beyond magazine

Title sequences: continued

Our film writer Doug Cummings writes:

A few weeks ago, Karen posted an entry on Title Sequences, so I thought I'd flag a handsome new coffee table book, "Uncredited: Graphic Design & Opening Titles in Movies,"  that has been imported from Europe and reprinted in English via Index. 

Handsome it is, but its translation at times can be a bit clunky. Consider: "That being said, primitive-style title credits based on elementary concepts, and with infinite conceptual potential for that same reason, have manged to survive everything."  (If you know what that sentence really means, you should go into law.)  In general, however, the book makes interesting reading, particularly given the dearth of focused studies (graphical and cinematic) regarding title sequences.

The book insightfully divides titles into basic genres: White Over Black (Woody Allen, Adaptation), Titles as Logos (Casablanca, The Thing), Animation (The Adventures of Prince Achmed, The Pink Panther), Textural (The Birds, The English Patient), or Conceptual (Mon Oncle, Mothlight, Contempt).

The best feature of the book, however, is its many multi-frame reproductions of hundreds of title sequences, making it just as fun to flip through as to actually read.  The diversity of films considered is very impressive (mainstream Hollywood to European art films to avant-garde) and at times, the succinct commentary can be evocative: "In the apocalyptic world featured in [Francois Truffaut's "Fahrenheit 451"], where the written word is persecuted, typographic titles would not make any sense."  (Instead, the title sequence presents vividly-tinted television antennas.)  My only complaint is that a few of the printed sequences (like Robert Bresson's "L'Argent") are much too dark on the page.

Lastly, one very fun feature is the book's inclusion of a CD-ROM containing decent Quicktime samples of many sequences discussed in the book.

Form/Content

I asked Doug some questions in response to his world animation series. I am increasingly frustrated with seeing things that are made for a certain format in an inferior format  - a film made for the theater seen on a computer monitor or television screen. I wonder sometimes if it is better to see these things through levels of windows darkly -like paintings reproduced in books - or not at all since form is content.

Doug responded:

I am a firm proponent of the very real aesthetic differences between film and video; no matter how good the quality of the latter, the texture, grain, greyscale and resolution does not compare. Also film displays via a shutter and video displays via scan lines, so the actual delivery of the image (and subliminal feel) is different.

That being said, I'm a proponent of watching movies however one can, with the implicit understanding that anything less than celluloid is inferior and if you really like the movie in question, you'll keep an eye out for a film projection of it. I go to a lot of film screenings here in Los Angeles of movies that I already own on DVD, just to see and experience them on celluloid, which is always a new--and often revelatory--experience. (Contrary to what you might expect, it's the slow, quiet, meditative films that suffer the most on small screens.)

Of course, there is a line to be drawn somewhere between quality and opportunity. Occasionally, I'll come across a DVD that I think is so sub-par that I really can't watch it in good conscience. On the other hand, I have a few ultra-rare movies on video that I know I will die before I ever get a chance to see them on film, so I slug through them, keeping in mind that I'm only seeing a rough facsimile and not an original.

You'll definitely get better resolution through a monitor rather than a standard TV. But video projectors are really coming down in prices, too, even though they can still be prohibitive. But some stores sell them with a built-in DVD players for around $800. Projectors won't increase the resolution, but they will totally amplify the atmosphere (and save space by getting the idiot box out of your living room).

I also asked about watching the subtitles rather than the English audio track.

As to subtitles, I always prefer subtitles because it preserves the original voices and nuances of the film in question. I myself don't feel like subtitles are a distraction, but I've watched well over a thousand subtitled films through the years, and I think my brain has adapted to the process pretty fluidly. Sometimes, I honestly can't recall if a film was subtitled or not. No doubt it's a learned skill.

But as I mention on the blog, I do appreciate good dubs for little kids who can't read or can't read fast enough. I do think kids should be exposed to subtitles early on, though, and hopefully accept them as a natural aesthetic. I still have fond memories of showing my four year old niece "Hedgehog in the Fog" and reading aloud the subtitles to her like a storybook. She loved it. My brother and his wife read the silent intertitles of "Prince Achmed" to their kids, and had a grand time. Every now and then, my niece stills asks me, "Uncle Doug, remember "Hedgehog in Fog"? She never says, "What was that weird movie you showed me with subtitles?"

Doug writes about film in our magazine and at his blog, Film Journey.

Original Frankensteins: 4 and final bits.

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.

The final two films in the conclusion of Doug's series on world animation:

• Motion Painting No. 1 (Oskar Fischinger, 1947) Fischinger was a pioneer of experimental, nonrepresentational animation (he was a major inspiration for Fantasia, a film he worked on before parting ways with Disney), and this final masterpiece is available on a DVD entitled Oskar Fischinger: Ten Films, an excellent introduction to his career.  Motion Painting No. 1 is like an oil painting come to life, with graceful lines and shapes growing and expanding frame by frame to Bach's majestic "Brandenburg Concerto no. 3."  In 1997, this visually arresting 11-minute short film was added to the US National Film Registry for culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films.

• Le Roi et l'oiseau (aka The King and the Mockingbird) (Paul Grimault, 1980) I kind of fibbed at the beginning of this article; I'm sneaking a European DVD in here for adventurous readers.  This film hasn't been released on video in North America, which is a crying shame since it's not only an exhilaratingly surreal fairy tale, but it was also a major influence on Takahata, Miyakazi, and legions of other filmmakers.  Witness the film's elaborately stylized castle, giant robot, sweet romanticism and lyrical beauty.  Sometimes copies of this show up on Ebay, or if you have a multi-region DVD player, you can order the French DVD from any number of e-tailers, but know that the DVD does not contain English subtitles.  However, the visual and narrative sweep are so compelling, they probably won't be missed.

Original Frankensteins continued: Part 3

Part 1.
Part 2.

Doug Cummings of Film Journey, the Beyond magazine feature and the blog, continues his recommendations on world animation.

• The Man Who Planted Trees (Frederic Back) Like ever-shifting color pencil sketches, Canadian Frederic Back's work comprises some of the most beautifully rendered and thematically sensitive filmmaking around.  This is merely one of his masterpieces, an enchanting fable about a man who single-handedly, through long years of quiet toil,  reforests an entire region in France, which immeasurably improves the lives of its inhabitants. Based on the story by Jean Giono, this classic short film boasts a sensitive English narration by Christopher Plummer.

• Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (Hayao Miyazaki, 1984) Many Westerners know Miyazaki through his Academy Award-winning Spirited Away, but that's only the tip of the iceberg, and fortunately Disney has released a whole series of his films on DVD with good English dubs (for the little ones) as well as subtitles. My first exposure to his work was Nausicaa, his second feature and a sprawling science fiction epic of a post-apocalyptic world in which humans compete for dwindling resources against giant insects and destructive technologies.  So many of Miyazaki's themes are here: ecological harmony, the need for human cooperation, flying ships and air battles, and a messianic figure uniting the world.  The film was based on his manga, which he continued to write and illustrate well into the Nineties, which is available (and highly recommended) as a massive, much more elaborate seven-volume comic series.

• My Neighbors the Yamadas (Isao Takahata, 1999) Back to Takahata, who offers this brilliant and affectionate tribute to the modern nuclear family--think of it as The Simpsons with less scatological humor and much more heart.  Drawn with a wonderfully minimalist sketch style, this examination of the pratfalls, surprises, iconic situations, and paradoxes of family life manages to be hilarious without resorting to cynicism, and inspirational without resorting to sentimentality. If you've ever wondered what daily life is like in Japan, you might be surprised to discover how amazingly similar it is to your own.  A very special film.

(This series wraps up tomorrow.)

Original Frankensteins continued: Part 2

Part 1 here.

Doug of Film Journey continues his recommendations on world animation:

• Haibane Renmei (Yoshitoshi ABe, 2002) If Fireflies sets the standard for dramatic anime features, this astonishing 13-part miniseries--made for Japanese television--is the most novelistic anime I've seen. It's also a highly sophisticated spiritual allegory with a quiet lyricism worthy of such master filmmakers as Yasujiro Ozu and Robert Bresson. The protagonists are young girls mysteriously hatched from cocoons into a rustic village with its own system of rules, and the plot revolves around the girls coming to grips with their barely-remembered pasts, their relationships with each other, and their ultimate purposes in this new world. This is essential viewing; the series' creator, Yoshitoshi ABe, is definitely a filmmaker to keep an eye on.  (For more info, check out Beyond friend John Torvi's review, here.)

• The Hand (Jiri Trnka, 1965) Moving, for the moment, outside the Japanese film industry, this classic 18-minute short film by by a great Czech stop-motion animator is a scathing, allegorical critique of totalitarian orthodoxy. It's available as part of a collection of films entitled The Puppet Films of Jiri Trnka.  "Puppets" in this case are highly intricate figurines, and in The Hand, Trnka's last film, an anonymous Artist wants to create his art but a giant Hand demands that he sculpt a replica of itself. (If you'd rather watch the film online, click here.)

• Time Masters (aka The Masters of Time) (Rene Laloux, 1982) French animator Laloux made a name for himself with the psychedelic political allegory Fantastic Planet in the early '70s, and this later space opera (largely produced in Hungary) teams him up with the famed comics and movie illustrator "Moebius" (Heavy Metal magazine, Alien, TRON). A young boy is stranded on a remote planet buzzing with giant hornets, but an adventurer traveling through space comes to his rescue. The plot is perfunctory, but the imaginative settings and rich designs are combined with a funky art house vibe that lends it thorough originality.

Original Frankensteins Continued: Part 1

From Contributing Editor, Doug Cummings:

With every Film Journey article, I find myself in a space battle. That is, what to add and what to cut, to be brief but informative, in-depth but accessible. And my latest article was no exception.  In "Original Frankensteins," I comment on seven giants in world animation--Ladislaw Starewicz, Lotte Reiniger, Alexander Alexeieff, Yuri Norstein, Norman McLaren, Stan Brakhage, and Don Hertzfeldt--but could have included so many more major figures. Consider this post an addendum; here I briefly mention (alphabetically) ten more films currently available on DVD that represent the work of animation masters.  (So get your Netflix or Zip.ca or whatever queues ready...and don't hesitate to share your reactions and comments with Beyond.)

• Barefoot Gen (Mori Masaki, 1983) This adaptation of Keiji Nakazawa's famous autobiographical manga is based on his experience as a child in Hiroshima the day the atomic bomb was dropped. Though it doesn't shy away from relaying its share of eye-witnessed horrors--strikingly and nightmarishly illustrated--it also contains a surprising amount of broad, earthy humor and a strong critique of Japan's wartime political structure.

• Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988) Though Takahata was co-founder of the popular Studio Ghibli with Hayao Miyazaki, he still remains the lesser known of the two filmmakers, which is unfortunate. Without downplaying Miyazaki's brilliance, it's safe to say that Takahata (who has a degree in French literature) has focused more on everyday subjects, mature themes, and visual experimentation, often to spectacular results. Fireflies, which tells the tragic story of two young WWII orphans trying to stay alive in firebombed Tokyo, is widely considered his masterpiece. With a depth and sensitivity equal to the best live action, this unforgettable film is a dramatic high point for the animation genre.

(More recommendations tomorrow.)

Beyond magazine content: Continued.

Sometimes there is only so much that we can place in the paper version of the magazine and we are happy to continue to share our content here at the Beyond blog. All this week Doug Cummings our Film Journey writer adds to "Film Journey: Original Frankensteins" which appeared in Issue 16: Small. Enjoy and feel free to add your thoughts.

Freeing Madame Tutli-Putli!

Here's a fun little thing from the National Film Board of Canada:

The animated short Madame Tutli-Putli is in the running for an Oscar®. It’s the NFB’s 70th nomination. Each of the 36,000 images of the film must be “unlocked” by a visitor, so that the entire film can be viewed on CBC's website.

Click here to free an image!

Persepolis and change we can work for.

Doug Cummings of Film Journey, the blog, and Film Journey, the Beyond magazine feature writes about the strange decisions of large entertainment companies:

The estimable Animation World Magazine offers an excellent article on Persepolis' lack of exposure from Sony. The author doesn't make any points that a lot of us haven't been making for years, but it's great to see more articles like this in popular industry trades/sites. It's also well written, offering gems such as this:

 

"On the other hand, audiences are treated (on two screens at most multiplexes) to the lowest examples of swill dished out by Hollywood. While Persepolis struggles to be shown in the smallest of art film houses, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets is smeared like celluloid scum across thousands of screens, insulting the intellect of millions. Oh, this film is good enough if one is willing to profess ignorance of American history and government, European history, Native American history, archeology, geology and geography. This is not to mention ignoring at least three major plot holes that could envelop Mount Rushmore, but why indeed go on? This misbegotten mishmash is presently sitting on a box office gross of $187,000,000, which should be enough to launch a third sequel (possibly subtitled Yankee Doodle Dimwits)."

And, yeah, I thought the whole point of the Oscars was repackaging films and boosting ad campaigns? Why doesn't Sony release Persepolis in the multiplexes with full-page ads that read "Oscar (TM) Nominated for Best Animated Feature of the Year"?

Yet I also appreciate the author's productive optimism:

 

"In the final reckoning, this column is not about Persepolis alone. My rant concerns countless instances of fine animated films, many of them good enough to contend for and win major awards, going unseen. It is impossible to ascertain who deserves the greater share of blame for this, but let's put that aspect aside for the moment and consider this instead: It really doesn't have to be that way. If we want change, we can work for it."

Working away...

Also check out Doug's review of Persepolis here.

Persepolis

Contributing writer Doug Cummings, keeper of the Beyond feature Film Journey and the blog of the same name has picked ten of his favorite films from the Toronto International Film Festival. Persepolis is mentioned among the ten:

"I had high hopes for the cinematic adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's endearing graphic novels of her youth under the Shaw and during the Iranian Revolution and subsequent war with Iraq, her emigrated and difficult life among European slackers, and her return to her family under religious totalitarianism. Thankfully the film not only maintains the novels' distinctive pen-and-ink aesthetic and wry slice-of-life perspective, but translates them to the screen in imaginative, deeply engrossing ways. The film is yet another standout in a year rife with ambitious animated films like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Tekkonkinkreet, and Paprika, but for my money it's the most consistent, humanist, and historically relevant of them all. Far from a cynical dissection of Iranian culture, the film--like the books--celebrates the Iranian people's vibrant, progressive, and diverse passions developed over the past millennium. Despite its stylized design, the film projects an infectious, modern sensibility (young Marjane's dreams are filled with dialogues with God and Karl Marx just as her days are filled seeking bootleg rock 'n roll tapes) and a universal spirit that should help counter the lack of human imagery and abundance of negative diplomatic propaganda that permeates the Western world in regards to Iran. Like Kawase--who is her age--Satrapi is a young woman with plenty to say about her own cultural heritage. I'm really glad this film has distribution from Sony Classics, and look forward to its reception by those as yet unfamiliar with the intelligence, wisdom, and charm of her work."

Look for Doug's upcoming article on the hidden gems of animation in the next issue of Beyond. Subscribed yet?

TIFF 2007

We've been waiting patiently for a few capsule reviews to come in from some our contributing writers who attend the Toronto International Film Festival each year. We weren't sure if it would be possible to actually write anything during a week long schedule that includes 30-40 film screenings but Darren of Long Pauses has posted his impressions of Days 1- 3.

If you don't have a film festival in your town, take a look at these. Think about making your own mini festival during the long winter ahead. No talking allowed. Please take your stray popcorn kernels with you as you leave the living room.

Away From Her.

Thanks to the kindness of not-so strangers, this week we were able to see a preview of Sarah Polley's first feature film, Away from Her. It's a beautiful film arriving at more screens this weekend. You can find reviews and accolades all over the net but really you should just go and experience it. In an interview with NOW Magazine, Polley says "We're entering the time of year when my friends and I usually stop going to the movies," she says. "You sort of take the summer off. So it's nice to release something a little more independent and less commercial, so there's another option for people."

Hurray for options.

Trailer.

Font-ified

Mark Simonson blogs about the Royal Tennebaum's World of Futura:

Quite a few people wrote me to ask about the type in The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). The type isn’t anachronistic so much as idiosyncratic. Director Wes Anderson seems to have a thing, bordering on obsession, for Futura. The credits are set in Futura Bold—nothing strange about that. But it doesn’t stop there. The Tenenbaums seem to exist in a world dominated by Futura (mainly Futura Bold):

 

via filmjourney

Outside the Movies.

Doug Cummings of Film Journey passes along a Cinemascope article entitled The Unbearable Pretentiousness of Being Don McKellar. I found that the following section scratched a peculiar mental itch. When I read certain thinkers, especially theologians and those with a philisophical bent, I am impressed with the expression of their yearnings, their analysis of history and their desire to relate their explorations to present day culture. They read widely and ask bold questions and yet when they talk about film or music, their tastes, their cultural references are all about box office hits and the latest special effects movie. I find myself wondering why there is this contrast between an appeal to think deeply about life and culture and yet there is a kind of mental laziness towards the Machines that so easily distribute the next hit movie or song.

Doug addressed some of this in his last Beyond article. There is an unknown here, an unexplored world, and the references are mere surfaces to a compelling place underneath the Top Ten Lists. This phrase "outside the movies" seems to sum it up.

mckellar: I have this ambivalence. While I feel like I’m in it, I love movies, but I just hate them and where they are now. I have a hard time seeing movies now in a certain way, but I used to be obsessed with movies, I used to see them nonstop when I was in high school and early university, and then something happened where I lost faith in them. There have always been crappy mainstream films, I suppose, but it’s when the sort of indie world seemed to collapse that it became kind of discouraging. They gave up on cinematic pleasure, filmic pleasure, and formal invention, and that to me was always crucial to my enjoyment of cinema. That seemed to be verboten in American indie films. They became solipsistic and happy in their isolation.

scope: I suppose at some point the direction of the audience became different, they became globally pitched...

mckellar: Yeah, the globalization of cinema is definitely one of the big problems. That was one of the things I was after with Childstar, the fact that none of the films are addressing us anymore. We’re all outside the movies now. There’s no particular audience.

(bold mine)

The Film Festival

The reports are beginning to come in as our cinephiles drag their weary bodies back to their respective hometowns and start the process of show and tell. J Robert Parks made a brave effort at blogging while attending the Toronto Film Festival , only to leave this message on Day 7:

After six days' non-stop movie-watching and blog-writing, J. Robert reports he may be hitting the wall with the blog-writing part. But he promises that he will finish his blog either later this week or next.

I'm surprised he made it as far as he did especially when you see Darren of Long Pauses' Film Festival by the Numbers:

Number of films shown: 328 (including shorts)
Number of films I saw: 27 (including shorts)
Days in Toronto: 6 1/2
Average number of films per day: 4.15

And Doug Cummings at FilmJourney.org writes about the social aspects of film festing:

It deepens my conviction that film criticism is a social act, and certainly cinephilia and festival going are as well. And one of the most enjoyable aspects of my social exchanges at TIFF was their gracious diversity--casual film watchers and budding cinephiles mixed with film obsessives, first-time TIFF attendees and seven-year veterans, many of whom had never met before but were granted equal conversational space like the single large platter of Ethiopian food we shared on Friday night. It was endearing to watch the multi-talented Girish, one moment gesticulating and eyes blazing while passionately defending one film or another ("He could be a character from Waking Life," Darren quipped), and the next moment carefully considering another person's perspective, whose thoughts were equally important to him. As I mentioned in my previous blog, the opportunity to spend time with these folks, people I usually only chat with online from day to day, made an already ideal event virtually transcendent.

Keep an eye on these blogs over the next few days. Much will be said.

Toronto updates.

J. Roberts Parks, a friendly face to Beyond magazine, has an ongoing film diary from Toronto here.

Toronto.

I was to be in Toronto today for the Film Festival but dropped out at the last minute. Everything is in good hands as Beyond ICU members fight for tickets and record their impressions for upcoming blog entries and our print publication.

Daily Dose of Imagery has a great picture of the Festival Schedule complete with magnifying glass. To quote Coupland, here is "options paralysis".

The Village.

"Let not the bad movie be seen. It encourages them."

-- James Verniere, BOSTON HERALD

The underlying human summary.

Beyond magazine contributor and Film Journey host Doug Cummings discusses the documentary form, filmmaker Robert Flaherty, and The Story of the Weeping Camel:

While Fahrenheit 9/11 has been passing the $100 million mark this week, reinforcing the resurgence of documentary filmmaking as a popular art form, it has also been deflecting criticisms that suggest documentaries should be free of opinion. But unlike the "actualities" by early filmmakers (trains arriving in stations, people sneezing or kissing)--or even newsreels or industrial films--documentaries have long been identified precisely by their creative spins on reality, their underlying human summary; the Scottish filmmaker John Grierson defined the documentary as the "creative treatment of actualities" and first applied the term to the 1926 film, Moana, by Robert Flaherty, a filmmaker renowned for his dramatically-staged movies featuring authentic people in authentic places. (Nanook of the North, Man of Aran, and Louisiana Story are three such films available as features-loaded DVDs.)

The complete writeup is here.

Control Room

While Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 continues to attract attention and promote discussion, Doug Cummings of Film Journey draws our attention to Control Room (2004), a look behind the scenes at the famed Arabic television station, Al-Jazeera. Doug writes:

I've pretty much avoided all mainstream coverage of the war in Iraq from the get-go and sought alternative news sources from international reports and human rights groups rather than embedded broadcasts from Fox or CNN, but seeing Control Room underscored how slanted even my perception of the station was, given the Bush administration's constant attempts to vilify it. Donald Rumsfeld has publicly referred to it, among other things, as "Osama bin Laden's mouthpiece." In fact, the station has been banned by several Arab governments for its open criticism of their policies, and its staff is not a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists with cameras, but many ex-BBC reporters and Western-trained journalists and entrepreneurial producers who praise the US Constitution and dream of sending their kids to American universities.

His full review is here.