John Menick Blog | Archive for May, 2006

For whatever reason, Bright Lights film journal decides to publish its online content like a print journal, which means quarterly, and which also means avid fans such as myself only check in a few times a year. (At least give us some weekly content!) Issue 52 is out, and Robert Keser’s article on Godard’s Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma is worth a look. It also jogged a memory of the film’s premier in New York a few years ago.

I saw Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma at the opening of the MoMA’s renovated theater, with a packed, invite-only crowd. In other words, the place was filled with in-the-know arts professions, people, you would assume, who have seen a Godard film, and maybe even a late Godard film. Evidently not. Granted, this was the second screening of the night, and most of the room was roasted on free booze. I also have to say that the film was liberally translated, meaning that the translators, oh, got around to translating every fifth or sixth line of voice-over whenever they felt like it. (I don’t speak French — not even close –but even I could catch random omissions and mistakes in the subtitling.)

The crowd was livid. They booed and hissed to such an extent a Cannes Festival audience would have been embarrassed. People were wailing at the screen and leaving in packs. An entire row of people in the arts sitting in front of me, professionals who, say, curate really dry shows of conceptual art (and who will go unnamed), left after a few minutes. It was not the easiest film in the world to watch, but it was by no means Michael Snow, and by no means torturous. And, I remind you: it was playing at the MoMA.

The point is not to call out the New York art world as a pack of philistines. Nothing could be more obnoxious and out of place. However, I’ve been attending art house screenings in New York for twelve years, and no film has elicited such a reaction from any crowd, let alone one from the art world. (OK, maybe one.) I felt as if I was witnessing a minor version of a Modernist scandal, something akin to Stravinsky’s first performance of Le Sacre du printemps. (Sans fistfights.) If anything, it showed that Godard was on to something, and was able to make a film that actually drew lines through its audience. Needless to add: the theater was mostly empty by the time the film ended.

Related: Bright Lights links to Jonathan Rosenbaum’s review of Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma.

PS: Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma brought up a related question for me: what rights management issues does the film raise? To charge Godard or Thom Anderson for the usage of this appropriated material would be outrageous and unworkable, but as the Times mentioned recently, not totally unthinkable. Both filmmakers’ work easily falls under the heading of ‘criticism,’ and the fair usage of the material would be defensible, but is this kind of work threatened by Hollywood?

No (American) movie buff would be complete without IMDb, and the Times today gives a glimpse of the site’s founder, Col Needham. Although the writer of the article finds Needham’s work situation enviable (he works from home, wow), what is more enviable is that his site is still useful and relatively add-free after more than a decade of existence. Even taking into account the Amazon purchase, the ‘IMDb pro’ version, and the bells and whistles, IMDb still feels like a fan site. Following a pattern that Google also enjoys, IMDb nailed one service really well, and has been trying to add something reasonably as good ever since. What the article fails to mentioned is how exactly the site is maintained, because, after all, it wouldn’t be anything without accurate info.

But how accurate is IMDb? And does its ‘populist’ rating system work? The site has become notorious for its ludicrous flame wars among what seem to be two camps: those that would murder for the movie in question, and those that would murder those people in the first camp. Perhaps it’s a problem of fandom rather than technology, but wouldn’t it be impossible to institute a more accurate karma system at IMDb? After all, look at its parent company, Amazon. Reviews are often informative, and are somewhat objective as well. (Forgetting for a moment that the authors themselves usually write the rest of the rather glowing reviews.)

From sites like IMDb to Alternative Reality Gaming, online fan cultism has created a new, more energized form of audience participation, one severely lacking in the visual arts. It’s probable that the bar has been raised in general, and what, two decades ago, would have inspired a quarterly fanzine, now inspires thousands of hours devoted to puzzle deconstruction or amateur fan films. The gap between the relatively staid world of the arts and the frenzy of truly public culture widens even further.

Fine print: What is the most intriguing part of the article is the insinuation that Amazon might be moving to sell downloadable and burnable DVDs in the near future. Will they beat Apple to the punch and finally make DVD-quality films digitally distributable? (Albeit with some ludicrous, and instantly hackable DRM?)

Since finishing The Disappearance three years ago, I’ve been casually collecting all things related to the city of Nuremberg. Also a fan of Google Earth, two interests intersected today with this bizarre post from Google Earth Hacks. It seems that there is a massive model car racetrack near the rally fields that is so large it’s visible 1373 feet. An essay on architectural scale waiting to happen.

While reviewing the exhibition “Future City” at the Barbican, London, Jonathan Glancey chooses to look at the effect visionary filmmakers have had on how we view the architecture of the future. He argues that although Archigram and Superstudio may have wowed those in the know, it’s designers, f/x artists, and architects like Lawrence G Paul (Blade Runner), Harry Lange (2001), and Eugen Schüfftan (Metropolis) who have given the public its sense of what’s to come.

Today Wired.com released formerly sealed documents “detailing aspects of AT&T’s alleged participation in the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic wiretap operation.” AT&T claimed the documents were sealed because the corporation somehow construed them to be “proprietary.” Wired.com thought differently (how they got the documents is unclear), and decided to publish them.

Also published are several photos showing the alleged “secret room,” which looks marginal, but not really all that “secret.” The banality of the photos — impeccable corporate drab — adds somewhat to their allure.