across the universe

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i watched ‘across the universe’ last night and fell deep deep in love with it. it might seem schmaltzy at times (i cringed a bit when bono came on and was just too poseur-ish) and sometimes it feels like the story is just there so that they can fit the songs in, but who cares?? i loved it, it was a good break from exams and some bits were fabulous. i loved when prudence, a vietnamese-american cheerleader, walks across a football field with burly ballet-dancer footballers tackling each other in slo-mo around her while she sings ‘i want to hold your hand’ to another cheerleader. some bits were just beautiful. i’d watch it just if you’re interested in how they’ve covered the songs, wldnt necessarily go for the story. the bit when a giant poster of uncle sam starts singing was great, as was the bit when a priest does a whirling-dervish kind of dance, followed by a dozen salma hayeks as a nurse in ‘happiness is a warm gun’.

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married to the sea

definitely this blog… i havent done much of the academic-thing. i havent blogged about readings and rarely about the films that we watched during the semester. i guess this blog is my idea of what we looked at over semester, in some convoluted way. thats my attempt to excuse this blog as an academic offering-for-assessment. i like to watch. and thats what this is about. watch and see and look.

married to the sea

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francis ford coppola

“With The Outsiders, I got so many letters from kids saying, “Oh, we love The Outsiders, and we love Matt Dillon, and we love all the blah-blah-blah. But where’s the scene where such and such? And where’s the scene where—?” And I had shot all those scenes. Then my little granddaughter’s class was reading The Outsiders and they wanted me to come and talk to them. So I quickly went back and looked for the old cut and put it together, with all the scenes I knew they were reading in the book. And I thought it was better than the originally released version.”

full interview here

And, the very very odd and interesting ‘Sofia Mini’ website, complete with movies, pictures, music + ‘make poetry’ section

‘a sofia of one’s own’, worth a look

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“the secret world of serge gainsbourg”

Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg on the set of the movie Slogan, June 1968.

By Gilles Caron/Contact Press Images.

“Marianne Faithfull, who worked with Serge in the early 60s, says, “I was very sad when he died. I thought by the time I’d grown up and gotten off drugs that there’d be a time when I’d work with him again. I still miss him. And every time I start to make a record I think, Fuck, it’s so annoying that he’s dead.”"

Pretty interesting article, which I ended up reading instead of doing my essay….

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The second-floor hallway of Serge Gainsbourg’s house, at 5 bis Rue de Verneuil, 16 years after his death.

Photograph by Jean-Baptiste Mondino.

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cadillac + hurricane

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laika + althusser = 7/11

‘How far can the acts of recognition daily performed in the practical activity of women and men be informed by or produce an understanding of the nature of the social process in which they are caught up? To a large extent the possibility or otherwise of a cognitive artistic practice which can aim to produce understanding about the world stands or falls on the answer to this question.

… the Althusserian position claims that the attempt to represent the social formation can produce only “the natural world of the dominant ideology”. Behind this view lie two crucial concepts developed by Althusser, first, “ideology in general” and second, “the ideological category of the subject”. Althusser proposes a distinction between “ideology in general”, which is necessary to the functioning of any society, and specific ideologies belonging to particular social formations at particular points in their history – bourgeois ideology, for instance. “Ideology in general” is theorised as a material force rather than merely a set of false ideas circulating in people’s heads that should by now have been changed by Socialist teaching and example. It acts as a material support to specific ideologies, and is a structure providing the necessary mediation between (1) the forces and relations of production, (2) the social institutions they give rise to, and (3) the individuals who have to live through them.

Ideology enables men and women to make sense of their world and feel in control of it. However, it is in their practical activity rather than in their ideas that ideology materialises itself… ideology is a necessary component of human society; “it is not an abberation or a contingent excrescence of History; it is a structure essential to the historical life of societies.

Ideology is able to materialise itself in the activities of women and men precisely because they operate under the illusion of being concrete individuals at the center of and to a mesure initiating their lived experience, because they perform the daily acts of recognition which maintain and perpetuate the structures and institutions of the social formation” (Gledhill, 829-830)

Just an extract of stuff I’ve been reading for an essay on women and cinema + myths + althusser and it explained stuff clearer than other writers.

why the picture of laika? because i read this article  today and it broke my heart. plus today, 50 yrs ago, laika went into space. and its more interesting than reading about cup day.

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5/11

A Pakistani paramilitary soldier stands alert on a roadside, a day after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency, in Quetta, 04 November 2007. Pakistani police arrested the acting leader of former premier Nawaz Sharif’s party Javed Hashmi, after rounding up cricket legend Imran Khan and senior lawyers under a state of emergency. Up to 500 people have been arrested across Pakistan in a crackdown launched after the declaration of a state of emergency, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said.
8:43 a.m. ET, 11/4/07

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A Look at Rights Suspended in Pakistan

By The Associated Press – 8 hours ago

A look at some of the restrictions and suspended rights in the state of emergency declared by Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf:

_ Protection of life and liberty.

_ The right to free movement.

_ The right of detainees to be informed of their offense and given access to lawyers.

_ Protection of property rights.

_ The right to assemble in public.

_ The right to free speech.

_ Equal rights for all citizens before law and equal legal protection.

_ Media coverage of suicide bombings and militant activity is curtailed by new rules. Broadcasters also face a three-year jail term if they “ridicule” members of the government or armed forces.

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israeli film

The Band’s Visit (Kolirin, 2007)

 ”“The Band’s Visit” tells the story of an eight-man Egyptian police orchestra that gets lost in Israel and lands in a dead-end desert town, where bemused and amused locals take the musicians into their homes, and into their weary hearts. ”

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Beaufort (Cedar, 2007). definitely take a look at the trailer:

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‘A haunting antiwar movie, “Beaufort” chronicles the experiences of a group of young Israeli conscripts holding an isolated hilltop post in southern Lebanon in the final days before Israel’s withdrawal in 2000.’

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“When filmmakers leave such touchy, serious political issues alone they tend to be scolded for complacency or cowardice. But to describe even a movie as angry and confrontational as “Redacted” as an exercise in finger-wagging or sloganeering is to miss the point. What is notable about this new crop of war movies is not their earnestness or their didacticism — traits many of them undoubtedly display — but rather their determination to embrace confusion, complexity and ambiguity.”

Full article, ‘A War on Every Screen’ here, NY Times

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‘To Die in Jerusalem’ (Medalia, 2007)

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4/11

“NOW, THEREFORE, in pursuance of the deliberations and decisions of the said meetings, I General Pervez Musharraf, Chief of the Army Staff, proclaim Emergency throughout Pakistan.

2. I hereby order and proclaim that the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan shall remain in abeyance.

3. This Proclamation shall come into force at once.”

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6: The KaraFilm Society announces that the 7th KaraFilm Festival - the Karachi International Film Festival 2007 – scheduled to begin on November 15 has been postponed as a mark of respect for the over 130 people who lost their lives in an act of brutal terrorism in Karachi on Thursday night.

The rescheduled dates of the Festival will be announced after consultation with all those involved and once the political and security situation is clearer.

The KaraFilm Society also wishes to reiterate that it stands firmly for the principles of unhindered debate, creativity and tolerance and against the use of force and threats of violence to suppress opinions and dissent. In a global environment in which, unfortunately, no place in the world is free from the threat of wanton acts of terrorism, it is also mindful of its duty to resist in Pakistan the attempts by terrorism’s practitioners to shut down avenues of cultural, political and social expression. We intend to continue to nurture the space for free expression that the KaraFilm Festival has succeeded in establishing since 2001 and look forward to the continuing support of those Pakistanis and international filmmakers who have owned the Festival as their own.

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8: Curbs on media

No material:

* That may aid terrorist activities

* That jeopardises integrity of Pakistan

* That defames the administration

* That is deemed vulgar or obscene

* That promotes ethnicism

* That defames army

* No broadcast of video footage of militants

* No programmes that incite violence

* No live coverage of incidents of violence

 

9: Forecast for Sunday
Rain, locally heavy, easing to showers late in the afternoon. Fresh to strong
southeast winds moderating tonight.

Precis:       Heavy rain easing. Windy.        
City:         Max 16

10:

He switched from Urdu to English to ask for patience from his main allies, the European Union and the United States.

“I request you all to bear with us,” he said. “Please don’t demand and expect your level of human rights and democracy you learnt over the centuries. Please give us time.”

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memory and commemoration

It isn’t memory that is the issue. It is commemoration. Memory, at least right now, is readily summoned. Commemoration is something else altogether.

The new exhibition at the New-York Historical Society, for example, is not a commemoration. “Here Is New York: Remembering 9/11,” which opens today, is exclusively about memory, which doesn’t diminish its power. In two galleries 1,500 inkjet-printed photos taken six years ago during those apocalyptic days are mounted with simple stationery clips. They are reminders of hidden pressure points and buried sensations.

…You have to turn your head and strain, deliberately, to take in all these images: they are mounted in seven rows on each wall and hung on four cables strung across each gallery. They are not organized by theme, chronology or photographer. Their impact is almost a form of bombardment, a staccato accumulation of sensation, quantity as much as intensity making a mark.

The photos, without credits, titles or dates, from 790 contributors, range from the amateur to the professional, from the clearly posed composition to the frenzied snap of a moment in which hysteria had to be kept at bay. This was probably the most photographed series of days in history.

… This is one of the limits of mere memory; it remains as sensation or fades as sensation. But this is what commemoration is supposed to transcend. Commemoration provides interpretation; it offers a public meaning that survives the event. It surpasses private experience and continues to provide significance even when memory is long gone. Commemoration is not a matter of healing or feeling; it is a matter of meaning.

Edward Rothstein, NY Times, article here

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