Monopolets Helte – Poul Martinsen

At Poul Martinsen er en fin og klog dokumentarist, som har lavet et væld af seværdige dokumentarprogrammer og  – film for Danmarks Radio vidste vi jo godt. Os der har alderen til at have været tv-seere tilbage fra tresserne eller har set de mange genudsendelser eller været i det københavnske Cinemateket, hvor han har været præsenteret retrospektivt. Altid med ”Lydighedens dilemma” og ”Broen” som hovedeksempler, som det var tilfældet i DR2´s overfladiske aftenprogram med Martinsen, hvor der spildes tid på at lade ham vandre forvildet rundt gennem det nye tv-hus, før han bliver placeret foran et tv-apparat, hvor han kigger på klip fra sine programmer og kommenterer dem klogt og oplysende. Afbrudt af – igen – overfladiske speakerkommentarer om hvor god og herligt provokerende han var – fra folk som Poul Nesgaard og Gorm og Gregers – og om hvordan han ”opfandt” Big Brother and Robinson lang tid før de blev trend. Vigtigt for Martinsen, næh, det der satte ham i gang, siger han til kameraet, var brødrene Maysles ”Salesman”. Dokumentarismen på internationalt niveau med andre ord.

Flere af DR Dokumentar’s udsendelser (bl.a. mange af Lars Engels, men vist ikke af Martinsen) kan ses i fuld længde  på Bonanza, se nedenfor.

Eller læs Peter Harms Larsens bog om Martinsen eller Ib Bondebjergs
Virkelighedens fortællinger, den danske tv-dokumentarismes historie (begge 2008)

http://www.dr.dk/Bonanza20/Tv

Sendes også DR2, lørdag 4. oktober kl. 22.50

Scottish Film Institute: Bridging the Gap

Here is another fine initiative that enables you to watch documentaries from the UK online. Let the Scottish Film Institute make their own presentation:

”SDI is an internationally recognised documentary research centre at Edinburgh College of Art specialised in documentary training, production and distribution. It was set up in 2004. Our aim is to stimulate and inspire the documentary scene in Scotland and beyond through focus on creative excellence and unashamed international outlook…

Our films have played at major film festivals, such as Sundance, Cannes, Hotdocs, Tribeca, Full Frame, Silverdocs, IDFA, Cinema du Reel, Vision du Reel, Leipzig and have picked up major awards and nominations.”

On the new site of SDI it is possible to watch several short documentaries from the Bridging the Gap series. I watched Astrid Bussink’s 8 minutes long film ”Upside Down”, based on the letters that Rudolf Hess wrote to his family about his flight to Scotland in 1941 and written from the Spandau prison, where he was until his death. An excellent visual interpretation.

http://www.docscene.org/

Still: From Astrid Bussink: Upside Down.

DOK-Leipzig Programme Ready

A festival that is very dear to me has made its selection. I am working as a scout for Leipzig festival director Claas Danielsen and his team, when it comes to films from the Baltic and other Eastern European countries. And there are some other films that I have recommended. They did not follow all my advice in the selection committee – they had many offers:

From 2.400 films more than 300 films were taken for four competition sections (International Competition for Documentary Film, International Competition for Animated Film, Young Documentary Talent Competition – Generation DOK, German Competition for Documentary Film) as well as for the International Programme.

Those filmkommentaren.dk readers who visit the DOK-Leipzig programme site (see below) will recognise films that have already been written about or reviewed on this place. Write the titles in the “søg” and you will find: Blind Loves (Juraj Lehotsky), Gugara (Naglowski and Dybczek), Today the Same Day is Different (Baig and Moreno), Three Men and a Fish Pond (Pakalnina), Testinomy (Georgescu), Nazis and Blonds (Tammiksaar), The English Surgeon (Smith), Recipes for Disaster (Webster), Man on Wire (Marsh). Quite a lot!

Go to Leipzig, watch films, go to the market events and the cafés, and the church of Johan Sebastian Bach. 

http://www.dok-leipzig.de/v2/cms/de/dok-festival/programm-2008/index.html

Still: Juraj Lehotsky: Blind Loves.

Don Edkins: Why Democracy

Its been an interesting weekend, politically speaking, in South Africa. I had been away travelling for a week and came back on Saturday to find out that the President of South Africa – Thabo Mbeki – had been deposed. He had been ‘asked’ by the ANC to resign. He did…
 
In a democracy leaders come and go. And thats healthy. Especially in Africa where many leaders hang on to their power as long as they can (Mugabe …). What will be very good for the country is getting rid of some of the Cabinet ministers who have been running disastrous policies in Mbeki’s government – such as the Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, whose stance on HIV and AIDS has been an absolute disaster for the country. But there is a lot of uncertainty about the process. And with recent violent xenophobic attacks against foreign Africans living in South Africa, there is a lot of anger and hate under the surface which was taken out on some of the almost 4 million foreigners from Africa, the majority having fled the Zimbabwe meltdown…

The Steps documentary film project Why Democracy? was made to challenge the practise and understanding of democracy around the world. We are currently making a five-language DVD edition for educational distribution across Africa. Documentary film is a powerful tool to help understand and debate different issues, and this collection is a valuable resource for that. Democracy is part of the syllabus for the final years of high school in South Africa, and we are negotiating to make the films available in every school in the country. There is a lot to learn.

This shortened text by producer Don Edkins, one of the two masterminds behind the Steps for the Future film series, previously written about on this blog, is to be found in its full length on

http://blogit.yle.fi/node/2319
http://www.whydemocracy.net/

Gibney:Gonzo:Life and Work of Hunter Thompson

I had hoped for more from this film about a journalist legend that I had heard so much about, read so much about, but never seen a film about. A journalist whose work I had read only a little of, but nevertheless knew about, the one, who gave name to the special hybrid, fascinating kind of reporting that inspired journalists all over the world to leave classical journalism, to fictionalise and talk in first person.

For sure the film has a lot of interesting archive material with Gonzo himself, and includes clips from the film ”Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, has a wonderful collection of 60’es music on the soundtrack, a great walk down memory lane, but the film is not very inventive in its storytelling that is pretty formatted with continuous cuts with people who knew Gonzo and can tell how fantastic he was. Predictable tv like hell.

So for me the interesting look back is on American history with for instance George McGovern as the president everyone wanted until he casted a fragile vicepresident candidate, a gift to Nixon and his gang of crooks. ”I’ve been a good Read”, Gonzo says himself, and Johny Depp does his best to argue for this in the film, where he reads texts to the camera, but it does not hide a loose repititive construction of a film about a man, who always went for the wild and totally committed. Gonzo died in 2005.

A dvd version is on its way. And the film goes all over in festivals.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809963971/info

http://www.cinematical.com/2008/01/22/sundance-interview-gonzo-director-alex-gibney/

Jørgen Leth: Sanct Hansaften-Spil

Jeg lærte i skolen, at Digte 1803 er en stor bog, måske den største i dette dengang nye århundrede, som vi er nogle, der aldrig rigtigt har forladt. Jeg hørte om samtalen med Steffens og jeg lærte Guldhornene udenad, det skulle vi. Og jeg lyttede efter, når Reumert læste digtet i radioen med musik til. Det blev en del af mig. Men jeg forstod det ikke. Først nu tror jeg, at jeg forstår. Lidt.

Tænk, at det er Jørgen Leth og Per Kirkeby – som i mellemtiden har betydet så meget for mig – og de kongelige skuespillere, som omsider (jeg så aldig tv-produktionen, og havde dengang i 79 bestemt ikke kunnet tage den ind..) at de viser mig, hvordan og hvorfor, den bog er stor. Og gør min dansklærers arbejde færdigt. Det var Thure Munkholms korte analyse, som bragte mig på sporet. Bare sætningen: “… Oehlenschlägers sprog, der her toner frem i al dets overvældende skønhed og metriske vidskab.” Altså! Metriske vildskab…

Og blide smerte: “… Jeg har jo alt elsket og levet!” Synger Maria ved klaveret, og Konen siger: “Deres Stemme har dog en herlig Klang. / Hvad hedder den Arie? / Maria svarer: Teklas Sang. / Den er oversat efter tydsk Poesi / til Weyses deilige Melodie.” Og jeg tilføjer: og Henning Christiansens gribende melodi til jødedrengens sang: “… Kommer at kiöbe, kommer at kiöbe! / Röde, gule, grönne og blaa i Fleng! / Jeg er en god lille Jödedreng!” Og Frits Helmuths fortælling om liden Kirsten: “… I gamle, længst forsvundne Tid / der var en deilig Pige..” Og Ove Sprogøes blinde mand: “Skaffer mig min Fiol igien, / at jeg kan tolke min stumme Smerte.”

Alt dette ustandseligt afbrudt af den fineste ironi og klassiske lystighed: “De Gravhöie skulde Fanden flytte! / De staae her og giör ikke den mindste Nytte.” Tekstens første og berømte chok. Institutionen Leth og Kirkeby og Christiansen har med hele holdet anvendt dette tydelige set-up fra digteren og omsat det i tv’s letteste og simpleste greb og gjort det til noget så enestående som tv-kunst af munter alvor.  

Jørgen Leth: Sanct Hansaften-Spil,1979 i DVD-udgaven The Jørgen Leth Collection 19-21, 2008. Foto: Instruktøren i 1979, men på en anden produktion.

http://www.filmupdate.dk/?p=1345   

BFI: Documentary Film History

The BFI (British Film Institute) celebrates its 75th birthday by publishing a collection of dvd’s including one of documentaries from the golden period 1930-1950. What a discovery for those who dont know about it, and what a revisit for us, who was taught that it all started in the UK with names like John Grierson, Humphrey Jennings, Paul Rotha and Basil Wright. Check the website below. 4 discs of brilliant work, a booklet – films and interviews. A gift!

 

 

http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_8457.html  

Jørgen Leth: A Midsummer Night’s Play

Thure Munkholm writes in the booklet in the box-set: “At first glance, it might seem to be quite a leap from these two fictional travel stories to Leth’s earlier TV production of A Midsummer Night´s Play, a classic from 1803 by denmark´s national Golden Age poet, Adam Oehlenschläger. But only on the surface. All three films, in essence, are concretised expressions of aviable material.

The images in Interference and Traberg emerge as small concrete poems in their own right. In A Midsummer Night´s Play, literary language, Oehlenschläger’s words and dialogue, serves a similar function. In his production of the play, Leth abstains from any form of modernisation, even including elements of the play that most updated versions would likely excise as so much archaic filler… Leth is mainly interested in stressing the tones and music of literary language.

The film’s main attraction, apart from the celebrated artist Per Kirkeby’s Golden Age-inspired sets, is Leth’s singular ear for Oehlenschläger’s language, sounding forth here in all its overwhelming beauty and metric wildness.”

Jørgen Leth: A Midsummer Night´s Play, Denmark, 1979 in the DVD-edition The Jørgen Leth Collection 19-21, 2008. The box no. 4 contains also Interference, 1983 and Traberg, 1992.

All films in the Jørgen Leth Collection have English subtitles.

http://www.filmupdate.dk/?p=1345 

Jørgen Leth: Udenrigskorrespondenten

Jeg mener ikke, jeg har set filmen siden den var ny. 25 år er gået. Og man spørger naturligvis: holder den? Og jeg svarer lige med det samme efter at have set DVD-versionen: Om den holder! Omsider en ligetil og tydelig film. En klog og smuk kærlighedsfilm. En gennemført Leth-film, så genkendelig. Måske falder den lidt sammen til sidst, det må undersøges nærmere, men til da: Ja, hvor den holder.

Gensynet er fantastisk, filmen er meget bedre, end jeg husker den. Igen er der det med den anden uskyld, at glemme alt det, jeg ved om filmen på forhånd, om Haiti og om Leth og hans bøger og andre film, og opleve filmen igen i en tømt tilstand af både forståelse og oplevelse, som er værkets mening og hensigt, som Poul Borum sagde.

Der er i den situation meget at glemme, for der har været meget siden. Hans “Haiti, uden titel” først og fremmest og “Traberg” jo, og Asger Leths “The Ghosts of Cité Soleil”. Den politiske udvikling i landet, kup og krige. Alle artklerne og bøgerne. Det ville ikke være Jørgen Leths skyld, hvis jeg ikke genkendte stederne og personerne og begivenhederne. Med alt det stof glemt, men husket et andet sted i systemet, er det, at alt i den 25 år gamle film er tydeligt og ligetil. “Det lignede en erindring, dette sted,” som Traberg siger et sted i den film, hvor alt også er så velkendt. 

Jørgen Leth: Udenrigskorrespondenten /Interference, Danmark 1983 i DVD-udgaven The Jørgen Leth Collection 19-21, 2008. Boks 4 indeholder Traberg, 1992, Sanct Hansaften-Spil,1979 og Udenrigskorrespondenten.

http://www.filmupdate.dk/?p=1345