From: David Woods (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Apr 14 2010 - 04:53:46 PDT
Got this announcement from the nice folks at RE-VOIR.
Always a pleasure to hear from them.
But, it got me thinking.
And being somewhat of a fan of still-cinema
(think TURNIP and more so BABY HOME),
and ranking LA JETEE as number one
and M. Marker likewise,
a tribute to same should evince supportive salutations.
BUT
The description, viz.
"Sound sources are mainly drawn from "contemporary" music and contemporary
film music from "La jetée": samples re-edited, modified, stretched or
slowed down on computer, and reconstituted in compositions focused on
"ambiance" where these sources are mixed with instrumental play as well as
electronic tools (theremin, VCS3, etc.).
In this way, Laurent Saïet and Patrick Müller have attempted to rediscover a
climate of sound and emotions initiated by the multiple visions of the
original film and to contrast them with new images also inspired by "La
jetée".in a "work in progress" where several sensitivities meet"
got me to thinking that the apparent content would appear to be an assault
of the ambiguous upon the clarity of the original.
And if this is just another indulgence spawned by the ease of messing-around
that the digital condition seems inveterately prone to, then I think I'd
rather live with my possession of Marker's work unadulterated by the
exigencies of sophomoric intervention.
Of course, I may be wrong. In which case I will be the first to laud the
interest of such an endeavour, and I'll place the Pauline exposures right
here.
But I'm really thinking about the mismatch, the incompatability of the use
of the WRITTEN WORD as a tool to approach the values of the EXPERIMENTAL,
the new vagueness, the unbiological iteration, the amorphousness, the
ambiguity INHERENT in the musical endeavour. And this slight of hand (sic)
has bedevilled the ARTWORLD since the critically-inclined saw a terrain
where their inability to produce art would not be a drag on their (generally
academic) progress. And, as the way things so often go, the meta quickly
became the meat, and the reified object was effectively relegated to the
archival pool, while the discursively-inclined fed off the ripples.
Now of course I'm not pointing to RV (that's not a recreational vehical, but
Re-Voir ...although much / most DVD is obviously more RV than RV) as any
more at fault than SCREEN, ARTRAGE or TANGENTS OF LONELINESS, but their
welcome announcement got me to thinking again.
And certainly if RV are inclined to send me a review-copy of the Marker
homage I'll happily rv it.
And well done if you made it this far. After all, WHY SHOULD reading be
easy? AG film ain't.
Dr. D of THE
___________________________________________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: email suppressed
[mailto:email suppressed] On Behalf Of Re:Voir video
Sent: 14 April 2010 07:30
To: email suppressed
Subject: [Re-voir-en] Instant T - A tribute to Chris Marker
Instant T - A tribute to Chris Marker
(DVD - Trace D01) 13,00 euros
3 films by Pascal Frament, Sylvain Bélot, Gilbert Carsoux Musique by Laurent
Saïet
The Project :
The composer Laurent Saïet, intrigued by the work of Chris Marker on memory
and time, decided to look for a musical equivalent and suggested to
videographers Sylvain Bélot, Gilbert Carsoux and Pascal Frament that they
each work from his music on an experimental film inspired mainly by Marker's
best-known work: "La jetée" (1962).
In this project, where the music pre-exists the visual material, he also
collaborated with Patrick Müller who mixed and did the spatial organisation
of the music in 5.1 for the first presentations of the project in 2008-2009
(Instants Chavirés, Montreuil ; "La clef" cinema, Paris).
The Theme:
"He understood that time could not be escaped and that this instant, which
had been given him to see as a child, and which had never ceased to obsess
him, was that of his own death ".
(last sentence in the text of "La jetée" by Chris Marker)
Interpret, from today's viewpoint, the metaphor for time which imbues "La
jetée".
The impossibility of holding time back (Time's inexorable flight).
The end of the world: this is what is suggested in the final scene of Terry
Gilliam's remake "Twelve Monkeys" (1995) References to Alfred Hitchcock's
"Vertigo".
Time is dilated: scenes slowed down or broken up; musical extracts drawn
out, decelerated to the point of becoming unidentifiable; the
musical/cinematic time is held back, the duration of an emotion prolonged;
the infinite details, imperceptible in normal time are seen/heard.
The Musical Aesthetic:
Sound sources are mainly drawn from
"contemporary" music and contemporary film music from "La jetée": samples
re-edited, modified, stretched or slowed down on computer, and reconstituted
in compositions focused on "ambiance" where these sources are mixed with
instrumental play as well as electronic tools (theremin, VCS3, etc.).
In this way, Laurent Saïet and Patrick Müller have attempted to rediscover a
climate of sound and emotions initiated by the multiple visions of the
original film and to contrast them with new images also inspired by "La
jetée".in a "work in progress" where several sensitivities meet.
3 videographers/cineastes, linked by the same time-related problems, take
inspiration from themes and/or visual motifs in "La jetée" to create 3
variants distinct by their form, (video imagery, still shots, fictional
images) the only constraint for which is the temporal.
This title is available through:
RE:VOIR Video
47, rue du Couëdic
75014 Paris
email suppressed
We thank you.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.