Kurosawa’s Something Like an Autobiography is a terrific book—he writes about his childhood, his life, and his path to become a film director, and the major events that shaped him. As a director’s autobiography, it’s more captivating and enjoyable than Bergman’s The Magic Lantern, not because Bergman’s book is tedious, but because a Japanese man’s life is most likely more interesting than a Swede’s. After all, Kurosawa was born in 1910 and lived through WW2, and he’s part of a samurai family! This is an essential read if you’re interested in Kurosawa, and Japanese cinema in general. I myself have seen Stray Dog, Rashomon, Ikiru, The Bad Sleep Well, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, High and Low, Ran, and Dreams—9 films. My only regret about the book is that Kurosawa only writes up to Rashomon (released in 1950), so we don’t get to read about the inspiration for, ideas behind, and circumstances of, the later films. Having said that, I have learnt quite a bit from the book. 1/ He quotes Yamamoto Kajiro as saying “If you want to become a film director, first write scripts.” Then he goes on to say:
“… Those who say an assistant director’s job doesn’t allow him any free time for writing are just cowards. Perhaps you can write only 1 page a day, but if you do it every day, at the end of the year you’ll have 365 pages of script. I began in this spirit, with a target of 1 page a day. There was nothing I could do about the nights I had to work till dawn, but when I had time to sleep, every after crawling into bed I would turn out 2 or 3 pages. Oddly enough, when I put my mind to writing, it came more easily than I had thought it would, and I wrote quite a few scripts.”
Look at this quote from the addendum:
“With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. That is what makes a real movie. The script must be something that has the power to do this.”
2/ About editing:
“When I reached a certain level of achievement in scriptwriting, Yama-san told me to start editing. I already knew that you can’t be a film director if you can’t edit. Film editing involves putting on the finishing touches. More than this, it is a process of breathing life into the work.”
This is something I already know. Among the directors I’ve been reading recently, Kieslowski seems to think of filming as collecting raw material to be formed and created on the editing table, whereas Tarkovsky doesn’t seem to think much of editing (which you can tell from his films), and Sidney Lumet says a film is not created on an editing table, you can’t put together things that have not been filmed. I don’t disagree with Sidney Lumet—because I can edit, I think of the edit when writing scripts and planning the shots, and have myself experienced not getting enough shots/ cutaways as well as losing footage. But at the same time, editing is a very powerful tool. With editing, you can improve on an actor’s performance, improve on a scene, shift the focus/ change perspective, juxtapose images to create a new idea/ meaning, manipulate time, restructure the story, and so on. In my previous post, I shared Kurosawa’s story of editing Uma. Here he writes about editing Stray Dog:
“For example, I understood that in novel-writing certain structural techniques can be employed to strengthen the impression of an event and narrow the focus upon it. What I learned was that in the editing process a film can gain similar strength through the use of comparable structural techniques. The story of Stray Dog begins with a young police detective on his way home from marksmanship practice at the headquarters’ range. He gets on a crowded bus, and in the unusually intense summer heat and crush of bodies his pistol is stolen. When I filmed this sequence and edited it according to the passage of chronological time, the effect was terrible. As an introduction to drama it was slow, the focus was vague and it failed to grip the viewer. Troubled, I went back to look at the way I had begun the novel. I had written as follows ‘It was the hottest day of that entire summer.’ Immediately I thought, ‘That’s it.’ I used a shot of a dog with its tongue hanging out, panting. Then the narration begins, ‘It was unbearably hot that day.’ After a sign on a door indicating ‘Police Headquarters, First Division’, I proceeded to the interior. The chief of the First Detective Division glares up from his desk. ‘What? Your pistol was stolen?’ Before him stands the contrite young detective who is the hero of the story. This new way of editing the opening sequence gave me a very short piece of film, but it was extremely effective in drawing the viewer suddenly into the heart of the drama.”
3/ Life experience is extremely important. I think when people criticise student films, people often talk about performances and technical mistakes, which are understandable. But I think most of the time the greater issue is in the story, in the script, and that is mainly because of lack of life experience. 4/ It’s better to write a script with someone else. Writing alone, you may suffer from one-sidedness; writing with someone else, you have 2 perspectives on a character.
“Also, the director has a natural tendency to nudge the hero and the plot along into a pattern that is the easiest one for him to direct. By writing with about 2 other people, you can avoid this danger also.”
5/ In writing a script, avoid explanatory passages. This is called exposition. 6/ Kurosawa also says:
“The camera should follow the actor as he moves; it should stop when he stops.”
7/ Filming with multiple cameras is efficient, but not easy as it may sound—how do you move them?
“As a general system, I put the A camera for the most orthodox positions, use the B camera for quick, decisive shots and the C camera as a kind of guerrilla unit.”
8/ Kurosawa demands authenticity for sets and props, even if they don’t appear on camera.
“The 1st Japanese director to demand authentic sets and props was Mizoguchi Kenji, and the sets in his films are truly superb. I learned a great deal about filmmaking from him, and the making of sets is among the most important. The quality of the set influences the quality of the actors’ performances. If the plan of a house and the design of the rooms are done properly, the actors can move about in them naturally. If I have to tell an actor ‘Don’t think about where this room is in relation to the rest of the house’, that natural ease cannot be achieved. For this reason, I have the sets made exactly like the real thing. It restricts the shooting, but encourages that feeling of authenticity.”
In a way, this view is extreme. We all know that in films, for convenience and for freedom with camera angles, filmmakers can have moving walls or use a set without ceiling, or film at multiple locations and make them look like different parts of the same location. For example, for Dekalog 6/ A Short Film About Love, Kieslowski used 17 locations because he couldn’t find 2 apartments in 2 blocks opposite each other. Nevertheless, Kurosawa’s right that the quality of the set influences the quality of the actors’ performances. This is why I strongly dislike Hollywood’s excessive use of green screen and CGI. People excitedly share behind-the-scenes videos of Hollywood blockbusters, especially fantasy and sci-fi films, and I just think, what’s the fun of filming amidst all that green? 9/ The last point is interesting—when choosing music for films, try counterpoint. Sometimes it can work a lot better.
Every review of Russian Ark starts with the same point: it is a 90-minute film (without credits) that comprises of a single unbroken shot. The story is of an unnamed narrator (the camera), who wanders around Winter Palace in St Petersburg with a character called The European (meant to be Marquis de Custine), who is contemptuous of Russians and Russian culture. They wander around and in each room meet fictional and historical people from different periods of the city’s 300-year history. Russian Ark, to me, is less of a film than a formal experiment and a challenge. It is impressive, especially in the 1st 5 or 10 minutes—at some point, the camera seems to fly above the orchestra and land on the seating area and then follow the character to another room. Filmmakers and anyone interested in the technical aspect should watch it. I’m glad I’ve seen it, but personally I don’t like it. As a viewer, I agree with Stanley Kauffmann “What is there intrinsically in the film that would grip us if it had been made--even excellently made--in the usual edited manner? […] We sample a lot of scenes that in themselves have no cumulation, no self-contained point... Everything we see or hear engages us only as part of a directorial tour de force.” (source) As someone who loves 19th century Russian literature and has some interest in Russian history, I’m indifferent to the film—Russian Ark is not devoid of ideas, it may even have interesting points about Russian culture, but it didn’t have my interest beyond the making of the film itself. As a filmmaker, I would say that Russian Ark is against everything I believe in, about cinema. 1st of all, I love editing—it was editing, or the power to cut and put together different shots to tell a story, that gave birth to cinema. Editing is the main strength of cinema, compared to theatre—the use of different shot sizes (ability to show things in detail—close-up, or in context—wide shot), juxtaposition of images/ ideas, manipulation of time, structure and the ability to restructure a story. A film is made 3 times—in the script, during the shoot, and on the editing table. The filmmakers of Russian Ark therefore deny the most interesting tool of cinema. To make a feature film in a single unbroken shot is a fascinating task, but it is a challenge and an achievement for the crew rather than something for the audience. It is no more than a gimmick—an impressive one indeed, but still a gimmick. As I was watching the film, there was no interest in the story and ideas—all of my attention was for the technical aspect, especially when some image looked weird, probably because they reframed something in post-production or stabilised it and created a warped image. In addition, I like a good frame. On this blog, for example, I have singled out the most interesting shots in Citizen Kane and Jack Clayton’s The Innocents. In Russian Ark, because the entire film is in a single shot and the camera is constantly moving, to follow The European and/or go around a room, there is hardly a single frame that looks good. Russian Ark is not cinematic. I’m surprised when some people name Russian Ark among the most beautiful films they have seen. The film has a magnificent location, and gorgeous costumes. It’s more interesting when the film looks beautiful even though there’s nothing remarkable about the location. The Double Life of Veronique, for instance, has mediocre locations, but it’s one of the most visually beautiful films I have ever seen, thanks to the lighting and framing (and the charming actress). Stalker, which was filmed in desolate, ramshackle buildings and deserted factories, is breath-takingly beautiful Overall, Russian Ark is an impressive challenge, something I would not attempt myself. It’s worth watching for that alone. But honestly, it’s not cinematic.
I think every filmmaker should read this book. If you’re not a filmmaker but interested in his films, or interested in the making of a film, read it anyway. Sidney Lumet writes about all aspects of filmmaking, from the director’s point of view: choosing projects, working with writers (he’s not a writer), style, working with actors (how to get the best out of them), working with cinematographers (style, the look of the film, lens, filters…), working with the art department (style, colour scheme, architectural style, locations…), being on set, working with editors (pace, mood, tempo, rushes, rough cut…), working with composers and sound designers, working with timers (in the film age—now in the digital age, the equivalent are colourists), and working with the studio. In lucid prose, he writes about all aspects of filmmaking from pre-production to production to post-production, the myriad of possibilities a director has, and all the decisions a director has to make, with lots of invaluable insight and advice for young/aspiring filmmakers like me. Take this passage about editing: That is good advice. Earlier I was amused that both he and Tarkovsky wrote about cinema and directing but Tarkovsky’s book was called Sculpting in Time and Sidney Lumet’s was Making Movies. But the different titles also hint at their different approaches: Tarkovsky’s book is a thoughtful read, offering his thoughts on the art of cinema and the ideas behinds his own films, but Sidney Lumet’s book is more practical, and more useful. It’s also refreshing to read a book by a director who is not an auteur. He writes about everyone with respect and gratitude. Film is collaborative. That of course doesn’t mean that everyone in a film crew is equal, as some people seem to think in film schools. Sidney Lumet repeats throughout the book the phrase “making the same picture”, which refers to the director’s vision. Interestingly enough, I’ve noticed that even though Sidney Lumet, throughout the book, writes with respect of actors and people in different departments of a film crew, you can tell that he doesn’t have warm feelings for studio and executives, especially in the final chapter, “The Studio”. He mentions that it helps, but also writes about the silliness of previews (early screenings for a small audience whilst a film is in late stage of post-production) and the lack of correlation between them and a financial success of a film. He writes, early in the chapter, that stars don’t make a film a hit, but later writes that studios push for stars anyway, and how it affects the budget of a film (not only the stars’ salaries but also their “limos, secretary, cook, trailer, makeup, hair, and clothes person”—“a lot of money that won’t wind up on the screen”). But that is the problem with cinema—it is an art, but also a business. Above all, Sidney Lumet says cinema is an art form, and:
“Commercial success has no relationship to a good or bad picture. Good pictures become hits. Good pictures become flops. Bad pictures make money, bad pictures lose money. The fact is that no one really knows.”
He says: And adds:
“It’s the movies that are works of art that create this interest, even if they’re not on the 10-highest-grosses list too often.”
I’m reading Sidney Lumet’s Making Movies, which I think is a very good and enjoyable book, especially for aspiring film directors. Look at this: Isn’t that such a good “defence” of dialogue? The writer-director who has created the most memorable lines is Billy Wilder, who has 3 contenders for the best closing lines of all time—The Apartment (“Shut up and deal”), Some Like It Hot (“Nobody’s perfect”), and Sunset Boulevard (“All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up”). Dialogue is not uncinematic. It is only uncinematic when it is superfluous exposition, and worst if it’s the director’s way of explaining the film to the audience (which is common in Christopher Nolan’s films). Now look at this passage: That is fascinating and scary at the same time—would I be able to tell? The book offers some invaluable insight and advice about directing. I admire Sidney Lumet immensely, and now love him even more as I read the book. He is not an auteur, he might not even be seen as a stylist, but does it matter? I would say that 12 Angry Men and Dog Day Afternoon are masterpieces, and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a great, heartbreaking film that should be better known. Many of his other films are also highly acclaimed, such as Serpico, The Verdict,Network, Murder on the Orient Express, Long Day’s Journey into Night... Why are some other directors ranked higher just because their films are more stylistic or technically more impressive? That leads me to another point: is the ability to work with actors not important? The directors who I think are masters at getting the best performances out of actors are Ingmar Bergman, Elia Kazan, Sidney Lumet, and Francis Ford Coppola. And perhaps Roman Polanski (Adrien Brody never had anything remotely as good as his performance in The Pianist). Some other directors who are also good at working with actors are Billy Wilder, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Zhang Yimou, Krzysztof Kieslowski… (I don’t include Kurosawa and Mizoguchi because Japanese acting is a different style). As you follow a director’s work, you realise what their main strengths are—they are better at some aspects of filmmaking than others. Fellini’s main strengths, for example, are in blocking/staging, cinematography, and visual storytelling. Billy Wilder’s are in story, structure/ pacing, dialogue, and working with actors. Orson Welles’s are in cinematography (especially lighting), structure, editing, and sound. Luis Bunuel’s are in story/ plot, ideas, and pacing. Andrei Tarkovsky’s are in ideas, cinematography, sound, and atmosphere. You also notice, not weaknesses, but that some aspects don’t interest a director as much as others. There isn’t much to say about cinematography and lighting in Luis Bunuel’s films, for example; or editing in Tarkovsky’s; or story in Wong Kar-wai’s. It is not without reason that I think Ingmar Bergman’s the best director of all time, because his films do have everything—good story, interesting idea, depth, pacing, great cinematography (especially lighting), great sound, great editing (most notably in Persona), good production design (at least in Cries and Whispers and Fanny and Alexander), wonderful performances, good visual storytelling, experiments… But usually, directors have their strengths, and they may be weaker, or at least not as spectacular, in some other aspects of filmmaking, so why is it that directors who are good at techniques valued much more highly than directors who are good at drama (emotional complexity in a scene, and pacing for the film as a whole) and working with actors? When a film looks good, it is visually pleasing, but at the end of the day, so what? I like good acting. I like touching stories. I like films that make me see life differently and learn something about myself. I never use the word “great” for directors like Quentin Tarantino or Wes Anderson—they’re good at what they do, and their films are entertaining, but have no depth and offer no more than that. But even if we talk about Stanley Kubrick, a director I admire very much when it comes to techniques (especially the production design, cinematography, and use of music), none of his films has ever touched me on an emotional, personal level like 12 Angry Men or Dog Day Afternoon has. In Dog Day Afternoon, people talk a lot about Al Pacino, who indeed delivers a fine performance, one of the best in his career, but we should also talk about John Cazale—for some reason, I can never forget the incredibly sad look on his face when Al Pacino asks where he wants to go if he could go anywhere, and he says “Wyoming”. 12 Angry Men shows Sidney Lumet’s talent at working with actors, and also his ability to make an engrossing film in an enclosed space. I’d choose Sidney Lumet over Kubrick anytime. But that’s enough. Get Making Movies. It’s a good book. Even Roger Ebert said:
“Invaluable… I am sometimes asked if there is 1 book a filmgoer could read to learn more about how movies are made and what to look for while watching them. This is the book.”
1/ Today I came across this video about Tarkovsky. It is a great video essay, with excellent choice of shots: If you don’t like or haven’t seen Tarkovsky, watch the 1st 2 minutes. 2/ Last September I watched The Sacrifice and wrote that I had immense admiration for him as a director but couldn’t warm to his films. Now it’s different with Stalker, the film has haunting imagery, and it touches on something I have thought a lot about—the idea that we may not want our deeply held desires to come true, because we do not know what we really want deep down, and we may not want what we want when it actually happens. But that is not all Stalker is about—the film also touches on other ideas such as the role of the artist, self-doubt and inspiration, boredom, purpose, the meaning of art and the meaning of life, softness/ agility and strength/ hardness, freedom, choice, sacrifice, faith, and so on. The film is full of evocative images, but I do not want to pin down some meaning. As Tarkovsky said it himself:
“I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning.”
3/ I note that video essays and articles about colours in films never mention the use of colours in Tarkovsky’s films (though they sometimes mention Bergman—Cries and Whispers). Tarkovsky has a tendency to switch between colour and B&W and/or sepia. It is not random. Stalker starts in sepia. Whilst B&W strips everything of colour and it is all seen in shapes, light and shadow, sepia gives the city a sickly hue. The film starts in the Stalker’s house, then he goes out and we follow him to the pub, then he, the Writer, and the Professor, go to the Zone. They ride through the city, through factories, machines, railway, and so on, then all of a sudden there is a burst of colour—the film is now in colour, as they enter the Zone. In Stalker, the Zone is in colour, the outside world is in sepia. The Stalker’s dream is in sepia. But why is the ending in colour? Does it not mean that the Stalker’s daughter Monkey’s telekinetic powers are associated with the Zone? 4/ The other day I came across a piece of writing, in which the author said that the auteur theory (which she called “the auteur myth”) was misogynistic. It is needless to say that I think it is imbecilic. Everyone knows film is a collaborative art, the director is not the sole creator of a film. The concept of the auteur is mostly to distinguish different kinds of directors: there are technicians, there are stylists, and there are auteurs. Why does she think that recognised auteurs such as Bergman, Tarkovsky, and Fellini worked with lots of different people but their films were always recognisable, with a strong vision, recurring images, and recurring themes? Bergman for example might be lucky in finding Sven Nykvist and from that point always used him as cinematographer, but Tarkovsky and Fellini didn’t have the same cinematographer in different films. 5/ It is easy to tell that Tarkovsky likes running water, rain indoors, moss, mud, dead leaves, burning houses, levitation… In his films we can see water, air, fire, and earth. Here is a video about the water motif:
6/ I maintain that Tarkovsky is a great director but a bad influence, at least if you try to imitate him. Art doesn’t come from long takes and nature shots. There are only 2 film directors that I think are thinkers—Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman. 7/ Nevertheless, Tarkovsky is a great antithesis to commercial cinema. I’m saddened by the fact that today cinema is no longer seen as art, only as entertainment. I dislike choppy editing, pointless camera movements, and the pathetic fear of boring the audience and losing money. I dislike the over-use of, and over-reliance on, green screen and CGI. I dislike blockbusters, especially superhero films, but dislike even more films that get acclaimed for being stylistic but have no substance and no depth. Amidst brainless commercial cinema, a film like Roma gets lots of praise that is undeserved. I have never understood why Roma got the Oscar for best cinematography: compare it to actually great B&W films such as Ivan’s Childhood, 8 ½, Persona, Citizen Kane…, you can easily see the difference—Roma has little contrast, no real blacks, no real whites, only shades of grey like a lazy filter. It is a greyscale film, not B&W, and except for a very long tracking shot following the main character, there is nothing spectacular about the cinematography. Stalker, on the other hand, is a very beautiful film. It is sometimes very slow, even painfully slow (142 shots in 163 minutes), but the viewing of the entire film is a rewarding experience. 8/ I think Tarkovsky is the most poetic of directors. It is not about composition as much it’s about the choice of image and the atmosphere, and the fact that he slows things down, makes us pay attention to some detail—everything is still, and he makes us just look at something and experience it in the moment and just feel it, and afterwards we see things in life differently. Another director who also does that is Kieslowski, especially in Three Colours: Blue and The Double Life of Veronique. 9/ As a filmmaker, I’m particularly interested in sound. I can’t work on sound myself, because at the film school I specialised in directing and editing (and briefly in cinematography), but I have a fascination with sound and can work with a sound designer. Sound is full of possibilities, because putting images to sound can’t change how you hear the sound, but changing the sound (or music) can change how you perceive the images. Here is a good video about sound in Stalker: I have always liked sound in Ingmar Bergman, but now I start to like sound in Tarkovsky as well. Sound in Bergman is more expressive and psychological, reflecting the character’s inner world. Sound in Tarkovsky is more atmospheric. 10/ I feel transformed, after watching Stalker.
1/ I watched Stalker last night. It is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Even though, whilst watching it, I thought I’d choose Bergman over Tarkovsky anytime, I do think that Tarkovsky is the most poetic of directors, and there’s nobody quite like him. 2/ Stalker is similar to Solaris in that they both are sci-fi films but the sci-fi world is only the means, not the end—the genre provides the settings for Tarkovsky to explore philosophical ideas. Stalker is more like a parable. 3/ What is the meaning of the Room? To the people who try to get to the Room, it stands for hope—hope for desperate people, hope for people who are devoid of all hope. But it is not what people think it is—it only turns true people’s innermost desires, and we do not know what we truly want. Remember the story of Porcupine. 4/ The film is not about the Room, but about the journey to the Room, and the characters’ experience. 5/ Does the Room even exist? 6/ In a way, the whole point of the Room is to reveal each character’s personality. 7/ Of the trio, the Writer is the most cynical, but he also sees himself most clearly. 8/ It is a very slow film: 142 shots in 163 minutes. It is beautiful though, with haunting images. 9/ The logic of the Zone reminds me of Lewis Carroll’s looking-glass world: the dry tunnel is behind a waterfall, and the Professor returns for his bag only to get to the other side before the Writer and the Stalker. 10/ I don’t understand the ending.
1/ Form: I like a few moments, a few scenes in The Sacrifice, but what I like the most about the film is the cinematography. Sven Nykvist is, perhaps, my favourite cinematographer. His greatest achievements in B&W are in Winter Light and Persona—compare his use of soft light to the intensity and hardness of Gunnar Fischer, Ingmar Bergman’s previous cinematographer. Then Ingmar Bergman turned to colour, and the highest points of Sven Nykvist’s career, or at least his best collaborations with Bergman, were Cries and Whispers and Fanny and Alexander, both of which won him an Oscar for best cinematography. Then 4 years after the magical Fanny and Alexander, he worked with Andrei Tarkovsk on The Sacrifice. I’ve heard, either in a video essay about Nykvist, or the documentary Light Keeps Me Company, that his style developed in a new direction after Tarkovsky, but I’m not sure how—softer, simpler, perhaps. But look at these stills from The Sacrifice. Very different from the Bergman films. Softer, more “natural”. Less contrast. Darker. With a pensive stillness. Tarkovsky’s often praised for the nature shots—water, moss, mud, fire… The best shots in The Sacrifice (except the shot of Alexander looking at the model of the house), however, are the interior shots. Every frame is like a painting. Many of them look like religious paintings. (Right click the images and open them in new tab for full size) My only complaint is that, as Nykvist says in Light Keeps Me Company, Tarkovsky’s not particularly concerned with the human face. It’s not the focus in Tarkovsky’s films in general, compared to Bergman’s, and in The Sacrifice, he turns more extreme and moves back; we rarely see a face clearly. He doesn’t attempt to bring the characters closer to the audience. 2/ Content: I found some passages from Tarkovsky’s Sculpting in Time about his own film The Sacrifice: (Right click the images and open them in new tab for full size) It’s no wonder that I can’t connect to it. I’m an agnostic; if there’s anything spiritual in me, it’s the spirituality of a Vietnamese person—a mixture of Buddhism and Vietnamese cultural beliefs and customs, particularly the ancestor worship and veneration of the dead. Christian notions of love, sacrifice and salvation evoke nothing in me, other than the unpleasant aftertaste of having known certain religious and hypocritical individuals in the past. I can’t take any of the characters seriously, especially the protagonist Alexander. However, what Tarkovsky’s saying makes a lot of sense in context—with communism and materialist philosophy in the Soviet Union on the 1 hand, and consumer culture and the rise of commercial cinema in the US on the other hand. There was a time when cinema was high art, when the world had directors such as Bergman, Fellini, Tarkovsky, Bunuel, Ozu… Now most people see movies as mere entertainment. It’s a pity.
1/ I’ve just watched The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky’s last film. It’s a film I wanted to like, as it was shot in Sweden, with some of Ingmar Bergman’s long-time collaborators such as cinematographer Sven Nykvist and actor Erland Josephson. You can tell that The Sacrifice is a Tarkovsky film—slow, meditative, with long takes, soft light, water, nature shots, philosophical themes, switch between colour and B&W or sepia… But at the same time, some parts of it make me think of Bergman—the shot of Alexander (Erland Josephson) with the tree at the beginning of the film is reminiscent of a scene in The Virgin Spring; Victor’s question about whether Alexander sees his life as a failure reminds me of Wild Strawberries and Autumn Sonata; the monologue about actors and identity might just fit perfectly in Persona; the scene of Alexander talking to God as he expects an apocalypse makes me think of Antonius Block talking to God in The Seventh Seal during the time of a plague, and so on. But for some reasons, it doesn’t work for me. I just don’t get it. I can’t connect to the characters, who most of the time are too far away in the wide shots. I don’t share their affliction and can’t take them seriously. I don’t care for religion and don’t ponder about the end of the world. It says more about me than about the film—it’s not that I don’t understand The Sacrifice, I just don’t feel anything and can’t connect to it. Maybe I lack something. Maybe The Sacrifice is for a certain kind of audience that I’m not. Maybe it’s about taste and personal vision—the same way I prefer Fellini to Antonioni but feel closer to Bergman, or love Kurosawa and Mizoguchi but not Ozu, I recognise Tarkovsky’s greatness but simply don’t warm to him. 2/ I’ve had some bad experiences with religious people, and the last time, which was about 2 years ago, has pushed me further and further away from religion. Since then, I haven’t read any Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, so it’s hard to say how I’d feel about them now, but part of me is switched off when a film treats religious themes. If the film is about struggles with faith, or lack of faith, like Bergman’s The Seventh Seal or Winter Light, I might like them and be able to appreciate them (these 2 are excellent works). With something like Ordet or The Sacrifice, something in me is switched off. 3/ Out of the 4 Tarkovsky films I have seen, Solaris, Mirror, Ivan’s Childhood, and The Sacrifice (in that order), Ivan’s Childhood and Solaris are my favourites. The Sacrifice leaves me cold. Mirror I don’t understand. It is a personal thing. In literature, I’m a Tolstoy person, which transfers to my taste in cinema—I like characters as people, complex, multi-faceted and full of contradictions, not characters as embodiment of ideas; I’m interested in storytelling, and fascinated by emotions, relationships, and personal problems, not abstract ideas and philosophical concerns. Compare, my list of favourite films includes Persona, Citizen Kane, Nights of Cabiria, Sunset Boulevard… whereas my bf’s favourites are more like idea films, such as Blade Runner, The Seventh Seal, Ordet, La Jetée, and Solaris. Over the past year and a half, my aesthetics have developed in a new direction—pure realism told chronologically bores me; with the influence of European auteurs such as Bergman, Fellini, Bunuel, and even Tarkovsky, I’m utterly fascinated by the idea of film as dream, the idea of exploring the inner world and moving between reality and the world of dream and fantasy. But ultimately, it’s still people and their personal stories that most interest me. Not fancy effects. Not abstract ideas. That’s probably why I prefer Ivan’s Childhood to Mirror and The Sacrifice. Ivan’s Childhood has a clear narrative and focuses on people’s lives in war, especially the impact of war on children. Mirror and The Sacrifice are too abstract, too meditative for my taste. Even Solaris, a beautiful, haunting, and thoughtful film, makes me think more than it makes me feel, and doesn’t have a strong impact as something like Persona or Cries and Whispers does. 4/ As a film student, I’m of the opinion that Tarkovsky would be a bad influence (even though all aspiring filmmakers should watch his films). It’s partly because anyone who attempts to copy him (nature shots, abstract shots, meditative mood…) without real depth ends up boring the audience and appearing pretentious and pseudo-intellectual. It’s extremely difficult to make a deep philosophical film and successfully convey such ideas in images. Making an obscure film nobody understands is easy. Tarkovsky’s a thinker. Tarkovsky would be a bad influence also because he doesn’t particularly care about the audience. Ingmar Bergman, even whilst making deeply personal films, always has the audience in mind. There should be a balance—a director of any worth should not follow the mainstream and stoop down to the lowest common denominator, but at the same time, cannot ignore the audience entirely. 5/ Here is a video about Tarkovsky and Lars von Trier: TARKOVSKY / VON TRIER - Le Maître et l'élève from Titouan Ropert on Vimeo.
Which is different from my list of favourite films. Persona (1966), Wild Strawberries (1957), Hour of the Wolf (1968), and Cries and Whispers (1972) by Ingmar Bergman Citizen Kane (1941) and F for Fake (1973) by Orson Welles The Exterminating Angel (1962), The Phantom of Liberty (1974), and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) by Luis Bunuel La Jetée (1962) by Chris Marker 8 ½ (1963) by Federico Fellini The Godfather (1972) by Francis Ford Coppola Bicycle Thieves (1948) by Vittorio De Sica Three Colours: Blue (1993) by Krzysztof Kieslowski Ivan's Childhood (1962) by Andrei Tarkovsky Taxi Driver (1976) by Martin Scorsese Dogville (2003) by Lars von Trier 3 Women (1977) by Robert Altman
_____________________________ Every filmmaker is influenced by other filmmakers. Sometimes we may even be inspired by some aspect of a film we don’t like, like how I feel about Dogville. As a filmmaking student, I’m still learning the skills and techniques, and exploring the form, I have yet to find my style, but it’s still nice to make a list to acknowledge the influences and have something to compare to in the future. Or maybe I just really like lists.
The 50s: http://thelittlewhiteattic.blogspot.com/2017/08/my-favourite-films-from-1950s.html The 60s: http://thelittlewhiteattic.blogspot.com/2018/03/my-favourite-films-from-1960s.html The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) by Billy Wilder Harold and Maude (1971) by Hal Ashby The French Connection (1971) by William Friedkin The Godfather (1972) by Francis Ford Coppola Cries and Whispers (1972) by Ingmar Bergman The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) by Luis Bunuel Last Tango in Paris (1972) by Bernardo Bertolucci Cabaret (1972) by Bob Fosse Solaris (1972) by Andrei Tarkovsky Play It Again, Sam (1972) by Herbert Ross Amarcord (1973) by Federico Fellini The Last Detail (1973) by Hal Ashby Mean Streets (1973) by Martin Scorsese The Sting (1973) by George Roy Hill Sleep (1973) by Woody Allen F for Fake (1973) by Orson Welles The Godfather Part II (1974) by Francis Ford Coppola The Conversation (1974) by Francis Ford Coppola Chinatown (1974) by Roman Polanski The Phantom of Liberty (1974) by Luis Bunuel Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) by Martin Scorsese Dog Day Afternoon (1975) by Sidney Lumet Scent of a Woman (1975) by Martin Brest Love and Death (1975) by Woody Allen Taxi Driver (1976) by Martin Scorsese Network (1976) by Sidney Lumet 3 Women (1977) by Robert Altman That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) by Luis Bunuel Annie Hall (1977) by Woody Allen Autumn Sonata (1978) by Ingmar Bergman The Tin Drum (1979) by Volker Schlöndorff Manhatttan (1979) by Woody Allen All That Jazz (1979) by Bob Fosse
For the 1950s: http://thelittlewhiteattic.blogspot.com/2017/08/my-favourite-films-from-1950s.html The Bad Sleep Well (1960) by Akira Kurosawa The Apartment (1960) by Billy Wilder Psycho (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock La Dolce Vita (1960) by Federico Fellini Le Trou (1960) by Jacques Becker Viridiana (1961) by Luis Buñuel One, Two, Three (1961) by Billy Wilder Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) by Blake Edwards Yojimbo (1961) by Akira Kurosawa Sanjuro (1962) by Akira Kurosawa Ivan’s Childhood (1962) by Andrei Tarkovsky The Exterminating Angel (1962) by Luis Buñuel The Trial (1962) by Orson Welles Winter Light (1963) by Ingmar Bergman High and Low (1963) by Akira Kurosawa 8 1/2 (1963) by Federico Fellini Knife in the Water (1963) by Roman Polanski Charade (1963) by Stanley Donen Woman in the Dunes (1964) by Hiroshi Teshigahara Dr Strangelove (1964) by Stanley Kubrick My Fair Lady (1964) by George Cukor Persona (1966) by Ingmar Bergman Blow-Up (1966) by Michelangelo Antonioni 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Stanley Kubrick The Graduate (1968) by Mike Nichols Hour of the Wolf (1968) by Ingmar Bergman Romeo and Juliet (1968) by Franco Zeffirelli
Not a review. This is a post for people already familiar with the film. 1/ At the beginning of the film, there are some long nature shots. The scenery is to “reappear” at the end, in a different setting. They are long, but you must take it all in, you must really feel it, in order to see the difference between Earth and Solaris, and to understand the feeling of emptiness and nostalgia of the astronauts. Kris Kelvin appears detached and cold, and doesn’t seem to particularly care for nature, but even he attaches strips of paper to air vents to create the sound of rustling leaves. 2/ Speaking of which, dead silence is intolerable when ears are used to noise. There must always be some sound, in the background, hardly noticeable because taken for granted—absolute silence would be noticeable, and awful. There is no life on Solaris, only a roaring, formless sea. 3/ The detail about the sound of rustling leaves also makes me think about things in life I take for granted. 4/ Most interesting in Solaris is the character of Hari—a person that isn’t a real human being, an alien that doesn’t look alien, a being that is no more than a materialisation of Kelvin’s conception of her. 5/ She is Hari but she isn’t Hari. She is a materialisation of the Hari in Kelvin’s head—she has no secrets because he didn’t know her secrets, she is suicidal because the real Hari committed suicide and that’s how Kelvin always thought about her. 6/ Gibarian (the astronaut who commits suicide) mentions the word conscience. That seems to apply for Hari—kill her, she appears again; she destroys herself, then revives minutes later; she’s like an old guilt, never forgotten. 7/ Roger Ebert wrote, in his review of the other Solaris (2002):
“In other words, Kelvin gets back not his dead wife, but a being who incorporates all he knows about his dead wife, and nothing else, and starts over from there. […] The deep irony here is that all of our relationships in the real world are exactly like that, even without the benefit of Solaris. We do not know the actual other person. What we know is the sum of everything we think we know about them. Even empathy is perhaps of no use; we think it helps us understand how other people feel, but maybe it only tells us how we would feel, if we were them.”
Of course it’s not exactly the same. Because Hari is a materialisation of Kelvin’s conception of her, she’s incapable of shocking him, or even changing. Her self-destructiveness is part of the conception. But it’s an interesting thought. People can never know each other fully, completely. (Sometimes) we love not the actual person, but our conception of them. 8/ At the same time, Hari is so interesting because she’s becoming real—she becomes so real that she knows she isn’t real. She has self-consciousness. 9/ Solaris is sci-fi so that the genre provides with the planet, but it’s really about psychology and philosophy. 10/ In the end, the scenery we have seen earlier appears again, but it’s not the same place—it’s on Solaris. The entire place is formed by Kelvin’s consciousness alone. What do I think about that? I don’t know. I don’t think I got much out of Solaris after 1 viewing.
1/ After the 2nd viewing of Persona, I’m more inclined to go with the literal interpretation—a story between 2 women, as what we see on the screen, instead of the interpretation that they’re 2 sides of the same woman. 2/ Of course, not everything that appears on the screen does happen. Persona is a blend of reality and fantasy. This time, it becomes clearer which sequences are real and which not. 3/ The women are alike. The repetition of the exact same scene, from another angle, creates an effect, makes us feel something different—the 1st time, Alma is trying to speak for Elisabet, analysing her; the 2nd time, she seems to be speaking about herself. 4/ The women are alike; both have been hiding behind a mask (persona) and now cast it away—Elisabet as a loving wife and mother, Alma as a good nurse and happy engaged woman. 5/ A good nurse she is not. Alma lacks the necessary detachment, she lacks the stability and mental strength for the job. She lets bitterness and resentment get the better of her, and betrays the principle of her profession. 6/ Between the 2, Alma is weak, Elisabet is stronger. The nurse herself knows it requires some mental strength to remain silent, refuse to speak. 7/ Ingmar Bergman says, in an interview by Charles Thomas Samuels, “The monk scares her because his conviction is so enormous he is willing to die for it”. That is a much greater mental strength. 6/ Perhaps she realises that that is real suffering, as is the tragedy of the Holocaust. What does she think of? The smallness and insignificance of her own suffering? The catastrophes and injustices of the world? The unfairness of life in general? The falsehoods of all things, which make her fall silent so as not to say a lie? 7/ Of course, the words of the doctor should not be seen as the key to understanding the film. 8/ I shall not attempt to decode the opening sequence of Persona and reduce them to a series of symbols: sexual desire, horror, sacrifice, etc. Film is a visual medium—it’s about image, and how we intuitively respond to it, how we feel about it. Ingmar Bergman remarks in his essay “Each Film Is My Last”:
“Film is not the same thing as literature. As often as not the character and substance of the 2 art forms are in conflict. What it really depends on is hard to define, but it probably has to do with the self-responsive process. The written word is read and assimilated by a conscious act and in connection with the intellect, and little by little it plays on the imagination or feelings. It is completely different with the motion picture. When we see a film in a cinema we are conscious that an illusion has been prepared for us and we relax and accept it with our will and intellect. We prepare the way into our imagination. The sequence of pictures plays directly on our feelings without touching the mind.”
He says again in the introduction to Four Screenplays:
“When we experience a film, we consciously prime ourselves for illusion. Putting aside will and intellect, we make way for it in our imagination. The sequence of pictures plays directly on our feelings. Music works in the same fashion; I would say that there is no art form that has so much in common with film as music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via the intellect. And film is mainly rhythm; it is inhalation and exhalation in continuous sequence. Ever since childhood, music has been my great source of recreation and stimulation, and I often experience a film or play musically.”
Andrei Tarkovsky expresses the same idea in Sculpting in Time:
“A literary work can only be received through symbols, through concepts — for that is what words are; but cinema, like music, allows for utterly direct, emotional, sensuous perception of the work.”
Many literature lovers speak of films with disdain because, they argue, reading requires you to use your own imagination whereas a film already gives you images which you take passively. That is the mistaken view of people who neither know truly great films nor understand the nature of cinema and what it’s capable of. The 2 media have different strengths and powers (and different limitations). The 1st films I think of as a response to people who think film is an inferior art, or not a serious art form, would be: 8 ½, Persona, Three Colours: Blue and 2001: A Space Odyssey. 9/ I also found, on the internet, this quote by Ingmar Bergman:
“When film is not a document, it is dream. That is why Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all. He moves with such naturalness in the room of dreams. He doesn't explain. What should he explain anyhow? He is a spectator, capable of staging his visions in the most unwieldy but, in a way, the most willing of media. All my life I have hammered on the doors of the rooms in which he moves so naturally. Only a few times have I managed to creep inside. Most of my conscious efforts have ended in embarrassing failure – The Serpent’s Egg, The Touch, Face to Face and so on. Fellini, Kurosawa and Bunuel move in the same fields as Tarkovsky. Antonioni was on his way, but expired, suffocated by his own tediousness. Melies was always there without having to think about it. He was a magician by profession. Film as dream, film as music.”
Not commenting on Antonioni (who, when I watched a few years ago, didn’t quite get), I agree about Fellini, and a bit more tentatively (because I haven’t seen much) about Tarkovsky and Bunuel. It also applies for Ingmar Bergman. But I’m not quite sure about Kurosawa—that doesn’t sound right to me. 10/ After Ingmar Bergman, I intend to check out Tarkovsky. I’ve seen Solaris.
