Ben's done it again. Genius!

Currently reading (or rather, devouring) - Tender Is The Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Sometimes it's harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure and the memory so possessed him that for a moment there was nothing to do but to pretend... One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick, but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or of the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it." - So beautifully and romantically devastating. Fitzgerald's way with words, with descriptions, endow him with an incredible ability to grasp human nature at its essence.

Finished reading - Londoners, C. Taylor

[This post is linked to the post I wrote on the 21st of January.] I think I’ve just finished reading the most extraordinary, breath-taking, emotional, colourful, rich, book about London. “Londoners” by Craig Taylor. A oral history of London really. A collection of different people’s insights of the city, of different Londoners’ insights. Or maybe not Londoners, ex-Londoners, new-Londoners, Londoners who are fed up of being in London. Truly amazing, so rich, and real… so humane! You feel like you can see those people, you can hear their voices; you can see their smile, their frown, when they speak; you can share their joy, their disappointments, their hopes, when they tell their story. Reading this book made me think back to my experience of documentary filmmaking. The decision of making a film about the “London rush”, represented by this clash that I always see in underground stations between commuters and charity fundraisers. It reminded me of how frustrating it was to collect interviews, but how satisfying it was when they’d “deliver” what you wanted and needed for the film. But also how great it was to discover new and surprising insights that maybe you weren’t expecting to receive. It’s so great to see humanity and society in this way, to have this approach to sociology and anthropology. I praise C. Taylor for his choice of how to portray a city like London (not an easy task) – through its people. It’s the people that make up society, that are society. It’s not the numbers, not the data, not the graphs about demography and forecasts. Society is more than just data. People are more than just numbers. People are their voices, their experiences. Let them speak. Just listen to them, watch them – it’ll be so much more fun than seeing them through a curve on a graph.

Ara Pacis (Roma) - "Gemme dell'Impressionismo" Ott'13-Feb'14

(Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Madame Monet e suo figlio)

"Questo delizioso quadro di Renoir, che oggi sono contento di avere, è il ritratto della mia prima moglie. Lo dipinse nel giardino della nostra casa ad Argenteuil un giorno che Manet, attratto dai colori della luce, aveva iniziato a dipingere en plein air, con le figure sotto gli alberi.

In quel mentre arrivò Renoir che, colpito anche lui dalla bellezza della scena, mi chiese di prestargli la tavolozza, i pennelli e una tela e cominciò a dipingere.

Manet accanto a lui lo osservava con la coda dell'occhio e di tanto in tanto lanciava uno sguardo alla tela.

Poi, con una specie di smorfia mi si avvicinò e mi bisbigliò nell'orecchio indicando Renoir: 'Quel ragazzo non ha proprio talento, per favore, tu che sei suo amico, digli di lasciar perdere la pittura!'."

Claude Monet

Currently reading - Londoners, C. Taylor

Whatever their reason or origin, they are laughing, rushing, conniving, snatching free evening newspapers, speaking into phones, complaining, sweeping floors, tending to hedge funds, pushing empty pint glasses, marching, arguing, drinking, kneeling, swaying, huffing at those who stand on the left-hand side of the escalator, moving, moving, always moving. It's a city of verbs.

Uberto Pasolini's Still Life - some thoughts

Just a couple of days ago I came across my blog because of a comment that a blogger had posted about my blog-post on “Last Night”. It was a pleasant surprise – I had nearly forgotten about this piece of me, of my mind, of my thoughts, that was still floating around on the cyber-waves of the Internet. So I started reading through all of my blog-posts – and a big nostalgia, and regret of not having written anything for a long time, inevitably grew.

Going to the cinema that very night couldn’t have come at a better time. Nonna, my auntie, and I went to the Cinema Eden here in Rome as part of our celebrations for my nan’s 83rd birthday. Auntie’s decision on which film to watch – Uberto Pasolini’s Still Life. Maybe not the best film to watch on a birthday, given the topic of death and funerals. In any case, I was very interested in watching this as I’d already seen the trailer and it had undoubtedly provoked my curiosity.

I cannot clearly enough state, or with enough excitement and conviction, just what a jewel of a film this was.

The story was so simple, yet so original and it really draws you in, it makes you watch, listen, think, extremely carefully about every single detail on the screen.

This is why I think that more than the story I was really impressed with the filming and editing of the film. I could see a clear line of specific choices developing, on the side of the whole film-crew, in order to convey the story in a very particular way, arousing very specific feelings in the audience.

Shooting choice: still camera; when a person was the subject, close-ups and central takes were used way more than third-line angle shots. When a landscape was the subject, the camera remained still and very rarely followed the subject within the landscape, allowing him to just walk in and out of the shot. These filming choices were really obvious, and really “in your face”; I definitely could not avoid them. And it did feel like staring at a still-life of Cézanne, where all you can look at is really just that pear or peach lying on that table. Just the same, in this film all you could look at was really just that apple being peeled by John May for the 100000th time, with those repeated and peaceful hand movements. And it really captured you into what he could be thinking in that moment; was he thinking or feeling anything different despite repeating that same exact movement as every other day? Was his rock-solid hope and trust in his job and in humanity still that robust even after hearing yet another person rejecting the invitation to the funeral of a relative? Indeed, I actually think that this choice of shooting was a very clever way of focusing on the humanity and on the man. And while many may have spontaneously thought – “Oh poor man, eating that tin of tuna for the 10000th time, what a sad and repeated life!” This was a way of pushing the audience to – look at this man here! Look at him in his every single detail, at the harmony and serenity with which he sticks those photographs on that already-fat photoalbum. There is a meaning in this, it is not senseless! – these are the movements, this is the action of someone who doesn’t lose faith in what he believes in, who inherently loves what he does, and thinks that someone else may one day pick up the phone and understand its value too.

Music: The score, if I’ve noticed well enough, is made of one song only, played with a few variations across the film. The one only different song is however played during John May’s funeral. Again, a sense of routine being portrayed via the choice of soundtrack. That song may as well be the soundtrack of John May’s life– but musical variations are there and they’re cleverly used. Just as in any human life, even in the simplest and most down-to-earth one, changes are in the details, and as long as those details are valued and watered like precious flowers, they will certainly reward you with special and new feelings. Just like the musical variation playing when John May springs out of his desk to run to the parking to stop his boss to ask him for a few more days to work on his last case – even after already being fired. Because he’d listened to the small detail in his routine, and had noticed the opportunity for new and exciting developments.

Repeated shots, scenes, actions: You might have got by now that I really did not get the feeling of monotony when watching this glimpse in John May’s life. No – every action of John May is immersed in the purest dedication and love for that particular action. Even on the day he dies, scenes are repeated, shots of his every-day life (table, photoalbum, street with a man smoking out of a window). Yet, it couldn’t be a more different and new day. Finally, John May is able to get everyone to go to Billy Stokes’ – his “last case”. Definitely something out of his routine.

The turning-point: Every film has a middle, a center, a turning point. Here, I think, it was the shot of John May sitting on a train on his way back from meeting Kelly Stokes, to London. For a split second he gives in to people’s carelessness, to frustration, to the idea of the futility of his work, and lets his head drop on his hands, on his bag. You never see him despair throughout the film – his dedication and hope is never even slightly scratched, not even from his boss firing him. In fact, this is only a split second in the film, but it definitely feels like a turning point. From here things start to go “better”. Meeting with Jumbo, with the two homeless men, expressing his feelings about his boss (by peeing on his car), leaving his office, preparing his last funeral in every single detail, with more joy than ever, leading him to give up the burial site he’d booked for himself. His face and look also brighten up. His hair-do loosens up. He loses his dull dark suit, to wear a light and loose blue jumper. He smiles. He’s contented. He’s accomplished. And is ready for the next page of his still life.

Michael Moore - Fahrenheit 9/11 - thoughts

Interesting story, interesting because I didn't know much about it.

Not sure whether it was told in the best way though. The director approached way too many topics to prove his point (point being the uselessness of the Bush administration in his first mandate). Accusing an administration is in itself a big task to tackle in one documentary. 

Yes, he mainly approached it from a 9/11 perspective (the Bush non-readiness to respond to the attacks and how his whole administration + family were meddled in a big Saudi mud). But he used other topics as well, which only has the effect of the typical "Bush is s**t" conclusion. Which isn't really a constructive conclusion.

This is particularly dangerous when members of the audience are politics, IR, foreign affairs-ignorant and completely trust whatever they are told by the media. Especially when the media is provided by a documentary-filmmaker (people trust that documentary-filmmakers always portray the pure truth).

This also proves the point of how documentaries are never really objective but always carry a subjective angle of the filmmaker.

I'm actually not too opposed to this reality. I think subjective positions on certain topics are more interesting and enriching than objective descriptions. But the viewer/audience must be aware of this and be critical while watching the documentary.

One must be aware for example, of the director's power to manipulate the footage and archive he has. Moore often inserts clips of bits of Bush' press conferences/interviews, as responses to cries and questions of frustrated citizens/interviewees. The viewer should be aware that the words Moore decides to insert could  be completely out of context. One doesn't in fact know what he had said before or after that specific chosen extract.

From the filming point of view, it was interesting to see the effect of inserting a camera in the environment the director wanted to film.

I noticed this especially in the last scenes of the film:

when Moore goes to Congress to approach congressmen and ask them if they want to enlist their children, and

when one of Moore's interviewee who has lost her son in Iraq goes to Capitol Hill to face the source of her desperation and breaks down in front of the building.

Congressmen are (mostly, although one is) not disturbed by Moore's interruption of their daily activities and by Moore's anchorman. They "play along" and try to laugh off Moore's statements about there being only one congressman whose son is in the army.

It's incredible how "comfortable" the woman feels around the camera, to the point of expressing her whole desperation and frustration freely. The scene really gives out this feeling. Then again, the feeling losing a son in war might just be too big to hide, even in front of a camera.

I also liked the beginning and ending scenes of the film: a series of shots of the members of the Bush cabinet getting prepped for an interview/press conference (make-up, lights, microphone), and at the end, shots of these same people, finishing their interview/press conference and having their microphones taken off.

 Finally I found very clever and powerful at the beginning the use of the pitch black screen playing for a few minutes with just sound, the noises/voices of people on the streets on 9/11. I think it has a powerful effect because every member of the audience knows exactly what is going on, but they're all living those few minutes of dark screen privately, with their own feelings, emotions and memories of how they remember that awful day.

Massy Tadjedin - Last Night - thoughts

I've just finished re-watching this film for the second time. I remember really liking this film. I remember it moving a lot of passions and emotions inside of me, and I remember being particularly impressed by the last scene - the long hug between Sam Worthington & Keira Knightley, them moving away from the hug, looking down and back up into each others' eyes, and Keira pulling a long breath as if she was about to say something - and woof! - black screen, film is over.

I watched this two years ago, around this time of the year. This time, I rewatched it with a new eye, an eye that I ambitiously would like to call a self-shooting filmmaker's eye (hopefully one day), and that I more modestly (and realistically) call a student's eye with experience and knowledge in filmmaking and editing.

I started noticing so many things that I hadn't noticed before.

Like the series of jumpcuts Tadjedin uses throughout the film to build up a certain kind of connection with the audience, to make the audience feel, or at least get a step closer to feeling, what the actor/character is feeling. In fact these jumpcuts are often all series of silent shots: Keira in the flat after Sam has left for Philadelphia (clears the kitchen, washes up, sorts out magazines); Keira when she's on the phone to Guillaume; Sam after he's had sex with Eva...

And then the cut-aways - ohmygod. For example when Keira & Guillaume are in the bar, and they're chatting and the editor inserts a cutaway of Guillaume looking at and listening to Keira while rubbing/stroking his chin.

And how the director has made the film flow so well is so incredible. The topics of choice, responsible choice, destiny, faith, randomness, are stable and recur throughout the entire film and the director just makes the couple tackle these topics, and alternates in an incredibly smooth way each scene: Sam & Eva at the bar where Eva says that she often plays a game where she will do something depending on whether or not something else, someone else's action will happen - so that, as Sam points out, she is relieved of any responsibility; followed immediately by Guillaume and Keira at the restaurant, where the latter says something like "Isn't it incredible how so many things happen at such random times?"; or again "Michael"'s friend asking "Joanna" questions about her marriage, where one obviously sees how incredibly uncomfortable she feels to answer those questions in front of "Alex"; followed by "Laura" walking with "Michael" and asking him about his wife...)

This magic and smooth flow is certainly supported by the audio-editing of the entire film. I found it so clever how one Michael-Laura scene hasn't even finished, that the audio/dialogue of the next Alex-Joanna scene already starts - exactly because the two scenes are connected by a common topical thread.

Other than the editing, I found the soundtrack really good, and the acting absolutely mesmerising - and I'm referring particularly to Keira's and how genuine and real she is. How her character changes when she's around "Michael" to when she's with "Michael", clearly showing different sides of her past and the thoughts, memories and feelings she associates with the two men.

The acting was so good, it really showed the different type of chemistry between the two couples: Alex-Joanna a more romantic, passionate, suffered one, a more "mature" one; Michael-Laura more about lust, temptation, seduction, less "mature" and more of a "impossible-to-resist" kind. (I guess this is also why Last Night is the film that made me hate Eva Mendes. Obviously I know that I don't actually hate Eva Mendes - I hate her character... and if the acting is so good to make me develop such strong feelings about an actress/character, I guess that says a lot about that actress' acting skills.)

And once again I was completely dazzled by the last scene. The acting is top-notch. But the final cut on Keira breathing in and turning her head, ready to say something, is beautiful and perfect, because it carries you into another world. The next screen may be black and followed by the rolling credits, but that last scene and editing cut has given you just enough, has provoked you just enough to keep thinking about the story, about what could happen next.

Great video-clip for a great song. I love M83 and how each and everyone of their songs is able to carry you into a different world.

Wow - might well be one of my favourite pictures ever. Caine. Freeman. Neeson. 3 of the best actors on the planet;  With one (great) thing in common - Nolan's Batman Trilogy.

photography by Art Streiber.

Currently reading - On the Road, J. Kerouac

"Because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"

The Central Park Five.

I just got back from the screening of "The Central Park Five" at the BFI London Film Festival.

It was a great documentary, about a very tough, deep story. The memories and the recounting of the "Five" were heart-gripping and emotional. 

The way it was filmed was very simple, in my opinion, and I guess Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon chose such a style in order for all the audience's attention to be fully dedicated to the stories of the five characters. And they succeeded in this, as there wasn't a moment where I did not want to hear more about the feelings and thoughts they had during that terrible period.

I admire the directors for having chosen this topic, as it is true what was being said towards the end of the documentary: although the five men were acquitted from all charges, the attention they got while they were still 'guilty', to a great extent outweighed the recognition they received when their freedom was granted.

I know it is not hard to say sorry - especially if being right means that one has a certain status and authority (i.e. the attorneys involved in the case) and if apologising means accepting ones inefficiency - but these 5 men lost a significant part of their life, which they will never get back.

I guess one more reason why I was so impressed with this documentary, is that these 5 characters were kids at the time they were incriminated. During the entire scene where the kids' so-called confessions where videotaped, I just thought "that could be my brother". ... They were so young!

This screening was my "initiation" to the London Film Festival, and to Film Festivals in general really, and I was very happy with it!

So, I know I said my absolute favourite trailer of the year was that of Man of Steel with Russel Crowe's voiceover. But this might have just topped it! I had shivers running down my back while watching it. What an incredible trailer! Some emotional scenes there, and the choice of background song was just perfect [I love M83 and how they are always able to carry you into another world with their music]. I love how there is nothing but the music playing and the scenes changing; the viewer doesn't hear any piece of dialogue of the film - except for the powerful and heartbreaking cry of Marion Cotillard at 0.53. It's just incredible. Cannot wait to watch the film! 

"My name is Harvey Milk - and I'm here to recruit you."

I love Sean Penn's acting in Milk. It's just pure genius!

"And how do you teach homosexuality, like French? I was born of heterosexual parents taught by heterosexual teachers in a fiercely heterosexual society so why then am i homosexual. and no offence meant, but if it were true that children mimic their teachers, we'd have a hell of a lot more nuns running around."

This is the trailer of a documentary I watched last weekend - This Film Is Not Yet Rated, by Kirby Dick.

It's a very interesting documentary, to say the least. To be completely honest, it's a great documentary, eye-opening, funny, sarcastic, and well made. I advise anyone to watch this, especially film and documentary lovers.

The subject of the film is the MPAA, the film rating system in the US; the structure and secrets of this system get completely uncovered [although I'm not sure if 'completely' is the right word; after watching this, you never know what else they could be hiding!]. The obstacles that filmakers go through are discussed, obstacles that are set by a board, a group of parents, of which no one knows their names, and which are supposed to have kids of elementary school age... Turns out that... well, I do not want to spoil it, so let's just say that, this board of 'judges' is surrounded by hypocrisy to say the least. Apart from the interesting and eye-opening content of the film, the way the documentary is made is entertaining, funny and sarcastic. I admire directors who take their job as documentary filmmakers seriously: they are filmmakers, and thus artists and entertainers; but they are also documentary filmmakers and thus are supposed to show reality, and not fiction. It is hard to show reality to an audience who is very little used to see pure reality on the media; the public wants to be entertained. This difficulty is shown very well in Dick's documentary, especially when he interviews the director of Gunner Palace, Michael Tucker. I hope this blogpost has teased you enough to go watch this documentary! Make sure you do :) 

Where Painting meets Music.

These are the paintings that impressed me the most when I visited the Frick Collection in August. It was the second time I had been there, but I had no recollection of this beautiful Whistler collection. I left the Collection with the 4 postcards of these paintings. I had to!