Cities Light and Dark: 2013

افزودۀ موزۀ «رينا سوفيا» از ژان نوول - عكس از احسان خوش‌بخت

از يكي از شماره‌هاي ماهنامه سينمايي «24». نسخه انگليسي پيش‌تر در Keyframe منتشر شده است.

شهرها و فيلم‌هاي برگزيدۀ سال 2013

با آن كه يكي از محبوب‌ترين فيلم‌هاي سال، Gravity، در فضاي لايتناهي مي‌گذرد، بيش‌تر فيلم‌هاي سال با تصوير يك شهر سروكار دارند. بهترين‌هايشان، شهر را يكي از منابع الهام عمده‌شان قرار داده‌اند، شهري كه روياها و كابوس‌ها را تقويت مي‌كند، شخصيت‌ها را پس مي‌زند و وادار به كشف شهرهاي تازه‌ مي‌كند، يا اين‌كه آن‌ها را كاملاً در خود غرق مي‌كند. نگاه توريستي وودي آلن به رم در تقديم به رم (كه در مجموعه آثار اخيرش بعضي از پيش و پا افتاده‌ترين بازنمايي‌هاي اروپا در سينماي آمريكا را عرضه كرده) با تصوير تقريباً علمي-تخيلي و تاريك  Sacro GRAخنثي مي‌شود. تهرانِ هيستريك، زندان‌گونه و قلابيِ آرگو (با مساجدي با معماري تركي!) با تهران شلوغ، زنده و صحنۀ كشمكش نزاع طبقاتي در پرويز رو درروي همديگر قرار مي‌گيرند. حتي فيلمساز جواني مثل وكيلي‌فر تهراني تقريباً خالي از سكنه و علمي‌تخيلي را در تابور تصوير مي‌كند و سفر اگزيستانساليتي قهرمان طعم گيلاس كيارستمي در تپه‌هاي شمال تهران را در دنياي فانتزي تصوير مي‌كند كه در آن متافيزيك با زوال پيوند خورده. زوال شهري در پس‌زمينۀ بخش‌هاي ديترويتِ مستند در جستجوي شوگرمن همان‌قدر حضور دارد كه در رانندگي‌هاي شبانۀ تنها عشاق زنده ماندند. هر دوي اين فيلم‌ها جايي در روايتشان شهرِ رو به مرگ را به مقصد شهرهاي كهن (طنجه) يا شهرهاي جواني اميدوار به آينده (ژوهانسوبرگ) ترك مي‌كنند. ژوا پدرو رودريگز و ژول رويي گرا دِماتا در آخرين باري كه ماكائو را ديدم به جستجوي ماكائوي گم شدۀ جين راسل و رابرت ميچم و ميراث مستعمره‌داران پرتغالي‌اش مي‌روند و اروتيسيزم نئون‌ها، كوچه‌هاي پشتي باريك و هتل‌هاي ارزان دلگير را كشف مي‌كنند. حتي جايي كه محل زندگي فعلي من است، شرق لندن، در مستند سرراستِ Late At Night: Voices Of Ordinary Madness، در مقابل دوربين يك expat ديگر شبيه به شهري از سياره‌اي ديگر به نظر مي‌رسد كه ساكنان‌اش در بداهه‌نوازيِ شبانه‌روزي‌اي از تك‌افتادگي و جنون زندگي مي‌كنند. بلاخره شهر مي‌تواند صحنۀ وداع با زندگي باشد، وقتي در آواز قوي رائول روئِس، Night Across the Street، او به زير آفتاب سانتياگو برمي‌گردد تا وصيت‌نامه‌ سينمايي‌اش را با پرسه در كوچه‌هاي خلوت شهر به نگارش درآورد. 

ده فيلم زير شهرهاي سينمايي محبوب من از سال 2013 بودند:

Statues of Madrid

Some dame at Parque del Buen Retiro

Wellman Chart of Colors and Their Associated Emotions

In 1937, William Wellman directed his first Technicolor film, A Star Is Born. "I honestly believe that the black-and-white film is an obsolete - or will be in a few seasons - as the silent screen," Wellman told reporters. However, it took more than "a few seasons" that color cinema could develop itself into something technically and aesthetically competent and much longer to become the new production norm of Hollywood studios.

Shown this year at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna were both A Star Is Born and Wellman's other color feature from 1937, Nothing Sacred. Even though both prints suffered from an unnatural color boosting, common among public domain versions of early color films, it proved to be a dazzling cinematic experience.

Wellman, justifying his use of color,wrote an article which was published on various newspapers, including the New York Times. He tried to explain why he valued color and how the color could come to the assistance of a director in emphasizing emotions. The newspaper piece also featured a chart which became known as the William Wellman Chart of Colors and Their Associated Emotions.

This is the chart Wellman drew (click to enlarge):

My Top 10 Documentaries (The Sight & Sound Poll)

Forugh Farrokhzad directing The House Is Black (1962)

From the September issue of Sight & Sound:

1

The Sound of Jazz (Jack Smight, 1957)

This is the greatest improvised documentary ever, and features a super-stellar line-up of 32 leading jazz musicians gathered at the CBS Studio in New York City in December 8, 1957. It was made in one hour and broadcast live on television. Cameramen were as into ad-libing as Thelonious Monk, and when Billie Holiday and Lester Young started to play Fine and Mellow everybody in the control room was crying.

2

Quince Tree of the Sun (Victor Erice, 1992)

Documentary cinema as meditation. No film, fiction or documentary, has captured the meticulous, painfully stagnant process of artistic creation with such rich expansion of cinematic time and space.

3

Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985)

There is a logical, aesthetic and moral relation between the scale of the tragedy and the length of the film, which leaves a lasting physiological and psychological impact on the viewer.

4

Histoire(s) du cinéma (Jean-Luc Godard, 1988)

A multi-dimensional, free-form history of 20th century which proves all one needs is some ideas and an editing table, because the images are already out there.

5

The House Is Black (Forugh Farrokhzad, 1962)

The crowning achievement of Iranian documentary movement of the 60s and 70s, and singular in its hypnotic melancholy, its profound humanism and its poetic imagery.

6

Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (Marcel Ophüls, 1988)

This film taught me the methodology of cinematic inquiry, as well as lessons in persistence and integrity. In every documentary Ophüls has ever directed, he proves that cinema is, above all, a machine of humanism, if one knows how to use it.

7

Robinson in Space (Patrick Keiller, 1997)

My traveling guide to Britain. Behind its cold, bureaucratic, un-poetic shots, lie a majestic world of complex emotions.

8

Lektionen in Finsternis (Werner Herzog, 1992)

I was born and raised during the Iran-Iraq war, and every bit of the horrendous landscape portrayed on this film is also carved in my memory. What Herzog with his hel(l)i-shots does is to dive into that collective memory shared by millions who were inside that hell.

9

P for Pelican (Parviz Kimiavi, 1972)

A haunting and stylized mediation on solitude, beauty and language through the story of a real-life protagonist, Agha Seyyed Ali Mirza, who’s been living in the ruins of the earthquake-shaken Tabas for forty years. A day arrives when he has to leave the ruins and face the great, strange, Lynch-like beauty: a pelican!

10

The Battle of Chile (Patricio Guzmán, 1976)

The film’s bleak transition from the hope and ardor of the first part to the harrowing shot-from-the-rooftop second section, tells not only of the history of Chile, but also of the process of toppling other democratic governments in 20th century (namely, Iran of 1953).

Sound of Jazz (1957)

Notes:

In order to narrow down the range of choices, I exclude documentaries if an experimental nature such as great city symphonies of the late silent era, as well as actor-less fiction films such as Soy Cuba.

There are many jewels of documentary cinema hidden in the vaults of TV stations. In that regard, Cinéastes de notre temps, a French produced-for-TV film-portrait of masters of cinema, of which only a few titles are available to the public, is the greatest film university one can attend, as well as a perfect example of a masterpiece produced by filmmakers whose names are not yet in the canon.

As a trained architect who has designed, written and filmed about architecture and cinema, I still feel there are many unexplored territories in this field, and that many great films are waiting to be made. However, it doesn’t mean overlooking what’s already been done, especially works of Thom Andersen, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Man Ray and Alexander Kluge.

Lastly, there are directors whose body of work has influenced me more than any single film. Georges Franju’s early work, Fredrick Wiseman and Chris Marker are among them. Kamran Shirdel’s clandestine documentation of the lives of unprivileged in pre-revolutionary Iran, in particular, stands out.

P Like Pelikan (1972)

Dial M for Murder - 3D (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)

DIAL M FOR MURDER IN 3D 
reviewed by Kiomars Vejdani

To grasp the full dramatic impact of Dial M for Murder it must be seen in its 3D format, the way it was envisioned and conceived by Hitchcock.

Although 3D films have been in existence since 1920's  (with Anaglyph system, creating separate images for each eye with the use of complementary red and green colours), the real birth  3D cinema started in early 1950's  with the advent of Polaroid  system (using polarised light to create two separate images).   Among the forerunners of using the system was Warner Brothers starting with House of Wax, followed by some other 3D films such as Charge at the Feather River, Hondo, and of course,  Hitchcock’’s Dial M for Murder.      

However,  due to the difficulties of the system, after a short while the companies were discouraged to continue with its use.  (It was expensive due to having to print two prints to be projected simultaneously by two separate projectors.  Besides the incomplete harmony and synchronisation of the two images could give the audience a severe headache. )

 The 3D system was forgotten and out of use for about three decades before its use was started again in 1980's.  Later it was technically refined (especially with contribution from IMAX 3D) and routinely used commercially specially for its spectacular effects.  A more serious use of  3D was taken up by James Cameron in his artistic creation of the magical world of Avatar.  . His efforts were followed by works of Wim Wenders in Pina and Werner Herzog in Caves of Our Forgotten Dreams.  Two documentary films worlds apart in their choice of subjects but having a common aim of using 3D effect to create a physical space to give their films an extra dimension in reality. . Later they were joined by Martin Scorsese in Hugo by using 3D effect to give the nostalgic world of silent cinema and the magic of Georges Melies a concrete and tangible reality.  These film makers were all aiming at use of  3D as part of film language.

The Greatest Documentaries of All Time

شماره اول آگوست ماهنامۀ سينمايي «سايت اند ساوند» نتايج يك رأي‌گيري تازه را چاپ كرده است؛ اين‌بار انتخاب بهترين مستندهاي تاريخ سينما توسط 340 منتقد و فيلمساز. من هم يكي از شركت كنندگان هستم.

نتايج نهايي عبارتند از:

مردي با دوربين فيلم‌برداري (ژيگا ورتوف، 1929)

شوا (كلود لانزمان، 1985)

بي‌آفتاب (كريس ماركر، 1982)

شب و مه (آلن رنه، 1955)

خط باريك آبي (ارول موريس، 1989)

خاطرات يك تابستان (ژان روش و ادگار مورن، 1961)

نانوك شمال (رابرت فلاهرتي، 1922)

خوشه‌چينان و من (آنيس واردا، 2000)

پشت سر را نگاه نكن (دي اِي پني‌بيكر، 1967)

باغ‌هاي خاكستري (برادران مِي‌زِلز، 1975)

Warp Without Weft (On David Fincher)

تار، بدونِ پود (و يكي دو استثناء)

يك سال پيش از آن‌كه هفت نظر همه را متوجه پديدۀ فينچر كند – كه مثل همه پديده‌هاي امروز آميزه‌اي بود از واقعيت و اغراق – اولين نماهاي كارگرداني شده توسط او – كشف شده توسط ما - در ويدئوكليپ Love is strong گروه رولينگ استونز ميخكوب كننده بودند. آن‌زمان MTV در اوج تب «ويدئوكليپ مولف»، اسم كارگردان را هم زير اسم قطعه و آلبوم و گروه مي‌نوشت. كيت ريچاردز گروه رولينگ استونز به هيولاي عظيمي تبديل شده بود كه كينگ كونگ‌وار به آسمان‌خراش‌ها لگد مي‌زد. ميك جگر از روي بزرگ‌راه‌ها مي‌پريد. طبل چارلي واتز يك منبع آب عظيم بود كه با چوب‌هايي به بزرگي تير برق روي آن درام مي‌زد. آدم‌هاي اين فيلم كوتاه مضطرب كننده، گيج، بيمار، تنها و ترسناك بودند. وقتي استونزهاي غول‌پيكر از شهر سياه و سفيد دور مي‌شدند و به طرف دشت مي‌رفتند، اسم فينچر آن زير ظاهر مي‌شد.

فيلم‌هاي فينچر روي ايده‌هايي ايده‌هاي پرطمطراق و تكان‌دهنده كه براي رسيدن به هيجان و توجه محض در فيلمي كوتاه مناسب‌ترند بنا شده‌اند. اما فيلم‌نامه‌هاي او هميشه با جزيياتي موثر اين ايده‌ها را پر و بال مي‌دهند و فيلم بزرگ‌ و بزرگ‌تر مي‌شود، اما گسترش آن فقط در سطح است. فينچر تمايل دارد تا جايي كه چشم كار مي‌كند و تمام افق ديد بيننده را تصاوير او اشغال كنند. او مثل اشترنبرگ، افولس و وايلر هنرمند تصاوير متراكم است،؛ اما ايده‌هايش ساده‌تر از آنند كه بتوانند زير بار تصاوير دوام بياورند. در آخر فقط يك صحنه كوچك عايدمان مي‌شود. صحنه‌اي كه مي‌توانست هرچه زودتر ظاهر شود و فيلم را به پايان برساند، در دقيقه چهل، يك ساعت بعد يا پنج ساعت بعد. بنابراين وقتي هميشه كششي براي رسيدن به اين صحنه واپسين وجود دارد، ما با فن‌سالاري منضبط روبروييم. مكانيزمي كه او آفريده آن‌قدر فريبنده هست كه بخواهيم فيلم را بلافاصله يك‌بار ديگر (زودياك)، يا بارها (هفت) ببينيم. اما اگر اين پايان را تصادفاً – مثل بنجامين باتن – جايي در وسط‌هاي فيلم بگذارد، فيلم يك ساعت قبل از روشن شدن چراغ‌هاي سالن و قبل از آن‌كه آپاراتچي، تماشاگر و منتقد با خبر بشوند، تمام شده است.

Film Ads in Iran#9: John Ford

7 Women

Film Ads in Iran#31: The Frogmen (1951)

The Frogmen (Lloyd Bacon, 1951)

Iranian New Wave Masters Interviewed

With the precious help of Houshang Golmakani I have interviewed the key figures of Iranian New Wave cinema, Dariush Mehrjui, Kamran Shirdel and Masoud Kimiai.

Not surprisingly, the attempt to interview the key figures of Iranian New Wave cinema turned out to be an intercontinental affair. Tracking down the masters of that period, who are scattered across the world, proved that their lives were as “interrupted” as their cinema.

 In the following interviews we asked three directors to give their answers to each of these four questions: (1) “How conscious were you of a New Wave in Iranian cinema during the 1970s?” (2) “What did you achieve in your film(s) in this period which hadn’t already been tried in Iranian cinema?” (3) “After four or five decades, how do you think those films stand in your career, and in a larger context, in the history of Iranian cinema?” And (4) “What were your cinematic influences?”

READ THE INTERVIEWS HERE