From Sketch to the Screen: Jacques Colombier

The enormity of screen space in films shot in the extra-wide cinemascope format tends to intensify the power of architectural lines and volumes shown within the frame. No matter how many characters are crammed in a shot, there is always some room for the immobile architecture of the film to be seen, felt, and even attain a narrative function. Look at the first two images above—elevation of a three-story building and the plan of the alley in which the building is located. They belong to the production of a swashbuckling vehicle for French star Jean Marais, La Tour, prends garde! (1958), designed by Jacques Colombier. Now, if one compares them to the images of the constructed sets below, there are some revealing facts about the nature of film architecture to be noticed: the camera and lighting are extensions of an art director’s imagination, and thanks to them a partly constructed set comes to life and finds an instant identity.

Read the full essay on Notebook

Filmfarsi and the Iranian New Wave at DFI

Brick and Mirror

I must apologize for being so slow in maintaining this blog. If you're a regular reader, I'm sure you've noticed a decline in the number of posts - Farsi or English - since the beginning of 2016.

What has distracted me from posting here more often is being busy with making a documentary film on Iranian popular cinema before the revolution. For now, it's called Filmfarsi and it runs for 110 minutes.

Now, I'm glad to announce a "sneak preview" of the film at the cinematheque of Danish Film Institute on June 10, 2016 at 21:30. (Please click here. I'll provide you with more information about the film at some point in near future, when the film is properly "completed".)

I've been invited by the DFI/cinematheque people, not only for introducing Filmfarsi, but also for giving a talk on Iranian new wave cinema (11.06.16, 16:00) and introducing the screenings of spme of the classics of the 1960s and 1970s Iranian cinema during a season which is called Iran 1960-1990.

• Brick and Mirror (12.06.16, 16:45)
• Downpour (12.06.16, 13:30)
• The Traveler (12.06.16, 19:30)

If you're in Copenhagen, please do come around as there are some essential viewings awaiting you at the cinematheque.

Chris Marker on Forough Farrokhzad

Forough Farrokhzad

The House Is Black (1962) will be screened next month as a part of Golestan Film Studio retrospective at Il Cinema Ritrovato. My good friend Rym Quartsi kindly took the time to translate this piece by Chris Marker from original French (first appeared on Cinéma 67, no. 117, June 1967, on the occasion of the death of Forough). Another friend, Laura Montero Plata, made a couple of editorial suggestions for which I should thank her as well.

***

Black, abrupt, ardent. These vague words make of her a portrait so precise that you will recognize her amongst thousands. February 13, at 4:30 PM, Forough Farrokhzad died in a car accident in Tehran. She was one of the greatest contemporary Persian poets, and she was also a filmmaker. She had directed The House Is Black, a short feature on the lepers, Grand Prix at Oberhausen, and beyond that practically unknown in Europe, and which is a masterpiece. She was thirty-three years old. She was equally made of magic and energy, she was the Queen of Sheba described by Stendhal. It was particularly the courage. She sought no alibis for herself, no pledges, she knew the horror of the world as well as the despair professionals, she felt the need to fight as well as the justice professionals, but she had not betrayed her deep chant.

Golestan Film Studio: A Retrospective (Il Cinema Ritrovato, 2016)

Ebrahim Golestan

Il Cinema Ritrovato, the cinephile's heaven and the festival of film history, held annually in the city of Bologna, Italy, will be hosting the first major European retrospective of Ebrahim Golestan, the godfather of Iranian modern cinema of the 1960s and 1970s.

I'm responsible for this programme, and in fact quite proud of it. Paying a proper tribute to a visionary director like Golestan feels drastically different (and also technically far more challenging) than putting together a retrospective of an established, canonical figure. Nonetheless, this programme, I hope, could reveal the origins of some of the most amdired trends and styles in Iranian cinema of the past 50 years, especially when it comes to the use of symbolism and poetry.

The Ebrahim Golestan retrospective is actually the celebration of his short-lived film studio, Studio Golestan. This also means that a superb print of The House Is Black (produced, co-written/narrated by Golestan) will be screened as a part of the retrospective.

In the opening credits of his films, Golestan usually calls his studio the Golestan Film Workshop. Frame enlargment from Brick and Mirror.

Road to Il Cinema Ritrovato 2016, XXX Edition

Alexander Sokurov: I Am a Laborer of Cinema

الكساندر ساكوروف (چپ) با اين كريستي (راست) و مترجم تيز و فرز

اين نوشته در شمارۀ آذرماه 1390 ماهنامه «24» در بخش «قطارهاي شبانه» منتشر شده است.

الكساندر ساكوروف: كارگرِ سينما

كليپي از مستند سياه و سفيد Elegy (1986، 30 دقيقه)، ساختۀ الكساندر ساکوروف دربارۀ تشييع جنازۀ  دوبارۀ فيودور شالياپين و انتقال جسد اين هنرپيشه و خوانندۀ بزرگ و تبعيدي اپرا از پاريس به روسيه با اين كه فيلمي دربارۀ تاريك‌ترين جاي اين دنيا، يعني گور بود، اما سالن تاريك سينما را روشن كرد. سبك فيلم مثل آثار پني‌بيكر و مِي‌زِلز – مستندسازان نيويوركي– به نظر مي‌آمد اما زبان توصيفي عجيب ساكوروف آن را به نقطه‌اي مي‌رساند كه نمي‌شد گفت آيا سينماي تجربي است يا يك شاعر روس ديگر دارد شرح گور به گور شدن را مثل نوشته‌هاي داستايفسكي با جزييات و اندكي طنز بازگو مي‌كند.

كليپ به پايان رسيد. نور به سالن برگشت و الكساندر ساكوروف، فيلم‌ساز شصت سالۀ روس، با كت و شلوار تيره، كيف چرمي ساده كه روي شانه‌اش انداخته بود، موي كوتاه و بدون سبيل هميشگي، در كنار متخصص نام‌آشناي سينماي روسيه، پروفسور اين كريستي، استاد كالج بِركْبِك روي صحنه ظاهر شد. گفتگويي بين آن دو، با همراهي يك مترجم تيز و فرز، براي بيش از دو ساعت ادامه پيدا كرد.

Fuocoammare (2016)

دِريا موجه كاكا

احسان خوش‌بخت

آتش در دريا را فقط يك‌بار و در وسط ماراتوني از فيلم‌هاي برليناله ديدم، بنابراين چندان منصفانه نيست كه اين نوشته را «نقد فيلم» ناميد. اجازه بدهيد به اين قناعت كنيم كه اين متن مختصر را برداشت‌هاي اوليه از فيلم درخشان جيانفرانكو روسي، و اگر مقدور بود دعوتي به دنياي يكي از بزرگ‌ترين مستندسازان امروز بخوانيم.

آتش در دريا كه براي اولين بار در فستيوال فيلم برلين به نمايش درآمد و خرس طلايي را از آن خود كرد يادآور موازنۀ حساب شدۀ فستيوال بين تعهد سياسي و نوآوري سينمايي است. برليناله فستيوالي سياسي است و در اين شكي نيست. اما اين سينماست كه به عنوان ابزار سياسي – چه لنين آن را فهميده بود و چه از درك آن غافل مانده بود – توسط خالقان اين هنر به كار گرفته مي‌شود و هنر برليناله، برخلاف فستيوال‌هاي بزرگ ديگر، در اين جاست كه اين پتانسيل و ضرورت را به رسميت مي‌شناسد. ما سينمادوستان هم اين ويژگي انقلابي برلين را دوست داريم، منتهي ظاهراً تا زماني كه جايزه اول به فيلمي از كشور خودمان داده نشود.

The Contemporary Iranian Cinema, a Course in Cambridge

With every possible international award harvested within the last two decades, Iranian cinema remains one of the most richly complex and remarkably innovative national cinemas in the world, even if its stories tend to be deceptively simple. It’s a cinema of subtle, often symbolic and humanist observations which manages to marry poetry and politics.

The CONTEMPORARY IRANIAN CINEMA is a day-long course, offering both general history and close analysis of a wide range of Iranian films, from state-sponsored industry to lively underground scene. Accompanied by an abundance of film clips, the course will tackle on keys subjects such as narrative styles of Iranian cinema, genres, women’s cinema, and documentary films. Focusing on both the prominent figures and the younger and emerging talents, the course goes beyond the geographical borders and traces Iranian cinema in exile or in international co-productions which are becoming part of the new identity of Iranian films.

It was only last year that Jafar Panahai’s Taxi Tehran, shot entirely with a small digital camera fixed on a taxi’s dashboard, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, a prize given to a filmmaker who was not even allowed to make a new film. But why Taxi and similar Iranian films have been so successful? The course is a journey through Iranian art, culture and recent history to answer that question.

BOOK HERE.

Sketch to the Screen: Moontide

http://cinearchitecture.tumblr.com/post/141949351817/sketch-to-the-screen-moontide-archie-mayo

10 Best Documentaries of 2015

 ده مستند برگزيدۀ سال 2015

احسان خوش‌بخت

سال ميلادي گذشته سال مهمي براي سينماي مستند بود، چون تقريباً بيش‌تر فستيوال‌هاي ردۀ الف اروپايي حداقل يك مستند در بخش مسابقه داشتند. اما مهم‌تر اين كه اين مستندها آثاري‌اند كه بر خلاف بسياري از فيلم‌هاي داستاني نمايش داده شده در طي سال بار سياسي مستقيمي دارند كه در تقابل با سينماي عقيم تجاري قرار مي‌گيرد. اين ده انتخاب، از بين آن آثاري‌اند كه در فستيوال‌ها يا در اكران‌هاي عمومي در اروپا به نمايش درآمده‌اند:

10

نشنال گالري (فردريك وايزمن؛ فرانسه/آمريكا/بريتانيا)

اين مطالعه درخشانِ موزۀ نشنال گالري در لندن در ردۀ فيلم‌هاي «هنرهاي اروپايي» وايزمن جا مي‌گيرد (كه آثار پيشين آن فيلم‌هاي مثل رقص و كريزي هورس هستند) و در آن از خود كلكسيون عظيم موزه تا نحوۀ قاب گرفتن و مرمت كردنشان با چنان جزيياتي نمايش داده مي‌شود كه از تماشاي بتمن عليه سوپرمن غافل‌گيركننده‌تر است. صبر و دقت وايزمن مثل يكي از آن نقاش‌هاي منظر قرن هجدهمي است كه ماه‌ها را به مطالعه يك منظر و سپس ثبت آن روي بوم مي‌گذراند.