Unofficial Cambridge Film Festival [#UCFF]

Monday 26 September 2011

Dimensions and Borges: The Garden of Forking Paths

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26 September

Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges liked a good paradox (and wrote an essay about Zeno and the apparent impossibility of motion) - it remains to be seen whether this is one, but here goes:

Background
Theory says that, under certain conditions laid down concerning physical laws and arrived at by mathematical calculation, every possible universe, in which every possible way that I could have written this sentence, exists.

Premise
Some say that travel between those universes and / or between what it is convenient to call different points in time in the same or another universe may be possible.

Attempt at a paradox

Step 1 If it is, then clearly it does not matter whether I believe in such travel, because someone could send me on such a journey against my will (or in my sleep).

Step 2 Unless I am very persuasive, and I can demonstrate what I say, if people do not believe in such travel, they will not listen to me (but, in some universes, they will, of course, believe in it as soon as I mention it - every event and possible sequence of events must exist, therefore a universe will exist where (to follow Borges) they crucify me, or regard me as God and worship me - or both))

Step 3 If I were sent in my sleep, I would, if sent into another universe at the same 'moment', still not believe in such travel, but I might come to realize what has happened, and want to go back from where I came from.

Step 4 So, perhaps, people with the same skill, knowledge and understanding develop the necessary technology, and seek to send me on that return journey?

Step 5 But won't there necessarily be the possibility - which may happen to obtain where I am - that one of the immutable facts about that universe is that, because of its physical laws, such travel is not possible? (So how did I get there?)

Conclusion?
For if it is always possible to jouney from that universe to another, then there is one thing wrong about that universe: it does not accord with the notion that there is a universe in which every possibility is replicated. Oder?, as the Germans say.

Visible and invisible

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26 September 2011

I am assuming, maybe wrongly, that it is known only to me that there have been page-views from the following countries (or provinces / areas - I think that I may have said before that Blogger® thinks that the whole of the former USSR is Russia):

* Sri Lanka

* Hong Kong

* Germany

* Canada

* United Arab Emirates

* Ireland

* Russia

* United States

* United Kingdom

Pandora's box, panaceas and pain-killers

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26 September 2011

* May contain spoilers *

One of the Festival's screenings featured (in large quantities, at one point) boxes of Tralin® - as that is a brand name, I needed to look it up to be sure what it is, and have just got around to doing so:

For the benefit of anyone else who may have seen Kosmos and wanted to know, I can report that Tralin® is a brand name for sertraline, which, as a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (or SSRI), is - as some may have guessed - commonly used (to try) to treat depression.

However, as is so often the case with medications (e.g., in low does, some anti-depressants are used for seeking to alleviate insomnia), it is also used for anxiety disorders (such as social anxiety disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder (or OCD)), and an eating disorder) bulimia nervosa.

Some may recall that Richard Brook, the previous Chief Executive of MIND, resigned from (a committee of) the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) regarding, essentially, the question of what was being done to research a possible link between taking sertraline and an increased risk, to the person taking it, of suicidal thoughts and, of course, suicide itself in some cases.

Follow-up on Abgebrannt or Burnout

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26 September

Quite by chance, in conversation with Punyaketu last night about German film, I learnt that the original title of this film conveys more than one meaning:

The connotation, quite relevant to the film, is 'broke' or 'skint', and it seems, from what I am told, that a native speaker would understand me in saying 'geltlos', but not say that. ('Geltlos' = without any money: 'Gelt' (money) + ending 'los' (meaning 'not having', so fruchtlos for 'fruitless' (plus connotations)).

I should check, but I would think that 'abgebrannt' could be how an arsonist (i.e. a 'successful' arsonist) leaves a building, too.

Unknown dimensions of the soul

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26 September

Some of the best things arise quite naturally, such as the interest that there has been in the last week in my postings regarding Dimensions: saying which, I still feel quite sickened by the last review that has appeared on the official Festival web-site (on the page for the film), because it goes beyond what I think suitable bounds, by suggesting that other reviewers had improper thoughts or motives for (or behind) what they wrote.

If you want, please see for yourself at:

http://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/films/2011/dimensions-a-line-a-loop-a-tangle-of/reviews/

NB For the avoidance of doubt, I am providing this link just so that others can judge whether they think that this is a fair piece of criticism (and not to pillory the person who reviewed the film in any way).

Whatever your own opinion may be, it would be interesting if, assuming that you take a look, you posted a comment on this page for me (or others) to read - for one reason, there is no scope no for putting any other reviews on the Festival web-site, and I'm not sure where would be best to make a comment on http://dimensionsthemovie.com/

Sunday 25 September 2011

Those CFF events (afterwards)

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26 September

It's all over for another year!

So time (well, a little) to take stock of what was seen (S) or missed (M), what was given up on (G), what blogged about (B), and what even reviewed (R, some of them even making it to the Festival web-site - bizarrely, for a film only screened at 8.30 and which finished at around 10.20, reviews are already closed for The Look, which (when there is no time to have written a review on the last day), along with the voting, is something that I have never understood...), with L for the reviews that were lost*, and, now (29/9/2011), N for reviews written after the Festival (N = new)
* I am now changing some of those 'L's to 'R's, as the reviews have started appearing (Ap., 27/9/2011)

Thursday 15

S B 4.45 The Wakefield Express + S N Ace In The Hole (2)

S B R 8.00 Opening film: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (sold out) (3)

Friday 16

S B R 12.45 Tomboy (4)

S B L 3.15 Rembrandt Fecit 1669 (Jos S.) (5)

S B L 6.00 Calvet (6)

G L 8.00 The Illusionist (Jos S.) (7)

M 11.00 The Day The Earth Caught Fire - decide on the night

Saturday 17

M 12.45 Jess + Moss

S B R 3.00 Black Butterflies (8)

S B R 8.00 Bombay Beach (9)

M 8.15 Jos Stelling in Conversation (Q&A)

S B R 10.30 Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (10)

Sunday 18

S B R 3.00 Philipp + S B R Above us Only Sky (12)

M 3.15 No Trains No Planes (Jos S.)

S B N 5.45 White White World (13)

S B R 8.15 Burnout (14)

Monday 19

S B R 12.45 Tabloid (15)

M 1.00 Bombay Beach

S N 3.30 The Camera That Changed The World + S B Don't Look Back (17)

M 5.45 A Useful Life

S B 8.30 Robin Hood (18)

M 10.30 Sympathy For Mr Vengeance - decide on the night

S B 10.45 Tirza (19)

Tuesday 20

S B R 3.30 Bernard Herrmann: Knowing the Score (20)

S B N 8.15 Drive (21)

S B 11.00 Red State - decide on the night (22)

Wednesday 21

S B N 1.00 Tirza (23)

S N 3.15 As If I Am Not There (24)

S B 8.15 Dimensions (sold out) (25)

M 11.00 Wild Side - decide on the night

Thursday 22

S 12.30 The Seventh Seal (26)

G B R 8.00 Tartan Terror - Hamish McAlpine in conversation (27)

S B L 11.00 Bullhead - decide on the night (28)

Friday 23

S B 12.00 Writer in residence Workshop (29)

G B R 3.30 Jo for Jonathan (30)

M 6.00 The Nine Muses

S N 8.15 Gerhard Richter: Painting (31)

M 10.30 Red White & Blue - decide on the night

Saturday 24

S N 12.30 Kosmos (32)

S B R 5.00 Dimensions (33)

S B L 8.00 Tyrannosaur (34)

G N 10.45 Guilty of Romance - decide on the night (35)

Sunday 25

S 12.45 Intimate Grammar (36)

S B R 3.15 Sleeping Beauty (37)

S B 6.00 Surprise Movie (probably sold out) - Contagion (38)

S 8.15 Kosmos - just to catch the missed opening

S N 8.30 Closing film: The Look (39)

Including the two viewings of Tirza and of Dimensions, the things abandoned, and the three double-bills, that's 39 events, a pleasing multiple of 13, plus a lot of lost reviews that will (may? - Ap., 27/9/2011) never be seen on the Festival web-site (I make it 7 (now 6 - Ap., 27/9/2011)...

Wakeful in an eternity of emptiness

This is a review of Sleeping Beauty (2011)

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25 September

This is a review of Sleeping Beauty (2011)

When, in Sleeping Beauty, an elderly man with a white beard (whom we have seen before, and know that he is a pining widower) starts a story that is, frankly, of little real interest, but just an attempt (where others throughout the film may have failed) to be weighty, I nearly did decide to take my eyes off his face and just listen - in the hope, even, that sleep might come (of which Macbeth’s character speak so highly, if not Hamlet’s, likening death to it in ‘what dreams may come’, etc.).

Would that I had either given into that temptation or of making this film the fifth thing that I did not see through to the end in this Festival, because Sleepless in Seattle almost has more to say about life, and without being so needlessly portentous (maybe even, with the same crew, You’ve Got Mail). Whatever journey someone thought that this film was taking the viewer on was not, as far as I am concerned, worth the shoe-leather.

A series of things was presented that were probably intended to make one more feel uncomfortable (although the word ‘series’ might suggest a progression, or some intelligence behind aching voids of silence, slow fades, the blackness before the next scene, etc., which were like forces pulling in contrary directions) – oh, and some of them do, as certain forms of self-willed violence or appropriation almost always will, but, if they do, it might help if there were some basis for them.

I really do not think that the essential premise is tenable, when, whatever the poster might suggest, Emily Browning (as Lucy (Melissa?)) is no pre-Raphaelite beauty (except in terms of hair colour, but certainly not stature, poise or demeanour), makes a noisy job of pouring wine or a brusque one of offering brandy, and does not even seem – although a few books and papers are strewn around in a scene towards the end – very convincing as a student.

And as a student of what – is what we are shown in the lecture-room (analysis of a game of go, and some incomplete notation that is being chalked on the board earlier on) founded on some sort of notion of what games theory or the mathematics behind it is like?

Lucy’s motivation to do what she does is clear enough – she can, she wants to, and she needs money, although, rather slowly, she begins to wonder what she is doing. I begin to wonder what Clara is doing, too, if where she gives various men free rein, but with a fairly arbitrary (and irrelevant) restriction, really is her home – she is supposed to be running some sort of comprehensive ring of young women like Lucy, but that aspect quickly appears more or less forgotten about, I suspect, because she is really needed to bolster the lack of engagement and energy in the role (and playing) of Lucy, and so has to give her personal attention.

However, attention given to Lucy and Clara’s antics will not, I fear, be repaid.

Tyrannosaur - rex or regina?

This is a Festival review of Tyrannosaur (2011)

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25 September

This is a Festival review of Tyrannosaur (2011)

I couldn't get director / writer of Tyrannosaur Paddy Considine interested in the idea that his lead man (a role for Peter Mullan, seemingly written for him, by my judgement) could have been female, and his key opposite number (beautifully played by Olivia Colman) not Hannah, but Henry - Joseph (Peter Mullan's male) would have been, say, Josephine.

For him, a separate film - not the film that he had made - end of answer. (OK, I agreed in the question that the dynamics would have been different, but wondered whether he had ever considered wbat I was suggesting - he didn't say that he hadn't, but he clearly hadn't.)

A separate film that he would watch, if I made it. I told him that it was showing the next day.

At the moment, much as I thought Tyrannosaur was a good piece of work, I still view it as following on from the same actor (same name, even!) in My Name is Joe - oh, it did say different things, but it was a similar sort of world, a similar sort of desire to get out of it...

Dimensions: Through the looking-glass of time? (3)

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25 September 2011

* Contains spoilers *

To say a little more, enough to tease (as the film often does), about mirror-images, there is a scene that shows Stephen and his friend Victoria after they have tumbled to the ground in a sort of chase of and with themselves.

As with something that happens later, which may (as Stephen's cousin Conrad first claims, and later appears unsure about it) - or may not - have been an accident, and which literally ties in with this moment, there is an embodiment of a skein, of the film's title's 'tangle of threads' (or the potential for it). It's a game, but there's bondage, the shackling that Joyce McKinney asserts was a sort of chosen cure, a sort of healing, in Tabloid, and with it there's the breathlessness associated with the other activity, there's the arbitrary rule-making that the game has to be played one way (counter-clockwise), an approach that can form rigid habits and stronger disciplines, not always for one's - or anyone else's - good in life (as with Stephen's father's former friend Richard?).

So the mirror-image, of the game being played transposed into a clockwise motion, can be imagined - as can any other action involving Victoria and Stephen - happening, but it offends against the street being declared to be one way. (Not too far off from thinking again of Rutherford, of thinking how the characters in Michael Frayn's Copenhagen revolve, dance, around each other like particles in a simple atom...)

And the transposed image, the left / right flip? Set aside whether the falling down together, linked, was (as with Conrad's accident) deliberate - although it had to seem so, or not ambiguously so, for us: when we see Stephen and Victoria on the ground, from the waist up, side by side, they are, first of all, in that order, left to right. The picture (taken by the cinematographer, but not one that otherwise existed for Stephen to see (directly)), when he calls it to mind later, becomes Victoria and Stephen, she now on the left.

(It is nearly summoned again, but we do not actually see it, are just so reminded of it that, as a ghost of a view, we could almost swear that its image is on our retina at that point, because we know it - or think that we know it - by then.)

So these are the hints of Alice, these are the suggestions that, in a world as like ours as the one that she first sees in Looking-Glass House, things may be subtly different, actually harmful: as The Annotated Alice observes, with Martin Gardner talking about left- and right-handed molecules (which are identical but for being mirror-images of each other), milk would not be safe for Alice or her cat to drink in the world beyond the looking-glass. Matter and anti-matter? It goes on...

Where would we be without the imagination of Ant Neely (the film's writer) or of Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (really Lewis Carroll, or vice versa)? The poorer for it, I think.

Saturday 24 September 2011

Dimensions: Through the looking-glass of time? (2)

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25 September

Here, now (wherever 'here' and 'now' actually are), are the 500 words that have been submitted to the Festival web-page for Dimensions and, as a comment on a piece about the film in Cambridge News, to that newspaper / web-site:

Although it is received wisdom that ‘I can’t be in two places at once [or at the same time, in a variant]’, not only is that usually just an excuse, but it also might not stand up to examination in the light of developments in cloning.

All that apart, more or less, the immense popularity of Dimensions, which has seen it (after having screenings in Screens 2 and then 1) shown again this afternoon meant that I could go through the wormhole of watching again: I know that the phrase does not sound favourable, but this is my review, and I am in a whimsical mood, in no way intended to detract from viewing twice to see what happened to something that I thought fine the first time.

Why did I think it fine? It is an extremely intelligent film that uses the concept and theory of time-travel to say something about what I described in my Festival blog as longing. I still think that it is longing, not just obsession – I think that one can be obsessed about something (e.g. my head being cut off by Jackie Chan) that (unless we are being psychoanalytical), on the face (pun intended!) of it, one does not long for, and long for something that does not obsess one.

I said that it is longing for something that one cannot have or that may not do me any good. In this film, that turns out not to be true on either count, and also to involve a paradox. The events are separated by a period of fifteen years, but, in some respects, the characters seem unchanged, seem stuck in some childish ways (as we all probably are – now who wants to play the psychology card, after all!), seem full of what I want to call longing. (I call it longing not only because I can’t use the German word Sehnsucht, and, because of the connotations, I don’t want to use yearning.)

I asked a question about that at the premiere – the younger actors had had a chance to speak to their counterparts (and vice versa). What I find myself thinking, this time around, is that there is a generational as well as a dimensional character to all that we see, a temporal distortion that, as much as Alice’s worlds reinterpret the present from which she enters Wonderland or the other Looking-Glass House, ripples (a key word in the script) as water, particles or time do with their differing wave-fronts. Which is why Ant Neely’s brother’s house on the river at Cambridge is such a benefit to and feature of this film.

This Cambridge-driven film – Ernest Rutherford split the atom here in 1917, which was then done under both his direction and controlled conditions in 1932 - buzzes with that innovation, but buzzes in the direction of feelings, and Olivia Llewellyn’s acting beautifully embodies the spirit of a bright and clear academic mind, seeking to help Henry-Lloyd-Hughes (as Stephen) achieve his brilliant aims.

Statistics - when they become significant (if ever)

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25 September

Since (whenever that was) this blog was inaugurated (born? baptized?), there have been large numbers of page-views not only from the UK, but also from the States, and, puzzlingly (why so?) from Russia (15 overall, with 12 in the last week)…

I am also told by Blogger about operating-systems (which is a predicatble result) and browsers (with a close-run thing at the top between (in decreasing order, for what it’s worth with this size of sample) Safari, Firefox and Explorer.

I cannot honestly say that any of those figures really do much for me, other than to point out what a pivotal posting mine was on the night that Dimensions premiered, but they make me revert to a different question, that of the Festival’s attempt to assess the Festival favourite:

It’s great that people are being asked, this year, to put a card into one of five boxes (5 being the top score), but some screenings sell out (Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy as the opening film, for example, in Screen 1), whereas, last night (I think) I was in danger of being the only person in my late show.

So you can have hundreds of people voting in one or two screenings, so perhaps as many as four to five hundred possible votes (for, say, Screen 2 then Screen 1, as with Dimensions, I was told on asking (I was only in the first show), and the attempt is to compare that with something in Screen 3 only once that was only half full.

Need I say more about where the problem lies?

Dimensions: Through the looking-glass of time? (1)

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24 September

Although it is received wisdom that ‘I can’t be in two places at once [or at the same time, in a variant]’, not only is that usually just an excuse, but it also might not stand up to examination in the light of developments in cloning.

All that apart, more or less, the immense popularity of Dimensions, which has seen it (after having screenings in Screens 2 and then 1) shown again this afternoon meant that I could go through the wormhole of watching again: I know that the phrase does not sound favourable, but this is my review, and I am in a whimsical mood, in no way intended to detract from viewing twice to see what happened to something that I thought fine the first time.

Why did I think it fine? It is an extremely intelligent film that uses the concept and theory of time-travel to say something about what I described in my Festival blog as longing. I still think that it is longing, not just obsession – I think that one can be obsessed about something (e.g. my head being cut off by Jackie Chan) that (unless we are being psychoanalytical), on the face (pun intended!) of it, one does not long for, and long for something that does not obsess one.

I said that it is longing for something that one cannot have or that may not do me any good. In this film, that turns out not to be true on either count, and also to involve a paradox. The events are separated by a period of fifteen years, but, in some respects, the characters seem unchanged, seem stuck in some childish ways (as we all probably are – now who wants to play the psychology card, after all!), seem full of what I want to call longing. (I call it longing not only because I can’t use the German word Sehnsucht, and, because of the connotations, I don’t want to use yearning.)

I shall have to finish this review later, so this is a stub (as Wikipedia would call it)…

Experiences of Festival events

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24 September

I shall (try to) be kind first, before being cruel – but, sadly, the latter is deserved.

Neil Brand’s voyage through and sample of the film music of Bernard Herrmann (Knowing the Score) was, despite the numerous technical hitches (most of which, as Neil suggested, can be blamed on the stubborn spirit of Bernie that we came to glimpse that afternoon): the on-screen presentation and the examples chosen were clear, Neil identifying the various instruments and effects as the clips ran (audio only for Psycho, with Neil talking us through the instrumentation for strings on screen) was instructive, and, above all, the enthusiasm for and energy involved in explaining the subject were patent.

Contrast that with an event called The Tartan Terror, and one is at the other end of the spectrum. When I came to write about this ‘evening’, which my friend Punyaketu and I decided to spend somewhere else (even in the face of some well-chosen segments from films distributed by Tartan: we saw part of Irreversible, Old Boy, and Man Bites Dog), I was reminded of James Naughtie in King’s chapel, supposedly interviewing another James, composer James MacMillan – as Naughtie made one well aware, he knew his interlocutor (or, more accurately, intended interlocutor) from other encounters, but, one hopes for MacMillan’s sake, not ones where Naughtie coasted, and dilated endlessly before asking questions that: were not worthy of the ticket-price that some had paid, did not leave them much space for the time that they, too, were supposed to have to ask questions, and seemed to leave the other James cold, too, though he did the best to enliven with his answers a session that was becoming dead on its feet.

Now, I wouldn’t suggest that prior consumption of alcohol played any part on either occasion, but Peter Bradshaw fell into exactly the same trap, snaring himself on the belief that, simply because something (not always very fluently – lots of ‘um’s and ‘uh’s, especially at the beginning) was coming out of his mouth, it needed to be said and said until he could think of nothing else to say.

Frankly, it does not matter whether this was billed as Hamish McAlpine (funnily, like MacMillan, another Scot, though I think that he described himself as a pretend one, after an introduction that was in danger of swallowing the whole night) in conversation or being interviewed, it was neither. It was self-indulgent and not interesting (or simply another case of the questioner forgetting why he is (meant to be) there), and, when McAlpine did (get allowed to) start speaking (after lengthy digressions or irrelevant anecdotes about being with directors at Cannes), Bradshaw was speaking affirmations (or even contradictions) into his microphone, rather than just letting the man who was meant to be his guest – and, after all, the focus of the event – talk in peace.

I gave it 1 out of 5, and had a much better conversation of my own somewhere else instead! (And I hope that poor McAlpine isn't left terrified to be invited to do anything else similar, where he might be given the opportunity to saw something...)

A little Chaucerian muse

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24 September

Agents Surlaw and Apsley (when the latter had tired of typing 'The Agent Apsley' in full) did a pleasing duet (I find it so), which I have just found as the product of the special Batterson page on TSG

Sleeping is no Phenomenon

Tinctures of old lead [Apsley ]
A serpent in a tree [Surlaw ]
A pair a-coupling there [Apsley ]
Concealed for all to see [Surlaw ]
Prioress out for love [Apsley ]
May day dawning [Surlaw ]
In December's wake [Apsley ]

Silence on demand [Surlaw ]
For Geoffrey in his lair [Apsley ]
Whose blossom, when it falls [Surlaw ]
Upon his silken hair, [Apsley ]
Betrays those up above [Surlaw ]
All day yawning [Apsley ]
While the tree doth shake [Surlaw ]

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6288019876957346964

Counting sheep - or sheep on the brain

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24 September

No, nothing (much) to do with the infamous Gene Wilder sketch in Woody Allen's Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex [...], but just a (somewhat) bizarre opening line from Spoonbill Generator days..., a time when writing poetry this way (and not in that of my youth) was my main creative outlet.

(Somewhere, there's a Generator poem about outlet valves, which, if I can quickly find, I shall append.)

Only Transient Sheep

Hiatus and Hibiscus are the names of my two sheep [The Agent Apsley]
Hiatus likes to hiccough and Hibiscus likes to beep, [Stacy]
The only time I get some peace is when they're both asleep! [P]

Hiatus went to Knaresborough and turned the ladies' heads [TG]
Hibiscus stayed at home and cursed "those wicked slimy reds" [P]
They only cease to argue when they're tucked up in their beds! [TG]

Hiatus lit a candle and intoned a solemn prayer [P]
As a practice that is holy, but a measure that is rare [The Agent Apsley]
Hibiscus, on the other hand, is now a millionaire [P]

Hibiscus dotes on chocolate, Hiatus dines on cheese [The Agent Apsley]
And both are rather prone to do exactly as they please [P]
One wonders if this ovine pair have learned their ABCs [Dano]
And do they have fleas? [nomi]

Hibiscus ate a pencil and promptly down did fall [The Agent Apsley]
Hiatus trapped a frightened little hamster in the hall [TG]
The world turns 'round, in ways profound [Rippy]
That sages do confound [The Agent Apsley]

Hiatus and Hibiscus sent a message to the Queen [TG]
"Our Agent of Desire comes disguised as Mr. Clean" [Rippy]
"Balls!" Said the Queen "If I had two I'd be king" [nomi]

Hiatus ran for office, Hibiscus took the hump [The Agent Apsley]
The hoary throng of pistoleros bravely manned the pump [Rippy]
And, adding to divergence, felt the inklings of a lump. [The Agent Apsley]

Hibiscus was in the kitchen eating toast and jam. [Best Boy]
Hiatus was seen in Scotland in the company of a lamb [Anon.]
Then off to New York City, to buy stock, and pull a scam. [spawn of Rippy]
Last I heard, he was employed by the notorious Uncle Sam. [Dew Drop]

Hiatus or Hibiscus, it really matters nought [Rippy]
Depending on the matter of what they both have sought [Paloma]
And matter's merely patter when a sot ought quaff a draught [dano]

And thus it is, my children, that if you can't agree [Bop]
Just go into the pantry and endure the third degree [The Agent Apsley]
Hiatus and Hibiscus will just sit and sip their tea [TG]

http://www.spoonbill.org/completed.php?name=poem&value=0236

Friday 23 September 2011

Double-take on TAKE ONE

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24 September

Well, I don’t like to be mean to JackMcCurdy (and he should come back at me, if this is), but I think that his review of Drive in the new issue of TAKE ONE is couched in a slightly fanciful way (but I do agree with him that it is a good and powerful film).

(In trying to turn off italic face in a sans-serif font earlier (when I wrote this off line), I (or my keyboard) insistently (and insolently) tried to get me to accept the film’s title with an ‘l’ on the end, which is not what I think of Drive, or of the review, for the reasons stated. Dr Freud and his minions can stay schtumm!)

I’m not going to say too much, because I shall write my own review, but ‘It should be noted’ (at the start of the third paragraph) smacks more of the courtroom, or some more dry form of expression than one that means to pass on enthusiasms, and I don’t know what ‘deceptively gory action’ is – parts of the action are downright gory (and, as it is all make-up and fake blood, those parts are deceptive), but there is much else to Ryan Gosling in this role (I once rented a bedsit from a woman of that name - the surname, that is).

Ciao!

Another Festival poem

More views of - or at - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
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24 September

This, too, was written in the session at Murray Edwards College, but not read out during it - it's late, and I forget in what the inspiration for it lay, other than a phrase in a song to which people are dancing in one of the clips and which is quoted.

New Year, Damascus

We know the road there
– Think we do –
And (maybe?) the way back

But when did we know of
Your country, know that others
Travel there – to party?

The women dance, as the words
Sing – behind them – ‘Even your hell
is heaven’:

Faint echoes of
Shakespeare –
Or of Blake?

© Copyright Belston Night Works 2011

New poems from the Festival

More views of - or at - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
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23 September

I produced these poems (for what they are) during the session with Jane Monson, the Festival's writer in residence, earlier to-day...

Christmas 2009

You were there
For midnight -
Wanted to capture
Images
Of worship, celebration

Made me so uneasy
That you'd be told
'No photography, please!'
And break the mood
The broken, anxious mood

But you always did
What you wanted
Always took chances
To record moments -
For what?!

© Copyright Belston Night Works 2011

Our feelings take the pictures

Are they pictures of our feelings?
And how do we picture our feelings -
To ourselves?

Can we know them?
Or do we,
By trying to capture them,
Change them

As measuring current
In a circuit
Minutely changes the current?

© Copyright Belston Night Works 2011

Why do I hate New Year?

If I do,
It's because balloons
Are just full:
Of air,
Of nothing!

Empty,
I try to drink in
Emotions
(Not in me)
Of delight

Delight?
In playing with
The encompassed
Void -
with Terror?

© Copyright Belston Night Works 2011

By way of explanation, the poems were written in response to Jane's writing exercises, which all arose from screenings of parts of Open Shutters: Our Feelings Take the Pictures, a documentary made by a Russian film-maker about how she and an Iraqi woman in the same field tutor other women (and their children) in Iraq in 1997 (?) in the skills of working out and telling a story in words and / or moving and static images

No! for Jonathan

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23 September

Well, I was glad to get to Festival Central from Murray Edwards (that event-satellite, where I shall go again to-morrow afternoon to reacquaint myself with Dimensions, and see how it does with the acid test of 'repeated viewability at a short remove' [or RVSR - a bit like RSVP, but not quite the same letters or in the same order...]) by 3.20, but, by 3.55 (after a start at 3.30), I was walking out of Jo for Jonathan:

Not much to say, and not wishing to be unkind, but the best thing about it was the music (and not even then, really), and learning that the joke about Americans, dollar-bills and snorting coke may have been to do with Franco-Canadian funding (the joke is at the expense of the Canadians). I regret (to have) to say that I was just bored by the (apparent) subject when I came to leave, and I simply no longer wanted to be in that black and darkened chamber with the film to find out where it and its Jo might go. No!

The bar, a beer, and the blog seem a much better combination, as (whatever Plato may have thought) many images projected with light (the sun) on the equivalent of a cave wall are not only a joy, but an instruction, in (and of) life...

Writer in residence

More views of - or at - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

23 September

It's crept - well, rushed - around to the time when Murray Edwards College (once New Hall) hosts a three-hour session with Jane Monson, the Festival's writer in residence.

I'm hoping for a good place to park nearby, as Jo for Jonathan is on at 3.30 and that makes it tight for finishing at 3.00 and getting there - actually, that's complete nonsense, because, wherever I park, the college is where it is! Must have confused some of my parameters (or dimensions)...

This time, at least, I won't have to cadge some paper, because I've managed to look some out - in four hours' time, who knows (Jane?) what will have been screened and written...?