Tag: Andrei Tarkovsky
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The Sacrifice (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986)
Easily among the slowest of them all. Tarkovsky’s films are few, and it’s fairly easy to mark out their shared formal features and formal progress. As long as Andrei Rublev is, its pacing doesn’t feel as slow as Stalker, Nostalghia, and The Sacrifice, the last of which plods along particularly monotonously on account of looming narrative questions during its first…
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Quickies, Vol. XXV: Catch-up
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (dir. Blake Edwards, 1961) – Been way too long since this one. It’s hard to watch it “objectively,” largely on account of its status as the origin of Audrey Hepburn’s ultimate and most everlasting image. This is interesting, considering how different her character here is from those in Roman Holiday, Sabrina, My…
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Quickies, Vol. IX
Gilda (dir. Charles Vidor, 1946): The tagline read, “Was there ever a woman like Gilda?” Indeed. Upon a more recent viewing of this long-been favorite, it appears much less textbook Mulvey than previously alleged. Gilda’s sort of the pawn, the tennis ball; but she’s also got more power than the two men/players combined. Would make…
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Quickies, Vol. III
Solaris (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky): Another example of non-verbal ponderings and metaphysical explorations transferred to film by the great Andrei. The only level at which the film is even a little transparent (translucent?) is its dissimilarity to Kubrick’s film. Solaris is the antithesis to 2001: in a vacuum, Brahms is silenced; what is most to be feared by…
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First Name: Carmen
Another work from Godard; this one comes after Passion, and clearly follows its style and themes. This time, however, narrative elements are stolen from Godard’s own Pierrot Le Fou, but Godard doesn’t bother to surprise the spectator with a fundamentally different conclusion. It would probably aid a viewing of this film to be familiar with…
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Stalker
Stalker pushes the limits of contemporary cinema, certainly of the narrative kind, past the point of normal accessibility. To break down physical spaces, colors, and textures of this film into simple psychoanalytic categories is unfair, as even Slavoj Žižek essentially concedes by wallowing in the wonder of Stalker‘s elements. Even this great thinker’s words and…
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Andrei Rublev
A quick list of the most epic epics would have to include (but of course not be limited to): Ran, Lawrence of Arabia, 1900, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Seven Samurai, Apocalypse Now and Andrei Rublev. Not only is a more abbreviated blog format striking my fancy, but justice couldn’t begin to be done to a…
Precious Bodily Fluids 