The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema 1,2,3

… presented by Slavoj Zizek, Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, is simply a gift to all film teachers. In three parts Zizek takes us on a Freudian, but not only, trip through wonderful clips that he comments on from his point of view, turning everything upside down, in a very demanding and inspiring lecture, full of humour with the lecturer ”placed” by the director Sophie Fiennes on a boat near the location of Hitchcock’s ”The Birds”, in the house where ”Psycho” was shot, in the bathroom that Gene Hackmann was in when ”The Conversation” by Coppola was shot and so on.

Indispensable in film teaching and for film lovers in general, because this dvd is so well constructed: It goes in three parts that you can run separately, and within these parts you can find a chapter that will be useful or joyful, or both, for you.

And it is so full of clips from the ones mentioned above, but also David Lynch, Tarkovsky, Bergman, von Trier, Marx Brothers and the one who is better than the rest of them: Charlie Chaplin. Zizek loves films and he really can tell us what he thinks. Buy it!

England/Austria, 2006, director: Sophie Fiennes, 150 mins.

http://www.thepervertsguide.com/index.php

Danish Documentary Issues

Just a brief on the Danish language articles below, three of them, dealing 1) with a cine-essay series at the Cinemateket in the Film House in the middle of Copenhagen. Lovely programme with films by Joris Ivens and Chris Marker and Georges Franju and Alain Resnais, not to mention Jean-Luc Godard, 2) a regular monday night documentary programme set together by pioneer Ebbe Preisler, who 3) argues that the Danish Film Institute has failed to continue what used to be a very strong focus on the import of foreign documentary films for distribution.

www.dfi.dk

www.cinemateket.dk

www.mandagsdokumentaren.dk

Photo: Joris Ivens China-essay in Filmhuset, Copenhagen.

Mandagsdokumentaren

Ebbe Preisler er en af utrættelige slidere i dansk dokumentarfilm. Han var den fremtrædende producent i midten af 1970’erne, da jeg startede i Statens Filmcentral. Han stod i 1990 bag oprettelsen af Documentary, som var MEDIAprogrammets første kontor, som blev placeret i København. Det kontor som senere blev til EDN (European Documentary Network). Og han har været generalsekretær for både producenter og instruktører. Med meget mere.

Og så er det nu 13de gang at han leverer et veloplagt klassisk efterårsprogram for sin opfindelse Mandagsdokumentaren, hvor han sammensætter korte og lange film i programmer på et par timer inklusiv samtaler med ophavsmænd og –damer.

Et par eksempler: Den helt nye film om Slobodan Milosevic vises sammen med Heynowski og Scheumann’s legendariske ”Congo Müller” fra 1972. Lars Johanssons fine film om Per Højholt vises med ”Gittes Monologer”, som Preisler selv lavede med Sten Bramsen. Og så er der gensyn med én af denne blogs kæledægger, Jon Bang Carlsens ”Hotel of the Stars” og ”Livet vil leves”.

www.mandagsdokumentaren.dk

Still: Katrine Østlund Jacobsens “Aftaler med Gud” med Dan Holmbergs fotografi er også i programmet.

Filminstituttet under kraftig privatisering

Ebbe Preislers indsats for dokumentarfilmen i Danmark er omtalt under Mandagsdokumentaren. At han ikke er bange for at tage bladet fra munden viser følgende klip fra hans forord til programmet. Vi tilslutter os helt hans nødråb vedr. udenlandske kort- og dokumentarfilm:

”… dansk filmkultur har det rigtigt skidt på dette område. Der importeres stort set ikke kort- og dokumentarfilm til Danmark. Filminstitutet er under kraftig privatisering, og indkøbskontoen har været minimal i årevis. Den ene nye klassiker efter den anden går vores næse forbi…Der er mindst 100 kort- og dokumentarklssikere, der burde findes tilgængelige på f.eks. danske biblioteker, men som ikke er der. Filmens Tolstoj, Shakespeare, Virginia Wolf… Flere af dem var tilgængelige, dengang filmene lå på 16mm og kunne lejes af skoler og foreninger hos Statens Filmcentral. Et par af dem overlevede overgangen til VHS. Men meget få synes at have overlevet overgangen til den digitale tidsalder og dvd’en eller det digitale sendenet, der er på vej.

Jeg har spurgt i DFI om ikke importstøtte kunne komme på tale i et forsøg på at genkøbe de vigtigste titler, men reglerne for importstøtte er reserveret spillefilm…”

www.mandagsdokumentaren.dk

www.dfi.dk

Still: Hvor er kopierne til publikum af Audrius Stonys mesterværk – ordets betydning erindret – ALENE ? Hvor han som filmlærer til eleverne må man tro i en overstadig generøs sammenhæng anbringer en mangfoldigh ed af filmiske greb i én bevægelse. Jacob Høgel støttede i sin tid som konsulent produktionen.Men hvor er vores produkt? De tilgængelige kopier? (ABN)

Cine-essays i Cinemateket

Det er herligt at få at vide at Cinemateket i København i denne måned ”begynder en længere rundtur i dokumentarfilmens mangfoldighed” med film af bl.a. Franju, Alain Resnais, Bert Haanstra, Joris Ivens (hans vidunderlige Kina-film), Chris Marker (fra hvem begrebet cine-essays vel stammer?) og Jean-Luc Godard med sin temmeligt alternative filmhistorie.

Tak for det. Glæder mig og håber mange vil tage imod tilbuddet.

Til gengæld må jeg brokke mig over den slatne præsentation, som Cinemateket giver denne – og andre serier. Én ting er, at det trykte program af sparegrunde er skåret ned til næsten ingenting, men når der så henvises til nedenstående hjemmeside, forventer man at møde gode, lange tekster eller henvisninger/links til hvor man kan få mere at vide. Helt i et filmmuseums ånd… Det har hjemmesiden bare ikke, det er helt den samme tynde tekst som i programmet, om den enkelte film + credits.

Tag nu ”Nat og tåge” som Filmmuseet for årtier siden udgav et hæfte til, hvorfra der f.eks. kunne have været citeret. Dette hovedværk i dokumentarfilmens historie, som var på Statens Filmcentrals hitliste i årevis, og nu er taget ud af kataloget, det skal Cinemateket nu ikke klandres for, spises af med:

“I ’Nat og tåge’, Alain Resnais’ fineste cine-essay, er tonen tyst og afmægtig. Hvordan, spørger Resnais, kan vi glemme KZ-lejrenes rædsler? Hvordan huske dem?”

http://www.dfi.dk/cinemateket/Cinemateket.htm

Swedish short documentaries

At the Odense Film Festival one of the special programmes is very much welcomed. It is a selection of short documentaries, a genre that is very rarely seen. Read what Cecilia Lidin, festival director of Odense Film Festival writes on the site:

”We’re making 14 films depicting current trends in Sweden” wrote Tove Torbiörnson, Documentary Film Consultant at The Swedish Film Institute, when we were corresponding about which films to show in Odense. The fourteen films were scheduled for completion in June 2008 – and we have the great pleasure, to screen them all for the first time here in Odense. The title is “People depicted 2008”, and several of the films are made by well-established, famous directors. The short format is not only for developing new talents, but is also a format that allows experienced directors to try something new, letting them experiment with the medium once again. And we see examples of this here, but this is not where it started. Short creative documentaries have been coming out Sweden for many years so we also have a retrospective programme of short documentaries from previous years.

Heja Sverige!

http://www.filmfestival.dk/Webnodes/Special+Programmes/69#svedox

Odense Film Festival

If you want a qualified overview of what has happened in Danish documentary, short fiction, animation and children film during the last year – you should go to the 23rd Odense Film Festival that takes place next week, August 19-24, in Odense. Yes, this is where Hans Christian Andersen was born.

The festival is competitive with a wide range of prizes to be given, not only for films from the national competition programme but also for an international competiton programme of short films.

The festival programme is rich, full of special sections, workshops and seminars, and has its own ambiance around the art cinema Café Biografen. Check it if you can with your own eyes, and if you can’t, go to the website, see below. Selectors for foreign festivals can catch important titles here.

As for documentaries in competition, several of them have already been reviewed on filmkommentaren – ”Purity Beats Everything”, ”Milosevic on Trial” , ”Forførerens Fald”, ”Being Frank”, ”Vesterbro” to mention a handful. You can click them all on this blog.

Later this week we intend to review some of the new films.

http://www.filmfestival.dk/Webnodes/en/Web/Top/Forside

Still: Milosevic On Trial in the national competition.

Redaktionen på ferie

Forleden hyldede vi os selv i anledning af ét års fødselsdagen for filmkommentaren. På skrift. Samme aften blev der sagt skål i Haut-Médoc og i Vecchia Romagna hjemtaget fra Italien. Det blev vådt og langt her i Allinge, hvor redaktionen holder ferie. Dagen efter var stille, meget stille, men i går begav vi os ud på den traditionelle tur på kyststierne fra Allinge til Gudhjem. Vi huskede det som en 2-3 timers tur. Det tog 4½ time før vi var fremme ved Café Klint og den saltstegte sild og fadbamserne!

Efter frokost ned til det vidunderlige museum for Oluf Høst. 10 år gammelt er museet, som er indrettet i huset, hvor maleren boede og skabte sine Bognemark-billeder. Vi drak kaffe i den smukke have og så filmen om Høst, som journalisten Rasmus Nielsen har lavet. Den har herlige gamle klip med maleren.

Hjem med bus, skøn mad og første del (af 15) af Fassbinders serie ”Berlin Alexanderplatz”. Fremragende. I en ny lækker boks med masser af bonusmateriale og i en såkaldt remastered version.

http://www.ohmus.dk/

www.secondsightfilms.co.uk

http://www.leksikon.org/art.php?n=3994

Foto: Vi er næsten fremme, lige før Gudhjem Havn..  

Happy Birthday / Tillykke

www.filmkommentaren.dk has today been alive and kicking for one year. What started as an idea in the head of Allan, has now become a regular “con amore” passion for the two of us. We are proud and happy to have experienced that after a year and without any substantial promotion, we now have between 450 and 550 computers that hit us every day.

We don´t know (most of) you but we hope you like the texts we offer you. In a year it has been around 300 – and we continue with the ambition to have one new text every day. Be it a review of a new or old (classic), be it reports from different parts of the world, be it the film political discussions we have tried to initiate in Danish. Big or small, personal or informative, we try to do what the newspapers and magazines don´t do. With a clear focus on documentaries.

Remember that you are welcome to take part in debates, comment on what we are writing or come up with texts to be published. In Danish or English.

Photo: TSM in his element, here a Zagreb masterclass..

Georg Misch: A Road to Mecca

… with the subtitle, The Journey of Muhammad Asad. Who was originally Leopold Weiss, Jewish, born in Austria, but converted to islam in the 1920’s and became, as said by a Palestinian on the West Bank, ”an enlightened Islamic thinker, a great scholar”, still today worshipped for his contribution to a modern understanding of the Quran, that he late in his life (he died in 1992) translated and interpreted in a way that made his version banned in many places.

The title of the film refers to his book about islam – and the subtitle to a book he wrote and to the structure of a film, that takes the viewer to the places where the cosmopolite Asad went: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan (he became the first UN representative of the country), USA, Morocco, Spain. The film crew meets people who knows about Asad or have met him, they interpret his importance, what he has meant for them, at the same time as the story of his life is told. He rode the camel, he lived with the bedouins, he helped the constitution of Pakistan to come to life, he talked against extremism, and had quite a different, non-militant interpretation of jihad.

A lot of respect for this well made thought provoking, rich and multi-layered film that must be a very useful and intelligent visual tool for debate in the world of today.

Austria, 2008, 92 mins.

www.mischief-films.com