A short film about five individuals that live on a platform floating in space.
They constantly work together to keep the platform balanced until one day a mysterious box threatens to shift the balance of power.
Made in 1989 by the twins Christoph Lauenstein and Wolfgang Lauenstein, Balance won the Oscar for the Best Animated Short at the Academy Awards in 1990.
A excellent interview with Alfred Hitchock on the Tomorrow Show in 1973. Among other things, Tom Snyder asks Hitchcock about the roots of his fears.
Good Stuff.
The interview that has become the stuff of legends in all decent Werner Herzog discussions. During a interview in L.A. he gets shot by a sniper using a air riffle but insists on finishing the interview. The calm expression on Herzog’s face tells a million stories.
If a film critic is suppose to be capable of criticizing a movie he has seen. Then he must obtain a certain comprehension of that movie. If he cannot fulfill this condition, then his opinion cannot be seen as a productive film criticism. The comprehension of a movie is however not the same as understanding the basic plot. To be able to recite the story of a certain action movie is not the same thing as comprehension. The comprehension I am talking about is much deeper than that. In his book Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism, Monroe Beardsley says that when the critic is confronted by an aesthetic object, like a movie, it is his responsibility to see what kind of thing it is. Everything that he may do or say regarding that object depends on this:
… though he does not expect to discover all its manifold features and aspects, he cannot even fully enjoy it until he has a good grasp of its main features and primary aspects. Now, the critic may be content to observe and to enjoy, but if he plans to interpret or to evaluate the work, then he must be prepared to give at least a partial description of it-to point out clearly those characteristics upon which its interpretable significance or its aesthetic value depends. [1]
What kind of comprehension are we talking about? Does it require the critic to view a movie over and over again for days? That he goes back into the movie theatre multiple times until he knows every shot, every move and every gesture that is portrayed in it? No. The film critic is not obligated to study a movie as deeply as a scholar, but then again it would not hurt the critic to at least take the scholars methods to heart, because:
… [c]ritical descriptions are of all levels of precision and specificity, but they are most helpful when they discriminate and articulate details, and thus give us an insight into the inner nature of the object. Such a description is called an analysis … [2]
Comprehension involves identifying that which the critic sees and analyzes what is on the screen, not falling victim to old creeds and presume that he has seen it all before. Comprehension is achieved by analyzing the features that a movie presents. The job of a critic is to identify what those features are and how they work together.
The features of a movie are constantly changing. But movies are fictional stories, and stories always have a certain structure, no matter how simple or how complicated they may be. It can be the classic three part story arc where you have your beginning, middle and end or it can be something that completely turns everything on its head. Movies can often be confusing, introduce infinite number of ways to tell their stories. But there is always a structure, some comprehension that allows us to view the story that’s being told. When we are watching a movie, we are always being shown something – being told something. Therefore it’s important that we comprehend that what is being shown to us.
If we take an oversimplified example, then the movie 1408 (Mikael Håfström, 2007) comes to mind. The movie can be viewed as a ghost film about a writer that investigates paranormal activity, checks into a haunted hotel room and ends up in a deadly situation where he fights for his live. If an audience member was however paying some attention to what he was seeing he would without a doubt know that this was not a ghost movie, the movie does not imply it nor ever suggest it.
This example is, again, overly simple. I suspect that a vast majority of movie goers that saw 1408 did realize this fact. But what I am trying to highlight here are two different levels of comprehension: those who walked out of the theatre, thinking it was a ghost movie are wrong. It is not a question of interpretation or insight – but a matter of fact. In the movie the hotel manager says to the writer that the hotel room is not haunted. We never see ghosts in the room; the movie is not a ghost movie.
The point of this example is to guide us to understand what the film is about in addition to its basic plot. More clues about the movies features appear in its first sequence. We watch the main character check into another ”haunted“ hotel, listening to the managers ghost stories and then spend the night staring at the wall because nothing happens. This sequence does not only introduce us to the movies main protagonist and his disbelief in the supernatural, but also to present us with series of features: shots of the main characters car driving on a dark and stormy night; standing and listening to the managers ghost stories, who is obviously just trying to sell the illusion of the hotel as an exciting place to stay in. The main character sits in the room, performs a few test with gauges but doesn‘t encounter any ghosts. What features has the movie presented us with?
From the first shot of the car driving in the rain, the movie has put forth a dark and dreary tone and the cinematography suggests certain isolation. When the protagonist listens to the managers ghost stories it implies that psychological dread will play a certain role in the film. Even though the main character does not see anything the whole night, the cinematography and mise en scene keep a certain tension going – like something might happen in the future.
These are simple features that the movie presents in the beginning, features that will change in one form or another later on. They are both derived from the basic story, the actor’s performances and the technical aspects of the movie. If the movie suggests in the beginning that the story entails dark and dreary things and paranormal activity, but then changes those features and becomes a typical action movie, where a very real person is simply stalking and killing everyone that stays in the hotel room – the critic must identify and analyze how the features the movie has presented change during the course of the plot and how the coherence of those changes work.
If we try to describe in a simple way how 1408 could fail to account for the changes in the features it puts forth – we can imagine that it upholds its dark and dreary theme throughout the movie, until the final sequence where it simply becomes a romantic comedy – if the movies features would not be changed in a coherent way, a way that would logically make sense, then in all probability the movie would be a failure. The failure could, for example, entail a sudden change of pace and style in the cinematography without warning and without changing the basic plot.
I believe that this kind of analysis will give the viewer a better comprehension of a movie. Normal movie goers can of course ignore that kind of analysis and watch the movie without thinking of its coherency, which is his right. Majority of movie goers are used to accepting the features that are presented to them without giving it much thought. But a film critic is not a common movie goer, he must watch the movie with a critical and analytical mindset, it’s his job.
To understand and comprehend a movie is the prerequisite of judging a movie. A common movie goer can say that a certain movie was simply bad – but that is not a productive film criticism but a personal opinion. The film critic must support his argument and his opinions. If he cannot, then he has not shown comprehension and his judgment is therefore not, a productive film criticism.
[2] Beardsley, Monroe. 1981:75.
A short film by the russian filmmaker Yuri Norshteyn (born 1941). Hedgehog in the Fog (1975) tells a simple little tale about a hedgehog on his way to meet his friend the bear but gets lost in the fog.
Yuri Norshteyn has worked on dozens of animated films since 1962 and the still unfinished The Overcoat since 1981.
Hedgehog in the Fog on youtube.
One of my favorite movies, the one that I can watch over a 1000 times and then 1000 more without ever getting bored by it, the one I don’t tell people about unless they are in my circle of trust, the one I just love despite knowing that its heavily flawed and quite possibly bad as hell.
I have quite many of those guilty pleasures. In the Mouth of Madness (1994, John Carpenter) is amongst the top ones. I started watching this film when I was 13 years old, and now 15 years later, I still watch it on a regular basis. It’s heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft stories and the celebrity persona of Stephen King. It’s about things that are so horrible that tey cannot be described or shown, because if you ever see them.. it will drive you mad.
That’s just the kind of stuff a horror fanboy loves. Throw in a little H.P. Lovecraft obsession and a dash of John Carpenter enthusiasm in there and you got yourself a perfect example of a guilty pleasure.
I can in no way review this film in a non bias manner. My reasons for loving it are in no means logical – they are very personal. The themes touch my inner child and make me giggle, simple as that. I know its a very flawed movie, but I don’t think it’s bad at all. I actually think in many ways it contains some of the best scenes and ideas that John Carpenter has put on film. It is flawed, but I love its flaws. Those over-the-top moments, that subtle plot hole that screams at you… these flaws make the movie great… and indeed it makes me a pervert in the cinematic sense.
In the Mouth of Madness trailer on youtube.
One of my favorite animated shorts is Destino (2003). It’s in my favorites partly because of its historic significance. The production began in 1945 and was a joint effort by Salvador Dali and the Disney studio. Because of financial issues it’s production stopped after 8 months. 58 years later, in 2003, it was finally finished.
Destino on youtube.
In the fall of 2007, when I was a exchange student at the University of Cork in Ireland, I lived in a student housing about 20 minutes from the school and about 40 minutes from the city centre. During that semester I walked a lot. Just going to a shop downtown meant about 2 hour trip minimum and after the first few weeks I had listened to my entire music collection on my ipod and desperately needed something to occupy my mind during those long walks.
It was about that time that I became avid listener of Scott Johnson, a web cartoonist that hosts a few radio shows, or podcasts, from his home in Utah where he talks about movies, video games and everything else that crosses his mind along with his co-hosts. He has a great following with his two main podcasts; Extralife Radio and The Instance. These shows completely saved my semester and I have been a listener and a fan ever since.
The charm of Mr. Scott Johnson, and his co-hosts, lies in their passion for what they talk about. They have great love for movies, comics and video games and talk very honestly about what the like and dislike and how certain works have influenced them through the years.
But most importantly, they are fun as hell to listen to.
Most recently, Scott made a new podcast that’s called The FilmSack Podcast and is entirely devoted to movies:
“Each week, the FilmSack crew picks a strange movie from the bowels of Netflix streaming and splatters it all over your inner ear. Sometimes it’s a long forgotten horror movie from the 70′. Sometimes it’s a under the radar gem of brilliance from last year. One way or the other, this is not your typical movie show.”
The first episode of this fun podcast is now available to download for free on itunes or their official website, and in this first episode they talk about a classic 80′s movie called Krull (1983).
I can’t recommend this podcast enough, it’s clever, informative and downright fun. I also recommend Scott’s website myextralife.com
One way into the topic of this post is to ask: What is Film Criticism? The question may seem at first to be simple and easy to answer: film criticism is a criticism of film. We are all, in a way, film critics. Every time we offer our opinions on a movie, we are in fact criticizing it. The reasons for our judgments can be as diverse as our reasons for wanting to see movies; entertainment, knowledge, religion, political etc. It is a man’s own decision whether or not to concern himself with any medium for its own sake.[1]
When we see a movie we have recently seen we tend to tell others (even though they don’t always ask). We may not get into much explanation about why we thought a particular film was good but we might say that it was fun, informative, ingenious, smart, etc., but we rarely go into deep reasoning or arguments on what lies behind our opinions. We simply feel that a particular movie is either good or bad. Such criticism (or opinion) might well suffice our friends, but would it be enough if we offered this kind of opinion to filmmakers, film theorists or movie goers (if our opinion where published in a magazine or a newspaper)? In that regard, we would undoubtedly have to ask if a film criticism like that would be professional.
If we make the claim that professional film criticism is, among other things, informative and well-founded then the critic has to say why he found a particular film good. A film critic needs to support his claim with a analysis of the film’s presentation and describe what he liked about it and what he didn’t. Whoever that reads or hears his criticism needs to understand his premise and conclusion so they can, in turn, learn from it, analyze it and compare with their own experience. In that way, the film criticism would be of some use. It would be, in a sense, a professional film criticism whereas the readers understanding of that film would be greater as a result from reading it.
There is therefore a certain difference in degree between a personal and a professional film criticism. The former tries to describe a personal experience based on a individuals feelings, but the latter tries to investigate and rationalize films based on the analysis of the film critic. This difference in degree can also been found in the different ways we use film criticism; personal film criticism is about describing our opinions in a simple way, but professional film criticism is about providing others with a rational and analyzing assessment on the value of films.
The great Jan Svankmajer was born 1934 in Prague. A unique voice in the world of film and has directed over 30 films. He is often described as a silent film director but as David Rudrum notes in his essay Silent Dialogue: Philosophing with Jan Svankmajer, that to call his films wordless or soundless is missing a vital element that persists in his films:
“Many of them are structured around evocative music (for example, J. S. Bach: Fantasy in G Minor, 1965) and employ gruesome sound effects (as in Dimensions of Dialogue, 1982). Others, in the tradition of silent cinema, employ words on-screen, as text (for example, The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia, 1990), and elsewhere Svankmajer uses voice-over to skillful effect (as in Jabberwocky, 1971). To think of his films in terms of an absence or lack of language, then, is misleading. Rather, they practice a conscious rejection of conventional dialogue.” (p. 114)
Leo Goldsmith says in his discussion of Lunacy (2006) that Jan Svankmajer’s cinema is”:
… an explicitly, aggressively sensual one; his camera advocates a direct, tactile engagement with the world in all its oozing grotesquerie, rather than a smooth mythologization of it. In interviews, the filmmaker has expounded the virtues of an active pursuit of repulsion — that which frightens, disgusts, or otherwise repels one ought to be confronted, even embraced — and his films often draw the viewer into this exercise. No door opens without a creak, no furniture moves without scraping the floor, and above all, no food is consumed without a lapping of saliva or the churning sounds of mastication.”
The short film Meat Love (1989) by Jan Svankmajer on youtube.
The short film Flora (1989) by Jan Svankmajer on youtube.
