David Wojnarowicz’s Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Duchamp) (1978–79).Photo: Image courtesy of P.P.O.W.
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Arthur Rimbaud in New York
David Wojnarowicz’s Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Duchamp) (1978–79).Photo: Image courtesy of P.P.O.W.
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Capra's Forbidden (1932)
Among the four tarnished-lady melodramas Capra made with Barbara Stanwyck - Ladies of Leisure (1930), The Miracle Woman (1931), Forbidden (1932), and The bitter tea of general Yen (1933) - Forbidden is the least effective, and one of the weakest entries in the long and fertile career of Frank Capra.Apparently Capra is using his famous plot: story of a corrupt lawyer/politician, this time in love with lower class Barbara Stanwyck, plus an indecent newspaperman - supposed to bear the social consciousness of film - exposes politician’s corruptness while he is also in love with the same woman. This thug is played typically by Ralph Bellamy, who later went to the opposite side of business in His Girl Friday. So far everything could be considered a good starting point and also very typical of Capra, but when it comes to the attitude of characters in their social context, everything become really annoying. It’s strange how Capra worships and sympathizes with such a flagrant characters in the middle of an economical and social crisis - talking about the great depression. I believe, gradually, the nature of Capra’s heroes and heroines, changed in a more cynical way. In later post-war Gary Cooper, James Stewart and even Glenn Ford (Pocketful of miracles, Capra’s most beloved film in Iran) there is a quality of self determination, bitterness and ambiguity that make every move made by them so hard to judge or deny. We won’t forget that in Pocketful of miracles, the vulgar (Glenn Ford, again) turns into compassionate and a man, aware of the positive potentials of human nature, while in Forbidden, the sacrifices and struggles to keep up human dignity become absurdly ugly and wicked.
Due to the freedom of pre-code era, Forbidden has been loaded by salacious elements, among them adultery. Maybe Capra’s reckless approach toward this lonely woman, played by Stanwyck, caused redeeming the film by feminist critics from the opprobrium of the terms "soup opera" and "shopgirl romance,” but I can not be agree with that part. --E. K.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Workers: The General Line (1927-29)
وای از آن صبح ِگرم ِ اسفند! جنوب، بی وقت، وزید، که بیدار شود خاطره های ِ فقر ِ پوچ ما، فلاکتِ جوان ما. (رمبو/الهی/اشراق‌ها/کارگران)
Saturday, 10 April 2010
Celluloid Architecture Book
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معماری سلولويد
درآمدی بر جهان سينما و معماری
احسان خوش‌بخت
***
با همكاری: سارا گلمكانی، كتايون يوسفی
طراحي جلد، فهرست نويسي و صفحه آرايي: احسان ايران نژاد
17 فصل، 288 صفحه، مصور، 40 صفحه رنگي، قطع خشتي بزرگ
همراه با فهرست دوزبانه اسامي اشخاص و فيلم‌ها
ناشر: كتابكده تخصصي كسري و حرفه هنرمند
چاپ اول، زمستان 1388، 2000 نسخه، 12500 تومان
نمونه‌اي از صفحات و فهرست‌های كتاب
***
در سال‌های اخیر سینما موضوع تحقیقات و رساله‌های بی‌شماری در سطوح مختلف دانشکده‌های معماری و شهرسازی بوده است، موجی که خود می‌تواند در ادامه جنبشی جهانی – به خصوص در دو دهۀ اخیر – برای بازبینی تاثیر سینما بر معماری قلمداد شود. در اين سال‌ها همایش‌های بزرگ و مهم دانشگاهی با موضوع سینما و معماری برگزار شده و متخصصان هر دو رشته در سخنرانی‌ها و برنامه‌های تحلیل و نمایش فیلم سعي در روشن كردن رابطه اي داشته‌اند كه روز به روز بر عمق و پيچيدگي آن افزوده مي شود. کتاب‌های زیادی به قصد کشف قلمروی مشترک سینما و معماری در کشورهای مختلف نوشته و چاپ شده است و در بعضی از مشهورترین سایت‌های معماری می‌توان بخشی نظری درباره سینما پیدا کرد که به مقالاتی دربارۀ ارتباط این دو هنر اختصاص داده شده است و ارزش این مقالات از نوشته‌های کودکانه و بی سروته تا تحقیقاتی جدی و وزین در نوسان است.
شکی وجود ندارد که معماران زیادی از تاثیر سینما بی‌خبرند و یا به گفتۀ خود فرصتی برای دنبال کردن آن ندارند ( که این موضوع بسیار سؤال برانگیز است که چگونه کسی می‌تواند با یکی از مهم‌ترین پدیده‌هایی که چند دهه است معماری را تحت تاثیر قرار داده بیگانه باشد). از آن سو سینماگران زیادی وجود دارند که تصّور می کنند معماران همان «خانه سازها» هستند و از درک این نکته که هر دو قطعاتی از جهان را جداکرده و در نمایش فضایی مستقلی به عنوان «اثر» به مخاطبشان می‌دهند، غافلند. این كتاب قصد ندارد که نظر هیچ دسته ای را تغییر دهد. مخاطب اصلی ما کسانی هستند که پیشاپیش این بیداری و کنجکاوی را در خود احساس کرده‌اند و به مدارک بیشتری برای شکل دادن به افکارشان و جستجوی مرزهای جدید در تعامل سینما و معماری نیاز دارند.
هدف من این است که تمامی حالات ممکن برای درک رابطه میان سینما و معماری – چه به صورت تئوری و چه عملی – در این جا طرح شوند، حتی اگر بعضی در حد یک عنوان کلی باقی بمانند و به جزئیات بیشتری از آنها پرداخته نشود.
اين كتاب از سه بخش كلي تشكيل شده است :
نخست رابطه سينما و معماري از منظر مفاهيم مشتركشان و نگاهي به تاريخچه اين ارتباط تگاتنگ همراه با نمونه‌هايي از دنياي سينما، جستاری در مفاهیم سازنده دنیای فیلمیک و شباهت‌ها و تفاوت‌های آن با معماری، و بررسی «سینما و معماری» به عنوان پديده اي منحصر بفرد در جهان امروز. ما ابتدا به ریشه‌ها و تعاریف نخستین بازمی‌گرديم و تلاش خواهيم کرد با تأمل روي مفاهيم کلیدی مشترك ميان دو هنر تعریفي مشخص از هر مفهوم سینمایی یا معماری داشته باشيم.
سپس وارد مرحله‌ای جزیی تر شده و سعی می‌کنیم نقش معماری و نحوه به‌کارگیری و معنای آن را در فیلم‌های یک کارگردان آشنا به زبان هردو هنر، میکل آنجلو آنتونیونی، ببینیم. در عين حال به بررسی چرایی و چگونگی بازنمايي فضايي در فیلم‌های روبر برسون کارگردان بزرگ فرانسوی دست بزنیم که خود می‌تواند تا حد ممکن ما را از تعاریف و برداشت‌های قراردادی از مفهوم فضا در سینما دور کند. در انتهاي اين بخش فضا، زمان و معماري در سرگيجه هيچكاك مورد بررسي قرار خواهد گرفت و نشان خواهد داد كه اين بحث تا چه اندازه قابليت نزديك شدن به جزئيات را داراست.
سپس تاریخچه‌ای از به‌کارگیری معماری در سینما ازآغاز تا امروز را مرور خواهيم كرد: از دکورها، فضاهای معماری و لوکیشن‌ها تا كاربرد مفهومی معماری در سینما. ما 115 سال تاریخ سینما داریم و به همین نسبت 115 سال معماری فیلم که از دکورهای تئاتری و بوم‌های نقاشی شده ژرژ ملي‌یس آغاز شده و به پیچیده‌ترین فضاهای معماری سه بعدی معاصر ختم مي شود. با وجود هزاران فیلم و بالطبع هزاران طراح تعداد کتاب‌های منتشر شده درباره دکوراتورها، طراحان صحنه، طراحان تولید و مدیران هنری به حدی ناچیز است که مایه حیرت و تأسف می‌شود. در این بخش به تشریح وظیفه طراحان در فیلم و مفهوم طراحی در سینما و «معماری فیلم» و بررسی موردی کارنامه چند طراح فیلم می‌پردازیم.
در اين مقالات علاوه بر آن كه سيري در تاريخ سينما از منظر معماري امكان پذير خواهد شد، تلاش مي‌كنم تا با استفاده از زبان سینما و دیگر هنرها، تصور سطحی که آفرینش یک اثر معماری را محدود به آتلیه معماری می‌داند درهم شكسته و پارامترهایی که از آتلیه، معمار و قلمش مهمترند را برشمارم. همچنان اعتقاد دارم كه هنرها با تاثیر ناخودآگاه بر یکدیگر مرزها و افتراقات زیبایی شناسانه یکدیگر را درمی‌نوردند و با نزدیک شدن به مفاهیمی یکسان مجوعه‌ای را می سازند که باعث به وجود آمدن تاثیر محو نشدنی ِ غايي هنر می‌شود.
این كتاب مجموعه‌ای است از سرنخ‌ها و مقدماتی که به شکلی بسیار فشرده می‌تواند راهگشای محققان باشد. مقدمه‌ای برای آغاز حرکت، در حالي كه باقی تلاش است و نظم و عمل.
احسان خوش‌بخت
فروردين 1389
خسرو دهقان دربارۀ «معماری سلولوید»، از مجلۀ «صنعت سینما»
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Celluloid Architecture
The Celluloid Architecture
Ehsan Khoshbakht
published: April 2010
The Celluloid Architecture book, written in Farsi, is the result of my long and obsessive studying of film architecture and the meaning of space in motion pictures, during the years that I spent in architecture school. It is a prompt reaction to the needs and necessities of many schools of architecture in Iran, and their most recent interest is cinema as a immense source of inspiration. Now films are studied for the purpose of discovering a more subtle and responsive architecture. My main aim in writing the book - and choosing the other texts, as well - was to switch swiftly from the position of a film scholar to the view of an architect. I tried to keep both point of views in focus, simultaneously.
This anthology, which some parts of it has been written back in 2002, though completely revised, come from a wide range of disciplines. From structural comparison between two medium to an architectural reading of motion picture history. Examining the influence of virtual architecture of film on contemporary scene of architecture and the playfulness that real architecture borrowed from the movies. A section is dedicated to studying the role of architecture , city and landscape in the films of key and architecture-oriented directors (though Jacques Tati is missing in this book, simply because he's the subject of my next book). This text will also help students in understanding the role of major cities in the development of the city film, or let's say mystic city - the one which is invented for the screen - in the different periods of film history. For instance, Berlin and expressionist city, or Paris of the avant-garde, or New York of Hollywood extravaganzas. Hence, I partitioned the book to three sections and 17 chapters within them:
Basic Concepts:
In this part I trace the theories and methods the rest of the book uses, and propose some new ways of looking at the film to interpret the role architecture and the city . In a sense it is a key to threads which run through the chapters.
Directors, studio system and architecture:
Art Directors, Production Designers and Film Design:
All articles in this section are written by me, except Cedric Gibbons which is written by Christina Wilson.
*All five English language articles, translated into Persian for the first time.
**Thanks to Hans Dieter Schaal for giving me the go ahead to translate his book, Learning from Hollywood.
***Published previously in Honar [art] Monthly.
Product Details:
Paperback: 288 pages (40 pages in color)
Publisher: Kasra Publishing + Herfe Honarmand
Language: Farsi
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 8.8 x 0.8 inches
Design: Ehsan Irannejad
Translators of English articles: Sara Golmakani, Katayon Yousefi
A sample of the pages, index and bibliography is available from the website of my designer/architect friend, Ehsan Irannejad: Look inside!
The Book is dedicated to Michelangelo Antonioni, Jacques Tati and Edward G. Robinson. Please don't ask why Robinson!
Ehsan Khoshbakht
published: April 2010
The Celluloid Architecture book, written in Farsi, is the result of my long and obsessive studying of film architecture and the meaning of space in motion pictures, during the years that I spent in architecture school. It is a prompt reaction to the needs and necessities of many schools of architecture in Iran, and their most recent interest is cinema as a immense source of inspiration. Now films are studied for the purpose of discovering a more subtle and responsive architecture. My main aim in writing the book - and choosing the other texts, as well - was to switch swiftly from the position of a film scholar to the view of an architect. I tried to keep both point of views in focus, simultaneously.
This anthology, which some parts of it has been written back in 2002, though completely revised, come from a wide range of disciplines. From structural comparison between two medium to an architectural reading of motion picture history. Examining the influence of virtual architecture of film on contemporary scene of architecture and the playfulness that real architecture borrowed from the movies. A section is dedicated to studying the role of architecture , city and landscape in the films of key and architecture-oriented directors (though Jacques Tati is missing in this book, simply because he's the subject of my next book). This text will also help students in understanding the role of major cities in the development of the city film, or let's say mystic city - the one which is invented for the screen - in the different periods of film history. For instance, Berlin and expressionist city, or Paris of the avant-garde, or New York of Hollywood extravaganzas. Hence, I partitioned the book to three sections and 17 chapters within them:
Basic Concepts:
In this part I trace the theories and methods the rest of the book uses, and propose some new ways of looking at the film to interpret the role architecture and the city . In a sense it is a key to threads which run through the chapters.
- Introduction: The Metaphysical architecture of film [by Ehsan Khoshbakht]
- An Introduction to Time-Space in Films [by Ehsan Khoshbakht]
- Spacial experience in architecture and movies [by Juhani Pallasmaa*]
Directors, studio system and architecture:
- Learning from Hollywood [by Hans Dieter Schaal**]
- Studio Architecture: Escape by design [by Maggie Valentine]
- Architecture in the films of Michelangelo Antonioni [by Mitchell Schwarzer]
- Robert Bresson and the rejection of architecture in transcendental style [by Ehsan Khoshbakht]
- Hitchcock, architecture, city and Vertigo [by Ehsan Khoshbakht***]
Art Directors, Production Designers and Film Design:
All articles in this section are written by me, except Cedric Gibbons which is written by Christina Wilson.
- From architecture in motion pictures to architects of motion pictures: A history of design in films
- Cedric Gibbons
- Alexandre Trauner
- Ken Adam
- Henry Bumstead
- Richard Sylbert
- Dante Ferretti
- Patrizia Von Brandenstein
- Dean Tavoularis
*All five English language articles, translated into Persian for the first time.
**Thanks to Hans Dieter Schaal for giving me the go ahead to translate his book, Learning from Hollywood.
***Published previously in Honar [art] Monthly.
Product Details:
Paperback: 288 pages (40 pages in color)
Publisher: Kasra Publishing + Herfe Honarmand
Language: Farsi
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 8.8 x 0.8 inches
Design: Ehsan Irannejad
Translators of English articles: Sara Golmakani, Katayon Yousefi
A sample of the pages, index and bibliography is available from the website of my designer/architect friend, Ehsan Irannejad: Look inside!
The Book is dedicated to Michelangelo Antonioni, Jacques Tati and Edward G. Robinson. Please don't ask why Robinson!
Friday, 9 April 2010
Leopard: Death, Dung, Decay
"Where Visconti poured most of his talent and feeling was into his stunning decors, particularly those embellishing his climactically anticlimactic ballroom sequence, where history executes an ironic quadrille with death, dung, decay, and disgust to the mocking strains of a hitherto undiscovered Verdi waltz." -- Andrew Sarris
Thursday, 8 April 2010
Stairs and Mirrors
The Heiress (1949/dir:William Wyler/design:Harry Horner, John Meehan)
The Spiral Staircase (1945/dir:Robert Siodmak/design:Albert S. D'Agostino, Jack Okey)
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
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