Dear Stella,

Creative Deconstruction on a Deserted Island

Dear Stella,

I don’t know where to start, which is where I’ll start.  You know me to not shut up from fear of seeming ignorant, ill-informed, wrong.  A long time ago I began my struggle against totalities, authoritative knowledge, the idea that right and wrong are opposites.  Sometimes good and bad are the same thing, and sometimes the need for 1/0 binaries is less than the desire to plant a garden.

I’m talking about trust and vision, and the skeptical witness: the courage to continue watching despite knowing that sight itself is flawed and inaccurate.

It’s a type of discomfort I get watching certain films.  Like reading the news knowing the larger story is between the lines, but not having the depth perception to see through it.  I always hated those Magic Eye posters for the same reason: my eyes fail me in this way.

And so for me — always trusting my head more than than my gut — when I get a visceral suspicion, when I sense a subtext, it’s very unusual for me, and very unsettling.  But it does happen, beyond all likelihood.  On occasion my stomach tells me something my brain slept through.

These moments are what I’m trying to tell you.  This is hard to explain, but give me a minute.

This is a deconstructive reading, in the classic sense, by Derrida’s original theory.  Deconstruction is a type of analysis that looks at a text as a complete and closed system, and attempts to find moments where the logic of the system contradicts itself.  History, the world, the author, intention, none of this is relevant in a deconstructive analysis.  The word “fissure” always comes to mind when I think about deconstruction: finding the cracks in the logic, and then showing how the cracks ARE the logic, that the logic has many layers, contradictory layers, and this is neither good or bad, but both (and everything in between).

Ultimately, deconstruction is a method of honor, it’s a method of trust.

Certain people when they learn I am vegan will offer a series of “what if?” questions, meant to test my ethical flexibility, each ending with the phrase “would you eat meat then?”  “What if all the vegetables were poisoned….”  “What if you were lost in a forest with only a knife….”  “What if someone held a gun to your head….”  And finally, exhausted by my mundane answers to their mundane questions, they invariably arrive at the final impasse question: “What if you were on a deserted island with a cow, would you make yourself starve to death before eating meat?”

“No, I’d eat the cow.”

The deconstructive fissures I’ve noticed in certain films is much like the outcome of these conversations I’ve been having for the past thirteen years.  The point made is simple and powerful: I have proven that there is a situation where a committed vegetarian will kill and eat an animal.  And if I told them that they just performed a deconstructive analysis of my eating habits, would they be even more pleased with themselves?

Here are three examples of films in which I have found this type of deserted island logic.  Call it creative deconstruction (“creative” because although I am always a student, I am no academic, and I’m sure I’ve taken liberties with the deconstructive model, so you’ll grant me a little license, won’t you, Stella?).

Children of Men

The film Children of Men proves that there is a situation where abortion can threaten the future of all human life.

I’ve brought this up with other friends, and some of them thought I was reading way too much into it, despite how obvious it seemed to me.  But it’s there, subtextually, which is where all deconstruction begins.  No one in the film ever says the word “abortion.”  Which is fascinating to me.  This is a world where abortion has become unnecessary, because women were all miscarrying.  Eventually, conception was no longer possible, and thus abortion was no longer an option.  And so in this infertile dystopia, with the memory of abortion buried for more than 18 years, a pregnant woman would never consider having an abortion for many reasons, the simplest of which is that abortion no longer exists.

A more complicated reason is that the fate of all humankind is in her womb.  The pregnancy is power; the capacity to conceive is a powerful act, as evidenced by the lengths people will go to in the film to utilize that power for their own gains.  As evidenced by the momentary stoppage of the endless battle when the soldiers hear the baby crying.  The message is clear: there is at least one situation where giving birth has the power to stop war.

And so, let’s bring this back to the deserted island: What if she had aborted her pregnancy?  Well, we’ll never know for sure, because the film doesn’t unfold that way.  But the question is there, if you care to look for it.

Training Day

The film Training Day proves that there is a situation where a white man killing a black man can be a favor to black people.

Now, to be fair, the white man doesn’t kill the black man himself.  He shoots him in the ass, but that’s not the bullet that kills him.  However, it is the white cop’s noble mission to correct the corrupt black cop that leads to his death, to the benefit of the black community long manipulated by his schemes.

The novel on which Children of Men was based was written by a woman; this fact does not prevent the concept from having an anti-abortion subtext.  Training Day was directed by a black male; this fact does not mean that institutionalized racism is completely absent from the film.  Meaning cannot be controlled, it cannot be limited or restricted.  Meaning is determined by the arrangement of a system, not by the intentions of its user.  This is a starting point for a deconstructive analysis: the world outside the text is irrelevant.  It’s a fascinating place to begin.

Transformers

The film Transformers proves that there is a situation where a monomaniacal accumulation of military might can save the planet.

When explaining this idea to HB, I had to also explain the film’s premise, since she had never seen the film.  Have you?  Basically, Earth is invaded by good and bad alien robots called Transformers.  They have destroyed their own planet in an endless war.  The bad robots have come to Earth to make a new home for themselves, and must end human life before they can really settle in.  The good robots feel some kinship with humans, and do not want to see their planet destroyed as an outcome of the robot war on the robot planet.  It just doesn’t seem fair to the good robots.

But the good and bad robots are pretty evenly matched, in terms of their ability to destroy one another.  Which is probably why the war on their home planet is still going on.  (Which may be a reason why their technology is so fascinating to the military scientists in the film: My, what lovely destructive innovations you have.  The better to kill you with, my dear.)  In the fights between the robots on Earth, the turning point in each of them is the ingenuity and courage of the US military, and the ability for citizens to absorb and replicate that ingenuity and courage.

For military might is not just the amassing of airplanes, bombs, guns, and soldiers: it is also the accumulation of minds.  A military force cannot grow without a culture that condones its use.

United by a common enemy, the humans and good robots war to protect and preserve world peace.  Okay, I just laughed when I wrote that last sentence.  Which doesn’t make it untrue, but maybe makes it a little more unreal.

*****

Stella, as with most of my ideas, these are half-formed and sincere-yet-doomed.  And of course, as you know, that’s just the way I like it.  If I think of more films that have this type of logic, I’ll let you know, and I hope you do the same for me.

And until then, I remain yours, dear.

Xoxo,

David.

10.23.08 -- Vagabond

Dear Stella,

I rarely understand films. I have a hard time condensing a film into a “what it’s about” capsule. I’d be horrible at writing copy for the backs of DVDs. I think I’m too uncertain, unconfident, uneasy with locking down meaning. I’m better with feelings than with messages. In my myopic world, I like to imagine that no film ever has meaning, that its meaning is always larger than the words that summarize it.

And so I almost never understand what a movie is about, aside from the trivial plot movements. I have a hard time detecting themes, tropes, subtext, innuendo, symbolism, metaphor. Christian was really good at it, and I loved talking with him after films, because he had a gift for instant insight. I’m a slow boil, I take my time. Sometimes forever.

But watching Vagabond, I had a moment, I found the occassion to believe in myself, in my ability to look deeper. Finally, something made sense in a profound way.

Mona is a ghost.

As a metaphor, ghosts suggest to me the interplay between history and memory. If you have memory without history, that’s nostalgia. Both history and memory together make identity. Neither history nor memory is both death and birth.

And history without memory are ghosts. They provide the occassion to remember.

Of course, as always, I’m riffing right now. I’m working with my own fancied understandings of these words, their conventions, their sources. I don’t know what I know. But this is always true, with everyone. I’m just scared enough to admit it.

In Vagabond, Mona enters into a situation suddenly, interacts with the characters, and then vanishes. Having few possessions of her own, she rarely leaves a physical trace on those around her. What she leaves is her memory, as recounted in retrospective interviews throughout the film.

And like most ghosts, Mona’s presence represents more about the surrounding characters than Mona herself. She provides an occassion to confront fear, memory, amnesia, desire, anger, prejudice, etc. She works as a contrast device, juxtaposing her rootlessness and ephemeral existance with the bounded lifestyles of those who interact with her. Through Mona, these people confront their own failures and shortcomings, and become more like themselves than before, for better or worse.

Nothing makes us feel more alive than when we experience death.

Mona from the very first scene represents death and its inevitability. She is found dead in a ditch to start the film, and the story is told posthumously, looking backward, scouring the collective memory of those people who saw her in her last weeks. The end of Mona’s story is the beginning of the film, and I watched it knowing that she was a corpse waiting to happen. Like everyone else, you and I are future ghosts. Mona took to haunting while she was still alive. She is the catalyst that makes people real.

Stella, it makes perfect sense in my head. The reason I write to you is so I’ll get better at writing to you. And here I go again.

Miss you, miss.

Xoxo,

David.

P.S. “Death will come and will have your eyes.” That’s Cesare Pevese. Have I told you lately how pretty you are? Don’t look, it’s tragic.

9.18.08 -- La Chinoise

Dear Stella,

The excitement when I decided to watch every film from Godard’s New Wave period. The satisfaction when I checked another one off the list. And now, the sad humor of wanting to not watch any more. The joy of disappointing myself, and how that can feel empowering at the same time.

I’ve let myself down, intentionally, with enthusiasm.

So I think about the Situationists, who I think about a lot lately. At a time when I easily lose focus, lose momentum, feign enthusiasm, reading situationist literature excites me, incites me, feels dangerous to read still now, 40 years later. Like the first time I heard Fugazi, the first time I introduced myself as a white person, the first time I read Hélène. Reading the Situationists is a series of firsts, over and over, new and again new.

They defined themselves with vigor, and what I think about lately is this:

Since the ultimate criterion of the modern revolutionary organization is its totalness, such an organization is ultimately a critique of politics. It must explicitly aim to dissolve itself as a separate organization at its moment of victory.

Victory is a disappearance. Everywhere the revolution, but nowhere the revolutionaries.

And now, me, having learned enough from Godard for the time being, I’m comfortable with this, happy to fall short. The failure of failure. For now. For a minute more.

I think that synchronicity always exists, that at all times in my life there are surreal moments of collaboration between disparate activities, but I am not always receptive to these synchronicities. It is at times of my greatest health and attention that I have the capacity to notice them, while other times—when I am bored or frustrated or weak or focused inward—they are there, but I cannot think to see them.

And here, lately, reading the Situationists, watching Godard, reading the Situationist account of the May 1968 student uprising, watching La Chinoise and its critique of summer revolutionaries, reading the Situationist critique of Godard, mostly a critique of the lack of critiques of Godard, cinema’s golden calf. I appreciate their zeal for battle.

Even while at the same time still young in my study, still learning so much from Godard, still so uncertain in general. And then the characters in La Chinoise, how I recognized myself in them. Because I romanticize revolution, and I am not a proletariat. If given a choice between study and practice, which would I choose? I’m stuck in my head most days, you know this. And hour after hour I talk about action, talk about work and movement, and sit by myself reading without plan or purpose, without output.

Maybe my saving grace is that I know this, that at least I can see the struggle.

I’m talking about what I’ve been talking about for years: my favoring of theory over practice, intellect and not body, the talk without the walk.

And where would I be in this personal battle without Deleuze, without the rhizome reminding me to stop thinking in binaries, to stop simplifying beyond use. I know there is more than theory vs. practice. I am bigger than that.

But still, some days I’m stunned to realized how many hours straight I’ve sat in this chair, while the world rages on

Stella, I know I’m blessed to be in a position where this is a complaint. I don’t take my situation for granted. But I do take it for serious.

And Jeanne would tell me that that’s the real problem. Too serious, now, all over again.

Today was a good day, a productive day. I know that I’m happiest when I work. Here’s to remembering that. Here’s to taking myself just serious enough to value my own happiness. Here’s to work.

Xoxo,
David.

P.S. “Our language aims first of all at practice that tears apart the world, beginning with tearing apart the veils that cloak it.” That’s Khayati, from the SI, clearly. I’m working to take it off, I’m beginning to see how it’s done. With time.

9.8.08 -- Cléo from 5 to 7

Dear Stella,

Who would I be without French culture? I try to imagine sometimes. So much of my favorite art comes from France. And why is this? Surely part of it is the rich culture of original thought there. But always a chronic skeptic, I wonder if I enjoy French culture more because I enjoy identifying myself as a person who enjoys French culture.

The temptation is strong for me.

I want to return to this point, but later. Now I want to make a list. There’s Louis Althusser, making me cry in college. Derrida’s Of Grammatology curbed me off philosophy for over a year. The films of Godard, Haneke, Breillat, Jeunet. Debord and the Situationists. Vaneigem’s Revolution of Everyday Life rehabilitated a huge portion of my cynicism. Recently Deleuze. And Hélène, oh Hélène.

So, for me, a person who marks progress by the ideas he consumes, where would I have progressed without French culture? How far would I have gone, and in what direction? Yesterday I had to browse my DVDs to find an American director I actually liked, so maybe that could have been my focus. Maybe it still should be.

And so here I am, finally coming to Agnès Varda, her Cléo from 5 to 7.

This is the point to which I wanted to return: that I identify as a person who seeks out the undersought. That sentence was fun to write.

What I mean is: a few months ago I made a list of women filmmakers, because I wanted to see more of their films. I made a list of black filmmakers too, gay filmmakers, Iranian, Chinese, African filmmakers.

I want to be a person who loves the unloved. I want to be rememory.

At university, I noticed a sad girl in the dining hall, I noticed her because I loved her and took great pains to notice her whenever I could, and I saw her sadness immediately. Since her boyfriend (oops) was out of the room, I went up to her and said, “Are you okay?” She looked up at me and said, “Yes, I’m okay.”

Later that night, I found a note slipped under my door. I recognized her handwriting immediately, her straight “y” and thin “e”: “You’re so perceptive. Thank you.”

I’ve been looking for that feeling ever since, the pride of calling love by its name, when no one else noticed enough to call it at all.

I still miss her some days.

I had meant to write about Agnès Varda. Are you surprised I haven’t?

Me neither.

Here’s something: yesterday I joined a Facebook group called “Agnès Varda is a PIMP.”

I miss your humor, Stella. You get me when no one else did. I hope I did the same for you. See above thoughts.

Xoxo,
David.

P.S. “I am not a spontaneous heroine.” That’s Cixous. It takes time, getting there. I’m working on it.

9.6.08 -- Jubilee

Dear Stella,

Watching Jubilee, directed by Derek Jarman, I said to BilJax that films like this remind me that new ideas are still possible, that there are films to make that don’t yet exist.

And so, a poem by Richard Brautigan comes to mind.

THE LAST SURPRISE

The last surprise is when you come
gradually to realize that nothing
surprises you anymore.

I was surprised and inspired by this film. It made me happy to be alive.

As with you, Stella

Xoxo,
David.

P.S. “It is a matter not of putting poetry at the service of revolution, but rather of putting revolution at the service of poetry.” That’s Vaneigem. Remember the difference, remember what comes first.

8.28.08 -- Othello

Dear Stella,

A few days ago Edward asked me for my opinion on the cinematography of a film shot by his friend. Edward and I have a history where I can tell him my opinion bluntly without worrying about feelings or other lesser friendship pitfalls; we’ve got more serious things to worry about. So I tell him his friend’s film looks like it was shot by a director, by someone who is clearly not a cinematographer.

I know this style, because it’s muchly my style as well.

And he asked me what I meant, and I told him the shots look flat, they lack depth. All the action occurs on one plane: the front. I’m comparing it to films in which I admire the layered cinematography: the blocking in Sweetie, the background plot movement in Children of Men, the constant reframing in the opening shot of Code Unknown. But mostly I’m thinking about Orson Welles.

So you know me, always eager to prove myself right. Here’s Othello, which I watched later that night.

This shot is an example of multiple planes. The soldiers’ helmets in the foreground, the line of soldiers shrinking into the horizon, and the flags on the tower in back. All of the soldiers are in focus, which is a technique called “deep focus,” pioneered by Welles. But what I like about this shot is how it builds space through blocking and framing. Soldiers crop all sides of the frame, creating a claustrophobic and ubuquitous effect, making 25 soldiers feel like thousands. Soldiers are everywhere. Cinema is a two-dimensional medium, and the struggle to represent the third dimension, like bringing an atheist to church, convincing a magician that magic is real. I think this is called “depth of field,” right? I’m still learning, always.

Edward told me one reason the cinematography wasn’t spectacular in his friend’s film was that his friend was more concerned with his directing than the camerawork. I can appreciate that decision; I know what it’s like to be a one-person crew, how the priorities fall. But I also know this: that if the camerawork is not important, then the story should be told through a different medium, like a play or a novel. If the work of art does not embrace and confront the uniqueness and peculiarities of its medium, then the medium should be changed. The image is the building block, not an afterthought. Edward agreed.

And so the shot above — Iago and Rodrigo scheming — is an example of the relationship between cinema and theater. What makes this shot cinematic and not merely theater transposed into the cinematic medium is the deep focus (allowing us to see both characters clearly, lucidly), the framing (the intrigue of what is off-screen is always present, especially so with mischevious characters), and the gaze, that of the characters and of the audience and also of the camera. These are situations available in cinema, and I enjoy films most that utilize these situations in creative ways.

And I love this shot because the birds are pretty.

What.

Deleuze wrote that giving too much attention to the use of deep focus in Welles’s films could overshadow his other contributions to the art form: the use of shadow, the tracking shot as montage, the Nietzschean morality play of his characters, how off-screen audio affects plot, his mise-en-scene. And so, how to go further, how to more deeply engage with my work, the burden of knowledge. It’s a lot to consider, especially for me, so young in my understanding of cinema. Will I ever learn?

Teach me, Stella.

Xoxo,

David.

P.S. “He most honors my style who under it learns to destroy the teacher.” That’s Whitman. Get out the torches: time to burn.

8.26.08 -- Pierrot le fou

Dear Stella,

I wanted to punch someone this week. No one in particular, and almost everyone I saw. I haven’t felt this generalized pissiness in a long time, maybe decades. Part of this lashing out stems from dissatisfaction, another part from disappointment that I can turn into someone who lashes out from dissatisfaction. Self-defeat, a snake eating its own tail, vision as blindness. Crazy.

Pierrot le fou, the eleventh Godard film I’ve seen. The satisfaction of checking off the list, deepening my awareness of the Godard oeuvre, bragging rights, et al. Godard films make me forget to be embarrassed for myself and my ridiculous rages.

Watching films feels like work, my attention is critical and engaged, a bit skeptical, and welcoming. I’ve been thinking a lot about audience lately, the risk of depending on the viewer to participate in the film. Not every film needs an audience, surely some films deserve smaller ones. Some films are islands, a place for vacations. But the trust to bring the audience into the film. I think it’s more love than antagonism, more romance than alienation.

Watching Godard, I don’t feel estranged, not in the Brechtian sense. I participate. Moments of self-reflection don’t burst the romanticized bubble of film, it grows the bubble to wrap me inside it. Am I naive? Too smitten with Godard to think objectively? When does desire distort thought? Or can thought delimit desire? Or is there even a difference?

Get back to me on this, will you?

Speaking of desire, I finally bought a lockpick set, after years of waiting for no good reason. Now when friends take smoke breaks, I’ll join them and practice picking locks. Here’s to forming new habits.

Big love.

Xoxo,

David.

P.S. “Whatever new thoughts you can think of that the world needs will be automatically clothed in the most radiant language imaginable.” That’s Jack Smith. Start somewhere, but at least start. Go.

Cinema II: the Time-Image

Dear Stella,

In the class where a professor once said, “I give up,” walked out, and didn’t come back for twenty minutes, that was the class where I first met The Highlighter. We all had handouts — readings on Manx grammar, the history of the Tillamook tribe, definitions of language death — and we’d review these handouts in class, in groups. One day a burly, mustachioed classmate raised his hand to ask a question. He was a full-time student with the enthusiasm of a part-time student, pouring all his energy into his classes like it was a vacation, like it was fun. I remember thinking the man must be a tiger in bed, tireless, peppy, attentive, vigorous.

And as he asked his question — which was more statement than query — I noticed that he had highlighted every page of his handout. Paragraph after paragraph of muddy ink-blurred green highlighting, the entire handout. The pages were double-sided, and they had wrinkled from the moisture of his thorough coloring. He would look down at his handout while he talked, referring to his markings, picking out the right quote to support his idea. Quickly the shock of condescension and disbelief turned to admiration: he had created his own notation system, a precise code that only he could decipher. In a course on dead languages, a new language was born.

Stella, I finished reading the second Deleuze book on cinema, and I remembered this man, for obvious reasons.

Reading theory reminds me how smart I’m not. But often it’s worth all the self-doubt and discouragement for finding the page, the paragraph, the sentence that introduces new ideas or dismantles old ones. The section on forgers, the one on the “power of the false,” the idea of automatism as a creative impulse, et al. And with Deleuze especially, I forget the tedious struggling through his philosophy (noosigns, chronosigns, lectosigns, etc.) when faced with the grace of his poetry:

We must believe in the body, but as in the germ of life, the seed which splits open the paving-stones, which has been preserved and lives on in the holy shroud or the mummy’s bandages, and which bears witness to life, in this world as it is. We need an ethic or a faith, which makes fools laugh; it is not a need to believe in something else, but a need to believe in this world, of which fools are a part.

I know summer distracted me with bikes and travel and kissing and reading books in grassy fields, but seasons change, habits die, voices carry. From Cinema I I learned to love the work of Dreyer, more deeply love Bergman’s films. And now, thanks to the amazing DVD collection at the library, I have a full program of films from authors — both new (Ozu, Rivette, Sembene) and famailiar (Varda, Godard, Eisenstein, Welles) — to occupy my time, and yours too.

I miss you terribly, love you horribly, and will talk to you again, soon, more.

Xoxo,

David.

7.18.08 -- Close-Up

Dear Stella,

I am so hateful, so cruel and vicious.  With such quickness can I reach the end of a person.  This ability is not without shame or regret.  And the shameful realization: it is not without its utility, my talent at coming to conclusions, in reaching conclusions, in a forced finish.

As with the film Close-Up, directed by Abbas Kiarostami.  I wanted to love this movie before it even began.  That desire came from ridiculous iconoclastic prides: of being a cultured American watching Iranian films, of having taste broad enough to enjoy a cinematic experiment, of watching a film alone on a Friday night.  The difference between loving something and loving not-being something.  I’m not the one to talk about this.  But you can, and you should, sometime.

I fell asleep during this film, and woke up still in love, more in love.  Maybe the second half of the film is the better half, maybe the film is best watched as a dream, cinematic osmosis.  But maybe the ability to will myself into passion deserves more credit.  I can convince myself of anything, given the proper motivation.  Part of me wanted to watch that film so I could write to you about it, so I could appear like a person who watches films and enjoys them.

And so is the desire less true?  Is the blush produced by strategic passion less hot?  Every line of questioning, if followed long enough, eventually leads to pondering the meaning of life.  My questions tend to get there quickly.  The effect of this, and why it worries me.  I’m almost there.

Stella, I wake up some days and want to be a person who can watch a Judd Apatow film in an uncomplicated way.  Some days I want to sit with a group of people and laugh for the same reasons, to not cringe while others revel.  I want to be with those people.

And Stella, the flowers.

Tomorrow I go to Ohio, the next day Indiana, and then I’m back.  I’m back until whenever, as always, forever.

Xo,

David.

P.S. “As soon as there are flowers, there’s blood.”  That’s Cixous.  Synchronicity is more than fortune, there’s intention also.

6.17.08 -- 2046

Dear Stella,

Do you remember when I watched a horror movie a day for one month? It was January: 31 days, 31 horror movies. I had started reading a book on gender in horror films, and wanted to complement the book with some research. I’m a method reader: I like to live the books I read. Remind me to tell you about my Marquis de Sade phase sometime.

And so an opposite too: a month with no movies, horror or otherwise. Or rather, no movies worth mentioning. Which is worse, no movies or no captivating ones? I’ll take a present absence over an absent presence every time.

You know I’ve been away, been filling my movie-hours with people-hours, trading screen time for quality time with loved ones. It’s a fair trade, understandable. And in the moment, I hardly missed my film regimen. I think film sometimes fills the gap where friendship would go, were I not such a hermit, did not my misanthropy frighten me to silence. I wonder the same about these letters to you, whether I’d write them or not were you in my living room, or would they be replaced with eye contact and the words of the speechless.

I’d like to find out.

But while away, I did have both lovers and films once in a while. Saw Young @ Heart with Lix and Bean, cried twice. Saw Cliffhanger with BilJax and BSag, cringed often. And saw Wong Kar-Wai’s My Blueberry Nights with Shark, yearned repeatedly for chilly NYC nights that I miss so much. Didn’t make me cry, but a little on the inside. And when I came home, I craved more WKW, and watched 2046 again.

First time I saw 2046 was in a NYC theater with JfR. Like most of WKW’s films, first time I watched it I got completely lost, seduced by the poetry and forgetful of the plot, rapt by beauty and movement. I’ve always given WKW’s films the opportunity to exploit me. It’s the least I can do for films I want to keep.

This time, I understood the plot, I recognized the actors, I intuited the cinematography; my education of WKW’s films, of Chinese films, of film in general has grown so much in the past two years. Maybe my attention span has changed too, my attention to detail. I don’t hear often enough how much audience education can change a film, how important that is to filmmaking. And maybe I don’t speak about this enough. Too much silence all around. But I’m working on it.

I can’t write more today. I’m working hard, working up to the frenzy, reaching out for the speeding train. All aboard.

Stella, I have a secret, but I don’t need to tell you; you already know.

I hope you are well.

Xo,

David.

P.S. “The heart is so easily mocked, believing that the sun can rise twice or that roses bloom because we want them to.” That’s Winterson. I’m spearheading a movement called the New Sincerity. Love me.

5.9.08 -- Audition

Dear Stella,

The parts and the whole, the forest for the trees, every vote counts, a drop in the bucket, the child of the revolution, a clock that stops working but keeps ticking: the little lives in the bigger picture, who shapes who.  This is one stream of thought I had while watching Audition, directed by Takashi Miike.  

I flashed back to a conversation I had about Chasing Amy.  Kristen, who at that point was only dating women, told me that movie infuriated her because of the way it portrayed lesbians, how the lesbian characters ostracized the lead actress when she started dating a man, how that portrayal was a heteronormative fantasy, an unrealistic and cruel simplification of lesbian community.  My response was poetic in its simplicity and naivete: the lesbians in that film aren’t all lesbians, just those lesbians.  It’s not everyone, it’s them.

Obviously we both had fortresses to protect; hers was a community of friends and lovers, mine was the pleasure of watching that film in an uncomplicated manner.  We both had our illusions, our ways of defending them too.  Mine wasn’t long in the shattering.  

Now I better understand how Kristen was right, how the part affects the whole, how one word can be read for all words.  Identity, subjectivity, representation, self-determination, voice, the idea of a tree and the physical tree and the drawing of the tree, and the difference.  The responsibility of artists to accept the context of their content, to carry the baggage that comes with their chosen subjects.  There shouldn’t be lazy shorthand when it comes to art, there is no quick summary, no speed-reading courses for aesthetics.  If I’m not prepared to shoulder the full meaning of a culture and all its subtleties and complications, then I should find another way to express my ideas that doesn’t reduce, that doesn’t exploit for my meager gains.  And plus it’s just fucking rude.  People aren’t resources; a culture is not my implement to employ.

I’m talking about respect.  And love, too.  Capital Love, the ideal Love by which all love is judged, and thus from which all love rebels.  How important it is to cherish the subject, even when I objectify it.  I’m not sure my art will ever not be reductive, will ever fully embrace the depth of my subject matter.  But ultimately, that’s not my goal; it’s what Herzog calls the “ecstatic truth,” a deeper understanding that comes from strategically arranged lies.  And the responsibility that comes with all of that.

And so these are my thoughts while watching the woman in Audition torture the main character.  It’s revenge for an offense against the Ideal, a nightmare scenario that turns unconscious desires into human objects, the living curse of pursuing ghosts from the past.  A woman without clear motivation brutally tortures and dismembers a man: the piece for the whole, what this says about women, about men, desire, pain, hate.  And how it interacts with my feminism.  It’s complicated.

But not really.  I knew the answer the second the movie was over: I need more than this.  The violence was wrenching, the dreaminess captivated me, and I appreciated the craft, and it just wasn’t enough.  Kafka demanded that “a book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us,” that it must help break open our rigid hearts, protected by so many cold moments.  Why shouldn’t film be the same?  Why shouldn’t I demand as much?

And I do, as you know.  I’m very demanding, on myself especially, but on others not much less.  Hopefully this is a good thing.

Stella, I miss you.  Write back soon, and stay strong.

Xo,
David.

P.S. “Creating is not some frivolous game.  The creator has committed himself to the fearful adventure of taking upon himself, to the very end, the perils risked by his creatures.”  That’s Genet.  I am the characters I create; I accept this responsibility; I am willing; I am accountable. 

4.28.08 -- Ten

Dear Stella,

A couple of months ago I learned the term “soft power,” which refers to the effect that cultural products have on a country’s global influence, as opposed to the hard power of military or financial might. In the NYTimes article where I read about it, China was discussed, how they benefit from the exporting of films, literature, fashion, icons, etc. Obviously this fascinated me, being someone who aspires to create softly powerful work. And our media and government are panicked about China taking over the world, so the article was very foreboding, ominous, darkly written, like, “Watch out for those sneaky Chinese, making art that other countries might find valuable. Can’t fool us though!”

But maybe me. Maybe I’m willing to be the fool.

And then, my thoughts turned to Iran, the next country on USA’s “To Bomb” list. I thought about soft power and war and the ability for art to affect change, and I came up with this proposition: The more well-known and beloved are the cultural products of Iran, the more global outcry and resistance the US government will face when they mercilessly bomb the shit out of them.

If more USAmerican citizens knew more about Iraqi culture and history, would this current war have been scrutinized and criticized harsher in the beginning? I think the resistance to the war is only recently gaining traction because we have had five years to educate ourselves on Iraq, its people and landscape, the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam, the history of the Kurdish people, the color of the bricks in Baghdad. I really think that the inability to recognize the Iraqi people as a distinct and irreplaceable people — muchly perpetuated by the vague representations in the US media — is a main reason why this war has lasted so long, far too long. You don’t bomb people you love; you can’t kill a pet once you’ve named it. Ignorance curbs mercy.

And so, if a sudden Iranian Renaissance sprung up in the US, how would that affect anti-war resistance when we inevitably invade Iran? Maybe because I’m an artist, I like to believe that it would change things. Ultimately, I’d rather never find out, but I don’t have much influence on the US military. However, I do have influence on you, Stella; I have influence because you let me prattle on, and I appreciate you for that. So let me tell you about Iran, what little I know. Let me tell you what I love.

Last night I watched Ten, a film by Abbas Kiarostami. You would have adored this film, as I did. A formal experiment that pays off well. Ten conversations in the front seat of a car, all shot with digital cameras from the car’s dashboard. Two shots: one of the driver, one of the passenger. A slowly-paced film, but not the slowest of Kiarostami’s, which is hilarious to me. Dude knows to take his sweet time telling a story. Watching this film would be a good way to remind the average American that, yes, Iranian people are actually people, not microcosms of their government, not potential nuclear threats, not a faceless ink smear on the fingers of the US media.

And so Abbas Kiarostami, reason enough to choose diplomacy over war. But we’ll need more than that to start a renaissance. So let’s go.

Forough Farrokhzad, poet and filmmaker in the 1970s, at the beginning of the Iranian New Wave, directed the stunning short film The House is Black, an unblinking portrait of life on a leper colony, brutal and harsh and also joyous and passionate. And her poetry could be the slogan of a resistance movement, could stop a tank in its tracks:

When they blindfolded my love’s childish eyes
With the black kerchief of law
And jets of blood spurted out
From the agitated temples of my desire
When my life was nothing
But the tic tacks of a clock
I realized that I must, I must, and I must
Love madly

And then we have the Makhmalbaf family of filmmakers. They’re like the Coppolas of Iran. The father, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, contributed a lot to the Iranian New Wave. His two daughters, Samira and Hana Makhmalbaf, are both filmmakers as well.

Okay, I just realized this: Is the term “new wave” inaccurate when describing a movement that has lasted almost 40 years? How new is the Iranian New Wave? And maybe this is a problem of criticism, cultural appreciation, a fault of the label-makers, not the artists. And ultimately, it shouldn’t matter, so maybe we’re better off this way.

And then there’s the ghazal, the poetic form birthed in ancient Persia. I remember obsessing over this form in college, writing ghazals about violins and gardening and whatnot. I know the position of the poet is hardly a sacred role anymore, but I still honor it, and I know you do too. It’s worth protecting.

These are just a few of the millions of creative works and traditions from Iran, millions more to learn about. It’s all part of the lifelong education, the continual growth. Education never ends, and, with hope, perhaps neither will the culture of Iran. There must be another way. Let’s find it.

Maybe it’s all this righteous indignation, or maybe it’s the combination of dress shirt and tie and fingerless gloves, but regardless: I feel super sexy today. I’m going to take a walk, flirt with someone, then come back and work for twelve hours. You know how I’m a glutton for work streaks. I feel one coming on.

All my love to you, Stella.

Xo,
David.

P.S. “We must establish a true internationalism with other anticolonial peoples. Then we will be on the road of the true revolutionary.” That’s George Jackson. The world is large, full of strangers, full of lovers. Go get ‘em, kiddo.

4.27.08 -- Ju Dou

Dear Stella,

If you ask me to recommend a great introductory film for non-martial arts Chinese cinema, I’ll give you Ju Dou.  If you ask me for a film tragic enough to rival Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, I’ll show you Ju Dou.  If you want to see a delicate mix of beauty and sadness, love and pain, tenderness and cruelty, I’ll give you a mirror.  And then I’ll watch Ju Dou with you.

I know you know what I mean.

Ju Dou was directed by Zhang Yimou and Fengliang Yang, but most often it’s called a “Zhang Yimou film.”  Lately I’ve thought a lot about the ownership of films, the audacity and arrogance of auteur theory.  The difference between “A film by Zhang Yimou,” and “A Zhang Yimou film,” and “Directed by Zhang Yimou.”  The idea of a signature, the touch of the author, that a film has an original author at all.  And I think of Lars von Trier, Catherine Breillat, the NSK, Cindy Sherman, Ben Marcus: all in their own way fighting against the conflation of identity and ownership.  And the Tao Te Ching, reminding me that the sage “accomplishes without taking credit.  When no credit is taken, accomplishment endures.”

And I wonder if I was born in the wrong country, the wrong century, the wrong clothing.  Could you see me as a samurai, a peasant?  I’d gladly be the concubine to your feudal lord, the student to your sage, the victim of your nationalism.  But I’m away on a tangent.

Gong Li stars in this film.  She’s a Zhang regular, like Anna Karina to Godard, like Hugh Grant to romantic comedies: friends in love.  Gong is pretty much the Julia Roberts of China, Juliette Binoche with a heightened fear of government reproach.  Her films have been censored for all the normal reasons: too critical of the CCP, promoting anti-communist beliefs, and, as with Ju Dou, having “a bad influence on the physical and spiritual health of young people.”  Which to me sounds like more of an endorsement than condemnation.

Honestly, I don’t have any coherent thoughts about this movie yet.  I watched it days ago, but haven’t finished digesting it, it’s that big.  It’s as epic as an intimate romantic drama can get; it’s micro-epic the way Kurosawa’s films are macro.  I’ve been thinking a lot about the gaze of the audience, the male gaze and the female object, the constant struggle between positive portrayals of women and fetishization.  The horror I feel during any rape scene, not because of the way it’s portrayed, but the very fact that, once again, the rape scene is used as a plot point.  Women are so often used as devices for telling the larger — and largely male — narrative.  And so how do I, as a male, make sense of all this?  As usual, I take long walks and write to you, hoping to get some understanding. 

When I figure out what’s going on in this brain of mine, I’ll let you know.  Until then, be well, Stella.

Xo,
David.

P.S.  “The greatness of art makes its appearance only as dusk begins to fall over life.”  That’s Debord.  It’s getting dark, and I’m getting excited. 

4.19.08 -- Raise the Red Lantern

Dear Stella,

Watched Raise the Red Lantern recently, another Zhang Yimou film. More China, more more more needed, lots more to go. This one takes place pre-revolution, in a China I know even less about than the recent China. Thankfully, I remember the reassuring words of Cixous: “There is room for two Chinas in your soul.” She probably wasn’t referring to my film-watching habits, but still, it’s a comfort.

Thought a lot about in-fighting during this film, about the tendency for oppressed people to attack other oppressed people rather than their oppressors. This film addresses that issue both explicitly and implicitly, saying it without saying it, showing not telling. The concubines engage in petty rivalries to distract from the futility of their situation: sexual slavery and submission.

But then, their lives aren’t horribly brutal. They live comfortably, eat regularly, have personal servants, enjoy some degree of personal freedom and privacy. The master — whose face is never shown clearly, always either veiled or off-screen — is most often patient and kind with his four concubines, only becoming harsh when he feels one of them has violated the long-standing customs of the household. And here is where I fall in love with the movie: the subtle yet obvious ways this film critiques systems of oppression.

For this film is all about rules: the adherance to and breaking of them, the ability to bend them without being punished, to protest the state of affairs without incurring the wrath of the State. Which comes back to Zhang’s career as a filmmaker, growing up in a government-controlled film industry and learning how to mollify the censors while critiquing them at the same time. This film is a perfect example of that struggle; I wouldn’t be surprised if Zhang considers this film partly autobiographical, at least in terms of its moral.

But the moral is shifty; it’s obvious and abstract, specific and universal. The setting is 1920s China, but it might as well be the civil rights movement, or contemporary feminism, or the Paris Commune, or the Zapatistas, or Palestine, or black slaves and Native Americans fighting against white colonialists, any situation where success depends on the ability to unify people under a common goal. It is a cautionary tale of the consequences of in-fighting, a warning to those struggling under domination: unite or perish.

All of the concubines suffer. Meishan is murdered, Songlian goes mad, Yuru is more or less abandoned. Zhuoyan survives, but betrays everyone to do so, and we both know selling-out your ilk within an oppressive system doesn’t make you powerful, it makes you a puppet. bell hooks wrote about this in Killing Rage, how white women and black men will fight against each other in order to gain favor with their white “daddies.” Obviously she’s not speaking about every black person, every woman, but how oppressed people will often work for personal advancement rather than systemic change; they lose the forest for the trees, trade in their brethren for a breath of fresh power.

And I’m not just ranting here, mostly not anyway. There are stunning moments in Raise the Red Lantern where these ideas I’m babbling about actually show up on screen. In the first scene, Songlian weeps while agreeing to become a concubine, agreeing against her will, which is complicated but possible. Songlian becomes angry at the master, and punishes her servant because she cannot punish the master (she admits this afterwards). The room on the top roof that contains the hanged corpses of former wives, and Zhuoyan’s insistence that they must never think or speak of it, that they must not honestly address the very-real mortal threat that they face as concubines. Songlian’s final protest and her subsequent descent into madness when faced with the futility of her actions, her requisite powerlessness.

And this is the fundamental characteristic of fables: their transcendentalism, their ability to be all things and one thing and nothing at the same time. China specifically, humanity universally, and also me somehow.

Goodness, all this deconstruction is making my eyes cross. I’m going to go take a walk now. Write back soon. I miss you.

Xoxo,
David.

P.S. “The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don’t listen to it, you will never know what justice is.” That’s from Howard Zinn. Keep your balance, pay attention, and work, work, work, work, work, work, work, amen.

4.18.08 -- Magnolia

Dear Stella,

Listening to Aimee Mann a lot lately. which makes me fiend for Magnolia. Remember the Keystone Theater in Portland? I saw Magnolia four times there, and not just because I was crushing on Mandy either. While working two jobs and going to school full-time, I spent twelve hours within two weeks on this movie. Every time I watched it — and each time since then — I learned so much: about the movie, filmmaking, and my own emotions as well.

So I watched Magnolia last night for the first time in a couple of years, and it was as new as the first time I saw it. I have many memories attached to this film, many ideas. It’s a very provocative film, which accounts for most people either loving or hating it. Okay, fair warning: this letter might be a bit unfocused, tangental, rhizomatic, rambly. But how is that different?

As usual, I captured stills using my three-year-old cameraphone. I love how smudgy the pictures come out, how homochromatic. Okay, I made up that word. Basically, a palate of millions of colors gets considerably reduced, and I find it charming. And by freezing the film this way, I realized how much this film moves, how there are very few static shots, the camera is often on the go. One of my favorite moving shots is very brief; it’s the first shot of Julianne Moore in the film, a slow zoom and pan in a room, and Moore walks into the frame for a second, then walks out, and cut to a wide shot. It’s so fast, but it’s stuck with me since the first viewing.

I’ve heard before that the best editing is invisible, that you don’t notice the cuts. Somehow in Magnolia the editing is often jarring and noticeable, but also still fluid, reasonable, sympathetic. Maybe it’s my own interest in the making of films in general that makes me aware and curious and appreciative of the craftwork. The film is incredibly engaging, despite its hyper-formalism and my hyper-awareness of it.

And so, could Magnolia be my generation’s Battleship Potempkin? It’s certainly been the single most instructive film in my life, thus far. I wonder how it has affected other filmmakers my age. Maybe I should get out of the basement and ask some.

For the first time, I noticed a couple of subtle angel moments. Which reminds me of another Keystone Theater movie streak: the film Dogma, which I also watched four times, during my peak obsession with angels. Although, that time maybe it was more about Mandy.

“It’s dangerous to confuse children with angels.” The actor who plays Stanley could have been a little girl, he’s so incredibly pretty. I hope he becomes a drag queen when he grows up.

This next one is blurry, but in the background is a little girl dressed as an angel. I wonder if there are other angels that I missed. (Aside from you, of course, sweetie, who I miss every day.)

On IM the other day, Thomas said this:

— TDM: As Tom Cruise gets more insane in the public eye, his performance in [Magnolia] gets better.

Eloquently put. Reality informs art, changes it. A film isn’t over when you leave the theater. In the end, there is no end.

Nan’l once tried to convince me of this fun fake fact: just after Philip Seymour Hoffman pretend-lights Jason Robards’s pretend-cigarette, Robards delivers dialogue that was cribbed from an early draft of The Empire Strikes Back, as delivered by Yoda.

— Robards: Mistakes like this you don’t make. Sometimes you make some and okay. Not okay sometimes you make other ones. Know that you should do better.

Jedi Master Jason Robards, Nan’l calls him.

The shot below of Tom Cruise’s crotch talking to April Grace could (and should) be discussed in so many contexts: gender, sexuality, race, metonymy, mise en scène, binarism, power, the violence of the threat of violence, self-reflexivity, domination, formalism, et al. The composition of this shot amazes me, and the content is so potent. Were I in a doctorate program for film studies, this scene would be my dissertation:

During this viewing, I noticed how the audio mix heightens the theme of communication and its difficulty: dialogue drowned out by the soundtrack, characters cutting each other off, crucial lines blurted out on top of each other, lots of mumbling and whispering, and also syntax issues (with Robards, for example).

And, as always, my favorite line is Julianne Moore, indignant, yelling at the pharmacist, “You suck my dick.” O, gender-fuckery, will I ever tire of you?

I wonder if the webness of the film — the interwoven narratives, moralistic themes expressed through fever-pitched pacing, connotation and intertextuality — frustrates some people not because it’s too complex but because it defies attempts at disentanglement: it’s not a puzzle to solve, and it frustrates any effort to do so. Maybe here is where my love of poetry and abstract painting pay off; I enjoy Magnolia for the impression it makes, not the meaning I give it. Thank you Ezra Pound for, obliquely, teaching me how to appreciate films. And thank you Aimee Mann for bringing me back to Magnolia.

Next time we’re together, Stella, let’s watch this again. I’ve got a lot more to say, if you’ll listen.

Hannah comes up tomorrow. We’re thinking about having a movie marathon, tackling one director or actor or country or theme and going for twelve hours. I’d like to try a string of Takashi Miike’s films, since I haven’t seen any, but I’m not sure I’d survive, according to the testimonies of my friends who have seen them. If I don’t write back soon, come save me, okay?

Be well.

Xo,
David.

P.S. “The film’s job is to make the audience ‘help itself,’ not to ‘entertain’ it. To grip, not to amuse.” That’s Eisenstein. It’s a relationship, not a fucking drive-thru window.