this could easily lead into another “how in the hell did The Departed win best picture?” rant, but i’m not going to go there.

instead, let me just say that Children of Men is incredible.

i’d read about it a month or so ago in American Cinematographer and have been itching to see it ever since. unfortunately i didn’t make it to the theatre in time to see it on the big screen, but thankfully it’s out on dvd.

so much of this film was wonderful. the story, the theme, the acting, the cinematography, the directing, the directing, the directing. incredible. Alfonso Cuarón has a Felini-like ability to choreograph a sequence and his long-takes were perfect for the documentary-feel that he and Emmanuel Lubezki actualized masterfully.

there’s something wonderful going on with Latin American cinema and i’m very glad to be able to experience it.

the dvd extras include a really great minidoc that’s also not to be missed.

definitely see this film. you’ll be glad you did.

yesterday nova and i went to the moma as part of her birthday celebration. we hadn’t been since the renovations and were really looking forward to it.

preparing myself to once again experience the bacons and duchamps and the other pieces of art that have inspired me so much before, i was more floored when i discovered a new source of inspiration that, for some unknown reason, i had never seen before: gerhard richter.

i can’t really describe what i was feeling as we walked into the gallery that contained about fifteen of his “blurred” paintings, from his October 18, 1977 collection, but it was something definitely incredible. something clicked.

coming home and immediately doing some research on him and his collection, i found a wonderful quote that speaks volumes.

“One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone. For basically painting is idiocy.” —Richter, ‘Notes 1973′.

i believe the same is true for film as well.

i saw this film opening night (thank you nova!) in nyc and am amazed i haven’t posted about it until now.

if you haven’t seen it already, go while there’s still time!

open your mind and tell yourself that you’re not seeing a traditional movie, but instead are going to experience a piece of cinema by a master artist.

also, remember that Lynch shot this film on consumer grade mini-dv cameras (sony pd-150) and did a blow up to 35mm for theatrical release. some of the photography (especially the first sequence and the poland sequences) are simply stunning (i wonder if these were the shots where peter demming, asc was brought in to light?). however, the “less cinematic shots” serve their part as well. they’re incredibly arresting and definitely add to the “experience” that Lynch is so amazing at creating.

do I wish the film was shot entirely on 35mm to allow for the beautiful images i love so much from his previous work? i admit that i do, but i also realize that the film would have a completely different feel and i absolutely appreciate the beautiful things he’s done with digital video (and has proven are possible).

inland empire is an incredible experience. support this independent film!

check out: inlandempirecinema.com for more information and venues.

seriously.

it’s been about six years since i first saw this movie and i’ve been waiting patiently for it to get released on dvd. finally it’s come out and i got to watch it again (just a few hours ago).

simply incredible. still. so much symbolism. amazing light. a nearly perfect film.

also wonderful are (the dvd extras) the interviews with bertolucci and storaro and the scene which he cut (for length) for the u.s. release. two masters talking about a film some 36-odd years after having shot it.

there are a few films that revitalize my passion for filmmaking and this is (still) definitely one of them.

one of my favorite stories from one of my favorite writers…

“Borges and I”

The other one, the one called Borges, is the one things happen to. I walk through the streets of Buenos Aires and stop for a moment, perhaps mechanically now, to look at the arch of an entrance hall and the grillwork on the gate; I know of Borges from the mail and see his name on a list of professors or in a biographical dictionary. I like hourglasses, maps, eighteenth-century typography, the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship; I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me. It is no effort for me to confess that he has achieved some valid pages, but those pages cannot save me, perhaps because what is good belongs to no one, not even to him, but rather to the language and to tradition. Besides, I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Little by little, I am giving over everything to him, though I am quite aware of his perverse custom of falsifying and magnifying things.

Spinoza knew that all things long to persist in their being; the stone eternally wants to be a stone and the tiger a tiger. I shall remain in Borges, not in myself (if it is true that I am someone), but I recognize myself less in his books than in many others or in the laborious strumming of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free myself from him and went from the mythologies of the suburbs to the games with time and infinity, but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to imagine other things. Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him.

I do not know which of us has written this page.

-Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

Text is from Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings (New York: New Directions, 1964).