Reflections

Details

Hits: 6489

Kennemer Dunes 360° today. Spring [ birth of a nation ]

Min/max temperature: 4°C/23°C; humidity: 76%; precipitation: 0 mm; sea level pressure: 1031 hPa; wind: WSW 5.0 km/h; visibility: 14.0 kilometres; Clouds: few 2700 m.

"Our preoccupation with numbers, preferably growth figures (polls, ratings, stock market figures, budgets, salaries, penis length et cetera) hides the underlying fear to actually having to think. Before people start a discussion within a so called consultation council […] at first figures need to be produced and made visible; once read, every discussion is unnecessary. The figures are supposed to tell the truth about a certain supposed transparent reality automatically. Equal fear for the process of thinking appears in the well-meant suggestions to people 'in trouble': 'You just do not have to think about it too much, it serves no purpose, it makes matters only worse.' The next logical step is towards thought-restricting drugs of which the French designation -- 'des stupefiant' ('stupefying') -- speaks so much more clear than the semi-soft name calling 'tranquillizers' […] What we experience today is the degeneration of the importance of language on a broad social scale. When thinking can be understood as an externalised act, then the inability to think must lead to the occasion to act in itself. In this area infantilization takes place, which does have an effect on the aspects that characterises being human, namely the delusion of providing meaning. In this case: the effects of the inadequacy of providing meaning. The consequence then becomes agitation and acting [ that ] out. According to the classic formula, taking action will elicit a reaction."

Paul Verhaeghe in 'Het einde van de psychotherapie', page 222, 223, 224, 225, first published in 2010 by De Bezige Bij, The Netherlands (unauthorized translation from Dutch)

"Movies are written in sand: applauded today, forgotten tomorrow. […] I foresee no possibility of venturing into themes showing a closer view of reality for a long time to come. The public itself will not have it. What it wants is a gun and a girl. [on sound movies: ] It is my arrogant belief that we have lost beauty."

D.W. Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948)

"In a Hollywood movie, after the movie is over, there's nothing more. There is no relationship between the screen and the spectator. There's just a duration. If you don't like it, you go to sleep, the way I do. [ The ] movie is not on screen. The movie stems from moving. The movie is a mover. The move from the reality to the screen and back to the reality. And the screens are nothing, just shades. It's like a swimmer doing a crawl until he arrives at the end of the swimming pool and then turning and going back again. This is the screen. […] When you arrive, [...] the moviemaker [ is the swimmer ] ; and when you start, it's the spectator. […] I don't think you should feel about a movie. You should feel about a woman, but not about a movie. You can't kiss a movie. […] Let's have a look and talk about it, but certainly not feel about it. That's what the Church says, feel about God. [ I ] can't [ work for television ]. You get more mystified than ever. Unless you think you can address 20 million people and you have something important to say and think you can go through all this mystification to get to the people, it's very difficult. [ I ] make very small movies to show to fewer people more often. More movies to fewer people but much more often. So [ I ] can survive […] it's very natural. I couldn't do anything else. You have to know how to survive. You have to be optimistic, because the world situation is so bad. Marx said that. The very pessimistic situation makes me feel optimistic. I'm an optimist because things are so bad they must get better because they can't be worse than they are. It's the same today."

Jean-Luc Godard in 'Jean-Luc Godard: The Rolling Stone Interview A look behind the lens at the famed French new wave director of 'Breathless' and 'Band of Outsiders' by Jonathan Cott, first published in June 1969 by Rolling Sone, USA

"Trough the reading of the script and the impressions given [...] by the director, slowly one starts to realize what [ needs to be done ]. In [the ] hot Los-Angeles burning sun -- we had to make the [ 'Barfly' ] interior acceptable, though being able to look outside at the same time to see what happens there. You need to take that into account, it [ can be ] difficult to stack those small rooms up with light. They need to remain out of frame. And the interior scenes required a certain ambience. You need to take that into account. I had ordered these huge rigging-towers -- with reflection screens -- with 12Kw's that bounced inside. Always reflected, never direct. […] Would I have said in these multi-billion dollar film: 'guys here we should not use any [ additional ] light, it needs to be dark' -- then they would go with that. The hardest part is to get the team to go with that, they are all crusted heads. So when we arrive at a street-corner, daytime, to shoot a car driving by -- only that -- all kinds of equipment is brought in. The script car and electricity trucks, and they all stand in the way, they take a lot of space. I've experienced that! [ I ] have always said to students -- when I had them in a workshop -- : '… the case is, when looking at the rushes and everybody applauds you because they look so great, when you think for yourself that it is not so good, than it is not so good. Because other people tend to believe pretty quickly that things look great. They see a sunset and it looks nicely orange, but you did not have to do anything to accomplish that, it always works. But there are also more complicated situations. With Friedkin, that was good working. He knew how to listen. We then had a complicated shot, with a car. It arrives at a terrain getting into a hangar. Shot with a crane, from top to ground. I then said: '… but why cover it in different shots? It can just drive in and we pan with the camera and the car can drive trough. […] Theoretically there are three possibilities. Dusk is short. Shoot a shot at dusk with the exact perfect light. One before that in touch over and one afterwards, which will just be doing fine. In twenty minutes we have three takes to shoot.' He understood that, and then started to organise very strictly the whole situation. We then immediately shot the first take and you get it all within schedule. But you need people who know how to react."

Robby Müller in 'Interview Robby Muller (2007)' first published in 2008 on the Netherlands Society of Cinematographers website (authorized translation from Dutch)

" [ Unless ] you know how [ a style ] is done, you say, 'What the hell is the idea? Where is it?' You keep looking for some kind of justification. Our brains are designed to see signs and put them together into a story. [ The ] brain always tries to read stories into things, and as every edit is a story in its own right, the brain can't accept it and begins to link them all together."

Lars von Trier in 'Framing, A Symposium on Cinematography; On Random Framing -- Automavision', page 142, 143, edited by Andreas Fisher-Hansen, Igor Koršič and Tina Sørensen (unpublished manuscript)