Film, 2011

Yeah, I know that the year actually ended two months ago, but I have been playing catch-up (more so than usual this time around, but that's another story for another time and place). So, as the Oscars are tonight, let me offer up what lingered with me once I left the theaters these past several months . . .

Best of the Year
[The films listed are not ranked. Also, to simplify matters in this world of global financing, country designations refer to the director's origins].

1. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog, Germany): The subject of these cave-paintings proved a natural fit for Herzog's characteristic musings about humans and their place in this world. And, yes, the 3D suited the subject as well. A truly haunting film. On a personal note, as a long time Herzog fan, I think that I have reached the point where I would be soothed by the sound of his voice reading a phone book.

2. Tuesday, after Christmas (Radu Muntean, Romania): Possibly the best film I saw at the 2010 New York Film Festival, this stellar movie is one of the best theatrical films of 2011. A portrait of adultery and the final dissolution of a marriage filled with fully drawn characters and all the messy ambiguity of everyday life.

3. Uncle Boonmee Who Can See His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand): There seemed to be a preponderance of films last year examining the cycle of life and our place within it. This example is filled with ghosts, fantastic whimsy, beautiful imagery, and a scene in a cave that, I believe, is an allegory of reincarnation. Either way, I left the theater wanting to hold onto the sensations of this film for as long as possible.

4. The Mill and the Cross (Lech Majewski, Poland): An examination of Pieter Bruegel's creation of his painting The Road to Calvary, this may be the greatest film I have seen on the life of an artist. Not a bio-pic of Bruegel, but instead a study of the times in which he lived. Like the work of the painter himself, Majewski dares to capture all of human experience, only to admit by the end, that it is too vast for a single canvas of any type. Simply stunning.

5. Melancholia (Lars von Trier, Denmark): Opinion, as always with von Trier, was all over the place with this film. I have often had a mixed experience with the director, but was swept up in this one from pretty much the beginning. Another vision of our place in the cosmos, and speculation on the End of Things (note the use of Bruegel images throughout), it avoids massive physical destruction, for more psychological suffering. His best since Breaking the Waves, if not simply his masterpiece.

6. The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, France): The silent film junky in me was pretty much in love with every moment of this film. A superb combination of both fun and pathos.

7. The Descendants (Alexander Payne, USA): Yes, it started slow; for the first third or so, I was thinking "not bad, but nothing special." However, the more I watched, the more the characters deepened, until I was completely absorbed by the end. Another first rate film for Payne.

8. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, Iran): Similar to Tuesday, this film also is a close character study, whose story spins out of a crumbling marriage. However, this film employs a larger cast, weaving a wider social portrait. In the end, it seems to be illustrating how small omissions of consideration for those around us can create unintended and quite poisonous circumstances. Again, a film with no easy villain -- only finely drawn characters. Oh yeah, and in a year where I saw the world end, literally, at least three times in the cinema, this may have been the most emotionally intense film of the year.

9. Hugo (Martin Scorese, USA): If The Artist was about the thrill of making movies, Hugo is about the joy of watching them. Scorsese has taken his love for the history of cinema, stripped it of academic baggage and delivered it with a sense of pure excitement. Mix in two charming young leads and a wonderfully restrained comic performance by Sacha Baron Cohen and you have a bit of fun. And the 3D works well to boot. Of course, I'm also the guy you heard sighing at the brief glimpse of Buster Keaton in The General . . .

10. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Tomas Alfredson, Sweden): At a third of the length of the Alec Guinness miniseries adaptation, this film may not keep the same amount of plot detail from the book, yet it makes up for it in atmosphere, and thus in rendering the moods and emotions of le Carre's novel perfectly. I have a couple quibbles about Connie's character, but beyond that, first rate all around. As for the final scene? Is it too early to hope for bringing the gang back together for The Honorable Schoolboy?

11. Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, USA): Much ink has been spilled on the Oscars and nostalgia for the past. Well, here is film set in the past without any trace of rose-tinted glasses. Tracing the increasingly desperate wanderings of a lost wagon train, this movie serves well as a companion piece to her brilliant Wendy & Lucy. Both concern the lengths to which individuals will travel in search of dreams of a better life, as well as the sacrifices required along the way. (The ending of Wendy & Lucy still lingers in my mind).Once the pioneers take captive a stray Native American, circumstances get even more complicated. Reichardt (and writer Jonathan Raymond), smartly avoid thematic resolution, since, as a society, we're still debating what all this means anyway.

Honorable Mention: The Tree of Life; La Havre

Repertory Discoveries: These range from silent Wiemar melodrama to Pre-Code Hollywood comedy to delinquent Japanese youth to a non-romantic documentary on life along the Ganges River. The last one even inspired a couple poems, one of which I debuted recently at Cornelia Street Cafe . . .

The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrova; Me and My Pal; Live Today, Die Tomorrow!; Forest of Bliss

Best Ensemble Acting: The Artist, A Separation, The Descendants, Melancholia; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Notable Performances: Viggio Mortensen (A Dangerous Method); Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Ganisbourg (Melancholia), Jean Dujarden, Berenice Bejo, John Goodman (The Artist); Shailene Woodley (The Descendants); Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy); Chole Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen (Hugo).

Best Dog: The Artist

Original Score: The Artist (Ludovic Bource); Cold Weather (Keegan DeWitt); Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Alberto Iglesias)

Best Use of Non-Original Music(aka The McCabe & Mrs Miller Award): "Love Song" by Bernard Hermann in The Artist; Tristan and Isolde by Ricard Wagner in Melancholia; "La Mer" by Charles Trenet in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Most Intriguing Missed Chance at Type-Casting: Tom Hiddleston in Thor & Midnight in Paris . . . "Excuse me, is that?" "Yes, it is: Mr. F. Scott Fitzgerald, great American novelist, noted drunk and Norse God of Lies & Mischief." Definitely would have spiced up Allen's film a little . . .

Least Interesting Bit of Type Casting: Jon Hamm in Bridesmaids. What can I say? I'm sick of the sight of his naked chest and the new season of Mad Men hasn't even started yet . . . Oh well, as long as he doesn't mind spending the next decade of his career playing cads. I suppose someone needs to tackle the roles that Michael Caine is too old for these days. How's your Cockney, Jon?

Biggest Waste of a Single Talent: Tadanobu Asano as Hogun in Thor. Maybe he's just biding his time for a Warriors Three spin off, but, come on, at least Stevenson's Volstagg got to interact with the other characters. Funny thing, though: just a few days before seeing the film, I was wondering why I hadn't seen more of the actor lately . . .

And, finally, something to look forward to in 2012? Well, I'm sure as the festival season begins, there'll be plenty of enticing offerings, but, for the moment, all I can say, is: The Dark Knight Rises. Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle? Can't. Wait. Don't care if doesn't even put on the catsuit during the film. Still. Can't. Wait.

Meanwhile, back in the present moment, I hope that everyone's weekend has been running smoothly.

Cheers.

The View from Saturday's Vantage



photo by creighton blinn,
all rights reserved



I woke up this morning to the sight of snow drifting past my window, which was not entirely surprising. After all, the forecast had predicted a combination of snow and rain for today. What was not expected was how much it was sticking to the rooftops stretching out before me. Later when I ventured downstairs for my daily paper, I would note that the snow did not survive along the well trod streets and sidewalks of Bay Ridge. Regardless, watching the gently falling flakes set against a grey sky was quite lovely, especially as I could enjoy the moment from the comfort of my bed. Eventually, though, I roused myself so that I might snap a few shots of the vista from my apartment.

                                          Enjoy



photo by creighton blinn, all rights reserved



photo by creighton blinn, all rights reserved



photo by creighton blinn, all rights reserved



Still, I am glad that I was invited to a Halloween party last night, instead of tonight . . .



photo by creighton blinn,
all rights reserved



Cheers

Ruminations of The End

I have watched the world end three times in the past few months -- not in any metaphorical sense, though, the circumstances of my life are not the best at this moment. No, I mean, this subject seems to be reoccurring in some of the films I have viewed lately. During this year's New York Film Festival, I saw five films (a sixth I was forced to skip due to illness), out of which there were two separate speculations on what The End might be like. (There was an additional third on the roaster, though I chose not to see it). 

The first of these was Lars von Trier's Melancholia. Split into two parts, the second half of the narrative occurs against the backdrop of an asteroid hurtling perilously close to Earth. Scientists proclaim that there is no cause for alarm, though there are others who fear for all. This is not a huge disaster film with a cast of thousands; you could count on one hand the number of characters who appear during this section of the story. Instead, the narrative is focused on a single family, and how they react to unfolding events, as well as to each other. There are no grand heroics, though there is some kindness, what might be allowed under such circumstances. When the end does arrive, there is a bang, though it is not a prolonged one.

In The Turin Horse Bela Tarr limits his focus even further: a father & daughter living alone in a one room cottage in the midst of a stony, desolate, and constantly wind-swept landscape. One man stops by long enough for a drink and a speculative monologue on where everything went wrong (or if it was ever right to begin with); later there is a brief appearance by a wagon of roving gypsies. However, they all seem beside the point -- the father's horse is a more prominent character than any of these visitors. The father and daughter go through their daily routines, trying best to keep to their usual paths. Eventually the weight of it all bears down on them. Eventually, the film argues, one's energy is simply depleted, at which point, you gently fade away.

My thoughts on these two films, naturally led me back to Tree of Life which I saw towards the end of the summer. The concluding point of Malick's film is less clear than Melancholia yet the consensus does seem to hold that it is some vision of the End of Days, an interpretation that would fit within the scheme of a narrative whose range stretches all the way back to Creation. Malick differs from von Trier or Tarr in presenting a more mystical vision of the end, a moment filled with reunion of those previously departed, along with a sense of transcendence. My reading of Tree of Life is that Malick wishes to take as his subject the entire scope of the human condition -- indeed the entire scope of life itself.  Thus, the story of a boy coming of age in 1950s Texas is bracketed between the early days of creation and the final ones. His experience is a universal one: through his seemingly mundane adventures, we may learn of ourselves, and hope to find solace through that knowledge.

Which led my thoughts to The Mill and the Cross. This outstanding film, by Lech Majewski, is a speculation on the painter Pieter Bruegel and the making of his The Way of the Cross. The movie is not, however, a standard bio-pic of an artist at work. Instead, the filmmaker recreates the 16th Century world in which Bruegel moved, imagining the daily events which may have provided the inspiration for his canvas. Bruegel was an artist also interested in the entire range of the human condition, which is reflected in many of his greatest works, including The Way of the Cross. Majewski, in turn, follows this thread, weaving a tapestry that is worthy of Bruegel in both image and content. "Here too," Majewski seems to claim, "is a view of all the elements that make us who we are." Then, in a deft slight of hand I have no desire to spoil, the film admits that this one canvas of Bruegel's can merely be one component of his prolific imagination, which itself is the product of one artist among many who wish to examine what makes us who we are.

Which, in a way, is what von Trier and Tarr are up to as well. The first half of von Trier's film takes place during the course of a wedding reception. Here we watch the ebb and flow of a party, the jerky starts and stops of interpersonal relationships, while a marriage falls apart over the course of a single evening. Similar to Bruegel, von Trier wishes to distill a vast variety of experience into a single night. (I doubt that it is any coincidence that von Trier features Bruegel's painting The Return of the Hunters prominently in his film). In the same manner, Tarr has explained that he wished in The Turin Horse to make an allegory of life; within that battered cottage, he saw the essence of who we are. Indeed, when asked after the screening why he is choosing this moment in his career to retire, his response was, more or less, to point at the now empty screen and ask "what else could I say?"

Except, of course, that we will continue to trudge on, despite whatever our personal toils, in search of some additional nugget of wisdom, until we reach whatever end there is.

Peace.

Praying to the Wind

Sometimes a piece of music may speak to you of a particular time & place even if it had been recorded decades prior, even if you already possessed an established relationship with the piece of music. You hear the lyrics, you feel their meaning and are able to relate them to your own circumstances. Such was the case with me and "We Came Through" in the days following the attacks of September 11.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgnUX7kBD9s&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLC981C1A0BBE1C331

"We Came Through" was written and recorded by Scott Walker for his 1969 album, Scott 3. I have long held Walker in high regard as one of my favorite musicians, as well as being fond of "We Came Through" as an outstanding song from a record full of stellar tracks. My own interrpretation of the song is that within it, Walker is taking stock of his historical moment, examining the state of the world. What he sees is not encouraging, painting a vision filled with war & flames, dead heroes & expired hopes. What has been accomplished, what has been purchased with all this sorrow? Not much. The singer can merely claim that "we came through." That is his generation's great achievement: we survived it all.

Or "salute the men who died for freedom's sake [but] we won't dream, for they don't come true for us, not anymore. They've run far away to hide in caves, with haggard burning eyes. Their icy voices tear our hearts like knives."

Listening to these lyrics in the days after September 11, I gained new associations that ten years later, I am still unable to shake whenever I hear the song. In the immediate aftermath of the day's events, those "icy voices" hiding out in caves, cutting through us like knives took on fresh faces. As the shadows of the attacks grew longer, as I myself grew more pessimistic, the more strongly I felt as though Walker's words could relate to my own historical moment. Witnessing yet again "our kings and countries raise their shields . . . as Luther King's predictions fade from view" I would be left wondering often during the years ahead if all that my generation could claim for our own time was simply that we had survived it as well. 

There's one other song that I associate with that day, but, in a more positive light. When eventually it grew late, and the time came to switch off the TV and attempt to sleep, I needed something to clear my mind of all the horrible images of the day. I reached for music, as that is what most reliably sooths my spirits, something of beauty to remind me of the good things that people can produce, the happiness that we can spread instead of hate. In this instance, I chose John Coltrane:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hugIRAe2yvw

Peace, everyone.

Sometimes simple is best . . .

While on Governor's Island yesterday, I stumbled upon an "electronic art festival" in the island's chapel. Thinking "what the heck" I decided that it might be worth a peek inside for a change of pace. The installation, Blue Morph, is credited to artist Victoria Vesna & scientist James Gimzewski. An investigation of nanos shifting within a Blue Morpho butterfly, the work itself within St. Cornelius is relatively sparse: soft ambient sounds, blue tinged windows and backscreen projection of light patterns which overlap masked stained glass. Cushions and seats are scattered about inviting viewers to sit and soak up the atmosphere. Simple. Yet, effective. I found the space to be a welcoming contrast to the humid external bustle of free bike rental day. Or, perhaps, I'm simply a sucker for flickering light effects . . .




photo by creighton blinn, all rights reserved





photo by creighton blinn,
all rights reserved



photo by
creighton blinn,
all rights
reserved





photo by creighton blinn,
all rights reserved

Cheers



The Twenties, on an Island

Sorry that I have been a bit silent of late, but the lazy days of summer have not been so laid back for me, which is not entirely a bad thing. For example, back in June, my nestmate and I were out on Governor's Island for their Jazz Age Lawn Party, where you camp out on the grass, savoring the period flavors of old cars, clothes and tasty St. Germain cocktails. Live music comes courtesy of Michael Arnella & His Dreamland Orchestra. There's also a dance floor, for those who are so inclined. Oh, and for the foodies(you know who you are ;)), a pie baking contest with free samples . . . All in all a good time. Each one of these events I have attended has been more populated than the previous with the most recent outing seeming especially so. (I could credit that Woody Allen film, however, it's more likely the word getting around). Governor's Island hosts two Lawn Parties each summer, and we were planning to venture out for the second installment this weekend, only the weather has not been promising so far. Tomorrow may be another day, but for now, here are three black and white images, bracketed with two shots of color, from earlier this summer:

photo by creighton blinn,
all rights reserved

photo by creighton blinn, all rights reserved

photo by creighton blinn,
all rights reserved

photo by creighton blinn,
all rights reserved

photo by creighton blinn,
all rights reserved

Best wishes for your weekend. Cheers. 

Video of Some Summer Verses



photo by creighton blinn
all rights reserved



A few weeks back, I read my poem "Day after May Day" at DDAY Productions' Summer Solstice celebration at the Yippie Cafe in Manhattan. We had a few difficulties that evening, though, as they say, the show did go on, thanks in large part to our hosts Puma Pearl and Big Mike (you can hear him for a moment when I exit the stage). As it turned out, however, this was DDAY's last event at the Yippie; the series is moving to the Bowery Poetry Club starting in August, and I know I am looking forward to the new home . . .

In addition, not only did my nestmate, TC, deliver a superb featured performance, but, she also served as model for the photo at left. Thanks, TC.

Thanks also to videographer, Joe Coppa for sticking it out with us throughout the reading. 

So, enjoy the video, and, as always, feel free to let me know what you think.    

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhL2XTi9DQ0

Cheers.