Unspoken Cinema

  Partant du recensement de tous les nouveaux films certifiés contemplatifs, sur la page Recommended CCC  (lequel est loin d'être exhaustif... on ne peut pas voir tous les films qu'on voudrait), j'ai réalisé un graphique s'étalant de 1960 à 2019. 2020 étant une année sans, et 2021 n'est pas encore achevée. A ses débuts il n'y a qu'un ou deux films contemplatifs par an (quand ce n'est pas zéro) et ce jusqu'en 1992. A partir de 1993, la démographie commence à croitre plus que de coutume. 1993 est l'année de D'Est de Chantal AKERMAN. Et l'année suivante celle du Satantango , opus magnus de Béla TARR. Trois ans plus tard, un pic de presque 10 films en une année, avec SOKOUROV (2), BARTAS, KELEMEN, DUMONT, KAWASE, HUTTON, TSAI, MAJEWSKI. Puis à nouveau 9 films d'un coup en l'an 2000, après 2 années plus modestes.  Donc si le boom démographique apparait à la moitié des années 1990, déjà 30 films contemplatifs étaient sortis avant 1993....

The Art of Stillness - Pico Iyer (TED talk) 15'41" * * *   The Urgency of Slowing Down - interview of Pico Iyer at OnBeing (YouTube audio) 51'56"

7 years without a new film by Lisandro ALONSO, since Jauja (released in 2014)... which was one of the rare period films in Contemplative Cinema. And there was another hiatus between the previous film : Liverpool (2008) and Jauja . They were released 6 years apart.  We got an inkling about his new film : Eureka , at the 2020 Locarno Film Festival with this official statement from the selection comittee :  Lisandro Alonso was directing outside his native Argentina for the first time, with an ensemble of cast and crew from countries ranging from Finland to Spain, when Covid-19 hit the shooting of his western in Portugal. Exploring the connections between the different cultures inhabiting a land through time is at the heart of Eureka . Here is the page of the film Eureka on the festival website, in case you want to read the synopsis before the film comes out..

A video essay :   Slow Cinema -Tsai, Lynch, etc. (Robin D) 23'33" - 19 april 2021 Also Watch on Unspoken Cinema : What is Slow Cinema? (Francesco Quario) Slow Cinema the Art of Boredom (Elizabeth Pillar) 2020 Slow Cinema and Carlos Reygadas's Silent Light (Jordan Scholig) Slow Cinema essay and Kaili Blues What is slow cinema?  (24 Frames) Temporality in Slow Cinema (Cameron Niblock) 2021

  Voici la Généalogie du Cinéma Contemporain Contemplatif. 14 ans plus tard, je remets à jour l' Updated Genealogy Chart  de novembre 2007. Il y a quelques changements, mais remarquablement, le principe reste le même. J'ai conservé la structure en strates verticales (de A=Réalité à H=Installation) qui permet de distinguer les sous-catégories du mode contemplatif. Et chaque strate a sa généalogie verticale propre, avec Lumière pour socle commun. J'ai fait le tri dans les précurseurs, et dans les contemplatifs aussi. On voit bien que le mode narratif minimaliste (discursif) est isolé du reste, de part son usage du langage, son besoin de message dialogué.  * * * Aux travers des multiples facettes du cinéma contemporain se dessine une veine de films distinctive, fascinante, radicale et minimaliste… les films contemplatifs. Ni une école, ni un mouvement, ni un genre, ni un style… cette famille de cinéma est un mode narratif minimaliste, une esthétique transnationale convergen...

A video essay :    A Closer Look : Moving Images Criticism - Slow Cinema (Making Waves - Cameron Niblock) 10 aug 2021 - 8'03" Temporality in Slow Cinema : A Critical Analysis on the Long Take & its application to 'Prologue' by Béla Tarr & 'No No Sleep' by Tsai Ming-Liang Produced as part of the BA (Hons) Film and Television degree at Solent University Also Watch on Unspoken Cinema : What is Slow Cinema? (Francesco Quario) Slow Cinema the Art of Boredom (Elizabeth Pillar) 2020 Slow Cinema and Carlos Reygadas's Silent Light (Jordan Scholig) Slow Cinema essay and Kaili Blues What is slow cinema?  (24 Frames)

 Sharon Lockhart is an underexposed Contemplative filmmaker, probably because she's a gallery artist who does video installations for museums... (like Tacita Dean maybe). Yet her dedication to the Contemplative aesthetics is undeniable, thus she's one of the 23 exemplary masters to define CCC. She's most famous for  Lunch Break  (2008) or  Double Tide  (2009). Her latest documentary, called Rudzienko , dates back from 2017.  Last year she participated in a joint exhibition with James Benning : Over Time (at the Milwaukee Art Museum, USA) * * * James Benning & Sharon Lockhart in conversation about their joint exhibition : Over Time  (YouTube) 1h04' Videos :  Artist Conversation : Sharon Lockhart (Los Angeles County Museum of Arts) 6'04" Press Conference Sharon Lockhart - Noa Eshkol  (2012) 39'14"  Interviews : James Benning interviews Sharon Lockhart about Lunch Break (2010) PDF Lucien Castaing-Taylor interviews Sharon Lockhart (2...

Il Buco (Michelangelo Frammartino, Italy) in competition at the 2021 Venice Festival ! "Now Frammartino is back – 10 years later, not wanting to rush things – with the lovely Il Buco, another film that is content to saunter on the wild side, gazing at woods and sky, rocks and trees and identifying a serene, quiet heaven in everything that it sees. It’s not quite a documentary, yet nor is it exactly a narrative feature. It lives alone; the cinematic equivalent of a hermit on a mountaintop." Il Buco review - unhurried meditation on the beauties of geological times The Guardian - Xan Brooks (4 sept 2021) * * * This is not a documentary but a reenactment of an event that occurred in 1961 in Italy. The Milanese director equipped 12 young speleologists, selected during a year and a half of casting throughout Italy, with 60-year-old equipment and filmed them as they repeated the feat of their predecessors along the 700 meters of the narrow fracture in the ground. [..] The caves rema...

  What is slow cinema?  - 29 Aug 2021 (24 Frames / Brandon) 7'35" See also at Unspoken Cinema : What is Slow Cinema? (Francesco Quario) Slow Cinema the Art of Boredom (Elizabeth Pillar) 2020 Slow Cinema and Carlos Reygadas's Silent Light (Jordan Scholig) Slow Cinema essay and Kaili Blues

 BLOGATHON 2008  Roundtable 1 : CCC synopsis The Root of Mutism (HarryTuttle) Roundtable 2 : Experiential Cinema On Pointing the Camera (David McDougall) Chantal Akerman : Walking Woman (Adrian Martin) Fiant on Contemporary Mutic Cinema (HarryTuttle) Romney on the Contemplative Trend (HarryTuttle) Opera Jawa : The Times Says It Stinks (HarryTuttle) Second Edition (HarryTuttle) Film Time : Meditation #1 (Carlos Ferrao) and more on other blogs... see :  Table of Content (Blogathon 2008) INTERVIEWS Roy Andersson - Cannes 2007 Sin Titulo (Michael Guillén) Interview with Kunal Mehra, director of "The Wind Blows Where It Will " (HermyBerg) Nina Menkes interview (Jit Phokaew, Filmsick) Dardenne on non-pro filmmaking    CITATIONS Sleepy Movie Tarr's Universe (Nadin Poulain) Arte Povera (Adrian Martin) The Pleasures of Contemplation (Michael Crochetière) Maximalism of Screen Liberty (Robert Koehler) Fixed Firmly On The Object in View (David McDougall) Lopa...

Septembre 2021 news : new book on Béla Tarr by Clara Orban :  Slow Places in Béla Tarr's Films : The Intersection of Geography, Ecology and Slow Cinema "Slow Places in Béla Tarr’s Films explores Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr’s approach to creating geographies of indifference through slow cinema techniques. Through a close examination of Tarr’s filmography, Clara Orban observes that his interiors provide claustrophobic environments in which human relationships have difficult flourishing, while his exteriors become landscapes through which characters wander endlessly. Furthermore, Orban argues, Tarr’s sparse use of animals provides contrast to the humans who inhabit these spaces, as they, too, are indifferent to humans’ fates. Orban utilizes close readings of Tarr’s films—including his earlier short films—along with relevant poems, a thorough filmography, and an interview with Tarr about aspects of this book to aid in her analysis. Ultimately, this book offers an accessible but ...

A video essay :   It's Not Easy Being a Human - The Living Paintings of Roy Andersson (Film Qualia, 16 feb 2019) 13'04" Read also on Unspoken Cinema : CCC Auteurs Watchlist : Roy Andersson