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    Interview: Ivan Passer

    passer

    To a certain degree, the Karlovy Vary International film festival was an ideal place to interview Ivan Passer. Held annually in July in the pretty Czech Republic spa town (formerly Karlsbad), the festival was established in its present form in 1965, the same year that Passer’s only Czech feature, Intimate Lighting, was first shown to the public.

    Passer was invited to Karlovy Vary to introduce the world premiere of the digitally restored Intimate Lighting, undertaken by the leading Czech studio UPP and sound studio Soundsquare.

    It was a pleasure to watch the newly-minted copy on the big screen of this protominimalist masterpiece in which people eat, drink, play music and reminisce. Its gently mocking humor and keen eye for the minutiae of human behavior, got me wondering if Jim Jarmusch, whose Patterson I had watched the day before, had been directly or indirectly influenced by it.

    Ivan Passer was one of the new wave of Czech film directors who emerged in the mid-60s during the short-lived social and cultural democratization in Czechoslovakia, which afforded filmmakers unprecedented artistic freedom. With his childhood friend Milos Forman, Passer co-wrote Loves of A Blonde, 1965) and The Firemen’s Ball (1967). In that period, Passer, Forman, Vera Chytilova, Jiri Menzel and Jan Nemec, among others, made films that rejected the official state socialist-realist aesthetic and produced eclectic, highly assured features that captured the world’s attention.

    After their films were banned, and having fled the Russian tanks in 1968, with Forman, Passer, in exile in the USA, made two masterpieces, Born to Win (1971), one of the most sensitive and realistic films on drugs, and Cutter’s Way (1981), one of the best film noir of the ‘80s.

    I met Passer in a lounge of the opulent neo-Baroque Grandhotel Pupp, a setting completely at odds with Passer’s relaxed, unassuming, witty personality. On the verge of his 83rd birthday, Passer, who looks at the world with a certain quizzical smile, is still
    enthusiastic about movies, despite some setbacks.

    Camera Lucida: What did you think of the new print of Intimate Lighting?

    I. Passer: They did a brilliant job. I wish I could have worked with black and white more. It’s easier to control the image. Color is much more difficult to get the effect you want. Incidentally, did you know that there is no blue in Cutter’s Way? I and Jordan Cronanweth, the wonderful cinematographer, decided it would create a better atmosphere. A black and white film in color.

    Camera Lucida: I notice that after 48 years in the USA you still don’t have an American accent and you haven’t forgotten your Czech.

    I. Passer: That’s one of the things I miss most about living in California. I don’t get to speak my own language.

    Camera Lucida: Why have you never returned to your homeland to make a film like your friend and compatriot Milos Forman?

    I. Passer: I would have been arrested during the Communist period before the Velvet Revolution in 1989. They allowed Milos to make Amadeus in Prague in 1984 because he was more internationally famous than me.

    However, a few years ago, I tried to set up a film of the Masin brothers, Josef and Ctirad, known for their armed resistance against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, but there was reaction against it in the Czech Republic, because during the brothers’ raid on a police station, a policeman was killed.

    Camera Lucida: It seems inconceivable that Intimate Lighting, an almost plotless comedy, about the everyday pleasures of life, should have been banned for 20 years. Can you explain it?

    I. Passer: I believe that the Party was worried when they saw ordinary people, with all their weaknesses and strengths, depicted on screen. I think they also preferred to be attacked directly than to be ignored completely. Before the clamp down, Milos and I got together to discuss how in this God-forsaken country we could make good movies. We took a piece of paper and we wrote down several points like “it should be a comedy” because the Communist Party and the censorship were more tolerant with comedies. “It should be shot outside of the studio, in the streets” because they would not look over our shoulder that much.

    “We will use non actors” and “We will use natural light.”

    My first film, using these precepts, was a 20-minute short, A Boring Afternoon (1964), about all the things that happen when, ostensibly, nothing is happening. Miroslav Ondricek, who shot it, was a soccer fan. He believed that his filming a number of matches made him more able to work with non-actors who could not be expected to hit their marks for lighting. When casting Intimate Lighting, which was about a group of friends who play music together, I had to decide whether to have actors pretending to play instruments, or musicians who I could get to act. I settled for non-actors. We were at a music school, and I literally grabbed the principal in the corridor and asked him if he would play the lead of the cellist. At first he didn’t want to do it, but after he read the script, he said ‘it’s about me.’

     

    Camera Lucida: How did Born to Win, your first American film, come about?

    I. Passer: I didn’t think I could ever make films in the USA. My English was poor. After a couple of years trying to survive in New York, I met a theatre director and writer David Milton at a birthday party. He invited me to his play off-off Broadway. There were only four people in the audience. Afterwards we had a beer and discussed writing a screenplay. Three months later we had a script. Not thinking it would come to anything, I said I would direct it. Some months later, I had forgotten about it, when United Artists bought it for George Segal who owed them a few films on his contract. I didn’t know anything about drugs, so I learned a lot of new things, did research.  

    It interested me because here in the country of freedom – for me who came from a country of restricted freedom – there are these people who voluntarily give their freedom away, and are enslaved by drugs. That fascinated me. Anyway, I thought to myself, it’s easy to make films in the US. Later I found out the opposite.

    Camera Lucida: Did you have problems with producers?

    I. Passer. Not really. Remember that I had lived under a Stalinist regime, so I knew how to deal with little Stalins in America. I generally got what I wanted. I tried to stick to my own team as much as possible. I often got my own way in casting. For example, I gave Robert de Niro and Burt Young their first breaks in Born To Win. For Cutter’s Way, U.A. wanted Richard Dreyfuss to play the horribly crippled Vietnam vet Cutter. I thought they were wrong. Anyway, I went to see Dreyfuss in Othello in Shakespeare in the Park. The noisy audience were not paying much attention. Lying on the grass making love and smoking drugs. Suddenly an actor came on the stage and quietened the audience with his voice.

    It was John Heard as Cassio. I managed to convince UA that he was right for the role. We were also lucky to get Jeff Bridges who had just come off the long shoot of Heaven’s Gate.

    Camera Lucida: Which of your films are you proudest of?

    I. Passer: I don’t have a favorite. I like Born To Win, but I think its blend of European and American sensibilities, disoriented many critics at the time. It’s now considered one of my best films. Maybe Cutter’s Way, which is perhaps my most American film. It is a damaging account of a nation that has lost its final illusions in the Vietnam War and of a
    society eaten away by corruption.

    Camera Lucida: Any films you regret making?

    I. Passer: Not really. Although I made a mistake in the ending of Law and Disorder (1974), my second US film, with Carroll O’Connor and Ernest Borgnine as vigilantes. It suffered from a sudden shift of tone towards the end. The audience was laughing all the time, suddenly this guy was killed and the audience was stunned. I learned that you should never do that.

    Camera Lucida: Your last film credited to you was in 2004, Nomad: The Warrior, an epic set in 18th-century Kazakhstan. You’re given a co-director credit. What happened on that?

    I. Passer: It was shot on location in Kazakhstan in English. We kept getting instructions from on high which I imagined came from the authoritarian regime. The government had invested $40 million in the movie production, making it the most expensive Kazakh film ever made. They wanted the film made for prestige reasons, but on their own terms. For example, I found a beautiful 18-year-old Kazakh girl for the leading female role. However, a message came to me that she was not suitable because she had “no breasts”. Apparently, Kazakh warrior women had large breasts, sometimes cutting one off to make it easier to carry rifles. Unfortunately, due to financial and weather problems the film shut down halfway through. It was then bought by the producer brothers Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein, who replaced me with Sergey Bodrov, and released it the following year. Bodrov very kindly said that he had taken the job to protect the work I had already done.

    Camera Lucida: Why haven’t you made a film since?

    I. Passer: I refuse to do violent films. I consider it is dangerous. I have seen real violence during WW2. Violence affects some people who are not able to realise the difference between reality and fantasy. So I take myself out of 80% of the American market. I got offers all the time and I rejected them. I don’t want to see these movies, how should I make them? I also have no desire to shoot on digital.

    Camera Lucida: Have you any projects in the pipe line?

    I. Passer: I’ve had a few meetings with Dustin Hoffman on a project called Viagra Falls. There are others, but I think that money plays a much bigger role than ever before, mainly in choosing innovative scripts. 

    Ronald BERGAN

     

      

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         Interview         IVAN PASSER

    Interview: Ivan Passer

    passer

    U određenoj mjeri, međunarodni filmski festival Karlovy Vary bio je idealno mesto za intervju sa Ivanom Passerom. Festival se održava jednom godišnje, u julu, u lijepom spa gradu u Češkoj (nekadašnji Karlsbad), a sadašnju formu dobio je 1965. godine, kada je Passer-ova jedina češka odlika, Intimate Lighting, prvi put prikazana javnosti. Passer je pozvan na festival Karlovy Vary da predstavi svjetsku premijeru digitalno obnovljenog filma Intimate Lighting, koji je preuzeo vodeći češki studio UPP i zvučni studio Soundsquare.

    Bilo mi je zadovoljstvo gledati novonastalo izdanje ovog protominimalističkog remek-djela na velikom ekranu, u kojem ljudi jedu, piju, sviraju i evociraju uspomene. Zbog njegovog humora koji nježno ismijava i oštrog oka za trivijalna ljudska ponašanja, zapitao sam se da li je Jim Jarmusch, čiji sam film Paterson odgledao dan ranije, bio posredno ili neposredno pod njegovim uticajem.

    Ivan Passer je bio jedan od čeških režisera novog talasa koji su se pojavili sredinom 60. godina u društvenom i kulturnom periodu demokratizacije u Čehoslovačkoj. Taj period je bio kratkog daha, ali je filmskim stvaraocima omogućio umjetničku slobodu bez presedana. Sa prijateljem iz djetinjstva Milos Forman-om, Passer je napisao Loves of Blonde (1965) i The Firemen's Ball (1967). U tom periodu, Passer, Forman, Vera Chytilova, Jiri Menzel i Jan Nemec su, između ostalog, snimili filmove koji su se protivili zvaničnoj državnoj socijalističko-realističkoj estetici i proizveli eklektičke, veoma sigurne karakteristike koje su privukle svjetsku pažnju.

    Nakon što su njihovi filmovi zabranjeni i nakon što je sa Forman-om pobjegao iz ruskih tenkova 1968. godine, Passer je, u egzilu u SAD-u, napravio dva remek djela, Born to Win (1971), jedan od najosjetljivijih i najrealističnijih filmova o drogama i Cutter's Way (1981), jedan od najboljih film noir iz osamdesetih.

    Passer-a sam upoznao u salonu bogatog neo-baroknog Grandhotel Pupp-a, u okruženju koje se u potpunosti kosi sa opuštenom, neumoljivom i duhovitim ličnošću kakva je Passer-ova. Na rubu svog 83. rođendana, Passer, koji gleda na svijet sa određenim podrugljivim osmijehom, i dalje je entuzijasta za filmove, uprkos određenim neuspjehima.

    Camera Lucida: Šta ste mislili o novom PRINT filma Intimate Lighting?

    I. Passer: Uradili su sjajan posao. Volio bih da sam više mogao da radim sa crno-bijelim filmovima. Lakše je kontrolisati sliku. Sa bojom je mnogo teže postići željeni efekat. Usput, jeste li znali da nema plave boje u filmu Cutter's Way? Ja i Jordan Cronanweth, divan snimatelj, došli smo do zaključka da će to stvoriti bolju atmosferu. Crno-bijeli film u boji.

    Camera Lucida: Primjećujem da nakon 48 godina u SAD-u još uvijek nemate američki akcenat i niste zaboravili češki.

    I. Passer: To je jedna od stvari koja mi najviše nedostaje kod života u Kaliforniji. Ne uspijevam da pričam svoj jezik.

    Camera Lucida: Zašto se nikada niste vratili u svoju matičnu zemlju da tamo napravite film kao vaš prijatelj i sunarodnik Milos Forman?

    I. Passer: Uhapsili bi me u komunističkom periodu prije Baršunaste revolucije 1989. godine. Milos-u su dozvolili da napravi Amadeus-a u Pragu 1984. jer je bio međunarodno priznatiji od mene. Međutim, prije nekoliko godina pokušao sam da napravim film o braći Mašín, Josef-u and Ctirad-u, koji su poznati po svom oružanom otporu protiv komunističkog režima u Čehoslovačkoj 50-ih godina, ali su u Češkoj reagovali protiv toga jer je tokom brothers' raid on a police station. ubijen policijac.

    Camera Lucida: Djeluje nezamislivo da je Intimate Lighting, komedija koja gotovo da nema radnju i govori o svakodnevnim životnim zadovoljstvima, trebalo da bude zabranjena 20 godina. Možete li da objasnite to?

    I. Passer: Vjerujem da je Partija bila zabrinuta kad su vidjeli obične ljude prikazane na ekranu, sa svim njihovim slabostima i snagama, Takođe, mislim da su željeli da budu napadnuti direktno, a ne da budu u potpunosti izignorisani. Before the clamp down, Milos i ja smo se sastali da razgovaramo o tome kako u ovoj zemlji koja je Bogu iza leđa možemo da napravimo dobre filmove. Uzeli smo parče papira i napisali nekoliko tačaka poput „trebalo bi da bude komedija" jer su komunistička partija i cenzura imali više tolerancije za komedije. „Trebalo bi da snima izvan studija na ulicama" da ne bi morali previše da strahuju od nas. „Koristićemo amatere" i „Koristićemo prirodno svjetlo". Moj prvi film koji se koristio ovim pravilima A Boring Afternoon (1964) bio je kratak, u trajanju od 20 minuta, a bavio se svim stvarima koje se dešavaju kada se, navodno, ništa ne dešava. Miroslav Ondricek, koji ga je snimio, bio je fudbalski navijač. He believed that his filming a number of matches made him more able to work with non-actors who could not be expected to hit their marks for lighting. Pri dodjeljivanju uloga za film Intimate Lighting, koji je prikazivao grupu prijatelja koji zajedno sviraju, morao sam da odlučim da li da to budu glumci koji se pretvaraju da sviraju instrumente ili muzičari koje bih mogao da pridobijem da glume. Odlučio sam se za amatere. Bili smo u muzičkoj školi, i ja sam bukvalno zgrabio direktora u hodniku i pitao ga da li bi htio da bude vođa čelista. U početku nije želio, ali nakon što je pročitao scenario, rekao je 'ovo je o meni'.

     

    Camera Lucida: Kako se desio Vaš prvi američki film Born to Win?

    I. Passer: Nisam mislio da ću ikada moći da snimam filmove u SAD-u. Moj engleski je bio loš. Nakon što sam nekoliko godina pokušavao da preživim u Njujorku, upoznao sam pozorišnog reditelja i pisca David Milton-a na rođendanskoj zabavi. Pozvao me je na svoj play off-off Broadway. Bilo je samo četvoro ljudi u publici. Nakon toga smo popili pivo i razgovarali o pisanju scenarija. Nakon tri mjeseca imali smo scenario. Bez pomisli da će nas to nekud odvesti, rekao sam da ću ga režirati. Nekoliko mjeseci kasnije, zaboravio sam na to, kada su ga United Artists kupili za George Segal-a koji im je dugovao nekoliko filmova po njegovom ugovoru. Nisam znao ništa o drogama, pa sam usput naučio mnogo novih stvari i istraživao.

    To me je zanimalo jer u ovoj zemlji slobode – za mene koji sam došao iz zemlje ograničene slobode – ima onih koji dobrovoljno daju svoju slobodu i postaju robovi droge. To me je fasciniralo. U svakom slučaju, pomislio sam, lako je praviti filmove u SAD-u. Kasnije sam shvatio da je sasvim suprotno.

    Camera Lucida: Jeste li imali problema sa producentima?

    I. Passer. Ne baš. Sjetite se da sam živio pod staljinističkim režimom, tako da sam znao da izađem na kraj sa malim Staljinima u Americi. Uglavnom sam dobijao šta sam želio. Pokušavao sam da se držim svog tima koliko god je moguće. Često bih izgurao svoje pri dodjeljivanju uloga. Na primjer, dao sam Robert de Niro-u i Burt Young-u their first breaks u filmu Born To Win. Za Cutter's Way, UA su željeli da Richard Dreyfuss igra užasno obogaljenog vijetnamskog veterana Cutter-a. Mislio sam da griješe. U svakom slučaju, otišao sam da vidim Dreyfuss-a u ulozi Shakespeare-ovog Othello-a u Parku. Bučna publika nije mnogo obraćala pažnju. Ležali su na travi, vodili ljubav i pušili drogu. Odjednom se na sceni pojavio glumac i utišao publiku svojim glasom. To je bio John Heard u ulozi Cassio-a. Uspio sam da ubijedim UA da je on bio pravi za tu ulogu. Takođe smo imali sreće što smo dobili Jeff Bridges-a koji je tek bio stigao sa dugotrajnog snimanja filma Heaven's Gate.

    Camera Lucida: Na koji od svojih filmova ste najponosniji?

    I. Passer: Nemam omiljeni film. Volim Born To Win, ali mislim da je mješavina evropskog i američkog senzibiliteta u njemu dezorijentisala mnoge kritičare toga doba. Sada se smatra jednim od mojih najboljih filmova. Možda Cutter's Way, koji, moguće je, ima najviše karakteristika američkog filma od svih mojih filmova. It is a damaging account of a nation nacije koja je izgubila svoje posljednje iluzije u ratu u Vijetnamu i društva koje je progutala korupcija.

    Camera Lucida: Da li žalite zbog nekog filma?

    I. Passer: Ne baš. Iako sam napravio grešku na kraju Law and Disorder (1974), mog drugog američkog filma, sa Carroll O'Connor-om i Ernest Borgnine-om kao osvetnicima. On je pretrpio iznenadni preokret tona pred kraj. Publika se sve vrijeme smejala, zatim je ovaj lik iznenada ubijen, i publika je ostala zapanjena. Naučio sam to ne treba nikada da radite.

    Camera Lucida: Posljednji film koji Vam je dodijeljen bio je iz 2004. godine, Nomad: The Warrior, epski set koji se odvija u Kazahstanu u XVIII vijeku. Bili ste koreditelj na filmu. Šta se desilo sa tim?

    I. Passer: Snimljen je na lokaciji u Kazahstanu, na engleskom jeziku. Nastavili smo da dobijamo instrukcije sa vrha, za koje sam pretpostavljao da dolaze od autoritarnog režima. from on high which I imagined came from the authoritarian regime. Vlada je uložila 40 miliona dolara u produkciju filma, što ga čini najskupljim kazahstanskim filmom ikada napravljenim. Željeli su da se film napravi radi prestiža, ali pod njihovim uslovima. Na primjer, našao sam prelijepu osamnaestogodišnju Kazahstanku za glavnu žensku ulogu. Međutim, javljeno mi je da nije pogodna jer „nije imala grudi". Kazahstanske žene ratnice su, izgleda, imale velike grudi, a ponekad su kidale jednu dojku da bi lakše nosile pušku. Nažalost, usljed finansijskih i vremenskih poteškoća, film je prekinut na pola puta. Zatim su ga kupila braća producenti Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein, koji su me zamijenili Sergey Bodrov-im i objavili film naredne godine. Bodrov je veoma ljubazno izjavio da je preuzeo ovaj posao kako bi zaštitio ono što sam već bio uradio.

    Camera Lucida: Zašto od tada niste napravili film?

    I. Passer: Odbijam da pravim nasilničke filmove. Smatram to opasnim. Vidio sam stvarno nasilje u toku Drugog svjetskog rata. Nasilje utiče na neke ljudi koji ne umiju da razdvoje realnost i fantaziju. Tako da se izuzimam iz 80% američkog tržišta. Dobijao sam ponude sve vrijeme i odbijao ih. Ne želim da gledam te filmove, kako onda da ih pravim? Takođe, ne želim da snimam digitalno. on digital.

    Camera Lucida: Pripremate li neki projekat?

    I. Passer: Imao sam nekoliko sastanaka sa Dustin Hoffman-om o projektu pod nazivom Viagra Falls. Ima i drugih, ali mislim da novac igra veću ulogu nego ikad prije, najviše u izboru inovativnih skripti.

    Ronald Bergan

    Prevela: Nina Bukilić

     

      

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    ronald bergan 140x140Classical music in film

    In Belle Toujours, Manoel de Oliveira's exquisite and ingeniously titled quasi-sequel to Belle du Jour, there is a long-ish sequence (relative to the film's 68 minutes) of a performance of the third and fourth movements of Dvorak's Symphony No 8 by L'Orchestre de la Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, conducted by Lawrence Foster. I detail this because it is one of the rare extended sequences of classical music in a film, to which the characters listen intently, without talking.

    Another contemplative drama released at the same time, Jean Becker's Conversations with My Gardener, also uses music diegetically, in this case the second movement of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, to make a poignant cultural point.

    Why is it so uncommon for characters in films to listen to classical music? Unfortunately, this is a reflection of the pervasiveness of pop music. In films, the music regurgitating from radios and CD is, more likely than not, pop. One day, a radical film-maker will show a non-wimpish teenager listening to Schoenberg while reading Kierkegaard.

    Leaving aside the many meretricious or fanciful biopics of composers (I exempt Straub-Huillet's The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, 1968) or films about musicians, there have been few instances of celluloid characters actually listening to classical music. Unfortunately, most of these efforts have been less than successful.

    Ingmar Bergman presented the overture to The Magic Flute (1975) as if it was a Coca-Cola commercial, cutting rapidly between faces in an audience of all ages and races. Then, from time to time, during the performance, he would cut to a young girl's enraptured face when, in reality, she probably would have been bored stiff.

    winona ryder little women

    But for unintentional risibility, nothing beats the scene from The Shawshank Redemption (1994) when hardened cons stand in emotional silence as they listen to the Sull'Aria duet from The Marriage of Figaro over the prison loudspeakers. Red, played by Morgan Freeman, says: "I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are better left unsaid." You bet! (Just to be pedantic, these two "Italian ladies" are Spanish, and they were sung by the Swiss soprano Edith Mathis and her Austrian counterpart Gundula Janowitz.)

      In the same year, in Gillian Armstrong's Little Women, when Jo (Winona Ryder) is taken to see the opera The Pearl Fishers by Professor Bhaer (Gabriel Byrne), they talk (albeit in a whisper) during the celebrated duet for tenor and baritone. Just as irritating is the scene in Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) when Dianne Wiest and Sam Waterston make comments during an aria (sung by Maria Chiara) from Manon Lescaut, which they are supposed to be enjoying. One also sympathises with Kirk Douglas, whose attempt to listen to a record of Brahms' Piano Concerto No 2 in Joseph Mankiewicz's A Letter to Three Wives(1949) is frustrated by a philistine radio producer (Florence Bates), who scratches the disc while trying to find her dreadful programme.

    Classical music in the movies, instead of elevating those who listen to it, often seems to have a detrimental effect. In Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), teenage thug Alex (Malcolm McDowell) overdoses on his favourite piece of music, the putatively uplifting Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which only amplifies his violent nature.

    Coincidentally, one of the adolescent killers in Gus Van Sant's Elephant (2003) is also called Alex; he plays Beethoven's Für Elise on the piano before slaughtering his classmates. In Funny Games (1997), Michael Haneke makes sure that the bourgeois family who have the effrontery to like opera get their brutal comeuppance. As they set out for their holiday and play an opera guessing game in the car, the soundtrack gives way approvingly to heavy metal. Haneke's The Piano Teacher (2001) continues to expound the bogus notion that the study of classical music sublimates passion, and has the perverted titular heroine (Isabelle Huppert) quote Adorno's theoretical link between madness and music.

    More lighthearted, though no less murderous, is the gang of five headed by Alec Guinness in Alexander Mackendrick's The Ladykillers (1955), who disguise their nefarious plans by pretending to rehearse the Menuetto from Luigi Boccherini's String Quintet in E major. In the Coen brothers' dispensable 2004 remake, the plotters feign to be rehearsing the same piece though, for the sake of a poor joke, they only have wind instruments.

    One of the few directors who understands classical music more than superficially, making listening to it an integral part of the text, is Jean-Luc Godard (Pier Pasolini has seldom been bettered for the use of non-diegetic classical music, but that's another blog). In Breathless (1959), Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a small time thief who has casually killed a policeman, listens to Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, K622, as his girlfriend (Jean Seberg) plans to betray him. Their interplay and the circular camera shot is reflected in the interplay between the solo instrument and the orchestra, and in the rondo-like theme.

    In Weekend (1967), Godard makes three 360-degree tracking shots around a farmyard as Mozart's Piano Sonata No 18, K576, plays. For Ever Mozart (1996) is constructed around a classical sonata form, ending with a partial performance. Directors like Godard and Oliveira teach us that films can be as much about listening as seeing.


    Ronald Bergan

     

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         Omaži i retrospektive         JEAN COCTEAU

    Jean Cocteau

    Jean Cocteau

    Jean Cocteau, who died 50 years ago last October, was a poet/novelist/playwright/film director/designer/painter/stage director/ballet producer/patron/myth-maker/friend of the great/raconteur/wit. A Jacques of all trades and master of all. 'Etonne-moi!' ('Astonish me!') were the words with which Sergei Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes, challenged Cocteau. The result was the ballet Parade (1917), designed by Pablo Picasso, composed by Erik Satie, and set to a scenario by Cocteau. The latter continued to astonish ever since.

    It is difficult to isolate the films Cocteau directed and/or wrote from his work in other art forms. (Londoners can visit his magnificent murals at the Notre Dame de France Church off Leicester Square.) He considered that everything he created was just another form of poetry, with the poet is at the centre of his oeuvre i.e. himself.

    Cocteau made his first film when he was 41 and already famous. The Blood of the Poet (1930) contains all the signs and symbols of his personal mythology evident from his poems, novels, plays and drawings. The death and resurrection of a poet (Orpheus), the link between death and youth (beautiful young men), tauromachy, living statues, opium (of which he was a constant user) and the passing to the other side of the mirror. Thanks to the patronage of the Vicomte de Noailles, Cocteau was free to experiment with film, exploring the creative process in arresting dream-like images. Although surrealist in manner, The Blood of the Poet was too calculated and conscious to be considered as such by André Breton, surrealist supremo, though Cocteau wrote: 'It is often said that The Blood of a Poet is a surrealist film. However, Surrealism did not exist when I first thought of it.' (The film was a great influence on the American avant-garde, particularly on Kenneth Anger.)

    {niftybox background=#8FBC8F, width=360px} Although directed by others, Cocteau's presence is strongly felt in other adaptations of his works. Les Enfants Terribles (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1950), based on his claustrophobic 1929 novel of sibling love, was shot entirely on the stage of the Theatre Pigalle. {/niftybox}

    In Beauty and the Beast (1945), a fairy tale for children and intelligent adults, Cocteau stated that he discouraged his cinematographer, Henri Alekan, and the brilliant art director Christian Berard from virtuosity in order to show 'unreality in realistic terms'. Thankfully virtuosity is evident everywhere in the magical scenes in Beast's castle. The beast is played touchingly by Jean Marais, behind extraordinary makeup. In the end Beauty is slightly disappointed when he turns into his young, romantic self. Marais, Cocteau's primo uomo and onetime lover, whose profile was used for the drawings of Greek heroes, starred in all the films which Cocteau directed or wrote, with the exception of The Blood of the Poet.

     

    Orpheus (1950) is a perfect marriage between Greek myth and Cocteau's own, and although it uses reverse slow-motion and negative images to suggest the Underworld (reached through the looking glass), the modern day domestic life of Mr. and Mrs. Orpheus (Marais and Marie Déa) is filmed 'realistically', elaborating the theme of the poet caught between the worlds of the real and the imagination. 'You've never seen death?' says the angel Heurtebise (François Perrier). 'Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.'

    {niftybox background=#8FBC8F, width=360px} Cocteau made his first film when he was 41 and already famous. The Blood of the Poet (1930) contains all the signs and symbols of his personal mythology evident from his poems, novels, plays and drawings. The death and resurrection of a poet (Orpheus), the link between death and youth (beautiful young men), tauromachy, living statues, opium (of which he was a constant user) and the passing to the other side of the mirror. {/niftybox}

    The Eagle Has Two Heads (1947) and Les Parents Terribles (1948) were clever transpositions of Cocteau's plays to the screen. However, though his cinematic sense prevented them from looking stagy, these wordy and overripe melodramas were happier behind a proscenium arch. Nevertheless, the use of close-ups enabled the director 'to catch my wild beasts unawares with my tele-lens.' Although directed by others, Cocteau's presence is strongly felt in other adaptations of his works. Les Enfants Terribles (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1950), based on his claustrophobic 1929 novel of sibling love, was shot entirely on the stage of the Theatre Pigalle. Melville's severe style and craftsmanship, combined with the bejewelled prose, retained much of the strange atmosphere of the original. Roberto Rossellini directed Anna Magnani in a film version of Cocteau's monodrama La Voix Humaine (The Human Voice,1948), and Jacques Demy shot Le Bel Indifferent (1957) from the 1940 one-act play, written for and starring Édith Piaf. (Coincidentally, Piaf died on the same day as Cocteau.) L'Eternal Retour (Jean Delannoy, 1943) – his original screenplay, updating the Tristan and Iseult legend – had two lovers (Marais and Madeleine Sologne) falling hopelessly in love as a result of a love potion issued to them by a vicious dwarf, and eventually finding their apotheosis in death. There is something a trifle ludicrous about the liebestod in the context of 'modern youth' in ski jerseys, apparel which became fashionable because of the film's huge success in France. Made during the Occupation, its blond Aryan lovers were extremely pleasing to the Occupiers. Cocteau's attitude to the Nazis can be described generously as ambivalent. He fraternised with Germans and was an admirer and friend of Hitler's favourite architect Arno Breker. This helped him to have his plays and films produced, although much of his art was considered decadent, and he was known to be homosexual. However, Cocteau did all he could to save Max Jacob, the Jewish-born Catholic convert writer, from being sent to a concentration camp, to no avail.

    Beauty and the Beast

    The third of his Orphic trilogy, The Testament of Orpheus, Cocteau's valedictory film, is a self-indulgent, self-mocking, self-portrait, with references to his other films, writings and life. He himself wanders through the film, his feet hardly touching the ground, explaining his art with the help of friends (Picasso, Yul Brynner, Marais, Edouard Dermitte, his adopted son etc.) But, as Cocteau commented, 'a film, whatever it may be, is always its director's portrait.' Here, he is penetrated by a sword, but pops up from his grave uttering the words: 'a poet can never die.' Cocteau's body died in October 11,1963, but his art lives on.

    Ronald Bergan

     

     

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    ronald bergan 140x140Acting is the easiest of all the arts

    Recently, having watched a restored version of Fred Zinnemann's The Wave (1935), shot on location in Mexico with non-professional actors recruited among the local fishermen - a film that anticipates Italian neo-realism - my belief that professional film acting is vastly overrated was reanimated. Film acting is the least skilled of all the performing arts and the one that needs least training. As has been proved time and again, anyone can be picked off the streets and be made to give a great performance on screen. Can one imagine doing the same with a ballet dancer, opera singer or classical pianist? As Spencer Tracy once remarked, "All you need to do is know your lines and don't bump into the furniture."

    This was has been apparent ever since Lev Kuleshov's experiment with montage in the early 1920s. Kuleshov edited a short film in which shots of the face of the celebrated actor Ivan Mosjoukine were alternated with various other shots (a plate of soup, a pretty girl, an old woman in a coffin). When the film was shown to an audience, they praised Mosjoukine's acting as he showed expressions of hunger, desire and sorrow as he "looked at" the three different things, believing the expression on his face was different each time. Actually, the footage of Mosjoukin's rather expressionless face was identical.

    It is a fact that almost anyone can be a good film actor - old, young, infirm, intellectual, stupid, good-looking or ugly. Even animals can give wonderful performances: witness Robert Bresson's Balthazar. Among Bresson's other non-professional "actors" were the unforgettable Nadine Nortier in Mouchette, Claude Laydu in Diary of a Country Priest, and Martin La Salle in Pickpocket.

     

    For Bresson, "the less the actors know about the film, the more I like it. I only ask them, 'You are sitting here - look at that door.' Then we rehearse that 10 times. Then I say, 'When we are there, you say this sentence. Say it as calmly as possible, as mechanically as possible.' In the action, you see, what this girl or this boy has got inside takes place without their knowing it." Some of the greatest performances in cinema have been by those who had never acted before or since: Falconetti in Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc; Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiola in Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves, and Carlo Battisti in De Sica's Umberto D; and 13-year-old Edmund Meschke in Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year Zero. Children, in general, come across as brilliant actors on screen, as can be seen in several Iranian films over the last few years. But, whether children, adults or animals, actors are only as good as their directors. Actors are to the film director as clay is to the sculptor. Think of actors that are associated with one director and are never as good without them: for example Kinuyo Tanaka and Kenji Mizoguchi, Chishu Ryu and Yasujiro Ozu, Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard, Toshiro Mifune and Akira Kurosawa, Jean-Pierre Leaud with both Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, Edith Scob and Georges Franju, Monica Vitti and Michelangelo Antonioni.

    However, I exempt film stars from this discussion because they impart complex images containing multiple meanings, relating to their perceived off-screen as much as to their onscreen personae. They are iconic presences rather than performers, who rely on their looks and manufactured personalities. Audiences, from the very beginning of the star system, which still exists, have not paid to see them act, but to watch them behave as they are expected to behave.

    Ronald Bergan

    Balthazar

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