“As a voluptuous lemon is devoured by the same light that reveals it, its image passes from the spatial rhetoric of illusion into the spatial grammar of the graphic arts.”
— Hollis Frampton
Tag: film
Sit Still
Happy Birthday Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982)
I carried a laminated picture of R.W. Fassbinder in my wallet for awhile, more as a reminder that such a kind of person existed at all than that such a kind of person might exist more than once. I handily relieved myself of it one drunken night over 20 years ago by flinging it down a bar at a trio of German bankers with whom I was arguing the auteur’s merits. I was, I imagined, fulfilling a role of some sort, that of a poète maudit perhaps, but the truth was that I was drunk and loved cinema more than those bankers did.
In any case, it’s impossible to imagine Fassbinder at 73 years old, as he would have turned yesterday, or 72 as some sources have it.
In conversation with a friend earlier this week, we discussed how seeing one Fassbinder film didn’t disclose much about his greatness but that one should rather see 10 of his films to get the gist, and that given his filmography, this effort could be carried out at least three times without repeating a single title.
Corpse
My friend and collaborator Chris Ernst has completed his latest feature film. It’s called Corpse.
The Woman’s Film (Newsreel #55)
I saw this film in its 40min entirety when I attended Hunter College almost 20 years ago. If you have a similar chance or the attention of a professor, teacher, curator, or film programmer, it would make a fine addition to any women’s film series. It was produced in 1971 by Third World Newsreel, a media distribution company whose roots are in consciousness-raising and political awareness.
Inspiration: Nostalghia
Andrei Tarkovsky, Nostalghia, 1983.
Carl Theordor Dreyer and Ordet
Jan Wahl, Carl Theordor Dreyer and Ordet: My Summer with the Danish Filmmaker, 2012.
Fog Line
Larry Gottheim, Fog Line, 1970.
(16mm, color, silent, 11min)
Inspiration: Day of Wrath
Carl Th. Dreyer, Day of Wrath, 1943.