Krzysztof Kieślowski

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sevenarts
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#51 Post by sevenarts » Fri Jan 05, 2007 3:51 pm

brownbunny wrote:iit's analogous to the case of someone like coppola (francis), who - as pauline kael quite rightly (for once) suggested, is incapable of making a smaller film - that he is better suited to direct a larger film in the manner of the godfather or apocalypse now. something like the conversation feels awkward for a coppola film, as it seems an american (and therefore more crass) restatement of what was done with blow-up (which i don't think to be one of antonioni's better films anyway). his talents are more suited towards the broader end of things. i think marty is similar in some sense.
I'm not quite sure why Scorsese and Coppola have been dragged into this, since they have no relation I can see to Kieslowski, but I do have to respond to this. I fail to see why it's a problem that, as you say, Coppola and Scorsese are best suited to "large" films. I think that's incontestably true, and I wouldn't characterize either director as "intimate" or "personal" (although both infuse their epics with personal themes and concerns), but that's more a matter of individual style than it is an aesthetic judgment. That is, why would a small "personal" film be automatically more valid somehow than a larger Scorsese-style epic? I wouldn't count Scorsese among my favorites, but I do enjoy his films and I hardly think his best works could be characterized as empty technical exercises. Taxi Driver, quite contrary to your dismissal of its merits as all belonging to Schrader, is actually of a piece with much of Scorsese's other work. He's interested in using the violence and stylistic flourishes of a "genre" picture in order to portray a particular kind of urban milieu, complete with attendant concerns about religion, morality, friendship, honor, and ethnicity. Films like Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, Goodfellas, and (in a much lighter vein) After Hours perfectly capture a certain kind of urban setting and the kinds of people who inhabit it. It's often a weird mix of gritty realism and extreme stylization, with much of the realism residing in the characters' speech and relationships.

It seems like you're not particularly interested in the subjects that Scorsese chooses to explore, but that in itself does not invalidate his filmmaking. Comparing him to Kieslowski is fruitless, not only because they each inhabit very different worlds and have very different approaches, but because their entire styles are practically diametrically opposed. What they share is pretty much just an interest in spirituality, and the stylization of their films (although it's of course a very different form of stylization, too).
Last edited by sevenarts on Fri Jan 05, 2007 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Michael
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#52 Post by Michael » Fri Jan 05, 2007 4:03 pm

Now KK doing Goodfellas, that'd be interesting (if not incredibly ridiculous):
VO: "Ever since I was a kid"
rapid cut to milk bottle falling in slow motion, crashing, screen turns white.
Cut to: Deep CU of mothers eyes. Camera pulls back to view her trudging off dejectedly.
Cut to: Deep CU of Italian eyes, deepset, wrinkles around the edges. Camera pulls back...slowly...to reveal a golden Sicilian smile.
VO continues: "to be a wise guy".
Next five minutes includes 23 shots from ever whirling points of view W/O dialogue or narration.
KK is great, but he can't do Scor-cease and more than Marty can do Kiss-lovsky.
Most hilarious post I've read in a long while. It made me almost picture my old relatives. Thanks for the laugh, skuhn.

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#53 Post by brownbunny » Fri Jan 05, 2007 4:11 pm

well marty's presence arose principally in the defense of kieslowski, really. i've slogged through so many complaints regarding kieslowski's perceived coldness, that it tires me and seems entirely errant. i instead attributed those comments, coldness etcetera, to someone whom i thought was removed from his films, scorsese. it wasn't initially meant to light a fire under anyone's ass, but it was brought up rather to immunize the argument against kieslowski. the logic was this, i suppose: kieslowski's films feel entirely personal to me, and the sensations they bring are nothing close to cold. i would instead reserve that word for a film or filmmaker who's in some sense apart from his films, someone like scorsese - it was more of a device of argument or persuasion than anything else, not explicitly meant to impugn him. i felt i should qualify my statement, elucidate it and explain my reasoning for finding his films shallow. the supposition that small films are qualifiably better than large films, is - not without reason - inferred from my tastes, but that's in some sense what i meant. they are necessarily more broad and when having this tendency of size they tend to sacrifice the real soul of the film (of course exceptions exist, but the dominant trend implies this). that's what was intended by specifying the feelings which arise within me after viewing something more engaging, challenging or arresting (in any sense) than scorsese. perhaps that's too large of an argument to qualify in any real, meaningful way, but it was only meant to trump the thought that kieslowki's films were cold - as, to my logic, something much more broad and less atmospherically distinct would deserve such a word.

i lack brevity, and just tend to want to be as thorough of a bastard as i can possibly be. i know the majority of it didn't directly relate to kieslowski, but it was a long, circuitous means of defending an artist i couldn't imagine being called frigid.

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#54 Post by sevenarts » Fri Jan 05, 2007 4:27 pm

Fair enough. I can't imagine "frigid" being applicable to Kieslowski either, and some of the anti-KK posts in this thread have definitely ranged very far from my own reactions to his work, so I agree with you there. I'd also rank him quite a bit higher than Scorsese in my personal pantheon, for whatever that's worth. But then, I don't really think that Scorsese is "cold" or "apart from his films" either. Quite to the contrary, even his most violent, abrasive works betray a real affection and emotion towards the characters and the locations being depicted. I don't really agree that a "larger" film must have less "soul" than a smaller one -- that's a matter of individual taste of course, but film history is full of directors who specialize in broad, large-scale epics and nevertheless communicate tremendous emotion and nuance through their work. Altman, Fellini, Cimino, Bertolucci, Visconti, and yes, Scorsese. Actually, glancing over that list I realized that there's a definite tradition in Italian (and Italian-influenced) cinema of exactly that kind of large-scale auterism that you see in Scorsese. Grand gestures and epic narratives, but not necessarily sacrificing emotion and soul. Again, it's very different from Kieslowski's quieter filmmaking, but I don't think it's an intrinsically inferior approach as you keep implying.

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#55 Post by brownbunny » Fri Jan 05, 2007 5:17 pm

perhaps i didn't quite specify; i didn't necessarily mean "large" in terms of who the participants were, the amount of people in thef film (in something like altman's films) nor the sweep of the film, i mean more directly the feeling the film evinces. despite the "larger" quality of films like mccabe & mrs. miller, the conformist or fellini's work, these films have a rather narrow feeling, more particular. bertolucci is rather adept at maintaining a mood despite the scope of the film (emphasis placed on the conformist, a film i bought at wal-mart and was carded for - apparently there is an abundance of bearded teenage malcontents out there, for whom this film should be prohibited). i was referring more to the atmosphere of the film, if the feeling it has is more broad or more narrow. aside from that, bertolucci and fellini's films are pervaded by their personalities, which have in-themselves, a very specific feeling. it's more an intuitive sense of larger and smaller than a literal one. i guess an example would be andrei rublev - its vision is spectacularly large, however the feeling one pulls from it is more distinct, its mood much more personal - there's less ambiguity of feeling. i simply meant that scorsese's films were too broad in that they lacked the personality of other filmmakers, in what they can make you feel, the sensations they can spur. the conformist absolutely astounded me on every level, it was both an intellectual and visceral experience, something which conveyed a distinct emotional/intellectual feeling. what i meant is that scorsese's films do nothing of the sort for me, and have never inspired nor enraptured me in the way that other filmmakers have. they are, despite his atavistic obsessions with violence and hammy acting, unengaging to me precisely because of this - the feeling i get from his films is precisely the feeling i get from michael bay films. i say to myself, "what of it?" it affects me in no way whatever, and i think the imperative for any great work of art is that it be invigorating, exceptional and other high-spirited, well-meaning adjectives. what i have before me is too broad to extract anything that could be personally affecting. it's a matter of reciprocity, really, and i just don't get that from his films. i do get that from filmmakers who maintain and sustain a certain kind of mood or feeling, one which permits its viewers to be challenged, but one that also communicates with them. it's an entirely subjective approach, obviously, but that shouldn't diminish it or what i view as the highest achievement of art; which is to involve, personally, an audience, or more exactly a particular part of that audience, it should sing perhaps only for certain people.

there isn't anything remotely personally affecting about his films to me, and of all the people i've encountered in film circles who admire him, certainly nothing wrong with that, none of them have ever expressed any intensity of amour, in the truest sense and firmest manner that one can feel for and with a piece of art. there should be transcendence of some sort, i think, an empathy and expression that feels utterly distinct. i just feel his films lack a point of egress or something murky and arcane which would send them lithely spinning across the boundaries of entertainment and art. they don't have that unnameable, ineffable thing which exists beyond my articulation.

i don't know, i'm beginning to think it's self-defeating to even try and clarify my use of those words.

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#56 Post by Felix » Fri Jan 05, 2007 5:40 pm

brownbunny wrote:the 3 colors trilogy, though limping slightly with blanc (and i do think that has its moments of greatness, but in company with bleu and rouge it's simply a lesser work), is tremendous to me. rouge might be the film i champion most out of all of them, but that's probably only due to the presence of irene jacob.

anyhow, i recently found one of his early works on dvd and look forward to viewing it. i have yet to see blind chance, however.
Good posts, your defences of KK hit the mark with me to be sure. I am not entirely happy with the thread being "Red" as I think the whole (of the trilogy) is definitely greater than the sum of its parts and I think all of the films benefit from that context. (Irene's legs in "Red" are peerless however).

Catch "Blind Chance". It was the first of his I saw, on UK TV way back in 89, and I had no idea what to expect from it at all, but the idea and execution were both stunning and it floored me. (The idea nabbed for Sliding Doors of course, and something else that doesn't spring to mind right now. I also like the idea of No End as the other side of the coin from Ghost and Truly Madly Deeply, and loved its dark music, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique meets The Stooges We Will Fall...) The music for Blind Chance is by Wojciech Kilar, not Priesner but is every bit as good as all but Priesner's very best.

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#57 Post by brownbunny » Fri Jan 05, 2007 5:53 pm

i think you're correct in stating it's greater than the sum of its parts, it's almost like an album that's been impeccably arranged and the absence or removal of one minute inch would do irreperable harm. i eagerly devoured the films when i bought them on a mere whim, but was crestfallen given the disparate tone of blanc. initially it seemed far too comical to fit itself comfortably in with the other parts of the trilogy, and it definitely lacked the strong visual sense that was rampant in the other films (at least comparatively, it still has its own little gorgeous moments). however, i rewatched it recently and found myself far more approving of its inclusion, and i even like the shift in character focus from female to male for the middle in the series of films (i'm also, unabashedly intrigued by vindictive females, and there was something so unhesitatingly malicious about julie's smile in the film).

on a somewhat different note, am i the only one to find the woman they continually interview about kieslowski to be abusively obnoxious? i believe she authored the films of kieslowski book, and her knowledge is extensive and well-researched, however there is something about her that absolutely terrifies me - and i think it's her ears.

no end was recently procured, and i believe i need to spend some well-earned time with it.

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exte
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#58 Post by exte » Fri Jan 05, 2007 5:53 pm

brownbunny wrote:yes, i know he likes violence - i don't sync that with character.
Not even Raging Bull?
brownbunny wrote:perhaps it's also that i feel his films are symptomatic of what could be called "movie buff" syndrom.
What about the French New Wave?
brownbunny wrote:another part of my dislike and even derision of his films comes from the populist aspect; he's simply too popular. ...a thing can have broad appeal if it has a less than distinct mood, but when something is broad, proportionally, the personal and impassioned aspect of it is questioned.
What about da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Mozart or Beethoven? Or great leaders like Gandhi or Martin Luther King? I think the reason they all have broad appeal and influence is becase they absolutely merit it. Their lives and works have shifted their medium and/or the lives around them. I think the same could be said of the best of Scorsese. He has certainly left his mark on the medium, and his influence will be felt long after he is gone, just like the masters before him. I think you cheapen his style when you narrow it down to just cuts and baby boomer music. Was Gandhi just a bald guy in a towl who didn't care to eat? Was King just a outspoken preacher at the right place at the right time? It's just an opinion of course, and you're entitled to it...
brownbunny wrote:taxi driver is incontestably close, but i wager that's more because of schrader than anything else.
Why stop there? Wasn't it the diary of would-be George Wallace assassin Arthur Bremer that started the whole damn thing? Come on. I don't buy that shit that Scrader was merely depressed and it king of popped out, but that's just me.
brownbunny wrote:this is, as clear as i can put it, what differs for scorsese and my reaction to his films. they are incapable of making me feel anything in this manner, they cannot astound or destroy my senses as resnais and countless others have - they are simply films to me, films that do not move nor flit beyond what they are merely capable of doing - entertaining. as should be stressed, nothing is wrong with this, but comparatively i favor one highly above the other. if i watch eraserhead, i breathe with it, if i watch veronique, it courses like ichor through my veins - these films and films like them open up the possiblity of beauty to me, and it is something simply to which scorsese is not predisposed.
I can deal with that...

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#59 Post by brownbunny » Fri Jan 05, 2007 6:13 pm

davidhare wrote:I think what you're trying to talk about is "engagement" with the filmmaker's vision.

Scorsese won't work for someone who can't feel engagement with one of the performers. Where Scorsese becomes problematic for some people - in his best work - is focussing that engagement or even identification through an unsympathetic character. Like de Niro in Taxi Driver or Raging Bull (or even harder New York New York) but Scorsese at his peak is far more radical a director than KK because he negotiates his leads through interaction with other performers and characters and asks you to see them in three dimensions. A personal favorite is King of Comedy in which the central concept of Jerry Lewis' own Nutty Professor Split personality is invested into the real Jerry Lewis and de Niro's Pupkin alter ego. The dynamics are simply dazzling. And Scoreses's teritory (at least until the last few films) is dark and confilctual. The more I think about him the wildly more adventurous a director he seems to me than KK.
actually, it's not really the unsympathetic nature of his characters that divdes me. nor is it my concern of his radical nature, which i must frankly disagree with, if only because his manner of conduct is just pedestrian, meat-and-potatoes to me (and marty isn't exactly jodorowski, or heaven forbid, crispin glover). i actually enjoy unsympathetic characters, thus my unabated love of vincent gallo's billy brown in buffalo '66 and the disgusting characters of gummo (this not being an endorsement, by any means, of harmony korine). king of comedy was interesting to me, but my nascent interest quietly died once the film ended, as there was something - as there inevitably is with all his films - that leaves me absolutely ambivalent and unaffected. i have strained this entire thread to abstain from using the word "boring" and i will continue to do so, but this is pushing me somewhat more persistently. his territory may be dark and conflictual, but frankly that is the domain occupied solely by david lynch, and in a much more imagistic, lively fashion. what may perhaps be the case is that scorsese's films feel very american to me, and i am, with few exceptions, uninterested or unengaged by american film. cassavetes, gallo, lynch, kubrick, wilder (only sunset boulevard, really), and woody allen are about the extent of my interest. i'm much more prone to eastern europe or distinctly european cinema. kieslowski and his kind are more endorsed by me primarily because of my own native origins, and that i feel entirely an alien in this country. i understand his films are somewhat endemic and particular to america and its cinema, so this is probably closer to my failure to find in it anything which surpasses mere entertainment, because frankly he is the thomas kincaid and van halen of cinema to me (i apologize for the crude, boorish nature of this comment, but i think it is not without humor). merely because he inverts the perception of jerry lewis and his most-known character and turns de niro into a yarbling monyooka, is not reason enough - for me - to like the film. we're wading dangerously through the strident nature of personal taste here, but scorsese still seems infinitely more cold to me than kieslowski ever could.

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exte
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#60 Post by exte » Fri Jan 05, 2007 6:13 pm

brownbunny wrote:the conformist absolutely astounded me on every level, it was both an intellectual and visceral experience, something which conveyed a distinct emotional/intellectual feeling. what i meant is that scorsese's films do nothing of the sort for me, and have never inspired nor enraptured me in the way that other filmmakers have.
It's ironic for me because the other night I finally watched the great conformist film everyone is talking about, mostly for it's cinematography, and I was left cold and uninterested. There was that one shot with the leaves that Coppola borrow for Godfather II, but that was it. Whereas with Goodfellas, I was completely enraptured; by the end of the first scene, I knew I was in for a ride. Time and time again, the movie never fails to pull me in.

Incidentally, I remember we had various screenings of films, mostly new, open to students at the campus center at my college, and despite being an older flick on the schedule of films, it had the most attendance of all the titles being shown, save for maybe The Matrix. I'm not saying that's the grand indicator, but I remember how enthralled the audience was for that film. I never had the chance to see Goodfellas in the theaters, so I guess that was the closest I came to it. Again, to each their own I guess...

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#61 Post by brownbunny » Fri Jan 05, 2007 6:39 pm

exte wrote:
brownbunny wrote:yes, i know he likes violence - i don't sync that with character.
Not even Raging Bull?
brownbunny wrote:perhaps it's also that i feel his films are symptomatic of what could be called "movie buff" syndrom.
What about the French New Wave?
brownbunny wrote:another part of my dislike and even derision of his films comes from the populist aspect; he's simply too popular. ...a thing can have broad appeal if it has a less than distinct mood, but when something is broad, proportionally, the personal and impassioned aspect of it is questioned.
What about da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Mozart or Beethoven? Or great leaders like Gandhi or Martin Luther King? I think the reason they all have broad appeal and influence is becase they absolutely merit it. Their lives and works have shifted their medium and/or the lives around them. I think the same could be said of the best of Scorsese. He has certainly left his mark on the medium, and his influence will be felt long after he is gone, just like the masters before him. I think you cheapen his style when you narrow it down to just cuts and baby boomer music. Was Gandhi just a bald guy in a towl who didn't care to eat? Was King just a outspoken preacher at the right place at the right time? It's just an opinion of course, and you're entitled to it...
brownbunny wrote:taxi driver is incontestably close, but i wager that's more because of schrader than anything else.
Why stop there? Wasn't it the diary of would-be George Wallace assassin Arthur Bremer that started the whole damn thing? Come on. I don't buy that shit that Scrader was merely depressed and it king of popped out, but that's just me.
brownbunny wrote:this is, as clear as i can put it, what differs for scorsese and my reaction to his films. they are incapable of making me feel anything in this manner, they cannot astound or destroy my senses as resnais and countless others have - they are simply films to me, films that do not move nor flit beyond what they are merely capable of doing - entertaining. as should be stressed, nothing is wrong with this, but comparatively i favor one highly above the other. if i watch eraserhead, i breathe with it, if i watch veronique, it courses like ichor through my veins - these films and films like them open up the possiblity of beauty to me, and it is something simply to which scorsese is not predisposed.
I can deal with that...
1) i didn't mean character associating with violence in terms of an actual character, i meant the character of a film - the style, the mood, etc. simply a confusion of usage or your understanding of what i meant

2) "movie buff" syndrome precludes things like the new wave either french or czech, it instead indicates a strong proclivity for al pacino movies and blockbuster patronage. it's more like my ex-girlfriend's brother, who owned nearly 200 films, all of which were mediocre - he thought foreign films were weird. once again, i think you misread what i meant. a cineaste is a somewhat classier form of movie buff, like a wino to a meth addict.

3) it seems my poor attempt at humor was entirely lost upon you. the part about his popularity was a joke. however, you cannot qualify the validity of art by its popularity or mass acceptance. you are indoctrinated and inculcated in schools to believe shakespeare is great, schools make no attempt to articulate why it's good - it's simply become part of a canon which is to exist beyond reproach. personally, i dig hamlet. if you're going to cite his popularity as defence then you have successfully scraped the absolute bottom of the barrell. that is by no means any indication of anything, but instead validates what i said, that things which have a broader and less particular mood appeal to more people. virtually everyone knows who brittany spears is, and comparatively her popularity eliminates the mere thought of the velvet underground having any relevance on these grounds. why? because brittany's music or michael jackson's music or whomever else's music is desalinated and more palatable to mainstream tastes than something like the velvet underground. people read john grisham and not marcel proust, am i to believe one's talents trump the other solely because of numbers? there is no accounting for taste in a tasteless majority. the fact you invoke fucking gandhi and martin luther king jr is indefensibly asinine, i'm sorry. take everything pejorative and insinuating you want from the tone of this particularly numbered reply, and know deeply that your reasoning is embarassing. i don't think scorsese's style is as striking as some of his contemporaries, nor do i think it's intellectually honest to equate him with civil rights leaders. there is a basic moral barometer which lends to the creedence and popularity of these figures, the same does not apply to art and the differing preferences for it. why do more people like terminator 2 than like persona? why do more people like martin luther king than david duke? the empirical or ethically perceived truth only emerges from the latter, the former exists independent of this reasoning and therefore cheapens your argument.

4) regarding taxi driver, you have convinced me you are a man of hollow argument. what in the hell are you driving at? i implied taxi driver was more personal because it arose from schrader's depression - the film worked and had more of an atmosphere and personal degree because of the script and the writer's empathy for the character, his ability to in some sense understand travis. my reasoning stands that the only films i've been able to enjoy of scorsese's were raging bull and taxi driver (latter infinitely more than the former), and incidentally they're both authored by paul schrader. therfore, i give the benefit to paul schrader as i've seen nearly everything else by scorsese and none of it yielded these same effects. to me, it's quite obvious that schrader is the cause. i don't see what there is "not to buy."

5) well, there's no need for argument for the last quote, i suppose, and i'm glad i could present some satisfactory view of my sentiments.

in regards to your perception of the conformist, i should specify that the intellectual content and the main idea of the film accelerated my interest a great deal, as i'm desparately affectionate towards things which deal with emotional fascism. i would've given anything to see its wonderful colors and compositions on a large screen

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#62 Post by GringoTex » Sat Jan 06, 2007 1:21 am

Posted this in the Double Life.. thread:

The last time I watched this was during the theatrical release in 1991, and I was blown away. I've just watched it a second time on DVD and am now shocked by how banal the whole thing is.

Kieslowski's mise-en-scene seems completely rudderless to me. I can't ground it in any kind of reality or aesthetic or ideological tradition, and so it borders on irrelevance. When critics, fans, and Kieslowski himself warn against trying to hold the film accountable to anything, I start to get suspicious. I can't even take the "let your emotions run" route, because I found the marionettes much more human and heartfelt than any of the actors.

I now understand Godard's dismissal of Kieslowski's "designer mysticism." He should have stayed in Poland where he had something to grasp on to.

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Dylan
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#63 Post by Dylan » Sat Jan 06, 2007 1:50 am

There was that one shot with the leaves that Coppola borrow for Godfather II, but that was it.
So, the only thing you liked about "The Conformist" was a shot that was used as the inspiration for a shot in another film?

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exte
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#64 Post by exte » Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:51 am

Dylan wrote:
There was that one shot with the leaves that Coppola borrow for Godfather II, but that was it.
So, the only thing you liked about "The Conformist" was a shot that was used as the inspiration for a shot in another film?
I'm really not trying to be a dick, you know. I just mentioned that shot because to me it was the standout in the whole film, though I know everyone goes crazy for the striped dress scene with the window blinds. I know there's a whole story to the film, and it was alright, just didn't pull me in as hard I guess. Besides, I really only ever heard about it based on its cinematography, so that's what drove me to it. I don't know what to say. It's not a shit film, not an absolute waste of film, just not ...for me, I guess, you know Dylan? I didn't mean to shit on it in this thread. Lord knows there's been enough of that going around. Poor Marty... :lol:

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Dylan
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#65 Post by Dylan » Sat Jan 06, 2007 3:13 am

exte,

I don't mind you giving your opinion, I was just curious if you meant what I thought your post indicated.

By the way, I'm not even sure what this thread is about anymore...there's about ten different discussions going on.

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exte
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#66 Post by exte » Sat Jan 06, 2007 3:53 am

You know, this reminded me of when I was in film school, and I overheard another student's conversation with some African Americans, and he had just seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for the first time. I know, this is a KK thread, but bear with me. Anyway, for a white guy, he was very much into rap and this and that, and all he could say about the film was that it was 'interesting' how the hospital staff was cast with black actors, and there seemed to be that whole racial thing. Now, when I saw One Flew for the first time in high school, it blew me back in my chair. I was nearly in tears at the end and had to put my head down so no one, god forbid, could see me as the lights were being turned on and classmates were walking out. It was just amazing, a total discovery for me, and all this guy had to say was that black people were playing villainous characters once again... And I kind of came out of nowhere and asked him, "that's all you got from that film?" And he just kind of looked at me without saying anything, and everyone just kind of stared. It was an awkward moment, of course. Obviously it wasn't my conversation, and clearly I wasn't going to be sympathetic to his argument... anyway, it just reminded me. So, no, The Conformist didn't hit me like a ton of bricks like One Flew, et cetera, etc...

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HerrSchreck
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#67 Post by HerrSchreck » Sun Jan 07, 2007 3:04 am

skuhn8 wrote:I get the impression from some of these posts (and I could very well be wrong) that we're using an ascendent popularity with the masses as evidence of selling out ...

And, as a final note, Monsiour Shreck, you feeling ok? Your response was surprisingly restrained, civilized. Is your better half writing on your behalf?
Guys, stop using the word "selling out", I very carefully prefaced my last post by saying this is not about KK selling out.

Hey I have an idea: Rather than saying
munk wrote: ugly Polish no-name actors"

Nice cultural bias / entitlement or should we say cultural indoctrination, bleated so blatantly...

no further comment...

SOME of the so called cineastes here behaving like a typical rhetorical attention whores, plainly jumping on the bandwagon of crucifying any director at any given moment for the sake of critical trendiness.

It's SO COOL to dislike KK at the moment, the notion proves a critical progression into upper and limited to few stratum of reductionism.

Sufferers of delusions of grandeur.."

or "You people who say XYZ about Kieslowski really annoy me and I wish I wouldn't hafta hear that kinda sound," setting off bullshit arguments.

How about saying:

"I love KK because his _____________________ is really really really really great because of the way he ________________"?

Folks not liking your favorite director shouldn't enrage you nor threaten the sublime experience you have with your discs & your tv.

And skuhn, you were doing so well, dude! We had a little POSTO/Olmi discussion going on, we were rolling here healing all the scabby ointmenty wounds from the skull-punting and the broken liquor-bottle scratching from last week.... and now ya went ahead and ya did it. DAMN! have you forgotten? Antabuse is not just a creative attempt at securing a snack in a Hungary backyard! You're just addicted to being conked around the schoolyard... gives you a reason to uncork I guess.

EDIT (still reading):
skuhn8 wrote:Now KK doing Goodfellas, that'd be interesting (if not incredibly ridiculous):
VO: "Ever since I was a kid"
rapid cut to milk bottle falling in slow motion, crashing, screen turns white.
Cut to: Deep CU of mothers eyes. Camera pulls back to view her trudging off dejectedly.
Cut to: Deep CU of Italian eyes, deepset, wrinkles around the edges. Camera pulls back...slowly...to reveal a golden Sicilian smile.
VO continues: "to be a wise guy".
Next five minutes includes 23 shots from ever whirling points of view W/O dialogue or narration.
KK is great, but he can't do Scor-cease and more than Marty can do Kiss-lovsky.
That was actually a kickass reply to an obviously sincere but rather overwrought post. And Bunny-- didn't you take the hint a few weeks ago? The combination of your densepacked verbiage and the lack of caps almost make your posts at least a strain and at most, unreadable..
Last edited by HerrSchreck on Sun Jan 07, 2007 3:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

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skuhn8
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2004 4:46 pm
Location: Chico, CA

#68 Post by skuhn8 » Sun Jan 07, 2007 4:46 am

HerrSchreck wrote: or "You people who say XYZ about Kieslowski really annoy me and I wish I wouldn't hafta hear that kinda sound," setting off bullshit arguments.

How about saying:
"I love KK because his _____________________ is really really really really great because of the way he ________________"?

Folks not liking your favorite director shouldn't enrage you nor threaten the sublime experience you have with your discs & your tv.
Well, Dylan and a couple other posters have done a fine spank up job describing why they like KK, so instead of just doing a big post quote followed by 'ditto' and whatever emoticon...me and some of da boyz choose to go after you and some of your boyz (this be the hood an' all what with criterioncom gettin' too ghetto). But seriously, someone comes up with what might be considered a weak argument for kicking a director to the curb and no one is allowed to rebut? If I wasn't the lazy bastard that I am I'd go digging around your posts finding the many many examples where you do just that in your Pynchonite manner.

An' quit prescribing medication for me! I've got a small army of trained specialists taking care of that, and I don't want to sic them on your ass.

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MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
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#69 Post by MichaelB » Sun Jan 07, 2007 5:31 am

skuhn8 wrote:Now KK doing Goodfellas, that'd be interesting (if not incredibly ridiculous):
VO: "Ever since I was a kid"
rapid cut to milk bottle falling in slow motion, crashing, screen turns white.
Cut to: Deep CU of mothers eyes. Camera pulls back to view her trudging off dejectedly.
Cut to: Deep CU of Italian eyes, deepset, wrinkles around the edges. Camera pulls back...slowly...to reveal a golden Sicilian smile.
VO continues: "to be a wise guy".
Next five minutes includes 23 shots from ever whirling points of view W/O dialogue or narration.
KK is great, but he can't do Scor-cease and more than Marty can do Kiss-lovsky.
I wrote something similar in the early 1990s when I fantasised about Die Hard 2 being directed by the other famous Finnish director of the era, because of some bureaucratic Brazil-style mix-up causing Renny Harlin to be replaced by Aki Kaurismäki at the last minute.

If I remember rightly, most of the film would have consisted of assorted morose people sitting around in the airport bar not saying very much, and dismissing offscreen explosions and gunfire with a casual shrug, or possibly an aphorism along the lines of Drifting Cloud's "Life is short and miserable, be merry when you can" (it wouldn't have been that exact one, as that film hadn't been made yet, but it was something similar).

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HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#70 Post by HerrSchreck » Sun Jan 07, 2007 6:43 am

skuhn8 wrote:An' quit prescribing medication for me! I've got a small army of trained specialists taking care of that.
Who's the Pentagon chief what dispenses the operational principle of this Small Army-- Don "Way Too Small To Ever Ever Ever Get The Job Done" Rumsfeld?

This explains the Bagdhadi type death squad of the One Side Of Your Mind which assaults the other side of your mind and ties it up and shanghais it into running on naked feet into the middle of the road to blow itself up... again and again and again.

Schreck, looking at watch, whistling: "One, two, three," (raises head, lifts eyebrows & smiles wide in faux delight at sound of wet naked feet whapping on Budapest cobblestones... mock delighted surprise at Skuhn reeling in dead drunk with a dynamite knapsack. Hunches over to get down to skuhn's level and slaps knees & talks baby talk:) "WHO'S gonna bwow demsewfs up? WHO gonna go bwow dey wittul sewfs all de way up??"

Skuhn (jumping & barking & wagging tail,) "Ruff ruff!" (jumps left, schreck jumps right, skuhn barks & scurries right, schreck jumps left)

Schreck (carefully counting wristwatch): "Who gonna go boom?" (Slapping thighs) "Who go boom?" (Presses button beneath left armpit which ejects springs from sneaker bottoms and jumps behind nearby brick wall as barking leaping shitting & pissing skuhn explodes in all directions...)

Schreck looks at watch, counting... it all begins again... "INVADERS FROM MARS Brecht-type drag goddammit, etc" somebody mutters...

TedW
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 6:57 pm
Location: A Theatre Near You

#71 Post by TedW » Sun Jan 07, 2007 10:54 pm

Sorry to butt in, but did I just overhear someone call Martin Scorsese the "Van Halen" of American cinema?

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

#72 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Jan 26, 2007 9:11 pm

Spoilers for the Three Colours trilogy.

This thread inspired me to rewatch the Three Colours trilogy again and I would agree with Felix's comments. I think it is very important to see their interrelation, not just see Red as simply the best film, even if the popular interpretation seems to have been boiled down to choosing the actress you like best! (For the record, I feel closer to, or identify more with, Juliette Binoche's character, but I wish I was Irène Jacob's character! And in reality I'm probably as humiliated, calculating, unintentionally comic and clumsy with objects as Zbigniew Zamachowski's character from White! :wink: )

I really liked Annette Insdorf's commentaries on the films (I actually haven't watched Double Life of Veronique yet - does Insdorf tell the story of being so impressed by the character Jacob played in Au Revoir, Les Enfants that he wanted her for Veronique that she talks about on Red's commentary, on that commentary track?), for the way she points out some of the interrelationships between the films (the seven puppies in Red linked to the seven survivors of the ferry; the pregnant dog in Red compared to the mice in Blue; Emmanuelle Riva in Blue contrasted with Jean-Louis Trintingant in Red) and the amazing cinematography and use of light and music in each to evoke quite different moods.

I think looked at individually, the films in the trilogy are great, but they really show their magnificence once they are all seen together. There are the obvious interrelations such as the ferry at the end of Red and the one scene that shows how we should see the film as less about the individual narrative of the specific films but about the emotions or subtext that the films are dealing with - the scene with the old person at the bottle bank and the various characters reactions (or non-reactions!) to them.

I think, beyond seeing and enjoying the individual narrative of each film, we should also take a more intellectual point of view of the lead actor and actress as sort of being the same couple: Julie and Olivier in Blue; Karol and Dominique in White; and the much more complicated final film with the relationship between Valentin, the unamed judge played by Trintingant and Auguste and the way the themes of liberty, equality and fraternity are used to show a sort of progression in relationships through how they relate to power and control.

Julie in Blue is trying to free herself from life, to live a selfish life, in response to death of her husband and child. Despite wanting to sell, destroy and leave everything behind she only manages to become further haunted by her dead loved ones. It is only through accepting their absence and mourning that she can actually restart her life, which she can finally do with Olivier. But she is still at the beginning of the journey - she has only just awakened to being with another person, and how the 'constraint' of a relationship could actually be the freedom she has been searching for. She is still trapped behind a barrier at the end, unable to relate to the other characters shown in the beautiful panning sequence at the end of the film (that scene seems to have influenced the final pan in Donnie Darko!), but I think she at least wants to do so, which is a progression from shutting herself off.

Then in White Karol is not wanting freedom (that might best describe Dominique at the start of the film, divorcing Karol and kicking him out of her shop!). He gets what many would consider freedom, financial success, and throws it all away (as well as destroying his identity by faking his death) in his attempt to get 'equal' with Dominique. The ending would seem to suggest that Dominique forgives him and the wrongs they have done to each other have been cancelled out. They are now equal but, with Dominique in jail, they might not exactly be fraternal towards each other! Their relationship may now be one of mutual need - her with a criminal record and he officially dead - rather than one of respect and 'love'?

I like the scene where Blue and White intersect in the courtroom, and have wondered why there was no connection like that in Red. Of course there is the final ferry sequence, but that is more in the sense of 'wrapping up' the whole trilogy. Then I felt that there were no shared sequences with Blue and White earlier in Red because Red is a much more complex film. Rather than just having Julie and Karol cross in the courtroom, Red sets up Valentin and Auguste continually crossing paths and not meeting and beyond that the, unrecognised by either, 'double life' of the old judge and Auguste.

Fraternity, or empathy, brings Valentin into contact with the judge. Her kindness, and the danger of it being destroyed by the problems she is having with her drug addicted brother and overbearing boyfriend in England, is the story of the final film. She is given a cautionary tale in the judge who let revenge get the better of him and who has become a voyeur, and then gets a metaphorical chance to save the judge through being able to start a relationship with the about-to-be-embittered-through-betrayal Auguste in the beautiful end to the trilogy. (This theme is also in Blue where Julie encounters a neighbour Lucide. Lucide on first meeting Julie mentions how she had a blue mobile as a child, making her a replacement for Julie's dead daughter. This connection might prompt Julie to go to Lucide when she calls for her help at the strip club. Just by going and supporting Lucide, Julie is given a second chance of coming to terms with her dead family and beginning anew with Olivier by seeing the television show)

Valentin when she begins the film seems naive and innocent - happy! As the film progresses though she is shown to not be happy because she has cut herself off from dark truths in the world (as Julie tried to), but more because she is secure in herself. She is able to go about in the world without much difficulty (compared to the constant failure and humiliation Karol faced in White), and so has the self confidence to reject the advances of a photographer, or to confront the judge, and to be hurt by her boyfriend when he reacts jealously to her not being by the telephone when he calls but not see it as her failure but as a problem he has about letting her have a life apart from him.

I think that brings up the idea of being able to like yourself and your actions, or the feeling that you have a place in the world. If you have that (and compared to Julie, Karol, the judge and Auguste, she has) you are then better able to look outside yourself and your problems and help others, as shown by the bottle bank scene.

It seems that all of Valentin's problems are in the background - either easy to deal with such as the photographer, or off screen such as the telephone conversations with her boyfriend and her brother. The major problems she faces - running over the dog and meeting the judge (leading to making a friend and getting a puppy!) and the ferry disaster (leading to love?) have personally positive results for her and she is rewarded for the empathy she shows in her reactions to people, whether family, co-workers, the judge, people she knows casually (such as the cafe owner) and complete strangers (such as the cleaner interrupting their conversation in the theatre after the fashion show). I really like the way in Blue that Julie gets a piece of good luck when just after missing Olivier's car leaving a car park he is stopped by a red ambluance and she can catch up with him again - an example of Valentin's 'red' good luck bleeding into the other films. Julie does also perform an unselfish act of helping her husband's mistress in Blue which could be seen as a foreshadowing of Valentin's unselfishness in Red, and perhaps makes up for her missing the old woman at the bottle bank! By the way, does anyone else think that the old people at the bottle bank are meant to represent the main characters when they are old (like in the judge's dream)? For example Julie's and Valentin's old people are women, and Karol's is a man. This may add weight to an argument that treating others badly (as Karol does), or being too self absorbed and not recognising someone needs help (as with Julie) in the end is just hurting yourself.

In a sense the seventh survivor from the ferry, named but not seen, could be a stand-in for the judge. It seems to me that the judge has the darker role that Julie and Karol had in the first two films, but instead of being trapped behind glass his encounter, and fraternity with, Valentin has purged him of his listening equipment and broken the barriers between him and the outside world. The metaphorical barrier might have been broken by a neighbour angrily chucking a brick through his window(!), but that just shows that the outside world can be cruel as well as kind but it is our attitudes toward it, helped and reinvigorated by our relationships with others (plus being helped by what Annette Insdorf characterises as 'guardian angels' who helpfully appear throughout the trilogy - and these are films that exist in a universe of fate where deus ex machina(tions) are commonplace), that can help us face our problems and even our tragedies.

Sorry if the above is a bit muddled and unreadable. I hope it is of some interest anyway!

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rohmerin
Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 10:36 am
Location: Spain

#73 Post by rohmerin » Fri Jun 08, 2007 6:29 pm

This forum looks like the perfect place to try to find a mistery- You're experts on finding articles, etc, please, help me. Does anyone remember the CENSORSHIP on Kieslowski's WHITE?

Remember almost the end. I perfectly remember that when the film was released in Spain, there was an ORGASM sequence of a tunnel, and the camera follows the tunnel on high speed untill the white light.

Today, I've seen the Spanish DVD from licensed by MK2, they have got the same master, and there was not a tunnel. There was a fade to black, and then, a white screen with Julie Delpy's oh, oh, ah, oui. I remember having read an article about that change, but I don't know in which Spanish Cinema Magazine I did.

I've fought with google in English and Spanish, and it was a failure except that one famous Spanish film critic talks about the tunnel I saw , he saw, at Cinemas in Spain.

Any help ? In another dvdtalk borad (in Spanish) another user remember the tunnel, but neithetr IMDB or Wikipedia says nothing about "alternate versions", and I swear there're two version of WHITE: what I saw at the cinema, and what I saw today. May be it's about 20 seconds, but they are like night and day. WHY ?

gracias.

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dadaistnun
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 8:31 am

#74 Post by dadaistnun » Wed Jun 13, 2007 1:09 pm

That's the first I've ever heard of this. I can only say that the U.S./Miramax theatrical, laserdisc, and dvd releases are all identical and all have the scene as the fade-to-white you describe.

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MichaelB
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#75 Post by MichaelB » Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:55 pm

I've just put together a first draft of a Kieslowski DVD filmography - additions and/or corrections gratefully received.

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