Pasolini's Il Vangelo secondo Matteo is one of the most memorable pieces of cinema I've ever seen. I just saw it for a second time, and what strikes me most is the soundtrack. The contrast of Bach's choral piece, St.Matthew's Passion, with Odetta's A Motherless Child and the mind-blowing excerpts of Missa Luba, combined with the cinematographic style literally make the film. Missa Luba is a Congolese take on Latin Mass, in which a choir underlays a solo voice - here's some recordings and notes on the compositions (gourd shaking is vital). The actual piece that Pasolini uses throughout the film is a child choir performance of 'Gloria', in particular the latter stages. If you haven't seen the film, you're missing out on the best biopic ever created.
Wild Combination: A portrait of Arthur Russell is screening in Berlin in Feb 2008 and then hopefully the rest of the world. Here's a video teaser. Don't miss.
The only film about me I like
- Rem Koolhaas, on the cover of Rem Koolhaas: A Kind of Architect (DVD) by Markus Heidingfelder. It's a good watch.
Yoshi Sodeoka, 'Bloodless, Empty Socket' (from 'Noise Driven Ambient Audio And Visuals')
More @c505
Now I know what Sontag was on about. I can't think of a better work of art that expresses what the dissolution of communism in Eastern Europe actually meant than this one. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Bela Tarr at senses of cinema:
FD & MLC: Do you use storyboards?
BT: No. Storyboards are stupid, stupid things... the story's only a part of the movie because the other things, time, rhythm, noises and...
FD & MLC: Music?
BT: Music, of course. And we are just trying to find something like a complex or total movie which isn't only the story...
FD & MLC: Thematically, your films' depiction of a world on the brink of catastrophe seems to link up with a lot of other films made lately, Pola X for example.
BT: I'm sorry, in the past four years I haven't seen anything.
FD & MLC: Yes, I know.
BT: I just wanted to tell you I know nothing.
"I'm very careful when crossing the road... I think of the accident before it happens"
- Jean-Luc Godard, '2 or 3 things I know about her'
I never could have imagined almost anything that i have done all along the way, more than several months previous to its taking place.
Brakhage died in 2003, of a bladder cancer caused by the dyes used in his paints.
