Style Wars: The Original Hip Hop Documentary by Tony Silver

This past weekend, while babysitting and inevitably surfing Netflix, I found an intriguing documentary called Style Wars. Made in the early 80's, it focuses on the story of an emerging art form in the subways of New York called "bombing" (what we today call "graffiti"). Bored teenagers, calling themselves writers, wrote their names in graphic designs on the sides of subway trains, ensuring that everyone in the city would know what they called themselves. It was a sort of backlash against commercial advertising and an experiment on how far they could spread a name or an idea; how many places they could get their name on the walls.

Writers identified with a bigger cultural movement occurring in the city at the same time call HIP-HOP. Break dancers creating new and interesting moves on flattened cardboard-box-stages danced to rap and hip hop music, which had a simple recipe of strong beats and rhythmic spoken word.

Graffiti is the written word. 
There is the spoken word of rap music... 
and then there's the acrobatic body language of dances like ''breaking.'' 

The movie portrayed the young artists as a misunderstood group, who kept themselves out of trouble in their own way. A 17-year-old writer's mother is interviewed saying that she is disappointed in him and that what he is doing is pointless.

But his contention is that he's immortal, I guess, like most 17 year olds are immortal, right? 

The boy replies with something very interestingly poignant:

It's a matter of bombing, knowing that I can do it. Every time I get into a train, almost every day I see my name. I say, ''Yeah, you know it. I was there, I bombed it.'' It's for me. It's not for nobody else to see. l don't care-- l don't care about nobody else seeing it, or the fact if they can read it or not. It's for me and other graffiti writers, that we can read it. It's for us.

Another antagonist to these writers is the Mayor of New York at the time, Ed Koch. He is disgusted by the graffiti and takes ridiculous measures to keep the teenagers out of the train stations and the train yards. The absurd reasoning that the antagonists use in this film is both entertaining and thought-provoking. He says:

lf the kids have energy and want to do something, we'll give them all brooms, we'll give them all sponges, and they can do something that is publicly productive, useful and that would earn for them the respect and approbation of their fellow citizens. It isn't the energy that is misplaced, it's the value system that is misplaced. 

All in all, this movie was very inspiring and fun to watch. I would recommend it to anyone looking for an enjoyable and thoughtful way to spend their Saturday night.

Beautiful Losers by Aaron Rose and Joshua Leonard

Beautiful Losers is a documentary about a group of artists, based in the San Francisco Bay Area and formally called the Mission School Art Movement, who started from modest backgrounds and ended up changing the art world in a very big way in the 1990's.

I originally saw this movie about a year ago after my friend suggested it to me. I loved it and found so much inspiration in the artists' attitudes about what it's like to be a present-day, working artist. They are so refreshingly honest, open, and optimistic. 

I recently took a trip to San Francisco to visit the San Francisco Art Institute, since I am thinking of applying to study art there. The first gallery I walked into on the campus was full of work from these artists' hands. I felt inspired all over again by their stories, and by the overwhelming difference there is between seeing art on a screen (or in a movie) and actually being in its physical presence. This wonderful surprise prompted me to watch Beautiful Losers again this past weekend, and it was just as good as I remembered. Their stories are just as interesting as their artistic ideas, which are plentiful. These are very prolific artists. They all seem to share a do-it-yourself mentality, using whatever they have to express themselves in whatever way they deem necessary. 

One of my favorites of those featured is Margaret Kilgallen. During the process of filming this movie, she became pregnant and, at the same time, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died just after she gave birth to her child, and just before the movie was completed. She left behind a beautiful body of work, and a kind heart that everyone who was around her remembers. 

Her artwork was very graphic and detail oriented. The flatness of her artwork is something different than I have ever seen before in art. There is no shading or contour to her figures. They are simply shapes, filled in with a single color. I think that has something very important to say about feminism, urban life, and about human nature in general. She was very influenced by hand-painted signs and typography. I love that she used so much text, so many of the same symbols (the woman, the tree...) and that she also used unique surfaces to paint on.

"On any day in the Mission in San Francisco, you can see a hand-painted sign that is kind of funky, and maybe that person, if they had money, would prefer to have had a neon sign. But I don't prefer that. I think it's beautiful, what they did and that they did it themselves. That's what I find beautiful." ~Margaret Kilgallen

While she was still alive, she painted many community-oriented murals and signs, saying that she wanted to give back to the community and that art had a way of connecting people. I admire her a lot.

Beautiful Losers remains to be one of my favorite documentaries. I'm sure when I watch it again in the future, I'll continue to be inspired by it.

Gravity by Alfonso Cuarón

I just got home from the movie theater!
I went to see "Gravity" by Alfonso Cuarón. It was CRAZY.
The movie primarily follows the story of Ryan Stone (played by Sandra Bullock). She and Matt Kowalski (played by George Clooney) are astronauts, among a couple others, currently researching in outer space. A disaster occurs and they are thrown out into the abyss of space, spinning uncontrollably, with nothing to hold onto and no way to control their direction. Stone and Kowalski trek across space to survive, and Stone learns a lot about herself and about life along the journey.

Cuarón did such a great job of creating an experience that seemed completely realistic to space. Never having been in space, I unconditionally believed in Cuarón's version of it. When there was no oxygen for Kowalski and Stone to breathe, I held my breath with them. The whole 3D experience of the movie (in all its zero-gravity glory) made it difficult for me to move my legs once the movie was over, as though I was encountering gravity once again after a trip to space. I really loved how the movie had no manipulation of time, as movies usually do (cutting to an hour later, or flashing back in time). Everything was happening right now, and it felt real.

I absolutely loved this movie! In fact, I think I will go see it again...

Sunset Boulevard by Billy Wilder

Last night I watched an old film noir called Sunset Boulevard. It was directed and co-written by Billy Wilder. It was also co-written by Charles Brackett.
I absolutely loved it! I think it's my favorite film noir I've ever seen. It had very interesting visual ideas, and it also had a great story.

It was told in first-person from the perspective of an unsuccessful Hollywood writer names Joe Gillies who is played by William Holden. Out of luck and owing money to the bank, Gillies needs a place to hide his car from the bank collectors he is indebted to. He finds a seemingly abandoned mansion with an empty garage and decides to stash his precious car[go] there. He also plans to stay there until he doesn't have to worry about the bank. It soon becomes apparent that the house is not abandoned. It is, in fact, inhabited by an old silent-movie starlet named Norma Desmond, who Gillies says "used to be big". She responds with one of my favorite lines ever: "I am big, it's the pictures that got small."
Once Norma finds out that Gillies is a writer, she shows him a script she's been working on, which Gillies says is terrible. Norma, however, asks him to edit it and fervently requests for him to stay in the mansion with her. He obliges, but it soon becomes apparent that Norma has an obsession with him, with reliving her fame and youth, and with the movie industry. The movie documents her insanity and the insanity of Hollywood quite well, and is, in the end, very unsettling. I loved it.

documentary treatment

"Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record."

For my documentary short film, I'd like to explore someone's world for a brief amount of time. I specifically want to do this by exploring their bedroom and having them explain their favorite things about it and about themselves. 
This documentary series would be an expository one. I will interview the subjects, but edit the footage so that it seems like they are just speaking to the viewer.
This has been done before, but what would make my film different would be the fact that it will not focus on personal style or aesthetic as much as it will focus on stories and more of an interview-pretending-to-be-a-room-tour. The interviewee's words will be accompanied by visions of the objects and images they choose to surround themselves with in their most comfortable and safest of spaces. I do not want this to be a forceful exploration, but rather one where the subject is inviting the viewer in.

avant garde treatment/ideas

storage facility
white rock lake spillway
black/white/grey (high contrast, sparkles)
chasing dream
heart beat
breath
danger
fear
time lapse
sound echoes (record sound in storage facility?)
close - closer - closest
closed eyes (squeeeeeze 'em)
typewritten words? ( r u n  f a s t )
fuzzies around the edge, like eyelashes
running through hard spaces
echoing back
fading into light
shooting an arrow ---> let go and running starts
inspired by angus borsos
darkness and lightness

I want to create an aura of fear and tightness around this film. It will be intimidating, possibly uncomfortable. I don't want it to be necessarily negative though. Possibly the chasing will end at some point. I've never created anything with this goal in mind, so I am excited about what will come. My ideas are still forming...

Post Tenebras Lux by Carlos Reygadas

Last night I watched a movie from Mexican director Carlos Reygadas called Post Tenebras Lux. It was terrifying and very difficult to watch for me. However,  I think that was the desired effect.

From a visual standpoint, the film was wonderfully imaginative. Reygadas' use of a custom lens creates a circular double-image around the edge of the focused area. This was what originally drew me to this film. The dreamlike quality of the images that he gifted the viewer is unparalleled. I've never seen anything like it before. I really liked this technique, and I would like to find a way to use something similar to it in my own films.

 From what I could gather, the film did have a sort of central story, but there were many other impressions and off-stories that Reygadas included. I think he did this in order to make the viewing experience something unique and particular to each person. The story had a sort of make-what-you-want-of-it feeling, which I like. In theory.
The problem with this film for me was that it changed too often to give me any impression of what was real or relevant to the story. Some scenes seemed totally useless or out of place. Others seemed like they should have had more emphasis placed on them. Again, this could have been a creative decision of on the director's part.
One thing that really stood out to me was that my physical body was brought into the viewing experience at the end of the movie. Siete ends up killing himself in some gruesome way that I only half-watched, half-hid from. It involved the loss of his head. This caused so much sympathetic pain to my throat and my chest that I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me. No oxygen, no way to breathe. The next scene shows a rugby team of young and boisterous boys, seemingly in a completely different world, and definitely in a different, English-speaking country. Their skin is pink from the chilly and frosty air, their eyes are runny from the wet drizzle, and they are all breathing hard and fast, like animals, from the exertion of their bodies in the sport. Their difficulty breathing was a shared experience for me. No oxygen, no way to breathe. The parallel between me and the boys on the screen was something I was excited and inspired by. It seemed like Reygadas had thought this through. He knew I would feel this way.
Overall, I enjoyed the film's images and ideas. I am inspired, and that is something that I see as a gift from a movie. So... thank you Carlos Reygadas, for making me feel uncomfortable!

Melancholia by Lars von Trier

This weekend, while snuggled up in my bed, I watched a film called Melancholia. It was directed by Lars von Trier, an often misunderstood director and a very depressed person. His movie was inspired by a realization he had that depressed people will often stay calm during stressful situations.

Melancholia has two parts: Part I (Justine) and Part II (Claire). The first half of the movie is entirely different from the second part, especially visually. Part I is very orange and green and brown, while Part II is very blue and black and green.

Part I:

Part II:

I loved the contrast between the two parts. The first part is very slow-moving. It appears to be almost a normal wedding party, except that the bride (Kirsten Dunst) seems to be having a huge difficulty with herself and with those around her. She is trapped within herself and it seemed to me, watching, that she's been trapped within herself for her entire life. The second part seemed almost rushed because all of the tangible story had to be fitted into it. Basically, a planet called Melancholia is flying past the Earth in outer space. Claire, the subject of Part II is very frightened about this fly-by planet. I thought that the darker colors on the screen corresponded well with the emotions being portrayed in the story.

The soundtrack was very different than most movies, to me. It consisted of a lot of Normal Wedding Songs (like "Fly Me to the Moon", "La Bamba", etc.), but I loved the extensive use of one piece, "Tristan and Isolde" by the composer Richard Wagner. It would swell whenever anything strange or important was happening throughout the entire movie, but especially during Part II. It gave the movie a sort of ballet- or theater-like quality. It reminded me that the story wasn't real.
I love this piece of music. I suggest just laying down in your room or in a place you feel comfortable and listening. I've found that it moves in tune and in time with my emotions and my thoughts, which is something very powerful for a composition to do.

I really enjoyed the imagery in this movie and the director's take on capturing emotional experiences. I will definitely be watching von Trier's other movies to see what he does a little bit clearer!