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Category Archives: 50s
Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959)
Monday, June 15, 2009
A poetics of overlap, superimposition, begins in the opening credits . . .
It resurfaces in the body of the film, doubling the “hero,” shaping his course in multiple and opposing directions at once,
as in this striking shot-to-shot transition through glass (doors being freighted with significance in Bresson): Michel receding into the background, having just hopped [...]
Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958)
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The film’s relationships can expand and contract, but they can’t extend beyond the edges of a frame stretched to its limits.
Figures look outward constantly, and see each other in proliferating angles.
but possibilities are finite
Small, fleeting openings; other-worldly recessions of perspective:
Finally, a camera pushes forward – past Dean Martin, helpless, looking inward – to end with [...]
Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959)
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
All in the opening credits:
Reflection, surface, excess, elegance, recognition, individuality, inexorable downward movement.
Most importantly, volume.
The film’s world is best measured by displacement: calculating the pressures of accumulation by accounting for all that spills over its edges.
Il Grido (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1957)
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Fleetingly happy pairings, superimposed under a bridge.
All couples, except for one “triple” formed by the wandering mechanic’s daughter from an ended affair.
Seconds later the central pairing breaks, leaving just father and daughter, both of them sullen.
“Despair” in the foreground against the previously “happy” horizon (bridge-lined in the background).
. . .
Roads, paths, receding, approaching, carving [...]