Stalker (warning: contains spoilers)

I finally got around to watching Stalker (dir Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) and found it to be beautiful and strangely gripping.

This is a story of a guide, the eponymous Stalker (played by Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy) who takes people into a forbidden zone near an unnamed city.  The zone seems to be sentient and within it is a room where visitors can apparently find the answers to their dreams.  The journey there is long and perilous and full of mysteries.

The Stalker – an obsessive, rather pathetic, figure - is guiding two strangers into the zone and most of the action seems to take place in one day. The first of the stalker’s customers is Writer (Anatoliy Solonitsyn) – irrational, emotional, garrulous. He believes in the power of art but has lost his inspiration.  And his hat.  The second character is Professor (Nikolay Grinko) – a scientist who is rational, logical, calm.  He has a bobble hat.  All three men have very different philosophies and this allows the film to explore many conflicts but primarily that of cynicism versus faith. 

This is a slow film with minimal cuts, which really pulls the viewer in to join in the contemplation of the meaning of it all.  It is a story of fears, escape and of hope but one where no one is really sure what they want at the end of their journey.

Tarkovsky does not tell us what to think but lets the dialogue and imagery co-exist beautifully to create a mesmeric adventure.  He uses colour and its absence carefully. The scenes outside the zone are in a grimy metallic sepia with lots of contrast.  Inside the zone is green and lush but never quite welcoming.  We sense a life force – a vibration throughout - something otherworldly. It is menacing but never really terrifying, despite of the Stalkers warnings. 

Nature has reclaimed the zone, with tanks overgrown with grass being the most obvious example of this. We can sense the delight for our protagonist rolling in the grass and the dew – he doesn’t even flinch when a tiny, no doubt ticklish, caterpillar (symbolic?) hunches its way along his finger.

The camera lingers over submerged reminders of the outside world – lots of tiles (not sure if this is symbolic or just typical of Russian décor?), coins, bottles, syringes, guns, religious icons, the Professor’s disarmed bomb, oil…

Most of the scenes are visually stunning. Perfect composition and incredible depth to the shots – leading our eye into the journey.

Water is a strong theme throughout  - in some cases clear and fresh (life-giving) and in others stagnant and polluted. The rain scene shot from the POV of inside The Room towards the end is a refreshing relief.

There is also a crown of thorns (worn by Writer not Stalker though) and lots of fish plus maybe a lot of other biblical references which I missed.

At the end of the film, Tarkovsky uses colour outside the zone – perhaps implying that the Stalker has broken through his obsession with the room? We see him carrying his daughter and leading the way for his wife as they walk home, rather than his customers.

The black dog appears at the point when the men are really starting to contemplate their lives, as they rest in the swamp.  It stays with them and comes out of the zone with the Stalker.

The final scene is of the daughter moving three jars/glasses along a table with telekinesis (she is one of the zone’s so-called mutant children).  She pushes one of them off the end of the table and it (presumably) breaks on the floor. Is this symbolic of the three men with the falling one being her father?

I am also intrigued by the nuts/bandages that Stalker throws ahead and did I miss it or do we never get an explanation of why Porcupine is so called? 

This complex film is apocalyptic but surprisingly hypnotic and I am sure it will stay with me for a long time. I am looking forward to reading Geoff Dyer’s Zona (“a book about a Film about a Journey to a Room”) and contemplating this elliptical masterpiece further.

Berberian Sound Studio

We watched the Berberian Sound Studio (dir Peter Strickland, 2012) last night. The ending felt very flat, to the point of ruining the movie (did the project run out of money or ideas?) but on reflection today, it did have some excellent moments. Plus it provided a fascinating insight to sound effects and the intricacies of being in a sound studio, which is good as the next part of the DFP course is about sound… 

The protagonist is Gilderoy, played brilliantly by Toby Young, who is an exquisitely stiff-upper-lip-Englisher in the fetid, sleazy world of 1970s giallo films. He has been brought in to work on a movie called The Equestrian Vortex, which - we quickly discover - is a brutal, misogynistic horror film (by implication this is possibly Suspiria – dir Dario Argento, 1977 or something similar). Although the viewer never sees the film we are forced to imagine the scenes from the voiceovers and visceral sound effects. Gilderoy is totally unprepared for the appalling scenes he has to enhance through sound but he seems to stay on the job as a result of being broke and also feeling that it is the professional thing to do. He loves the studio (we hear that he only has a garden shed in England for his work) in a wonderfully nerdy way and is flattered to think that he is the best man for the job. Gilderoy – a perfectionist - is manipulated by the intensely vile Francesco (played by Cosimo Fusco) and the film’s charismatic creator Santini (Antonio Mancino), handsome and charming but ultimately lecherous and predatory with the female actors. 

It was not clear to me what was happening towards the end. I suspect that Gilderoy has a kind of breakdown as he feels that he has become part of the actual film by being complicit in making such a gruesome piece of cinema. He is suddenly able to speak Italian even in the flashback to when he first arrives. One of the actresses practices her lines by speaking words from a letter sent by Gilderoy’s mother, which she could not have seen. 

The mise en scene is excellent in creating a mood of menace and claustrophobia: lots of use of dark shadows; throbbing red lights; close-ups of rotting vegetables; women in the recording rooms screaming in apparent silence; power cuts; distortion of sounds – especially the human voice; a focus on the machinery – turning reels and projector lights to indicate the monotony of the work. We become hypersensitive to sound like our anti-hero, leaving our nerves on edge throughout the film. The whole movie is set underground - in the studio, Gilderoy’s room (next door?) and the corridor nearby – we get the sense that our man has been imprisoned. 

There were echoes of the mystery of Barton Fink and for much of the film we feel a great secret may be revealed that things are not as they seem. This is interspersed with lots of black humour and the hilariousness of an Englishman abroad (the scene where he gets angry to try to get his expenses paid is brilliant). 

 This is a disturbing and ambiguous movie with lots of surreal moments. It is slow, brooding and quite creepy – manipulating the minds of the viewers to create the horror reflected in our protagonist’s wide eyes. By the end, we have no idea what or who is real. I would have given this pretty high marks if it had not just fizzled out so disappointingly in the final moments but I would recommend it for anyone obsessed with films.

Dayanita Singh - Go Away Closer, Hayward Gallery

The OCA study tour on December 7^th to the Hayward Gallery was interesting and enjoyable.  I had not been aware of Dayanita Singh’s work up until now but I found her images to be very appealing and quite inspiring. 

Singh, who was born in New Delhi in 1961, describes herself as a bookmaker who just uses photography as her medium but she is clearly an accomplished conceptual artist. The show is technically a retrospective but it seems to be a result of Singh’s habit of constantly sorting through her contact sheets; filtering, juxtaposing, re-grouping her captures.  This repurposing creates new narratives and she seems to take delight in the unexpected relationships that the images form with each other.

Although very time-consuming, it strikes me that doing this very consciously would be an excellent way to help a student find their “voice” as a photographer.

Before we went into the gallery, tutor Robert Enoch suggested that we think very much about the way the images are grouped and displayed as well as the images themselves. The words ‘elliptical’ and ‘whimsical’ were used a lot throughout the day and it was clear that some students found the work to be frustratingly difficult to categorise (or “pointless” in one person’s view). 

The first room is set up as a traditional gallery with framed pictures on the walls and sample photo books over by the large window.  The second room features the three dimensional ‘museum’ pieces, large wooden structures with many dozens of prints framed in panels, which are interchangeable.

There was some interesting discussion about labelling and captions. Singh has said she is reluctant to do this for fear of being patronising and would rather work with what is happening outside the frame: “If I were to put any kind of date or place or caption it reduces the image from what I wanted it to be,” she said. “The where and when is a burden on photography. If people know why and where it was taken, they think they understand the image and they can move on.”  [Source: http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/the-worlds-of-dayanita-singh/?_r=2&]

With this in mind I tried to read the Myself Mona Ahmed images without thinking about what I had already learned about the subject (ie that Mona is a Hijra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia)) eunuch and had had an an adopted child taken away from her. The photographs have really captured the sadness and the loneliness as well as a mixture of Mona’s feminine and masculine gestures. Some of the compositions reflect the subject’s status as an outcast (emphasised by the gravestones) but we also see her place within a community and the happy moments with family.

The next set of photos appeared to have been grouped by colour (reds in this case) but we could also see some links in texture, strong verticals, a face on TV in the first image matching with a painting of a woman and a camera on the third.  The images were well composed and quite appealing me but may well have been throw-aways if that had not sat well as a group. This led to an (inevitably) inconclusive discussion about what is a valid photograph.

Many of the pictures we saw explore spaces without people. Singh admits being attracted to rooms and corners and doors, which she thinks have secrets and surprises. We can feel the lingering sense of human presence and traces of existence in the shadows but we get some sense of alienation and voyeurism.

Robert observed that many of the images look as if they could be movie stills, particularly from the French/Italian new wave (eg Antonioni’s ‘Blow Up’, which I have yet to see).  They also have a very timeless quality and evoke a nostalgic sense of a country I have never visited.  We see a very different, darker side to India compared with the usual colourful busy street scenes that are so familiar.  It seems that this is more authentic and reminds me a little of Tokyo through Moriyama’s eyes.

Comparisons were made with Nan Goldin [http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/nan-goldin-2649] and Larry Clark [http://larryclark.com/] and Robert also told us about the rather fascinating Sophie Calle, with particular reference to creating elliptical portraits of a person [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Calle]. Really interesting ideas in there.

Some of the photographs we looked at were very ordinary and quite boring but as a collection they achieved a new resonance and it was quite an adventure to contemplate the various ‘museums’ she has created.  The display looks like huge contact sheets and it is fascinating to try to second-guess why certain images have been juxtaposed or included at all.  Her work slows the viewer down. It demands a reading.

We almost all agreed that the Sent a Letter accordion-fold booklets were gorgeous and that this is a wonderful way to present images.

http://www.dayanitasingh.com/sent-a-letter

The ‘moving still’ video of Mona was rather mesmerising but I felt as if we were intruding on a very personal, intimate moment between Singh and her friend.   The photographer said she felt this was the fist capture that did justice to Mona’s uniqueness and, of course, we can learn more about a person even in a short video portrait than with a single frame. I liked this device and may have to try some moving stills of my own.  Robert mentioned that Thomas Struth has also experimented with this. 

I like Singh’s relationship with the world. I like her playfulness and the way she approaches ideas and her use of language. I like how she leaves stuff out – the ellipsis – and how there is always another path to go down.  She is interested in stories and secrets and chance and indications of the human. “It’s the dream, it’s that time between waking and sleeping when things collide.”  Dark but never depressing and it has given me lots of food for thought.

Black Swan

We finally got around to watching Black Swan (2010, dir Darren Aronofsky) last night and whilst it was riveting in places, I feel that this film was overly hyped and misses it mark.

I will avoid recounting the details of the plot as the synopsis can be found easily elsewhere but my thoughts below do contain spoilers so please beware if you have not seen the movie….

What worked

• Use of the mirrors and the black and white (although these devices were used too much!)
• Portman - weirdly – looks different from certain angles so it was hard to recognize her imagined doppelganger. This added some intrigue but was possibly accidental
• Wasn’t sure at first if Hershey is Portman’s mother or lover – a good initial indication of the unnaturally intimate relationship they have
• I was starting to disbelieve that Portman could really act but when she changes towards the end of the film it was quite powerful.
• There is lots of suspense and mystery around what is real and what is not – wasn’t sure how everything would end (even though there were lots of predictable moments on the way)
• Portman did look like a ballet dancer. This movie is not for the squeamish. We are repeatedly shown how grueling this lifestyle is for the body of a dancer
• Mila Kunis is fab in it – very sexy and dripping with confidence. Very convincing and well cast for the role
• The claustrophobia of the apartment where Nina lives with her stifling mother and lots of good mise-en-scene generally
• I kind of liked the feathers growing out of the scratches on her back and this was well-filmed
• I also liked her growing full feathers at the end of the black swan performance - nicely delivered
• Good ending – open for the viewer’s own interpretation 

What didn’t work

• She was already unhinged at the beginning so our only journey with her was a further descent into madness – I found this to be unsatisfying
• I was utterly unconvinced that Nina (Portman) would have been offered the role as the prima (just because she bites Leroy’s lip when he kisses her against her will?)
• Far too many clichés for my taste – black/white; the prudish girl is tempted by lesbian sex; the overbearing mother who gave up her career to have a baby; the sexually predatory head of the ballet company; the washed-up star (Winona Ryder) gets drunk, has a meltdown and then tries to kill herself blah blah etc
• Portman was so simpering and pathetic for so much of the movie it became boring at times – her character could have been much more subtle
• I don’t think this film revealed anything about the world of professional ballet that we didn’t already know – it is brutally hard, there is lots of rivalry and back-stabbing and you get retired early.  Big deal.
• Surely the understudy (“alternate”) would not have been chosen so late on the process?
• The webbed feet was a step too far
• She doesn’t ever reveal an actual dark side - she just goes madder

Mise-en-scene analysis

• Pink bedroom with toys – shows childishness
• Mother dresses in black – mourning her lost career and being slightly evil?
• Creepy paintings in her mother’s studio
• Butterfly wallpaper – signifies an impending transformation?
• Extensive use of mirrors – self-reflection/obsession and seeing different sides of people
• Portman mostly in white
• Kunis in black – lends a black top to the protagonist when they are out at a bar being bad
• Breeze-block walls and long grey corridors to convey the harsh, unforgiving nature of the environment
• Canted and high angle shots to show vulnerability
• Lots of tracking shots and rapid cutting to create empathy and suspense

In conclusion: I definitely preferred The Wrestler!

Exercise: Composition & balance

This exercise is all about balance and continuity between shots. When this is broken it can work well to create a change of pace, atmosphere, add or remove tension or to communicate something about the state of mind of a character. I think I have a pretty good grasp on this from my still photography experience and also my recent experiments with the moving image but I have found a few examples of composition and balance from Breaking Bad (which I am missing badly).  There are many breaks in the continuity of this part of the episode to create the tension. There are also some long heavy parts where we are given time to contemplate the drama as it unfolds.

This is a point in the sequence where Walt realises something important which is pivotal to the plot. Although he has been centred, the sunflash adds some balance but still leaves the composition as quite uncomfortable to reflect Walt's discomfort.

Classic use of the rule of thirds with the figure in the foreground weighting down the empty space towards the bottom of the image and the centred character being the one moving across the set. This allows the viewer to take in a lot of information with any distractions.

A brave shot - like much of the cinematography in this show. We can barely see Walt as he is numbed with the reality of what has happened but he is centred because he is the pivot of everything.

A superb shot showing Walt twice - one reflection with the bullet hole in his head - to remind us that we still don't know how this will end. These dramatic and unusual changes in the composition and continuity keep us on edge and build the feeling of voyeurism. We almost feel like we are next to the car, hiding, looking everywhere as there is such danger.

In the preceding shots we have seen Walt walking in the desert and then the Native American watching the approach from his home and coming outside to interact. This shot is from a higher angle and has a much more symbolic feel to it. The fence and straggly tree between these two people accentuates Walt's remoteness, that somehow there is no going back to normality even though he is in 'civilisation' again. 

An incredibly tense scene between the two sisters. The set up feels very stagnant at first sight. The corporate or institutional feel of the office design; they are facing each other and we see then squarely in profile. Fairly muted colours apart from the purple orchid.  Commentators have said that purple in the series usually indicates someone is being misled or is delusional.  For a while nothing much happens - and then Marie confronts Skyler. 

Added tension is created in this already excruciating scene by the camera "jumping the line" across the safe 180 degree arc. This reverses the pre-established direction of the gaze between the two women which accentuates the battle of wills between them. We only see Skyler's purple sleeve from the other side.

Powerful use of the rule of thirds. Walt is down on the bottom left of the image, tiny, powerless and weighed down by events.  He is framed by two trees showing that he is hemmed in and, behind, the design on the embankment looks like gravestones.  The viewer is allowed to gaze at this still, quiet moment to contemplate Walter's fate.  

Taylor Wessing winner

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2306586/spencer-murphy-wins-2013-taylor-wessing-photographic-portrait-prize

Emin, Murray procrastinations

This did entertain me (it is a few years old, I know) although I can't help liking some of Emin's work. She actually always strikes me as being a true artist to the core. I just wonder how much the money machine and the marketers add to the apparent tawdriness of it all. The art world is no country for old men anymore.

But now for some completely different:  a Bill Murray tribute!

I really should be studying.

Across the Ravaged Land

Absolutely beautifully composed images by Nick Brandt from Lake Natron in Tanzania....

Across the Ravaged Land by Nick Brandt

Brandt's website

Exercise: Images with Depth

This exercise asks us to create images to represent various atmospheres:

• Dynamic/exciting/adventurous
• Oppressive/dull/stifling
• Complicated/confusing/uncomfortable
• Refined/mature/reasonable.

Consider lines of perspective, foreground and background detail, lighting, colour, texture and depth of field....

Quite dynamic, exciting and adventurous even though the depth is not that apparent - there are some jaunty angles of the buildings and nooks and crannies to add interest. The sporty cyclist and vibrant colours add something.

Two traffic images for the oppressive/dull/stifling mood.  The angle of the shot shows depth as the lines of the cars lead the eye back but there is no comfortable space so it feels stifling (to me anyway).

The mundanity of the traffic jam also adds to the oppressiveness.

Obviously the hole in the stone naturally invites us to look through and see the world from that perspective so it gives a strange sense of depth. The layers of the landscape, shapes and colours also help.

The lines all leading to a vanishing point creates a feeling of dynamism and this is enhanced by the subject matter - all those bicycles just waiting to go somewhere.

The light and shade works well in this as we can't see any sky.  This highlights the white at the vanishing point and is balanced by the white writing on the road.  The repetitiveness of the bike parts add a nice rhythm. 

The playground shots were an experiment to see how the different lines would work but I think the overriding feeling is of being imprisoned - inevitable as there are bars up close.

Definitely complicated/confusing/uncomfortable!

It is much easier to feel the sense of depth from this image taken between the bars of the fence.

Lovely lines in the grass path leading us towards the distant building.  The softness of the path and green colour make this look very welcoming.

I thought these images would be a good fit for the oppressive/dull/stifling brief but looking at them now I am feeling more dynamic/exciting/adventurous.

Refined/mature/reasonable - nice warm colours and comfortable lines. A well-thought out space that is carefully looked after.

Logically the horizontal layers of the stones should indicate depth but this image actual feels more stifling as we cannot really see the space even though we know it is there.

Another refined/mature/reasonable image. We know what we are looking at; the path leads comfortable ahead; the area is well-tended.

I love the sense of controlled depth in this shot, leading to a small rectangle at the end. It feels comfortable and ordered.

This one is a little more sinister and threatening - could be creepier than the other graveyard images.

Dynamic/exciting/adventurous - interesting lines and lots of activity plus the street fair feel from the bunting.

I failed to capture the sense of depth in this image possibly because the patch of grass breaks up the lines of perspective and the tree blocks any possible vanishing point.

This has a nice refined/mature/reasonable feel to it even with the slightly eccentric contours of the grass. Nice lines and sold respectable buildings. And huge depth not often found in central London.

I find this to be dynamic/exciting/adventurous - partly just the recklessness of being outdoors in such heavy rain but also the reflections and colour add to the scene.

Overall this was a surprisingly interesting exercise. At first I was completely stumped and couldn't work out how I could create the images but once I got out and about I started seeing ideas in lots of places. This will really help when I need to build a scene from scratch.

From these images it seems that the best way to create depth is with clear foreground and strong lines of perspective.

I think visual depth is really important to the overall feel of a shot as it will seem deliberately claustrophobic otherwise. Our actors also need space to move around and interact and we want the viewer to feel comfortable that this can happen realistically.