ENRAPTURED

It has been a year employing the principles first set out in September of 2006, finishing with the "Passion and the Perfect Ending" the last day of that same year. A short film produced and a feature script written, another by Jay on the way and now, as the short month of February comes to an end in 2008, looking back at what 2007 has produced and the prior catalyst these posts had created, it is time to begin again and introduce the reality of what we do as Palingenesia into our Passion.

Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, the only segment of film that portrays the end of times properly, in all its splendor and potential biblical beauty. With film's pure tools of cinematography, editing and music; the image, music and text used to create moments of filmic truth, we are allowed a glimpse at a rarity, to see and vicarously experience both the apocalypse and the unique chance to rebuild from the debris it creates.

Rarely in biblical terms are we allowed to think of life after rapture, it's only natural the verses have to stop somewhere.

But on a Sunday afternoon movies play too and promise even more to our dreams as their stories break down and build back up again.

And never has there been an example better than Fast, Cheap and Out of Control. A film giving enough for the audience to simultaneaously see a true end to dreams while providing hope for a future.

As a child I had often visited the work of one of the subjects of this "non-fiction" film, George Mendonça, a portuguese man half my brethern from my own home town on Aquidneck Island. The work he created filled my imagination as I ran around his sculptures as a boy, playing hide and seek with family my own age, and now, knowing what strong ethic is needed for such creations, I thank his unending commitment in chasing his found craft.

I am proud to have him save the world for us in Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, to go out after the storm and rebuild the work and dreams he created over years that had been uncerominously torn apart.

I continue to hope that I may use Mendonça example in my life, to pick myself up when I have fallen down, to create even after destruction, in the face of the destructor, in any or all of the similar endevours I now find myself involved in today.

And although after He may only tear it down again, I will continue in the pursuit begun by George Mendonça, truly one of life's rare heroes, and build my dream back up again, like him, by hand, on top of the ruins.

PASSION AND THE PERFECT ENDING

An ending must possess a Passion stronger than the film itself.

The effect- a total loss of control within character due to a direct, unchanging narrative.

A Passion so strong it will never be set aside in the hearts of the characters, and by extension, the audience.

If this Passion is properly communicated and achieved, then all the audience needs is an end to what is now perceived as the disruptive narrative.

It does not matter how as long as at the end it is put at peace with the narrative.

But this peace will still end nothing.

For the Passion will stay in our hearts to allow us to watch the film again.

And again.

And again.

Now this may sound cosmic, but the science is direct.

An ending just has to feel like an ending.

And an important ending has to feel like an ending at peace.

There's been some discussion on the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning. Aristotle, Poetics the truth within the circualar model of narrative reflectability.

There has also been discussion on the dreadful post-modern. The Lynchian Elliptical.

But these are all models, and although tempting, they end nothing, and are purely a distraction.

Its important to remember that as a viewer, the construct of a narrative is beyond our control. What's happening is going to happen even if we shut our eyes or talk at the screen.

The narrative does not have the power to bring us peace.

But the Passion does.

And the Passion is unattainable without an end.

Simple.

The perfect ending will use the Passion of the characters to overpower the narrative so that as the narrative inevitably chugs itself along, we the audience will rebel against it, killing its worth ourselves, and propping it up with the a belief in our characters, in ourselves, and what we believe to be true in our hearts.

So its the end of the year. Let's find that Passion in ourselves.

MAYA DEREN 2

This entry is the second of a series of thoughts on filmmaking given to us by Maya Deren, our high priestess of cinema.


"The ritualistic form creates fear, for example, by creating an imaginative, often mythological experience which, by containing its own logic within itself, has no reference to any specific time or place, and is forever valid for all time and place.

Above all, the ritualistic form treats the human being not as the source of the dramatic action, but as a somewhat depersonalized element in a dramatic whole.

In creating a new form, the elements must be selected according to their ability to function in the new, 'unnatural' context.

A gesture which may have been very effective in the course of some natural, spontaneous conversation, may fail to have impact in a dance or film.

An action that derives from ordinary, useful action, but breaks away from it, and finally opposes it so that all action which does not tend toward utility and which on the other hand can be trained, perfected, developed, may be subsumed under this simplified notion of the dance.

The task of cinema, or any other art form, is not to translate hidden messages of the unconscious soul into art but to experiment with the effects contemporary technical devices have on nerves, minds, or souls.

If we accept the proposition that even the selected placing of the camera is an exercise of conscious creativity, then there
is no such thing as a documentary film--in the sense of an objective rendition of reality."


A picture is a picture is a picture.

Dance. Dance. Dance.

Image. Music. Text.

The background is foreground and vice versa.

Nothing is of importance.

Everything in focus.

FILM TO SEE - AWAKENING OF THE BEAST

No one in America knows the work of Jose Mojica Marins and its most likely for the same reasons he is a foggy memory in his home country of Brazil. The character he created was honored in his time through comic books, documentaries and merchandising. But the message never seemed to translate past the top hat, cape and long fingernails.

Morality.

Or as Coffin Joe obssessed-

"Continuity of Blood"

Its all a very politically topsy-turvy-like message, even for a series of low-budget horror films produced in the sixites.

But by the time Marins made his last installment of the trilogy, the message was never more filmically clear.

A moral nightmare, illustrating the rise of sexual perversity and drug use among Brazil's youth in the late sixties.

Never a condemnation. Just a picture of the world at the time.


America, then, had a lot on its mind.

-Pinkos, Black Power, Vietnam.


Marin, it seems, only had to fight for our first amendment right.

For the sake of morality.


The film is almost undescribable due to the lack of resemblance to almost any other film.

An episodic art film held together by a thirty minute "acid trip" sequence while Marin's character Coffin Joe delegates hellish punishment to the admitted immoral.

Part documentary, it shows Marins obscenity trial footage for his previous two horror films, while still using a fiction point of view to paint his accusers.

All of it filmic. Visual.

But If you wow them at the end, you got a hit.

And its hard to describe this end.

An end just as representationally confusing as the source of that quote.

Marins, walking out of the courtroom after his trial, as himself, after describing his discoveries with the use of Coffin Joe in the "acid trip" sequence,

After being told he and his films are the root of the immorality of youth in Brazil,

After all the suits agree that Marin be censored for the good of Brazil,

Only then, as Marin steps out of that courtroom, into what has been seamlessly created as a reality on film,

Then, as Marin watches, a car full of young men pick up a friend of the night, working in the middle of day.

A mirror of the film's beginning.

Only then, does Marin, channeling Godard,

Look into the camera,

And LAUGH.


AWAKENING OF THE BEAST

A film to see.


FILM TO SEE - NUMBER TWO









PINK FLAMINGOS

THE EFFECTIVE THEORY OF CHARACTERIZATION

AUDREY HORNE


















For a true illustration of character, all but Love should be ignored.

And there is nothing wrong with ignoring the insignificant for the sake of L-O-V-E.

Its a way of coping with too much information.

With almost everything you see, hear, taste, smell or touch, you have the choice between examining the details closely or looking at the big picture. You prioritize. Whether you are looking at a painting, reading Joyce or going to the store, your thoughts form into categories of interest, disregarding whatever you find irrevelant at that time.

Physicists have this thing called Effective Theory and have libraries full of formulated observations on "particles" that have "effects" at various "distances." The theory concentrates on relevent measurements that a human could possibly detect, disregarding the ironic clutter of space and any possible hidden dimensions.

Such lofty "effects" is true with Audrey. A character made simple for optimal association and reflection. With a disregard for small town life and high school crushes, she focuses on the root of it all. The thing we all possess despite its internal complexities as broad as outer space.

LOVE.


So if the word Love does not describe the character, the character is a fool.

And that is okay.

Just don't expect anyone to get behind a fool.

For a character to lead, they must be active.

To be active, they must believe in something.

Such is the definition of Love.


THE EFFECTIVE THEORY OF CHARACTERIZATION

If the cinema is worthwhile, than it is in the best interest to create characters with love in mind, as its basic dimension of human experience, concentrating on the fundemental motivation of their existence, so that they may be able to lead us, the viewer, safely to the end of their journey.

COFFY

Coffy.

Black.

Stacked.

And packed with fury.

Where the action is.

There, coffy is.

Coffy.

Godmother of them all.

The baddest, one-chick hit-squad, that ever hit town.

No one sleeps when they mess with Coffy.


Coffy was concieved quickly. Rushed through production and to the market in order to beat a similar revenge-plot film also starring a black woman as its main protagonist.

It is only natural to assume that this quickness of necessity forced simplicity into the production so that months later, just how the words above describe, a purer character was born to beat its competition.

To be clear, that character is Coffy.

A round and dynamic representation played by an inexperienced actress in a fast paced production.

The acting is bad. The plot even worse. And everything else from the dialogue to direction did not help Coffy.

But the character still remained strong.


So it may seem strange to comment on this exploitation classic.

Its a bit cheesy, violent in a meaningless sort of way and too often solely motivated by the movement of Pam Grier's breasts.

But the film has more integrity than most.

Even more than some of the "great" films posted here.

Coffy is honest. Straightforward.

It does not pretend to be anything in which it is not.

But it is also blunt.

And do not confuse this with honesty.

It has the tactless heart. The rare element that style can not create.

The thing that makes you smile and wonder how you could live with yourself connecting with such dirty goings ons.

And it all comes from Coffy, the character.

A pussycat when she's after a man's heart.

A wildcat when she's after his hide.

Character.

Too often it is put on a pedestal

Too often given too much respect.

But sometimes best left alone.

You don't need a story.

You don't need a song.

With good character, you have film.

You just turn the camera on.

ANNA KARINA

Back in the 50's, Barthes wrote famously of Garbo's face -

"Garbo's face still belongs to that moment in cinema when capturing the human face still plunged audiences into the deepest ecstasy, when one literally lost oneself in a human image as one would in a philtre, when the face represented a kind of absolute state of the flesh, which could be neither reached nor renounced. A few years earlier the face of Valentino was causing suicides; that of Garbo still partakes of the same rule of Courtly Love, where the flesh gives rise to mystical feelings of perdition."

Yet Barthes wrote these words when Karina was only a few years away from being his contemporary, thus missing the iconic image of his own time and the future inspiration it would bring us in this modern generation.


Because Anna's tears are beautiful.


Today Karina's eyes plunges us into more ecstasy than Garbo's face ever will. Her eyes demand immediate engagement. Her tears are the internal pledge of reality.

Later in the above writing, Barthes makes comparisons between Garbo's face and that of a "snowy thickness of a mask...the mask of antiquity" and continues to describe Garbo's eyes as "black like a strange soft flesh, ...not in the least expressive, ...two faintly tremulous wounds."

Wonderful and truthful language as well as fundementals of our generational division.

Because today, film acting is doing nothing well and having the courage to be part of the creative system. When the back of your head and the sound of your voice can carry a scene, that is the day you have become an actor.

If Garbo was a concept, which Barthes assured us she was, then she broke this creative machine.

What good is a concept? A combinations of generalalities? What good is it for our system?

We do not want to watch Garbo.

We want to watch ourselves.

We want to watch eyes. The mirrors of our souls. The Truth.

Not the face.

Anna Karina is ours. Crowned in a bobbed black haircut brought to life through monochrome. A woman struggling within these modern times, selling her body just so she can keep dreaming.

Just like us.

Because Anna Karina will always be remembered here for her role in Vivre Se Vie.

Her film.

The director of Vivre se Vie did a lot of films.

But this one was NOT his.


If the face of Garbo was an Idea.

And if Hepburn was an Event.















Then the eyes of Anna is Truth.

Try to see them in every film you see.

And you'll see one of the most beautiful faces you've ever seen.

HOOP DREAMS

This documentary is among the most highly regarded films ever released.

A pleasure to watch. Characters of real people living their lives. Moments when you truly ask yourself in wonderment, "Is this really happening?"

But film reveals a simple truth contrary to the given assumptions of the documentary film.

That in storytelling, all this non-fiction is fiction. And all that is fiction is truth.

Hoop Dreams, at its core, like all documentary, is a lie.

A lie.

There is a historical quote out there that lists the three major humiliations of human history. One was the discovery that the earth was not the center of the universe. The other was Darwin's evidence that humans were not present at Creation. And the last, a psychoanalytic belief that we do not have control of our own minds.

There are issues with the last of these humiliations, but nonetheless, as the quote implies, these three discoveries for the time, became our embarrassments. New knowledge became our largest pain. Proof that our reality is just fantasy.

An astronaut from the future arrives tomorrow, what truth will we have to destroy? And what fantasy will we have to create to replace it?

In the creation of this fantasy, we create our new reality. A new reality that is our new truth.

Where we live within our reality there is only more room for future humiliation. This reality, on a long enough timeline, will crumble under our new knowledge.

Hoop Dreams is a beautiful film, a beautiful reality that should be, as it is, held in the highest regard.

But I say that to save face. The film should not be regarded for its truth. Nor for its characters. I am sorry to say that it all is not really happening, as it is, stated before, a lie. At its end, we only watch its subjects, disengaged, only learning what we and the filmmakers already knew, up on our soapboxes, our minds still dreaming, our bodies still going to work.

The documentary form of truth causes us to forget about the reality around us as we continue to do little to change how we behave in it. To us, the mindless mass, a false truth destined to be destroyed by time is worth more than the limitlessness of our own dreams.

I will close wanting more with the film's benchmark quote, given by one of its subjects- Williams Gates, to help further clarify this most murky argument.

"Four years ago that's all I used to dream about, was playing in the NBA. I don't really dream about it like that anymore. Even though I love playing basketball, I want to do other things with my life too. If I had to stop playing basketball right now, I think I'd still be happy, I think I would. That's why when somebody say, `When you get to the NBA don't forget about me' and all that stuff, I should say to them, 'Well if I don't make it, don't forget about me.'"

MAYA DEREN 1

It would seem improper to speak of the strong character and subversive influence of Maya Deren without the words of Maya herself.

Therefore the following thoughts on the creative process will be disclosed as spoken directly from the subject's lips.


"A creative artist must have, to begin with, substantial reserves in his bank. He must have endured the experiences of life; he must have first earned and deposited his money. Those who have spared themselves the pain and effort of living do not have much in the vault.....

At this point my useful bank metaphor has to be modified....Let us instead imagine that this money is really like books or diaries or records of all we have ever seen, felt, thought, heard, and experienced. The problem of the artist, then, is to rob the vaults only of those riches that are relevant to his need.

The trouble is that these vaults -- these archives of the spirit -- are not catalogued and cross-indexed. So one begins with the idea; and the intensity of one's concentration makes, of that idea or concept, a sort of selective magnet which, passed over the mind again and again, draws out the images, sounds. movements, people, reflections, ideas, etc. related to it in kind.

If the magnet is too selective, it will bring up only synonyms and no new, illuminating relationships will be revealed. It is better that it be a little loose, eclectic and liberal so that one starts out with a big choice of possibilities. It is wonderful, of course, to watch a Master at work -- and this is what a Zen Master is -- when the magnet is of such extraordinary precision that it brings forth the most precisely best and no more and no less. One might even say that Zen is the art of tooling the magnet to its most refined precision and of charging it with the greatest pulling power.

Jazz musicians have, at times, an exquisite precision of selective memory. Pressures, as of deadlines or critical demand. also serve artists of every kind to release the adrenalin which acts with "inspired" precision. These are usually classified as "improvisations." But it is hard to be a good bank-bandit, and it has nothing in common with the pseudo-Zenist who, plunging his clumsy, untrained paws into his past as into a grab-bag, comes up with a mess of half-eaten oranges and cockroaches...."

Maya Deren - June 1960


Take these concise words and put them in the vault. There is no better way of knowing or doing.

This entry is the first of a series of thoughts on the processes of filmmaking given to us by Maya Deren, our high priestess of cinema.

WHO WILL SURVIVE AND WHAT WILL BE LEFT OF THEM?

"The film you are about to see is an account of the tragedy that befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother Franklin. It is all the more tragic that they were young. But had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected, nor could they have wished to see the mad and the macabre they would see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. The events of that day would lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." -Opening Narration

A courageous man says that all films should be intended for children. Or more specifically, delivered in a manner in which children can understand them. But even more specifically, in a way a child sees the world. It should not be dumbed down or censored but showcased in a manner that the underlying message is always the truth. Children know the truth. And they know lies. So as a courageous man says, all film should be intended for children. Or at the least delivered to them honestly. The way they see the world.

The body follows the mind. The seperation of the two is found only in death. For one to control the other is unnatural. Impossible even. A failure defined by our own dreams.

The mind will always win. But never when its controlled.

Children know their minds. They trust their minds because for the most part they are encouraged to do so for the development of their mind alone.

Think of it. Their minds are seeing things, feeling things, everyday, for the first time. Their minds are completely out of control.

A good film does the same thing.

And this is the case for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. More so for this film than most. Watching this movie as an adult, well..., that's why they had to make the remakes. There is a lot of organization in those films. Not fertile ground for losing one's mind.

But an honest film. Like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. A film creating a perspective a child may feel or see. A perspective someone could not imagine had they lived very, very long lives. A perspective someone could only imagine if they had NEVER LIVED AT ALL.

The courageous man is right. All films should be for children. Because films are the stories we put on top of the foundations of how we see this world.

If we try to know everything about it, we'll find nothing. If we believe everything, we are fools.

But if we see and feel everything as if it is the very first time. Again and again. Wow! What a beautiful, scary, dangerous, gloriously wonderful world we all live in. We will see the truth. And we will feel all the lies.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre scared the shit out of a lot of people.

Back in its day and maybe a little bit today too.

PUNCH DRUNK LOVE

When someone loves you, they say your name different, you just know that your name is safe in their mouths.

In order to feel, you must speak. Like a melody on a keyboard. Simple. If you know how to play.

You can think all day long but if you keep that thought to yourself, it means nothing.

You can buy a bunch of pudding, it will just go bad.

Somewhere out there, Barry and Lena, the misfits they are, are living amongst us. Its beautiful really, they're everywhere, sharing everything together. Heroes to each other. Captive audiences for the other. Its not so difficult to speak. You just speak. You don't have to know how to play. You just play.

KOYAANISQATSI

What purer drama is this? The great actors of mountains and skyscrapers, our modern mythology, played out behind us, on the backdrop of our lives. Just as Achilles and Athena once played out their godly lives behind the daily routines of the ancient Greeks, these great actors influence our society and mold our way of thinking.

This film is what everything is all about. Whatever your everything is.

No film has ever painted such large brush-strokes with the language of film.

Godfrey Reggio- "It is up for the viewer to take for herself what it is that [the film] means."

This should be the goal of all films. To allow us to be ourselves as a viewer. No man behind the curtain. No one to tell us the story's secrets. No one in control of our own narrative destiny. We are in control.

Yet, this is still a film. Unchanging. It shows us places. We watch. It plays us a song. We listen. It welcomes us by a warm fireplace and we speak with it like an old army buddy we haven't seen in a few years.

The film is so close to our human experience that we forget it is a technology - a film. The auteurs in our film history have been trying to do this forever, only to fail from under the weight of their own existence. Because in the auteur theory, it is about the auteur.

With Koyaanisqatsi, it is about the film.

Have you ever heard the name Godfrey Reggio? How about Quentin Tarentino? Well one's an artist and one's an auteur. You tell me which one you rather have talk with, or maybe, which is able to allow you to talk at all.

Koyaanisqatsi has a clear and approachable voice. Its images. Its music. It proves there is more to film than a person. That there is more to film than a title. Simply, the story.

Let the work stand for itself, Image-Music-Text, unfettered from man-made constructs built to blockade a nice fireside chat.

Go see a movie because its a movie. Not because it puts words together under two other names you recognize from the television.

Go see a movie -no matter what it is- because it is filled with flashes of light and auditory sensations.

When you succeed at this, you will succeed in knowing what everything is all about. Whatever your everything is. Because it is up to you, the viewer, to take for yourself, what it is that the film is supposed to mean.

IRREVERSIBLE - THE CENTURY'S FIRST FILM

Matthew Barney, avant garde filmmaker/ex-model, was asked to name the best film of the year 2002 and why. His reply was short - Irreversible. His reason - the fire extinguisher scene. I embrace this brevity because the film is important for this attribute alone. Displaying Horror up front so as to stabilizes the audience with a tragic event increasingly far behind them. How it establishes sympathy with the characters - becoming the overriding goal for all characters with their audiences- as they are. Victims. Living out lives. Before the horror.

Now the gimmick. The gimmick is bad. No matter how many "backwards" films are made, it will always be. But while many films play games, this one, despite its gimmick, does not. This film, more than any other, trivializies all other films produced since. ALL the films that tell themselves they move forward. This is why the film is so important.

The year currently is 2006 and a new benchmark in the history of film has been set. Irreversible is the standard of excellence for a new millennium of cinema. Its goal was to prove that time destroys everything. Think of this when so many walk out or shut their eyes thirty minutes into the film. Because this film and all of film are no longer the dreams we wish them to be.

In the year 1902, we were allowed to go to the moon with Meilies' La Voyage Dans la Lune. Some decades later, we went to the moon for real. In the year 2002, a hundred years later, Irreversible asked us to evaluate time. Looking within this reality, some decades from now, what could be possible in this world?

To walk out on this film is perfectly understandable. It is completely ridiculous that such places and events could exist and happen in this world. I too try to walk within this dream.

But as the world changes. And as the cinema continues to reflect that change. And as all those who stayed for the film's duration know. We are going to see this film again. For real. In our lives. Some decades from now. We will then remember Irreversible as we were. As victims. Living out lives. Before the Horror.

The horror film. What once was a genre that contemplated the fear of change in America has become a bloody gorefest based on a japanese film starring Jennifer Love Hewitt.

If this is the new horror genre - then Irreversible is our punk rock.

YOU'LL CAST BELLS, I'LL PAINT ICONS

ANDREI RUBLEV, by Andrei Tarkovsky and Andrei Konchalovsky, in the Soviet Union, released in the year 1966. A story of a painter without paintings.

Andrei Rublev is a monk. His presence does not captivate us. We follow him where the city walls are crumbling and horses are stumbling down stairwells. Where the innocent are being extinguished and where a monk must act upon a humantarian murder, saving a life by taking another. A zero sum act that prepares him to witness a miracle. "You'll cast bells, I'll paint Icons." The first words spoken after a self-imposed vow of silence and abstinence from painting. Boriska, son of a great bell maker has deceitfully created a politcal symbol for his leaders in an oppressive world. The miracle of the Divine called Inspiration.

We then see Rublev's paintings only to realize we have been watcing his paintings all along. Watching his paintings on the faces of the peasents. Watching his paintings in the musings of the "enemy of the state" jester. His paintings become more than just pictures. They have become Icons.

But what of Boriska the bellmaker. A young artist that completes a work by deceit for the enjoyment of the people of the state.

As subversive as a monk can be, Rublev stood alone as an artist. A simple observer.

But as a worker for the state, he may now create.

ANDREI RUBLEV, by Andrei Tarkovsky and Andrei Konchalovsky, in the Soviet Union, released in the year 1966. The story of a painter without paintings.

AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD

"This arrow cannot harm me," Brother Gaspar says before dying. "This is not rain." The redness of his blood and the wetness of the rain cannot convince him. He has become Aguirre. But Aguirre is not real. He is a living symbol. And, a lone survivor.

The symbol of power employed by Aguirre is the very character itself, the character of Klaus Kinski. I do not intend to separate the man from the myth. A character wholly intwined within the defenses of a crablike eco-skeleton, promoting the complete transparency between actor and role. The sensitivity, the ghoulishness, the egomaniacal. It is all Aguirre. And how we think of Kinski, is how we think of Aguirre. And that is no accident.

This presumption comes from the crab. That picture you have in your mind of defiance, power and dementia. The actor prepares, slanted and strapped in, to take control of the narrative without ever being in any control. Passively masculine and physically flawed. A lone survivor in the world of dreams.

By the films end you are so immersed within Aguirre and his reality that he has you think it is real. With the film's last image, we glide toward a raft stranded in the middle of a river. On that raft Aguirre stands alone. His crew, his daughter, all dead, killed by spears and arrows of unseen origin. The raft is falling apart, threatening to sink into the river. And of course, there are the monkeys. They overtake the raft like a calm plague. The river -- nature, our Mother -- has won. Aguirre is defeated and discarded. He may starve or drown before he realizes this. Because he has survived. That is the pain of dreams. That is the power of symbols.

"I am the wrath of God, who else is with me?"

All who dream and act upon it. All who believe and speak the truth. All that have faith in the unseen.

"We are drifting in circles."

With Aguirre as our guide, this may only seem true.

MONICA VITTI

"The high priestess of frosty sensuality." This is Maria Louisa Ceciarelli. Its no wonder she is known by the stage name Monica Vitti. Her presence on stage is much too great to warrant an ordinary reality. I am not surprised of what is often said of her subsequent film work labeled too easily as undistinguished and sporadic. Although not firmly addressed, they seemed not to have forgotten how she had once defined film with a manner that certainly few actors could even manage.

I say this for her role in L'Avventura. A role as undefinable as the film. A role of elegance. A role that can only communicate through its own image. The filmic role. Monica Vitti and L'Avventura work along the same symmetrical shape. She embodies its full feminine charm. They are the same. Is it her transparency or her reciprocity to the film that makes us glaze over? It is all so dangerous but the fact remains that few performances have as effortlessly tailored a film. Its heartbeat is this character. Its motives are this character. This film goes nowhere without this character. And this character's nature is Vitti's alone. She is the sun. She answers the questions never asked. Its not its camera, its machines. Its not its open ended philosophy, its moral discussion. Watch the film for Vitti's performance and all questions will disappear. They will not be answered. They will disappear.

Every breath she takes is as natural as the cuts between them. We never laugh. We never cry. We never get scared. We're just there with her. And she fools us. Makes us reflect on our lack of reaction. But never has the film left us. Never has it fooled us. There is nothing to read. No puzzle to put together. Every emotion we have is Vitti's. Every thought we have is hers. Questioning is ignorance of ourselves and a distrust to her performance. We state the honest but too proud "I just didn't get it." Mister, there is nothing to get. The film has more power than that. It requires a different way of watching. The way of the heart and touch. Not the mind and eye.

Recently it has been brought to light that the great swedish director Igmar Bergman did not care for L'Avventura or Miss Ceciarilli and pined more for his unattainable muse Jeanne Moreau in Antonioni's La Notte. Well, I can't blame him for his myopic view of the future. But I am disappointed.

PALINGENESIA

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