the filmist

thefilmist 3jun2001 hello i am a guy who used to go to movies but now almost only watches TV and sees films on TV, but I also try to make films myself but only for TV. I figure the soapopera is the highest form of art, with the possible exception of Classical Music (i mean like Bach). Also, the artistically important developments in movies since TV (say 1946) came right out of TV (e g Nouvelle Vague)(sp?)(New Wave). The point about TV is intimacy. The greatest acting in films is intimate, in the sense of Robert Mitchum and Lana Turner. I will of course be going into considerable detail to explain my particular meaning about these vast issues, as we proceed---I know I am now painting with a very broad brush. Of course there is in art a prime paradox of intimacy vis a vis abstraction: it is almost impossible for interpreters to “understand” e g Tschaikovski---Padarewski said, “To understand is to equal”; now there´s a cryptic comment! Discussing film, we deal with paradox in paradox; e g, the interpretative art with the “creative” art--- the difference between a painter and a composer of music. We like to say film is an art dominated by the director---but we know that is to be taken with many grains of salt, and careful logic: as Kurosawa depends on Mifune in many films, he also depends on the production company etc etc; the logic is sort of that the greatness is from Kurosawa, without whom the great peaks would not have been attained--- without Kurosawa greatness would had little hope, and we know this because in other cases we see the other factors at play without him, and with far less achievement.Kurosawa is the deciding factor for great greatness. But he is not all thereis in his films, and part of his greatness is his decisions to use and how to use the other factors. But the viewer (the audience) is on one´s own when the evaluation of art is to be done. Each person is his/her own Stradivarius violin, made over many years, tuning and adjusting and aging, by personal decision, by continual awareness and measurement of delight---heart of fire, mind of fire and ice: this is the poignancy of the art experience in life, even as each person experiences his/her own life and blends it with the lives of the artists involved in the art that makes us able to stand life´s slings and arrows and drive pleasure from happiness to bliss to ecstacy and back to rest and recall immediately and years later, enriching our own private lives with the community of the souls of the myriad artists, and in spite of the ubiquitous brash philistines some of whom posing as cognoscenti and judges. Art is war without blood---except for the deaths by exhaustion of tons of artist souls. 13jun01 04:44 By “soul” I mean the part before programming. I resaw yesterday on TV the movie “The Breakfast Club” (by John Hughes). It is a Kurosawa-class film, and Hughes probably I guess learned from Kurosawa´s “The Lower Depths” (from Gorki) to make it. And on another channel today I resaw Kurosawa´s “Ikiru”. One enjoys great art in layers of experiencing, seeing such films many times over much time lapse. It is like one has a vast palace with masterpiece paintings on the walls infinitely so to speak spreading and available by moving to where one sits. In my opinion, the three greatest films of all time are “Ikiru”, “ET”, and “The Hustler” (Robert Rossen). But I do miss Li Li Hwa, in those marvellous Chinese films from Hong Kong (and Taiwan?)(Shaw Bros.?). I do worry that such get lost to eternity. And where is Zatoichi, the blind swordsman, as in “Showdown for Zatoichi”???

280601 1931 Some films seriously treat timetravel.

240701 compare kurosawa with: Dassin,Rossen,Sturges,Keaton,John Hughes.

250701 16:09 I notice that in movies there is what I call pyramidal facial acting: the expression of eotion etc takes a triangular falling oof effect, with a prime emotion followed by a few ancillary (accessory) aclitic (leaning on) expressions---this is rare in TV acting, and I suggest is a result of the free time scale of movies. I do not like it, as it is obviously programmed into the actors to waste time. Again I recommend to opposite as is seen in the great TV series “Da Vinci´s Inquest” ( a Canadian show).

020801 01:16 THE SWEDES THINK A MOVIE IS A COLLECTION OF STILL FOTOES.

060801 21:12 Do you remeber the famous film odd-ball, “The mad Russian”? or the actor called Stepan Fetchit? (Stephan?).

One of the problems in media, movies as well as YV etc, is what about the unattractive (physiaclly)? Especially in TV, we have actors I myself am repelled by, facially; and one of the major producers, David E kelly, does emphatically specializein this: purposely using repellant actors. f course, if there is a news show, the audience has to accept unpleasant presentations. Also there is the question of gruesomeness per se in shows mimicing the horrors of reality, as coroners showing corpses mutilated etc. But I guess there is also a market for actors who are there precisely to confirm the acceptability of the existence of unattractive people generally---actaually, throughout history of theater of any kind, I guess, there is the offering to the public of mirrors of themselves: and this refection is one with the politics of catering to unattractive people---those who cannot, e g , accept that being seen naked is pleasant, and who resent beauty and so want to burn witches. We encounter eras of unfortunately extreme evaluation of physical beauty of one sort or another, and the slave market attitude can be absolute to the point of threatening the survival/procreation of individuals lacking excellence in that sense; this accordingly motivating mass as well as individual hostility/violence. An axis of appeal to the public, of any class, is precisely the factor of identification: Ricki Lake in this unites with the greatest film actors, e g , Jean Gabin, who offered the common man his reflection in Shbui (royal elegance) thus (unlike Ricki Lake) disreminding (my new word) viewers of class difference (and one wonders if Ricki Lake, presenting the masses on TV rather directly, hopes to achieve a similar effect socio/politically). In this discussion do remember the close relationship between TV and movies, esthetically.

A related point is that the film-maker can present an idea via one character (eg, Jean Gabin´s) or/and via several characters (e g, “Orient Express”)---and similarly via the hordes on Ricki Lake.

22:30 Much of what comes out of Hollywood is designed purposely to encourage desire for use of the death penalty.

140801 02:39 see comment relating associating observations to art (this date) in the section (title) “The Associationist”.

07:28 Hollywood etc, is not art, it is business, and very like selling opium in a schoolyard.

120901 1825 It is basic to the policy of Hollywood since, its earliest days, that it glorify crime. It doesnt need Dr Wertham to point that out, It is manifest. Why do the public deny that? I suggest it is because the public glorifies crime, with the same attitude that moves people to smash cars --- they feel trapped in a world of constraints they cannot understand and cannot deal with in any practical sense. (The public of course is not all the same.)

torsdag 25. oktober 2001 22:02 I cannot imagine why in Norway we do not get any W C Fields --- maybe after the movie i hear is being made about Mae West... or maybe it´s that W C Fields is not socially correct. torsdag 8. november 2001 23:21 There is a controversial question in esthetics: let´s call it continuity. In films it concerns flow and development continuously in a dynamic development with moments growing out of previous (but sometimes subsequent) instants, in such a way as to hold the pleased and/or amused interest of the audience for continuous unrelieved pleasure as an entity consistent and lifelike. I oppose that principle. I have to catch my bus, but I´ll return to that question anon.

onsdag 14. november 2001 04:45 Consider that question v v the important influence of the art of Japan upon that of The West since the 1800s. The matter of the invaded (i e, outvaded) frame v v the chinese example of balance between heaven and earth (circle and square). Edvard Munch struggles against the frame´s confining struggles to contain his composition. Kurosawa is marvellous as altho accepting the frame, not succumbing to it, and eventually, in some films crushing it entirely, so to speak.

lørdag 17. november 2001 05:13 In the old days people asked do you want to be a movie star or an actor? --- but now, with tv series based on a personality, the question changes. 22:21 In vintage Disney short cartoon films, i notice a dominant pattern of in/out, important to understanding him, and interesting esthetically re my theory of Relationship, with pattern, form, movement, life. Of course one can refer Disney´s in/out pattern to sexual symbolism. But sexual patterns themselves are at one with patterns basic to all life itself. Indeed, Freud is soiology in so far as he is a fly trapped in the amber called Victorianism (but which in Freud´s case, would more accurately be called Krafft-Ebingism). It is not that some patterns (e g chair legs) resemble phalluses, but that phalluses resemble cylinders (human beings are still struggling to learn the number 3)(i e here, as reference to third position by two entities so related). søndag 18. november 2001 05:14 Terrible promo on Turner old film tv channel recently (and doubtless old): “He proved that he was a real man --- a man who could cry for a child, but was fast with his fists, and even faster with ladies...” (Clark Gable) Altho I reject violent opposition to Western society, some aspects are truly regrettable. 10:01 We should now have the Kurosawa film “The Bad Sleep Well” widely distributed and broadcast.

onsdag 16. januar 2002 21:49 I would like to make reasonable versions of films that have collapsed toward the end due to unreasonable action: it is disapointing to be watching a movie that is doing quite well, only to see it fall apart because the writers lacked the wit to develop the plot solidly.

Again i emphasize that Lana Turner is by far the greatest film actress of all time.