Vashon goes to the movies

watch the hand

Yes, another another. This one comes along on the heels of a mention by Eileen at the Theatre that they are considering the move to 3D projection. i would advise against it, but that’s just me. Call me a Luddite or a purist ( you would be close to correct on the latter), but in this so-called information age, we are being bombarded with stuff on the merits of its packaging, with less and less emphasis of the content therein. i suppose a good metaphor here would be the Playboy Bunny- lights are on (and would you check out those headlights) but nobody’s home. i could mention Avatar here, but i would be repeating myself.

one of the things i was reminded of last fall as i worked on my film class  projects was that the visual quality of film- even super8 film- is still powerful and stunning. While i do find the crispness and clarity of high definition to be truly amazing, i don’t really believe that it is necessarily a requirement for good story telling. A recent example i would insert here is a film i haven’t seen but, because of reviews and comments i’ve read about it, i plan to take it in. It is the documentary Sweetgrass, about sheep ranchers in Montana, and the reviews have been glowing, except for the mention that it should have been shot in high def to fully capture the beauty of the scenery. It is unfair to pass judgement without having seen it, but the fact is that beautiful scenery has been filmed and appreciated for over a hundred years without the “benefit” of digital technology, so either the cinematographer (or videographer in this case) is to blame, or the expectation is unfair- i will wait and see. 

So, what is too much information? Some people  thought that adding sound to films was, and it seems that one could go even further back to make the claim that adding motion to a still photograph was an overload. One of the things we learned in last night’s doc history class was that when the Brothers Lumiere first showed their 50 second films to the public, it was simply the movement of things that intrigued the viewers. Workers leaving a factory; a train coming into a station; a baby eating lunch- all became fascinating because they moved within the frame. There was no story in many cases,  just movement, but people watched just because of that.

One can think of  a few “new” tech ideas that we are better off without. What comes to mind first was the concept put forth in Alduous Huxley’s book Brave New World of  going to the Feelies- movies that give you the feeling (through knobs on your seat arms which you grasp while watching) of what is happening on the screen. One can see the problems here- would feeling Bruce Willis’ Die Hard pain bring box office or law suits?  i know, the premise Huxley was running on was more about pleasure than pain, but these things can and do get used for purposes other than their original intent.  More recently we have the virtual embedded war correspondent experience as portrayed in the great, but little known film, War, Inc. Here reporters are injected with a microchip and given virtual reality goggles and seated in a motion simulator so they can “go into battle” while not really going there. Some would argue that that’s where embedded reporters already go, but that’s another story. One can also not forget John Water’s trip to another dimension in his film Polyester, where audience members where given a numbered scratch and sniff  ‘Odorama’ card and prompted throughout the film to augment their olfactory experience with fragrances that ranged from roses to flatulence. While i think the concept was brilliant and funny, one could make the case that what Waters puts on the screen is already enough information to make his point.

We could, at this point, go into Ted Turner’s colossal misstep into colorizing  classic black and white films, but that is too much like fingernails on the blackboard. As it is, i already get engulfed in films without glasses and cine-wizard tech. In fact, the more i know of the wizard’s hand in the mix, the more i find myself rejecting the construct.

Perhaps, like the Lumieres showed in first opening the cinematic box of Pandora (not the Moon), we only need time before a 3D storytelling does become the accepted mode of operation. But in stepping back in time to the beginnings of the movie tale, it seems all one really needs is a good story and a flickering picture to tell it.

Feeling very grateful for the amazing cadre of people involved in this multifaceted creative effort, and for the generosity that made it possible for me to be here. Playing music, seeing amazing film, meeting new friends, skiing in the finest freshest softest powder imaginable, sunshine, good food and dancing…what could be better?

I learned about ways to make my performing experiences here even more productive next time (e.g. Access Film Music Showcase, and other ways to connect music and film), and I hope to make an annual pilgrimage out of this–music, films and skiing. I feel a special connection our Park City/Silver Creek host Charm and her beautiful home, and I look forward to returning.

Sundance also reignited my longtime love of film, which since college (my Bachelor’s degree is in Film) has only expressed itself in the form of my being an avid movie buff.   Meeting and befriending the young filmmaker Nick, whose mom is of one of my favorite Vashon folks (Vicki, whom I also met through “From Vashon With Love”) was incredibly fun and inspiring.

 Of course, After The Storm was the nexus of all these events–the catalyst that brought so many people together with overlapping projects and missions involving art, community, and service.   The film first connected me with many of this group; ignited a renewed desire and determination on my own part to bring my gifts and skills to the table in some way for New Orleans and beyond; and sent all of us out onto creative paths, energized by the possibilities for making a difference.

THANK YOU, James, Jerry, Hilla, Vicki, Nick, Charm, Beatrice, and especially Diane for including and supporting me in this wonderful experience.

i’m back, if you’re keeping track. i’ve been off gathering wool and nuggets and i think i have something to say again. what comes to mind at the moment are words from david byrne and the song ‘psycho killer’, which go something like: ‘ when i have nothing to say, my lips are sealed- say something once, why say it again?’

what has really been baking my noodle lately is the hooplah around james cameron’s latest ode to himself- that would be avatar. what has actually been stirring the juices here is a spin on the byrne quote above and something i’ve noticed as i’ve dug deeper into filmland, and that is the issue of already been there. i have been resurfacing memories of art school and the notion that it has all been done before. what i have found of late, having completed two short films for film school, is that in many ways it has all been done before. i was recently given copies of some old black and white classics- sunrise by murnau and chaplin’s modern times, and there i found some of the basics of what i had been filming about- a different context and situation of course- different, but somehow the same. as i watched and saw these parallels i was reminded of a time more than thirty years ago when i was slumping further and further into my seat as i realized that the scene i was watching from one of ingmar bergman’s classics was eerily the same as a dream i’d had the night before- there does seem to be evidence of some kind of universal, collective unconsciousness- i guess it will be amazing when it finally wakes up.

one might be wondering where this is meant to be going. what got me spinning in this groove was actually a viewing a few days ago of district 9, neill blomkamp’s avatar on earth. at this point i hadn’t seen cameron’s magnum opus- a situation i rectified last night at our own vashon theatre. what was bothering me previous to that was the notion that cameron had rewritten the book on computer generated effects and that this would change the face of cinema. what i saw in district 9, however, was that the cg book really didn’t need any revisons- blomkamp had aliens running around on his set, or at least it sure looked that way, and for an eighth of the cost of a trip to pandora.

as far as having been done before, as i recall it there was this small animated feature titled fern gully, which pitted the native inhabitants of an enchanted rain forests against the ravaging, land-raping avarice of the corporate state. on the other hand and in the land of the real, a small documentary with a big message by filmmakers george and beth gage tells the story of two native american sisters who were in a 30 year battle over the rights to their/shoshone land in nevada. it was our own government, nudged on by mining interests, who were the antagonists in this mini-epic. sound familiar? appropriately named american outrage, this doc brings the real message home about corporate greed, without indulging in massive consumption of production budgets. it tells essentially the same story without the idyllic floating mountains, beautiful blue people or the epic battle scenes. maybe more people would be concerened about the plight of the dann sisters (actually one has since departed) if  they rode pterodactyls and ran naked through the sagebrush, just like the na’avi.

i was asked how i liked avatar soon after watching it- my initial response was that it made me angry, for the above reasons and more. on the other side, perhaps my strongest memory of that nearly three hour excursion was that of the forest spirit represented by what could only be described as a milkweed seed gene-spliced with a jellyfish. i thought this was a bit of genius. the bioluminescent flora of the forests of pandora were amazing as well, but some of the late night e-wire extravaganzas i’ve seen at burning man, while not organic, as expansive or as  interactive, were nearly as awe inspiring. on the other hand, a late night paddle across tramp harbor in late summer with a glowing v being generated by the bow wave, and sparks igniting in the water to each side with each bioluminescent paddle stroke, will always out do any cinematic sleight of hand.

so, one might say- got any other movie buzzes that need a good killing? i think i’m done for now, but there’s plenty more where that came from.

I love Rome, especially watching the people and places. I have walked the streets, shops, parks and museums for days at a time. I was lucky enough to visit twice, and amazed to see how little had changed in the 3 decades between my visits. (I know, in Rome-time, even a century does not amount to a “nanoblip”). My point is that, like many others, an entire life would not be enough time for me to rejoice in all I would love to see, hear, taste, smell and touch in this unique and astonishing place.

Three different statues moved me to quiet tears. I discovered the bliss of great olive oil, artichokes, truffles, and watching a proud family run their small restaurant. I was so overwhelmed that I left my credit card there, and will never forget the teen girl who happily chased me down the street at night to hand it back to me.

Now that I have seen this film, I want to learn more of Rome’s secret past. (However, I am not quite ready to spelunk the secret layers below Rome without some serious training and practice). This well-done documentary and a bit of imagination will take you on an unforgettable adventure in learning.

Filmmaker (and festival organizer) Vicki Dunakin brought this gem to Vashon Theater. She even offered her insights and humor via phone to the audience after the screening, which added depth to the big screen experience.

For a couple of great still photos, trailer, and facts about the “village” that created this fine film, click the next link (or copy it into your web browser) http://www.archaeologychannel.org/content/film/festival2008/UndergroundRome.html

If you missed this treat or are hungry to see it again, the good news is that it is easy to get by clicking on the next link below. (You can download all of it for $3.99, but only with Internet Explorer on Windows).

I have now thought about Capitalism for several weeks. Glad I went. I encouraged friends to see it so we could talk about it. We all learned some history. We all left angry at human greed and incompetence. Most pointed out that the U.S. system has not been pure capitalism for a long time (for example: farmers who are paid to NOT plant, tobacco grower subsidies, etc). Those who had lived outside the U.S. pointed out that this country hardly has a corner on the ‘corruption and greed’ market. Yet something felt unresolved. So I gave reactions time to brew. I called 2 weeks later and not much had changed. Silence. Curiouser and curiouser.

I continued to poll friends of various ages, economic classes, political cultures and educational backgrounds what they thought & felt about this film. Did it change or inspire them to do anything? I emailed more friends, and heard more faint praise and ambivalence. Finally it became clear that something kept bugging us about it, besides the worn bullhorn formula and the sentimental way he longs for an era that is gone. I found it fascinating that these friends, like me, could not put their finger on exactly what bothered them about this film.

Then I heard genuine praise, followed by vague pauses. Comments like, “Some of his longing felt so, well, rustbelt”. We wondered if the flow of it was just too weird—a dizzy, winding road, passing proof of crazy levels of greed and incompetence to silliness. We doubted that countries can ever turn back clocks. I was getting weary.  I fumed over the fact of Michael’s own hypocrisy, as we pay for his films, and thus help make him extremely wealthy. If all capitalism is evil, as he stated, then why aren’t the tickets for this film free? I was not the first to ask.

I finally gave up trying to sort it all out and read other reviews and blogs. At last I found a writer who put a whole new frame around this film for me. Click here for his blog, titled “Michael Moore, The Mennonite”. I think Michael may even like parts of this. He should at least appreciate the ironic title.

The sarcasm of including “A Love Story” in the title is obvious. However, there may be another layer under the surface here.  I wonder if Michael needed to make a personal “farewell” film. Maybe HE has as great questions but few answers. The film mourns the loss of Michael’s youth and his father’s life. I only hope he will listen to those of us who hope he drops the bullhorn. It was sad to see 20 years of the same gimmick.

While comedy is seen on the marquee as part of the offerings at the Vashon Theatre, there was nothing funny about what owner Eileen Wolcott found when she arrived Sunday to get the Theatre ready for the day’s screenings. Sometime during the night, someone broke in and made off with the flatscreen monitor in the lobby, 2 dvd players and the theater-quality digital projector which is an intergral part of  many special events that are hosted here. Wolcott called this a “pretty harsh blow”, following a month where even blockbusters like vampire flick New Moon have not done well on the Island. Given that there was minimal vandalism and mess, it appears that the break-in was targeting goods that could be fairly easily converted to cash. Saying that  they will “do what we can to take it in stride”, Wolcott wanted to emphasize that the 35mm projector was not affected by the projection room violation and that regular screenings will still go on. She said that they were “still standing”, but “really sad”.

While standing outside the theatre to turn away people arriving for the screening of Crude that i was involved with, i learned that local farmstands have also been targeted by thieves lately. Another local business owner who was passing by shook his head and said something about frontier justice and opening cans of whoopass in regard to the perps. Regardless of what happens, a special place in the hotter and more foul smelling areas of hell have been reserved for anyone stealing from those who are themselves struggling to make Vashon a better place.

Theatre owner Eileen Wolcott lists stolen items

Long-ish story short, some unlikely events aligned, and I was suddenly meeting an actor and a filmmaker of great interest to me at HIFF. They are James Lecesne and Hilla Medalia, who collaborated to create After The Storm (See post below for links etc.). Neither of them had ever been to Hawaii before, so I enjoyed introducing them to some aspects of the culture that I know and love. We had an interesting, long, chat over a terrific lunch by the beach. They saved me cab fare and hassle by inviting me into the filmmaker’s shuttle van to the huge Dole Theaters. The reception area was chaotic, but Hilla eventually sorted things out. We saw The Last Beekeeper. Hilla and James had 2 special screenings of their film and lively “talkback sessions” for about 150 Oahu teachers. I enjoyed observing all that as well as meeting an exuberant young volunteer for Teach for America.

I only had time and tix for 2 more films before I had to resume my business trip. The first was The Third Wave . I met Alison Thompson, key filmmaker and star of this remarkable achievement.

The second was titled People I Have Had Sex With. I found nothing to link to, and suppose I should explain why. I am quite good with search engines, and made one honest pass at getting the press kit for even one good article, photo or trailer for this film. Only got scary hits, as I think you can well imagine. I backed out of there pronto. On second thought, that film was so silly, boring & poorly done, it isn’t worth the time to think about it. Based on my ultra-quick search tonight, it appears nobody else has bothered either. I can’t imagine how it made the HIFF cut, and it was clear several others agreed.

What do you do when you’re sick?  i don’t know about you, but when something comes along that can knock me down for the better part of two weeks, reading usually isn’t an option. Words on a page become strangers to me- running, hiding, colliding and mingling to form jumbled concepts so that i wind up reading the same paragraph three or four times before anything makes sense. Film, on the other hand, goes down fairly easily, although recall  days afterward leaves something to be desired. There are, however,  those hours upon hours when something like this- not the flu, but a kind of coughing, sniveling void that can drain one of the energy to get up the stairs- leaves one conscious enough to accept some cinematic input. It’s times like these when being prone in bed with a video in the player is not a source of guilt and/or damning evidence of sloth. It’s just necessary.

During this suspended existence, there were a bunch of films i floated through, but probably the most important were the boxed set trio from Polish director Andrzej Wadja that i found on half price sale last Summer and haven’t had the nerve to get into until now. Part of my hesitation toward viewing these three was the old test of time thing. The third film in the box, Ashes and Diamonds, was actually my reason for getting the set- it was not available in any other form. It was also a film that i had seen more than thirty years ago as a part of my major introduction into ’something other than hollywood’  land. It was a film that blew me away at the time. Often times, one can go back to a book or an album or a film that  was a strong influence in those formative years, only to find that you have grown while the game-changer has become diminished in stature. We, or at least i, don’t like to see that.

As it turns out, this time i wasn’t disappointed. i would say though that the pedestal where Ashes and Diamonds (1958) had been residing is now more of an Olympic podium shared by the other two films, A Generation (1955) and Kanal (1957). All three deal with World War II, the oppression of Naziism, Communism and the Polish resistance, and having been made relatively soon after the conflict by people who had lived it, they all serve as time capsule windows into another culture and another time.

 A Generation was Wadja’s first feature film, and is astounding in its all ’round mastery of the craft. It tells of the early days of the war and the organization of a faction of the Polish underground. Kanal takes place during the time of the Warsaw Uprising, and is shot in two parts- in the light of day in battle in the ruins of Old Town Warsaw, and in an incredibly lit system of sewers beneath the city. Ashes and Diamonds chronicles the last days of the War, when the Nazis are being driven from the country just as the Soviet occupying forces come in to “save ” the day. In all of these films, beyond the skill of their making and the intrigue of their tales, the extras sections provide a whole other level of insight into what they are about. While one might have thought (i certainly did) that this band of filmmakers in the Iron Curtained purgatory of post-War Poland would have been isolated from outside cinematic influences, i was surprised to find out that it was the style and presence of James Dean, in his performance in Rebel Without a Cause, that strongly influenced both the look and the concept for the main character, Maciek, in Ashes and Diamonds. Sometimes these extras things are a bit too much information packed for me, but in this case, the insights and backstories all made this revisitation of this past fascination a box load of  an education, in spite of the fog.

Somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina i was at a  workshop with photographer John Menapace, and he gave us an assignment to use the camera like a pointing tool, and to snap a picture, while gesturing with said camera, of the object of your particular concern and interest. This was way before the time of lcd screens and megapixels, and involved a large amount of uncertainty and a degree of film wasting. It was an excercise in loosening up one’s vision, and most of the time resulted in blurry messes of questionable visual value. At the time, to make a photograph with pretty much any camera of small or medium format, you had to attach it, sort of, to your head/eye as you filled the frame and focused and shot. Now, one can wave a miniature electronic box in front of onself, and with the magic of auto focus and image stabilization and varying degrees of automatic flash, you can come up with something fairly recognizable any time one of these cameras stands at arm’s length from one’s eye(s). You still are, however, making a selection of an object within a frame that your eye has been drawn to, and where that object of desire winds up in the final picture is still crucial to the composition.

In gardens, the concept of having a focal point where one’s eye is drawn to is something that has always bothered me. To place a bench or a gold-leaved shrub or a  statue of a naked nymph holding a polished bronze apple so that eyes are drawn to that point in the garden has always seemed to me to be counter to the point of being in a garden. My interest in a bench might be to go there and sit so i could gaze back over the space i just passed through. The gold foliage of that mock orange over there might be interesting  because of its relation colorwise to the stand of bronze carex beneath it or the complementary nature of that purple smoke bush just behind it. And that nymph sculpture- don’t make me go there.

Photographing a garden is a whole, other matter. It has been said, i forget by whom, that the garden- or piece of a garden- that one sees in a photograph only exists for the fraction of a second that it took to capture that image as the shutter popens and closes. This particular picture frame had been selected to focus attention on foliage or flower or trick of the light or all the above, and once the shutter has been tripped and the camera moved on, that section of space mingles back with the rest of the garden. Having recently given a garden talk locally, i came home to the new garden that was the subject of my pontification, only to be fairly disappointed that pretty much none of the greatest hits of the past summer were in evidence in the October gloom- i had just run through over a hundred garden views that in reality had only been there for a few seconds in total exposure time, and were certainly long gone, except as saved in pixels logged in 0’s and 1’s, somewhere in the digital file marked summergarden09.

One might be asking what this has to do with film, to which i would say that we were talking about getting people’s attention in film class the other day. Much has been made of subliminal messaging in the media- you don’t know the half of it. It seems that there are things aimed at getting one’s attention going on all the time, frame by frame. From colors to light to objects and character placement in the frame, we are constantly being told to look over there. An example we were given was of a student play where the instructor in that class was a minor character. What our instructor noted was that, while this particular production was a bit scattered, the experience of the teacher on stage had him staring intently at the main character getting through his lines, drawing wavering attention back to the main focus of the scene. While it seemed something of a revelation at the time, in thinking it over on the way home it seemed more obvious in a real world sense. You can be walking down the street and see intensity of gazes on other people’s faces grow and wane, but if you notice a number of people focused in the same direction you are fairly likely to turn and see what’s going on. Add a look of concern or an emphatic,  pointing finger and you have even more reason to look. Like, well, over there- no behind you. Too late.

I decided to run two films titles together for this round in the box, basically because i had to since they fit together in a curious sort of coupling. They are both of a fiction, although one is a slight reconstruction of a graphic novel from the eighties into a loosely veiled metaphor of  what the Bush administration represented, while the second is a dramatization of  what might be considered a big or small event in the ongoing Israeli- Palestinian conflict, depending on the weight one might decide to attribute  to one’s concern and respect for a human life.

The two films here are V for Vendetta, from the prodigious Wachowski brothers, and For My Father- the film mentioned in the next box down- from Israeli director Dror Zahavi. Both films are about revenge, with main characters who wrap themselves in explosives for a cause. Both films have been criticized for oversimplifying the dilemmas they pose. Both films dig deeply into the psyche and expose the raw nerves that drive the need for revenge.

The main character- for those who aren’t familiar- in V for Vendetta is only identified as the letter V. He is the sole survivor of a government experiment in bio-warfare and, after twenty years, is out to get those who “done him wrong.” He wears a mask depicting the stylized face of Guy Fawkes, who tried to blow up the Parliament building in London a number of hundreds of years ago. He quotes Shakespeare, and has a few notable sayings of his own, a sampling of which are:

A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having.

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

There is no such thing as coincidence, only the illusion of coincidence.

The main character in For My Father is named Tarek and played by Shredi Jabarin. As we quickly learn, Tarek has been tapped to be the next human explosive delivery system as a Palestinian response to the ongoing occupation of lands by Israel. Tarek seems to get little comfort from the men accompanying him to his “operation”, especially when one says, “we do not have an air force- you are our airforce.” I found it interesting that it was noted in an AP story i clicked on before coming here to write, that the name of the aledged terrorist in the latest “discovered” U.S. plot was also named Tarek- makes one wonder what that illusion of coincidence means.

i wonder a lot about these coincidences- so-called or not. The day Diane’s review appeared in this blog zone was the same day i received a copy of For My Father in the mail, from a film club of which i’m a member. In noting the Israeli- Palestinian conflict theme on the dvd cover, i immediately thought of the three documentaries we recently screened at Lunavision about this very subject, and wondered how a fiction could shed any more light on this basin of troubles. As it turns out, simplification and coincidence are powerful tools that have allowed Zahavi to construct an indictment of this border struggle that causes even the documentaries to pale in comparison.

What we are offered in For My Father is a play on a street corner. There are disputes and resolution among people in a block in Tel Aviv. There is a love story of sorts. And we have a stranger who arrives among them with a pack of trouble from a much larger picture. What we slowly learn here is that there is no good reason to burden these neighbors with more and greater troubles, and that the frame of Tarek’s large and dangerous picture has no purpose or place here.

Katz (Shlomo Vishinsky) is one of the shopkeepers at the center of this drama. He had a son who died in service with the Israeli army. To this end, Katz makes the following statement: “He died because everyone here is stupid.” As a coincidence, this could be just as easily applied to the deadly results of most  armed conflicts. If you have to see one film about the Middle East problem, or if you’re looking for a drama that will spark discussion, open mental pathways, and shake you to the core, i would suggest For My Father.

That was simple.