Fellini's Rome

Being an enthusiastic film location hunter, I was inquiring the possibility of a movie tour of Fellini’s Rome. After reading a little bit the book The sites of Rome: time, space, memory, I found out that his Rome was mainly constructed in studio 5 at Cinecittà, including even landmarks such as St. Peter's dome and the Colosseum. I wasn't aware that he preferred set shooting so much, quite the opposite of Antonioni's situationist style. Even though I'm still gonna see the famous Trevi Fountain in his La Dolce Vita.

As discussed by Elena Theodorakopoulos, Fellini's films may be said to visualize Freud's much-quoted idea that:
Rome is not a human habitation, but a psychical entity with a similarly long and copious past - an entity, that is to say, in which nothing that has once come into existence will have passed away and all the earlier phases of development continue to exist alongside the latest one.

In Fellini's own words: Tramping around from ruin to ruin doesn’t mean anything to me. My Rome is from the movies of my childhood.

If Fellini's Rome is a cinematic spectacle inspred by his collective childhood memory, then Tarkovsky's Italy is a mirror which reflects his deep Russian nostalgia. My favorite scenes in Nostalgia were filmed at Bagno Vignoni, a small village famous for its thermal baths. It's about an hour's bus drive from Siena. But I probably won't have time for it as I have only one day in Siena. Anyway I'll see Michelangelo's Piazza del Campidoglio, another distinct filming location of Nostalgia.

Cat Score

The Sound of Painting is a fascinating and informative book I read recently. It explores the mutual inspiration between early modern art and early modern music by examining numerous artists’ works inspired by music.

In the chapter of Graphic Music, I was intrigued by several pieces of work which innovatively visualized music. The wittiest one is this Cat Symphony by Austrian painter Moritz won Schwind (1804-1871). He dedicated the score to Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), a renowned Hungarian violinist and composer. He described his idea of reforming the linear notation system as ‘this darling attempt to put a more expressive, spiritualized notation system in the place of this outmoded, obsolete, pedantic, and dry-as-dust copycat business.’

In the Eyes of Annie Leibovitz

When talking about Annie Leibovitz, the two images one would associate with are probably: the Rolling Stone cover of John and Yoko lying together, the last photo of John taken a few hours before his was shot, and the controversial Vanity Fair cover of Demi Moore’s nude pregnant body.

After watching a documentary on Annie and reading her book Annie Leibovitz at Work, I got more insights into her life and photography. Besides the famous celebrity photos for the magazines, her works also touch upon broader themes such as social and political events and natural landscapes. In the book she reveals how each well-known photograph was made. She is not only good at staging the characters in a symbolic setting relevant to ones’ artistic identity, but also has a sharp eye in capturing the very charm in one’s natural state.

One appealing photo from the documentary is the surrealistic portrait of Isabella Rossellini and David Lynch, both my favorite characters. The photo stands as a perfect metaphor of the uninterpretable and dreamlike quality of Lynch’s films. Lynch's face is hidden behind the black mask, which seems to imply the fact that he has always resisted interpreting his works.


When browsing the book, I was excited to find a photo of 94-year-old Philip Johnson in his Glass House. Interested in architecture, Annie went to photograph the Glass House one day and Johnson happened to be there. The photo thus came by accident, which captured a meditative quality in the architectural space, surrounding landscape and the person.

Garden of Hope

I'm reading an interesting and thought-provoking book China Road by NPR correspondent Rob Gifford about his 3000-mile road trip along Route 312 from Shanghai to the Chinese border with Kazakhstan. The author is quite knowledgable about Chinese history as well as the current Chinese society. The book combines his personal accounts of all sorts of people he encountered on the road with his critical opinions as well as some historical backgrounds. After watching several documentary series about China (such as China from the Inside and China Rises), I found the social phenomenon portrayed in this book not unfamiliar at all. However, I was still intrigued by Rob’s writing since the power of words offers more sensitivity in story-telling and more depth of thinking.

At the end of the chapter on Nanjing, he described an unexpected sight of a nice garden for the blind people located inside the Nanjing Botanical Garden. He was quite amazed at this humanized design in China as he had never seen anything like that even in the US or Europe. To me, such an ordinary garden is truly extraordinary, especially considering the weak in China today still has no voice in the society.

I became very curious about this garden and found some info from this online article: http://www.bgci.org/resources/article/0140/. The garden opened to the public in 1998, with an area of 12,000 m². Here are some details -

Over 150 species of plants have been planted within the Garden for blind people to touch, smell and feel ... Sixty species of plant in the Garden have labels in braille. Thirty of these also have a small speaker attached to the label and a recorded message with detailed information about that species' name, features and usage can be heard when a button is pressed.

Special design features include: using gentle natural slopes without steps, placing cobbles in the footpaths in front of plants that are meant to be touched, including a 400 m long stainless steel railing, building toilets specially designed for blind people and having corridor pillars with smooth edges.

I tried to get some images of the garden, but found only one picture showing the entry. When I get a chance to visit Nanjing, I'll make sure to stop by this heart-warming place. And hopefully I can take a road trip across China someday to get my first hand stories.

Art of the Modern Movie Poster 3 - Saul Bass

I came to know this famous American graphic designer through my favorite movie Vertigo. The the eye of a vortex perfectly catches the essence of the film. This books presents more of his wonderful designs. I'm really impressed with his extraordinary visual thinking and sense of humor. He definitely created a whole new language for movie poster which has a strong influence on today's design such as the Burn After Reading poster.

Saul Bass is also well known for making the title sequences for many great films including works by Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese.

Art of the Modern Movie Poster 2 - Hans Hillmann

One of my favorite European designer in the book is Hans Hillman from Garmany. His version of Bresson's masterpiece Pickpocket is the best I've seen. His works presents different styles based on the theme of each film, for instance, the enigmatic image for Buñuel's surrealism and the comic abstraction for Lubitsch's satire To Be or Not To Be. His recent work has focused on book illustrations.

Art of the Modern Movie Poster 1 - Roman Cieslewicz

The book Art of the Modern Movie Poster is a remarkable collection of post-WWII movie posters from all of the world. It introduces to me many great poster designers esp. those from Eastern Europe. Since most posters were designed for art films, I also found many interesting movies to check out.

The book starts with Polish movie posters, also in my opinion the most riveting part. The Polish style was so avant-garde at that time, reminiscent of Russian Constructivism. My favorite designer is Roman Cieslewicz (1930-1996). Born in Lvov, Poland, he spent most his life in France where he worked as art director of Vogue, Elle and Mafia. Rather than using movie scenes or star portraits, he developed a unique movie poster language which is abstract, metaphorical and emotional.

The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock

I just finished reading this fascinating book about the architecture in Hitchcock's films. The book gives in-depth discussions on Hitchcock’s unique way of set design and filming techniques based on his profound understanding of space and visual way of thinking. The first two parts of the book focus on an overall account of Hitchcock’s set design, conspicuous architectural motifs, his interests in tourism and so forth. The third part provides detailed analysis of 26 houses from 22 Hitchcock films. Drawings including floor plans, sections and site plans were presented to facilitate the understanding of architectural space.

In order to gain full control of a scene, Hitchcock preferred set shooting over location shooting all his life. From the book, I discovered that some of the most memorable shots were actually made from matte paintings or miniature models. For instance, in Rebecca all the exterior shots of the mansion Manderley were made from different-sized miniatures combined with studio effects, while all the rooms were studio sets. In Vertigo, the tower where the two deaths happen was set up solely for the film. The bird’s-eye view of the tower was just a matte painting. I was amazed at how well those special effects fooled the eyes of contemporary viewers considering some were made 70 years ago.

The chapter on Hitchcock’s preference in domestic setting is also intriguing. The typical Hitchcockian horror exists in a hidden dimension, a horrific dimension underlying our most familiar environments, especially houses. Many of the most terrifying scenes happen in either a house or a motel room, which is best exemplified in Psycho and The Birds. However, Hitchcock did sometimes take strong interests in the tourist gaze. Quite a few dramatic scenes were shot at national monuments such as Mt. Rushmore in North by Northwest and Statue of Liberty in Saboteur. The landmarks shown in Vertigo also make San Francisco even more irresistible to fans like me - I visited most filmming locations of Vertigo the first time I was in San Francisco.

As discussed in the book, the objects in Hitchcock’s films are “never mere props”, but “the very substance of his cinema”. The objects often associate with symbolic meanings, link with tensions and terrors, or even seem alive. Many of these objects are architectural elements, such as a door, a window or a staircase, which have formed some famous Hitchcockian motifs. After reading the insightful analysis on many key objects, I came to realize how many visual details I’ve overlooked during previous viewings. I will go back to those films again for new discoveries.

In short, this book offers a comprehensive examination on architecture’s role in Hitchcock’s films. Despite its theoretical quality, the book is graphically alluring by blending original frames, behind-the-scene photos and architectural drawings. The author also wittily rephrased some Hitchcock’s film names into his key titles, from the book title to some of the chapter names. If you are a Hitchcock fan, you are gonna love this book!

Drawing into Film

The book Drawing into Film is a terrific collection of drawings from 13 renowned filmmakers. Again, I feel the strong similarities between a film director and an architect: they both sketch a lot, they both deal with time, space and movement, they both go through the process of production/construction, they both face the challenge of budget, they both are involved in substantial leadership and collaboration...

It was my first time seeing the drawings or sketches from several of my favorite filmmakers. I was quite amazed by their imaginative thinking process as well as visualization skills. The following are the ones I love the most -

Once was a cartoonist, Fellini took advantage of his drawing skills in filmmaking. These cartoonish sketches were made for Amarcord (1974) and Città delle donne, La (1980).

I've seen Orson Welles' paintings in the documentary One Man Band before and was deeply impressed with his versatility. His paintings are as free and powerful as his mind. These are the sketches for Macbeth (1948).

David Lynch really surprised me with his classic style pencil sketches. You would think his drawings are as wild as his films! The following sketches are for Eraserhead (1978) and Dune (1984).

Of all the filmmakers included in this book, the most audacious in using colors is Akira Kurosawa. His color choices remind me of Van Gogh. These are a couple of drawings for Dreams (1990).

Orson Welles' The Trial - my favorite Zizek quotes 2

In his movie version of Kafka’s The Trial, Orson Welles accomplished an exemplary anti-obscuranist operation by way of reinterpreting the place and the function of the famous parable on ‘the door of the law’.
...

In the Welles version, the reason K. is killed is therefore the exact opposite of the reason implied in the novel – he presents a threat to power the moment he unmasks, ‘see through’, the fiction upon which the social link of the existing power structure is founded.
...

Welles’ reading of The Trial thus differs from both predominant approaches to Kafka, the obscurantist-religious as well as the naïve, enlightened humanist.
...

Although it may seem that Welles aligns himself with the second reading, things are by no means so unequivocal: he as it were adds another turn of the screw by raising ‘conspiracy’ to the power of two – as K. puts it in the Welles version of his final outburst, the true conspiracy of Power resides in the very notion of conspiracy, in the notion of some mysterious Agency that ‘pulls the strings’ and effectively runs the show, that is to say, in the notion that, behind the visible, public Power, there is another obscene, invisible, ‘crazy’ power structure. This other, hidden Law acts the part of the ‘Other of the Other’ in the Lacanian sense, the part of the mega-guarantee of the consistency of the big Other (the symbolic order that regulates social life).
...

K.’s lawyer offers him, as a desperate last resort, this role of the martyr-victim of a hidden conspiracy; K., however, turns it down, being well aware that by accepting it he would walk into the most perfidious trap of Power.

- Slavoj Zizek, Interrogating the Real, p229-231

The Double Life of Veronique - my favorite Zizek quotes 1

The perception of our reality as one of the possible, often even not the most probable, outcomes of an open situation, this notion that other possible outcomes are not simply canceled out but continue to haunt our reality as a specter of what might have happened, conferring on our reality the status of extreme fragility and contingency, implicitly clashes with the predominant linear narrative forms of our literature and cinema.
…

This unfinished character of reality grounds our freedom of choice: it depends on us which version will prevail. For Kieslowski, this choice is ultimately the choice between “calm life” and “vocation.” In The Double Life of Veronique, the Polish Weronika chooses her vocation, that of a singer, ignoring her heart failure, and meets early death as the result of it, while the French Veronique betrays her vocation and chooses a quiet, satisfied life. Veronique is thus melancholic and reflective, in contrast to Weronika’s direct enthusiasm for the Cause; to put it in Friedrich Schiller’s terms, she is sentimental, in contrast to Weronika’s naivete.

...

So in The Double Life of Veronique, perhaps, we are not dealing with the “mystery” of the communication between two Veroniques but with one and the same Veronique who travels back and forth in time. In these terms, the key scene in the film is the near encounter of the two Veroniques in the large square in Krakow, where a Solidarity demonstration is taking place. This episode is rendered in a vertiginous circular shot reminiscent of the famous 360-degree shot from Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Afterward, when the French Veronique is introduced, we can understand Polish Weronika’s perplexity as arising from an obscure awareness that she was about to have an impossible encounter with her double. The camera’s circular movement, then, can be read as signaling the danger of the “end of the world,” like the standard scene from science-fiction films about alternative realities, in which the passage from one to another universe takes the shape of a terrifying primordial vortex threatening to swallow all consistent reality.
…

After her puppeteer lover stages for her the (unconscious) choice that structured her life, in the guise of the two marionettes. So what is Veronique retreating from when she abandons her lover? She perceives this staging of her ultimate, unbearable FREEDOM. In other words, what is so traumatic for her in the puppeteer’s performance is not that she sees herself reduced to a puppet whose strings are pulled by the hidden hand of Destiny but that she is confronted with the fundamental unconscious choice by means of which every one of us has to choose her or his existential project. Her escape from the puppeteer, back to the safe haven under the wings of her father, is her escape from freedom.

- Slavoj Zizek, "The Forced Choice of Freedom," essay from The Double Life of Veronique Criterion Collection DVD booklet

Slavoj Zizek Does Not Exist

Slavoj Zizek Does Not Exist, installation, photography and concept by Rudjer Kunaver and Miran Mohar, 2005

Saw this photo on the back cover of Zizek's The Parallex View. I found it interesting since the title immediately recalls Lacan's famous argument "The Woman Does Not Exist" which is frequently cited by Zizek. The image also perfectly represents the miraculous existence of Zizek, on both theoretical and personal level, as if his physical appearance is only some sort of reflection of our unconsciousness. In a sense, he can never be fully grasped.

BTW, I finally watched The Pervert's Guide to Cinema. The 2.5-hour was an exhilariting experience since it recalled so many Zizek's brilliant comments on movies from his books. By posing himself in the actual filmming locations, Zizek seemed to be LOST in the movies. His ideas were effectively presented thru. this integration.

CINEMA OF SPIRITUALITY - Quotation from Tarkovsky's Sculpting In Time (1)

It is not surprising that Ingmar Bergman considered Andrei Tarkovsky the best filmmaker. As he noted -

My discovery of Tarkovsky's first film was like a miracle. Suddenly, I found myself standing at the door of a room the keys of which had, until then, never been given to me. It was a room I had always wanted to enter and where he was moving freely and fully at ease. I felt encouraged and stimulated: someone was expressing what I had always wanted to say without knowing how. Tarkovsky is for me the greatest, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.
(from Nostalgia.com)

Reading Tarkovsky's Sculpting In Time brings me so close to his world: his vision and exploration of human nature, his own way of interpreting man's spiritual world on the screen, the development of his thinking and approach in cinema through time...Just want to include some of his writing here as I read along -

I was not interested in the development of the plot, in the chain of events- with each film I feel less and less need for them. I have always been interested in a person’s inner world, and for me it was far more natural to make a journey into the psychology that informed the hero’s attitude to life, into the literary and cultural traditions that are the foundation of his spiritual world. I am well aware that from a commercial point of view it would be far more advantageous to move from place to place, to introduce shots from one ingenious angle after another, to use exotic landscapes and impressive interiors. But for what I am essentially trying to do, outward effects simply distance and blur the goal which I am pursuing. I am interested in man, for he contains a universe within himself; and in order to find expression for the idea, for the meaning of human life, there is no need to spread behind it, as it were, a canvas crowded with happenings.