settima

ShortFilm

Paparazzi (Jacques Rozier, 1963/1964)

Jul

29

Paparazzi (1964)

Brigitte Bardot and her co-star Michel Piccoli making a show of ascending the stairs of Casa Malaparte as seen through a paparazzo's lens. DP: Maurice Perrimond.

A character has a camera or takes photos*

 

It buzzes on the set of Le mépris. These mosquitos, the Italians say paparazzi, swarm La Bardot and making it merely impossible for anyone – themselves included – to do their job. But Bardot knows them, too well, and gives them what they want, when she wants it.

 

La Soufrière – Warten auf eine unausweichliche Katastrophe [La Soufrière: Waiting for an Inevitable Catastrophe] (Werner Herzog, 1977)

Jul

13

La Soufrière - Warten auf eine unausweichliche Katastrophe (1977)

Herzog and crew make their way up the volcano (via). DPs: Edward Lachman & Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein.

Someone at a theme park or national park*

“Telephones were still working, we are told, and the air-conditioning and refrigerators in many houses were still on.”

– narrator

The highest peak in the Parc national de la Guadeloupe is called La Grande Soufrière. The volcano had erupted before and was bound to do soon again. Hastily, the 76,000 islanders were evacuated with one farmer staying put. For Herzog reason to halt the editing of Herz aus Glas and make his way to the island.

 

Zig-Zag – le jeu de l'oie (Une fiction didactique à propos de la cartographie) [Snakes and Ladders] (Raúl Ruiz, 1980)

Jul

5

Zig-Zag (1980)

An anthropomorphic map with contour lines sketching out a man's head (via). DP: Alain Montrobert.

Traveling to my vacation destination, a map or globe*

“It appears obvious that the territory is the sum of all the maps, the result of an infinite addition. Or a contrary, the territory is what is left when we remove all the sets of lines, drawings, traces and colors which are covering it. Its existence becomes doubtful.”

– H., via

A man, H., joins two others playing jeu de l'oie (Game of the Goose), a board game associated with labyrinths and pilgrimage. While the three play, the game opens up maps and new roads to explore.

 

Following my own Bales' rules, I cannot pick a title twice. See Zig-Zag as an avatar of Raúl Ruiz's O Território [The Territory] from 1981.

 

Rat Life and Diet in North America (Joyce Wieland, 1968)

Jul

4

Independence Day

Rat Life and Diet in North America (1968)

Rats – gerbils actually – nibbling on the Stars and Stripes (via). DP: Joyce Wieland.

A movie set in the USA for Independence Day (USA)

“This film tells a story of rebels (played by real rats) and cops (played by real cats). After a long domination by cats, the rats escape from prison (this is their rebellion) and find refuge in Canada. There, they feed on organic produce from a garden where the grass hasn’t been sprayed with DDT.”

– Jonas Mekas, via

French-Canadian patriot Joyce Wieland tells a fable of freedom.

 

Coincidentally, the Canadian city of Trois-Rivières, scene of the final battle of the American Revolutionary War, also celebrates an Independence Day on the fourth of July.

Пасифик 231 [Pasifik 231 / Pacific 231] (Mikhail Tsekhanovskiy, 1931)

Jul

2

Pasifik 231 (1931)

Musicians superimposed over the locomotive's pistons. DP: Leonid Patlis.

A mode of transportation to get me to my ideal vacation destination*. And yes, I would travel to an island by transcontinental locomotive

“What I sought in 'Pacific' was not the imitation of the sounds of the locomotive, but the translation of a visual impression and a physical enjoyment through a musical construction. It starts from objective contemplation: the quiet breathing of the engine at rest, the effort of starting, then the progressive increase in speed, to arrive at the lyrical state, the pathos of the 300-ton train, launched in the middle of the night at 120 km/h.”

– Arthur Honegger, Dissonances. Revue musicale indépendante (1925) (via)

Hinted on in Abel Gance's La Roue (1923), composer Arthur Honegger's Пасифик 231 follows the narrative of a stream train ploughing through the night. The conductor's gestures mirror the fireman's and slowly, the machine comes to live. The music becomes abstract, machine-like, in its rendition of pistons and valves. Using double exposure and Soviet montage theory, music and movement become one. The Futurists, if not opposed to the Soviets that is, would have had a field day with this outing.

 

Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu (David Loeb Weiss, 1980)

Jul

1

1978

Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu (1980)

All set for the July 2, 1978 edition of The New York Times, hot off the press.

Production of the last hot type copy of The New York Times on the nigh of July 1, 1978. The ETAOIN SHRDLU in the title refers to the accidental string of letters that sometimes would end up in print when using the hot type method.

 

That Linotype setting, and narration, was provided by Carl Schlesinger. That same old, but now digitally set New York Times, provided a lovely farewell when the man passed. Read it here

Combat de boxe (Charles Dekeukeleire, 1927)

Jun

30

Mike Tyson – 1966

Combat de boxe (1927)

One of the fighters receives a direct hit. The camera is so close that we see abstract shapes, texture and contrast before recognising the scene. DP: Antoine Castille.

A [favourite] athlete in a film role for Mike Tyson's birthday

“But this art of total synthesis that is Cinema, this fabulous newborn of Machine and Sentiment, is beginning to cease its moans and is entering its infancy. Its adolescence will soon arrive, seize its intelligence, and multiply its dreams; we ask that we hasten its development, precipitate the advent of its youth. We need Cinema to create the total art toward which the other arts have always tended.

– Ricciotto Canudo, Gazette des sept arts, 1923 (via)

The match you see is real, between two actual fighters. Paul Werrie's rhythmic poem served as the basis. Everything else is illusion made flesh with what was available. An empty painter's studio, a few friends, footage of a crowd, a deep comprehension of the Kuleshov effect and rapid Soviet-style editing. Dekeukeleire places us from the safe world of the spectator right in the line of fire. But there's no release like in James Williamson's The Big Swallow (1901). Without that gimmick, cinema enters Canudo's realm, as the seventh art.

The Lottery (Larry Yust, 1969)

Jun

27

The Lottery (1969)

Drawing lots from a box. DP: Isidore Mankofsky.

This, or any other adaptation of Shirley Jackson's story.

“Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones.”

– Shirley Jackson, The Lottery (1948)

Poslední trik pana Schwarcewalldea a pana Edgara [The Last Trick of Mr. Schwarcewallde and Mr. Edgar] (Jan Švankmajer, 1964)

Jun

26

National Handshake Day

Poslední trik pana Schwarcewalldea a pana Edgara (1964)

Mr Schwarcewallde and Mr Edgar on stage. Both are puppeteers in Edwardian costumes and oversized papier-mâché heads. DP: Svatopluk Malý.

Characters shake hands on National Handshake Day (USA)

 

Two illusionists compete with increasingly incredible tricks, sealed with a hefty handshake.

Nosferato no Brasil [Nosferato in Brazil] (Ivan Cardoso, 1970)

Jun

21

International Surfing Day

Nosferato no Brasil (1970)

Nosferatu enjoys the breeze and fresh coconut water on the beaches of Rio. I could've posted a still of the surfers here but that would have been boring.

Someone surfing or skateboarding for either International Surfing Day or Go Skateboarding Day

 

José Mojica Marins' protégé Ivan Cardoso dabbled in short form horror movies. This one features a young hippie vampire who, after being defeated in beachy black-and-white Prague, hikes a ride to Super 8 Brazil. Can't help but notice a bit of (Charlie) Mansonsploitation going on, but that may be just me.