The Mechanical Eye
Aleph - Oct 16, 2002 11:03 am
Edited by May 28, 2006 1:32 pm
Film, photography, television, new media... 
(1046 previous messages)
- Jan 5, 2009 4:29 pm (#1047 of 1060)
Yes, Aleph, the last two shots were taken at the Belgian Garden Centre which we visited last Saturday. The parrot on the picture is thirty-seven years old!
- Jan 5, 2009 5:07 pm (#1048 of 1060)
Edited Jan 5, 2009 7:44 pm
Aleph, Bertolucci's "The Conformist" which I had seen sometime in the 1980s remains sedimented in my memory. What I can mostly recall now are a number of images, especially the Bauhaus type of modernism, which as you suggest accentuates the political spirit of Fascism.
I find, however, the modernistic architecture of the Fascist movement, less offensive and less boring than the facade-like gigantic constructions of the "Third Reich". The buildings in the film are quite pleasing even by today's aesthetic standards, Interestingly enough, Italian Futurism was embraced by the Fascists, especially by Filippo Tomasso Marinetti an ideologue of Mussolini's movement, who was also one of the founders of Futurism.
In "The Conformist" Bertolucci managed to conjure up the feeling of brutal force and violence which prevailed in italy at the tiem The question, which still puzzles me is how this aesthetically intriguing atmosphere helped to accentuate the confused and suffocating ideology of the main character.
Aleph
- Jan 7, 2009 5:36 am (#1049 of 1060)
I re-watched another classic film tonight: Baisers Volés (Stolen Kisses) by François Truffaut. There are a few movies you fall in love with as a young person - I mean not just with the actors, or the characters or the cleverness of the story and so on and so forth, but the movie as a whole, as an experience, because it appears to say a great deal to you, even if it's all fluffy nonsense. Stolen Kisses was one such film, and it was interesting to revisit it; I still found it worthwhile and tremendously enjoyable, and although there is nothing very subtle or complex about the film, it seemed so much clearer after this viewing, since I found, to my surprise, there were things that made much more sense to me than they did before. I've had a very long day so I shall try to add something about it tomorrow.
- Jan 7, 2009 2:13 pm (#1050 of 1060)
What I remember best of this very amusing film, Aleph, is the performance of the delightful Delphine Seyrig who seduces the young Antoine in an inimitable manner......:-)
Aleph
- Jan 9, 2009 5:00 am (#1051 of 1060)
One of my favourite parts from the movie, Erwin, or from almost any other movie; Truffaut miraculously pulled off making her as seductive to the viewer as she was to Doinel - something that usually requires a lot of imagination. I was shocked to discover she was the main (female) role in Last Year at Marienbad - the two films are only about seven years apart, yet she appears to be much, much younger in Resnais' film. She had an interesting life too: she grew up in Lebanon, where her father was an archeologist, and in NYC.
- Jan 11, 2009 3:31 am (#1052 of 1060)
Delphine Seyrig had tremendous poise You can see this very clearly in the highly stylized dance scene in Margaret Duras film "India Song"
- Jan 11, 2009 3:31 am (#1053 of 1060)
Ice flowers.
Aleph
- Jan 11, 2009 4:34 am (#1054 of 1060)
I haven't seen the Duras film - it was very hard to find last time I looked, and now I am prompted to find it again.
Those ice flowers look fantastic, Erwin - were they taken at your window or did you come across them somewhere else?
- Jan 11, 2009 12:12 pm (#1055 of 1060)
I captured these ice flowers from the windows of my study with my tiny digital camera. It was a terribly frosty winter morning.
- Jan 12, 2009 11:51 pm (#1056 of 1060)
In the foyer of "La Scala, Milan.
Aleph
- Jan 16, 2009 9:29 am (#1057 of 1060)
Erwin, to be blunt, I don't this picture above is entirely successful. Do you want to tell us what you were aiming for? The girl's back is interesting in itself, and more so in juxtaposition with the mirrors and bust, but they don't seem to have come together very well.
Aleph
- Jan 16, 2009 9:32 am (#1058 of 1060)
I rewatched "Eyes Wide Shut" the night before. I saw it in the theatre when it was first released, almost exactly ten years ago. I thought then and still think that it wasn't quite everything it tried to be or what critics have made it out to be; a very intense film that sometimes becomes its own parody because so much has been overdone and yet other things have not been fleshed out.
- Apr 3, 2009 11:20 pm (#1059 of 1060)
Sunset at Kingston over Lake Ontario
Aleph
- Apr 6, 2009 1:45 am (#1060 of 1060)
Hello Erwin! Lovely colours. How have you been?
You know, I was thinking of our discussions again the last couple of weeks. I saw a couple of films by the director Miklós Jancsó, whom you first mentioned to me here on this forum - The Red and The White, and The Round Up. 
The Mechanical Eye