la photographie et le cinema

"Using old 16mm cameras, artist Ben Rivers, who has been nominated for the Jarman Prize and has won a..."

Thu, 31 May 2012 18:27:37 -0400

“Using old 16mm cameras, artist Ben Rivers, who has been nominated for the Jarman Prize and has won a Tiger Award at Rotterdam, creates work from stories of real people, often those who have disconnected from the normal world and taken themselves into wilderness territories. His new long-form work extends his relationship with Jake, a man first encountered in his short film This Is My Land. The title refers to the work Jake did in order to finance his chosen state of existence. He lives alone in a ramshackle house, in the middle of the forest. It’s full of curiosities from a bygone age, including a beloved old gramophone. We see his daily life across the seasons, as he occupies himself going for walks in all weathers, and taking naps in the misty fields and woods. Endlessly resourceful, he builds a raft to fish in a loch. Jake has a tremendous sense of purpose, however eccentric his behaviour seems to us. The presence of the camera is irrelevant to him; he has no desire for human contact, and is completely at home in his environment, the nature around him and his constructed abode. Rivers’ gracefully-constructed film creates an intimate connection with an individual who would otherwise be a complete outsider to us.”

- Helen de Witt, BFI

Two Years at Sea, Ben Rivers (2011)

Thu, 31 May 2012 18:26:03 -0400

Two Years at Sea, Ben Rivers (2011)

"It did not enter through the eyes, since it has no colour; nor by the ears, since it makes no noise;..."

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:20:00 -0400

“It did not enter through the eyes, since it has no colour; nor by the ears, since it makes no noise; nor through the nostrils, since it does not mingle with the air… nor by the throat neither, for it cannot be eaten nor drunk. Nor did I discover it by touch, since it is impalpable. I rose above myself and found that the Word was higher still. Curious to explore, I went down into my depths and found in the same way that it was lower still. I looked outside myself and saw that it was outside all that is outside me. I looked within and saw that it was more inward than I. And then I recognized as a truth what I had read: that in it we have Life, Motion and Being.”

- St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

Lucien Hervé - Architecture of Truth, The Cistercian Abbey of Le...

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:05:04 -0400

Lucien Hervé - Architecture of Truth, The Cistercian Abbey of Le Thoronet

"The Narcotic Farm is an hour-long historical documentary that premiered in 2008. Narrated and scored..."

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:58:12 -0400

“The Narcotic Farm is an hour-long historical documentary that premiered in 2008. Narrated and scored by former inmate Wayne Kramer of the radical 60s rock band the MC5, the film tells the story of this American institution through the voices of the former addicts who spent years locked within its walls. Astonishing, government-produced films and photographs take viewers inside the prison, highlighting its thriving jazz scene and revealing for the first time the experience of prisoners used as test subjects in its world famous drug research program.”

- JP Olsen and Luke Walden.

The Narcotic Farm. 2008.

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:54:00 -0400

The Narcotic Farm. 2008.

"A privileged look at the deaf community, In the Land of the Deaf (Le Pays des Sourds) is told by..."

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:23:09 -0500

“A privileged look at the deaf community, In the Land of the Deaf (Le Pays des Sourds) is told by those who inhabit it, and not by an unseen narrator explaining the experience through the perspective of the hearing. With eloquence and directness, the participants in Philibert’s film illuminate their world and show how their language is not necessarily a deficit - that their lives and their language, though superficially alien, are just as ‘normal’ as a hearing person’s.”

- Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle

Le Pays des Sourds, Nicolas Philibert (1993).

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:20:50 -0500

Le Pays des Sourds, Nicolas Philibert (1993).

"Syndromes and a Century is a poem on screen: a film of ideas and visual tropes that upends..."

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:52:20 -0500

“Syndromes and a Century is a poem on screen: a film of ideas and visual tropes that upends conventional narrative expectations, not out of a simple desire to disconcert but to break through the carapace of normality, to give us the knight’s-move away from reality that the Russian formalists said was the prerogative of art. It’s a movie to be compared with the work of Antonioni - or Sergei Parajanov. Perhaps, with its freakiness and scariness in those hospital basement scenes, it is something that might have intrigued Kubrick. Perhaps the best antidote to [our present] gloom is the appearance of films like this one. Profoundly mysterious, erotic, funny, gentle, playful, utterly distinctive, it is the work of the Thai director and installation-artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who now has a claim to be approaching the league of Kiarostami and Haneke, one of modern cinema’s great practitioners.”

- Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.

Syndromes and a Century (2006), Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:42:41 -0500

Syndromes and a Century (2006), Apichatpong Weerasethakul

"Last night, I was on the threshold of hell. To-day, I am within sight of my heaven. I have my eyes..."

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:55:52 -0500

“Last night, I was on the threshold of hell. To-day, I am within sight of my heaven. I have my eyes on it: hardly three feet to sever me!”

- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Ch. 34

Wuthering Heights. Andrea Arnold, 2011.

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:48:00 -0500

Wuthering Heights. Andrea Arnold, 2011.

"Man does not want to look at man’s pain, unless it is his own."

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 08:50:09 -0500

“Man does not want to look at man’s pain, unless it is his own.”

- Raymond Depardon

La vie moderne/Modern Life by Raymond Depardon

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 06:00:01 -0500

La vie moderne/Modern Life by Raymond Depardon

"If your pictures aren’t good enough, it’s because you’re not close enough."

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:38:50 -0500

“If your pictures aren’t good enough, it’s because you’re not close enough.”

- Tim Hetherington quoting Robert Capa

Restrepo, Tim Hetherington

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:21:43 -0500

Restrepo, Tim Hetherington

"The tranquil woods of the Loire Valley embrace the La Borde psychiatric clinic, an asylum in the..."

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 20:50:33 -0500

“The tranquil woods of the Loire Valley embrace the La Borde psychiatric clinic, an asylum in the truest sense of the word, where patients find sanctuary and repose. Patients and staff work together in rehearsals and preparations for their annual summer play. This year, they perform the modernist, absurdist classic, “Operette,” by Witold Gombrowicz, whose dialogue is more nonsensical than that of the patients themselves.”

- Unknown

La Moindre des Choses, Nicolas Philibert

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 20:45:13 -0500

La Moindre des Choses, Nicolas Philibert

"You can either surf, or you can fight!"

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:38:00 -0500

“You can either surf, or you can fight!”

- Colonel Kilgore, Apocalypse Now

Colonel Kilgore, Apocalypse Now

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 17:56:26 -0500

Colonel Kilgore, Apocalypse Now