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Now I'm here, now I'm gone
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ericmvan's living room (and television, which must be larger than some movie screens), the miniature film festival in honor of Bergman and Antonioni actually came off last night. gaudior, weirdquark, nineweaving, sharhaun, and captainbutler all showed up, and in despite of home construction, lab schedules, and circadian rhythms, we managed to watch both L'avventura (1960) and The Seventh Seal (1957). It was fantastic. I had never seen anything by Antonioni, so I had no idea what to expect from L'avventura—its opening scenes and the way its first half played out reminded me of Hitchcock, but at the point where in a Hitchcock film the tension would have pulled to the point of unbearability and the pieces begun to drop inexorably into place, in L'avventura the tension dissipates and the story keeps going. There is no solution, because what we are watching is not a mystery. There is no closing scene that we can feel coming up, because nothing ever resolves. Lives are untidy, full of loose ends, inconvenient desires, half-made decisions, all the words that people either say too easily or cannot say at all. About halfway through, gaudior commented, "So this movie is about how Italian gender roles are fucked." Which everyone is; men no less than women. And the only way out may be to disappear. The Seventh Seal I hadn't seen since 1999, when I first watched it for a freshman seminar at Brandeis, but I love so many things about the film, I will content myself with simply saying that there is a reason it was my favorite movie for about seven years.* The Criterion DVD wins no points with me, however: its translation was actually less comprehensive and less accurate than the original English subtitles. (So whose edition do I wait for now . . . ?) Next week we're planning on Blow-Up and Persona (1966), and I have no idea what to expect from those, either: but I expect to like what I see.
This next bit is much less artistic. Earlier this week I discovered the existence of a storytelling game based on the tall tales of Baron Munchausen, and intrigued by the examples given of premise and challenge—"Grand Poobah, please tell our assemblage about the time you singlehandedly defeated the entire Turkish army using only a plate of cheese and a corkscrew!"; "But, my dear Grand Poobah, is it not true that you have a horrible allergy to cork?"—I mentionedfleurdelis28 that I really wanted to know how the hypothetical player got out of that one. "Make something up!" she not unreasonably responded. So . . .
The corkscrew had never been used, naturally. I commissioned it from Gustav Fabergé himself with the solemn oath that never would a creation as delicate and intricate as his be used for any purpose so common, cheap, and coarse as the drawing of corks—a vow to which I kept religiously, even when tempted with that rarest of vintages, the Château Invisible 1782, by Her unacknowledged Highness Alexia of Trebizond.
. . . and now I kind of want to know what happens next. I wonder if this counts as fanfiction.
*It may have been displaced by A Canterbury Tale. Whatever that tells you about me.
ericmvan's living room (and television, which must be larger than some movie screens), the miniature film festival in honor of Bergman and Antonioni actually came off last night. gaudior, weirdquark, nineweaving, sharhaun, and captainbutler all showed up, and in despite of home construction, lab schedules, and circadian rhythms, we managed to watch both L'avventura (1960) and The Seventh Seal (1957). It was fantastic. I had never seen anything by Antonioni, so I had no idea what to expect from L'avventura—its opening scenes and the way its first half played out reminded me of Hitchcock, but at the point where in a Hitchcock film the tension would have pulled to the point of unbearability and the pieces begun to drop inexorably into place, in L'avventura the tension dissipates and the story keeps going. There is no solution, because what we are watching is not a mystery. There is no closing scene that we can feel coming up, because nothing ever resolves. Lives are untidy, full of loose ends, inconvenient desires, half-made decisions, all the words that people either say too easily or cannot say at all. About halfway through, gaudior commented, "So this movie is about how Italian gender roles are fucked." Which everyone is; men no less than women. And the only way out may be to disappear. The Seventh Seal I hadn't seen since 1999, when I first watched it for a freshman seminar at Brandeis, but I love so many things about the film, I will content myself with simply saying that there is a reason it was my favorite movie for about seven years.* The Criterion DVD wins no points with me, however: its translation was actually less comprehensive and less accurate than the original English subtitles. (So whose edition do I wait for now . . . ?) Next week we're planning on Blow-Up and Persona (1966), and I have no idea what to expect from those, either: but I expect to like what I see.This next bit is much less artistic. Earlier this week I discovered the existence of a storytelling game based on the tall tales of Baron Munchausen, and intrigued by the examples given of premise and challenge—"Grand Poobah, please tell our assemblage about the time you singlehandedly defeated the entire Turkish army using only a plate of cheese and a corkscrew!"; "But, my dear Grand Poobah, is it not true that you have a horrible allergy to cork?"—I mentioned
fleurdelis28 that I really wanted to know how the hypothetical player got out of that one. "Make something up!" she not unreasonably responded. So . . .The corkscrew had never been used, naturally. I commissioned it from Gustav Fabergé himself with the solemn oath that never would a creation as delicate and intricate as his be used for any purpose so common, cheap, and coarse as the drawing of corks—a vow to which I kept religiously, even when tempted with that rarest of vintages, the Château Invisible 1782, by Her unacknowledged Highness Alexia of Trebizond.
. . . and now I kind of want to know what happens next. I wonder if this counts as fanfiction.
*It may have been displaced by A Canterbury Tale. Whatever that tells you about me.
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That sounds very cool. Sort of reminds me of Picnic at Hanging Rock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picnic_at_Hanging_Rock_%28film%29)--it's something I loved about Picnic at Hanging Rock. I'lll have to see L'avventura.
It may have been displaced by A Canterbury Tale. Whatever that tells you about me.
I've decided it means you have a glue fetish.
The Criterion DVD wins no points with me, however: its translation was actually less comprehensive and less accurate than the original English subtitles.
Ack, that really sucks.
So whose edition do I wait for now . . . ?
When Criterion does a new edition of a foreign film, they often times improve the subtitles. That's one of the reasons I've been itching to get the new Criterion edition of Seven Samurai, even though my old copy is also Criterion. I actually really don't like the way some of the lines are translated in the old edition, especially some of the last lines.
. . . and now I kind of want to know what happens next. I wonder if this counts as fanfiction.
But, my dear Grand Poobah, didn't Alexia of Tresbizond believe she was Alexander the Great? How did you gain entrance to the tower whence her family long ago locked her away?
nice
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Another movie I have not seen. I will have to look it up!
I've decided it means you have a glue fetish.
*snerk*.
Ack, that really sucks.
It really annoyed me, particularly since it was evident even to non-speakers of Swedish that not all the dialogue was being translated: repetition and compression only accounts for so much.
When Criterion does a new edition of a foreign film, they often times improve the subtitles.
That would be very much appreciated. The Seventh Seal was one of their earliest releases in 1998, so I can hope.
But, my dear Grand Poobah, didn't Alexia of Tresbizond believe she was Alexander the Great? How did you gain entrance to the tower whence her family long ago locked her away?
I presented myself to her as Hephaistion, reminding her of the sacrifices we had performed at the tombs of Achilles and Patroklos, each to our own hero, and that moment in the bloody aftermath of Issos when I was mistaken for the beautiful Alexander himself and she graciously answered that I too was Alexander. On receipt of my message, which I had taken care to write in the purest Greek I could muster from my schoolroom days, she sent down to me not only the key to her chambers, but a response so passionately longing for the days before Ekbatana, our innocent boyhood in Mieza, that it was with some trepidation that I prepared myself to be received into her presence—owing to an unfortunate and unexpected departure from the Prussian court, I had neglected to bring my copies of Arrian, Plutarch, and Pseudo-Kallisthenes, and I feared greatly that in the throes of such distraction as she clearly intended to offer, I might make some fatal historical error and find my cover, as it were, blown.
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Yes, especially since there's been a changing of the guard at Criterion and Ingmar Bergman's recent death may compel them to release new editions of his films.
to write in the purest Greek I could muster
Heh, I've tapped a vein.
I might make some fatal historical error and find my cover, as it were, blown.
Hehehe.
My goodness, Grand Poobah! All this only days before you routed the Turkish army? Was Her unacknowledged Highness somehow a conduit for that now famous weapon, the plate of cheese? Was it the product of a perverted yet curiously keen imitation of Alexander's tactical genius? And did you truly make love to her under such circumstance?
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There's no film I love more.
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But the plate of cheese was, if I recall the incident correctly, given to you by the Isaurian goatherd.
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I would love to have seen that.
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Glass? I will admit that in the straitened circumstances which have been the occasional hazard of a life as venturous as mine, I often passed it off as a mere gaud of gilt and colored glass, but I may assure you in the name of Fabergé’s honor that even the Tsars of Russia could not have prided themselves on more flawless gems or more glowing enamel. Had I not accidentally found myself the importer of scythes to that country whose inhabitants had heretofore harvested their corn solely by cannonball, I should never have been able to afford it.
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It's not like anything else. I love that.
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David Bordwell weighed in on the Great Bergman Debate yesterday, and when I read this bit, I thought of this entry (note that this is in the section where he's talking about how he really doesn't get all the Bergman hype, too):
"Persona," I admit, was a punch in the face. Seeing it in its New York opening, I felt that all of modern cinema was condensed into a mere eighty minutes. But no Bergman film afterward measured up to that for me...
I'll buy that with a pound of cole slaw.
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Heh. I am now very curious; especially since I love The Seventh Seal so much, I want to see what could knock it flat out of the ballpark.