Offscreen Notes
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Eisenstein on the Audiovisual
Eisenstein on the Audiovisual: The Montage of Music, Image and Sound in Cinema
by Robert Robertson
I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2009, p. 239It has been a good week for Offscreen contributors. Only yesterday I posted notice of a new book by Roberto Curti, and a day later I receive a brand new book by another long-time Offscreen contributor, Robert Robertson, who has just published a new book of illuminating research and scholarship on the ideas in and around Sergei Eisenstein’s sound-music-image (audiovisual) montage theories. As a filmmaker and composer himself, Robertson brings to Eisenstein’s complex Chinese Box of ‘facets’ the right blend of theoretical and practical knowledge (as Robertson writes, when studying Eisenstein you soon notice that “this facet inter-reflects with other facets, which in turn relate organically to other aspects of his achievements”). Offscreen is especially proud of this book because of the tiny (and I stress tiny) role we have played in its development, having published several essays (six in fact) dating back to 2005 which bore the fruit of Robertson’s research in this area (and Robertson gives Offscreen a gracious notice in the Acknowledgements section). The bulk of Robertson’s ongoing research (since 1977) on Eisenstein is broken up into four major chapters in the book: 1. Audiovisual Counterpoint 2. Organic Unity 3. Nonindifferent Nature 4. Synaesthesia. If you do a ‘keyword’ search on Offscreen on Sergei Eisenstein you will come up with the six essays, and if you read them you will get a flavor of Robertson’s book (and its breadth and scope, covering Eisenstein’s affinities with architecture, music, philosophy, religion, the Occult, and literature). Offscreen will be publishing a review of Robertson’s book by Randolph Jordan in an upcoming issues. Please stay tuned for it.
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Demons and Gods: God, the Devil and Religion in the American Horror Film
Demoni e dei. Dio, il diavolo, la religione nel cinema horror americano
(Demons and Gods: God, the Devil, and Religion in the American Horror Film)
by Roberto Curti
Lindau Publishers, 2009, 514 p.This is becoming a bit of a habit (although a pleasurable one), the announcement of yet another new book by the prolific Offscreen contributor Roberto Curti. This time around Curti has tackled a subject which is potentially intimidating in scope: religion in the American horror film; but Curti is more than up to the challenge, covering American cinema from the 1920s to films as recent as The Village, 2004, I Am Legend, 2007, Diary of the Dead, 2007, and Cloverfield, 2008. Curti’s approach is thematic rather than strictly historical, grouping films together according to broadly based parameters that stem from both conventional religious thought (the Bible, the Apocalypse, the Church, the Devil, religious ritual, eschatology, etc.) and how social and political constructs are influenced by Christian thought, or reflect particular emerging or changing attitudes toward religion (race, gender, the family, cults, Reaganism, 9/11). Curti’s book (albeit written in Italian) makes a perfect companion piece to another recent book on the same subject (though Cowan’s book is international in scope), Sacred Terror: Religion and Horror on the Silver Screen by Douglas E. Cowan (2008). Like Cowan, Curti takes his subject seriously, rendering a constructive analysis to the role of horror cinema in helping us understand and give form to humanity’s horrors, fears, frailties, hopes, and weaknesses.
“Trasponendo in immagini l’esistenza del male nel mondo, fisico o metafisico, il cinema dell’orrore mette in scena le possibilita spettacolari e distruttive del dolore e della sofferenza: a finisce per interrogarsi sul rapporto tra finito e trascendente” (p. 23)
“Translating into images the existence of evil in the world, physical or metaphysical, the cinema of horror gives life to the spectacular and destructive possibilities of pain and suffering, and ultimately questioning the relationship between the finite and the transcendent.”
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Acadiana Film Festival
Acadiana Film Festival (Running from April 16 to April 19)
Many of us enjoy films about buddies, romance, space aliens, and even about various forms of social transgressions (relationships others disapprove of, people who break laws for money or sex), but we do not always think of films as art. However, it is true that films can express unique perspectives and change the way that we see and think about the world, some of the fundamental goals of art. It is an added pleasure to see the concerns of our own lives in films, and that is something offered to Louisiana residents by the Acadiana Film Festival. “Our line up is great this year. We have so many feature films, shorts, documentaries, panels, workshops, parties, networking opportunities,” answered festival director Jana Godshall, when asked by this writer about the festival, occurring in Lafayette from April 16th through April 19th. It is a festival with attractions for the novice as well as the expert, and can be expected to appeal to “anyone who enjoys independent cinema as we have tons of free screenings.”
The Acadiana Film Festival has events scheduled at different area locations and it will begin on Thursday, April 16, with an afternoon film editing seminar at Lite (537 Cajundome Blvd.) and an evening premier, at the Grand 14 theater, of Alex Holdridge’s film In Search of a Midnight Kiss, about a young man’s chaotic New Year’s Eve spent with a woman he met through the online advertising site Craigslist. Other film subjects include rural Mardi Gras, novelists Kate Chopin and James Lee Burke, the Creole heritage, Louisiana plate lunch houses, coastal land loss, and hurricane Katrina. There are full-length feature films and short films, films of fiction and of fact, and the festival includes instructive workshops on documentary filmmaking and on acting, as well as on sound recording/editing and marketing film projects. There will be—on April 18th—a screening of University of Louisiana students’ short films, too. One of the last festival events will be a zydeco brunch and awards ceremony recognizing a filmmaker of great impact, and named will be the best feature film and best documentary, among other award categories.
One of the goals of the festival is to support current efforts to develop a lasting film industry in Louisiana. In an e-mail exchange with this writer, festival director Jana Godshall stated, “Right now, many filmmakers are traveling to Louisiana to take advantage of our tax incentives…they’re staying in our hotels, but we want to help educate and offer the tools so we can have filmmakers staying in our homes.” It has been impressive just how many film productions already take place in Louisiana. The best known film shot in Louisiana these days is The Mysterious Case of Benjamin Button, but some of the other recent films that have been made here are Cadillac Records, Jumper, Soul Men, W, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, In the Electric Mist, The Great Debaters, Déjà Vu, Pride, and All the King’s Men. Although the film Ray was shot in Louisiana, the film’s storyline settings were places such as Chicago and Atlanta, proof of Louisiana’s versatility as a location. (The Acadiana Film Festival will include location tours for interested attendees.) It has been reported that more than eighty projects were filmed in Louisiana in 2008 alone. The website for the Louisiana Office of Film and Television declares, “Since 2002, when the first tax credits were introduced, the incentives have generated more than $2 billion in new revenue and spurred creation of thousands of high-wage jobs, state-of-the-art infrastructure development and new business opportunities.” Will it be possible, as Godshall suggests, for Louisiana to have an “indigenous” film industry?
If one considers the commitment of festival director Jana Godshall and festival coordinator Julie Bordelon, the answer is yes. Says Godshall, “This is a year-round job. Julie Bordelon and myself eat, sleep and drink the film festival. It’s more than a job for us. It’s a mission. It’s something that we want those in the state to take advantage of. This is why we bend over backwards so we can offer free workshops, panels, seminars.” If one considers the many student films in the Acadiana Film Festival, the answer is Yes, there will be an indigenous Louisiana film industry. If one considers Louisiana natives, such as Susan Labry, an actress, singer, and film community activist, who gain experience in film and share that experience with others the answer is yes. Susan Labry had speaking parts in films such as Hood Life and Hearts of Men and worked as an extra in Walk the Line and Monster’s Ball. Months ago, I asked Labry about “film in Louisiana” and she sent me much material, particularly information on groups (Louisiana Produces Meet-up, Baton Rouge Film and Music Meet-up) interested in the development of the Louisiana film industry. Susan Labry declared, “I would like to see more professionalism in the film industry. I want to see our culture preserved and maintained and respect for one another’s cultures as we are a diverse culture and that is what makes it interesting.”
For those who feel the same way, they can begin by viewing the schedule for Lafayette’s Acadiana Film Festival and attending films there they might see nowhere else, films that reflect some of the events and issues of their own lives and heritage. The 56-minute documentary on Mardi Gras, Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler, screens April 17th, Friday morning, at the Natural History Museum on Jefferson Street; and the James Lee Burke documentary, directed by Frederic Le Clair and Jacques Levy, screens Friday at Cite Des Arts on Vine Street, in the early evening; and there’s much more. (Search online: Acadiana Film Festival.) Film enthusiasts can further cultivate their knowledge by looking for the print publication Louisiana Film and Video, and film critic Alex Kent’s excellent blog Louisiana Movies. (Daniel Garrett)
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Poe’s 200th Birthday
As part of the world wide celebration of Edgar Allan Poe’s 200th birthday writer director Brent Fidler is planning an innovative event: he will have the world broadcasting premiere of his Poe feature film, Poe: The Last Days of the Raven online, Monday, January 19. Details are available on the film’s official website and in the media release. The film screened at the 2008 Montreal World Film Festival, where technical delays did not dampen the spirit of the director, and a sizeable amount of the audience remained during the long delay to watch Fidler’s unique dramatization of a part of Poe’s life. Fidler, who stars as Poe, blends autobiography and fiction into a reflexive (theatre-within-a-film) account of the final days of Poe.
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Secret Sunshine Screening
“You are invited to a special (free) Christmas/holiday screening of the multiple award winning Korean film, MILYANG (Secret Sunshine, 2007) directed by Lee Chang-dong (Green Fish, Peppermint Candy, Oasis), which won the Best Actress prize at Cannes last year for Jeon Do-yeon, and which has never been released in Canada. (It only screened once, here, earlier this year at the Cinematheque.) This is a rare opportunity to watch the best-reviewed Korean film of the last three years. The 35mm print comes to us courtesy of the distributor CJ Entertainment and Mijeong Lee (of FanTasia and CineAsie).”
The Place: Webster Library building, LB-125, The Cinéma De Sève
The Time: 7:00pm, Wednesday, December 17, 2008Jingle Bells, Peter Rist, The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema
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The 8th International School of Sound Symposium
THE SCHOOL OF SOUND: Exploring the art of sound with the moving image
15 – 18 April 2009
Southbank Centre, London“The School of Sound presents a stimulating and provocative series of master classes by practitioners, artists and academics on the creative use of sound with image. Directors, sound designers, composers, editors and theorists working at the highest levels of film, the arts and media show us the soundtrack from unexpected perspectives. They reveal the methods, theories and creative thinking that lie behind the most effective uses of sound and music. If you work in film, television, commercials, radio or multimedia – this event will convince you of the extraordinary potential of the soundtrack.
We have devised a programme that is as useful for the director, screenwriter or artist as it is for the sound designer and composer. Sound in storytelling, sonic environments, human sound perception – the topics range from the practical to the aesthetic to the abstract during these intense four-day meetings.
The April programme highlights the use of sound in documentary, animation and feature productions. It covers both narrative and experimental work, investigating the connections between sound, music and images. But, key to each presentation is an awareness of the subtle process of listening.
In its previous editions, the SOS has attracted delegates from over 25 countries. Join us for our eighth event in 2009. At the SOS you will not learn about hardware or software. But we can introduce you to the ideas of creators working at the cutting edge of sound production and inspire you to say, “I never thought of working that way.” “
Invited speakers
ROGER CRITTENDEN
Drama editor, former Head of the MA Programme at the NFTS and author of Fine Cuts: The Art of European Film EditingDANIEL DESHAYS
Sound Designer and Music Producer for film, radio, dance and theatre, collaborating with Chantal Akerman, Agnes Jaoui and Philippe GarrelMICHAEL GRIGSBY
British documentary filmmaker who began with the 1950s Free Cinema movement, continued at Granada TV and continues today (Before the Monsoon, The Time of Our Lives, Rehearsals)PAT JACKSON
Features Sound Designer (Jarhead, The English Patient,The Talented Mr. Ripley) and Film EditorGIDEON KOPPEL
Filmmaker, artist and lecturer whose work spans installation, commercials and documentary (Sleep Furiously)KIM LONGINOTTO
Documentary filmmaker (Divorce Iranian Style, The Day I Will Never Forget, Sisters In Law)STEVE MUNRO
Film Sound Designer known for his longtime collaboration with Atom EgoyanDAVID McALPINE
Professor of Auditory Neuroscience and Director of the Ear Institute at University
College LondonPIERS PLOWRIGHT
Radio features producerNITIN SAWHNEY
A songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Sawhney composes and performs across music, DJ-ing, film, videogames, dance, theatre and the concert hallPHIL SOLOMON
Avant-garde filmmaker, video and installation artistAKIO SUZUKI
The unique Japanese sound artist whose performances and installations explore the process of listeningHILDEGARD WESTERKAMP
Composer, radio artist and sound ecologist -
Cinema Abattori: Rip in Pieces USA & Sexualities/Frontieres (December 11)
Presents: Rip in Pieces USA & Sexualities/Frontieres. Thursday December 11, 2008, 9pm at (5$) at L’Envers – 185 Van Horne (Montréal, QC, Canada)
Rip in Pieces USA is a work in progress by Dominic Gagnon, Qc, 2008, 69 min:
“I was watching video on the Internet and I noticed that certain homemade clips were flagged for their content and quickly disappearing from free hosting sites. I started to save and edit them in a capsule format. Working in a gray zone about copyright, I nevertheless fulfill the authors’ will to contextualize their situation by grouping their videos together and then diffuse / preserve their messages.” –DG
when this thing goes down
and the crack-down happens
all this information that is on the internet
all these documentations… not going to be there anymore, man
they are going to cut off the main frame
delete all this information
that’s it
you’re not going to know anything-Preceded by Sexualities/Frontieres, a program of short films:
Dead Man II: Return of the dead man (Aryan Kaganof, Netherlands, 1994, 25min)
J. (Solomon Nagler & Alexandre Larose, Canada, 2008, 7min)
Nymph (Ken Jacobs, USA, 2007, 3min)
Antékid (Serge de Cotret, Québec, 2008, 6min)
The sister and the priest (Istvan Kantor, Hungary, 1998, 11min)
Day’s Night (Catherine Corringer, France, 2005, 18min)
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Il Mio Nome È Nessuno
Frequent Offscreen contributor Roberto Curti has added another intriguing book to his lengthening bibliography, with an excellent critical survey of the works of Tonino Valerii, entitled Il Mio Nome È Nessuno: Lo Spaghetti Western Secondo Tonino Valerii (My Name is Nobody: The Spaghetti Western According to Tonino Valerii. The book’s title would suggest that Curti deals only with Valerii’s five (out of his fourteen feature films) westerns: Per il gusto di uccidere/For the Taste of Killing, 1966, I Giorni dell’ira/Blood and Grit, 1967, Il Prezzo del potere/The Price of Power, 1969, Una Ragione per vicere e una per morire/A Reason to Live and a Reason to Die, 1972 and his most well known work, Il Mio Nome è Nessuno/My Name is Nobody. However, Curti spends an equal amount of time on Valerii’s other varied works, including his single giallo, Mio caro assassino/My Dear Killer, 1972, his dark romance La ragazza di nome Giulio/A Girl Called Jules, 1970,, and his crime films Vai Gorilla, 1976, The Sicilian Connection, 1987, and Sahara Cross, 1977, the latter, as Curti discusses on pages 74 to 78, being one of the first Italian films to extensively use the Steadicam. Curti feels that Valerii is underestimated as a director and argues convincingly for a re-evaluation of Valerii’s position within the landscape of popular Italian cinema. To this end, one of the goals of Curti’s book is to rescue Valerii from under the shadow of Sergio Leone, who produced his most popular film, My Name is Nobody. Curti writes:
“I temi preferiti da Valerii non sono pero l’epopea della Frontiera, il mito del progresso o la necessità di “stampare la leggenda”: al centro dell’attenzione c’è l’uomo, non l’icona leoniana dello “straniero senza nome”. Gli antieroi western del regista –con l’importante, significativa eccezione di Nessuno– sono outsiders tormentati e irrequieti, più vicini ai personaggii interpretrati da James Stewart nei western di Anthony Mann, segnati da conflitti interiori non meno laceranti di quelli a fuoco che punteggiano il loro cammino” (p. 15).
“Valerii’s preferred themes are not the Epic West, the myth of progress, or the classic ‘printing of the legend.’ At its center is man, but not Leone’s mythic ‘Man with no Name.’ His western antiheroes –with the significant exception of Nobody– are outsiders, tormented and restless, more in common with the characters played by James Stewart in the westerns of Anthony Mann, marked by interior conflicts which are no less lacerating than the fires that dot their path.”
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Mapping Cinematographic Territories: A Cybercartographic Atlas of Canadian Cinema
GPE Departmental Seminar Series Presents on Friday December 5th, 2008 at 11 am in H1252:
“The overall goal of this atlas is to better understand the influence of cinema in the construction and dissemination of geographic identities. To reach this goal, this atlas maps Canadian cinematographic territories, including the territories of film production (e.g. shooting location), of film audience (e.g. revenues of films and socio-demographic profiles), and of film action. Simultaneously, this atlas serves as a laboratory to explore new forms of cartographic techniques inspired by cinema, including jump cut framing, and audio-visual mapping.”
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Time and Place: The Films of Ernie Gehr
In collaboration with the Cinémathèque québécoise, the Web Journal Hors champ will be presenting a cycle of films by New York experimental filmmaker Ernie Gehr on the evenings of Octover 30, 31, and November 1, 2008: a rare occasion to discover the work of a true pioneer of the American Avant-Garde. Ernie Gehr will be in Montreal to present the three evenings of screenings (9 16mm gems) and a « Master Class » (in English) on the relationship between experimental cinema and early cinema.
Ernie Gehr and André Habib (organizer of the event and co-editor of Hors champ) will be also available for interviews.
“Ernie Gehr is, alongside Stan Brakhage, Michael Snow and Peter Kubelka, one of the pillars of experimental cinema. His films, and more recently his video and installation works, reveal a fascination for urban landscapes, sites of memory (Passage, Signal-Germany on the Air), perspective and the limits of perception (Serene Velocity), as well as optic toys (Cotton Candy), the origins of cinema (Eureka) or simply the tracing of light on film (Wait, Mirage). The conceptual rigor and the visual power of his films seem to operate a reduction of cinema to its fundamental elements, as if starting anew, each time, and rediscovering the destabilizing shock of the origins of cinema as well as its radical transformation of the visible. His films, that we could wrongly consider “minimalist”, are on the contrary the site of profound interior experiences. Made up of light, space, duration, movement, Ernie Gehr’s films also bare a documentary trace, always at the precise intersection of a specific time and place, whether it be a street in New York in 1971 (Shift), of San Francisco at the turn of the XXth Century (Eureka) or in the early 90’s (Side/Walk/Shuttle), or of Berlin in 1989, right before the fall of the Wall (This Side of Paradise). Although it is quoted in all the anthologies of avant-garde cinema, has been regularly written about by the most important scholars (Sitney, Gunning, Skoller, Michelsson, etc.) and praised by critics and film historians, the films of Ernie Gehr are proverbially hard to see. Hors champ has tried to modestly remedy this situation, by presenting, for the first time in Montreal, some essential “moments” of his vast filmography. Ernie Gehr will be in Montreal to present to programs and take part in a ‘Master Class.” (Double Negative Collective)
Hors champ receives the support of the Canada Arts Council and the Montreal Arts Council. This specific programme was made possible thanks to a contribution by the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema of Concordia University, as well as the Département d’Histoire de l’art et d’études cinématographiques of the Université de Montréal.
