Reading, Watching, Listening 9/27/2024
A few words about satisfaction
So I’m back, now, from my post-TIFF break. It’s funny how much the festival feels like a divide in time, one that had to be leapt over, and recovered from. Physically, but also mentally. I haven’t watched too much, or read too much, or listened to too much in the couple weeks since, like my brain has needed a reset. I did go to a screening of Swimfan on 35mm at the Revue, which was an absolute delight, and a reminder that a couple decades ago, a piece of studio hackwork could still look really good. I was also surprised to learn it was edited by Sarah Flack, who also did Soderbergh’s Schizopolis and The Limey, and went on to become Sofia Coppola’s go-to editor. You can see shades of her pop-y experimentation in Swimfan, which is cool in a movie that’s otherwise just a silly teenage version of Fatal Attraction.
I also rewatched Dial M for Murder, at home, in 3D. I hadn’t seen the film in a while, and it remains a delightfully conceived and constructed, Columbo-syle detective movie. Back when I last saw it, also in 3D, but in a theatre, I was impressed by Hitchcock’s use of the gimmicky technology. That said, I also remember the glasses giving me problems and not quite getting the full brunt of the 3D effect. At home, it came off significantly better. Moreover, it was such a pleasure to see Hitchcock’s innate understanding of the medium put to bear in 3D, where geometrical space is everything. Shooting in one interior location, Hitchcock uses his typical blocking and hard lighting to accentuate the spaces within the environment and between the characters. It’s not longer just the arrangement of characters and objects that communicates power dynamics or motivations, but the distance between them, too, and the physically feeling of that distance. There are a few shots, sprinkled throughout, that come close to gimmickry, but Hitchcock doesn’t pander that way, instead allowing those shots a sense of true artistry in their three-dimensional construction. One wishes he’d have played around with the format even more, though by the time Dial M was released, the fad was already dying, and most people saw it screened in 2D anyway.
I mention both Swimfan and Dial M for Murder, not because you should watch them (feel free; Dial M is certainly a more merited viewing than Swimfan, but both are fun), but because their pleasures are simple and bound in form. I’m finding myself more and more attracted to cinema (and television) that frees itself from pretention that way. There’s satisfaction there, which after seeing 50 movies at a film festival is also a nice change of pace.
Reading, Watching, Listening
to open a window, by filmmaker Craig Scheihing, was mentioned by someone on Twitter. I’d not heard of the short, which premiered last year, or the filmmaker, who it turns out has been steadily building a wonderful catalogue of experimental films, all available on his Vimeo page. His work varies, but to open a window typifies some of what I’ve come to understand as his style. At just over two minutes long, the short flashes through images, of nature, of windows, playing with persistence of vision to create new images in the mind. Those images, simple as they are on their face, have been stuck in my mind for days now.
Yasuaki Shimizu & Saxophonettes play Bach’s Goldberg Variations, an album I was turned onto, also on Twitter, by Jake Cole. I’ve listened to it about 10 times through. If all modern takes on the Goldberg Variations are in some way in conversation with Glenn Gould, this recording of five saxophones and four contrabasses answers that legendary album with a softer, less ornate voice, allowing the breathy sound of its instruments the benefit of space, to fill the air and express something closer to melancholy. It’s a beautiful, beautiful recording.
United States of America v. Eric Adams, Defendant. Sealed Indictment: 24 Crim 556, United States District Court, Southern District of New York, is this week’s good time read. A lengthy document outlining the charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams and the basis for them may not sound like your idea of a good time, but I promise you it’s a riot. On page two, Adams defrauds New York City in order to receive more than $10,000,000 in public campaign funding. Page three has Adams pressuring the FDNY to pass Turkey’s new consular building through a fire inspection it would have otherwise failed so it’d be open in time for a visit from Erdogan. That’s page three. A riot.
English Teacher is the new TV comedy created by Brian Jordan Alvarez, about teacher in Texas dealing with the complicated political and personal dynamics of theaching in the year 2024. I don’t actually have much to say about it other than that I find it very funny, and I recommend it.