Comments on: Films on Film at CineVegas

By: Deirdre Saoirse Moen

Deirdre Saoirse Moen — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:44:24 +0000

Un Chien Andalou is indeed the film; it’s a riff on a scene out of a Garcia Lorca play and is the basis for the fallout between Dali and Garcia Lorca. Some of the back story is explained in the film Little Ashes (about Garcia Lorca, Dali, and Bunuel), along with a translated bit of the play it refers to.

By: Alejandro Adams

Alejandro Adams — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:21:09 +0000

Shooting on film is a radical gesture but also a eulogistic one. Who these days thinks digital filmmaking is an alternative rather than the norm?

The relative youth of these filmmakers is a foregone conclusion, but if the matter is worth stating, then it’s worth exploring.

Those who “experiment with non-theatrical models of distribution” seem more concerned with distribution than with making films. Each stage of the process has its hand-wringing obsessives–some think it’s about the image resolution of the camera, some think it’s about making the final product available for free on the Internet. Rarely in this nexus of priorities do we sense that anyone is actually concerned with making a film as a matter of executing an intractable personal vision of the sort you celebrate in this review(s).

Each image-gathering tool (8, 16, 35, SD, HD) offers its own peculiar insufficiencies. But, then, a sufficient tool expresses only its sufficiency. Never should technology be mistaken for the friend or ally of the artist. One must fear it or despise it. Much great cinema has resulted from the maker’s anxiety over the inadequacy of his tools to express his vision.

Digital technology has not changed how films are made; it has changed what films are. The digital camera is not a film-making tool but a film-destroying tool–a wrecking ball. Anyone using digital technology to make a film is a passive vessel for the total destruction of the cinema.

A few of us knowingly come as destroyers.

By: michael

michael — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:50:02 +0000

The black and white ‘art film’ you’re referring to is called ‘Un chien Andalou’. It was the first film directed by surrealist Louis Bunuel who cowrote the script with Salvador Dali.

By: Erik McClanahan

Erik McClanahan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:26:44 +0000

Karina -

you’ve piqued my interest with all 3 of these films. So good to see that even DIYers are shooting on film if they can afford it and it’s right for the story they want to tell. Modus Operandi sounds like an especially good time, though I’ll probably have to wait for a quiet DVD release for all 3, huh? Keep up the great work, it doesn’t go unnoticed (or unnappreciated) in my neck of the woods.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:47:04 +0000

Any word on possible distribution for any of these films? This is the first I’m hearing about any of them, and they all sound delicious.

By: Local weather forecast

Local weather forecast — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:28:42 +0000

There was an old black and white art film, (or at least, I believe it’s art) where there was a woman sitting in a chair with a man standing behind her. The man reaches down and pulls open her eye, and slices across it with a razor blade.