Category: Photography
Gadgets in a pre-digital age. Still from Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.
Apropos of nothing I got to thinking how the speed of life and pace of change has affected the way we communicate and consume so fundamentally that it’s easy to forget what the pre-digital age was like.
When I was growing up, getting a colour TV for the first time was a big deal. I’m 54 but I sometimes feel I was born in the 19th century. Continue reading
UGETSU MONOGATARI directed by Kenji Mizoguchi (Japan, 1953)
This is not so much a ghost story as a story with ghosts and a far cry from mainstream horror flicks such as Paranormal Activity.
The depth and lyricism of classic Japanese movies like this make most contemporary films look shallow and superficial. It is justifiably included in the BFI/Sight & Sound list of the top 50 greatest ever films.
Mizoguchi began making films in the silent era, then with a burst of creativity in the last decade of his life, he made six celebrated films before his death in 1956 aged 58.
This masterpiece works on so many different levels that to focus on just one risks reducing the overall impact.
The plot centres on two couples whose simple lives are disrupted by civil war. It is based on two short novels by Akinari Ueda (from his collection Tales of Moonlight and Rain) and a story titled Décoré by Guy de Maupassant. Continue reading
LE MÉPRIS (Contempt) directed by Jean-Luc Godard (France 1963)
“Film is strange – show women a camera and they show their behinds”.
This observation by Paul Laval (Michel Piccoli) may be flawed as a universal law of cinema but clearly has an element of truth in the circles Jean-Luc Godard moved in during the sixties.
To prove the point, the archetype auteur begins the movie with Brigitte Bardot as Camille stretched out languorously on a bed, stark naked, running through an inventory of her body parts to check that Paul, her husband, admires them all – feet, ankles,knees, thighs, buttocks, breasts, nipples, shoulders, arms, and face (mouth,eyes,nose & ears).
She could have saved him and us a lot of time by asking the last question first – “Do you love me totally?”
After having given his unconditional approval of her anatomy, he assures her that his love is absolute: “I love you totally, tenderly, tragically”.
This scene was tagged on at the end when the producers complained that audiences needed to see more unclad shots of Bardot – suggesting that she wasn’t chosen purely for her acting ability! Continue reading
Christmas is less than one month away but there are noticeably less decorations in the shops or on the streets in my local town of Cesena in Italy.
It’s a definite sign of the economic crisis starting to bite.
The festive lights are reduced downtown too as many store owners have refused to help the local council foot the bill.
On top of this, I’ve yet to see one of those fake Santa models dangling precariously from a balcony or drainpipe.
Maybe they’ll be a late surge closer to the big day itself but in the meantime this photo shows one local resident’s solution in these hard times.
Outside the house is a sign promoting recycling and, who knows, this may be the start of a new trend!
