Favorites Of 1993

[oscar jubis]

Caravaggio is great, no doubt. There is a long and fecund tradition of self-conscious use of stylization and theatricality in cinema and Jarman is a major exponent.

I think Chris is absolutely right about Russell and Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein is easy to discuss because there are only two very different major works, colloquially referred as "the Tractatus" and "the Investigations" released decades apart. It's Investigations that has had a monumental impact on our culture. I have been hugely affected by it. It has changed my understanding of the kind of truth and knowledge we derive from non-scientific methods (like criticism), and the way I view the concept of "genre" which is so important to a film enthusiast. One of his major ideas is that there is no essence to things like words and actions, that the meaning of a word is its usages in ordinary language, and that there are no rules that can help us understand the meaning of an action, that each instance is unique because of context, circumstance, etc. so that everything must be interpreted. Everybody who is involved in any kind of "criticism" owes him a lot because no one has argued with such conviction and authority about its importance and significance.

[cinemabon]

Haven't I said that all along? (tongue in cheek, of course)

[Chris Knipp]

(A year later:) Interesting comment, Oscar, that I missed earlier. Wasn't really aware Wittgenstein was thought of as providing a model for film and art criticism though perhaps that should be obvious. Indeed I find there's a recent essay collection on this edited by Richard Allen of NYU and Malcolm Turvey of Sarah Lawrence, both professors of film. Very academic and too expensive to buy though. Wittgenstein liked to go to the movies, but only for distraction.

PS. On your best English-language 1993 list: Boys of St. Vincent is a shocking film. I like Jarman. Name of the Father isn't much. Can't remember It's All True. I hated Naked. I don't like Tim Burton. I don't like Jane Campion. I can't stand Atom Agoyan. Schindler's List is sentimental and manipulative, but has an incredibly powerful sequence. Shortcuts is a great film, vintage Altman.

This was also the year of True Romance and What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

There are some excellent films in your "foreign" list.

[oscar jubis]

(A year later:) Interesting comment, Oscar, that I missed earlier. Wasn't really aware Wittgenstein was thought of as providing a model for film and art criticism though perhaps that should be obvious. Indeed I find there's a recent essay collection on this edited by Richard Allen of NYU and Malcolm Turvey of Sarah Lawrence, both professors of film. Very academic and too expensive to buy though. Wittgenstein liked to go to the movies, but only for distraction.

PS. On your best English-language 1993 list: Boys of St. Vincent is a shocking film. I like Jarman. Name of the Father isn't much. Can't remember It's All True. I hated Naked. I don't like Tim Burton. I don't like Jane Campion. I can't stand Atom Agoyan. Schindler's List is sentimental and manipulative, but has an incredibly powerful sequence. Shortcuts is a great film, vintage Altman.

This was also the year of True Romance and What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

There are some excellent films in your "foreign" list.

I'm sorry I overlooked your post. I came to Wittgenstein through the writings of the contemporary philosopher I consider a genius: Stanley Cavell, the author of 3 of my favorite books about film criticism and theory (or "anti-theory" as some would call it).
I must reveal that my friends who are philosophers recently watched Jarman's Wittgenstein and sided with your earlier remark referring and objecting to the treatment as "campy spectacle".
Regarding another 1993 release: Ken Loach's latest film Daniel Blake, which I've seen about 6 times, prompted me to watch some of his older films. I know you are a fan of Kes (and who isn't) but I think right now I would tell you that Sweet Sixteen is the most powerful and visceral and 1993's Raining Stones is just as great and it is more enjoyable because it's gritty but so very funny. I have it as "first runner-up" but it's going into the TOP 10 as soon as I edit the founding post.

[Chris Knipp]

THAT was a while ago, but it's nice that you didn't let it drift away. I could see more of Ken Loach, I'm sure. Glad I'm vindicated on Jarman's Wittgenstein. It has little to do with Wittgenstein, whose thought is worth attempting to understand. I don't know who Stanley Cavell is. I'm not clear on why film theory is worth studying. Art theory, for example, would not interest me. I know (I think) quite a lot about art, but in college a course in aesthetics taught by a well known philosophy professor was a disaster. I wasn't good at it. My paper didn't cut it with him. Modern philosophy is a tough nut to crack. It's fun, sometimes, though. I guess if you get a PdD in film to teach it, film theory is something you are going to be examined on.

I, Daniel Blake touched me. I saw it in Paris before it came here. But I could not bear to watch it six times. That shows an obsessive involvement. I once watched Patrice Chéreau's L'Homme blessé six times - in a theater, over several weeks. I identified in some profound way with parts of it, and found it hypnotic and haunting. I often rewatch all or parts of films I like the style of at home. When I had a screener of the droll Norwegian crime film In Order of Disappearance last year I kept sampling segments of it for days and days, till it expired. I did the same with that Polish film that's like a more fun and sensible Terence Malick film, All Those Sleepless Nights. I kept dipping into my screener of it - till I finally couldn't any more. It seemed magical and dreamy. The opposite of Ken Loach!

[oscar jubis]

Every frame of a film contains an excess of information. Every frame is the result of so many decisions involving staging, performance, use of the camera, editing, sound mixing, etc. that in order to truly grasp how all the elements work jointly for what purposes, one has to look at a film or a sequence or scene over and over. Some films elicit that level of interest in me. I appreciate your description of how you "consumed" or processed that film from Norway.

You are applying a theory every time you try to say one thing about 2 films or more.

[Chris Knipp]

Very well, if you say so. You're applying a theory every time you say it might rain. But you're mainly just making a savvy observation, or expressing an opinion. I don't call my opinions theories. I call them taste.

I agree though that watching a sequence over and over enables one to make keen observations. They may be less natural observations, but they are keen.