Watched Today

Cloud atlas – Directors: Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer and Andy Wachowski – the diagram explains it all, not really, the picture below gives another clue to the complexity of the film. It is good to see how non-linear story-telling is utilized to its utmost. Try to imagine how tedious this film would have been if everything had been told chronologically. And it is exciting to see how cutting continuity is kept between scenes from different teams and directors.

Melancholia – Director: Lars von Trier – With the meteor in Russia and the asteroid passing close to the earth this must be the best day to see this film. I have had my eyes on Kirsten Dunce since I first saw her.

 

The Weekly Film Meeting (February 10)

HITCH 1932
Number Seventeen – one of only two films by Hitch, where there is a corpse, but no murder, the other one being…
http://www.hitchcockwiki.com/wiki/Number_Seventeen_%281932%29

GEFAHREN DER LOHNARBEIT /PERILS OF WAGE LABOUR – Eng 1889
A Bunch of Primroses – laterna magica from York & Son

PAINLEVE 1927
Mathusalem
– his 1st film, from a play by Ivan Goll and with Antonin Artaud

WOODY 1952
The Woody Woodpecker show: Halloween

JAN SVANKMAJER 1983
Kyvadlo, jáma a nadeje /The Pendulum, the Pit and Hope
http://akas.imdb.com/title/tt0085816/combined

6. FATTY 30/11 1914
Leading Lizzie astray

ANDY PANDA 22/12 1946
The bandmaster

Watched Today

* A good day to die hard – Director John Moore. In the previous one in the series John McClane (Bruce Willis) made up with his daughter at the end. This time around it is his son and when they all three meet at the end they contradict an earlier statement: ”We are not a hugging family.” In the next installment we can probably expect McClane to be a double grand father saving his grand children from something.The previous film worked because you cared about the characters enough not to wish them dead. And there were some well choreographed action sequences. This time it is Russians constantly changing sides and we don’t really care if they die. And all the action is dark and muddled. It is Russia after all. Even if it never snows.

* MM: Sylvester: “D’fightin’ ones” USA 1961 Freleng

Finished Reading

* Göteborg. Kulturhistoriskt värdefull bebyggelse. Ett program för bevarande. Del 1. – This is possibly the best guide book for Göteborg. In it you will find detailed descriptions, maps and pictures of every important building in the city, from humble abodes to splendid palaces. All of them are worth saving for the future, so we will not forget the past. Part one covers the central parts and many (perhaps most) of the buildings are well-known to the citizens, having been passed, and perhaps entered, many times. Still, there are new things to discover in the book even about familiar sights. And several hidden gems to discover. That will be even more so in part two, which covers the surrounding areas. I am looking forward to that trip. There is only one problem. The volumes are much too heavy to be carried around. Why not turn them into small booklets, one for each district, and give them out for free at the tourist office. Awaiting that to happen one can always try to convert one’s bike with some kind of attraption that will safely hold the book in front of the handlebars.

The Weekly Film Meeting (February 3)

OZU 1932
Umarete wa mita keredo /I was born, but…
http://www.a2pcinema.com/ozu-san/films/iwasbornbut.htm

ALFRED HITCHOCK PRESENTS  2/10 1955
http://www.hitchcockwiki.com/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock_Presents_-_Revenge

DRINK AND TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT – USA 1909
A Drunkard’s Reformation – D W Griffith

POPEYE 9/5 1941
Popeye meets Rip Van Winkle – with  Rip Van Winkle & Chico Marx

Finished Reading

Andrej Tarkovskij: Martyrologion. Dagböcker 1970-1986. – This is a massive volume, 900 pages with the diary of Tarkovskij, from 1970 to a few days before his death in 1986. For someone who has lived and consumed culture during the same period, like myself, there will be lots of connections. Andrej Rubljov was my first meeting with the director, I saw it twice right away; Solaris I caught in Köpenhamn with a simultanous translation into Danish, the opera Boris Godunov I happened to attend at Covent Garden while at the London Film Festival. The diary not only brings me back to these points in my life, but my memories are enriched by reading about them from Tarkovskij’s perspective.

Also, to have lived through the time span of the diary is to have experienced the political change in the Soviet Union and the way it has affected Soviet participation in film festivals, many of which I attended at the time. From the diary you learn how un-appreciated Tarkovsky was with the powers in Moscow and how they made life difficult when it came to participation at festivals and international co-productions. Gradually you realize that he wants to leave the country. While working in Italy a lot of effort goes into getting his wife and youngest son out. Several governments and institutions around the world tried to help him.

There are some surprising sides. He is never good with money. There are several lists, on how much he ows others, how much to spend on the rebuilding of the summer house outside Moscow, later he repeats the procedure when he wants to convert a palace on the Italian country side, what to buy on trips and bring back home (some is going to be converted into cash).

He doesn’t like very many people and films. The films of Angeloupolos he finds long and boring. There are many similar surprising things, so it is never boring to read the 900 pages. He can’t have been very easy to live with, unless he got what he wanted. If I had known this when I started reading the book, I would have made a plus or minus in front of every name in the index, except that I have to return the book to the library.

 

The Weekly Film Meeting  (January 27)

HITCH 1932
Rich and Strange /Öster om Shanghai
http://www.hitchcockwiki.com/wiki/Rich_and_Strange_%281931%29

DRINK AND TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT
Buy Your Own Cherries! – Eng 1904 – prod: Robert W Paul
Dustman’s Darling – Eng 1894 – prod: Bamforth

JAN SVANKMAJER 1983
Do pivnice  /Down to the Cellar
http://akas.imdb.com/title/tt0085448/combined

POPEYE 4/4 1941
Flies ain’t human

Started Reading:

* Olson/Svensson: Hamnbilder från Göteborg [Images from Göteborg’s harbour]
* Hidemark, etc: Drottningholms Slottsteater [The theater at Drottningholm’s Castle]
* Upptäck Angered! [Discover Angered!]
* Levengood/Lindell: Gamla tanter lägger inte ägg [Old ladies don’t lay eggs]

Finished Reading:

* Insight Guides: The Rockies – It is not an area of the US I particularly want to go to, but it has meant so much for American film history, all these Western films, so I thought it might be interesting to get a bit of historical back ground (and the book was very cheap). Alas, but the story of the mistreatment of the Indians gave new insights.

 

Watched:

* MM: Foghorn Leghorn/Henery Hawk: “Strangled eggs” USA 1961 McKimson
Henery Hawk complete
* LT: Sylvester: “Birds of a father” USA 1961 McKimson med: Junior

 

The most influential book written by a woman is probably “Frankenstein, or, The modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley. (The most influential by a man, Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”.) I like to be challenged on that, but it must be hard to find anything else that has lead to such a diversity of expressions in all areas of culture. Now there is a new book, “The lady and her monsters. A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley’s Masterpiece” by Roseanne Montillo. The long title seems to cover it all.

FAIR FOR MEETINGS

Last week saw the annual two-day Konfex fair at Eriksbergshallen. It’s a fair, not open to the public, dealing with the competitive meeting industry. Yesterday a conference was just a conference. The last few years have seen a change towards bigger events where the conference only is a (sometimes small) part of the event. No meeting today is complete without entertainment, outdoor adventures, good food or other diversions as a part of the package.

It’s a tough business and everybody with a venue big enough wants in: hotels (Säröhus), cinemas (Bergakungen), museums (Universeum) and amusement parks (Liseberg), to give a few local examples. Put all these event producing people together for two days in a limited space and they will have to be creative to get the buyers attention.

Candy, chocolate, mini-semlas, salmon tidbits and other things to put in your mouth compete to draw you into the stand. Perhaps the most attention grabbing effort was the Mexican larvae from Säröhus. If you ate one you could participate in a competion, still no prize guarantee. They didn’t wiggle, people find it harder to put wiggling things into their bodies. We wanted to catch one going into someone’s mouth, but there were no takers, despite our active help to find candidates. They say that they found and bought the small creatures on the Internet, which sounds safe.

Universeum brought their penises along as usual, they are safe attention grabbers, and make for good quiz material. Which dick sticks to which animal? I was promised the solution after the fair, but is still kept wondering

Is he dead, or alive? Is he an actor or a dummy? Or both? Did he sign any deals for confereces at Hotel Gasten? Do they take in living guests? Or is it only an attention grabber for Liseberg?