bergman kick

after news of bergman’s recent death i realized that i really ought to see some of these films. I started off w/the seventh seal, being arguably his most famous. To be honest, i don’t really see what all the fuss is about..

It was the film “persona” of 1968 that really blew me away. I highly recommend this film, its so perfectly done.
Last night i watched “the passion of anna”. These two last films and, i imagine “silence” which i’ll see soon, all rest under his psychological cinema term, which he apparently invented. Though i don’t know the exact influence, its clear that this has been incredibly influential on contemporary filmakers.

Some of the aspects i really appreciate are how he continues to work w/the same actors, people he clearly has made a real connection with, and they believe in what he is doing, creating a space for creating art divorced of commercial interests- or at least not of primary importance. He’s also incredibly gifted at timing, thats just clear- its such a joy to feel in sync with the pacing of a film.

I think his films are going to give me a way into some other films that i’ve had more trouble with, such as antonioni’s avventura.

by the way, does anybody know which greek/roman goddess it is that keep appearing as mainly a statue in his films?

crafts weekend

realizing that i’ve had bare white walls for too long, and that theres no chance of affording a video projector in the near future, i decided to make this weekend crafts weekend. What kind of decorations could i do that were non-permanent and yet not too cheap looking. After seeing a handful of murals put up around paris with some type of sticker-like material- after a while they’d just start peeling off- i thought that electrical tape could be a good medium to work with. Though not nearly as interesting as a big mural of michael landon (there was one above “cafe cherie”, just down the block from me), i thought i’d start w/some simple idea of bands of tape on one side turning into more unique x’acto’d slivers of tape on the other.

If anyone might know of an artist that has done similar types of paintings, let me know. I searched but couldn’t find any…as for what kind of representations it evokes, any other ideas besides vines or a tree? not sure if you can find it, but theres one little spot that looks like a face of a guy wearing shades…

stay tuned for the next project for my other big wall- involving metal wire and paper mache.