The Trailer for the Film Of The Year - Die Grosse Stille

January is a little early to be announcing these things, but it has become apparent that Philip Gröning's Die Grosse Stille (Into Great Silence) is a sublime achievement that will be difficult to top. Although it has been playing the festival circuit for the last couple of years, it has only just received UK distribution. A 3 hour largely dialogue-less portrait of a community of Carthusian monks in an Alpine setting, the film's delicacy and observational serenity turns the movie going experience transcendental, as the audience's participation in a 'vow of silence' and period of extended contemplation forms a solidarity with the monks on screen. Shot over four months, 16 years after Gröning originally submitted his proposal to the order, when the monks decided they were ready. Featuring some of the most beautiful use of video noise, within the edit, and some of the most pointedly joyous moments seen on screen in an age - senses are heightened watching this silence, so that on the rare occasions the monks are able to convene, the significance of their communication is all the more pronounced. And funny. The scene in which the monks are captured tumbling down a snowy hill in abandon, as a bemused hiker looks on, is one of the most euphoric things you will witness. And quite Herzog-ian.

“There’s no such thing as being out of your own time,” says Gröning. “This is why I moved away from language, because language is completely based on time: you have to remember the beginning of the phrase to get to the end of the phrase. It’s always cutting you off from that pure present.” From a review at cinema-scope.com.

MOMA does Drive In

The 1 minute trailer for Doug Aitken's MOMA project, 'Sleepwalkers,' which can be found projected on the facades of mid-town Manhattan; turning the big apple into a big drive-in until February 12th. Showcasing a cast of celebrity night owls (Tilda Swinton, Donald Sutherland, Cat Power, Seu Jorge) alongside the unkown Ryan Donowho, which animate the architecture with their gestures, both physically and metaphorically, as their somnambulant presence starts to theactricise urban life.

As an aside, a 2004 interview between Doug Aitken and Werner Herzog, here, from Index magazine. Containing the immortal Herzogian line; "Theatre is dead...just let it expire like food in the supermarket."

How's Your News?

How's Your News? (1999, 82 mins). Moments of both hilarity and absurd beauty create a tender travelogue and skewed guide to the USA's psychogeography, through the eyes of two men with cerebral palsy, two men with down syndrome and a legally blind and mentally disabled woman (whos microphone manner is second to none). Directed by the writer and friend of McSweenys Arthur Bradford (whose surreal collection of short stories, Dogwalker, shares a similar tone of absurdity and poeticism) and produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (creators of South Park). As the Village Voice states;

"The stars seem to bring out the best in the people they meet. Soft-spoken Costello sums up Texas with a poetic specificity hewn from cultural memory ("a good place to have cowboys, guns, boots, and hats"); Bird's unintelligible speech, far from signifying nothing, becomes a Rorschach test for his interviewees, and his imitation of a Texas livestock auctioneer might as well be the real thing. Soap opera connoisseur Simonson (whose nightly prayers include David Hasselhoff) regales people with celebrity impersonations, the better joke being that they all sound more or less the same. And Harrington has absorbed the dramatic imperatives of news presentation ("We are live in an Arizona auto repair shop," she announces, investigating the status of their busted RV) and the inalienable right to be Aretha. Unleashing "Respect" in a Vegas karaoke booth, she careens from note to note while virtual-reality non sequiturs morph on the screen behind her."

Wonderful. As if that weren't enough, you can join the team on myspace in their current incarnation as a band, and listen to their wonderful songs.

(NB. If viewing on an Apple, you may need to download the free Flip4Mac application to get the windows based player to work...Then you will have the joy of all of FourDocs at your double click...)

Fashion Flashback - Kate Moss Hologram for Alexander McQueen

Kate Moss' ethereal conclusion to Alexander Mcqueen's Paris runway show for AW06, debuted March, 2006. Created by model-turned-filmmaker and friend of Leigh Bowery, Baillie Walsh, (Massive Attack's, Unfinished Sympathy, Kylie's Slow, that Levis commercial with the transvestite...), and art-directed by McQueen. Kate emerges from an Aurora Borealis like cloud to flail in organza ruffles before disappearing into a point of light, to conclude a show of what appeared to be a parade of the ghostly elfin remnants of a decadent 18th century highland ball. Spectacle.
A separate video of the collaboration here, at McQueen's website. A video on the whole show, here. How ? : here / here.

Todd Haynes: Superstar - The Karen Carpenter Story

Todd Haynes' (Velvet Goldmine, Far From Heaven...) 1987 biopic of Karen Carpenter (43 mins), in which the wholesome pop starlet's demise and descent into anorexia nervosa is played out by an ensemble cast of Barbie Dolls. Managing to twist an incrediably ironic onslaught of bittersweet lullabies out of The Carpenters' back catalogue, the film deftly weaves Barbie theatrics with TV footage, public information, spanking flashbacks, and images of the holocaust. (Thanks Ted).

Fear On Film - Landis, Carpenter, Cronenberg Discuss

Part One


Part Two


Part Three

(A somewhat) smug John Carpenter (Assualt on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Thing..) on not having been scared of movies. Ever. (A very Jewish) John Landis (Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London, Thriller...) on film ratings and his conversion to gore after Monty Python. And (a most articulate) David Cronenberg (Videodrome, Crash...) on how very happy he is with his work being symbolised by an exploding skull. And all of them on the nature of Horror films, sex vs gore, and learning from audiences. A 26-minute roundtable discussion from 1982 between the filmmakers. Magic. (Thanks Ted).

William S. Burroughs, etc

William S. Burroughs cut up films made between 1963 and 1972. The Cut-Ups, consisting of sharply edited versions of the original films, with a repeating voice soundtrack, remind me of some of Bruce Nauman´s work. Revolutionary, annoying [or perhaps simply a symptom of artistic response to the spectre of mass (re)production. ed.]

More interesting, is the 1981 collaboration between Burroughs, Laurie Anderson and John Giorno, You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With. Released as a double LP, one of the the sides was a triple groove getting an Anderson, Giorno or Burroughs piece depending upon where the needle fell.
Further real life hyperlinking, John Giorno was the subject of Warhol´s Sleep and The Cut-Ups tapes were apparently found on a skip by Genesis P-Orridge, from Throbbing Gristle fame.

Fishing With John - Tom Waits

A little of the Tom Waits section of 'Fishing With John' - a 1991 semi-parodic TV show in which John Lurie, of (Down By Law/Paris Texas fame) hosts a program devoted to him dangling his bait with notable celebrity friends such as Jim Jarmusch, Matt Dillon and Dennis Hopper, whilst professing to know nothing about fishing itself. Existential. John's other talents become apparent upon closer inspection elsewhere. Not only did he star in Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law and Permanent Vacation. He also composed music for all of them. As well as Mystery Train. And Get Shorty. And he makes Art, that both sells at Basel and shows at PS1. And his jazz troupe the Lounge Lizards featured Arto Lindsay for a couple of years...etc...

More John and Tom on a fishing trip, here. And in prison together with Roberto Beningi, here. (With thanks to Ted).

David Lynch Shoots A One Minute Film On the Original Lumière Brothers Camera

David Lynch's contribution to a 1995 project, 'Lumière and Companie,' in which 40 international directors (including Kiarostami, Rivette, Haneke, Wenders...) were asked to shoot a short film using the original Cinématographe camera invented by the Lumière brothers. Shorts were edited in-camera and abided by three rules:
1. A short may be no longer than 52 seconds. 2.No synchronized sound. 3.No more than three takes.
The short itself can be consumed by clicking on the image above; a slightly longer video with soundbytes from Lynch on the project can be found, here. On a different note, Lynch speaking on 'Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain' can be found here, (1hr 49mins) in a lecture given at UC Berkley, which you can even download to watch on an iPod to enlighten a journey on public transport.

Hollywood And All That Jazz

Woody Allen playing clarinet together with a studio band as part of an interview with Dick Cavett in 1971 (2mins 8sec).

Chalayan - One Hundred and Eleven Collection (Robotic Couture)

The final six looks from Hussein Chalayan's S/S '07 show, the 'One Hundred and Eleven Collection,' as revealed in Paris, October 2006. A show that has had extensive coverage on the internet, but demands repeated viewing for its combination of technological innovation, fashion critique, and spectacle. Culminating in a series of robotic dresses, which transform iconic historical fashion silhouettes in a mechanised instant - from the hourglass Dior New Look to the Paco Rabanne metal-link shift, for example. Listen out also for the highly sophisticated sound design of the runway show, taking in Reich-ian handclaps, ambient military-industrial noises and a slowed down phrase from 'Anarchy in the UK' . A 2o minute 'making of' video exploring the project's fruition can be found here, courtesy of SHOWstudio. Click here for the complete collection in photographs, and here for the (roboticless) first part of the collection in video.

O Superman

The beautiful video for Laurie Anderson's ethereal minimal odyssey, 'O Superman (For Massenet),' (1982, 8mins 25sec). It is always a pleasure to watch films which blur the boundaries between MTV and art so gracefully - as is the want of the woman dubbed 'America's Multi-Mediatrix,' by Wired magazine. Avant Pop