Leighton Pierce Lecture by Lydia Blackburn

 (a still from Pierce's film Backsteps)

Last Tuesday I saw Leighton Pierce talk at the Alfond auditorium. He showed some of his pieces and gave a good talk. He has worked on 16 mm and also digitally. His images were not particularly ­impressive or memorable for my liking but I was interested in the concepts he was playing with, what he’s thinking about, and how and where he sources his inspiration. The photography was abstract and often played with focus and perspective. He showed films titled Glass, Wood, 50 Feet of String and Backsteps. Leighton talked about being inspired by jazz and electronic music and that music was actually his segue into film. His interest in sound is relevant in his film making process, as in editing he selects shots that have a rich sound potential. Even when he shoots video where sound is captured simultaneously to imagery he will mute the sound so he can give his mind freedom to consider the sound that will create an interesting and dynamic relationship to the visuals. Something he said that stuck with me is “the best thing that can fill space is sound”.

Conceptually, Pierce is interested in the mind-body fusion and exploring the gap between mind and body. He is curious about the idea that one can never just be looking or just be feeling. The two exist in conjunction with, and reactively to, one another. He says that he doesn’t have a specific strategy to separate the two but that this is what he is thinking about and what he is attempting in his filmmaking. He attempts to mess with the way the viewer sees the world. He considers in his shooting what is moving and what is stationary. Why does the ball move and the people do not? For instance. He wants the spectator to question whether what they are seeing is a dream or reality. He spoke about how vision and sounds become a metaphor for reality and that the form is the content. He uses sound to help create this tension and confusion. In his film Backsteps, for example, he uses isolated sounds that fit with the imagery but layers the audio in a different way than we would hear them in “real life”. He talked about being directly inspired by Steve Reich’s song ‘Come Out’ (which he also claimed changed his life) and that he used Reich’s basic form in that song when he was adding audio to Backsteps. In this piece he did some stuttering and layering in which he would play the same sound multiple times but would stutter the sound by playing them offset over each other, each sequential clip being played just a few seconds before the first was triggered to play. He shot the piece in a very abstract and out of focus manner where the viewer can almost just make out the figure of two girls in the darkness. He spoke about abstracting the world through the visual but then in adding the girl’s voices making the world once again real to play with this dream/ reality gray area. 

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games was a great movie overall but it was interesting how they shot the beginning.

In the beginning of the film, the shots all look like they are handheld, so it is hard to pick out too many details in a scene.  I think the affect that they were going for was a chaotic, or run down environment with the camera shake.

The filmmakers also utilized this affect during fight scenes, which blurred the motion, making the scene more chaotic to reflect the current situation and environment.

Chungking Express

I've been trying to watch all of Kar Wai Wong's films, and I just recently finished Chungking Express. The film was released in 1994 and takes place in Hong Kong. The story is divided between two cops dealings with relationships near the same late night market. I really liked how everything was interwoven, and how neither story was a complete head-over-heels type of romance. One story was just an ironic exchange between two people that never would have really interacted, and the other ends in a way that lets the viewer decide whether the two characters make more of things. At times, the cop characters seem to have these cheesy inner monologues that they use to coach themselves. At first, this really through me off because I thought it was really out of place, but then I realized that it worked with their naive ideas about love. I thought that the flaky, quirky waitress and the blond, mysterious drug dealer were really great too.

In terms of the visual aspects of the film, I really enjoyed how well Wong used hand held techniques. The camera really nicely follows the movements of the actors and the shakiness works here. Also, it gives the whole film a sense of motion and fluidity. I feel like I become much more aware of the space and the actual time of the film. Wong also uses an affect where he slows down the character's action and then speeds up either the foreground or the background. To me this effect has been so overused in certain movies that its hard for me not to get wrapped up in that, but the scenes in Chungking express aren't an over the top Matrix action sequence, but just a guy sitting at a bar or someone waiting. That's why I think of this effect a little differently. Additionally, I think this affect abstracts the shot and I really enjoy that. He plays with focus to further abstract things and I think that it works well with the repeated sounds and the movements of the film. Finally, I thought some of the sounds were kind of nice too. The weird reggae, the chinese version of "Dreams" by the cranberries, and "California Dreaming" were all nice touches to the color and emotions of the film. It was really fun to watch and I'd recommend it to someone who just wanted to watch an easy movie.

Brick 2005

"A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend."

In this film, the environment is almost always bland, therefore the most interesting things in the shots are the actors themselves.  This way the story is really focused on the characters and the sound.  The sound is what supplies most of the information in this story. Without the sound, it would be unclear as to the setting and perhaps time period of this movie.

Most of the scenes are also bland or lacking in content.  Most of the dramatic scenes happen off screen.  One in particular, is a gang shoot out.  The main character is shown with others hearing the sounds.  The shooting, chaos, and siren sounds, are never connected to their source.  The killings, and other dramatic events are kept mysterious in order to counteract the submissive shots of neutral toned backgrounds.

Without the sound this effect would be lost.

The dialogue is also important in this film since it doesn't fit with the setting.  This film is about kids in high school, yet they way they speak is almost as if they are rapping. Their speech doesn't fit their high school setting, but it continues to add to mystery.

La La La Human Steps

La La La Human Steps "Amelia" Video

This is a great art piece that shows how motion and human interaction are captured on film.  The filmmakers work explores the interaction between two dancers by changing the lighting, and angles.  I do think the music score enhances the piece, since dance relates steps to sound.

These images alone are strong due to the lighting as well as unique camera angles.  The camera angles give interesting perspectives to the movements between the pair of dancers.  The different angles help to show that the steps take up different spaces.  The sound and images work together to create an interactive space.

Hollis Frampton's "Snowblind" 1968.

Hollis Frampton's Snowblind is an homage to Michael Snow's environmental installation consisting of metal grated fences arranged in a gallery with a glaringly bright light situated in the center (viewers can walk in and around the fences).  The film shows mostly longer still shots that dissolve the grates into abstract patterns, going in and out of focus and confusing the negative and positive space of the metal.  Some of the other shots are more descriptive of the room, showing a figure walking between the fences, the lens allows the figure to come in and out of focus, shifting its attention back and forth between the figure and the fence.  The abstract quality of both the film, and the situation with which the person is in, lend the piece an existential mood, as if the set for a Beckett play.  The film also raises questions about the presence of reference and appropriation in art, how this work functions as an homage, and how it situates itself in relation to art history.

The Sea Star by Man Ray 1928

Man Ray's "The Sea Star," is initially intriguing for its blurred images which appear to be shot through water, or waved glass--like a Richter painting.  The images are banal yet enigmatic; the out of focus quality seduces the viewer and demands a closer examination of what is actually occurring in the frame.  The film's structure is interesting in that it clearly out of particular avant-garde moment in the late 20s, yet it has not done away with narrative entirely.  The loose narrative suggested in the film shows a romance between a couple, a somewhat mysterious purchase of a star fish, and the dissolution of the affair in the final shot (the final scene is filmed off of a mirror which shatters as the final image).  Man Ray uses elusive and poetic inter titles to punctuate the shots, which is interesting because generally inter titles are used to elucidate what is going on, however here they only serve to further obscure the meaning.  He also frequently uses a vignette effect to zero in on an object in the frame that is significant to the narrative (ie a flower or a star fish), reminiscent of the way Hitchcock uses the forward tracking close up shot to imbue an object with suspense or intrigue.  Many of Man Ray's shots are well composed and very still, bringing the work into conversation with the still image as well as still life painting at some moments.  While some shots are composed in a very calculated formally balanced way, just as many are more casually composed with a greater degree of abstraction involved.  The tension ultimately makes the film novel and visually captivating.

Workingman's Death

I could easily separate watching this film as an experience versus a passive and mindless 2 hours. To watch a "Workingman's Death" by Michael Glawogger is to question death, human capacity, evolution vs digression and what it means to live.

Visually, I was mostly drawn to the details in these every day work environments that reproduced beautiful cinematography. For example, the bluish smoke from the volcanos, the sparks from the fire in Pakistan, and the glowing grey in the coal mine showed moments of immense natural beauty, yet with humans risking their lives for this labor.

Hearing Glawogger speak also made a great difference about my view on the film. While answering to a question regarding his directions to the subjects, Glawogger stated that his documentaries are creations and do not attempt cinema verite. He told the audience he tells his subjects to repeat certain actions and that does not make it more or less of a documentary. It was comforting to hear a documentarist being open about directing his subjects.

-Samira

Three Times by Hsiao-Hsien Hou (2005)

The movie present in three different period of Taiwan, in the period of 1911 1966 and 2005. Over the years in a developing country have enormous changes, due to the westernization and economic growth in Taiwan.

Director Hsian-Hsien Hou carefully manages for main characters to present these environment changes through their transportation, clothing and structure of buildings. Not only so, the director also uses the way of film that was present it in these three periods. In the part of 1911, there is only music alone with images of characters, while in between conversations there are plank pages with words for audience to read the conversation. In the period of 1966, Hsian-Hsien Hou often have characters move in and out of the set, and have them take public transportation to show the growth of building the cities. From taking public transportation, to have male character owning his own motorcycle in the year 2005, which is very common in Taiwan to have young males thinking to have their own motorcycle is necessary.

Female expectation also have a great changes from the society, in the older times rules are very strict towards female. They often are unable to have options for themselves, and need to have more consideration for others. Director Hsian-Hsien Hou uses the limitation of female characters to show the expectation for female in the society in 1911. In 1911, female are usually limit in a single household, which changes in 1966 to allow from their family to travel for work, and finally with the freedom in 2005 as having their opinion.

Because of the movie is a romantic love story in three different period, all of the screen are smoothly move from one to another. When characters are out walking, biking or riding on the motorcycle, Hsian-Hsien Hou follows the characters to deliver the moving images. One of the part in 2005 when both male and female character were riding on the motorcycle, the only way to film is to have cameramen riding backwards on the back seat of another motorcycle to film. Which personally felt a bit home sick while watching the film, because I do too often ride motorcycle back home, because is more convenience than public transportation and cheap on gas. 

Megacities

Megacities, 1998 by Michael Glawogger

A couple of things brought me out of my assumption that I was going to watch a vérité documentary –which I think tends to be clear about the hand held camera yet attempts to deny the effects of the camera and filmmaker’s involvement with the subject.

In the opening sequence in Mumbai the camera is above street level and follows the bioscope man and the crowd of children until they stop walking. Then the frame widens a little and settles on the action below. I do not think that this scene is spontaneously set-up. I was wondering where the camera even was and how it got there. It looked cinematic –as in fiction cinema. It also reminded me of the camera work of Bollywood musical scenes on the streets.

The movie becomes increasingly darker and grittier. Perhaps the scenes in Mumbai and Mexico City are a mixture of desperate poverty and static unhappiness and also some playfulness –with the bioscope man, the fisherman who’s reason for living is going to the cinema and the Mexican street vendor couple who does slow but agile ballroom dancing in their spare time.

With the introduction of Moscow and New York City, two comparatively colder and darker (literally less sunny and colorful than Mumbai and Mexico, D.F.) I found beautiful images in atypical places. Either despite or because of the pervasive bleak sadness of Moscow and NYC, there are at least two poetic sequences of combined sounds –speech and city noises- and images. In the Moscow sequence, which uses trains repeatedly, there are shots of people reading books on a nighttime train ride from work to home. The sounds are people, not shown, reading excerpts from different texts –fiction and nonfiction, some about the worker and industry, others about internal life and questions of the human spirit, newspapers and erotic fiction. These lighthearted contrasts of serious and not texts made me feel a departure from the strife of a factory workday. The life of the mind is a form of escapism. This sequence also makes me think about post-Soviet Russia and the lifting of many cultural censors. I wondered if the opportunity to read whatever one wants in public was a new right?

The second sequence of sound-image in New York City highlighted the city’s roughness and individualistic survival while also showing a connection among all of the city’s inhabitants. This comparison between the Moscow and NYC sequences suggests that the Moscow one also represents a common spirit of the people through their reading. In NYC a radio host asks the question, “What do you do to survive in the city?” We see the radio host for a few shots and also people listening to this radio show in their apartments. Most unnaturally for my idea of a regular documentary (whatever that is now… I have no idea!), we enter a liquor store and a woman buys some beer. The radio show is being played there and she hears the host say, “We haven’t heard from any women yet. What does a woman think about this questions?” She exits the store and goes to a pay phone outside. She calls the radio show and answers the question. Now, this had to be planned to be captured on film. But for me, that did not make the actions in this sequence less “real”. It illustrates through editing sound and image what seems to be a nearly universal feeling of love and hate for the city –a feeling of isolation and entrapment along with “the world at one’s finger tips” (for only the few…). 

I Am Love by Luca Guadagnino (2009)

The start of the film already gives the class of the characters. Director Luca Guadagnino likes to move the frame alone with the moving objects, such as moving actors, hand deliver dishes to another, but never use eyes sight to deliver. He gives audience beautiful views of the environment, and aware of the environment even the characters are having conversation or moving.

Clothes are one of the element to show differ from the rest of the actors, because the family is full of wealth, the environments they spend are only bright, clean, beautiful, and with large spaces. When the environment is show in slightly darker, practical lighting (places like hospital), or in the wild, it creates unfamiliar and fear for danger ahead.

From the very beginning, it shows the winter moving images of Italy. By the structure of the city, and design of the buildings are easily identifiable, however the winter kept being show as the coldness of the city. Alone with the weather, that is how the main character’s (Emma) feeling for love. And it went from winter to summertime, to show the complication of her feeling and relationship with family members.

Blue, White, Red by Krzysztof Kieslowski (1993 - 1994)

Each color is film it individually over the years of 1993 to 1994, the title of each film already declare what the main color that will be present in each movie. Even the colors are beautifully present in; colors are not the only attraction to draw viewers into the film. Krzysztof Kieslowski uses one of Hitchcock’s famous trick - acceptation; one of the courthouse in Paris is the neutral place where all three films will be involve at. Actors are also kept in the series over time to be small part of each movie, so by the last of the three movies Red is accepted for the location of courthouse and all major actors to appear. Which Krzysztof plays with the viewers acceptation in Red, all actors did not show in the movie until the very end of the film; it gave me a huge laugh and joy when the acceptation are finally present in the movie.

Cinelab

 Film 1's trip to Cinelab! New Bedford, MA

'Ghost Before Breakfast' by Hans Richter

The stop motion techniques used by Hans Richter are incredible to me considering the film was made in 1927. The shot of the man fixing his tie was specifically enticing to me, because it was direct, head-on; there were no cuts, and it wasn't shaky. Just a man with his tie trying to play tricks on him.
There is a significant amount of repetition of moving images used, and I think that it works very well for the film. I feel like some of the shots could've been even a second longer, because sometimes I'm left wanting more. But, I suppose that might be how the repetition comes into play. I think towards the end, though, the repetition becomes kind of overwhelming.
I very much enjoy his use of the negative shots towards the end, of the men stroking their beards, but as a whole with the film, I feel it's almost distracting.
I'm not sure how positive I feel about the film, but there are certain parts of it that were whimsical enough to make me giggle, so I guess that's something~

'Food' by Jan Svankmajer

 

   Something about this animation is so wonderful, or rather, all of Svankmajer's animation have this great surrealist quality to it that I just can't even handle.

    He has a tendency to make very quick and sudden cuts. Often going back and forth between things. He uses repetition to force your eye to look at what he wants you to see. Throughout the first half of the video when a man comes in that may need glasses to read the 'instructions,' sign, Svankmajer plays with the focus on the camera so that you can sort of read the words, then you can't, and then the man pulls out his glasses and it's clear. I love when an artist's plays with your perception like that; making you feel like you're apart of the piece yourself.

     Svankmajer also uses a lot of close up shots, making the film that much more intimate. And the juxtaposition of those shots, with wider ones, has a really nice and beautiful flow.

    Not to mention his animation style in general is amazing, and so bizarre that it's hilarious.

Dear Conrad 2

Dear Conrad is a film made by the Film 2 class at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It was filmed by all the students in the class, and transfered to HD by Cinelab.

This films shows the everyday life of "Machel", a mother who is capable to do anything to sustain his son  "Jaromee",  who doesn't seem to appreciate it. This story shows very dramatic scenes in a desperate's woman life, from potato peeling and daydreaming, to prostitution.

It was filmed by an Arri SLR camera, and 16mm color stock.

My favorite scene is the one where the mother is dancing alone in the living room, and suddenly starts to imagine that all her friends are there dancing and having fun with her. I think that every person is a great dancer in that scene, specially the guy with the cool glasses "Kurain" who seems to be having a lot of fun. I found curious that Kurain looks very much like one of "Machel" regular clients.

I also found funny and quite ironic that the other Machel's regular costumer, "Search a.k.a. Conrad", is taken to a prostitute by her mother "Dylia", whose character makes me feel very bad about being married... Making food from scratch?? Poor woman.

I think that Jaromee is the weirdest character in this film, he always looks like he hates his mother, and his favorite bed time story is the one about a little kid who sucks his thumbs.

Interesting facts of the making of the film:

+The director Joe Saliva disappeared in the middle of the filming of this movie, and nobody knew about him until days later, when was found through Google Earth riding elephants in India.

+One of the girls that worked on the production "Londa", wanted to be in the film so badly that she made a cameo appearance in one of the kitchen scenes, "as if by magic".

+When the negatives of the film where sent to Cinelab to process, a gorilla kidnapped the cinelab box, so the students from SMFA didn't get film back until 3 or 4 weeks later, when the gorilla agreed to exchange the film stock for bananas.

+A computer disappeared during the break of the filming process. The workers from 16 Greenough Productions are still looking for it. Everyone wishes the robbers have taken the main computer from the editing room, instead of the one that was stolen.


I really enjoyed this film, even though the production went through many things, the final product is really awesome, the 16 Greenough is full of Imogination.

Some famous critique reviews on this film include:

"Incredibly weird and boring, perfect for a film festival!" -- Valuska F Marilhuana
"The best potato peeling I have ever seen" -- Loriana Molina
"Thanks God the hacksaw didn't not come out in the film" --Arri SLR's Magazine
"The sounds of the doorbells are incredible!" --Shasley and Belshy

Love for everybody.

PS: This is my 12th post, I hoped you guys liked it.

Valeska

Dear Conrad

Hey everyone from Film 2,

I finished the editing of the project in wich all collaborated. I tried to upload it to Vimeo but it can't stand the 11gb of the video, and after 11 hours uploading to Youtube, the upload cancelled. So I drop it off in the main computer in the editing room this morning.

You all are invited to take a look.

You can find it in the file "Student 2" and it is called "DEAR CONRAD".

I hope you all like it!

I'm looking forward to add the credits to it for submitting it to the anual; but I'm not sure how to handle that since some of us did more than one job in the filming process.

Persona by Ingmar Bergman

Persona is genius. The photography beautifully follows light and shadow, as if both were their own parallel story. The shots seem thoughtfully framed and every composition seems perfect- like a painting. Bergman uses all these cinematic tools for the viewer to enter the protagonist world of both beauty and madness. 

The beginning and the middle of the film have a moment of a kind of relapse in which 'random' images show in between fast cuts. My interpretation was that it was lapse to a collective consciousness where images of a boy lying in a white bed, of a bleeding hand stricken by a nail, of animal parts and so on. In these moments, the shots cut to white abruptly which served as a contrast to the rest of the film in which shots and edits were slower. 

The film made me question the power of silence, the idea of identity, and moreover, the psychological effect we have on each other. In a way, the duality of beauty and madness worked with the duality of the two main characters, the duality of life and death, of sanity and insanity, of light and darkness. 

-Samira