In the wake of autumn's Evangelion immersion, several new subjects emerged to complement my continued focus on Twin Peaks throughout the winter. Lincoln Center's pairing of David Lynch and Jacques Rivette not only led me to New York to cover the entire retrospective but also prefigured a year-end montage using a couple Rivette films, followed by some more coincidental Rivette tributes (including a long-postponed video collaboration completed the previous summer and, sadly, an obituary triggered by Rivette's own passing). Meanwhile, British cult classic The Prisoner replaced Evangelion as my TV viewing diary and the release of The Force Awakens inspired several Star Wars pieces; together - along with the exploration of my familiar Favorites once a week - these all served as recurring, even reassuring touchstones into the new year.
Subjects include the uncanny correspondence of Lynch's late films with Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon, the kaleidoscopic color spectrum of the Czechoslovakian Daisies, a tribute to the Honorary Oscar winners shunted from the main broadcast, an intense visual immersion into the spirit of Arthur Rimbaud, and the convergences and divergences of two "horse-obsessed Sterling Hayden goes on a fifties heist" movies...and those are just the subjects of my video essays!
Another video essay is my highlight, The Passion of Anna K. (video essay on Jean-Luc Godard & Anna Karina), which matched the larger spirit of this period: at once tightly structured and free to explore.
DECEMBER
Line-up for the sixties British series as I watch it for the first time
I attended and reviewed a week-and-a-half-long film series in New York consisting of David Lynch/Jacques Rivette double features
Jean Renoir's first color film displays his father's gifts with an eye-popping palette
The first double feature poses the question: is General de Montriveau his film's Jeffrey Beaumont, or its Frank Booth - or both?
Maybe the strongest double feature, and probably my strongest review of the series, pairs two blonde teenage martyrs played by brilliant actresses born in '67 who gave life to the legends that preceded them
Number Six finds himself in a resort/prison, shot in Portmeirion but set in God knows where
Lynch's and Rivette's eerie black-and-white debuts make an obvious duo but this juxtaposition reveals as many differences as similarities
Not just groundbreaking montage but earnest melodrama marks Abel Gance's dynamic vision
Thematic similarity aside, these are also crucial transitional films for both directors
Quasi-noir surrealism in Los Angeles and Paris
Of course! The pairing that inspired the series in the first place forms a giddy five-hour dream of magic, mystery, and cinema
The Danish scholar chats about his in-depth book, emphasizing Peaks as innovative television and expression of Lynch's vision
A late Rivette that may be his most Lynchian, and a late Lynch that is definitely his most Rivettian
The Village throws a carnival
Louise Brooks is a revelation as the Jazz Age reaches its roaring climax
With the end of the year approaching and a major endeavor concluded, I laid out my plans for 2016 (and sooner)
The dawn of a new Star Wars era, viewed as an individual film but also an indicator of larger (troubling) trends
Number Six is determined to subvert the system from within via an electoral campaign - but is this possible?
Playing the numbers game with the filmmaker and musician in my audiovisual tribute to close off a Rivette-heavy month (though there's still more to come)
JANUARY
Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable ensure termitic focus within the elephantine excess of one of Hollywood's most sumptuous productions
Re-publishing responses to many postwar Euro classics I was seeing for the first time in my early twenties
Number Six's greatest virtues - his intelligence and his stubbornness - work at cross-purposes in an escape attempt
Sergei Eisenstein's take on the historical epic (designed like a live-action cartoon) is at once resolutely theatrical and cinematic
My complicated feelings toward the third Star Wars prequel, boiled down into 210 seconds
An elaborate escape plan goes in...an interesting direction
"Get out of my way, Johnny, I'm gonna spit!" I love everything about this Hawks classic, even (maybe especially) the most blatant censor's intervention ever ("He's-a disgrace to my people!")
Questions about Lynch's six-week walkout from negotiations with Showtime the previous year, led by the Obnoxious and Anonymous podcast
As part of a longer collaborative series, we played around with footage from the epic experimental Out 1, creating and escalating an aesthetic dialogue
Six plus Six equals Twelve - which one is the double?
.png)
Assembling highlights of my forum posts and online comments from the summer the Twin Peaks blu-ray came out
The iconic power of the Great White and the engaging chemistry of the human characters, straddling cinema's different qualities as early Steven Spielberg often does
Comparing/contrasting a couple heist films, whose similarities only emphasize their divergent outlooks
Taking on the tech elite who want to control education, a half-century ahead of schedule
The cinematic evocation of a medieval aesthetic and atmosphere
Concluding a couple months of Rivette-focused work with a tribute on the occasion of his death
FEBRUARY
My appearance on No Ship Network's podcast to discuss my work, my interests, and (of course) Twin Peaks with hosts Em and Steve
Spying on dreams to find out the big secret
Excavating the traditions, troubles, and eccentricities of a farm town in Indiana
Collage of spoken word, translated text, distorted cinema, and abstracted photography convey a powerful Arthur Rimbaud poem
You can't go home again - or can you? (Love this episode)
An experience to get lost inside, both dense and sparse, close-quartered and wide-open
Looking back at my 2006 questions and reactions from almost a decade later...the last chance I'd get since IMDb wiped its message board archives a few months later
The plot against Number Two is more complicated than it initially seems
Together, these films reflect not only the growth of the protagonist but also of Satyajit Ray
Non-narrated montage arranging clips from Karina's seven Godard features to follow a close structure and tell a kind of story
Joining several other commentators on a podcast to mark the anniversary of Cooper's arrival in Twin Peaks
Now this I was not expecting at all - is there any genre The Prisoner doesn't dip into? (They even go so far as to re-imagine the opening montage!)
Highlighting the recently-marginalized Honorary Academy Awards with two montages - "Spike Lee: Four Strategies" and "Gena Rowlands: Getting Closer" - cut to Miles Davis and John Coltrane in a live version of "So What"
A globetrotting adventure/romance/mystery filtered through a single room and window, anchoring itself down to express multiplicity
MARCH
A Leap Day check-in on the progress of an ambitious visual tribute
This Prisoner episode avoids a high concept - rare but solid
"The world in an hour and a half" according to Godard...Robert Bresson's spare film manages to tease a sprawling, communal narrative
Creating a narrated trailer for the clip series I arranged nearly five years earlier, explaining its purpose and highlighting its chapters
An unexpected face in the mirror
Fusing Old Hollywood's larger-than-life storytelling with postwar slice-of-life realism
Screenshots of the slow-burn buildups and dramatic reveals in Steven Spielberg's first four big creature features (best viewed by slowly scrolling through desktop mode on a computer screen)
Six and Two play mind games
Giving over-the-top visual form to what it feels like to to pull off the big show after intense preparation
One director uses different approaches/formats to bring her closer to another (recently deceased) director
Both fantasy and sci-fi, a fable with a very unique aesthetic
One of the wackier episodes, hated by some, loved by others
A guest appearance on a podcast to address the dreaded mid-season 2
Stray reflections on Twin Peaks, some quite lengthy, from the summer of 2014 - including reasons why there would never be a new series!
My biggest year of videos, with lots of diverse activity on Fandor, my own YouTube series, and some more random entries along the way
Vera Chytilova and Annabella Lwin bounce across the color spectrum in a rapid one-minute montage
As the end approaches, The Prisoner dips into a quasi-experimental theater approach
APRIL
Is Barry a Jack Torrance-like loser, does he have more self-awareness, or is he in fact a noble soul despite the narrator's insistence?
Considering both the theatrical cut and the Redux: the first may be more iconic but does the second have more depth?
Shots from Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon rhyme with shots from Lynch's films in startling, uncanny fashion
A final round-up of Twin Peaks comments from 2014, leading up to the announcement of The Return
Who's Number One? I watch The Prisoner finale for the first time...
Clone Wars yields a cave of forgotten nightmares
Despite the broad scope of this documentary series, the "personal view" is key to its success
At the time this was my thousandth post (although later I beefed up the archive with a number of pieces originally written for other sites back in 2009-2010)
My viewing diary complete, I chat with the fan who chose its viewing order
My last Favorites entry for several months packs ten mini-films into one epochal epic, a view of the ten commandments in the last years of Communist Poland
After a very busy summer, fall, and winter - and over a year of steady activity on the site - I needed a breather (and an excuse to use the Rover pic)
(I covered this period on Episode 23 of my Patreon podcast)
Next: Finishing the Favorites (May - November 2016)
(in which I focus exclusively on daily reviews of favorite films day after a slow summer)
•
Previous: A World Without Uncertainty (August - December 2015)
(in which I focus exclusively on daily reviews of favorite films day after a slow summer)
•
Previous: A World Without Uncertainty (August - December 2015)
No comments:
Post a Comment