William S. Burroughs by Jeannette Montgomery Barron, New York, 1985

William Burroughs inspired many artists, but here is one of the most beautiful realization of his ideas on screen: Gus Van Sant’s 1978 short-film adaptation of  Burrough’s essay “Do Easy (DE)”.

“DE is a way of doing. It is a way of doing everything you do. DE simply means doing whatever you do in the easiest most relaxed way you can manage which is also the quickest and most efficient way, as you will find as you advance in DE.”

Watch Gus Van Sant’s “The Discipline of DE”

Still from Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945). Hitchcock hired Dali to help create dreamlike atmosphere for his film.

Salvador Dali not only contributed to various films: from Luis Buñuel’s Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog) and L’age d’or (The Golden Age) to Hitckcock’s famous dream scene in Spellbound, but he was also quite friendly with television. His various talents are famously (and comically) on display in a television game show “What’s my Line” from 1950’s which is surprisingly fresh and interesting today.

Watch “What’s my Line” with Salvador Dali

What is an independent film? For me, it is a case when producer has no creative control. When that happens, producer’s name doesn’t show up in titles in the same size, length and importance as director’s. In that aspect, you can not regard films like Being John Malkovich ($13 million budget, dir. Spike Jonz), Lost in Translation ($4 million budget, dir. Sofia Coppola), Memento ($4.5 million budget, dir. Christopher Nolan), or The Terminator ($6.5 million budget, dir. James Cameron) as truly independent, as put by Empire magazine in their list of 50 greatest independent films.

To me independent stand-outs are usually those films, where director felt the urge to express his vision, idea, story no matter the shining surface. They are often made on a shoestring of a budget and involves friends and like-minded people. Some of the great independent film examples:

À Bout de Souffle (dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
All the Vermeers in New York (dir. Jon Jost, 1990)
Buffalo 66 (dir. Vincent Gallo, 1998)
Cube (dir. Vincenzo Natali, 1997)
Dreams That Money Can Buy (dir. Hans Richter, 1947)
Eraserhead (dir. David Lynch, 1979)
Night of the Living Dead (dir. George Romero, 1968)
Orphée (dir. Jean Cocteau, 1950)
Pi (dir. Darren Aronofsky, 1998)
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (dir. Jonas Mekas, 1971)
Ritual in Transfigured Time (dir. Maya Deren, 1946)
Roger And Me (dir. Michael Moore, 1989)
Signs of Life (dir. Werner Herzog, 1968)
Stranger than Paradise (dir. Jim Jarmusch, 1984)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (dir. Tobe Hooper, 1974)

Finally, as Philip Glass once remarked about Cocteau’s Orphée:

“I suppose Cocteau probably had a budget of five dollars and thirty-five cents for special effects. Yet those effects are magical.”

Agreed, magical is the right word for many truly independent films.

Jim Jarmusch revealed his ten favorite films in John Walker’s “Halliwell’s Top 1000” (published in 2005):

1. L’Atalante (Vigo, 1934) 2. Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) 3. They Live by Night (N Ray, 1949) 4. Bob le flambeur (Melville, 1955) 5. Sunrise (Murnau, 1927) 6. The Cameraman (Sedgwick, 1928) 7. Mouchette (Bresson, 1967) 8. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954) 9. Broken Blossoms (Griffith, 1919) 10. Rome, Open City (Rossellini, 1945)

Compared with the list Andrei Tarkovsky made in 1972 there is one film that appears on both lists: Bresson’s “Mouchette”.

Jean-Luc Godard with his cinematographer Raoul Coutard shooting “Breathless”. Sometimes this film is listed under 1959, but technically it’s release came a year later.

When somebody asks a question - what was the best year in cinema history - there are two popular answers: 1939 or 1959. Both were spectacular years for cinema-goers so lets take a look at some films each year produced:

1939

Gone with the Wind (dir. Victor Fleming, George Cukor)
Stagecoach (dir. John Ford)
The Rules of the Game (dir. Jean Renoir)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (dir. Frank Capra)
The Wizard of Oz (dir. Victor Fleming)
Ninotchka (dir. Ernst Lubitsch) 
Wuthering Heights (dir. William Wyler)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (dir. William Dieterle)
Destry Rides Again (dir. George Marshall)

1959

North by Northwest (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
400 Blows (dir. Francois Truffaut)
Some Like it Hot (dir. Billy Wilder)
Anatomy of a Murder (dir. Otto Preminger)
Shadows (dir. John Cassavetes)
The World of Apu (dir. Satyajit Ray)
Pickpocket (dir. Robert Bresson)
Hiroshima Mon Amour (dir. Alan Resnais)
Rio Bravo (dir. Howard Hawks)
Floating Weeds (dir. Yasujiro Ozu)
Imitation of Life (dir. Douglas Sirk)

As poll in 2000 revealed, 1939 is both fan and critic favorite and I can see why. It is very America-centered and holds few films (Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz) that are dear to couple generations and even became household names. On the other hand, 1959 trumps 1939 easily if you prefer art over entertainment and truth over melodrama and comedy.

The infamous 31st Academy Awards which took place 1959 produced many flops: ceremony (screened on national television) that ended 20 minutes early leaving it’s host to attempt to fill in the time, enjoyable but clichéd musical “Gigi” breaking then-record with 9 Oscars and omission of two best films of the year - Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” and Welles “Touch of Evil”. 

The truth about Oscars was best expressed in adult animation “Futurama” when an actor responds sincerely after hearing remarks that his acting should be better to be nominated for the award:

“The Oscar isn’t about acting. It is about earning respect and admiration of the creative community.”

And, well, when that “creative community” has a lot of friends we all know what happens. One of the most terrible flops from the recent times is mediocre comedy and bad film “Shakespeare in love” getting all the love in 1998. Would you at least consider wasting your time watching this film now?

Hillman Curtis is legendary graphic designer turned into a filmmaker. His short films are capsules enclosed with special moments of life, which are often the ones of truth and revelation.

Check out his artist series (for example this great one, with Stefan Sagmeister) to understand his subtle and subdued approach as a director, often letting his “actors” to make the film for him.

I was honored to speak with Srikanth Srinivasan - a man behind “The 7th Art” website. We have featured part of his brilliant essay on Resnais’ “Last year in Marienbad” in the previous post. Now, it’s time to talk with the Critic himself.

Clint: If you could ask any director one question about a film, what would it be?

Srikanth: As of now, I want to ask Spielberg what REALLY motivated him to make Schindler’s List.

Clint: I know you consider yourself a hobbyist. Are there any “professional” film critics you follow and admire?

Srikanth: I’ve started reading criticism only recently. I absolutely love David Bordwell’s ever-surprising and ever-informatice articles, Jim Emerson’s seemingly-effortless analyses, Ed Howard’s brilliant, no-nonsense reviews and Acquarello’s extremely dense and insightful capsules.

Clint: Best and worst film sequel ever?

Srikanth: Off the top of my head. Greatest: The Godafather Part II (Coppola) Worst: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Spielberg).

Clint: The only rating you have given to a film that I fail to understand is four starts (out of four) for E.T. Do you hold a special spot for S. Spielberg as his “Jaws” also got maximum rating?

Srikanth: Spielberg was the director who really attracted me at the movies in my earliest days of film watching. Watching a lot of B-movies on cable television, each one of Spielberg’s movies - Jaws, Raiders, Close Encounters, Schindler’s List, E.T and Jurassic Park - came to me as a revelation. However, today, I find most of these movies heavily flawed, even though the exhilarating experience remains.

Clint: This is interesting - I find that most critics have some kind of film “sweet spot” which is mostly films that brought them into the scene or films that helped them to understand the media. They also tend to rate them slightly higher which might be even subconscious action.

Srikanth: Yes, Pixar, Spielberg and Chaplin are my sweet-spots, although not always in understanding the medium.

Clint: Best political film?

Srikanth: Tricky. Almost every film is political, in a way. But if it is in the strictest sense, my pick may just be The Grin without a Cat (Marker).

Clint: The other day I was thinking what would be my answer. After some difficult thoughts I picked “JFK”.

Srikanth: Haven’t seen JFK, unfortunately…

Clint: Given the fact that most of the critics just loved “No Country For Old Men”, your rating of two and a half stars seems curious. What did the film lacked to get into your heart?

Srikanth: What I felt about NCFOM was that it was trying to dress itself up using, as Bordwell says, “intentional ambiguity” to project itself as a movie deeper than it actually is. Having said that, it is also the one movie (perhaps with the exception of Van Sant’s Elephant) that I would like to revisit for a second opinion.

Clint: If you are in a cinema watching a film that is boring, would you rather sit trough or leave?

Srikanth: I would never leave a cinema hall even if I find the movie utterly “boring” because being bored could well be one of the reactions that the movie is supposed to provoke. All that matters is how the whole thing pans out.

Thank you for your time, Srikanth!

Coming back to film stills, one of my favorites comes from mysterious film Alan Resnais made in 1961.

“Last year in Marienbad” is a great poetic tale where story escapes reality just like ordinary objects have no shadows in the still above. Only people have shadows, because the shadow is not simply itself. It is a drag of our hopes, fears and most secret thoughts.

Dreamy, melancholic and to be watched in a cinema because it’s poetic magic escapes digital means.

I heard and read a lot about it, probably because films like it naturally rises discussion. None were more insightful than a lengthy review by Srikanth Srinivasan:

“Rather than raising the obvious question “why is this film like this?”, Last Year at Marienbad proposes another: “Why were films not like this?”. This is one film that one can safely call meaningless, because Marienbad is not a document bound by the rules of the physical world, but a sensory experience that transcends temporal and spatial barriers. And experiences needn’t always have a meaning.”

“12 glowing men” is yet another great project from Martijn Hendriks. This time, instead of erasing something, he adds glowing aura to persons from Sydney Lumet’s classics.

Artist summs it up greatly by saying:

“In a way it is a completely dumb effect, too easy and light to explore the dark subject of the source material. But this dumbness and lightness were an essential part of the material I wanted to work with, it offered another layer of re-appropriation.”

Re-appropriation of classical films is what we all need sometimes. Thank you, Martijn.

David Lynch talks about his favorite films and art of film-making:

“If I have to choose films that represent, for me, examples of perfect film making, I think I could narrow it down to four.

The first would be 8 1/2, for the way Federico Fellini manages to accomplish with film what mostly abstract painters do - namely, to communicate an emotion without ever saying or showing anything in a direct manner, without ever explaining anything, just by a sort of sheer magic.

For similar reasons, I would also show Sunset Boulevard. Even though Billy Wilder’s style is very different from Fellini’s, he manages to accomplish pretty much the same abstract atmosphere, less by magic than through all sorts of stylistic and technical tricks. The Hollywood he describes in the film probably never existed, but he makes us believe it did, and he immerses us in it, like a dream.

After that, I would show Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday for the amazing point of view that Jacques Tati casts at society through it. When you watch his films, you realise how much he know about - and loved - human nature, and it can only be an inspiration to do the same.

And finally, I would show Rear Window, for the brilliant way in which Alfred Hitchcock manages to create - or rather, re-create - a whole world with in confined parameters. James Steward never leaves his wheelchair during the film, and yet, through his point of view, we follow a very complex murder scheme. In the film , Hitchcock manages to take something huge and condense it into something really small. And he achieves that through a complete control of film making technique.”

From “Moviemakers’ Master Class: Private Lessons from the World’s Foremost Directors” book.

Speaking about Tarkovsky… He hated commercial Hollywood films with one famous exception: The Terminator.

He said about the film:

“Vision of the future and the relation between man and its destiny is pushing the frontier of cinema as an art”

If you think about Tarkovsky’s films for a moment, it seems fair what he said. All his life trying to speak about metaphysical themes, about man’s conflict with himself, his environment and his destiny, in this popular blockbuster, he found a similar theme only that it was showed in a way most people could understand and relate to. Even if it doesn’t touches anywhere even near that deep as any of Tarkovsky’s film, “Terminator” is a good film.

In 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky named his 10 favorite films:

Le Journal d’un curé de campagne (dir. Robert Bresson, 1951), Winter Light (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1962), Nazarin (dir. Luis Bunuel, 1959), Wild Strawberries (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1957), City Lights (dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1931), Ugetsu Monogatari (dir. Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953), Seven Samurai (dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1954), Persona (dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1966), Mouchette (dir. Robert Bresson, 1967), Woman of the Dunes (dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964)

If you compare with the list completely different director Stanley Kubrick made ten years earlier, you’ll find two films that appear on both lists: “Wild Strawberries” and “City Lights”.

Continuing with Hitchcock… Martijn Hendriks’ ongoing project Untitled (or The Birds without the birds, or give us today our daily terror) is exact copy of master’s film with just all the birds removed.

The most amazing thing is the question the project poses: do we, as viewers, still experience fear if the fear symbols are erased from the film?

Martijn Hendriks says:

“In my video piece of The Birds without the birds, the terror of that film is still amazing. But the source of the terror has changed. By taking out the birds, terror isn’t given a form anymore, which instead is something we start doing as viewers.”

Looking at The Birds Barbie I was reminded of this frame, which for me is one of the greatest film stills. In general, the art of film stills is pretty subtle. A lot of studios preferred to hire photographer for catching moments on the set, rather than enlarging actual film stills. This was made on a notion that photographer’s picture might “sell” the film better than the actual enlargement from 35 mm reel of the film.

In an essay “Still and Moving” by Mary Corliss, available in Rogert Ebert’s “The Great Movies”, she writes

“Film stills preserve more than a dusty historical records. They evoke, with precision and purity, the cinema’s glorious past. They testify to the persistence of the filmmakers’ vision, to the enticement of movie glamour. They validate the movie lover’s fondest memories. The legacy of still photos shows just how moving moving pictures can be.”