My top Derek Jarman, Pier Paolo Pasolini & Rainer Werner Fassbinder
This is such fun, i must write in my dark bedroom where i never turn on the lights to write about my faves from these 3 directors that were the major focus of a blog i used to use as a reference. All three are gay icon directors, and it is true that some of the most unique and envelope pushing cinema were made by those who don't feel they have need of a person of the other gender. Why that should matter in the first place is beyond me, it's the fruit of religion of coarse, and it surely also effects my own immediate environment, this is the price i pay for not leaving the nest, and realizing that the tv i was using for all my personal film watching sucked after tasting of a 50 inch flat screen, then all my privacy was smashed to smithereens.
With Derek Jarman, the opening sequence of Sebastiane is wonderbar, so exotic, and raw anger expressed, visceral moment i like, and the costumes, but then when the guy with the fake nose appears, it's not a pleasant thing, except for when there's intense anger expressed, and the super smooth Brian Eno score. /// Next up with Jubilee some of my favorite scenes appear Rule Britannia song, and the ballet around a trashheap, with the rapid editing. //// Then we go to Stormy Weather being performed in The Tempest, before lingering longer In the Shadow of the Sun, a pure experimental experience, where story is buried in imagery. /// Caravaggio is the best of his storytelling kinds, at the beginning it looks kind of drab, but as it progresses the frame of the film contains wondrous painterly images, dark poetic inner thoughts of the painter in haunting voice over, music poignantly accompanying dramatic moments, singular, unique happenings, this is top tier in this man's film output, and beloved Tilda begins her appearances, i love Tilda, and it is directly her work for Derek that means the most to me. /// The Last of England is a powerful experience that i wrote elsewhere here but to repeat some of those things, i love the ferocity of the anger moments, the desperation, the snippets of literature in the first section, electrifying blend of sight and sound, and a deliriously good ending. /// War Requiem is a film of an operatic work by Benjamin Britten, and there are moments here that can literally make me cry, one being where Tilda runs her hands through her long red hair. //// Wittgenstein is a lovely portrait of a great thinker, quirky, and fun, the martian's speech at the end is something i treat as i would a Nietzsche aphorism, so rich in wisdom, and illustrative power.
With Pasolini, we meet a tragic figure of world cinema, who left behind a very unique body of work, all of them having good qualities, the trilogy of death, of life, the early stuff with Jesus, Mamma Roma, Accattone, mixing sacred and worldly, all that Bach music is like sonic incense giving the rough and tumble world that is being depicted a sacredness, that's PPP's main message that unifies all of his films, the sacredness of everyday people, be they scoundrels, or whatever. Except his last film, those are more than just scoundrels there, that is a more stinging critique at work there, and it's not meant to be enjoyed like his other work, but something to fear, he wanted i think to go out with a fear note. However someone like Bertolucci said in a supplement that he had other films in the works, and wasn't planning on dying, there is i say a thing called a death wish drive, not all outdated psycho mumble jumble, i believe PPP had that, and was at least unconsciously going out with a bang, not a whimper. ... but that Morricone score i really dig.
With my favorite director Fassbinder, the whole of his work is important to me, i will do whatever it takes to get good releases on the few i've yet to own, but i've seen the majority in his incredible career, basically his early phase has only a faint tinge of what he was about to do in such a short time, Why Does Herr R Run Amok which Hanna Schygulla claims wasn't really even co-directed by him, is a early high point, along with Beware of a Holy Whore, in that we begin to see how he uses scene length progression, i really like this technical aspect with this, i'm not saying his later work was like this, but it begins with long shots, then the scenes get shorter, there's all those threads being unleashed in ever more brief portions of time, and then what happens to me is getting dizzy in the stream of information pertaining to the story, love it /// his middle period is where he was effected by the melodramas of Douglas Sirk, this is where some of my faves pop up, Martha, Fear of Fear, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (red film book critic cited above saw this film favorable, describing it as acid being flung on the screen), and indeed it's the acid of anger, of human nastiness, and his most acclaimed films of his middle period are great for me too, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, where an elderly woman falls romatically in love with a much younger Morroccan dude, and The Merchant of Four Season, where a depressed fruit seller must lay off the booze for health reasons. In RWF's late career we have my #1 In a Year With 13 Moons, a tragic story with a funny scene involving a Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy. here i wish to express my wish for a english friendly Blu-ray release of Lili Marleen, it is so needed. Berlin Alexanderplatz is his magnum opus, based on a book he felt deeply about, wow, the epilogue and the whole Mieze part of the story is such a thing for me, can u tell i'm a little speechless about it? Just eloquent tragedy in much of its scenes, so unhinged in moments, it's like a theatre back in Penny Dreadful times, the grand guinol it's called, Lastly of note in his ouevre is the BRD trilogy, The Marriage of Maria Braun perhaps his most widely seen, Veronika Voss, a stark black and white melodrama, and Lola an colorful romp starring Barbara Sukowa, who played Mieze, great scene where she's belting out Bella bella something or other and ... yes, to good film memories like that, parties, and very focused exposes of the emotions that make us human beings.
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