the making of, by greg allen
From Indiewire.com’s excellent Sundance coverage comes the story of the screening of Open Hearts, by Danish director and Dogme groupie Susanne Bier:
In the middle of this witty, winning Dogme 95-sanctioned melodrama about infidelity and mourning, the Park City projectionist accidentally screened the film in the wrong order: after the mistake was determined, the audience voted passionately to continue watching and piece together the narrative in their heads. One happy viewer was rumored to comment, “It’s just like watching Memento.” [One hopeful filmmaker was rumored to comment, “Then offer me what you should’ve paid Chris Nolan, dude.”]
Installation view, Anne Truitt, Danese Gallery (image:artnet.com)
Two shows of evocative new work by unrepentant minimalists are on 57th street at the moment, a moment when a pair of artists over 80 demonstrate the power and relevance of the minimalist mode, as well as the potential benefits of being in it for the long haul.
Also at Slate Joshua Clover writes a clever essay (very or too, depending on if those are exhibition posters or actual paintings on your wall) about Richter 858, a luxuriantly produced ode– in book form, with specially commissioned poems and a CD (of Richtermusik, I guess) — to a suite of Gerhard Richter squeegee paintings. Retailing at $125 and co-published by SFMOMA (who have been promised the paintings from an anonymous donor), Richter 858 is a “classic fetish item, beautiful enough that everyone might want it but priced beyond the reach of the great unfunded.” And that’s not the worst of it.
Clover reveals that 858‘s editor, David Breskin, is an SFMOMA Trustee and “almost certainly” the donor of the paintings, facts which–despite a year of SEC reforms and disclosure scandals–go unmentioned in the book. “Whatever a given Richter painting, or a particular poem, might be about, Richter 858 is about checkbooks and culture–that is, it’s a book perfect for decadent modernism, where the art of consumption has replaced the art of production; it’s a book, finally, about collecting, that individualist art overseen by the twin muses ‘Dollars’ and ‘Indulge.'”
“Dollar”: Last time I checked, what a Richter painting’s about, is $400,000 – 1 million, depending on the size and the date. A suite of eight, then, is about, well, you do the math. By making the paintings a “fractional and promised gift” to the museum, our benefactor (let’s call him “DB”) gives a percentage of the title each year for a fixed term ( ex. 10%/year, 10 years), until they belong 100% to the museum. Why do this, O Muse?. “DB” spreads a large tax deduction out over several years, which is useful if his gifts exceed 30% of his adjusted gross income. “Indulge”: “DB” is able to keep the art for a period of time each year in proportion to his percentage ownership.
But there’s another muse’s fingerprints on this one. 858‘s not a catalog, it’s an experience Compared to the essay- and information-packed Richter exhibition catalog written by “The Brain,” (aka, former MoMA curator Robert Storr), Richter 858‘s multimedia melange is a work of the Heart.
“Heart”: SFMOMA says Breskin was “compelled by these works” to create this book. Talking about the project and his interactions with Richter, Breskin’s giddiness (“As a sequence, these hung together and swung in a musical sense,” “I wanted to create an alternative way of engaging with pictures.”) sounds less like a trustee and more like a groupie.
Trust me, that’s what some of the most passionate collectors are, art groupies. Going to concerts (openings), getting backstage (in the studio), obsessing over some lyric (work) and asking arcane questions that betray how powerfully a it inhabits your mind. Groupie? Check out Breskin’s 2-day interview with the Richter of 1987 rock-n-roll, Bono, for Rolling Stone. Breskin seems like the kind of guy–indulgent, clearly, but in a necessary way–who’s trying to live an art-centered life, not just an “art-owning” one. And by placing the Richters at SFMOMA, “DB” seems like the kind of donor who believes that indulgent art experience should always be available to the public (but who agonizes over letting the paintings go too soon).
And besides, 858‘s 30% off at Amazon. A serious collector looks for a discount.
to Greggy from the blog.
“Get a Canadian friend to Tivo it for you in reruns.”
— an ain’t-never-gonna-happen plea from Slate‘s Virginia Heffernan, who’s taken on a thankless/hopeless/utterly quixotic task: stir up American interest in The Eleventh Hour, an earnest Canadian TV drama about “conscience-stricken producers” which plays like “a treatise by Susan Sontag.”
Now that S(J03) is locked and getting ready for color correction and film transfer, I thought I’d catch up with the guys at Cyan Pictures, who I’d been in only intermittent email contact with for the last few weeks. They’re both walkin’ the walk and talkin’ the talk, in that order.
Breakbeat meets media hacking in Stephen Marshall’s S-11, which was made for GNN, Guerilla News Network. Where Norman Cowie‘s Scenes from an endless war (which screened last month before Souvenir (November 2001)) used FoxNews sampling to underline media complicity, Marshall’s S-11 is more powerfully and closely edited for musical and rhythmic effect, which enhances its criticism of the current administration’s entire approach to the terrorist threat.
From the Flash Filosopher, Billy Blob comes Bumble Being, the bee version of “the butterfly effect.” Blob also did last year’s Sundance-ruling Karma Ghost. (If you haven’t changed your life yet, see it before it’s too late.) It’s stylin’ and simple, even if it doesn’t have quite the impact (so to speak) of KG, but the Flash bio that accompanies it is hi-larious.
Mafia, Mafia, Mafia. Against my better judgment, I feel compelled to bring up Steven Seagal, aka “The Action Lama,” once again. He’s suing (again) the mafia (again) for harassment (again), only this time, it’s not the (via Staten Island) Italians, but the Germans. According to his suit, visible at The Smoking Gun, Seagal is being extorted and threatened with a “ruined reputation” for unspecificied damage he inflicted on a Berlin villa he rented while shooting Half Past Dead (that’s the title, critical appraisal, and box office performance, btw). In case the extortion charge doesn’t hold up, SS (d’oh!) added some more:
The Architectural League, Cooper Union, and MoMA are sponsoring presentations and roundtable discussions by the WTC site architects and teams. Go ask the “Dream Team” what they’re trying to cover up. [Sample question (from The Last Emperor), while hysterically, spitting mad: “Confess your crimes!!”]
Today (Wed.) at Cooper Union starts at 4PM and goes until 10:30 (it’s sold out, but I bet it’ll thin out around, say, 7.)
Tomorrow (Thurs.) at Town Hall is a more civilized two hour program, starting at 7PM. MoMA’s Terence “I helped pick these teams” Riley is one of the moderators.
[thanks, Gawker!]
Like Europe, it’s the little differences. One that dawned on me at the gym: Underclothes
This is what I sent to New Directors/New Films:
Synopsis: A man carefully irons a shirt before spending the day at the rural Utah dry cleaners once owned by his grandfather.
Utah Ark? It is shot in one day and is about the past, memory, and the links between history and present. It’s not one take, ain’t the Hermitage, though, and we didn’t shoot the nearby Springville Art Museum…
Dogme? Well, it’s close. Perhaps fitting for a movie shot in small-town Utah, it adheres quite closely to the Vow of Chastity. But the Dogme filmmakers are fighting auteur-y demons I don’t see, I have to confess, we didn’t put a record player in the backseat of the driving shots, so our music is verboten. And they don’t certify short films anyway Dog-me films, indeed.
The Grandson: No violent deaths, no throbbing neck veins and stifled rage, but from the reviews for The Son and a familiarity with/admiration for the Dardenne brothers’ previous work, I have to imagine some of their films’ stylistic tendencies and refusal of melodrama have an (indirect) influence on my work. Cf. Souvenir‘s setting in a loud manual work-place, the handheld camerawork and (near) absence of music. I can only hope I attain some of their film’s emotional impact. Read David Edelstein’s Slate review .
My street may have more Gulfstreams than any other in the world; the peer pressure to get one is intense.
Alec Wildenstein has one; he flew Nobu chefs around in it for his Russian girlfriend.
Edgar Bronfman has a G-V, although it’s not clear for how much longer.
Donatella Versace refuses to fly anything else.
Ivana Trump doesn’t have one. And if Tony Mottola had one at Sony, he doesn’t have it now.
Lately, for reasons I will soon explain, Cessna, the makers of the popular Citation business jets, have been wooing me to purchase one of their planes. A stronger man might be able to do it, but I worry; if I bought a Citation, would I have to park it around the corner, so my G-Thang neighbors don’t harsh on me? What’s a simple filmmaker to do? I want to be independent, take a stand, but it seems like folly to go against the sentiment of “the Manhattan street.”
Clocking in at a not-dragging 11’16”; with balanced sound; a few sound effects, even (you’d never notice if I didn’t mention it); a dramatically pared down soundtrack (just one song, with LP3 vinyl effects I wrote about Friday); some actually beautiful images; rhythm, edits and transitions I’m quite happy with; titles and credits made simple (through too much time and effort); and narrative and emotional elements I’m not sick of watching, Souvenir (January 2003) is DONE.
Now it’s off to the post, before the deadline leniency graciously extended by the Film Society of Lincoln Center runs out.
Stay tuned for stills and a little more discussion when I get back.
