Russian Ark

Of course the computer side of it is impressive - but that does not effect the final outcome beyond its ease of editing and effect shots (which kind of destroy the original point).

Jancso tried for something like this in the early '70s with Elektreia, etc. but he was limited by the 9-minute length of a 35mm cartridge at that time ("the tyranny of the magazine!" I think he said, or was it Tarkovsky).

Both Jancso and Sokurov can be accused of formalism (if that is an accusation in your book)--that is, of foregrounding their technical decisions. I think Russian Ark is more open to that charge than Jancso, since the conceit of the film is less than novel. Still, I thought it was something more than an empty exercise. I was quite impressed by the anti-Revolutionary thrust of it all; the half-admiring look at a bygone decadence and occasional reminders of the austerity (cultural and otherwise) that was to come. And I was moved by that moment toward the end when the camera says goodbye to the host--Russia is taking leave of Europe.

The audience I saw this with (a packed house, BTW) was mostly Russian and they seemed mostly rapt. There was applause as the curtain rose and again when it fell. I suppose this is a major event in Russian cinema in terms of its visibility and significance to film culture in general. (I'd say that Alexei Guerman's Khroustaliov, My Car! from a few years ago is the better film, but when I saw that even Russians were walking out halfway through.)

Does anyone know what kind of DV was used for Russian Ark? I don't know whether it's a matter of Sokurov and his cameraman (who is German) using a very hi-res version of DV or whether it's just that they know exactly how to use, but it looked beautiful for the most part. Contrast this with Jia Zhang-Ke's DV feature Unknown Pleasures, whose low-res quality totally obscured the virtues of Jia's filmmaking in my opinion. Interesting that these older filmmakers (Sokurov, Godard, Rohmer) are making better use of DV than their younger counterparts.

Surely though as an attempt at the same kind of thing, Timecode was technically a lot more difficult. I know what you mean about the improvisation - but one of the nice things about the film was you always had a choice. If you thought Salma Hayek was crap then you didn't watch her.

And I agree that Figgis is over-rated, the only time he wasn't was Timecode.

Anyways, I'm still not persuaded that Timecode represents as impressive a coup as you suggest. Figgis had camera crews trail his actors with handheld video cameras, barely bothered to block his actors at all, left them with hardly any script to work with, and then stuck it all up onscreen (mixing only one soundtrack at a time) in four boxes. By contrast Sokurov and his cinematographer shot the entire thing using a Steadicam (+ a lot of ramps and a few tracks), keeping foreground and background elements clearly differentiated and (for the most part) the lighting lovely and well-apportioned, choreographing nearly every movement of the camera and actors (sometimes with a cast of hundreds).

And using four unit directors is a feat of HR not formal ingenuity! (Well I suppose keeping the crew out of the shots is a feat.)

Btw, now that we've pretty much exhausted the one-take movie from Rope to Timecode to Russian Ark, how about the ultimate edit movie? Every frame is from a different piece of filmed footage.

Stan Brakhage. Oh, you mean outside of an avant-garde context....

Well, film is designed to change images faster than the human eye can keep up (otherwise no persistence of vision), so a one-frame-per-shot movie would just be a big blur. MTV-style editors already practice "frame-fucking," editing something to within an inch of its life, and they've discovered that anything less than ab. 3 or 4 frames is functionally imperceptible. Moulin Rouge came pretty f'ing close, though.

This film is incredible, I am amazed by it. There are so many wonderful bits where time is warped and you realise that all time is contained in this building. The bits where they walk into a room full of tourists and the part where all the people appear out of nowhere up the stairs on the way to the ball. The historical references went sailing over my head and I assume I missed 90% of the point of it, though.

Still, assumptions that it is like a play or something can only be made by someone who hasn't seen this, you realise that what it plays with is our knowledge of cinema and how the edit works as a veiling device, this just has this labyrinthine structure (history/plot/building) where everything exists together. It's amazing.

The DVD documentary is pretty interesting. They only just pulled it off on take #4, if that one'd fucked up they'd have had to give up on the whole thing after 4 years of preparation (well I guess they could've rescheduled, but still). The camaraman said that he almost physically didn't make it, but he got a second wind when he saw how great the ballroom looked at the end.

I thought the tsar's children playing in the corridors was v. poignant considering what happened to them, in fact the whole second half gets better as it goes on. The first half gets a bit moribund but I suppose pacing a film is impossible when there's no editing options available.

just saw the latest Sokuruv film "alexandra" which was good but kidna predictable if you already know his previous work.

I still haven't seen this. But I did see a few minutes of Confession (Повинность) (or, "Submarine Adventures!", as we call it), which was odd and perhaps extremely boring despite all its homosexualized splashing showering scenes.

Reviving to ask if anyone has seen The Lonely Voice of Man, screening at the bfi. Interested more in its source (a set of stories by Platnov) than if Sokurov made it.

love this movie obviously. never seen any other sokurov tho.

the part where the pompous frenchman doesn't believe the leningrad coffin-builder's casualty numbers

was reading about TLVOM & heard it was good, to answer the part of your question you weren't interested in the answer to.

Ok, might give this one a go.

I am interested in anything, just in different degrees.

xpost It may have been mentioned, erm, years ago, but one of my favorite bits on the commentary (which is a movie unto itself) is them facing the challenge of how to move the camera from inside to outside (in the snow) and back in again without the lends cracking or fogging. I forget how they did it ...

for any londoners, there's a Sokurov season at the bfi for all of november.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/bfi_southbank/film_programme/november_seasons/sokurov_a_spiritual_voice

The Lonely Voice of Man is astonishingly good and it attempts to capture Platonov's voice.

Mother and Son is on tonight.