James Marsh: Man on Wire

It is more than 30 years ago. I remember it vaguely. I remember that he did it. The tightrope walking between the the twin towers in New York in 1974. But I did not remember the story behind it. That I do now after having watched this brilliant documentary film about French Philippe Petit and his team, that made the walking – no it was, as said in the film, the dancing on the tightrope. A dance that was illegal, planned like a bank robbery, a dance that lasted only 45 minutes and was documented in photos taken by one of the most fascinating (there are several) side characters in the film, Jean-Louis Blondeau.

Photos from the performance, yes, that is what they had for the film, and of course some archive material from the building of the World Trade Centre, and from previous performances in Paris and in Sydney, and of course also some great archive from the training that proceeded the coup, as it was called. But otherwise the filmmaker – as the red thread of the narrative – builds up a suspense story in a montage that is combined with the characterisation of Petit as a true ”mauvais garcon”, a street joggler and magician, who is not able to or does not want to answer the question: Why?

It is a playful and beautifully constructed film that will for sure come to a cinema near you. Or a festival. And for sure also on a tv screen. It has this enormously precise definition of the genre it works within. Clips can be found on the sites below.

http://www.manonwire.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vztE8eeYFE

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/452047/Man-on-Wire/overview

Jørgen Leth: Traberg 2

Jeg tror den kommer i overmorgen! En af mine yndlingsfilm, måske afgjort min favorit, Jørgen Leths Traberg er på vej. DVD-boksen, hvor den er sammen med to andre Lethfilm, har været forsinket. Min boghandler har et par gange ringet til forlaget, som kun kan sige, at der er problemer, en anden gang er de allesammen til frokost. Det er afslappet som Haiti, helt rent i stilen. Jeg venter et par dage mere. Læser lige igen i Leths bog Traberg. Den er med et af hans egne faste udtryk generøs.

Det er som om, det er alle, ja, alle notaterne i lommebogen til filmen, som er trykt og udgivet. Så modigt og fuldt af tillid. Jeg husker for mange år siden han i filmmuseets sal ude på Christianshavn viste nogle af Henning Camres fornemt sort/hvide, kræsne, på én gang distante og empatiske optagelser til Notater om kærligheden, den unge kvinde, som gør sig i stand før, hun skal mødes med sin elsker. Jeg tror, det var de originale optagelser. Før klip. Det var også modigt, tillidsfuldt, generøst.

Et par citater fra bogen: “Traberg. Det afgørende er at tage ud til eksotisk location og filme en cigaret i et askebæger. Sådan skal det være.” “Jeg betragter hende. Jeg bruger hende. Jeg kærtegner hendes krop. Jeg indsnuser hendes duft. Jeg hører hendes ord, hendes lyde. Jeg elsker hende sagligt og detaljeret. (Første tekst til Traberg, siger Camilla).”

Sidste: Min søde boghandler ringer til mig. Hun har nu fået fat i forlaget. Jørgen Leth: “Fiktioner”, som DVD-boksen hedder, er gået på lager og bliver nu distribueret. Hun kan have en til mig fredag eller mandag.. De laver andet end spise frokost på det forlag!

Jørgen Leth: Traberg, en tekst, 1990. Jørgen Leth: Fiktioner, DVD-boks 4, i den samlede udgivelse med Traberg, Udenrigskorrespondenten og Sct. Hansaftenspil.

http://www.filmupdate.dk/?p=1345 

British Documentary History Online

Need to brush up your documentary film history? If so, the BFI (British Film Institute) can help you. I have just spent a little hour in company with two brilliant British actors, Derek Jacobi and Malcolm McDowell, who have introduced me to the GPO Unit film tradition way back in the 30’es with John Grierson as the mastermind – and to the 50’es and the so called Free Cinema with Lindsay Anderson as the main player, who after his contribution to the documentary history picked McDowell to be his favourite actor in films like ”If” and ”O Lucky Man”. This interactive online elementary documentary course that you can reach and use for free is introduced like this:

”The General Post Office may seem an unlikely source for some of the most creative British filmmaking of the 1930s, but with a talent roster including W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Alberto Cavalcanti, Humphrey Jennings, Len Lye, Norman McLaren and J.B. Priestley, that’s exactly what it was. Here, Sir Derek Jacobi presents an extensively illustrated interactive guide to the history of the GPO Film Unit, with clips ranging from well-known classics like Night Mail (1936) to rarer but equally sparkling gems.”

”Fifty years ago, a programme of short documentary films changed British cinema for ever. In the third BFI series developed in partnership with BT,  Malcolm McDowell introduces an interactive history of Free Cinema, the pivotal but under-recognised film movement of the late 1950s.”  Some of these films can be watched on the FourDocs website, see below.

Photo: Lindsay Anderson and Malcolm McDowell on the set of 1973’s O Lucky Man!

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/index.html

http://www.channel4.com/fourdocs/archive/

Carlo Lo Giudice: Padre Nostro

Scratch me! Hug me! Don’t act stupid! The father is 90 and the son around 50. They live together, they sleep in the same bed. They caress each other in the bed. The son constantly scratches the father´s back and sometimes it goes the other way around. The son gives the father a bath, shaves his face, brings him along to work – the son runs a gallery – shouts and laughs at him. The old man seems sometimes to be a bit confused, the doctor says you are dement, the son tells him laughing after he has been to hospital for check. The film has its funny moments in depicting these every day situations. I´m the boss, no I´m the boss. Stop this ”you can, you can not”, the father argues.

An observation it is, made with respect and love for the two of them, for me never felt as a peep show, but as a demonstration of strong emotional bonds  between the two Italians. And bravo for the closing scene where they go to harvest olives with the old man sitting in the car watching… Pure beauty!

Italy/Portugal, 2008, 40 mins.

www.faux.pt

Riga Diary 5

I attended the first handful of projects that were pitched at the Baltic Sea Forum. Before I had to leave back to Copenhagen. Again I heard a sentence that is often expressed at pitching sessions by the commissioning editors present. Those who represent US, the audience. Here it comes, this time passed to a Lithuanian project about the late writer Jurga Ivanauskaitė: The project is too artistic for me. Those were the words.

Too artistic for whom? For the commissioning editor and his/her personal taste or for the viewers? What a patronising attitude! And what is meant by “too artistic”? In this case the trailer that was shown included some reconstructions, some tableaux that should give us the audience some idea of a stylistical approach. Call it a personal handwriting. Nothing unusual, just a bit different from the mainstream but enough to scare some of the television people. Not all of them, fortunately, the representative from Estonian television liked the clip and dared to mention that the film could also be good for festivals.

Which pissed off the representatives from BBC and DR, who expressed their disrespect for “festival films”, i.e.for them are films for the happy few. Two comments to this: Well, this is just another confirmation that public television is run by the journalistic, mainstream approach, that programmes which are a bit different do not stand a chance. And that – with other words – you can forget all documentaries with artistic ambitions. Understandable it is that the audience feels that it is underestimated and choose to go to festivals instead. Which they do in big amounts, in full cinema halls that – added up – very often grap a bigger audience than the one that watches television.

Art and televison? Forget about it, except for some few exceptions.

Photo: Jurga Ivanauskaitė.

Riga Diary 4

The Boy from Riga: Sergei Eisenstein. Born in 1898, son of Mikhail and Julia. Lives in the city until 1915 where he goes to St. Petersburg to study. His father becomes the architect of beautiful Jugendstil buildings that are still to be watched and admired. And to be found are many of the architectural details that became an inspiration for the master.

This is to be studied in the fine exhibition at the Film Museum in the old town of Riga. Photos, drawings, clips from his films, quotes from his writings, anecdotes… the exhibition is open until the beginning of next year. It is situated in the house where also the National Film Centre of Latvia has its premises.

The NFC is the organiser of the Baltic Sea Forum that today opens for the public pitching of 24 film projects, and of documentary film screenings that have been totally sold out and makes it evident that Riga should set up an international documentary film festival. The public interest is there, the organisational skills, the press support. Go for it!

http://www.nfc.lv/news/?id=23  

Riga Diary 3

Salome Jashi is from Georgia. She is here for the Baltic Sea Forum. She has an interesting documentary project called ”Restaurant Bakhmaro and Those Who Work There” that is to be pitched in this coming weekend to television editors and film fund people. In Georgia she has with colleagues set up a company called Sakdoc Film, visit their site, see below.

Or get hold of her 22 mins. long documentary from 2006, ”Their Helicopter”, that has been at several festivals all over and demonstrates a clear talent for People and Life far away from everything. Here is a catalogue description of the film:

”A Chechen military helicopter crashed in Upper Khevsureti, Georgia, ten years ago. Although it seems to be useless, a family occupies the rusty wreck, cows find a shelter, and children set up their private playground in it. In a land without electric cables and modern buildings, the ruined helicopter turned out to be unique and precious. Filmed through the wrecked “eyes” of the helicopter, this observational documentary tells a story of the eldest, middle and youngest Ardoteli being exposed to just one piece of civilization.”

http://www.mediadesk.lv/index.php?d=147

www.sakdoc.ge 

Riga Diary 2

Guard dog or lap dog? Seems to be a very actual and relevant question that journalists in Belarus (and other countries as well) have to ask themselves. In the country of Lukashenko no criticism of the President and his regime will be tolerated, for which reason many journalists have been and are beaten up – or simply disappear.

As a world premiere in a full cinema hall, at the ”Is it Easy to be Different?” festival that runs parallel to the Baltic Sea Forum, this is what is the theme of the film ”Journalists” by Aleh Dashkevich (director) and Volha Nikalaichyk (producer). It follows some journalists, interviews them or their relatives, some of the journalists now live abroad, and brings images from demonstrations where journalists and cameramen are beaten up. Plus some of the well known sequences with the President himself. As a creative documentary ”Journalists” will not be prized but as another strong documentation of the appalling political situation in Belarus, it will travel the world to festivals and hopefully also to tv channels. And thus spread the message.

If anyone wants the film, feel free to contact the director at

adkpradukcyja@gmail.com  

Photo: Mr. Lukashenko.

Riga Diary 1

I am writing this in my room on the 8th floor at Hotel Albert (Einstein) in Riga, where the Baltic Sea Forum and the ”Is it Easy to be Different” mini festival starts today. Yesterday I had time to take a walk in this beautiful capital of Latvia and made my way to the park where two filmmakers were killed back in 1991 while filming a follow-up to “Homeland” by Juris Podnieks. The crew came under sniper fire during a Soviet coup in Riga. Andris Slapins and his crew-mate Gvido Zvaigzne got killed. Podnieks himself died in a diving accident in 1992.

The company, however, is still in existence thanks to Antra Cilinska, the editor of Juris Podnieks for masterpieces as ”Homeland” and ”End of Empire”, and now director and producer in the studio. Two years ago she directed ”Us and Them”, a 64 minutes long documentary on – quoted from the catalogue of the National Film Centre of Latvia – ”present day Latvia” and ”the existence of two parallel communities – one Latvian, the other Russian”.

http://www.mediadesk.lv/index.php?&s=150

Photo: Andris Slapins.

Jørgen Leth: Traberg

Jeg holder med, når jeg ser film. En af dem. Sådan har det altid været. Og nu holder jeg med Traberg. Ikke med stemmen. Erik Mørks, som fortæller om sin ven på fotografiet i det første filmbillede. Jeg holder med ‘Traberg som Traberg’ som der står på forteksten. Næste billede: en ung sort mand synger for. Nærbillede. Afrikansk musik, vi er i Haiti, uden tvivl. Og så er vi i Spanien, i en sportshal, hvor mænd på gulvet spiller op ad væggen. Mænd på stolerækker spiller. Om penge. Stemmen fortæller mig nødtørftigt om Traberg, som jeg nu ser der på stolen i hallen. Nær, energisk, til stede. Han er en mand, som bevæger sig fra sted til sted, fortæller stemmen, og den vil følge hans spor, for han må være forsvundet.

Sporet går til en lille spansk by, kameraet over de vidunderlige tegltage. Lyden er en skrivemaskine. Så ser jeg værelset, han er der ikke, men hans ting er der: skrivemaskinen, bøger og avisudklip. Stof om Haiti, et land i indbyrdes krig. Jeg ser tagene ud af vinduet. Det bliver sort, Trabergs hænder trækker skodderne for. I sin støvede 2 CV er han atter på rejse ad en ensom landevej i det vældige landskab. Alle elementer i filmen er på plads, nu følger jeg Traberg. Ham holder jeg med. Det er elementært.

Det er en stor film. Den samler flere af Filmens traditioner. Det er en surrealistisk film. Man kommer til at tænke på Buñuels ‘l’Age d’Or’ fra 1930, som handler om Roms grundlæggelse, statsmagten, banditter, borgerskab og et seksuelt-sadistisk præsteskabs kristendom. Alt kan ske i denne film, fordi alt kan ske i virkeligheden. Der er så mange logikker, der insisterer på at være reelle. Der er mange logikker, der er faktiske, og som mennesket får gennemført. Det er sjældent, at en film giver plads til dem alle. L’Age d’Or gjorde. Traberg gør. (Mogens Rukov i Information 19.12.1992).

Danmark, 1992. Plakat: Per Kirkeby

DVD-boksen “Fiktioner”, hvor Traberg er med, skulle udkomme i overmorgen. Den er blevet forsinket nogle dage, siger min boghandel. Jeg glæder mig vildt til at se Traberg igen, og Udenrigskorrespondenten igen.

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