Hiroshi Sugimoto and Constantin Brancusi: My name in lights at Lablit.com
My article about Mr. Brancusi and Mr. Sugimoto has appeared at lablit.com.
From Ireland, on Tarkovsky — third installment: "The Sacrifice"
Another still winter’s morning. I see birds shivering the garden outside my window. There is a very heavy mist, or it is raining, or both. There is not the slightest breeze; the air is completely still. If I open my window I can hear the water dripping from the drains, droplets falling from the leaves. The only colours I see are greys and greens and browns. I’m in — but no, I am not in Ireland, I am in Gotland. On Bergman’s island, it is the start of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film “The Sacrifice”.
Time has neither slowed down nor become irrelevant; it just that what one normally expects of time and event do not apply. A man tends a tree and speaks to child who does not respond; we see the branches of the tree against the sea’s blue waters. The landscape around him is flat and featureless. There are stones and rocks here; and around him are dunes and grass, a northern coastal landscape. The man’s monologue lasts almost twenty minutes, but we do not notice the passage of time. The man tells us a parable of a tree and a monk. The camera follows him and the child as he pushes his bicycle across the grassy, uneven ground towards his house. His monologue ploughs deeper and deeper, meaning supplanting meaning. The landscape fades away and there are only words. He says, throughout my life I feel as if I have been at a train station, waiting for the train to arrive. An event still to happen has yet to reveal itself.
The man returns to his house. His friends arrive to celebrate his birthday with him. But already there is something strange, a right angle that has become a curve, words which are out of joint. Their conversations are stylized, almost too full of meaning. Light enters his house in perfectly straight lines and we actually notice this. Like Antonioni, Tarkovsky composes each camera frame like a painting, no single thing is not in its absolutely correct location. Gifts are given, it is a birthday after all. We are told: no gift would be a gift unless a sacrifice was involved. Night falls. No — it doesn’t fall, it more correctly oozes through every corner of the house and removes almost all colour and texture from every object. Aeroplanes fly low overhead, but we do not see them, we simply hear the rushing, roaring sound metres above our heads. Danger is imminent. There is an announcement; we see the flickering light of the television on the lightless walls. The television says, in fact, that the war has started now, that there is nothing to be done. That we must prepare ourselves. But — explains our friend’s philosopher-postman — there is a way out. A sacrifice which can be made.
Outside the film, the real world has faded away. There is no cinema and there are no cinema seats. I am no longer in Paris in the Cinematheque Francaise. That is the strangest thing of all for me about watching Tarkovsky’s films, especially this one. If you can enter into the world, if you can be hypnotized by it, it is so completely unlike watching any other film. It is the nearest thing to dreaming whilst awake. It is clear that if you cannot become part of this universe, then perhaps these films seem eventless. You expect things to happen in certain way, for events to unfold in a manner you would expect. But here in the heart of “The Sacrifice” none of this applies.
The film is roughly divided into three segments. There is the first part comprising early afternoon and nightfall; then the night; and then the following morning. “The Sacrifice” is a film in colour, but the night-time sequences are filmed in a colour with no depth, unsaturated. In these scenes only the vaguest hints of colour remain. Now that such distractions are removed, objects and forms can take on their essential shapes. It is a further dream within a dream, and we know that in this particular Universe many things become possible which would not be possible in the light of day. For me this was perhaps the greatest part of the film, this creation of an alternate world in the dead heart of the night.
Unlike Tarkovsky’s other films, “The Sacrifice” yields it’s meaning to us relatively easily. At it’s core is a strong and profound belief in the possibility that there is a god to intervene for us. God manifests himself, but only to one man only. I would have thought that an old rational skeptic like myself would have been repelled by this, but this is Tarkovsky’s belief; I could most certainly accept that. I could even hope for a second that it might be even true, that it might be true in an instant other than an instant in the depths of night. It also should be said, however, that after these flat monochromatic images, Tarkovsky’s morning scenes are jarring and unpleasant; we find it hard to live in this particular space, and it seems difficult to imagine that both universes exist together. It makes us question the reality of what has happened before.
I should mention perhaps some details about the film, Tarkovsky’s last film. I should mention that the cameraman was Sven Nykvist, who worked with Bergman, as did many of the actors. That certainly contributes to the ambience of the film, the way it which it proceeds, the scenes and characterisations. The reason why I found the film so affecting perhaps is because of this way in which an imaginary, dream-like state is made real. That even in this universe there is a certain logic to be followed.
At the Cinematheque, as perhaps I have mentioned before, there are very few incidental interruptions other than The Film. It is a pure experience. After the last beautiful image faded from the screen, a tree silhouetted against the shimmering waters of the sea, the lights simply came on. I attempted to start a round of applause, but found only one taker, far away towards the front. Everyone else seemed too overwhelmed. People appeared to be waking from a trance; they rose from their chairs and put on their hats and coats with difficulty, slightly disorientated. The strangest of all, in that enormous room with hundreds of seats, there was almost total silence. No-one spoke, no-one wanted to disturb the spell. I made my own way through the Parisian night to my apartment. I wondered how long it would be before I could even begin to think about seeing another film, a film which I knew could not equal “The Sacrifice”.
From Ireland, on Tarkovsky — second installment
Christmas morning, Tyrone, 2006. Nothing moves. But then, even on a normal morning, nothing moves here. The best word I can think of to describe the weather is “indifferent”. It is neither unseasonably warm, nor particularly cold. There is no frost. There is not even mist. I have the christmas gift I wanted – Pynchon’s 1,046 page (count them!) epic ‘Against the Day’. But back to Paris now…
For those of you just joining us: you should read what I wrote yesterday. I’m writing about the weekend devoted to Mr. Tarkovsky at the Cinematheque Francaise, in Paris. The reading by Denis Lavant of Tarkovsky’s diaries was a particularly strange and intense experience. The reading was broadcast live, direct, on France Culture. We were repeatedly advised to arrive on time and to be totally silent during the performance. Mr. Lavant read from Tarkvosky’s diaries dealing from the period just after the filming of “Stalker” in the 1970s to his death in Paris in the mid-1980s. Although he was only a few metres from us, we heard Lavant’s voice transmitted in perfect fidelity from overhead loudspeakers rather than from his own mouth, which was slightly disconcerting. But hey, that’s radio. Slides projected at oblique angles on the blank cinema screen provided an impressionistic succession of images — Tarkovsky, the actors that worked with with, scenes from his films, his family, the scrawl of his handwriting.
Tarkovsky’s life was a endless struggle against the forces of soviet bureaucracy, and he died in exile, in Paris. One particular story: after they had filmed the first part of “Stalker” the exposed film was sent off to Mostar Films, the state-run agency, to be processed. They had to get in the queue, of course, with all the other films. To wait and to wait. But — incredibly — during the processing, the film was destroyed. I imagine it being shredded into a million fragments by a machine possessing all the grace and poise of a tractor. They asked for money to shoot the film again. They were refused. They were only able get the cash to continue shooting after making up a story that they were actually filming the sequel…
Tarkovsky’s last film, ‘The Sacrifice’ was projected on the following Wednesday. I’m going to write about, I think, either today or tomorrow. Tarkovsky because seriously ill just after they had finished filming “The Sacrifice”. He moved to Paris, was taken in by the French government; Lavant read the letter he wrote to Mitterand, asking him intercede with the Soviet administration for him to let his family join him. His physical condition deteriorated. In his diaries, he wrote about the films he would make if he was reprieved, if he was granted more time.
And this is where, incredibly, that Tarkovsky’s story intersected that of people whom I actually know, completely by chance, here in Paris. Arriving at “the Mirror” on Saturday, I met by chance a certain Mr. Seagull; and leaving the film, I met his friends. They very graciously invited us to their apartment where we took toast and tea, like in “Prufrock” I suppose. They have been making films in Paris for many years now, and in the 1980s they had a editing suite in their Belville apartment which was unique in the city. One of their friends was Chris Marker, who knew Tarkovsky, who had filmed a documentary on Tarkovsky. Tarkovsky needed to make some final edits to “The Sacrifice” and the friends of Mr. Seagull were the only ones in the city who had the equipment he needed. They received a tall laconic swedish assistant of Tarkovsky’s who edited all night in their flat, departing at dawn, bringing the edits to show Tarkovsky where he lay dying in his bed on the other side of the city.
I’m reminded (as always) by Milosz, and his line about “…the crowds of the unborn/For whom we will be just an enigmatic legend.” Milosz and Tarkvosky were real people, and they led real lives, and there is no reason that their lives from time to time may intersect our own. The chain perhaps extends further back than that; I know someone who met Milosz; and Milosz’ uncle, Oscar Milosz, had met that other Oscar, Oscar Wilde; in only three steps I am already back at the end of the 19th century.
But now I have to go and attend to the christmas dinner; more to follow, if and when time permits.
From Ireland, on Tarkovsky — first installment
I’m in Ireland. Nowhere near any city, in the countryside. In my parents house, yes. A “zone of low resolution on Google Earth” as I like to call it. One day before Christmas. Outside, the sky is an overcast grey, and a thin mist hangs on the ground. No sound can be heard; a car passes on the road in front of our house perhaps every hour or so. After Paris, after the enormous crowds at CDG and in Dublin this is somewhat of a surreal experience, but nevertheless one I know extremely well, having spent at least eighteen years of my life here. It is a kind of decompression. One awakes in the morning, takes one’s coffee and then thinks — well, what should I do now? But it is not the right question to ask, because the density of life and event here is completely different from Paris.
These thoughts lead me back the events of two weeks previously, when I was at the “Cinematheque Francaise”. In a few days it will be the twentieth anniversary of the death of Andrei Tarkovsky. Tarkovsky died in Paris. In commemoration, the Cinematheque showed all his films over mostly the course of one weekend. On the Sunday at midday there was a special reading of Tarkvosky’s diaries by the French actor Denis Lavant (which was broadcast live on France Culture). I was at Lavant’s reading, as well as two other films of Tarkovsky’s that I had not seen before: “The mirror” and “The Sacrifice”. There were other films of his that I would have loved to see again, but that would mean seeing two Tarkovsky films in one day, and that for me is a bit of an overwhelming experience.
Perhaps I should say a bit about the Cinematheque Francaise before I go any further. It really is a temple of cinema. They have been around for a while, but they have only been in their current location in Bercy for a year or so — it is a expressionist angular structure designed by Frank Gehry for the american cultural centre. That particular venture only lasted a few years before folding (hmm, am I surprised?), and then the cinematheque moved in. What amazes me about the cinematheque is that it is always completely packed. And by a relatively young audience; it isn’t just retired people. Cinema seats are cheap; a subscription for a year, offering unlimited access, is around 10 euros a month; the card that I have gets me in for four euros, around half of what you would pay at the Gaumont or UGC.
The main screen is in an enormous, steeply sloping room with maybe four hundred, five hundred (very comfortable!) seats. I’ve been there to see, for example, the first of Fritz Lang’s “Mabuse” films. Mr. Mabuse, that master of disguise, the first evil genius in cinema. Now this film is a silent film, in black and white. The Cinematheque, being rigorous and pure, of course, interpret this to mean really silent. (For every other place where I’ve seen a “silent” film there was at least some music on the soundtrack). Unless, like in the old days, there was actually someone on the stage in front of the screen with a piano. In all, it was a somewhat surreal experience. Imagine yourself in a packed cinema with a few hundred other souls watching a black and white film in total silence. And there really was total silence. No-one talked; a respectful silence was maintained throughout the projection. The only sound one did hear, from time to time, was that of the occasional snore; Dr. Mabuse’s machinations were just not thrilling enough for them, combined with the soporific effect of the intense heat of the cinema (it’s always super hot in there, there never seems to be enough ventliation). I suppose there are people sleeping in cinemas all the time but one doesn’t realise it, thanks to the obscuring effects of film soundtracks.
That’s enough for today; tomorrow I will write more about the two Tarkovsky films I saw, as well as the reading by Denis Lavant.