Rss Feed

Once Upon a Time

“It’s not an action film.  You’ll probably like it.”

Of course I want action in films, just not car chase, gun fight, sex, torture or treasure hunt, etc.  What is a movie without action?  Something has to happen in every frame.  Otherwise you might as well stare at a still photo.

Current wisdom: our attention span has gotten so short that the pace of a movie or a book has to become faster and shorter.  Artists are dealing with a scatter-brained public who is an insatiable moron of continuous action.

I don’t believe this for a second.

If enough film makers are serious about putting out high quality work then the public’s level of intellect will rise to meet the challenge.  To blame the audience is a cheap shot.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is not an action film but for two and a half hours it has the power to take me along with the players through an arduous journey.  When it finally releases me it drops me off at an odd place where I must decide how to gather up the loose ends, or not at all.

Share

Accordionism and The Folding Fan

Rummaging through Netflix the other night I came across Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies, a short documentary on how the birth of motion picture influenced the artists in their expressions.  Picasso and Braque impressed the concept of movements on the flat surface.  Like the folding and unfolding of the pleated bellow of the accordion and the Spanish fan, a woman’s turning face was not dissected but presented in a continuous, fluid manner.  Cubism all of a sudden no longer sounded cold and abstract to me, but full of energy and passion.  And art is passion.  How did I think it could be otherwise?

Share