A-BitterSweet-Life
Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether.
Luis Buñuel
If I had to define myself? I’d walk out the door without a word. I don’t define myself. And thus, with Luis Buñuel’s own words, begins a fantastic 37 minute presentation on the filmmaker by the French series Cinéastes de notre temps. Evidently, Buñuel knows how transformative he is: a surrealist from a strong Catholic background and a Best Director winner at Cannes turned into an ultra-low budget filmmaker are just a few examples of the Buñuels we know.
Greatly admirable is Luis Buñuel’s determination to always be on his own path, never to censor or restrict himself, always to see film as an open canvas for all things. This is an attribute to admire and to absorb for all filmmakers today. In being yourself, bringing your personality to the screen, and trusting your instincts, unique and maybe even innovative works can be produced. You may be on your way to becoming the next Luis Buñuel. Till then, learn more about the surreal—above the real!—filmmaker in this exploration of his career and personality.
Ideas? I don’t have ideas. It’s all instinct.
Luis Buñuel
Always Trust Your Instincts
We rarely see good cinema in the mammoth productions, or in the works that have received the praise of critics and audience. The particular story, the private drama of an individual, cannot interest—I believe—anyone worthy of living in our time. If a man in the audience shares the joys and sorrows of a character on the screen, it should be because that character reflects the joys and sorrows of all society and so the personal feelings of that man in the audience. Unemployment, insecurity, the fear of war, social injustice, etc., affect all men of our time, and thus, they also affect the individual spectator. But when the screen tells me that Mr. X is not happy at home and finds amusement with a girlfriend whom he finally abandons to reunite himself with his faithful wife, I find it all very moral and edifying, but it leaves me completely indifferent.
Luis Buñuel
Trailer to François Ozon’s latest film, Jeune et Jolie (X)
(via frenchcinema)
The Discreet Charm of Kate Upton: Luis Buñuel Inspired Fashion Photography
We have our Arts so we won’t die of Truth.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Photography by Duane Michals
What is Love?
Love is a jubilant fountain of affection,
that floods the hollow heart with
happiness and overflows with joy. Like
wind, fire and air, it is a natural ele-
ment, an instinct to share, the caring
heart laid bare. Lovers fill with fas-
cination for each other, and see in the
other’s eyes what their lives have been
denied, and where their futures lie.
Infatuation is the adolescence of true
love. Romance is the fluttering of the
heart, when the other departs. I cannot
tame my orphaned heart’s remorse, or
claim myself to be my very own, since
you have roamed, and love has changed
its course. You are true north to my heart
What is Desire?
Desire is a coveting need, an urgent greedy
appetite to acquire and consume to satis-
faction. Unlike love which seeks to serve,
desire is self-serving and seeks its own
reward. Lust is sired by a panicked
yearning that erupts in passion and good
sense and logic are dispensed. It is a
spectre in the skin that leads the hand
to sin. Desire dies when satisfied; Desire
denies multiplied. I can’t still remem-
ber even today the way your shirt was
torn and how I glimpsed a treasured
hint of your perfect form. And with
that quick glance desire was born
That’s a good question!
You know when you are listening to an album and it finishes and the first thought that comes to mind is how sudden it came to the end. Then you realize that feeling comes from the fact that you were completely absorbed by the music, and your finger makes its way to the play button to give you another listen. That was very much my experience with Upstream Color.
I’d have to give the film a 10.
The kind of film we have been waiting for, or at least I have, Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color reminds me of what Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s La Jalousie did for the novel: explore the fresh ways one can approach storytelling.
The film in many ways reflects the characteristics of Robbe-Grillet’s Nouveau Roman, such as the rejection of plot, a focus on details, explanation replaced by depiction, and most importantly, an emphasis on the experience of the created world. In regards to Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, the film is similar to the novel as it is a work on human consciousness, portrayed through a voyage in time and memory, both sharing in the fragility of each other.
Though seemingly complicated, the story of Upstream Color is simple. A psychedelic worm ruins the life of a woman, played by Amy Seimetz, who, in the aftermath, can not recall the events that led to her present state. She is then drawn to a stranger, played by filmmaker Shane Carruth, with a similar story. The film follows these two lost souls as they try to recover their identities and search for the answers to their mysterious pasts.
What is remarkable about Upstream Color is its visual storytelling. The visual and audio relationship is always at a heightened state, making the film more an experience than a story. Everything is multi-layed and sensual (of the senses), which I believe will lead to Shane Carruth’s goal for the film.
The best films are those that we need to revisit time after time, and Carruth has stated precisely this to be an attribute he wanted to inject into Upstream Color. At least for me, Upstream Color is already among those films that I like to describe as music albums. The ones you play over and over because you need to. Le Samouraï, Au Hasard Balthazar, Mirror, In the Mood for Love, Drive, Hunger, Reprise, and others, welcome Upstream Color.
I’m really curious about what we can do with narrative. It’s not for everybody, but I think of it as an album. When you put on an album of music, you get a few things. You get, hopefully, a pretty good emotional experience. You get a sense that this is something you either want to live with or you don’t, and then at some point you put it on again and maybe again. And after a while you come to find things about it that were not obvious from the get-go, and you come to internalize that work. And then you know whether this is something that’s going to be long-lived or something that maybe isn’t.
Shane Carruth
I want to have enough confidence and I want to be shown that there was enough meaning that I got out of it to know that the rest of it was probably poignant as well, and then I want to go have a conversation or maybe I want to see it again…That’s the audience I’m writing for. It’s meant to be something that is hopefully good enough to be dwelled on and then potentially revisited. My favorite works, I find that I enjoy them more and more the more I see them. I mean, that’s my hope, that’s my hope for this.
Shane Carruth on Upstream Color
Shane Carruth is the kind of filmmaker who asks more out of his audience. His films are not just about entertainment. They are about the most important aspect of film: engagement. He is also a unique filmmaker in that he plays most of the roles behind his works. The reason he writes, directs, produces, shoots, edits, and composes? It may be about control but the quintessential reason for him is about being earnest. There is something to say about a film that is treated like other works of art that possess a sole hand behind their creation. Thankfully, Carruth has a dynamic hand and style when it comes to painting his cinematic canvases and his ideas on cinema are just as strong.
New Directors/New Films is an annual showcase of work by emerging filmmakers from around the world, held by Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. ND/NF 2013 welcomed Primer and Upstream Color director Shane Carruth to speak about his latest film. What ensued is an intriguing discussion on filmmaking and a film that has the influence to change American cinema.
Check out these video excerpts from the Q&A, followed by the full presentation!
On the Visual Language of Upstream Color
On Storyboarding Upstream Color
On the Title of Upstream Color
On the Influence of Walden on Upstream Color
Complete New Directors/New Films Q&A: Shane Carruth and Upstream Color
I was born with a disfigurement where my head is made of the same material as the sun.
Upstream Color by Shane Carruth
(via mattystanfield)
When things get tough, this is what you should do: make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician—make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor—make good art. IRS on your trail—make good art. Cat exploded—make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before—make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and that doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: Make good art. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days, too.
Neil Gaiman
