). There is a certain rhythm to the scene. At times characters move very slowly and then suddenly speed up. The rhythm changes according to the narrative. Characters interacting with the painted backgrounds create in the viewer a sense of looking at living drawings. The somnambulist carries his victim up drawn buildings as if moving deeper inside a three-dimensional drawing. ‘The abstraction and total distortion of the Caligari sets are seen at their most extreme in the vision of the prison-cell, with its verticals narrowing as they rise like arrow-heads’ (Eisner, 1973, p.24). Colour seems to have importance in a symbolic way. The bedroom scene with the sleeping woman is divided into two separate areas of colour: one black, and another white (dark and light). The innocent female victim sleeps unconsciously in the white space, covered in white clothes. The somnambulist dressed in black enters the scene through the dark area and slowly penetrates the opposite side. Aspects of the scene can translate into different meanings and analysing the scene from different perspectives provide food for thought. The contrast of the white dagger with the dark background creates an impressive effect. What is the meaning of that moment? For instance, one translation could be that the white knife matches the lightness of the sleeping woman hence unable to harm her. It could also be treated as a mere compositional element, which looks visually impressive or one that contributes to the graphic communication of the story. The camera is still and ‘largely immobile (except for a few tracking shots), in middle distance; there is barely any editing; camera angles are conventional. The only concession to film technique is the use of a circular or diamond shaped iris device…’ (Vogel, 1974, p.53). Diamond shape and circular frames are unusual in film history. There is still, today, a solid convention of using rectangular format frame when compositing films. The scene uses close-ups in a tabloid manner, where the close-up is an enlargement of the actual scene. The camera occasionally cuts away to parallel happenings in the storyline. We see people waking up in another room upon hearing the screaming of the attacked woman. The editing uses fade-ins and fade-outs to change between scenes.

Although the kind of painted backgrounds the film featured were rarely adapted in future movies in the exact same way (Bergfelder in Cook, 2007, p.210), the expressionist style and storytelling immensely influenced filmmaking. The character of a manipulative Caligari is a main subject of German Expressionist cinema and recurs, for instance, in Murnau’s Nosferatu or in Lang’s Metropolis. The murderous somnambulist resembles Norman Bates, or Peeping Tom. The entertaining shock and fear effect of the film was emphasised and influenced a sea of horror while the techniques of German Expressionism were often used in Film Noir. Amos Vogel lists films along with Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari under the label ‘Expressionism: The Cinema of Unrest’ such as Death by Hanging, The Cremator or Viva La Muerte. He also considers expressionism, along surrealism and dada, a ‘most subversive tendency of our century’ (Vogel, 2005, p.45). Arrabal’s Viva La Muerte leads to the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, who takes filmic expressionism to its extreme and is obsessed with visualising subjective content that comes from unconscious levels of the mind. Realism and expressionism can go hand in hand as one can see in films such as Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Accatone where a dream scene is used to symbolise certain meanings. Federico Fellini filmed in studio systems and constructed his memories in a highly subjective approach. Budget enabled his films to give realistic representations of his imagination as it is seen in Satyricon, Casanova or in a rather cheerful Amarcord. Representation of ‘images of the mind’ (Eisner, 1973, p24) on screen was experimented with endlessly and the process still goes on.

Bibliography

Cook, P. (2007) The Cinema Book. 2nd ed. London: British Film Institute.

Eisner, L. H. (1973) The Haunted Screen. California: University of California Press.

Kracauer, S. (1974) From Caligari to Hitler. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Rees, A. L. (1999) A History of Experimental Film and Video. London: British Film Institute.

Robinson, D. (1997) Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari. London: British Film Institue.

Vogel, A. (2005) Film as a Subversive Art. C. T. Editions Ltd.

Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari (1929) Directed by Robert Wiene. Weimar: Decla-Bioscop [Video: DVD]

35mm

I printed nine frames of my first 35mm film. Film photography and using the dark room is great fun!

The best outcome is a photo from OFFF Barcelona. THANK YOU James Victore!!

First three pinhole photos of my life :)

Visual Grammar

We had a couple of visual grammar workshops with Tony Pritchard. Quite useful exercises, an attractive direction for experiments. Tony's blog http://tonypritchard.wordpress.com/ His classes blog http://pgdipdvc.myblog.arts.ac.uk/ great work and links...

Three examples, more to follow.

Loop #6