Staff Picks and Suggestions
We can be thankful for Kino on Video; for years, they have been a faithful distributor of silent, neglected, provincial (but broadly interesting), and plain peculiar films.
In the Snell DVD stacks sits a collection of experimental short films that Kino released a few years ago. It is volume three of a trilogy. Considering the subject matter, the DVD is handsomely packaged with a sleek blue cover, enticing bonus features, and not one but two discs. And what of the subject matter? Thirty or so films from off the beaten path of film history, culled from all over the world, made by various propagandists, intellectuals, artists and outright novices, all conforming in some way to the broad styles of surrealism and/or absurdism.
The title of the collection is “Experimental” shorts. Of the films I was able watch, that title is apt. On disc one, one film called Rien Que Heures (Nothing but Time) stands out. It is a forty-six minute collage of images shot on the streets of Paris, from sunrise to sundown. There is something nostalgic about the way it is presented, in a plotless, wordless form; it gives the film the feel of a deeply recalled memory.
Also on the first disc, I have to recommend Tomatoes Another Day, a film made in 1930, at the advent of “talkies.” Apparently, the film– dealing with two lovers who encounter the woman’s husband when he unexpectedly returns home– was intended to be a parody of the obvious, unintentionally hilarious style of early talkies. Thus, the acting style is incredibly bizarre; a deliberately non-expressive blend of dialogue and gestures. What it brought to my mind were the films of David Lynch, especially Eraserhead. Anybody familiar with his work is encouraged to see this film.
Disc one also contains an early example of color animation, called Tarantella, while disc two starts with a piece of (deliberately?) amateur animation called Plague Summer. The film references “The Journal of Albion Moonlight” as the work it is based on. At first I thought that was a non-existent book, but when I looked it up on Amazon.com, I found that it does exist. It was an anti-war novel written by the poet and pacifist Kenneth Patchen.
If nothing else, Avant Garde is a collection to be seen for the sake of its far-flung oddities rather than for great filmmaking. It could also be interesting to watch the film knowing that many of the people who made them were not professional filmmakers; Tomatoes Another Day director James Sibley Watson, for instance, was a publisher who made only three short films.
It is worth mentioning that this DVD is only the third in a series. Snell does not own volumes 1 or 2. While inherently for an adventurous niche audience, I think it’s worth ordering
The time is the roaring 20’s and the setting is Paris. We are introduced to Jake Barnes, an American ex-patriate who has all the world-weariness of a Humphrey Bogart character due to a war injury that left him sexually incompetent. He has been in love with the Lady Brett Ashley ever since the first world war, but he has no way of marrying her due in part to this injury, and due in part to her utter promiscuity. She is engaged to a Scottish man named Mike, but is having an affair with a Count. Also coming in to the picture is Robert Cohn, a Jewish boxer from Princeton who is unhappily married and prone to a victimization complex. Jake’s friend Bill, another American, will be introduced after some time in France, in which all five principle characters– Jake, Bill, Cohn, Lady Brett Ashley and Mike– will rendezvous in Pamplona, Spain, where they are attending the summer fiesta.
That all of these characters–except for the reasonable Bill–are tormented and in several cases pathological people is a testament to the book’s realism. The book is not a work of realism in the sense that it depicts the grittiness of everyday life; indeed, these characters are not everyday people. They appear to have more money on hand than the average person, a more curious intellect (the narrator, Jake, and Cohn are both writers) and in one case (Lady Brett Ashley) come from aristocracy. But they are certainly not extraordinary either; in fact, the point is that each person has been barred from living a truly fulfilling life either by injury (Jake), insecurity (Cohn) or promiscuity (Brett). The story simply details the manifestations of these roadblocks that take place over a year or so. The Sun also Rises is a tragedy after the fact.
The book does have to be read in the context of its time: references to “the War,” casual anti-semitism, even more casual drinking, smoking and scenes featuring horses and carriages as modes of transportation. But the characters seems modern enough to make its occasional datedness secondary. It also makes it somewhat sad. These people are in their 30’s, and yet they often act like teenagers, or people who cannot get over themselves. How many real people does this still apply to? How pessimistically timeless is that?
The book can be found–along with many other Hemingway books– in the fiction section of the library.