Early Morning deas
There is something very exciting about the readings for Monday's films. I'm not sure what it is. It's in the collection of quotations for the film. Phrases like "no pretense of realism," "very rigorous systems of thematic and formal opposition," "collective non-memory, and the loss of the real;" It's no lie that these ideas are making my head spin. Akerman talks about shooting "everything that moves me..." in such a way that connects with an idea of reality in the sense of visual object that has come up in my Basic Film class. I am nuts about dialectic and rhythmic structures, so D'est better be all that has been promised (actually I trust it to be at this point).
On the other side, outside of our chronology, YouTube gives the trailer from Juliette Binoche's own page:
Which just increases my curiosity. Mainly because this film, "A Couch in New York," looks a bit on the silly side. Hmmm... directing a romantic comedy... are there two Chantal Akerman's? IMDB says nope.
"I probably didn't find the money in when I went to L.A. because somewhere I just didn't believe in this kind of project."-Akerman, 1979. Well, a lot can change in 17 years I suppose.
I actually believe this is something that shouldn't be left out of discussion. Mainly because I hear so much grumbling about what we watch in this class as being weird or boring, and yet we never talk about the derivative ends of what we see in early work in real life- Deren's "Meshes of the Afternoon" connected to Lynch's "Mulholland Drive," or Chris Marker's "La Jetée" being the basis for Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys." I am not sure of what that something is that we should be talking about, but it is definitely worth noting I think. I do believe it leads to a more interesting connection with both ends of the work, the major film and the artistic reference. Not in a nerdy name-dropping asshole way (I had to check my ideas as I wrote this, so there, up to this point it was more rumor in my head until I started verifying), but rather in a range of appreciation. It may very well be that some romantic comedy that I've never heard of will come to life after seeing D'Est, just as knowing "12 Monkeys" brought an entirely different dimension of connection with "La Jetée." This may be a conceptual opposition appropriate to the spirit of Monday's screening according to the reading: one of art vs. entertainment perhaps?
On the other side, outside of our chronology, YouTube gives the trailer from Juliette Binoche's own page:
Which just increases my curiosity. Mainly because this film, "A Couch in New York," looks a bit on the silly side. Hmmm... directing a romantic comedy... are there two Chantal Akerman's? IMDB says nope.
"I probably didn't find the money in when I went to L.A. because somewhere I just didn't believe in this kind of project."-Akerman, 1979. Well, a lot can change in 17 years I suppose.
I actually believe this is something that shouldn't be left out of discussion. Mainly because I hear so much grumbling about what we watch in this class as being weird or boring, and yet we never talk about the derivative ends of what we see in early work in real life- Deren's "Meshes of the Afternoon" connected to Lynch's "Mulholland Drive," or Chris Marker's "La Jetée" being the basis for Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys." I am not sure of what that something is that we should be talking about, but it is definitely worth noting I think. I do believe it leads to a more interesting connection with both ends of the work, the major film and the artistic reference. Not in a nerdy name-dropping asshole way (I had to check my ideas as I wrote this, so there, up to this point it was more rumor in my head until I started verifying), but rather in a range of appreciation. It may very well be that some romantic comedy that I've never heard of will come to life after seeing D'Est, just as knowing "12 Monkeys" brought an entirely different dimension of connection with "La Jetée." This may be a conceptual opposition appropriate to the spirit of Monday's screening according to the reading: one of art vs. entertainment perhaps?
posted by Daniel Kelly at 4:15 AM
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