Distance(s) #17, or: the (only) resistance

L'espoir - André Malraux, 1945 / Histoire(s) du cinéma 3B / 3A - JLG, 1998, video

-

Why is it, that from 1940 to 1945, there were no resistance films? There were Resistance films, left and right, here and there, but the only film, in the true sense, to resist America's occupation of cinema, and a uniform way of making films, was an Italian film. It was not by chance. Italy fought the least. It suffered greatly. Having betrayed twice, it suffered a loss of identity. It found it with Rome, Open City. It happened, because the film was made by men without uniform. It was the only time.

--Jean-Luc Godard, Histoire(s) du cinéma 3A: Le Monnaie de l'absolu, 1998.

Realism(s) #11, or: not exhausting a place not in Paris

4 September 2010

5:10 PM

The sky is gray. Fleeting sunny spells.

The wind is making the leaves on the trees move.

-

A rather big chunk of sky (maybe one-sixth of my field of vision)

tens, hundreds of simultaneous actions, micro-events, each one of which necessitates postures, movements, specific expenditures of energy:

It is five after one. A woman is running across the square in front of the church.

A basset hound. A man with a bow tie. An 86.

People stumble. Micro-accidents.

A young girl is eating half a palmier.

A man with a pipe and black satchel.

Funeral wreaths are being brought out of the church.

There are people who read while walking, not a lot, but a few.

Indistinct shadows.

It is five after four. Weary eyes. Weary words.

A man wants to enter the cafe; but he tries pulling the door instead of pushing it

Ghostliness

Open umbrellas

Influx of human or automotive crowds. Lulls. Alternations.

The pigeons are almost immobile. It is difficult to count them, though (200, maybe): some are asleep, feet tucked up. It's time for their cleaning (with their beaks, they comb through their crops or their wings); some are perched on the rim of the third basin of the fountain. People are coming out of the church.

The sun is hidden. There's some wind.

A man in a raincoat makes a big gesture

A car goes by, its hood covered in dead leaves

Oranges in a string bag.

Watched, or rather, excited by its master, a black dog frisks around the plaza.

Barking.

The pigeons are on the plaza. They all fly off at the same time.

Four children. A dog. A little ray of sun. The 96. It is two o'clock

--fragments from a short text by Georges Perec, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, written in Place Saint-Sulpice, 18-20 October 1974. Trans. Marc Lowenthal (who describes it as "something like a Life, without the manual") for Wakefield Press, 2010. More info here.

An aside, or: everything was lost in the air and the wind #2

Dalla nube alla resistenza - Straub-Huillet, 1979, 35mm / Histoire(s) du cinéma 2B: Fatale beauté - JLG, 1998, video

-

42. Andi Engel recalls that when Jean-Marie Straub was asked at the Locarno festival about Godard's use of music, he exclaimed, 'Oh la la, Jean-Luc avec sa discothèque...'

--footnote in Colin MacCabe's Godard (Bloomsbury, 2003), p.394.

for Alexis #2

-

A year or so ago, I wrote some of the only personal words on this blog in remembrance of Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc. Today marks the first anniversary of their death. The sentiment of those words still stands, although I'm sure I'd now select different images. A few weeks ago, clearing out deadwood, I stumbled across a feature in Sight & Sound drawing attention to 75 overlooked films, each accompanied by a short text. Alexis's contribution follows:

Known in the West as a director of B-movie and Blood Island films, in the Philippines, among the informed, de Leon is revered. With a charismatic supporting performance by deposed president Joseph Estrada, The Moises Padilla Story is based on the true story of a former lieutenant who dared to challenge the ruthless Rafael Lacson in his bid for re-election as governer of the province of Negros, Occidental. Tracking Padilla's brutal treatment by Lacson after losing the election (no doubt an unfair one) and his relationship with Estrada's character (once a friend, now a chief of police), the film displays its central character's courgaeous will to stand up to the prevailing tyranny. It's as impressive for its brilliant composition and blocking as for the complex psychology of its characters, and its political themes still resonate today. Sadly, however, the film is missing close to ten minutes, including a sequence in which Estrada's character orders the gouging out of Padilla's eyes. The missing footage is in the possession of film historian / detective / archivist Teddy Co, who is willing to return it should arrangements for its restoration be in place. Are you listening, Martin Scorsese World Cinema Foundation?

--Alexis Tioseco, Sight & Sound 17.8, August 2007, p. 26.

A couple of other contributors make note of cuts imposed upon their chosen films, or the poor condition of extant prints, but Alexis's stands out as the only call for concrete action. It is more striking in this respect than any other: a measure of what we've lost. Alexis always reminded us that criticism is an act of responsibility, not just an informed mode of discourse or a series of well-meaning gestures (stemming from passion, enthusiasm, love) that so often can, and do, end up becoming grist for the mill. As access to cinema history continues to increase (now easily circumventing under-funded or wilfully dismissive official channels), it seems many of us spend our time – our cinephilia –< worrying about what to see, what to consume, recording our thoughts and opinions regardless of what might be at stake. But we would do well to address the structures that enable and control those processes, ones that often lead to both exploitation and neglect (at least when we let them fall into the wrong hands, which is more often than we like, or no doubt care, to acknowledge). For me, one of the most important pieces of film criticism published since Alexis and Nika's deaths is Nicole Brenez's essay in the last issue of Framework (50.1-2), a militant call for the writing of counter-history, the excavation and restoration of exiled films, and a reconstruction of every canon. Its appeal: to save cinema, but also to save cinephilia from itself. This is precisely the impulse that lies behind Alexis's brief plea for Moises Padilla, one which is all too rare.

We still miss him; both of them.

[The picture of Alexis and Nika above is captured from a recording of the Q&A following a screening of Lav Diaz's Heremias Book II (rough cut) in Bangkok, July 2009. Edwin and I plan to publish a transcript elsewhere soon. Oggs has written on The Moises Padilla Story here, and further information on its preservation history can be found here. Also, a recent article suggests that, in the year since their murders, the hunt for Alexis and Nika's killers has not been conducted with due care and diligence. It makes for harrowing reading.]

Studies in Verticality #3

-

-

Observando el cielo - Jeanne Liotta, 2007, 16mm

Distance(s) #16, or: the streets are cleared too late

Un film comme les autres - JLG, 1968, 16/35mm

Histoire(s) du cinéma 1A: Toutes les histoires - JLG, 1998, video

Des animaux #2

Pilgrimage - John Ford, 1933, 35mm

Digressions on the photographic agony #2

I Wish I Knew - Jia Zhangke, 2010, HD video

My father, Wang Xiaohe, joined the Communist Party on May 4th, 1942. The Party ordered him to go to Yangshupu Electric Power Plant, where, in 1948, everything went wrong for the KMT [Chinese Nationalist Party]. There was a surge in protests by students and workers, and my father was caught up in all that. The enemy was watching him closely, and eventually they charged him with destroying a power generator. They arrested him on April 21st, and he was given a death sentence scheduled for September 27th. I had an elder sister, born 17 months before me (I was born on October 24th, 1948) and on that day, September 27th, my mother was pregnant with me. Despite being heavily pregnant, she picked up my sister and went to the prison gate with our Grandma. Many people came along in support, and the traffic around Tilanqiao Prison was clogged up all day. Some policemen whipped my mother with a belt, trying to drive her away. She didn't leave, of course.

After all that, the Tilanqiao Prison put up a notice: it said they hadn't got the execution order, so it wouldn't be carried out that day. My father was being held in Yangshupu. They brought him to Tilanqiao Prison, which had a special court to sentence people in secret. Just for the convenience of the KMT. They convicted and sentenced my father. He was executed in Tilanqiao Prison around 10 o'clock on the morning of September 30th. Put to death. On that day, a journalist from Ta Kung Pao in Hong Kong conducted interviews. He took many pictures. Lots of people took photos when my father was brought outside the prison after the closed court session. I know my father from those pictures. He died three weeks before I was born, so I never met him. I knew him only from those pictures. I miss him so much, though. I never knew my father's love.

--Wang Peimin, trans. Tony Rayns.

In 1972, during the Cultural Revolution, my boss gave me an assignment. A very famous European director, Michelangelo Antonioni, was coming here to make a film about China. I heard that he'd been invited by Premier Zhou Enlai, so it was up to us to meet all his needs. On the second day of filming, we were shooting on Nanjing Road. It struck me that he was filming a lot of bad things, things that reflected our backwardness. It seemed totally unfair. When it kept happening, I made a protest: I said: “If you keep on like this, I'll have to stop you.” He said: “Everything I've seen is very good! What do you think is not good?” He thought everything was fine. The way I saw it, things were far from fine: “We have very good things, but you just shoot such backward stuff.” Our standards were so different.

Two years later, out of the blue, our work unit's military rep arrested me. He took me from home to the TV station, and spelled it out: Antonioni's movie, China. The leaders of the Cultural Revolution, such as Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and so on, had watched the film and advised it was anti-China, anti-communist, an anti-people poisonous weed! I later heard that the Gang of Four [Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan & Wang Hongwen] were using the case as a pretext to attack Premier Zhou. At one point, we came here to attend a criticism meeting. We went to all the places where he'd filmed, such as Shanghai Oil Refinery, and everywhere we went we were criticized and denounced. I was called a small traitor, a spy, a counter-revolutionary! And so on. At that time, I was just thirty years old. How could I have been so politically mature? Even now I have no clear idea about exactly what Antonioni had shot. I've never seen the film. To this day, I don't know exactly what's in it.

--Zhu Qiansheng, trans. Tony Rayns.

Chung Kuo, Cina, 1972 / I Wish I Knew, 2010