This is a review (still in progress) of I am Belfast (2015)
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
23 April [Shakespeare Fuss Day¹]
This is a review (still in progress) of I am Belfast (2015)
Don't soften the story !
-> Probably the same people to whom one has to prove that Mia Farrow was not married to him, etc.#WhereasWagnerWasAPerfectHumanBeing...— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 22, 2016
One might ask what these Tweets have to do with the latest release from Mark Cousins (@markcousinsfilm) – yet, as one watched I am Belfast (2015), one had likewise been unconsciously asking what a character played by Gena Rowlands [Marion Post, in Woody Allen’s Another Woman (1988)] had to do with the world of the troubles, or of the land of 'The Six Counties'… (In fact, it was Helena Bereen whom we saw - and not, of course, Gena Rowlands.)
Gena Rowlands (as Marion Post) in Another Woman (1988)
In @iambelfast, one was getting... :— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 23, 2016
* Girl Chewing Gum (1976)
* Another Woman (1988) - Gena as Marion
* @CamPicturehouse's popcorn kiosk
Selected film references :
* A Story of Children and Film (2013) [Mark C.]
* Atomic (2015) [Mark C.]
* Bag of Rice (Kiseye Berendj) (1998)
* Girl Chewing Gum (1976)
* The Nine Muses (2010)
* What is This Film Called Love ? (2012) [Mark C.]
In fact, it was Helena Bereen whom we saw - and not, of course, Gena Rowlands. After the film, at The Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge (@CamPicturehouse), others disagreed [perhaps @mob61uk @amandarandall5] that Bereen’s being visually, as well as vocally, present to us had been a distraction : it was asserted that she had humanized scenes or situations that Cousins showed to us. Well, of course, it may easily be the case that she was meant to do so. However, the question remained whether her being seen to be present / her presence actually did that (or wholly did so) :
One principal point of contrast is with both seeing Cousins himself in What is This Film Called Love ? (2012), and, in A Story of Children and Film (2013), in his having more than impliedly been there in the film (since he is wielding / setting the camera for his niece and nephew). (In Atomic (2015), we almost certainly do not hear from his voice at all - it is all left to that clipped tone (subtly subverted) of the typical public-information film, or to three title-cards.)
Essentially, in all three earlier cases, the issue was of framing / structuring / telling a story – how it is done, and what follows from it – be it that of [in what is, of course, a crude shorthand of how each film is set out / up] :
* Taking in Mexico City as if through Eisenstein’s eyes / experience (Love)
* Framing, using Cousins’ family footage, his chosen narrative about Children and Film
* Handling being commissioned to make a film with the theme Atomic by a division into Paradise / Paradise Lost / Paradise Regained
[...]
Girl Chewing Gum (1976) is relevant, and so referenced, because Cousins does as the narrator there does – drawing attention, as in other places (please see below), to the constructed and artificial nature of cinematic images (and everything to do with how they are created and curated) : as John Smith before him, Cousins causes to be narrated to us³ what is just out of frame, ready for it to appear to have been predicted (as if, magically, the world outside what the camera sees is unknown – probably (as with Smith) after the fact, or perhaps by design). A visual, aural and structural allusion, although there are myriad others, to the world of film :
[...]
End-notes
¹ As evidenced by this exchange of Tweets :
Don't understand what Shakespeare's on about sometimes? Don't worry - neither does anyone else #HBDShax #Shax400 https://t.co/XC5QABlwia— UGA English Dept (@UGAEnglish) April 23, 2016
One just gets a PhD in what he meant / must have meant, @UGAEnglish ? https://t.co/Bl67axOQha— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 23, 2016
Aye, there's the rub - even the pros can't figure it out. Guess, yes; know for sure, nope. https://t.co/J4Xo6RDESH— UGA English Dept (@UGAEnglish) April 23, 2016
² Not, that is, in a naturalistic (or magical-realist) context – the screen-stage of Dogville (1999), for example, perfectly well alienates (Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt) at the same time as fuelling the imagination. (Which is an approach discussed with Hammudi al-Rahmoun Font, the director of Otel.lo (Othello) (2012), in connection with his film during interviews at Cambridge Film Festival 2014 [@camfilmfest / #CamFF] for TAKE ONE (@TakeOneCinema).)
³ Alike in Cousins’ voice, or in that of Belfast / Bereen, since – as we know, but conveniently [tell ourselves that we] forget – her part was scripted by him (as was his), and all this has but the appearance of a spontaneous encounter and its ensuing dialogue…
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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