settima

1980s

Friendship's Death (Peter Wollen, 1987)

Sep

9

1970

Friendship's Death (1987)

Bill Paterson and Tilda Swinton as Sullivan and Friendship. DP: Witold Stok.

“What will happen when your machines become intelligent? When they become autonomous? When they have private thoughts? You humans look down on your machines because they're man-made. They're a product of your skills and labour. They weren't even domesticated like animals were. You see them simply as extensions of yourself, of your own will. I can't accept that. I can't accept subhuman status simply because I'm a machine based on silicon rather than carbon, electronics rather than biology. If I sound fanatical, it's because I've been trapped in a time warp. In a world where the full potential of machines hasn't been guessed at. A world where I have to wear a human disguise to be accepted? I came here too late. It will all end before the computers that already control the fate of the world have reached the point where they wanted to survive.”

– Friendship

আকালের সন্ধানে [Akaler Sandhane / In Search of Famine] (Mrinal Sen, 1982)

Sep

7

আকালের সন্ধানে (1982)

A clapperboard in the jungle. DP: K.K. Mahajan.

“Past. Presence. And future.”

Nostos: Il ritorno [Nostos: The Return] (Franco Piavoli, 1989)

Sep

6

Magellan expedition– 1522

Nostos: Il ritorno (1989)

Odysseus (Luigi Mezzanotte) and Poseidon's kingdom, the sea (via). DP: Franco Piavoli.

A seafaring explorer in commemoration of Ferdinand Magellan's (almost) completed circumnavigation in 1522. The Portuguese Magellan was enlisted by Spain to gain access to the Moluccas' spices and other trading goods by sailing west instead of east, thus avoiding the heavily armed Portuguese and Dutch traders who were plundering Southeast Asia, its peoples and cultures.

“Calypso the lustrous goddess tried to hold me back, deep in her arching caverns, craving me for a husband. So did Circe, holding me just as warmly in her halls, the bewitching queen of Aeaea keen to have me too. But they never won the heart inside me, never. So nothing is as sweet as a man's own country.”

– Homer, Odyssey, ca. 8th century CE (via)

 

With the war over, Odysseus returns home by sea, a ten year voyage known as the Odyssey

Taxi zum Klo (Frank Ripploh, 1980)

Sep

2

Christa McAuliffe 1948 – 1986

Taxi zum Klo (1980)

Frank (Frank Ripploh) teaching kids about the human body on an anatomy dummy. DP: Horst Schier.

A teacher for what would have been Christa McAuliffe's birthday.

“Ich mag Männer, bin 30 Jahre alt, von Beruf Lehrer.”

– Frank Ripploh

Frank Ripploh is a sexual ethics and biology teacher by day, and hedonistic gay man and aspiring pornographer by night. When Frank Ripploh, the man, publicly came out in 1978 in the tabloid Stern, he lost his teaching job and did become that filmmaker. Taxi zum Klo – litt. taxi to the john/loo – is his story. A frank pre-AIDS pre-Internet pre-victimhood depiction of male gay culture in West Germany. Maybe raw, possibly misogynist, definitely true to life.

Czułe miejsca [Tender Spots] (Piotr Andrejew, 1981)

Aug

28

1998

Czułe miejsca (1981)

Janek (Michał Juszczakiewicz) and Ewa (Hanna Dunowska) in embrace on a bed. DPs: Jerzy Zieliński & Ryszard Lenczewski.

The Music of the Spheres (G. Philip Jackson, 1983)

Aug

28

1994

The Music of the Spheres (1983)

Archive footage from the future dated August 28, 1994. DP: Nadine Humenick.

The Black Tower (John Smith, 1985—1987)

Aug

22

black

The Black Tower (1987)

The black tower, visible from behind a brick wall (via)..

Black: a building or structure*

“I first noticed it in Spring last year. […] It was from [my home] that I first saw it—its crest protruding over the roofs on the other side of the road. Surprised that I hadn’t noticed it before, I wondered what it was and then forgot about it for several weeks.”

– narrator

A man becomes aware of a formerly unnoticed black tower. Surely it's nothing, yet as the weeks pass, its looming presence takes over.

 

The black tower was a real structure, first noticed by filmmaker John Smith when he moved to East London. The building, actually the upper part of a hospital's water tower, was painted pitch black, and on sunny days appeared to be a cutout in the sky. By framing the shots in such a way that only part of the surroundings is visible, and editing them in a narrative framework, Smith creates a new context suggesting movement. This style of montage called creative geography, or artificial landscape, was developed by Lev Kuleshov and enables filmmakers to expand existing material and narrative into something that usually is only available to prose poetry.

 

Al filo del hacha [Edge of the Axe] (José Ramón Larraz, 1988)

Aug

16

1978

spoiler warning: click to toggle image Al filo del hacha (1988)
spoiler warning: click to read

A computer screen with the admission date of Lillian Nebbs (Christina Marie Lane) in the psychiatric ward on August 16, 1978. Diagnosis: Psycho Amnesia [sic]. There are small pop magazine stickers on the display's bezel. DP: Tote Trenas.

Der Stand der Dinge [The State of Things] (Wim Wenders, 1982)

Aug

13

1942

Der Stand der Dinge (1982)

Friedrich Munro's (Patrick Bauchau) Hollywood, Ca address and date of birth: August 13, 1942. DPs: Henri Alekan, Fred Murphy & Martin Schäfer.

– You know, I take pictures, photographs, but I never really thought in black and white before I saw our rushes. Do you know what I mean? You can see the shape of things.   – Life is in colour, but black and white is more realistic.

آداب بهاری [Adab-e Bahari / Rites of Spring] (Ali Asghar Agahbanaei, 1982)

Aug

11

spring

Adab-e Bahari (1982)

In a dewdrop hanging from a rose, the face of a smiling woman appears.

Dita e Verës, a pagan spring celebration from Albania, celebrated in March: a spring scene*

 

The restless anticipation of spring. Iran as it was before and after the 1979 toppling of the Shah. While the snow melts away, the Revolution takes place, and fresh buds appear on the rose bushes. A poem.