Aguirre, Wrath of God

Werner Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) is an incredible film depicting the decline of Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), an officer who becomes the leader of a detachment of Spanish conquistadors in search for El Dorado in the steaming rain forests of the Andes. Herzog's use of landscape in Aguirre plays an integral role to the psychological impact of the film. It is a prime example of Herzog's continuous search for the sublime through his images; something Herzog himself noted when describing the difference between the landscapes of Aguirre and those found in Hollywood and television:

In my films landscapes are never just picturesque or scenic backdrops as they often are in Hollywood films. In Aguirre the jungle is never some lush, beautiful environment it might be in a television commercial. Sometimes when you see the jungle in the film it is a reality so strange you cannot trust it, and maybe think it is a special effect. The jungle is really all about our dreams, our deepest emotions, our nightmare. It is not just a location, it is a vital part of the characters' inner landscapes. The question I asked myself when first confronted by the jungle was 'How can I use this terrain to portray the landscapes of the mind?'

The (mostly) languid pace of the Amazon River helps heighten the increasing sense of paranoia and madness present within the film and its characters, especially when combined with Herzog's ominous, lingering close-ups (fig 1); something we see repeated in his later Amazonian work Fitzcarraldo (1982), particularly during the scene where Kinski cautiously plays Caruso from his gramophone whilst floating downstream towards an uncertain fate (fig 2).

(fig 1)

(fig 2)

Much like John Ford before him, Herzog successfully uses his surroundings in order to "portray the landscapes of the mind". Indeed, when commenting on Aguirre Herzog highlighted the similarities between himself and Ford in terms of landscape:

I like to direct landscapes just as I like to direct actors... Most directors merely exploit landscapes to embellish what is going on in the foreground, and this is one reason why I like some of John Ford's work. He never used Monument Valley as merely a backdrop, but rather to signify the spirit of his characters. Westerns are really all about our very basic notions of justice, and when I see Monument Valley in his films I somehow start to believe - amazingly enough - in American justice.

WR: Mysteries of the Organism

Dušan Makavejev's WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971) is a curious juxtaposition of a fictional plot set in Yugoslavia and a documentary concerning the life and beliefs of radical thinker Wilhelm Reich, intertwined with archive footage of Mao, torture, electric shock therapy, un-simulated sex, interviews with Warhol superstar Jackie Curtis, clips of Fug's front-man wandering the streets of New York with a toy machine gun, amongst other things, which combine to create what Peter Cowie referred to as a "dazzling collage" of a movie.

Described by Amos Vogel in his book Film as a Subversive Art as "a hilarious, highly erotic, political comedy which quite seriously proposes sex as the ideological imperative for revolution and advances a plea for Erotic Socialism", much of WR: Mysteries of the Organism deals with the political differences between Makavejev's native Yugoslavia and Communist Russia. This is perhaps most obvious within the two characters within the fictional Yugoslavian sections of the film who come to represent both Yugoslavia and Russia; Milena Dravic's character and the Russian figure skater she attempts to seduce and sexually liberate, named Vladimir Ilyich blantantly after Lenin. In one of the films most memorable scenes, we witness Dravic address a group of Yugoslav workers and peasents, telling them to "fuck merrily and without fear!", and suggesting that free love was where the October Revolution failed. However, Dravic's character meets a tragic end when she is beheaded by Vladimir's ice skate - perhaps symbolising that those who seek "Erotic Socialism" will always be struck down, with Dravic's character suffering an unfortunate end much in the way Willhelm Reich was imprisoned in real life, where he eventually died, for his radical beliefs.

Weekend

Described as his “most savage attack upon the values of Western capitalist society”, Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend (1967) is a brute of a film through which Godard critiques the values of the capitalist west, resulting in “an apocalyptic vision of the collapse of civilization in the West.” Despite not directly capturing the events of the time – La Chinoise (1967) being a more honest account of the state of affairs in France 1967 – Weekend still successfully manages to portray the mood of the time it is made in. Worlds apart from much of his work earlier of the same decade – À bout de souffle (1960), Une femme est une femme (1961), Les petit soldat (1963), Bande à part (1964) etc. – Weekend was intended to not only critique or disenchant the audiences which had come to admire Godard’s earlier ‘bourgeois’ work, but full on attack them.

Perhaps the most famous scene in the film, and also one of the best examples of Godard’s provoking style, is the traffic jam sequence, described here by Peter Cowie:

A traffic jam serves as an admirable metaphor for the fatal indigestion afflicting consumer society. In a brilliant travelling shot, almost a reel in length, Raoul Coutard’s camera gazes dispassionately at men playing cards beside the road, a cart-horse deep in its own mire, lorries filled with animals for some zoo, overturned cars and even one vehicle facing the wrong way, rammed up against a petrol tanker. Off-screen proclamations mingle with the din of crashing dustbins, in characteristic Godardian dialectic.

As the camera slowly moves alongside the traffic jam the audience is left feeling frustrated, wondering if the irritating sounds of car horns and never ending queue of traffic will ever come to an end – themselves ironically becoming stuck in a traffic jam which somewhat reflects the never ending boredom Godard sees in materialist western civilization. Other moments in the film, such as the shot of Mireille Darc’s character bathing from the shoulders up – deliberately not showing the audience Darc’s naked body, but instead placing a portrait of a naked woman directly behind her – as well as Darc’s materialistic screams of “No! My Hermes handbag!” after just escaping a burning automobile – her concern being not for her or her husbands well being, but for the well being of an expensive hand bag – add to Godard’s scathing critique, further highlighting the absurdity prevalent in the material world of the capitalist West.

The infamous traffic jam scene.

If...

Lindsay Anderson’s If… (1968) is a film which successfully challenges the role of authority and discipline within society through Anderson’s use of technique and setting; a film that is especially effective when one considers the social context of its time. Set in “the privileged milieu of the British public school”, many observers have interpreted the films setting as a metaphor for the climate of society at the time of the films release, as noted by Peter Cowie when speaking of the films success at Cannes in 1969; “the top prize for If… seemed to legitimize the spirit of revolt that had swept through Europe and much of the United States.” Even when interviewing himself in the press release for If…, Anderson highlighted the potential his boarding school setting had as an allegory, when he said of the film:

The other aspect that appealed to me, I think, was the extent to which a school is a microcosm – and particularly in England, where the educational system is such an exact image of the social system. I like very much to show a little or a limited world which has implications about the big world and about life in general existence… I should have thought that such an intimate and authentic picture of these great and influential establishments would be appreciated by anyone interested in the way the world works.

In addition to the films setting, much has been said about Anderson’s switches between colour and black and white throughout the film; do they depict, as if often the case in cinema, the difference between fantasy and reality?; are they used in a Brechtian fashion to alienate and disenchant the audience?; were they originally used because of time constraints and difficulty of filming in colour inside the chapel?; or was it simply because Anderson ran out of money? Whatever the true meaning behind this device is, what is certain is that by doing so Anderson does indeed heighten the “confrontation between youth and age, between anarchy and discipline” by further unsettling and disenchanting the audience; a disenchantment that was reflected in the “spirit of revolt” present both on screen (in If…) and in real life at the time.

Jean-Luc Godard Film Club

For the past two mondays, Kathryn, Danielle and I have met up to watch films. For the most part, it is their drawing club - where they can practice sketching and illustration from the films we watch - but it means I get to watch some great films projected on a big screen and sometimes I even join in. So far we have watched the fantastic Je T'Aime John Wayne (a sharp and short parody/critique of Nouvelle Vague style set in London), and two Godard films; Bande a Part and La Chinoise. I'm sure we'll watch other directors, but right now it seems to be the Jean-Luc Godard illustration film club.

Kathryn tells me that it's more difficult than it looks to draw a moving image, but I think both of their attempts manage to succesfully capture what is on the screen - the black and white of Bande a Part as well as the colour of La Chinoise. Anyway, here are some of the impressive drawings that have been done so far:

Belmondo and the kids from Je T'aime John Wayne by Danielle.

Anna Karina & Co. in Bande a Part by Danielle.

Finally, my less impressive attempt at drawing Henri from Godard's La Chinoise.

Interrogation

The story behind Polish director Ryszard Bugajski's Interrogation (1982; released 1989) is a fascinating one; one which some have compared to "a scene from a Cold War novel". Originally filmed in 1982, the film underwent a series of complications and set backs, mostly due to the communist state it was made under, as well as several fortunate near misses; for example, Bugajski, and Poland for that matter, ran out of 35mm film during production, leaving Bugajski to rely on the help of Western European and American friends to bail him out by shipping him enough film to finish the project. Luckily, the film was completed days before martial law was declared across Poland in December of that year, giving Bugajski and his assistant director time to hide the film - bury, in fact - in order to protect both the film and themselves from the state. After editing the film, Bugajski had to present it to the Cultural Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Incredibly, someone present at the hearing managed to record the whole discussion on a smuggled-in Dictaphone, the transcript of which provides an intriguing insight into the mechanisms - and paranoia - of the censoring state, who unsurprisingly shelved the film.

However, the story does not end there; far from it. In his notes on Interrogation, Andy Townsend explains how the film managed to slip through the hands of the state:

Bugajski realised that the film could be 'lost' or destroyed and so, risking imprisonment at the very least, he surreptitiously made a copy on tape... In what seems like a scene from a Cold War novel, Bugajski then met a friend at a bus stop and gave him the tape for safe keeping. From this tape VHS copies were made and were leaked out into general circulation. Interrogation became a genuine underground hit. A population otherwise fed propaganda were holding secret viewings of the film all over Poland.

"While Bugajski's harrowing film of Stalinist-style police tactics was being seen all over Poland, the director himself was forced into exile in Canada" notes David A. Cook. The film stayed underground until its eventual release in 1989, gaining critical acclaim and winning Krystyna Janda the accolade of best actress at the 1990 Cannes festival.

Perhaps the  moral of the remarkable story behind Interrogation, is that it illustrates that cinema is more than just entertainment. In stark contrast to the glamour of Hollywood, for several Eastern-European directors it is a matter of life and death: "Interrogation remains a profoundly powerful film. It is a testament to the determination of a director who risked everything to bring it to an audience" whilst simultaneously highlighting the irony that "a Communist regime, for whom 'propaganda' was once the proudest weapon in its ideological arsenal, has in the end come to fear it too."