Jeremy Isaacs: The World at War 4

ET UMULIGT EMNE. Det er eftertankens øjeblik denne tidlige aftentime med dagens afsnit. I aftes det 20. af de 26. Og jeg blev helt stille.. det værste var og er, at jeg jo godt vidste det. Jeg har læst om det, set Resnais og Cayrols Nuit et broullard, set Lanzmanns Shoah, hørt Wiess Die Ermittlung som radiomontage. Men det er mange år siden, og jeg må have lagt låg på, fortrængt den kendsgerning, at selv den mest rystende detalje i fortællingerne om udryddelsen viser sig at være sand. Det er ikke et mareridt, det var og er vågen virkelighed, og det er det hver gang, det fortælles. Når det er vederhæftigt som i aftes. Afsnit 26: Genocide.

Jeremy Isaacs skriver om det: “Hitler´s genocide against the Jews and gypsies, and the mass murder of others, is not a military subject. But I could not leave it out; not just because I’m Jewish, though that counted, but because I could not separate the evil of Nazi racial doctrine – Aryan supremacy, Untermensch subjection – from the Allied cause. Most people in Britain did not realise what Nazi racism in practice meant until the gates of concentration camps at Belsen and Buchenwald were opened by British troops in 1945. Auschwitz, Solibor, Treblinka – death camps – were worse. I wanted a programme that showed the camps in which millions perished, before the series came to the Reich’s nemesis in Berlin. Darlow and Bloomberg’s (afsnittets instruktør og dets forfatter) ‘Genocide’, clear, restrained, compassionate, tackled an almost impossible subject…”

For mig står deres Genocide klart ved siden af Resnais/Cayrols, Lanzmanns og Weiss værker som et monument af uafrystelige videner trods mine forsøg på at skubbe dem væk, disse filmoptagelser.  

Jeremy Isaacs: The World at War 1-26, UK, 1973-1974. DR2 disse dage (ikke i weekenden) kl. 19:15  http://www.dr.dk/dr2/En+verden+i+krig + DVD, UK-version http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/worldatwar/about_the_series.html Litt.: Mark Arnold-Forster: The World at War, 1973. (Bogen som oprindelig fulgte serien). Richard Holmes: The World at War, The Landmark Oral History from the Previously Unpublished Archives, 2007 og Jeremy Isaacs: Look Me In The Eye, 2006, denne bog om hans 40 år som tv-mand, har et kapitel om denne serie.

DOKS 100

De hundrede mest bevaringsværdige danske dokumentarfilm… den opgave blev stillet undertegnede og Niels Jensen for nogle år tilbage. Og den liste kan diskuteres, naturligvis, og I skal vide, hvis I kigger os nærmere i kortene, at når Jørgen Roos, Jørgen Leth og Jon Bang Carlsen ikke er med på listen, så er det fordi deres film allerede er sikret bevaring på bedst mulige måde. Husker I det, filmmuseum? Her er teksten fra hjemmesiden, som I kan klikke jer ind på:

http://www.dfi.dk/bibliotekogarkiver/billedarkiv/billederonline/doks100/doks100.htm

“Det Danske Filminstituts Filmarkiv bad i begyndelsen af 2006 to inkarnerede dokumentarfilmkendere, Tue Steen-Møller og Niels Jensen, om at udpege de 100 væsentligste og mest signifikante danske dokumentarfilm. Denne liste, der fik navnet “Doks 100″, anvendes som rettesnor for bevaringsindsatsten i forhold til dokumentarfilm i filmarkivets samling (en lignende er tidligere blevet udformet for danske spillefilm). I forbindelse med det filmografiske arbejde blev listen udvidet med yderligere 39 titler, tilskyndet af Filminstituttets ph.d.-stipendiat Palle Bøgelund Petterson.”

Still fra Anne Wivels Giselle, som er med på listen “Doks100” (+39). At filmen også er med på spillefilmlisten er selvfølgelig og dog tankevækkende. (ABN red.)

Danmarks Nationalfilmografi

… er et uundværligt redskab for den, der vil søge tilbage i den danske filmhistorie. Jeg gider ikke beklage mig over at dokumentarfilmen ikke får samme opmærksomhed som spillefilmen, jeg vil hellere glæde mig over den nemme tilgængelighed, der nu eksisterer til tusindvis af oplysninger.

Men… den gamle bibliotekar undrer sig over filmografien under Jørgen Roos, dansk dokumentarfilms største navn. Der er et gabende hul fra 1972-1995, hvor Jørgen var temmelig aktiv. Ret lige det, her i ti-året for hans død. Tak!

http://dnfx.dfi.dk/pls/dnf/pwt.page_setup?p_pagename=dnfhome

János Richter: Documentaries of Today

Food for thought. This text is written by a student from the Zelig Film School for Documentary at the exam in June after one year of the three year long studies. János Richter has chosen direction for his further studies:

Moderne Dokumentarfilme bewegen sich weg von der klassischen Reportage-Form und bedienen sich aller Stilmittel und Techniken, die schon im Spielfilm oder verwandten Disziplinen wie Literatur und Musik verwendet werden. Sie versuchen authentisch, nicht aber objektiv (z.B. in Sinne des direct cinema) zu sein und haben eine eigene Handschrift. Sie verzichten, wenn sinnvoll, auf Interviews, erklaeren nicht mehr als notwendig und lassen dem Zuschauer Raum fuer eigene Interpretationen, etwa durch ein offenes Ende. Fiktionale Elemente oder gar Mischformen aus Dokumentar- und Spielfilm (wie z.B. bei Larry Clarke) koennen bereichernd, sollten aber als solche zu erkennen sein. Filme, die dem nahe kommen, sind z.B. die von Phie Ambo.

http://www.zeligfilm.it/

Matteo Garrone: Gomorra

I am on holidays in Tuscany, in Montespertoli, a small nice town in the middle of the wine paradise. Yesterday the four of us went for an open air screening of the new, enormously strong quasi-documentary film Gomorra based on the book of Roberto Saviano that is published all over. “The movie is made up of six episodes with six main characters – all revolving around the foursided criminality between the ports of Naples, Scampia, Castelvolturno and Terzigno” (Variety Profile). Did not understand the language, no English subtitles, this was for a local audience, but could feel the nerve in the film through the hand-held, constantly moving camera and the characters, who played like this was their daily profession. Return of the neo-realism. Watch it when it comes to a cinema near you.

Will be back with a review when I have understood the language.

Italy, 2008, 135 mins. Grand Prix, Cannes 2008. Review from there: http://www.cinematical.com/2008/05/21/cannes-review-gomorra/

George Bocher: Documentaries of Today

Food for thought. This text is written by a student from the Zelig Film School for Documentary at the exam in June after one year of the three year long studies. George Bocher has chosen direction for his further studies:

The essence of what documentary can be today is shown in the Canadian  film “Manufactured Landscapes” (Jennifer Baichwal) in the very first shot. A very long shot, a never-ending camera-travel through a Chinese factory-hall.

It’s the most impressive dolly shot I have ever seen. Why is it so great?

Because it shows the conflict between our expectations for fictional representation of reality and the representation in documentaries/reportage.

The usual standard-pan inside the hall we would have seen in a TV-reportage would have made it easy for the viewer to swallow the image, to sort it intohis/her categories. It is through this dolly shot that we experience the full dimensions of the hall and the nature of the labour in it.

The sense of a motivated travel of the eye that the dolly usually promises is turned into a nightmarish caricature as we only see the ever-repeating landscape of people at machines.  Strangely it is the use of means from fiction-films that makes this reality more real for us again. I think this is one of the paradox documentary makers have to live with today.

http://www.zeligfilm.it/

Kathrin Dietzel: What makes a filmmaker?

Food for thought. This German text is written by a student from the Zelig Film School for Documentary at the exam in June after one year of the three year long study. Kathrin Dietzel has chosen editing for her further studies:

Ich denke ein Dokumentarfilmer sollte die Faehigkeit haben, Vertrauen zu anderen Menschen aufzubauen. Er sollte bereit sein etwas von sich preiszugeben und eine Vertrauensbasis schaffen koennen, in der auch ein Gegenueber sich trotz Filmequipment und Unsicherheit oeffnen kann.

Ein Dokumentarfilmer sollte offen sein, seine Ansichten und Ueberzeugungen immer wieder in Frage stellen und ueberpruefen und keine vorschnellen Urteile faellen. Nur so kann meiner Meinung nach ein Film entstehen, der einerseits persoenlich ist, wirklich eintauchen kann in die Lebensrealitaet eines anderen Menschen und andereseits diesen Menschen mit Respekt darstellt, ohne sensationslustig oder voyeuristisch zu sein oder zu wirken.

http://www.zeligfilm.it/

Milena Holzknecht: Why Editing?

The following text was written by a student from the Zelig School for documentary as a motivation from her to go for editing studies in the next two years after the first year of general studies:

Editing is like a balancing act on a tightrope: On the one hand your walk shouldn’t be to rigid – you have to be flexible. On the other hand you shouldn’t be carried away by emotions: both would be fatal. Editing means declarative power, but at the same time responsability – to the protagonist(s), to the director and of course to the film itself. Editing denotes motion, but in certain moments stand still. It needs conscious decisions, but also letting speak the unconscious. Editing means to search the path, not to see the wood for the trees and to find – exhausted, but happy – the way out of the forest of the cutting process. It represents a creative challenge, which demands consistently new solutions and finds fascinating answers. Editing is an activity, which gives me – because of the reasons mentioned above – a lot of gratification and pleasure. June 2008

http://www.zeligfilm.it/

Corina Radu: Bar de Zi and other stories

My story has no importance, there is nothing special about me, says one of the characters in this fine social story set in Sibiu, Romania. The filmmakers have got the permission to film a group of citizens, who all come to the same bar, are middle-aged and old people, who are as different as the rest of us and who have got their scars in life from too much drinking and poverty and consequently, for some of them, illness, death in the families and other tough marks to carry around.

The film is social in a classical way, but with small playful montage sequences and a well chosen music that includes great nostalgic bar tunes from England. You need to lighten up a film like that and the director succeeds to get in to their homes and bedrooms, put in great anecdotes and pocket philosophical remarks. It creates a light non-sentimental atmosphere to accompany the curious observational camera.

The film was made as part of an international workshop, Aristoteles, financed by MEDIA Programme of the EU, the tv-station Arte and (in this case) TVRomania. Well done, Corina Radu confirms that a lot of good happens with Romanian film right now.

Romania, 2007, 57 mins.

www.aworkshop.org
http://www.astrafilm.ro/Awards%202007.htm#bar
corinaradu7@yahoo.com

Jeremy Isaacs: The World at War 3

SYNOPSIS. Det var i aftes det 11. af de 26 afsnit. Og det var stort. Det var om krigen på østfronten 1941-1943. Det tyske angreb mod Litauen, Letland, Estland, Ukraine, Hviderusland og til sidst Rusland selv. Hele det vældige Sovjetunionen truet over den bredeste front vel i militærhistorien.

Isaacs overlader imidlertid stort set generalernes verden af armeernes betegnelser, divisionernes antal, fremrykningernes ruter, slagene (bortset fra det største af alle, slaget ved Kursk), tilbagetrækningerne og belejringerne af byerne (bortset fra Leningrads som er det forfærdende eksempel) til Arnold-Forster, som i sin bog omhyggeligt følger tv-afsnittene op, så jeg kan repetere de historiske facts. Selv koncentrerer han sig om det, som han til dette afsnit skrev i synopsens to linjer:

Focusing on the non-military aspects of the war in the soviet Union such as industri and morale, the siege of Leningrad, the Soviet partisans, the Battle of Kursk, and the war’s ultimate sacrifice in 20 million Soviet dead.

Denne enkle plan har så hele vejen igennem styret arbejdet med afsnittet og skabt et umisteligt tv-epos af rystende filmreportage, gribende beretninger fra medvirkende og først og sidst Laurence Oliviers læsning af den lyrisk-episke voice-over tekst, som her i afsnittet inkluderer store citater af russiske digte. Dette mesterlige arbejde foran mikrofonen låner afsnittet her og serien som sådan shakespeareske toner og dimensioner.

Jeremy Isaacs: The World at War 1-26, UK, 1973-1974. DR2 disse dage kl. 19:10 http://www.dr.dk/dr2/En+verden+i+krig + DVD, UK-version http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/worldatwar/about_the_series.html Litt.: Mark Arnold-Forster: The World at War, 1973. (Bogen som oprindelig fulgte serien). Richard Holmes: The World at War, The Landmark Oral History from the Previously Unpublished Archives, 2007.