Nour Mobarak’s butt in Mati Diop’s Snow Canon
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— Critical Precepts, 2013 • Ask away
ryknight
Very much looking forward to Eliza Hittman’s debut feature, It Felt Like Love, after her strong short, Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight, which is one of those rare movies that uses Claire Denis handheld in an apposite way that doesn’t annoy my eyes.
Something like a syllogism that rattles through my head from time to time:
If my life is my education and art is about life, why not ask art to teach me something? (Or, with an eye against the horizon of pendatry, why not make art that might edify?)
There’s more to learn than life can teach us, but it sure would be one boring lesson plan without distinct interpretations of how the just learn to love and live amidst the wicked.
Wait for the verse…
Leaving OK on Flickr.
There is a lot to be said for the imperfections that came before this HD world we live in now. I took this photo with an old LG phone that slid apart to allow for talking. The photos are all oddly saturated. There’s nothing mimetic about them, but this one in particular is a devastating mnemonic for what may have been the worst four months of depression I’d ever felt but somehow survived thanks to a host of movies and seemingly constant exercise and a wonderful interlocutor named Erin I wish I could still talk to every so often and wish only the best for in that far off land I should feel closer to than I allow myself.
Recall a word on Flickr.
I wrote about The Master + Thunderbolt and Lightfoot for the annual Fantasy Double Bills at Notebook that Danny and I dreamed up (five whole years ago at this point!). It’s a quick hit, with a few addenda, and there are a few other pairings on there that are truly great. One thing I’m not sure everybody took to heart was the idea of the old movie being something they’d seen within the calendar year. But most did, so I shouldn’t gripe; I’m just wont to grouse like a louse. I’m a regular Freddy! *shudder*
1. Making my first short narrative film, HEADLANDS, which we shot in the Spring and finished in the Fall because day jobs take time away from everybody. Don’t want to spoil things but, for all the deficiencies I see, I learned a whole lot about a whole lot of things and it definitely shifted my perspective on moviemaking from both a critical perspective and a practical one. I’m planning to shoot another soonish in the hopes or learning even more lessons. Truth is: it just seems like the logical extension of my interest in cinema, as many young turks have felt before me, and I’d argue I’ve already learned more in the last year than I did any of the years prior when it comes to this art I hold so dear to my heart and brain.
2. You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, by Alain Resnais, moved me more than any other film this year, and I saw Abel Gance’s Napoleon twice back in the Spring. If I ever get to make anything as rich as the former, which is about 1/5 the size of the latter, it presupposes I will not only keep making movies but keep making movies until I reach my 90th year on this big blue ball of nonsense. Here’s hoping both those can become realities in time.
3. Watching Lebron James play basketball in 2012. I tried to vote for his Eastern Conference Finals Game 6 performance against the Celtics in the Indiewire poll but was shot down. What’s fascinating about that game is that it was the least joyful I’ve ever seen Lebron play a game. But his play inspires such joy, in equal parts awe and giddiness, that I have to say he was my favorite performer of the year. He’s the post-human we’ve wanted, but few want to admit it because, he’s all too human in kind: he’s a dad, he rides his bike to work, and he loves the trappings of fame as much as any American would. But his art stretches the imagination in empirical ways. I just don’t believe he can move that fast, or jump that high, or make certain passes, but then he does, time and again, proving a certain kind of maximalism nobody else will ever match for the simple fact that every man is a singular being never to be repeated again. After all, that’s why all this “Next Jordan” talk has always been so bogus. Besides, who wants Jordan, now, now that we have Lebron?
—my contribution to Was vom Jahr bleibt at Cargo
