Showing posts with label Italian Cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italian Cinema. Show all posts
Saturday 31 July 2010
Suso Cecchi d'Amico (1914-2010)
Saturday 8 May 2010
Thoughts On Early Visconti
Revisiting some of Visconti's early films, it was very interesting how in the idiom of neorealism he is implying a very personal view (and style). How he is escaping from the limitations of Italian cinema and goes beyond the warm-hearted depiction of everyday life of ordinary people:
1
His compositions have deep roots in the last century's art, especially painting and opera.
His compositions have deep roots in the last century's art, especially painting and opera.
2
Powerful elements of queer subjectivity from his very first picture, and discussing this theme, directly in his latter works.
Ossessione (1943)3
Sexual conflict and the image of the destructive woman. Reappears in his later films as "fascism and sexual perversion."
Sexual conflict and the image of the destructive woman. Reappears in his later films as "fascism and sexual perversion."
4
Quasi-documentary realism; the exoticism intrinsic to the subject matter; the underlying "human geography."
Quasi-documentary realism; the exoticism intrinsic to the subject matter; the underlying "human geography."
L'innocente (1976) [original shot in color]5
Extensive use of close-ups.
Extensive use of close-ups.
Rocco e i suoi fratelli (1960)
6
Dialectical confrontation between high and low, ancient and new, aristocracy and proletarian as depicted in contradiction between architecture and man, or people and their surroundings.
Dialectical confrontation between high and low, ancient and new, aristocracy and proletarian as depicted in contradiction between architecture and man, or people and their surroundings.
Le notti bianche (1957)7
Unreconciled tension between a Marxian vision of society and an operatic conception of character.
Unreconciled tension between a Marxian vision of society and an operatic conception of character.
Senso (1954)Il gattopardo (1963)
[both shots originally in color]
8
Depicting the dissolution of the aristocracy with sympathy and understanding for the aesthetic and intellectual qualities that Visconti, as an aristocrat himself, so deeply appreciated. One can call all his best films, the stories of decadence of his class. Meanwhile notice how Visconti use mirrors as a object of reflecting the inner state of the main character , or to show passing of time and coming to age (especially in Leopard case), when Burt Lancaster is standing in front of a mirror, and it's reflecting Alain Delon's image.
Depicting the dissolution of the aristocracy with sympathy and understanding for the aesthetic and intellectual qualities that Visconti, as an aristocrat himself, so deeply appreciated. One can call all his best films, the stories of decadence of his class. Meanwhile notice how Visconti use mirrors as a object of reflecting the inner state of the main character , or to show passing of time and coming to age (especially in Leopard case), when Burt Lancaster is standing in front of a mirror, and it's reflecting Alain Delon's image.
La Terra trema (1948)9
I find these two shots from "La Terra trema," one of Visconti's most crucial shot/reverse shots among his early films.
Men leave for sea. Women farewell them. As they close the shabby house's door. Two shot, from two different angle picture this severance and shows how Visconti substitutes neorealist subjectivity with a pure pictorial aesthetics, based on opera.
See the emphasis on architecture, the sense of space that goes beyond daily reality. And also look how a bared tree turns into a aesthetic element of the shot. The unusual angle between two shots is nothing like common reaction shots that we used to see in the films of that particular period. In a sense, it's an unnecessary shot, but it works perfectly and we can extend this idea to Visconti's way of building his sequences, too.
That's also the way Visconti create his unique cinematic rhythm. Pacing in his early films anticipated the 1960s art cinema style with less emphasis on action and more emphasis on character development and creating a special sense of time and space. His films have many long sequences that may at first viewing seem “unnecessary” for the development of the plot, but that are actually crucial to Visconti’s study of the mood and psychological aspects of the film.
Men leave for sea. Women farewell them. As they close the shabby house's door. Two shot, from two different angle picture this severance and shows how Visconti substitutes neorealist subjectivity with a pure pictorial aesthetics, based on opera.
See the emphasis on architecture, the sense of space that goes beyond daily reality. And also look how a bared tree turns into a aesthetic element of the shot. The unusual angle between two shots is nothing like common reaction shots that we used to see in the films of that particular period. In a sense, it's an unnecessary shot, but it works perfectly and we can extend this idea to Visconti's way of building his sequences, too.
That's also the way Visconti create his unique cinematic rhythm. Pacing in his early films anticipated the 1960s art cinema style with less emphasis on action and more emphasis on character development and creating a special sense of time and space. His films have many long sequences that may at first viewing seem “unnecessary” for the development of the plot, but that are actually crucial to Visconti’s study of the mood and psychological aspects of the film.
Wednesday 7 April 2010
An Aesthetic Participation in History: Bazin on La Terra Trema
In La Terra Trema, Visconti aimed at and unquestionably achieved a paradoxical synthesis of realism and aestheticism. Visconti has not had recourse to the effects one can produce from the juxtaposition of images. Each image here contains a meaning of its own which it expresses fully. This is the reason why it is difficult to see more than a tenuous relation between La Terra Trema and the Soviet cinema of the second half of the twenties, to which montage was essential. We may add now that it is not by means of symbolism in the imagery either that meaning manifests itself here, I mean, the symbolism to which Eisenstein resort.
The aesthetic peculiar to the image here is always plastic; it avoids any inclination to the epic. As staggeringly beautiful as the fishing fleet may be when it leaves the harbor, it is still just the village fleet, not, as in Potemkin, the enthusiasm and the support of the people of Odessa who send out the fishing boats loaded with food for the rebels. But, one may ask, where is art to take refuge if the realism one is proposing is so ascetic? Everywhere else. In the quality of the photography, especially. Our compatriot Aldo, who before his work on this film did nothing of real note and was known only as a studio cameraman, has here created a profoundly original style of image, unequaled anywhere (as far as I know) but in the short films which are being made in Sweden by Arne Sucksdorff.
The images of La Terra Trema achieve what is at once a paradox and tour de force in integrating the aesthetic realism of films like Citizen Kane with the documentary realism. If this is not, strictly speaking, the first time depth of focus has been used outside the studio, it is at least the first time it has been used as consciously and as systematically as it is here out of doors, in the rain and even in the dead of night, as well as indoors in the real-life settings of the fishermen's homes. I canot linger over the technical tour de force which this represents, but I would like to emphasize that depth of focus has naturally led Visconti (as it led Welles ) not only to reject montage but, in some literal sense, to invent a new kind of shooting script. His shots (if one is justified in retaining the term) are unusually long, some lasting three or four minutes. In each, as one might expect, several actions are going on simultaneously. Visconti also seems to have wanted, in some systematic sense, to base the construction of his image on the event itself. If a fisherman rolls a cigarette, he spares us nothing: we see the whole operation; it will not be reduced to its dramatic or symbolic meaning, as is usual with montage. The shots are often fixed frame, so people and things may enter the frame and take up position; but Visconti is also in the habit of using a special kind of panning shot which moves very slowly over a very wide arc: this is the only camera movement which he allows himself, for he excludes all tracking shots and, of course, every unusual camera angle.
The unlikely sobriety of this structure is possible only because of the remarkable plastic balance maintained a balance which only a photograph could absolutely render here. But above and beyond the merits of its purely formal properties, the image reveals an intimate knowledge of the subject matter on the part of the filmmakers. Visconti is worthy of the novelty of his triumph. Despite the poverty or even because of the simple "ordinariness" of this household of fishermen, an extraordinary kind of poetry, at once intimate and social,emanates from it.
In La Terra Trema, the actor, sometimes on camera for several minutes at a time, speaks, moves, and acts with complete naturalness, one might even say, with unimaginable grace. Visconti is from the theater. He has known how to communicate to the nonprofessionals of La Terra Trema something more than naturalness, namely that stylization of gesture that is the crowning achievement of an actor's profession. If festival juries were not what they are, the Venice festival prize for best acting should have gone to the fishermen of La Terra Trema.
In the world of cinema, it is not necessary that everyone approve every film, provided that what prompts the public's incomprehension can be compensated for by the other things. In other words, the aesthetic of La Terra Trema must be applicable to dramatic ends if it is to be of service in the evolution of cinema.
One has to take into account too, and this is even more disturbing, in view of what one has the right to expect from Visconti himself, a dangerous inclination to aestheticism. This great aristocrat, an artist to the tips of his fingers, is a Communist, too, do I dare say a synthetic one?
La Terra Trema lacks inner fire. One is reminded of the great Renaissance painters who, without having to do violence to themselves, were able to paint such fine religious frescoes in spite of their deep indifference to Christianity. I am not passing judgment on the sincerity of Visconti's communism. But what is sincerity? Obviously, at issue is not some paternalistic feeling for the proletariat. Paternalism is a bourgeois phenomenon, and Visconti is an aristocrat. What is at issue is, maybe, an aesthetic participation in history.
The aesthetic peculiar to the image here is always plastic; it avoids any inclination to the epic. As staggeringly beautiful as the fishing fleet may be when it leaves the harbor, it is still just the village fleet, not, as in Potemkin, the enthusiasm and the support of the people of Odessa who send out the fishing boats loaded with food for the rebels. But, one may ask, where is art to take refuge if the realism one is proposing is so ascetic? Everywhere else. In the quality of the photography, especially. Our compatriot Aldo, who before his work on this film did nothing of real note and was known only as a studio cameraman, has here created a profoundly original style of image, unequaled anywhere (as far as I know) but in the short films which are being made in Sweden by Arne Sucksdorff.
The images of La Terra Trema achieve what is at once a paradox and tour de force in integrating the aesthetic realism of films like Citizen Kane with the documentary realism. If this is not, strictly speaking, the first time depth of focus has been used outside the studio, it is at least the first time it has been used as consciously and as systematically as it is here out of doors, in the rain and even in the dead of night, as well as indoors in the real-life settings of the fishermen's homes. I canot linger over the technical tour de force which this represents, but I would like to emphasize that depth of focus has naturally led Visconti (as it led Welles ) not only to reject montage but, in some literal sense, to invent a new kind of shooting script. His shots (if one is justified in retaining the term) are unusually long, some lasting three or four minutes. In each, as one might expect, several actions are going on simultaneously. Visconti also seems to have wanted, in some systematic sense, to base the construction of his image on the event itself. If a fisherman rolls a cigarette, he spares us nothing: we see the whole operation; it will not be reduced to its dramatic or symbolic meaning, as is usual with montage. The shots are often fixed frame, so people and things may enter the frame and take up position; but Visconti is also in the habit of using a special kind of panning shot which moves very slowly over a very wide arc: this is the only camera movement which he allows himself, for he excludes all tracking shots and, of course, every unusual camera angle.
The unlikely sobriety of this structure is possible only because of the remarkable plastic balance maintained a balance which only a photograph could absolutely render here. But above and beyond the merits of its purely formal properties, the image reveals an intimate knowledge of the subject matter on the part of the filmmakers. Visconti is worthy of the novelty of his triumph. Despite the poverty or even because of the simple "ordinariness" of this household of fishermen, an extraordinary kind of poetry, at once intimate and social,emanates from it.
In La Terra Trema, the actor, sometimes on camera for several minutes at a time, speaks, moves, and acts with complete naturalness, one might even say, with unimaginable grace. Visconti is from the theater. He has known how to communicate to the nonprofessionals of La Terra Trema something more than naturalness, namely that stylization of gesture that is the crowning achievement of an actor's profession. If festival juries were not what they are, the Venice festival prize for best acting should have gone to the fishermen of La Terra Trema.
In the world of cinema, it is not necessary that everyone approve every film, provided that what prompts the public's incomprehension can be compensated for by the other things. In other words, the aesthetic of La Terra Trema must be applicable to dramatic ends if it is to be of service in the evolution of cinema.
One has to take into account too, and this is even more disturbing, in view of what one has the right to expect from Visconti himself, a dangerous inclination to aestheticism. This great aristocrat, an artist to the tips of his fingers, is a Communist, too, do I dare say a synthetic one?
La Terra Trema lacks inner fire. One is reminded of the great Renaissance painters who, without having to do violence to themselves, were able to paint such fine religious frescoes in spite of their deep indifference to Christianity. I am not passing judgment on the sincerity of Visconti's communism. But what is sincerity? Obviously, at issue is not some paternalistic feeling for the proletariat. Paternalism is a bourgeois phenomenon, and Visconti is an aristocrat. What is at issue is, maybe, an aesthetic participation in history.
-- Andre Bazin (Esprit, 1948)
Tuesday 6 April 2010
Wednesday 25 November 2009
The Desert of Tartars
The Desert of Tartars [deserto dei Tartari] (1976) is a powerful film about loneliness, alienation, boredom, despair and death. It is directed by underrated Italian veteran, Valerio Zurlini from a 1938 Dino Buzzati novel by the same name. Zurlini had a great impact on my life with his gloomy and heartbreaking Family Diary (1962), starring Marcello Mastroianni and Jacques Perrin which I saw when I was 15 or 16. Now when I think back, I see many similarities between two pictures, especially as far as "despair and death" is concerned. In Iran, Zurlini has a cult status with his La prima notte di quiete (1972) [I even know a film critic who loved this film so much that when he became a director, give its name to his popular TV series]
The story is about a young ambitious soldier (Jacques Perrin) who assigned to the outskirts of an unspecified empire—specifically, to a massive, ancient fortress beyond which lies only the endless desert and "the Tartars," the enemy that never appears, but must be prepared for at all times. In the fort, the officers are filled with hopelessness and riddled by self-doubt and either going slowly insane or praying for reassignment. As we go along some people die and some fade away. The film never show us Tartars. There is no attack or ambush, only long shadows of the wind and horror of an invisible enemy. There is even no killing or gunshots, the only killing in the picture take place when a soldier sneaks out of the outpost and when he tries to reenter, get shot by one of his fellow soldiers. Trying to touch the outside world and discover the mysterious life outside the long walls of the outpost means death. That's the reason why Max Von Sydow's character commits suicide in an open desert. The desert is a counterpoint to the fort. It's a complete unknown, with its horrifying openness.
Despite the fact that the film has an European all-star cast including Jacques Perrin, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Max Von Sydow, Fernando Rey, Philippe Noiret, Giuliano Gemma, Laurent Terzieff, Helmut Griem, and Vittorio Gassman, it was a long forgotten masterpiece outside Europe -- because it never released in the Northern America -- till recently a newly released DVD changed its fate. (Michael Atkinson in Village Voice called it "may be the grandest and most lavish existentialist parable ever made.")
But the film always was very famous in Iran for different reasons: a) It was made with financial aid of an Iranian production company that was in business for a short period of time. They also helped Welles in making F for Fake and ill-fated Other Side of the Wind. b) Almost all exterior shots were filmed in Iran's Arg-e-Bam [Bam Fort], a 2,000-year-old Persian city and one of the world’s largest adobe building with the 180,000 square meter structure that decimated forever in the 2003 earthquake. [I'll never forget the day when the earthquake news spread in our architecture college] c) It supposed to be a vehicle for some Iranian actors, too, but things didn't work right and you can only identify Mohammad Ali Keshavarz in a very small role, as Max Von Sydow's company in desert. He was a renown stage and cinema actor in Iran and maybe the only professional actor ever appeared in a Kiarostami film, Under the olive trees (1994). d) Giuliano Gemma (who calls this film"his best role in movies") and Vittorio Gassman were very popular in the 1970s, especially Gassman was a favorite star among Iranian filmgoers, while Gemma was in demand for his Spaghetti westerns.
The primary character of the film is not Perrin or other superb actors that appear now and then. Like Polanski's Tenant, the main charachter is a building. Arg-e-Bam is a place that nourishes lonliness and solitude. Luciano Tovoli's cinematographery emphesizes this role as he had done before in Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975) and later on The Mystery of Oberwald (1981) (he was also Antonioni's cinematographer in China, 1972). It's a must-see!
--Ehsan Khoshbakht
Friday 30 October 2009
Paisà (Roberto Rossellini,1946)
پائیزا
کارگردان: روبرتو روسلینی
فیلمنامه: فدریکو فلینی، روسلینی و سرجو آمیدیی
فیلمبردار: اتللو مارتلی
موسیقی: رنزو روسلینی
بازیگران: کارملا ساتزیو، روبرت وان لون، بنجامین امانوئل، ریموند کمپل، هرولد واگنر، آلبرت هاینز.
1946، 125 دقیقه، سیاه و سفید ،ایتالیا
شش اپیزود درباره روزهای جنگ جهانی دوم درسیسیل، رم، ناپل و فلورانس از تابستان 1943 تا پایان جنگ.
اپیزود یک: دوستی یک سرباز آمریکایی و دختری سیسیلی که به مرگ هر دو می انجامد.
اپیزود دو: بچه ها پوتین های سرباز سیاه پوست آمریکایی را می دزدند و او به دنبال آنها وارد فقیرترین محلات ناپل می شود که در آن مردم روزگار دردناکی را می گذرانند.
اپیزود سه: سربازی آمریکایی با یک فاحشه ملاقات می کند و به خاطر نمی آورد او همان دختری است هنگام آزادی رم دیده است.
اپیزود چهار: در فلورانس پرستاری آمریکایی به جستجوی محبوب گمشده اش که رهبر پارتیزان هاست می رود.
اپیزود پنج: سه نظامی آمریکایی که در اصل راهبند به دیری ایتالیایی می روند.
اپیزود شش : پارتیزانها در نبردی نابرابر در دره پو یکایک کشته می شوند.
«به جای انتخاب از پیش بازیگران در پاییزا صرفاً با فیلمبردار به مکان هایی که مورد نظرمان بود می رفتیم و بعد از مدتی که فضول های همیشگی دوروبرمان جمع می شدند از میانشان بازیگران مناسب را جدا وهمه لهجه ها و گفتگو ها را به خودشان واگذار می کردیم » - روسلینی
«فیلمهای مهم ایتالیایی را در دوایر متحدالمرکزی قرار می دهیم که مرکزشان فیلم پاییزا ست وهرچه این دوایر از این فیلم بیشترفاصله داشته باشند علاقه ما به آنها کمتر می شود ،زیرا این فیلم روسلینی رموزی را برملا می کند که بسیار زیبایی شناختی است» - آندره بازن، سینما چیست
چند سالي است كه پاييزا را نديده ام اما اگر ديگر هيچ وقت آن را نبينم و آلزايمر حافظه ام را مثل نوار مغناطيسي كه مجاور آهن ربا قرار گرفته پاك و سفيد كند، گريه بچه اي كه تنها بازمانده كشتار نازي ها در كنار رود پوست هرگز فراموشم نخواهدشد؛ وقتي با پاهاي برهنه اش در كنار يك سگ از ميان اجساد گذر مي كند. در نظر من اين صحنه و اين فيلم روسليني بالاترين درجه انساني و زيبايي شناسي است كه سينما مي تواند به آن برسد و خارج از سينما و در دنياي هنر شفقتي نزديك به شفقت روسليني به انسان ها سراغ ندارم، مگر در داستايوفسكي.
Monday 24 August 2009
Nightmare Castle (1965)
هیچ وقت به فیلم هایی با چند اسم مختلف اعتماد نکنید، از آن مهم تر هرگز به کارگردانانی با چند نام اعتماد نکنید؛ آن ها بیشتر شبیه شیادانی بین المللی اند که در هرکشور یک اسم دارند و در هر جا برای يك كار خلاف مشهورند.
غرض از این مقدمه اشاره ای است به فیلمی که به تازگی دیدم با رایج ترين عنوان قصر کابوس (1965)، با شرکت ملکۀ فیلم های ترسناک اروپایی، باربارا استیل.
فیلم های ترسناک ایتالیایی دهۀ 1960 به هر دوره و زیرشاخه ای که تعلق داشته باشند –عصرجادوگرسوزان در انگلستان، قصرهای جن زدۀ اروپای شرقی یا دوران معاصر – بهانه ای برای نمایش آزار جسمی و حتی آن گونه که در این فیلم با آن روبرو می شویم، ادعاي وجود لذتی خلسه مانند در اين شكنجه هايند. تردیدی نیست که این حرف مزخرف محض است و آزار جسمانی به عنوان اسباب لذت تنها برای آدم های شکم سیر از کشورهای شکم سیر و فیلم های پورنوگرافیک درجۀ سه معنا دارد. بسیاری از این فیلم ها به دلیل تمرکز بیمارگونه روی خشونت جسمانی و آیینی جلوه دادن این آزارها و نمایش پیروزمندانۀ رابطۀ قربانی وشکنجه گر فیلم هایی از دور خارج و غیرقابل بحثند، اما در بسیاری از آن ها دقت در خلق فضا باعث می شود تا دوستداران ژانر خود را از تماشای فیلم محروم نکنند، حتی اگر با ایدۀ ساختاری آن ها مشکل داشته باشند.
قصر کابوس که اسامی دیگر آن عشاق آن سوی گور، عشاقی از ورای گور، شب نفرین شدگان، هیولای بی صورت و ارگازموست، نیز از این قاعده مستثنی نیست. این فیلم توسط ماریو چیانو (متولد 1933 در رم) ساخته شده که با نام های ماریو کایانو (یا کاجانو)، آلن گرونوالد، مایک پرکینز، ادواردو ری، مانفرد ریگرت، فرد ویلسون و بدتر از همه ویلیام هاوکینز نیز فیلم ساخته است. پیدا کردن انگیزه ای که پشت این نام گذاری ها و جعل هویت ها بوده خود می تواند موضوع یک رسالۀ دانشگاهی برای عشاق ژانر وحشت باشد. چیانو متخصص ساخت فیلم های ترسناک و وسترن های اسپاگتی بوده اما هیچ وقت به شهرت و اعتبار ماریو باوا و لوچیو فولچی نزدیک نشده است.
من دو نسخۀ متفاوت از این فیلم را همزمان دیدم؛ یکی نسخۀ آمریکایی آن که public domain است و طبیعتاً از كپي های بسیار بد و بی صاحب تهیه شده و یکی نسخۀ بسيار پاكيزۀ فرانسوی فیلم كه ظرافت هاي فيلم برداري انزو باربوني را بايد در اين نسخل ببينيد. (هدف من از مقایسه بین دو نسخه پیدا کردن تفاوت بین استانداردهای اروپایی و آمریکایی در نمایش خشونت بود. نسخۀ اروپایی فیلم حدود 25 دقیقه طولانی تر از نسخۀ آمریکایی بود و بعضی از صحنه های نمایش مستقیم شکنجه و خشونت از نسخۀ آمریکایی حذف شده بود. تیتراژ اول و آخر و ابتدا و انتهای بسیاری صحنه ها هم در دو نسخه تفاوت داشت.)
بعد از گوانتانامو و بقیۀ جاها تماشای این فیلم ها کمی (و یا بیشتر از "کمی") مضحک می نماید، حتی همان زمان که چارلز منسون در غیاب رومن پولانسکی، یکی از ستون های فیلم های ترسناک مدرن، به خانۀ او پا گذاشت و به سراغ همسر حاملۀ او شارون تیت رفت، دوران این فیلم ها باید به سر می رسید اما عجیب این که بین شقاوت در دنیای واقعی و شقاوت در سینما رابطه ای تنگاتنگ وجود دارد و هیچ کدام حاضر نیستند به نفع دیگری عقب نشینی کنند و بگذارند یکی دو روزی نفسی راحت بکشیم.
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