Vitro Nasu

“Harriet Andersson in Monika is one of the miracles of cinema. She embodies once and for all youth, beauty, freedom, rebellion. I see her as pure poetry. When I was shooting Cold Water I was inspired by one shot in Monika, when she runs holding the piece of meat she’s just stolen.” Olivier Assayas from Bampfa

Assayas on Bergman (I don’t think this book is translated into English.)

When I did Conversations with Bergman it was an extraordinary experience for a young film-maker to be confronted with one of the great masters. (via)

Olivier Assayas

For me, the defining moment with Bergman was when I made my second film, A Winter’s Child, and realised that what interested me in film was filming actors. I became fascinated with the process of what was happening on the face. I had a vague notion that this had something to do with Bergman(via)

BERGMAN—THE NEED TO TRUST ONE’S EMOTIONS by Olivier Assayas and Stig Björkman

Assayas on Bergman’s The Magician

To me, the Bergman style began to gel with Summer with Monika. Before that, the films he was making were like very good American films. But there seemed to be some kind of break with Monika, and after that it drifted into the emergence of that great poetic style. Woody Allen, Back from the Cold, Guardian.

Harriet Andersson and I have worked together all through the years. She is unusually strong but vulnerable person, with a streak of brilliance in her gifts. Her relationship to the camera is straight and sensual. She is also technically superb and can move like lightening from the most powerful empathy to conveying emotions: her humour is astringent but never cynical: she is a lovely person and one of my dearest friends. – The Magic Lantern, Ingmar Bergman page 170

On Monika

Godard said that “It is the saddest shot in the history of the cinema.” And was truly a strange and risky shot, but the result is stupendous: what a look, at the same time mysterious and full of meaning, clear and obscure, straight to the camera: outrageous. (Jose Monteiro)

Susan Sontag
Photo by Peter Hujar

Literature was her passport

Susan Slept Here by David Ehrenstein

With W.S.B.
William S. Burroughs – Our Paranoid Friend Had a Dinner with Susan Sontag

Check her list – (how to live like Susan Sontag)

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Susan Sontag and Nestor Almendros

Susan Sontag, the American critic and a former supporter of the Castro regime, describes the Castro campaign against homosexuals as ”a heritage, in a way a ‘Puritan’ one, that is deeply embedded in the morals of the Left.” She continues: ”The discovery that homosexuals were being persecuted in Cuba shows, I think, how much the Left needs to evolve.”

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Photo by Annie Leibovitz

Pakistani flag in half mast from the Guardian and Benazir Bhutto from here.

‘God help us’ – Pakistanis react

“I come from a family with rightist sympathies but we all feel as if our mother had died. She was a liberal force, a hope for a Pakistan overrun by militancy. Now there is a great vacuum.” (Nabeel Arshed, STUDENT, RAWALPINDI)
“I want to cry over the recent events. Somebody has killed my hope.
Everyone I know is feeling a personal loss, even those of us who were not planning to vote for her, and those of us who thought she was corrupt.”(ASIFA HASAN, RESEARCHER, ISLAMABAD)

Many related links from 3quarksdaily
Rippling effect of Bhutto’s death
Benizar Bhutto

Assassins from Newsgrist.

Bhutto’s Deadly Legacy (William Dahlrymple)

Doodle 13

Head by Louise Bourgeoise

This head belongs to Gordon Matta Clark

Kara Walker did this cover design for New Yorker Magazine.

Wayne Thiebaud did too.

Paint by Pixels,” Harry Bliss.

A sad Christmas cover design by Anita Kunz, 2005 (See all of holiday cover designs here)

Iberia Quarries by Burtynsky He did not do the New Yorker cover.

That’s all folks, be good, don’t drink and drive.

Doodle 13 Plus something or other. (Actually a photo of palm trees trunk repeated three times)

Goodbye Oscar Peterson

Sushi Oscar Peterson

Quote: “It makes you want to sing.” – Ella Fitzgerald, at 74, about Peterson’s piano work.
Some facts about pianist Oscar Peterson, who has died at age 82

David markson on drinking with malcolm lowry & dylan thomas He looked great here on youtube.

They all seem like they shouldn’t have driver’s licenses, even. You do become aware of the names, of course. Who are they, Lethem, Foer, Eggers? Are they mostly named Jonathan?
An Interview with David Markson from Bookslut.

I fear I already posted something with this title. But whoa, David Markson’s The Last Novel totally makes me feel *GREAT*
Cash bag writers -from Venom Glitterati.
(Venom G is linked at my blogroll)

From an Essay by H.R. Two Masters: Variation on Markson
It is said that in the street markets of Florence Leonardo da Vinci would buy the various small birds that were for sale—the ones caged at the food stands, the ones for purchase by those with a palate for small roasted finches and warblers—and then he would go somewhere and set them free.
I presume the birds were in cages. Though I do not know. Surely bird cages are an ancient art. You see, Leonardo was a vegetarian. If he saw other animals under the same market duress I suppose he might have let those go as well. After buying them. Monkeys and dogs and such. This would only make sense. He would want to spare all the innocents from the dastardly meat eaters. Though doubtless there were some animals which were not for sale as food. Decisions would have to be made. Was he only going to buy the birds and animals that were in the most immediate danger? Were there labels to help with momentous decisions such as this?
Food monkey. Companion monkey. Edible parrot. This dog is for eating, this one is not. Please do not eat these birds. One does not want to think of the trial and error involved in birdeaters knowing which were the tastiest of birds. Let us say nothing of the dog testers.

(This essay was begun after several images stuck in my head from David Markson’s stunning book Wittgenstein’s Mistress. Mister Markson’s book is one of the most beautiful books in my small opinion, in my fevered reading life. I have read the book at least once each year since its appearance in 1988. It was purchased in a small book shop in Little Rock.)

More links here (with the same photo of David Markson)
Vanishing Point (a clumsy hommage to David Markson by this blogger)

Kenneth Noland from Anaba.

Click on HO HO HO Happy action gif and Well well well Melancholy – they are a few of my favorite gif animations from Hans Heiner Buhr.

In the spirit of Derek Jarman

Alice by Jan Svankmajer. (via)

Nikola Tesla

On Dec 25 2007, Louise Bourgeois will be 96 years old, Happy Birthday Loubou.
(This is a repost.)

Let us not forget Quentin Crisp who was also born on Dec 25.
He said England was a mistake.
A real cool gif map to find his apartment.
The trailer for Orlando is at Sally Potter’s homepage. Watch Quentin Crisp as the Queen of England.

Grayland and Gif Collection I – (enough motion already)

Seihan Mori, the chief priest of Kiyomizudera temple in Kyoto, writes the kanji “nise” which means “disguise” or “fake,” on paper screen Wednesday. The Chinese character was chosen as most suitable in describing the year in Japan, which has been marked by scandals involving food mislabeling, missing pension records and falsified political fund reports, among other things. (Asahi)

90,816 people voted by internet, postcard and by attending the temple in person, and the top kanji chosen by them was 偽, nise, gi, meaning imitation, deception, or bogus. This year has been full of such stories; it started off with fake health benefits from natto, and continued with one scandal after another, from construction companies faking earthquake resistance to beef-free beef croquettes. This leads us to the number two choice, 食, shoku, food, where in addition to the ironically-named Meat Hope beef mentioned before, trusted souvenir brands Akafuku and Shiroi Koibito amongst others got caught reusing ingredients that had passed their expiry dates. To round out the bad news, third was 嘘, uso, lies, which claimed the life of one politician this year.

Inochi – life

These pessimistic characters are a marked contrast from the last two years; 2006 was 命, inochi, life, and 2005 was 愛, ai, love. (Via)

Japan in denial – The Fake of Nanking Massacre (read Iris Chang)

Filmanthropy, “Nanking” is recently released.

Filmmaker’s Scott Macaulay points to a couple of pieces by Leonis that address the concept of “filmanthropy.” It was Chang’s suicide in 2005, at the age of 36, that inspired Leonis to fund Nanking, Michelle Orange reminds us. (via)

Iris Chang (Image source)

See also previous post –
Kanji of the Year 2004, Wazawai -meaning disaster

Ion Fiscuteanu, a Star of Romanian Stage and Film, Dies at 70 (NYtimes)

The roadrunner on my fence.
My disc went out and we ended up buying a new computer. This is a test run to see how things work.

“He is beautiful” she said.

I just saw a film made by an actress who got killed a year ago.
Her first major film and her last The Waitress, here is a review by Dana Stevens at slate.

Visit Adrienne Shelly Foundation and a tribute site on youtube here.

Found this blog Overgrownpath when I googled Stockhausen and Herman Hesse The Glass Bead Game .

Trader Joe’s bathroom wall has been newly renovated with underwater painting.
New Bathroom design at Trader Joe.

Before the wall depicted desert landscape.
Old Bathroom
A digital montage of Trader’s Joe’s bathroom wall.

Speaking of bathroom, here are three images using toilet paper.
TP Meditation I~
TP Meditation II

TP Meditation III

Humans are the only creatures who use toilet paper – and what a nightmare!! (Don’t know who designed this paper toilet site.)

Update: this guy did the Toilet Paper web art.

Happy Birthday Jean Luc Godard! He is 77 years old today.

JLG’s contribution to cigarette ad.

Nicodemus asks him whether Anne-Marie Miéville will be involved in his next project.
Godard: She’ll absolutely be involved in the next film. We imagine the film together. We call it forth into memory. It’s as if clouds were, bit by bit, slowly taking shape. That’s why I work best when I doze in my chair.
Godard: I try to see things. With my eyes closed. Because you don’t see the same thing with your eyes open. It’s not any different with a camera. You use open eyes to see with closed eyes. (via)

Long before Bela Tarr, watch JLG’s famous long single-take tracking shots.
Weekend (on Youtube)

(This is a repost, music by George Delerue ).

Dans le noir du temps – Part of 10 Minutes older – Cello 2007

Godard stole money to finance his films. He was honored at the European film festival with the lifetime achievment award.

Godard: And when it comes to the American DVDs, I always break off at the moment when I figure out how they’re going to give the story a happy end after all. This dogged insistence on happy endings – I admire it quite a lot. And I’m like everyone else. I’d rather watch a bad American film than a bad Norwegian film. (via)

Hal Hartley interviews Godard in 1994

HH: What changes will occur if that matter, the film, goes away and we begin seeing electronically? Will it change the way we look?
JLG: I won’t be there. It will be new. I don’t know. I like it when it’s new, but the way it’s going is not that kind of newness. It’s bureaucracy. I mean, Hollywood was invented by hoodlums from central Europe. And today a Hollywood lawyer is not a hoodlum. He’s a bureaucrat.