Tag Archive: Russian Ark

BIRDMAN – DON’T DIE OF IGNORANCE

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February 12, 2015

BIRDMAN (OR ‘THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE’) directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (USA, 2014)

From the stylish opening credits and free-jazz drumming of Antonio Sanchez’s unorthodox soundtrack, this is a movie that is keen to make an immediate impression.

It is the kind of derring-do which could so easily have backfired and then been dismissed as nothing more than brash arty-fartiness. Yet Birdman postively revels in its showiness and having a excellent supporting cast, that includes Naomi Watts and Edward Norton in prime form, means that all the risks are calculated ones.

The story revolves around Michael Keaton as Riggan Thomson, one time celluloid superhero who now feels all too human as he approaches the third age. By adapting a Raymond Carver story for a Broadway show he wants revitalise his flagging career and, in the process, demonstrate that 60 is the new 30. Continue reading →

Tags: Antonio Sanchez, Birdman, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Iñárritu, Macbeth, Michael Keaton, Naomi Watts, Raymond Carver, Russian Ark

RUSSIAN ARK : A VOYAGE THROUGH TIME

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January 21, 2012

RUSSIAN ARK directed by Alexander Sokurov (Soviet Union, 2002)

Russian Ark is a historic film about history. It was filmed in the Winter Palace of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

What makes it unique is that it consists of a single tracking shot. Sound, and visual effects, were added in post-production but there are no edits in the 96 minute movie. It took four years to develop but the final preparation and filming had to be done within an extremely tight time schedule. The crew had only 36 hours to prepare the museum in readiness for the actual shooting which had to be completed in one day with only four hours of existing light.

A team of eight were involved in the shooting headed by German cinematographer Tilman Büttner and was made possible by recent advances in film technology. Without the relatively lightweight Steadicam, the equipment needed would have been too heavy and unwieldy to carry around for an hour and a half without a pause.

The floating narrative is built around a dialogue between an off-screen ghost/spy and a European; a 19th century French Marquis. We follow the diplomat (played by Sergei Dontsov) as he passes from room to room to give us a tour of the gallery and in the process he visits episodes from 300 years of Russian history. There are scenes with Peter The Great, Catherine The Great, Tsar Nicolas I & II and the film even brings us right up to date with a cameo role for the museum’s current director Mikhail Piotrovsky.

Solurov says: “I wanted to try and fit myself into the very flowing of time, without remaking it according to my wishes. I wanted to try and have a natural collaboration with time, to live that one and a half hours as if it were merely breathing in…and out. That was the ultimate, the sole artistic task”.