I was able to attend all of the films of the JIFF masterclass, although only one of the lectures themselves due to language or scheduling. Raymond Bellour selected two excellent French films: Philippe Grandrieux's A Lake and Chris Marker's Level Five. Grandrieux was chosen by Bellour in relation to the film magazine Trafic, founded by Serge Daney. As Bellour writes in his introduction:
"If I had to define Trafic in terms of its refusals, they would be positioned at two extremes: on the one hand, the facilities that are far too common in journalistic criticism, and on the other hand the closures of traditional academic writing."
"Parallel to a continuous reflection on the great works on cinema ... we have always chosen to support - by asking them to participate, whenever possible, in the life of the magazine - a certain group of filmmakers, including (naturally) experimental filmmakers."
"So it is that, personally, I find myself engaged in a defense of the films of Philippe Grandrieux, which seem to me as essential as they are controversial."
What interests Bellour in Grandrieux is his attempt to use his story as a "laboratory for expression"; in other words, to explore the purely sensational elements usually confined to the avant-garde. A Lake is a great example of this. The story of a family in an isolated setting and the effect of an outsider on this dynamic is compelling itself, but does little to convey the actual texture of the work. As Bellour states, Grandrieux's style is founded much more of the "physical relation of the camera to its objects." Nevertheless, the story certainly maintains importance here, even if it is at the service of sensation (as opposed to the reverse relation of sensation at the service of story which defines most cinema). The very extreme starkness and primal nature of these relationships provides the cinematic technique with its maximum impact.
Bellour's second film choice is a very different work, Level Five, a film essay by Chris Marker revolving around a video game about the Battle of Okinawa. Bellour opens his introduction to the film by asking and answering a question:
"Why, in order to speak today of Chris Marker in the course of a film festival, and within the privileged framework of a Masterclass, do I choose to present Level Five (1996)?"
"Because this film, the last of his cinema films strictly speaking, is for that very reason the one in which we see the best way to inscribe the mutations which cinema has undergone - in a career that is singular out of all others, and within which cinema has always been submitted to paradoxical pressures."
As is usual with Marker, he combines aspects of documentary with a story-line, in which we see an actress deliver a video diary to the director (Marker himself, although this is also a role). Thus the film turns into another Marker essay on the nature of moving images and their relation to social reality, especially memory. But it is also, at the same time, a very powerful about war, and it is this aspect that interested me more than the mediations on the computer. This is precisely because it never feels like a tradtional documentary. It creates a distance, much like the characters have, because of "game" space created. But gradually this fades away, climaxing in film footage of Shigeaki Kinjo discussing his own murder of his family under government decree. The impact of this moment has been created by Marker's structure and his multiple forms of visual imagery, and it makes as powerful a statement for the impact of cinema as one could create.
Another essay film was chosen by Richard Porton for his discussion of "anarchist realism": WR: Mysteries of the Organism. This is a film I've been interested in seeing for many years but had never gotten to, and perhaps becasue of this it was not as intriguing as a hoped for. The film is very enjoyable and fun, and has a kind of anarchist quality that Porton discussed in his talk (which I unfortunately could not attend). However, it is as an "essay" film that it is rather weak, especially compared to a figure like Marker. To be fair, this may be because the ideas Makavejev is dealing with often come across as ridiculous. It is to Makavejev's credit that he himself realizes this, but it doesn't make the opinions on display any more provocative.
The only lecture I was able to attend was Adrian Martin's discussion of the career of film critic/painter Manny Farber, titled "Creative Criticism." Martin begins by outlining two types of criticism: (1) explanatory, descriptive criticism that offers a reading or interpretation of the film, which the critic treats as a finite object; and (2) creative criticism, which aims to recreate, remake or extend the film in a new way by working in a new medium (usually writing, but now visual media as well). There are overlaps between the two (as Martin mentioned, Raymond Bellour is one example), but one of the earliest practicioners of the later form is Manny Farber.
I am quite familiar with Farber as a critic, particularly through Greg Taylor's book Artists in the Audience, which Martin doesn't mention but which makes a similar argument about the critic as artist. What was illuminating for me about Martin's lecture is his presentation and discussion of Farber's paintings in relation to his criticism. On the major points drawn out by this comparison is how Farber, in both his criticism and painting, was most interested in the edges of the frame. Many of Farber's paintings have little activity at the center, instead placing most of the action on the perimeter. Likewise, Farber's approach to criticism and the films he admired shared this same dislike of centered framings. In general, most of what is most appreciated and enjoyed by the mass audience bored Farber, which is what made him one of the first cult critics. Farber did not care for the novelistic or theatrical; what he wanted were multi-suggestive films and images, a rich world of experience. Not stories, but worlds. Things like plot solving actions and character psychology were not important. What makes a film engaging are the digressions that give the world its richness, as well as the presence of performers with a presence or aura: "interesting people doing interesting things". This is what made Farber so distinct and so influential. And while I personally like those influenced by Farber more than Farber himself as a writer, Martin's lecture was a very passionate appreciation, as well as a great introduction for a Korean audience (Farber has still not been translated into Korean, although a few pieces are coming out soon apparently).
To accompany his lecture, Martin chose Maurice Pialat's 1974 film The Mouth Agape. This was my favorite film of the festival and makes me want to track down more of Pialat's films in the future. I had previously only seen his 1985 film Police, which failed to make an impression, but The Mouth Agape is quite astounding. The plot revolves around a woman who is dying and how her family, especially her son and husband, deal with this situation. Due to subject matter and even the time period in which it is made, I thought of Ingmar Bergman's 1972 drama Cries and Whispers. This is because other than subject matter, it is hard to imagine two films being more different in approach. In contrast to the heavy expressionism and symbolism of Bergman, Pialat concentrates much more on a realistic approach.
Now, when I describe the film as using a realistic approach, this does not mean that Pialat is not obsessively shaping this material. Rather, he is shaping the material to achieve a much more authentic world. This is why Martin chose the film to use in conjunction with Farber; not because Farber wrote about this film, but because this film has such affinities with Farber's interests in cinema (also, Farber was an admirer of Pialat's 1991 film Van Gogh). Pialat wanted to record something interesting between actors, and often made his actors uncomfortable and filmed a great deal in order to achieve his results. He also worked his material heavily in the editing process. The Mouth Agape was originally over four hours long and had a much different plot and story, with a greater emphasis on the character of the son. The film he creates is just 83 minutes, but yet is in no way a reduction for the sake of plot clarity or simplicity. Rather, the conventional rhetoric of drama and artificiality is avoided. Pialat is concerned with the edges of the story. Not with the mother and her suffering (although this is shown and presented in quotidian and disturbing detail), but with how the other son, his wife, and the father continue to live their lives, in some ways not noticably affected by the event. Pialat is concerned with creating and presenting a believable world, in which the house itself, which is also a small shop where the father works, is in many ways as important as the characters. As a result, the emotional force of the drama that is presented is enormously heightened. Although I had not heard of the film before the festival, I now think it is one of the great films of the 1970s.
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
2009 Jeonju Film Festival Overview
I attended this year's Jeonju Film Festival and was able to see 15 films over the course of just over 4 days here, probably the highest volume of cinema going in one week for me personally. Obviously, with any large festival, my experience was limited, but overall the festival was strong, if not as exciting as last year's (it is hard to top Satantango).
Of the films I saw, I would rank them as follows:
5 stars
High in the Mountains (Hong Sang-soo, 2009)
4 1/2 Stars
Level Five (Chris Marker, 1997)
Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)
A Lake (Philippe Grandrieux, 2009)Butterflies Have No Memories (Lav Diaz, 2009)
4 stars
The Housemaid (Kim Ki-Young, 1960)
Tony Manero (Pablo Larrain, 2008)
WR: Mysteries of the Organism (Dusan Makavejev, 1971)Goodbye Solo (Rahim Bahrani, 2009)
3 1/2 stars
A North Chinese Girl (Zou Peng, 2009)
Moonlighting (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1982)
Koma (Kawase Naomi, 2009)
2 1/2 stars
Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1971)
The ESP Couple (Kim Hyung-joo, 2008)Unlike last year, I did get a chance to see a number of newer films, of wildly varied quality, as is to be expected. The ESP Couple was my least favorite, although still mildly amusing. Poor writing and rather broad farce sunk an interesting premise. A North Chinese Girl was at the opposite scale, an exercise in Asian minimalism that felt, unfortunately, like just that, an exercise. The film was enjoyable for me because I prefer long take cinema and the film had a promising opening, but it never came together. The final shot, in its own minimalist way, was just as heavy handed as any mainstream action film.
There were two newer features I quite liked. The American indie Goodbye Solo is an intriguing variation on Abbas Kiarostami's A Taste of Cherry, but told from the perspective of the cab driver. The film creates a vivid and unique take on the immigrant experience in America with very few of the cliches. The central relationship is not entirely convincing, but overall the story achieves an understated but resonant impact. Another fine film is Tony Manero, a Chilean drama set during the Pinochet era. The lead character, Raul, a small-time thug, becomes obsessed with Saturday Night Fever and John Travolta's "Tony Manero". This is set against the backdrop of political oppression, in which Raul's behaviour is reflective of the predatory nature of authoritarian capitalism and the American popular culture that accompanies it. Many other films would have turned the basic premise into a disarming comedy, but Larrain is not interested in a simple celebration of consumer culture. The style is at times overblown, but overall a small yet socially astute drama that deserves a wider audience.
My favorite new film was this year's Jeonju Digital Project, in which three directors are asked to make a digital short film for the festival. Hong Sang-soo's film was especially great, and I'll try to write a full post about it shortly. But also very strong was Lav Diaz's Butterflies Have No Memories. The story concerns the hostility felt by the former workers of a goldmine, a resentment that reaches a climax when a former resident, now a Canadian, comes back to visit. The ending of this short uses the form to make a moral statement: the act of passive resistance by one of the characters literally turns the plot of a feature genre film into a 40 minute piece calling for a move forward for the characters and Filipino society. The weakest of the three was Koma by Kawase Naomi, which had some images and threads of intrigue but yet remained too obscure and mystical for my taste.
The director spotlight this year was on Jerzy Skolimowski, whose oeuvre I was unfamiliar with. I saw two films, on the basis of which I am not overly enthused to see more. Moonlighting was the better of the two, a pretty good satirical drama about illegal Polish workers stranded following the declaration of Marshal Law in Warsaw in late 1981. Deep End, from 1971, has not aged well. Its absurd take on a young boy coming of age in London offered nothing that many other films haven't done better, and its truly odd and bizarre ending left me cold. It is strange enough that I probably won't forget it, though.
In addition to many contemporary Korean films, there was also a Korean film retrospective. I was able to see the recently restored 1960 melodrama The Housemaid by the now acclaimed auteur Kim Ki-Young. A heavy stylized drama with a sexually charged plot, it resembled nothing like the traditional reserved classical melodramas from the 1950s. It even contains a framing device in which the same actors comment on the story that we watch. It concludes with the husband directly addressing the audience in a mock warning about the dangers of young women to married men. Kim's heavy-handed style serves to further the distanciation of the audience from the story world, so that the drama is always symbolic and heightened rather than resembling any type of realism. The reality that interests Kim concerns the desires and repressions underlying the traditional Korean family unit.
I'll write about the films of the JIFF Film Critics' masterclass in a separate post. Overall, like I mentioned at the opening, a fine festival this year, although with a weaker retrospective than last year's focus on Bela Tarr. The festival was busier this year, partly because it coincided with some Korean holidays. It certainly does take advanced booking to see the films you want (or any films at all if you wait til the weekend). But the festival still remains committed to the love of cinema itself over the more business centered (and larger) Pusan festival, and is certainly an event I will not miss as long as I am here.
I'll write about the films of the JIFF Film Critics' masterclass in a separate post. Overall, like I mentioned at the opening, a fine festival this year, although with a weaker retrospective than last year's focus on Bela Tarr. The festival was busier this year, partly because it coincided with some Korean holidays. It certainly does take advanced booking to see the films you want (or any films at all if you wait til the weekend). But the festival still remains committed to the love of cinema itself over the more business centered (and larger) Pusan festival, and is certainly an event I will not miss as long as I am here.
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
David Lean Retrospective at the Cinematheque
Starting yesterday and continuing until May 17th is a 13 film program of David Lean films at the cinematheque. This includes most of Lean's directorial output, the only missing films being his first, In Which We Serve (1942, co-director with Noel Coward), 1952's The Sound Barrier, and 1954's Hobson's Choice. Given the epic nature of Lean's cinema, this is a fine opportunity to see many of these films in the theatre. I'm looking forward to trying to see The Bridge on the River Kwai (1958), one of those "great" movies that I still haven't gotten around to.
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
TREELESS MOUNTAIN (Kim So Yong, 2008); WENDY AND LUCY (Kelly Reichardt, 2008)
I saw two films at the Women's Film Festival over the weekend, one really great, another OK but slightly disappointing. Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy is a formally elegant independent drama about a young woman (played by Michelle Williams) on her way to Alaska for a job. Her car breaks down in Oregon, and she gets arrested for petty theft after stealing food for her dog. The rest of the narrative focuses on her search for her dog over the next couple of days. The narrative is both ordinary and yet highly dramatic and compelling, and Reichardt's style here is both properly distanced and sympathetic to the character's plight. Wendy and Lucy is part of what A.O. Scott has dubbed "neo neo-realism" in American indie cinema, and I generally agree that the presence of these films dealing with the working class is desperately needed at the moment. Wendy and Lucy offers an example that these films can also have a strong aesthetic grounding, which will be key to the ultimate success of this movement (if it is a movement at all). You can find Scott's piece here, as well as Richard Brody's less favourable take on these films here.
I find myself agreeing with Scott and disagreeing with Brody on Wendy and Lucy, but Kim So Yong's Treeless Mountain, which Scott also mentions, seems to me much less distinguished. It is here that I agree with Brody about the need to go beyond a superficial realism. Kim's story about two young girls who are left behind by a mother who can no longer support them is a compelling one. It is the flip side to Wendy and Lucy, if that film were told from the perspective of Lucy. But this might be part of the problem with the story, or at least Kim's approach to it. While the two young girls perform fine, there are limits with what can be done with child actors on a dramatic level. This is especially true when the style is mostly concerned with a basic illusionist approach. Kim never really establishes a strong visual approach to the material, and as a result the film meanders and instead relies upon the capturing of natural imagery to attempt to add a reflective tone to the work. I never found the approach compelling and engaging, despite my interest in the story and material.
The festival continues until Thursday.
I find myself agreeing with Scott and disagreeing with Brody on Wendy and Lucy, but Kim So Yong's Treeless Mountain, which Scott also mentions, seems to me much less distinguished. It is here that I agree with Brody about the need to go beyond a superficial realism. Kim's story about two young girls who are left behind by a mother who can no longer support them is a compelling one. It is the flip side to Wendy and Lucy, if that film were told from the perspective of Lucy. But this might be part of the problem with the story, or at least Kim's approach to it. While the two young girls perform fine, there are limits with what can be done with child actors on a dramatic level. This is especially true when the style is mostly concerned with a basic illusionist approach. Kim never really establishes a strong visual approach to the material, and as a result the film meanders and instead relies upon the capturing of natural imagery to attempt to add a reflective tone to the work. I never found the approach compelling and engaging, despite my interest in the story and material.
The festival continues until Thursday.
Friday, 3 April 2009
Upcoming: Women's Film Festival (April 9-16)
Next week marks the 11th International Women's Film Festival in Seoul. Most of the screenings, if not all, have English subtitles, and include many Korean films as well as a few international selections. There are also discussions and a conference associated with the festival. The full schedule is available here. I attended a few screenings and the conference last year and found the festival very well organized and foreign friendly.
Among the notable films that I've heard good word of mouth on include:
Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008)
The Beaches of Agnes (Agnes Varda, 2008)
Treeless Mountain (Kim So Yong, 2008)
Among the notable films that I've heard good word of mouth on include:
Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008)
The Beaches of Agnes (Agnes Varda, 2008)
Treeless Mountain (Kim So Yong, 2008)
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Upcoming: Mosfilm Retrospective (March 31-April 26)
Coming up at the Cinematheque is a 19-film program of Russian cinema, from the silent era to the present. The films are:
Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
Bed and Sofa (Abram Room, 1927)
Happiness (Alexander Medvedkin, 1934)
Alexander Nevsky (Sergei Eisenstein, 1938)
The New Moscow (Alexander Medvedkin, 1938)
The Russian Question (Mikhail Room, 1947)
Sadko (Alexander Ptushko, 1953)
The Cranes Are Flying (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957)
The Letter That Was Never Sent (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1959)
The Skating Rink and the Violin (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1961)
Ivan's Childhood (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1962)
Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
I Walk Around Moscow (George Daneliya, 1963)
The Ascent (Larisa Shepitko, 1976)
Jazzmen (Karen Shakhnazarov, 1983)
The Rider Named Death (Karen Shakhnazarov, 2004)
The Vanished Empire (Karen Shakhnazarov, 2008)
No word yet on schedule or English subtitles.
Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
Bed and Sofa (Abram Room, 1927)
Happiness (Alexander Medvedkin, 1934)
Alexander Nevsky (Sergei Eisenstein, 1938)
The New Moscow (Alexander Medvedkin, 1938)
The Russian Question (Mikhail Room, 1947)
Sadko (Alexander Ptushko, 1953)
The Cranes Are Flying (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957)
The Letter That Was Never Sent (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1959)
The Skating Rink and the Violin (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1961)
Ivan's Childhood (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1962)
Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
I Walk Around Moscow (George Daneliya, 1963)
The Ascent (Larisa Shepitko, 1976)
Jazzmen (Karen Shakhnazarov, 1983)
The Rider Named Death (Karen Shakhnazarov, 2004)
The Vanished Empire (Karen Shakhnazarov, 2008)
No word yet on schedule or English subtitles.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Update on Jeonju Film Festival
Just thought I'd pass along a few pieces of information about the Jeonju Film Festival, which will be held April 30th-May 8th. I can't say enough good things about this festival and highly recommend people check it out. A full schedule is to be released at the end of March, but some things have been announced:
-a retrospective on Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, who will also appear at the festival in person
-a program on Sri Lankan cinema
-especially exciting for me personally, a Critics masterclass featuring Raymond Bellour, Richard Porton, and Adrian Martin. They will introduce filmmakers and films they selected and give lectures on Film Criticism in JIFF’s Masterclass on the 5th and 6th of May during the festival.
I'm update further when more information is available.
-a retrospective on Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, who will also appear at the festival in person
-a program on Sri Lankan cinema
-especially exciting for me personally, a Critics masterclass featuring Raymond Bellour, Richard Porton, and Adrian Martin. They will introduce filmmakers and films they selected and give lectures on Film Criticism in JIFF’s Masterclass on the 5th and 6th of May during the festival.
I'm update further when more information is available.
Monday, 9 March 2009
Documentary and Horror Films II: DEAR ZACHARY (Kurt Kuenne, 2008)
SPOILER WARNING: If you have not seen the new documentary Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father and do not know about the real life case it is based on, you should skip this piece until you've seen it. For reasons that will be clear from reading the essay, I need to discuss a major plot point in my argument.
A few months back I wrote a brief post about documentaries and horror films, inspired by Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired and the work of Adam Curtis. I certainly didn't think I'd see a film so shortly after that would be even more fitting of a discussion along these lines, but Kurt Kuenne's Dear Zachary is even more direct and, as a result, more problematic in its use of the narrative and stylistic devices of horror thrillers. Very few recent films have affected me as much as this one, although probably not entirely in the way Kuenne planned. Dear Zachary is riveting and powerful, but it was disturbing not only because of the subject matter but also because of the heavily manipulative style at work.
Part of what is so capitivating about the work is the extraordinary circumstances . Kuenne, a filmmaker since childhood, set out to make a documentary about the murder of one of his best friends, Andrew Bagby. The main suspect in the case was a woman named Shirley Turner, his ex-girlfriend. The two had met in medical school in Newfoundland, Canada. Following the murder, which took place in the U.S., Turner fled to Canada. Extradiction procedures followed, and moved extremely slowly (any Canadian like myself understands this all too well). Then, the first twist occured: Turner was pregnant with Bagby's son. Kuenne follows the story of Bagby's parents, David and Kate, as they attempt to gain custody of the son. Kuenne then decides to dedicate the film to Andrew's son, named Zachary, to allow him to get to know his father by interviewing family and friends that were closest to him. Hence the film's title. But, and here's the big spoiler for those that don't know, this is a deliberate mislead on Kuenne's part. For we learn that Turner, let out on bail by idiotic decisions by the Canadian justice system, killed her 13 month old son and herself. It is at this point that the film turns into essentially a scream of rage by the grandparents and Kuenne, ending with their campaign for reform in the bail system in the Canada. Kuenne ends up dedicating the film to David and Kate Bagby after admitting that he almost stopped making the film after Zachary's murder.
Even before this narrative turn, Kuenne's editing is very staccato, to the point that it is at times jarring. Even when putting together fairly standard material recalling Andrew's life, Kuenne edits in a very hyperactive manner. Critics seem to be forgiving of this as a sign of Kuenne's heavy emotional investment in this material, and the argument can be extended into further examples of Kuenne's style and narrative. Obviously, Kuenne did not have to tell this story as he did, and indeed anyone who knew this story beforehand would not have been fooled by his baby murder "twist". So, a reasonable question would be: why structure the film this way? The main argument for the decision is that this puts the audience in the place of the victims: not only the grandparents, but all of Andrew Bagby's friends, including Kuenne himself. The desire seems to be to have the audience empathize as much as possible with the pain and anguish of the Bagbys, to pull the rug out from under the audience so that they have a strong visceral reaction. The problem is that this emotion is forwarded in support of a reactionary point of view.
This can be seen in the treatment of Shirley Turner, who as the film progresses is treated as pure evil, a monster, or, as Kate Bagby puts it, "the devil". This is where the horror techniques are on full display, with the use of ominous music (composed by Kuenne) and audio recording of Turner combined with distorted images of Turner with her son. This techniques are used earlier in the film to convey Andrew's murder, but they are amplified here. Particularly unsettling is David Bagby stating afterwards that the only way to have prevented this tragedy, given the inefficiency of the justice system, is to have murdered Turner himself, so that at least Zachary would be safe and Kate could possibly have raised him even if he went to jail. It is at this point where I think Kuenne lets the rage overwhelm him. Does this need to be in the film? Yes, of course, he thought it, and understandably so. But Kuenne seems to justify it, even if David Bagby himself realizes its madness, repeatedly saying that he shouldn't have to be having these thoughts. David and Kate Bagby would move forward within the realm of the law to reform bail in Canada, but the reactions the documentary provokes are of a far more vicious kind. In fact, to even bring up criticisms of the film is to provoke a backlash. Witness these two reviews and their comment sections here and here.
What seems particularly odd about the heavy-handed style is how unnecessary it appears. Shirley Turner does not need to be made into the devil to get across the basic point of the film: The legal system fucked up badly and needs to be fixed, and those that allowed it to happen need to be held accountable and to pay the price with at least their jobs. Which makes one think that this isn't Kuenne's goal, and that Kuenne is so full of rage that he needs to attack Turner. After all, who can defend a baby murderer? If one points out that Turner is probably not the devil but rather a deeply disturbed woman who should have been kept from harming her baby, one becomes part of the problem, a bleeding heart liberal, the type that allowed her out in the first place (the fact that I'm one of those northern "liberals" in Canada is proof of this). Such is the reactionary politics of this movie, yet this point of view that can be understood as so deeply felt that many will overlook it.
How to evaluate this movie? I would describe it as one of the best and one of the worst films of the year. But I won't forget it anytime soon, and perhaps a more intellectual approach such as I'm advocating for would not have been as compelling. Still, personally, I could have done with a little less excitement.
A nice take on the film, although more sympathetic than mine, is offered by David Edelstein.
Friday, 6 March 2009
Review of 2008
Now that I have caught up with most of the major releases of last year, I thought I'd rank the 28 films I saw last year. I didn't think I had seen much this year, but I'm only 7 off of last year's total, and I'm sure I'll see more of 2008 over the next few months.
I have to agree that this was a subpar year, especially the top ten. My favorite film remains Night and Day, which I saw at the Jeonju festival back in May. There were only 3 films that I thought were 5 or 4 1/2 stars, which to me are films that are masterpieces or near to it. Lots of solid movies of varying quality, but little that was really inspiring.
These rankings tend to be pretty generous. Basically, anything I enjoy I give 3 stars even if it's not great filmmaking, and if I really enjoyed it I give 4 stars, again, even if the filmmaking isn't masterful.
The films are ranked in order, even within the star ratings. My Top Ten for 2008 (and other years) will continue to mutate as I see more films.
5 stars
Night and Day
4 1/2 stars
The Flight of the Red Balloon
Happy-Go-Lucky
4 stars
Burn After Reading
The Wrestler
Milk
Paranoid Park
Standard Operating Procedure
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Rachel Getting Married
Bigger, Stronger, Faster
Roman Polanki: Wanted and Desired
Revolutionary Road
The Dark Knight
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
3 1/2 stars
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Religulous
Body of Lies
Quantum of Solace
Wall-E
3 stars
Tropic Thunder
Son of Rambow
Synecdoche, New York
2 1/2 stars
My Bluberry Nights
Sex and the City: The Movie
2 stars
Shine a Light
Slumdog Millionaire
I have to agree that this was a subpar year, especially the top ten. My favorite film remains Night and Day, which I saw at the Jeonju festival back in May. There were only 3 films that I thought were 5 or 4 1/2 stars, which to me are films that are masterpieces or near to it. Lots of solid movies of varying quality, but little that was really inspiring.
These rankings tend to be pretty generous. Basically, anything I enjoy I give 3 stars even if it's not great filmmaking, and if I really enjoyed it I give 4 stars, again, even if the filmmaking isn't masterful.
The films are ranked in order, even within the star ratings. My Top Ten for 2008 (and other years) will continue to mutate as I see more films.
5 stars
Night and Day
4 1/2 stars
The Flight of the Red Balloon
Happy-Go-Lucky
4 stars
Burn After Reading
The Wrestler
Milk
Paranoid Park
Standard Operating Procedure
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Rachel Getting Married
Bigger, Stronger, Faster
Roman Polanki: Wanted and Desired
Revolutionary Road
The Dark Knight
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
3 1/2 stars
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Religulous
Body of Lies
Quantum of Solace
Wall-E
3 stars
Tropic Thunder
Son of Rambow
Synecdoche, New York
2 1/2 stars
My Bluberry Nights
Sex and the City: The Movie
2 stars
Shine a Light
Slumdog Millionaire
Saturday, 28 February 2009
WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN at the Film of the Month Club
I volunteered to choose the film for the March Film of the Month club and selected Hong Sang-soo's Woman is the Future of Man (2004). I just posted a brief intro on Hong and will start the month on Sunday with posts on the actual film. Hopefully there will be some interesting discussion on one of Korea's better films of the decade (in my opinion, of course). You can check out the Film of the Month blog here.
Sunday, 22 February 2009
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (Sam Mendes, 2008)
"I Don't Want to Talk About the Wheelers Anymore"
Near the conclusion of Revolutionary Road, there is a brief epilogue to the future, after the Wheelers (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) have left their suburban community. Their neighbors are having a drink with the new residents and discussing their former friends. The husband suddenly leaves and walks into their backyard. The wife follows, and the husband says that he doesn't want to talk about the Wheelers anymore. The wife says they don't have to, and the two kiss and embrace. This scene functions as a meta-commentary not only on the film, but on the subsequent critical response. Much of the criticism labeled at the movie concentrates on how much they dislike the two lead characters, who are described as horrible, narcissistic people. The reviews seem not to be about the movie but about the offensiveness of the characters. Reviewers, like the husband next door, do not want to talk about the Wheelers. They do not feel the characters are worthy of their attention and time.
This response is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, the vitriol aimed at the Wheelers seems disproportionate. These characters are flawed, but hardly villainous and hardly beyond the realms of realism. Most of this criticism seems very reactionary: they are snobs (read Eastern elites), they are bad parents (although we never really see much with the children, who are simply not the focus of the story), etc. There was even a criticism of the British director Mendes making another film critical of America. Second, these criticisms of the characters neglect the extent to which the Wheelers are both concrete characters and allegorical figures. They have to be placed within the context of the other characters and what they represent to them. However flawed they may be, they also represent something extra-ordinary to those around them.
This distinctive quality of the Wheelers is both admired and feared, both exciting and crazy. They are linked quite clearly with another allegorical character, John Givings, the son of their neighbors who has a PhD in Mathemathics but is also in a mental hospital and deemed insane by the society. He is only in two scenes, one in which he bonds with the Wheelers over their proposed move to Paris, and another in which he criticizes them for turning their backs on their plan, but these scenes are the most distinctive in the film. Dr. Givings serves to comment on the Wheelers, both in their similarities and differences with him. The Wheelers are both revolutionaries and just another middle-class couple. In the terms that would be used in the 60s, they are weekend leftists, not the Weather underground. They play out a very American myth. Paris is a frontier in which to escape the trap of American society, a place of adventure where the limitations of society can be avoided.
All of this allegory is heavy-handed, and certainly the film is not particularly subtle. This is characteristic of Mendes, of whom I am not generally an admirer. But this film, perhaps because of the backlash against it, earns my respect. It is not a masterpiece of directing, but at least Mendes does not rely totally on intensified continuity editing to achieve his effects. The mise-en-scene and cinematography may be overly pronounced, but to hold a shot for over a minute in today's Hollywood is a welcome change. And unlike Mendes' early films, such as American Beauty (1999) and Road to Perdition (2002), there is no real redemption offered here. This is a film not afraid to end negatively, pessimistically and critically. It is a rare Hollywood film helped rather than hurt by its conclusion. And I suspect it is this lack of a feel-good ending that people are reacting against.
One final note: I have heard a couple of comparsions of Revolutionary Road as a far less interesting take on material covered much better in the AMC television series "Mad Men". While I can understand the comparisons, they are not really fair to the film to say "Mad Men" is "better". What it is, unquestionably, is more entertaining, especially to a male audience. "Mad Men" is a very typical product of our current era. It condemns the characters and at the same time celebrates them as "cool" and "hip". It is both profound and superficial, and makes no real demands or challenges of its audience. Revolutionary Road is harsher medicine; it is much less hip, much less fun, but is certainly no re-tread of material handled better on "Mad Men".
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Latest from the Cinematheque
In the last week, I was able to see three films at the Cinematheque:
Night and the City (Jules Dassin, 1950)
The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)
Boy Meets Girl (Leos Carax, 1984)
I'm happy to report all three prints were quite good, with Boy Meets Girl especially great. The films themselves ranged from a major revelation to a slight disappointment. The only film of the three I had seen before was Dassin's Night and the City and it held up quite well. It was the last film made for Hollywood by Dassin before he was blacklisted, and this film noir certainly captures the darkness of the period, with some rather blatant references to the moral bankruptcy of selling out a person for money, even if that person is himself rather unlikable. The hero, Harry Fabian, is extremely flawed yet not unsympathetic, especially as played by Richard Widmark. The film explores the contradiction of the American success myth: if a man doesn't obtain it, he is a loser, yet he cannot become consumed with it or else he will be unhappy. Most of what I remembered from my first viewing years ago comes from the closing sequence, and it still works very well, conveying Harry's desperation and self-loathing and his touching if misguided attempt at some sort of redemption.
Tarkovsky's The Mirror, however, was a mild disappointment. Viewed as the most personal and autobiographical of his films and hailed by many Tarkovsky enthusiasts as his best work, it left me rather cold. The fact that I didn't grasp the meaning of some of the sequences didn't bother me. I'm willing to go along for the ride if the images and emotion sweep me up. Surprisingly, I never found the visuals consistently engaging. Of course, there are moments that are very memorable, and it has a strong central performance from Margarita Terekhova. But I expected more, and in fact thought to myself that if this wasn't a film with Tarkovsky's name on it, I may have evaluated it even more harshly. Normally, I hate the word "pretentious" and am suspicious of those who use it. But I found The Mirror pretentious (and I view my reaction suspiciously as a result).
On the other hand, I found Leos Carax's first film, Boy Meets Girl, to be quite amazing. It may be one of the most strikingly shot films I have ever seen, especially on the big screen. The high contrast black and white images have the beauty of great photographic stills, and the luminous cinematography threatens to completely eclipse the story. But ultimately the tale Carax is telling is a self-consciously dark and romantic love story that needs the power of the images to properly convey the characters' emotions. The plot is also small and contained enough to allow Carax to put the visuals front and center, and even has a scene where a man conveys in sign language why silent film is the most effective. In its love story and emphasis on directorial self-expression, it is reminiscent of the New Wave, although not in any superficially imitative way. This is the first Carax film I've seen and I'm anxious to track down some of his other films, particularly Les Amants du Pont-Neuf.
Night and the City (Jules Dassin, 1950)
The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)
Boy Meets Girl (Leos Carax, 1984)
I'm happy to report all three prints were quite good, with Boy Meets Girl especially great. The films themselves ranged from a major revelation to a slight disappointment. The only film of the three I had seen before was Dassin's Night and the City and it held up quite well. It was the last film made for Hollywood by Dassin before he was blacklisted, and this film noir certainly captures the darkness of the period, with some rather blatant references to the moral bankruptcy of selling out a person for money, even if that person is himself rather unlikable. The hero, Harry Fabian, is extremely flawed yet not unsympathetic, especially as played by Richard Widmark. The film explores the contradiction of the American success myth: if a man doesn't obtain it, he is a loser, yet he cannot become consumed with it or else he will be unhappy. Most of what I remembered from my first viewing years ago comes from the closing sequence, and it still works very well, conveying Harry's desperation and self-loathing and his touching if misguided attempt at some sort of redemption.
Tarkovsky's The Mirror, however, was a mild disappointment. Viewed as the most personal and autobiographical of his films and hailed by many Tarkovsky enthusiasts as his best work, it left me rather cold. The fact that I didn't grasp the meaning of some of the sequences didn't bother me. I'm willing to go along for the ride if the images and emotion sweep me up. Surprisingly, I never found the visuals consistently engaging. Of course, there are moments that are very memorable, and it has a strong central performance from Margarita Terekhova. But I expected more, and in fact thought to myself that if this wasn't a film with Tarkovsky's name on it, I may have evaluated it even more harshly. Normally, I hate the word "pretentious" and am suspicious of those who use it. But I found The Mirror pretentious (and I view my reaction suspiciously as a result).
On the other hand, I found Leos Carax's first film, Boy Meets Girl, to be quite amazing. It may be one of the most strikingly shot films I have ever seen, especially on the big screen. The high contrast black and white images have the beauty of great photographic stills, and the luminous cinematography threatens to completely eclipse the story. But ultimately the tale Carax is telling is a self-consciously dark and romantic love story that needs the power of the images to properly convey the characters' emotions. The plot is also small and contained enough to allow Carax to put the visuals front and center, and even has a scene where a man conveys in sign language why silent film is the most effective. In its love story and emphasis on directorial self-expression, it is reminiscent of the New Wave, although not in any superficially imitative way. This is the first Carax film I've seen and I'm anxious to track down some of his other films, particularly Les Amants du Pont-Neuf.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
New Website
I've added a new link to a blog that performs a similar function to this blog but from Busan, South Korea rather than Seoul. I've checked it out briefly and it looks great. Hopefully it will be of use to those in or near Busan and to cinephiles in general.
Saturday, 7 February 2009
JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (Chantal Anne Akerman, 1975)
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Figure 13Anyone familiar with European or even international art cinema since the 1970s will immediately recognize Akerman's influence on subsequent filmmakers. The director who came immediately to my mind, maybe because of my familiarity with and admiration of his work, is Michael Haneke. The most obvious comparison is with Haneke's first feature, The Seventh Continent (1989), but the overall stylistic similarity is there in most of Haneke's films, including the recent Cache (2005). The way in which Akerman handles space is especially rigorous, returning repeatedly to the same set-ups in order to situate our understanding of Jeanne's apartment, reminding one of a long take version of Ozu. Many of the shots represented above (Figures 1-7) are repeated many times over the course of the film. While this can be seen as simply increasing the monotony of the narrative, it had the opposite effect for me. It concentrated my attention and made my cognitive faculties sharper and more attuned, allowing for the concentration needed to stay engaged. It is here that I felt the overlap with Haneke was especially pointed.
The major feature of the narrative, despite its slow pace, is its ellipsis. This begins almost immediately. Following the opening shot (Figure 1), there is a buzz at the door and the first of what will be three male johns comes to the door. She leads him to the bedroom and closes the door. The hallway goes dark and the two come out of the bedroom seconds later (Figures 2-5). There is no noticeable cut, but yet any sexual encounter could not have occurred in this time. From the very beginning, Akerman is alluding to the repressed of the film, a repression that will eventually return at the conclusion. Two days later, Akerman eventually goes into the bedroom (Figure 12). We are shown the two having sex, and then Jeanne stabbing him in the neck. The last shot shows Jeanne sitting alone in the dark, the longest take of the film at almost six minutes. Prominent in the frame is the teapot where the money from her prostitution is kept (Figure 13).
The common description of the film's plot emphasizes that this last day disturbs the carefully controlled routine of Jeanne's life and leads to her murderous outburst. Key to this interpretation is viewing the sex scene as awakening Jeanne's sexual desire, as she (seemingly) orgasms during the rather uninspired intercourse. However, we do not know what goes on in these earlier sexual encounters. In fact, I would argue that the breakdown in Jeanne's routine goes back to the second day and her second client. Unlike the precise and controlled actions of the first day, after the second encounter Jeanne is noticeably more flustered, her hair disheveled (which her son later comments on). She falls behind on her routine, and is never able to take a shower. Watching this sequence, I interpreted that something traumatic or disturbing had occurred, simply because of the way Akerman varies the post-coital routine from the previous day.
Ultimately, because of Akerman's use of ellipsis, the viewer can only make guesses as to why Jeanne kills, at least in any concrete or specific way. The broader point seems that her actions are both necessary and perhaps inevitable. No matter how ordered and routine and dehumanizing a life may be, it cannot contain desire. This is why the ending seems liberating, despite the violence and despite the fact that Jeanne still seems like an automaton, even in her violence. The fact that Akerman shoots the murder as reflected through a mirror is equally telling (Figure 12). The shot set-up may be something refreshingly new, and thus a clue to the violence to come, but the composition is still distanced, remote, much like Jeanne herself.
Friday, 6 February 2009
BIGGER THAN LIFE (Nicolas Ray, 1956)
My first screening at the cinematheque in a very long time (shame on me) was Wednesday night with Nicolas Ray's 1956 melodrama Bigger Than Life. The print was quite good and the theatre was full, making for an ideal viewing experience. This is in stark contrast to my first viewing of the film, which was a VHS copy of a TCM broadcast.
I remembered very little about the early scenes, in fact just about everything up until the last half. This is no doubt because I was first exposed to the film in clips from Martin Scorsese's 1995 American cinema documentary A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. Scorsese uses Ray as an example of the director as "smuggler":
"Like Douglas Sirk, Nicolas Ray offered both the American family in suburbia and the psychotic undercurrents, the conventions and the contradictions, the sugar and the poison."
Scorsese emphasizes the poison, the ways in which the lead character, under the influence of cortisone, rebels against his dull, middle-class existence. But what is interesting about the film is how all the parts fit together, as well as the form of rebellion the character Ed Avery takes. Ed's breakdown is caused, the film implies, by overwork and the need to take two jobs to support his family's middle-class lifestyle. His wife believes he is having an affair, and Ray certainly implies that Ed would perhaps like an affair with his attractive co-worker. However, he doesn't have the time. Instead, he spends his nights as a taxi dispatcher, trapped in a modern equivalent of a call center. Ray sets up the audience, through this first act, to sympathize with Ed and understand the rebellion against this society that his cortizone addiction allows him to express. However, I think Ray is smarter than simply identifying with this character.
If one considers Ed's new philosophy carefully, it is clearly diametrically opposed to anything the leftist-anarchist Ray would actually endorse. Ed turns into a fascist, and while Ray encourages a certain identification with the criticism of the small-minded community in which he is trapped, Ed's rantings are that of a totalitarian madman. This to me is Ray's larger point. Not only has the American society of the 1950s trapped Ed in his routinized, quite literally deadening existence, but it has created even more demonic (if at the same time alluring) fantasies (or delusions) of grandeur.
Before an appropriately awkward finale at Ed's hospital bed, there occurs a fight between Ed and his friend Wally that results in the destruction of the bourgeois home. It allows for one of Ray's typically striking and genuinely odd compositions in which a jagged piece of railing figures prominently in the foreground. It provides an apt metaphor for this profoundly pessimistic film. Even the stripping away of social repression is dangerous in a world that can only imagined more grotesque, patriarchal alternatives.
A clip from the film is available here, featuring one of Ray's (and Hollywood's) greatest shots.
I remembered very little about the early scenes, in fact just about everything up until the last half. This is no doubt because I was first exposed to the film in clips from Martin Scorsese's 1995 American cinema documentary A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. Scorsese uses Ray as an example of the director as "smuggler":
"Like Douglas Sirk, Nicolas Ray offered both the American family in suburbia and the psychotic undercurrents, the conventions and the contradictions, the sugar and the poison."
Scorsese emphasizes the poison, the ways in which the lead character, under the influence of cortisone, rebels against his dull, middle-class existence. But what is interesting about the film is how all the parts fit together, as well as the form of rebellion the character Ed Avery takes. Ed's breakdown is caused, the film implies, by overwork and the need to take two jobs to support his family's middle-class lifestyle. His wife believes he is having an affair, and Ray certainly implies that Ed would perhaps like an affair with his attractive co-worker. However, he doesn't have the time. Instead, he spends his nights as a taxi dispatcher, trapped in a modern equivalent of a call center. Ray sets up the audience, through this first act, to sympathize with Ed and understand the rebellion against this society that his cortizone addiction allows him to express. However, I think Ray is smarter than simply identifying with this character.
If one considers Ed's new philosophy carefully, it is clearly diametrically opposed to anything the leftist-anarchist Ray would actually endorse. Ed turns into a fascist, and while Ray encourages a certain identification with the criticism of the small-minded community in which he is trapped, Ed's rantings are that of a totalitarian madman. This to me is Ray's larger point. Not only has the American society of the 1950s trapped Ed in his routinized, quite literally deadening existence, but it has created even more demonic (if at the same time alluring) fantasies (or delusions) of grandeur.
Before an appropriately awkward finale at Ed's hospital bed, there occurs a fight between Ed and his friend Wally that results in the destruction of the bourgeois home. It allows for one of Ray's typically striking and genuinely odd compositions in which a jagged piece of railing figures prominently in the foreground. It provides an apt metaphor for this profoundly pessimistic film. Even the stripping away of social repression is dangerous in a world that can only imagined more grotesque, patriarchal alternatives.
A clip from the film is available here, featuring one of Ray's (and Hollywood's) greatest shots.
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Friends of the Cinematheque Program
The Seoul Cinematheque is currently running their annual "Friends of the Cinematheque" festival until early March. Among the many great films showing are:
Greed (Erich Von Stroheim, 1924)
Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940)
His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)
Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)
Night and the City (Jules Dassin, 1950)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953)
Bigger Than Life (Nicolas Ray, 1956)
Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969)
Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971)
...All the Marbles (Robert Aldrich, 1981)
Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)
Also, the following foreign film are listed as playing with English subtitles:
The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)
Boy Meets Girl (Leos Carax, 1984)
Aprile (Nanni Moretti, 1998)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
I am back in Korea after my trip to Canada and have the month off, so hopefully I'll be able to see and write about a number of these films.
Greed (Erich Von Stroheim, 1924)
Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940)
His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)
Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)
Night and the City (Jules Dassin, 1950)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953)
Bigger Than Life (Nicolas Ray, 1956)
Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969)
Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971)
...All the Marbles (Robert Aldrich, 1981)
Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)
Also, the following foreign film are listed as playing with English subtitles:
The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)
Boy Meets Girl (Leos Carax, 1984)
Aprile (Nanni Moretti, 1998)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
I am back in Korea after my trip to Canada and have the month off, so hopefully I'll be able to see and write about a number of these films.
Thursday, 18 December 2008
Upcoming: Sam Fuller Retrospective
Coming January 2-18 at the Seoul Cinematheque is a 10 film Samuel Fuller retrospective. The following seven films will be shown in 35mm prints:
Pickup on South Street (1953)
House of Bamboo (1955)
Forty Guns (1957)
Run of the Arrow (1957)
Shock Corridor (1963)
The Naked Kiss (1964)
The Big Red One (1980) (reconstructed version)
And on 16mm:
The Steel Helmet (1951)
Park Row (1952)
Underworld USA (1961)
Most unfortunately, I will be in Canada as of next week and won't be able to see any of these films. Those who are around in January, however, make sure to enjoy.
Pickup on South Street (1953)
House of Bamboo (1955)
Forty Guns (1957)
Run of the Arrow (1957)
Shock Corridor (1963)
The Naked Kiss (1964)
The Big Red One (1980) (reconstructed version)
And on 16mm:
The Steel Helmet (1951)
Park Row (1952)
Underworld USA (1961)
Most unfortunately, I will be in Canada as of next week and won't be able to see any of these films. Those who are around in January, however, make sure to enjoy.
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
MILK (Gus Van Sant, 2008)
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Figure 8As a biopic, Milk is most interesting in how it rejects so many of the cliches of this mini-genre. It does not focus on Milk's early life. In fact, Milk's personal life in general takes a backstage to what actually made him interesting: his political activism. This is what the film is really about. Although Milk has been compared to Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992), it avoids the problems to which Lee's film falls victim. Malcolm X becomes so consumed with its lead character's life and personality that it fails to be a really compelling about its political activism. Malcolm X as a figure ends up feeling very safe and even co-opted. This is not the case with Van Sant's Harvey Milk. The biggest surprise about the movie is that it does not play it safe politically. It argues that there is a need for more radical approaches and that middle-of-the-road liberal centrism is not always (or even usually) the real motor for change.
For this reason, I was reminded of The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966), a most unlikely and no doubt highly idiosyncratic comparison on my part. Seeing the Castro and the oppression it faced from those in authority (an oppression whose wider history is seen in the opening credits [Figure 1]), I recalled the Casbah under French rule. In particular, the street protests that Van Sant depicts have an edge to them that uses the realist style that Pontecorvo conveys so well (Figures 2, 4-7). Milk's role as mediator is to represent this outrage and make happen the changes the community needs, not unlike the position of the FLN. In the gay movement, there is not the terrorism of the Algerian War, but there is every indication that Milk and his followers would result to this if their civil rights and safety continued to be abused. If Proposition 6, which is a major part of the narrative, had not been defeated in 1978, as the movement first believed, violence seemed a real and maybe necessary possibility. For this reason, Milk is more than just conventional Hollywood liberalism.
A large part of one's evaluation of Milk turns on how you view its more conventional and melodramatic moments. If you see these as Van Sant sacrificing artistic integrity to make his film more palpable for the popular audience, your evaluation will be more negative. But there is a way of reading these moments as working in concert with the more political scenes of collective action. Here I'm reminded of another great political work, the little known Scream from Silence (Anne-Claire Poirier, 1979). There's even a direct connection here with the use of the whistle as a defense against heterosexual male aggression and violence, which Van Sant uses for his most poetic shot in the film (Figure 3). In her tour de force of feminist activism, Poirier establishes a dialectic between Godardian style counter cinema and the melodrama of a suffering female victim. In his article on the film, André Loiselle argues that this combination of distance and emotion makes it both more emotionally resonant and politically effective. While Milk is not in the same category, I do think its melodramatic scenes and devices serve a purpose. For example, the sequence of Milk's murder uses a rack focus in which Milk looks out at his favorite opera (Figure 8). It is rather overblown, but it does reflect Milk and the gay movement's own fascination with the operatic aesthetic and thus is appropriate as a depiction of his final moment. If this and similar tactics, such as the musical score, are seen as an extension of the importance of emotion as well as reason, Milk can be viewed as less compromised and more authentic in its vision, even if that particular vision is not as pure as Van Sant's other recent films.
André Loiselle, “Despair as Empowerment: Melodrama and Counter-Cinema in Anne Claire Poirier’s Mournir à tue-tête (Scream from Silence)” Canadian Journal of Film Studies vol. 8, no.2 (Fall 1999): 21-43.
Thursday, 11 December 2008
MR. HOOVER AND I (Emile de Antonio, 1989)
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Figure 9If I had to choose the greatest documentary filmmaker, I would probably select Emile de Antonio. He is also the director who I most admire in terms of his commitment to political filmmaking in America throughout the era of the Cold War. He began making films in 1964, with the compilation work Point of Order, which dealt with the Army-McCarthy hearings. He made ten films in total, finishing in 1989 with Mr. Hoover and I. Somewhat fittingly, he died at the end of the same year, just as the Cold War was concluding. His films are often difficult to find, but last year a 4 disc set was released by HomeVision titled "Emile de Antonio: Films of the Radical Saint." The set includes his masterpiece, In the Year of the Pig (1968), as well as three lesser known works: Millhouse: A White Comedy (1971), Underground (1976), and Mr. Hoover and I.
Mr. Hoover and I certainly feels like the final work of an artist, a closing statement of sorts. It is de Antonio's most personal movie, and a large percentage of the film consists of de Antonio addressing the camera in long take and telling stories about his own life and that of his "co-star", J. Edgar Hoover (Figures 1 and 2). The first sequence establishes the point of view, with de Antonio describing Hoover as one of the main villains in the history of the United States, more dangerous and harmful than Communist and Nazi spies because of the power he held. Hoover is set up as the antithesis of everything de Antonio believes. However, despite the title, the film is less about Hoover and much more about de Antonio and his views about life and art.
De Antonio cuts between the shots of him lecturing to the audience with three other spaces that recur throughout:
(1) de Antonio talking to John Cage about his art as Cage bakes bread (Figure 3);
(2) de Antonio lecturing to university students (Figures 4 and 5);
(3) de Antonio getting a hair cut from his wife.
In addition, there is archival footage of Hoover presenting Nixon with an honorary FBI badge (Figure 7). Almost all of these scenes are handled with sequence shots (especially the ones with Cage and de Antonio's wife), which is very different from the heavy editing of de Antonio's earlier work. But de Antonio avoids a direct cinema approach. He makes the audience aware of the camera's presence and act of filmmaking, explicitly arguing against the endless flow and technical perfection of most film and television. In addition to being a filmmaker, de Antonio was also a painter with connections to the New York art scene (particularly Andy Warhol), and he makes explicit his spiritual bond with not only Cage but also the experimental filmmakers of the "New American Cinema" led by Jonas Mekas. He mentions Pull My Daisy (Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, 1959) as being a major influence. The very idea of making art for profit is seen as counter to his principles:
"Perhaps the only thing worthwhile is to make something that isn't really for sale except on your own terms, which is I made it, it's true, if you don't like it, the hell with you. I want you to like it or I'd be crazy. But I'd rather be crazy than have you like it because it was false, because it was what you wanted for me instead of what I wanted."
As this passage suggests, de Antonio is decidedly strident and confrontational in his views (which is exhilarating if you're sympathetic, but likely aggravating if you aren't). The other scenes are thus crucial for balance, not in terms of contrasting viewpoints but in regards to tone. Seeing de Antonio in private with his friend and partner, as well as delivering a lecture to a social audience, allows the viewer to place his political position in context.
Ultimately, despite its concern with the past of both himself and Hoover (who died in 1973), the message of the film is directed towards the future. The penultimate shot is the university audience emptying (Figure 8), over which de Antonio begins his final voiceover. The last image (Figure 9) contains de Antonio's final words to the viewer, and they provide an appropriate summing up of the past decades and a look towards a future that, unfortunately, de Antonio will not be a part of:
"We had politics in the 60s simply because a great many young people became tremendously involved with the hope of social change. And that's why we're in such a quiescent period now, because it failed. The system was strong enough. This is the strength of democracies, that they create the illusion of change. But in fact what they do is permit change, a certain kind of change."
"And when the students in the 60s got hard, they were crushed. Chicago, the 1968 Chicago riots were by the police, not by the students, and that police riot was planned. The point of that police riot was to go out over world television to say that the United States government would take no more of this. That if you were willing to have your skull cracked, if you were willing to spend a few days in jail, crowded like sheep, if you were willing to have your record destroyed forever and go into a permanent FBI file, then you could demonstrate in that way, and if not, not. And that's a simple and cruel way, and it took place all over the country."
"The nature of the police went back to the period of the 1890s, when the police beat, killed, mowed down, so-called anarchists in the Haymarket riots and those other riots. The police moved into that same position in the 1960s because the game was getting out of control, the game was no longer played by the government's rules. And Kent State was the height of it. When the National Guard could fire on harmless, peaceful demonstrators and kill them, a very clear message was sent to the young people of this country and to all people who were political in the sense that I use that word. You had either the end of the movement, or revolution, and of course it was the end of the movement and a kind of slow death for political ideas."
"We no longer have politics as I use that word. But I think we're on the verge of it, and that's why we're making this film. I think we're on the verge of a new kind of social change. History doesn't repeat itself, it only appears to repeat itself. The new change, the form of the new change cannot be predicted. We will be aware of that form when it takes place."
Recommended reading:
Douglas Kellner and Dan Streible (eds), Emile de Antonio: A Reader (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
Randolph Lewis, Emile de Antonio: Radical Filmmaker in Cold War America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000).
Mr. Hoover and I certainly feels like the final work of an artist, a closing statement of sorts. It is de Antonio's most personal movie, and a large percentage of the film consists of de Antonio addressing the camera in long take and telling stories about his own life and that of his "co-star", J. Edgar Hoover (Figures 1 and 2). The first sequence establishes the point of view, with de Antonio describing Hoover as one of the main villains in the history of the United States, more dangerous and harmful than Communist and Nazi spies because of the power he held. Hoover is set up as the antithesis of everything de Antonio believes. However, despite the title, the film is less about Hoover and much more about de Antonio and his views about life and art.
De Antonio cuts between the shots of him lecturing to the audience with three other spaces that recur throughout:
(1) de Antonio talking to John Cage about his art as Cage bakes bread (Figure 3);
(2) de Antonio lecturing to university students (Figures 4 and 5);
(3) de Antonio getting a hair cut from his wife.
In addition, there is archival footage of Hoover presenting Nixon with an honorary FBI badge (Figure 7). Almost all of these scenes are handled with sequence shots (especially the ones with Cage and de Antonio's wife), which is very different from the heavy editing of de Antonio's earlier work. But de Antonio avoids a direct cinema approach. He makes the audience aware of the camera's presence and act of filmmaking, explicitly arguing against the endless flow and technical perfection of most film and television. In addition to being a filmmaker, de Antonio was also a painter with connections to the New York art scene (particularly Andy Warhol), and he makes explicit his spiritual bond with not only Cage but also the experimental filmmakers of the "New American Cinema" led by Jonas Mekas. He mentions Pull My Daisy (Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, 1959) as being a major influence. The very idea of making art for profit is seen as counter to his principles:
"Perhaps the only thing worthwhile is to make something that isn't really for sale except on your own terms, which is I made it, it's true, if you don't like it, the hell with you. I want you to like it or I'd be crazy. But I'd rather be crazy than have you like it because it was false, because it was what you wanted for me instead of what I wanted."
As this passage suggests, de Antonio is decidedly strident and confrontational in his views (which is exhilarating if you're sympathetic, but likely aggravating if you aren't). The other scenes are thus crucial for balance, not in terms of contrasting viewpoints but in regards to tone. Seeing de Antonio in private with his friend and partner, as well as delivering a lecture to a social audience, allows the viewer to place his political position in context.
Ultimately, despite its concern with the past of both himself and Hoover (who died in 1973), the message of the film is directed towards the future. The penultimate shot is the university audience emptying (Figure 8), over which de Antonio begins his final voiceover. The last image (Figure 9) contains de Antonio's final words to the viewer, and they provide an appropriate summing up of the past decades and a look towards a future that, unfortunately, de Antonio will not be a part of:
"We had politics in the 60s simply because a great many young people became tremendously involved with the hope of social change. And that's why we're in such a quiescent period now, because it failed. The system was strong enough. This is the strength of democracies, that they create the illusion of change. But in fact what they do is permit change, a certain kind of change."
"And when the students in the 60s got hard, they were crushed. Chicago, the 1968 Chicago riots were by the police, not by the students, and that police riot was planned. The point of that police riot was to go out over world television to say that the United States government would take no more of this. That if you were willing to have your skull cracked, if you were willing to spend a few days in jail, crowded like sheep, if you were willing to have your record destroyed forever and go into a permanent FBI file, then you could demonstrate in that way, and if not, not. And that's a simple and cruel way, and it took place all over the country."
"The nature of the police went back to the period of the 1890s, when the police beat, killed, mowed down, so-called anarchists in the Haymarket riots and those other riots. The police moved into that same position in the 1960s because the game was getting out of control, the game was no longer played by the government's rules. And Kent State was the height of it. When the National Guard could fire on harmless, peaceful demonstrators and kill them, a very clear message was sent to the young people of this country and to all people who were political in the sense that I use that word. You had either the end of the movement, or revolution, and of course it was the end of the movement and a kind of slow death for political ideas."
"We no longer have politics as I use that word. But I think we're on the verge of it, and that's why we're making this film. I think we're on the verge of a new kind of social change. History doesn't repeat itself, it only appears to repeat itself. The new change, the form of the new change cannot be predicted. We will be aware of that form when it takes place."
Recommended reading:
Douglas Kellner and Dan Streible (eds), Emile de Antonio: A Reader (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
Randolph Lewis, Emile de Antonio: Radical Filmmaker in Cold War America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000).
Friday, 28 November 2008
Upcoming films
At the cinematheque on Wednesday and Thursday are two westerns by Sam Peckinpah: Ride the High Country (1962) and The Wild Bunch (1969). And at the Korea Foundation Cultural Center this month are three films: The Notebook (Nick Cassavetes, 2004), The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002), and the Korean film Barefoot Gibong (Kwon Su-Kyeong, 2006).
Sunday, 23 November 2008
New Podcast Recommendation
I have recently discovered a new podcast called "Battleship Pretension." It is a roughly one-hour weekly discussion by two mid-20s cinephiles, Tyler Smith and David Bax. It is not review orientated, but rather an informal discussion between two friends around some film-related topic. Enjoyment of the show will probably depend on whether you like the two hosts and their interaction. It may also depend on whether you have a number of like-minded friends with whom you can have these types of discussions with in person. Since I currently lack any cinephile friends living in the same city, I enjoy eavesdropping on their usually intelligent and amusing conversations. It is, along with Filmspotting and the Plastic Podcast: Movies, one of the three movie podcasts I listen to regularly. You can check out the website in the link below:
http://battleshippretension.com/
http://battleshippretension.com/
Upcoming: Contemporary Korean Cinema at the Cinematheque
From December 5-14, there will be a number of Korean features and shorts shown at the cinematheque. The feature films with English subtitles include:
Jealousy is My Middle Name (Park Chan-ok, 2003)
So Cute (Kim Su-hyeon, 2004)
The Red Shoes (Kim Yong-gyun, 2005)
Boys of Tomorrow (No Dong-seok, 2006)
No Regret (Leesong Hee-il, 2007)
Milky Way Liberation Front (Yoon Seongho, 2007)
I am not familiar with any of the films or the filmmakers, but opportunities to see Korean films with subtitles in theatres are relatively rare.
Jealousy is My Middle Name (Park Chan-ok, 2003)
So Cute (Kim Su-hyeon, 2004)
The Red Shoes (Kim Yong-gyun, 2005)
Boys of Tomorrow (No Dong-seok, 2006)
No Regret (Leesong Hee-il, 2007)
Milky Way Liberation Front (Yoon Seongho, 2007)
I am not familiar with any of the films or the filmmakers, but opportunities to see Korean films with subtitles in theatres are relatively rare.
Cinemetrics
Over the course of the last year, I have become more interested in the formal aspects of cinema. This has always been an interest of mine to some extent. But I think it has been heightened because of the years spent on my dissertation, which is not stylistic but rather contextual in nature. Thus re-engaging with form has been both a type of procrastination (always popular) as well as a way to connect with an initial love of cinema. As a result, I have contributed 27 entries to the Cinemetrics database over the last year or so. This site provides a tool for counting the number of shots of each film. Average shot length (ASL) has always interested me, partly because of its statistical nature. I first encountered the term in the work of film technology historian Barry Salt, and then later in the scholarship of Colin Crisp on Jean Renoir. What was appealing was the ability to point to something concrete in terms of stylistic differences in films. Of course, this is just one element of form and it can be overemphasized because of its tangible nature. Nevertheless, it is a useful factor to consider.
But I would make another argument for using the cinemetrics shot counting tool to view films. To me, watching a movie using cinemetrics is similar to reading with a highlighter. Whenever I'm reading anything remotely scholarly, I like to use a highlighter, not so much for what I highlight but more to make me concentrate. I tend to remember and think more critically about what I read. The same is true with cinemetrics. The focus needed to count shots turns me into a better, more critical viewer. The next time I teach an introductory film course (or any course where style is a major element) I will probably include assignments requiring students to use cinemetrics to sharpen their viewing skills. While it is certainly not for every film or even for every viewer, I do think it is valuable for anyone wanting help with his or her atttentiveness. It is especially useful for home viewing, which tends to be less focused than the theatrical experience.
But I would make another argument for using the cinemetrics shot counting tool to view films. To me, watching a movie using cinemetrics is similar to reading with a highlighter. Whenever I'm reading anything remotely scholarly, I like to use a highlighter, not so much for what I highlight but more to make me concentrate. I tend to remember and think more critically about what I read. The same is true with cinemetrics. The focus needed to count shots turns me into a better, more critical viewer. The next time I teach an introductory film course (or any course where style is a major element) I will probably include assignments requiring students to use cinemetrics to sharpen their viewing skills. While it is certainly not for every film or even for every viewer, I do think it is valuable for anyone wanting help with his or her atttentiveness. It is especially useful for home viewing, which tends to be less focused than the theatrical experience.
Sunday, 16 November 2008
Documentary and Horror Films: ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED
The genres of documentary and horror seem to be complete opposites, yet there are many overlaps. Documentaries often call on the horrific: Blood of the Beasts (George Franju, 1950), Night and Fog (Alain Resnais, 1955), The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (Stan Brakhage, 1971), the legend of "snuff" films, and the Faces of Death series all rely, in vastly different ways, on the ability of images to shock and disgust. Recent documentaries continue in this tradition, such as the great Paradise Lost films and many of the recent Iraq exposes, particularly Taxi to the Dark Side. I thought of this congruence when watching the recent Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (Marina Zenovich, 2008) which uses many clips of Polanksi's films (many of them horror films) to tell the story of Polanski's trial for statutory rape.
Watching Zenovich's use of Polanski's work, I was reminded of a recent article in the new Film Quarterly in which Jonathan Rosenbaum analyzes the documentaries of Adam Curtis. One of the points Rosenbaum considers is Curtis's use of film clips and music. One of these is a music selection from John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), which Curtis features in The Trap. The question then becomes about the manipulation of using something like a horror film score to discuss social and political material. My own response is that the very overtness of such music in a documentary cannot help but be ironic to some degree and thus not conventionally manipulative. Rather, I think the effect can be both visceral and reflective.
One example that comes to mind is the credit sequence to Michael Moore's now rather reviled (even by those on the left) Fahrenheit 9/11. I remain a defender of the film and think it is Moore's best. The use of music in this opening, along with the visuals of the Bush cabinet being "made up" for cameras, can be used as an example of Moore's manipulation. But in this sequence I think Moore is much closer to his more critically respected contemporary, Errol Morris. The overtness of the music signals dread and provides emotion, but it is hardly the classical "unheard melody". I think a similar effect is at work in Phillip Glass's music for Morris and in Curtis's use of Carpenter's score. I don't think these examples stop or discourage the audience from thinking, but perhaps the associations here with the horror film make us more suspicious.
As for Wanted and Desired, the use of Polanski's films works in a very interesting way. The opening credits feature written titles describing Polanksi's crime, scored with the opening music to Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. Certainly this can be seen as manipulation (and titliation) of the highest degree. But as the film progresses, Zenovich critiques this idea of associating Polanski's horror films with his character, which was done extensively by the press after his wife was murdered by the Manson gang. By the end of the film, Zenovich moves from clips of Polanski's horror films to another aspect of his work, his absurdist irony, that captures the spirit of his trial. The result is both a compelling story and a well executed documentary film that reflects intelligently on both Polanksi's career and his life.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, "Negotiating the Pleasure Principle: The Recent Work of Adam Curtis," Film Quarterly 62, no. 1 (Fall 2008): 70-75.
Watching Zenovich's use of Polanski's work, I was reminded of a recent article in the new Film Quarterly in which Jonathan Rosenbaum analyzes the documentaries of Adam Curtis. One of the points Rosenbaum considers is Curtis's use of film clips and music. One of these is a music selection from John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), which Curtis features in The Trap. The question then becomes about the manipulation of using something like a horror film score to discuss social and political material. My own response is that the very overtness of such music in a documentary cannot help but be ironic to some degree and thus not conventionally manipulative. Rather, I think the effect can be both visceral and reflective.
One example that comes to mind is the credit sequence to Michael Moore's now rather reviled (even by those on the left) Fahrenheit 9/11. I remain a defender of the film and think it is Moore's best. The use of music in this opening, along with the visuals of the Bush cabinet being "made up" for cameras, can be used as an example of Moore's manipulation. But in this sequence I think Moore is much closer to his more critically respected contemporary, Errol Morris. The overtness of the music signals dread and provides emotion, but it is hardly the classical "unheard melody". I think a similar effect is at work in Phillip Glass's music for Morris and in Curtis's use of Carpenter's score. I don't think these examples stop or discourage the audience from thinking, but perhaps the associations here with the horror film make us more suspicious.
As for Wanted and Desired, the use of Polanski's films works in a very interesting way. The opening credits feature written titles describing Polanksi's crime, scored with the opening music to Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. Certainly this can be seen as manipulation (and titliation) of the highest degree. But as the film progresses, Zenovich critiques this idea of associating Polanski's horror films with his character, which was done extensively by the press after his wife was murdered by the Manson gang. By the end of the film, Zenovich moves from clips of Polanski's horror films to another aspect of his work, his absurdist irony, that captures the spirit of his trial. The result is both a compelling story and a well executed documentary film that reflects intelligently on both Polanksi's career and his life.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, "Negotiating the Pleasure Principle: The Recent Work of Adam Curtis," Film Quarterly 62, no. 1 (Fall 2008): 70-75.
Upcoming: Trinh T. Minh-ha, Chantal Akerman and Sadie Benning
Coming to the cinematheque (Nov. 23-Dec. 2) are films by three of the most critically acclaimed female directors in world cinema: Trinh T. Minh-ha, Chantal Akerman and Sadie Benning. The Akerman films are all more recent films, not her more well-known films from the 1970s. Benning's work is primarily shorts, and there are two different collections of her work being shown, in addition to the 50 minute Flat is Beautiful (1998). No information on subtitles for the Akerman films. Information on each director can be found here:
http://www.trinhminh-ha.com/
http://www.filmref.com/directors/dirpages/akerman.html
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/benning.html
http://www.trinhminh-ha.com/
http://www.filmref.com/directors/dirpages/akerman.html
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/benning.html
Argentinian Film Festival (November 24-29)
Thanks to Fernando for calling attention to the upcoming Argentinian Film Festival at the Korea Foundation Cultural Center. Information can be found here. Also, apparently the center has regular screenings with English subtitles. I've added a link to the site and directions.
Monday, 10 November 2008
Very Short Introductions
Since coming to Korea, I have become more familiar with a series by Oxford University Press: A Very Short Introduction. These pocket-sized academic texts function almost as first or second year university mini-courses on the given subject. At their best, they are useful both for the neophyte to the subject as well as academics themselves. And they can be invaluable for teaching purposes. My first encounter with the series was when I was preparing to teach an introduction to film theory course a couple of summers ago. I wanted a reading that would help explain post-structuralist theory and happened upon the Very Short Introduction by Catherine Belsey. I was familiar with Belsey, who is a literature scholar, from her excellent book CRITICAL PRACTICE, a chapter of which I read as an undergraduate. Although it was not a film theory book, Belsey's discussion of post-structuralist theory provided a great grounding in the major theorists (Barthes, Lacan, Derrida, etc) who have dominated Film Studies as a discipline. Belsey's accessible style gave the students a much needed grasp of the theoretical concepts (she quite brilliantly begins the book with a discussion of Alice in Wonderland).
Since then, I have read the following titles in the series:
4: Jonathan Culler, LITERARY THEORY
43: Simon Critchley, CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY
56: Jonathan Culler, BARTHES
73: Catherine Belsey, POSTSTRUCTURALISM
77: Kevin Passmore, FASCISM
79: Julia Annas, PLATO
148: Jerry Brotton, THE RENAISSANCE
150: Christopher Kelly, THE ROMAN EMPIRE
152: Tom Burns, PSYCHIATRY
153: Thomas R. Flynn, EXISTENTIALISM
159: Leonard Smith, CHAOS
161: Ali Rattansi, RACISM
163: Andrew Clapham, HUMAN RIGHTS
173: Ken Binmore, GAME THEORY
187: Veronique Mottier, SEXUALITY
Like the Criterion Collection, there is a numbering here that adds a collectibility aspect. And at less than 10,000 won a book, they are considerably cheaper than Criterion DVDs and make for very convenient subway and bus reading. In addition to Belsey, I would highly recommend the two studies by Jonathan Culler, LITERARY THEORY and BARTHES. My two other favorites are Simon Critchley's CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY and especially Ali Rattansi's RACISM, which should be required reading for everyone on the planet. I'm hoping to continue to add more titles to my reading list in the coming months. Currently, the Kyobo bookstore in Gwanghwamun has numerous titles for sale, all under 10,000 won. And, of course, all of the titles (I believe) should be available on-line.
Since then, I have read the following titles in the series:
4: Jonathan Culler, LITERARY THEORY
43: Simon Critchley, CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY
56: Jonathan Culler, BARTHES
73: Catherine Belsey, POSTSTRUCTURALISM
77: Kevin Passmore, FASCISM
79: Julia Annas, PLATO
148: Jerry Brotton, THE RENAISSANCE
150: Christopher Kelly, THE ROMAN EMPIRE
152: Tom Burns, PSYCHIATRY
153: Thomas R. Flynn, EXISTENTIALISM
159: Leonard Smith, CHAOS
161: Ali Rattansi, RACISM
163: Andrew Clapham, HUMAN RIGHTS
173: Ken Binmore, GAME THEORY
187: Veronique Mottier, SEXUALITY
Like the Criterion Collection, there is a numbering here that adds a collectibility aspect. And at less than 10,000 won a book, they are considerably cheaper than Criterion DVDs and make for very convenient subway and bus reading. In addition to Belsey, I would highly recommend the two studies by Jonathan Culler, LITERARY THEORY and BARTHES. My two other favorites are Simon Critchley's CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY and especially Ali Rattansi's RACISM, which should be required reading for everyone on the planet. I'm hoping to continue to add more titles to my reading list in the coming months. Currently, the Kyobo bookstore in Gwanghwamun has numerous titles for sale, all under 10,000 won. And, of course, all of the titles (I believe) should be available on-line.
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