Unspoken Cinema

Dernière ajout à la page Bibliothèque : "C’est avec la même latitude contemplative que le cinéaste Peter Hutton explore depuis plus de trente ans les paysages – qu’ils soient naturels ou urbains – à la manière d’un témoin dont la caméra se fait le relais. Cette façon d’immortaliser des moments subtils qui semblent être inconséquents, reflète une méthode puissante devant son appréhension au monde. [..]" Peter Hutton et les fantômes de l’Hudson River School : L’image suspendue (espace, regard, mythe) Benjamin Léon ; 2014 ; Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle

Films made by 22 recurrent Contemporary Contemplative Cinema figureheads since 1967 [ Google sheet ] It's time to update the CCC timeline 2008 , I hastly put together 12 years ago, at the origin of this blog. I had omitted back then Peter Hutton, Franco Piavoli, Tacita Dean, Elia Suleiman, Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Sergei Loznitsa & Kazuhiro Soda, who I didn't know, as well as most of James Benning's output. But a few also don't make the cut this time around (Omirbaev, Kore-eda, Costa, Ceylan, JZK, GVS, Martin, Escalante, Serra) for various reasons (too few CCC films, too "speechy"/narrative in comparison to the other main figureheads, but it doesn't mean they are not contemplative, just they are not part of the chosen few CCC role models)... in order to paint a clear picture, more radical, of this new narrative cohort. One thing did change : the year of debut of this narrative mode, now 1967 instead of 1970. In restrospect, we can see clearly now the years...

A new free podcast on art cinema, called " Syndromes and a cinema ", has started this month, animated by William Burchett (UK), Josh Ryan (USA), Brian Risselada (USA) and Zachary Phillip Brailsford (USA). It sounds quite interesting so far : 2 podcasts and 2 CCC auteurs (Tsai Ming-liang and Peter Hutton).  Unlike the specialized artfilm press, they do take it seriously, without referring to "slow cinema" (pejorative moniker) and "boredom" (refusal to meet halfway with the artist), and even acknowledge and reference the "Contemporary Contemplative Cinema" family. The discussions last about an hour, which is a decent minimal length to develop any articulated thoughts on serious film culture, especially when more than one film, a filmography, is concerned. They are doing more to encourage viewing and engagement with CCC, than the apologetic, reluctant, anti-intellectual pieces we find in the regular press. So if you appreciate and enjoy Contempla...

Empire (1964/Andy Warhol) 1 shot Wavelength (1967/Michael Snow) 1 shot Ten Skies (2003/James Benning) 10 shots (+intertitles) At Sea (2007/Peter Hutton) Uncle Boonmee (2010/Apichatpong Weerasethakul) ASL= 34.1" Source:  moviebarcode   Looking at the whole duration of a film in one glance, like a genome representation. Each frame of the film (or 1 image every few seconds) is compacted into an image 1 pixel in width, and they are all stuck together, from left to right, like books on a shelf. The 1 pixel wide vertical slit gives the general colour tone of the frame, and the succession of slits shows the evolution of the colour scheme throughout the film, sequence by sequence. In Ten Skies , it's easy to notice the very regular shot changes, every 10 minutes, with the black screen (intertitles) in between. We also see the drifting motion of the clouds in each scene (slowly moving up in the shots number 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 10, generally the top o...

André S. Labarthe : "Le temps est venu de faire l'éloge de la lenteur. On ne peut pas voir pousser au présent. La fiction c'est ce qu'on fait arriver aux choses pour qu'elles existent. Il y a un statut Super 8. Le jardinage et le cinéma sont des arts du temps. Nous pouvons utiliser le même vocabulaire. [..] L'après-midi je découvre quelques films de Peter Hutton. C'est quelqu'un qui a vécu ses images. Où il a vécu, il a fait des films, des portraits de villes et des portraits du temps. Il y a un vrai travail sur la peinture et la lumière. Sa principale référence cinématographique était Gaston Méliès. Peter Hutton a dit: mon université était un baleinier. C'est GENIAL, j'ai l'impression de sortir à travers ces images et ce cinéma. Il y a une recherche du cardre dans le cadre. Dans la profondeur il y a un constat du temps météorologique d'ordre mystique. Passage du noir et blanc à la couleur à travers ses films et son histoire de vie. Il ...

Immanent domain: P. Adams Sitney on the films of Peter Hutton  P. Adams Sitney ( Artforum , Vol. XLVI, #9, May 2008) At Sea (2004-07/Peter Hutton/USA) 60' For nearly four decades Peter Hutton has been taking the measure of the cinematic image to delimit its powers of fascination and absorption. Over those years he transformed a diaristic mode of the filmic lyric into one in which subtle fluctuations in the visible field - of light, or figures and objects in motion, or slight camera movements - configure the ecstatic concentration of the filmmaker's attention. He marshals silence and the immanent rhythms of nearly still scenes, or slow vehicular movements, to evoke the pleasures of isolation, even of loneliness. [..] Within individual shots music, or vibratory energy, becomes soundlessly pictorial: A centripetal force repeatedly concentrates the intensity of scrutiny in prolonged, suspended moments that nearly efface the subjectivity of the observer only to have it resur...

Entre dos mundos from Banda TRANSIT on Vimeo . This video contains footage from At Land (Maya Deren, 1944), At Sea (Peter Hutton, 2007) and Between Two Worlds (Vimukthi Jayasundara, 2009). They try to illustrate a divulgative and creative text about Deren's, Hutton's and Jayasundara's productions. It doesn't exist any profit motive in mind. (Covadonga G. Lahera for cinentransit.com) Read also at Transit : " At Land / At Sea / Between Two Worlds " By: Covadonga G. Lahera " De At Land à Between Two Worlds " By: Covadonga G. Lahera