Smile and wave good bye to the load of rubbish 2010 was.
Krystal Klear – Tried For Your Love (Hudson Mohawke Remix) (ACKK12x1) by allcitydublin
Tags: 2011, hudson mohawke, krytal klear
Going down into the street: An analysis of the space of the street in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (À bout de souffle )
23 DecBreathless is inescapably tied to the real city. Godard uses this real life setting to validate the film’s fictional narrative and to critique both the old established order, and the new. By taking ownership of the city through the street, auteurs such as Godard found a space within the city to work creatively and to comment on the world around in an original and revolutionary fashion. In Breathless the street is the focus of urban experience. It becomes the antithesis of the world of the studio. The street exists as public thoroughfare and is a relatively unregulated and uncontrolled negative space within the city fabric. Filming here becomes a reaction against controlled sets, conditions and locations, professionalism and rehearsal. As Éric Rohmer, Godard’s friend and peer said, “the New Wave was born from the desire to show Paris, to go down into the street, as a time when French cinema was a cinema of studios”(1981). The film’s narrative and its depiction of the city are of course not solely set in the streets of Paris, but this essay will focus on this aspect.
Paris was Godard’s home since birth and his personal association with the city is clearly evident in the way the city is navigated and shot. He wrote that in conceiving a film he had to “start with the location” (Penz, 2007, p.144) The location becomes the foundations upon which the film is built and the city is its inspiration and setting. The nouvelle vague encouraged the reclaimation of the city by a generation of young auteurs and Breathless reconnects the city with the Lumière Brothers’ early films which captured the public gaze and recorded everyday events of life in France at the end of the nineteenth century. Godard’s use of this documentary technique of the city watching itself – curious glances, threatened stares, embarrassed smiles – seems to be a call to the audience for self-examination as well as an homage to the city and the origins of cinema. It signals a reconnection with the notion of cinema as a fundamentally social art and is the most apparent reminder that the film has been shot in the city “as is.”
Breathless‘s main protagonist, Michel, is first encountered in the street. He steals a car in Marseilles, tears towards Paris and somewhere along the way ends up shooting a policeman dead. Right from his introduction he is a criminal – the almost trivial murder hinting at this Bogart wannabe’s desire to emulate the fictional Hollywood gangster – the glorified, celebrated cinematic outsider most at home in the B movies Godard and his peers revered. This murder is witnessed by the audience but faces of killer and victim are not shown (Turner, 1983, p.57). Only a gloved hand firing a handgun is seen, as if a few frames from a Hollywood gangster flick or Western have been directly transplanted into Godard’s film with its almost humorously incongruous and unglamorous rural French setting. This elevation of the lowly B-movie above the staples of the French cinema system sets in motion a chain of events which dismantles temporal and spatial film conventions and Michel’s transgressive actions echo Jean-Luc Godard’s ostentatious desire to challenge the contemporary film world.
Patricia, Michel’s sometime girlfriend, is also introduced wandering the street, selling the Herald Tribune in the immediately recognisable territory of the Champs-Elysées. She is a young American strolling through the heart of the city. She is dislocated and footloose, a post-war flâneur for the modern Paris of the late 50s. She lives in a hotel, is supported by her parents and is a student. Transience dominates – a foreign newspaper with news that will be worthless the next day, cars which are stolen at free will, nondescript hotel rooms and the multiple casual amorous relationships both characters are involved in. At the centre of this landscape of in-between spaces, fleeting relationships and ambiguous moral behaviour is the ultimate transient space of the street. A territory of continuous movement and change – always a route and never a destination. The audience is introduced to both characters in the street, and the film ends in this most public of spaces.
By filming in the street the façades of buildings become key in defining the space the characters inhabit and, as such, are used as internal walls containing the room of the street. Their role is reversed. Not only are cinema conventions such as continuity editing challenged, but so is the use of space. In a city with an urban layout as ordered and formal as in Paris, the adoption of the street as a territory for film-making might be seen as a highly charged political, as well as artistic, move. Haussman’s grands boulevards work by directing views and movement along prescribed axes, connecting imperial monuments and retracing the state-directed demolition of Paris’ old medieval roots and improvised, organic layout. They direct sight-lines and control space in a manner which creates a scenographic character aligned with conventional French cinema – film conventions adopted from the world of conventional western theatre. These monumental avenues of Haussmanian Paris are subversively challenged through Godard’s editing. They are dismantled and reassembled to fit the pace of the motorcar and Michel’s spontaneous, directionless existence. Long, linear boulevards are traversed in a matter of seconds and grand roundabouts are navigated in the blink of an eye. The architecture and planning of Paris generates a perspectival environment – one which emphasises distance and encourages an extension towards progress, the horizon, the infinite – a way of seeing the city this generation of new auteurs rejected.
…. [section removed]
Breathless is a film about outsiders – outsiders who occupy outsider space. Ultimately the Paris portrayed in Breathless is a city of streets as opposed to one of buildings. The auteur refuses to play by the rules. It eschews moralising in favour of representation – a new representation – of what film might be, both stylistically and theoretically. Breathless is a re-portrayal of Paris, a re-thinking of film making and re-capturing of the role of a cinema of self reflection and social engagement precisely because it emerges from the uncontrolled and undirected streets of the city. As Michel lies dying in the street it is as if he belongs not in Rome or the other cities he plans to escape to, but in Paris. As the anti-hero of a film born of its location he perishes in the streets which formed him, permanently connecting his character and the film with the transient space of the street. Conventions are so visibly and audibly broken that Breathless is an essay in challenging the established order, and yet, in revolutionising cinema, Godard returns to its origins, origins he shares as an individual – the streets of Paris.
Bibliography
Mennel, B. (2008) Cities and Cinema.London and New York: Routledge
Moviediva(2004) Breathless (1959) Directed by Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg (89 min.). [Online]. Available from: <http://www.moviediva.com/MD_root/reviewpages/MDBreathless.htm> [Accessed 01 March 2010]
Penz, F. (2007) The City Being Itself: The Case of Paris. In: La Haine, Visualising the City, ed. Marcus & Neumann, London: Routledge
Rohmer, E. (1981) ‘Discussion with Éric Rohmer.’ Cahiers du Cinéma 323-4:29-39, Mai
Turner, D. (1983) Breathless: Mirror Stage of the Nouvelle Vague. In: SubStance, Vol. 12, No. 4, Issue 41 pp. 50-63
Tags: godard, a bout de souffle, breathless, jump cuts, paris, street, flaneur
2010: The best tracks. Part 1 (1-10 of 20)
23 DecSo, the snow has fallen, rivers have frozen, sky has darkened.
2010 was a year in which I didn’t listen to nearly as much new music as I should have. A year I shunned albums and got a little too obsessed with tracks. It’s also been a year my music taste has been set alight by the world of dance music and electronica, but there’s been ample amounts of alternative and independent music too. The list below is quite diverse and I could have put so many more down, but I think this is sort of representative of the last 12 months of music for me. Order is random. Part ONE.
1. Wile Out (feat. Ms Dynamite) – DJ Zinc
ZINC FT MS DYNAMITE – WILE OUT clip by zinc
Simply a genre bending, funky monster of a track. The opening is a total bluff, the r&b/pop vibe snarling into a completely infectious bass heavy beast.
2. Real Love – Beach House (mp3)
The year’s most poetic ballad. The album, Teen Dream features one beautiful love song after another, but it’s the haunting Real Love that stands out after hundreds of plays. At no other point in the year did a vocal track and a piano line sit so perfectly side by side.
3. Zodiac Shit – Flying Lotus (mp3)
The drama… the drama.. a stunning two part party of noises electronic, sampled and played. Jazz syncopation, hip hop beats, classic samples….Like the soundtrack to a film set in the streets of LA 2050.
4. CMYK – James Blake (mp3)
It’s not often people make truly original music at the age of 21. And it’s even rare that it’s so jaw-droppingly exciting, tense and well-crafted.
5. Odessa – Caribou
It’s like floating down a river made of mercury through the middle of a shadowy forest with the northern lights dancing above.
6.Fletta – Anthony & The Johnsons feat Bjork
This year’s most hard hitting track. Ghostly yet visceral, a quietly building onslaught of emotion, and a fan video of the highest standard.
7. Whip My Hair – Willow
More than a guilty pleasure. The first glimpse of the future of pop.
8. Returnal – Oneohtrix Point Never
More sounds from the future. Distorted, warped vocals and heavily textured sequencing. A sci-fi stand-out.
9. Becoming a Jackal – Villagers
The bittersweet melancholy of growing up and falling in love. A parallel fantasy world of dreams, windows and lovers – and a melody (and harmonies) to die for.
10. Round and Round – Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti (mp3)
Pitch (im)pefect fuzzy daydreamer pop. Spring time memories shot on Super8.
Part II to follow.
Tags: 2010, anthony & the johnsons, ariel pink, beach house, Bjork, caribou, cmyk, flying lotus, james blake, mp3, ms dynamite, odessa, oneohtrix point never, returnal, smith, villagers, willow
Villa Savoye Photos from January
2 SepNo green carpet… Just a white building, above snowy white ground, below feather white sky.
Some photos of the masterpiece from a trip I took on January 2010.
Tags: 5 points, cinq points, corbusier, domino, Le Corbusier, pilotis, poissy, savoye, terrasse, Villa Savoye
Gagarchitecture
2 SepArchitecture takes itself seriously. Very seriously, infact. It’s a professional field which, today, is draped in a veil of semi-academic esoteric statements – associated with a psuedo-scientific language which does anything but simplify communication between the architecture world and the wider public. Not to say there aren’t many exceptions to the rule, but a walk round the Bartlett or AA summer shows is some proof of an entrenched way of talking about architecture in architecture schools and in architecture literature that is extremely difficult to engage with. In fact, architecture is hard to imagine as ever being popular in the same way as other cultural activities. Is there today a pop-architecture? The past is full of 60s, 70s and 80s examples, but today it is perhaps only FAT, Allsop, Feix + Merlin and a few other Venturi/SITE/Archigram influenced designers who spring to mind, if I purposely avoid such current meetings of pop and buildings such at MTV Cribs.
I’d like to add Koolhaas to the list – a recent trip to the Kunsthal was full of humour and jokes – but all to often it’s ironic or condescending. Whereas the visual, digital, film and sonic arts have embraced pop culture, architecture, for the most part, tries to avoid being seen as anything but a noble, serious activity.
So it was a breath of fresh air to stumble upon a project at the Bartlett show a few months back which was fun and serious. It was tongue in cheek but extremely precise and incredibly well thought through. More excitingly, it was a great comment on the work and the institution surrounding the display drawings on show. I can’t remember the girl’s name. I’ve searched and search to no avail – but the project was for a Church for a cult of Lady Gaga – reappropriating and tranplanting a baroque church to the site of central London, complete with a wonderful dreamt up religio-mytholody. It was a work of architecture which was cutting in its criticism of so much of the world’s cultural behaviour – and yet, this is not to see it wasn’t pop and it wasn’t fun. The sharpness of the project’s conceptual strategy made the other work filling the Slade seem hyperbolic, inflated and infatuated by a self-seriousness. Here was a project that could be enjoyed from both a (very) high and low(er) critical perspective. Pop meets architecture, rather than pop-architecture.
So what might happen if OMA and Gaga collaborated. It’s far from an absurd idea – fashion clearly the connecting thread. But as well as just a collaboration in terms of an exchange of services (a set design for Gaga…A song/performance for OMA’s latest project..see here) it could be something far more exciting. Architecture is floundering in my opinion as an art that can be appreciated and which has real cultural value. Modern architecture is STILL looked upon with fear and mistrust by a fast majority of people. Architects and architecture are an extremely fashionable area of interest and gain plenty of attention, but contemporary work is still an area of potential conflict. Colchester’s VAF case in point. Both Gaga and OMA have an avant-garde approach to being overtly commercial – a truly stunning collaboration could be as powerful as the Church of Lady Gaga project – a functioning building which really can be understood in pop terms and can be embraced by pop culture. And there would be plenty of criticism I’m sure from the architecture world.
Tags: AA, Allsop, Bartlett, Colchester VAF, Cribs, FAT, Feix & Merlin, koolhaas, kunsthal, Lady Gaga, MTV, oma, SITE
Kunsthal Rotterdam Details
1 SepSome great details in Koolhaas’ Kunsthal. Completely mindblowingly brilliant building and fantastic material juxtapositions. Humour, elegance and confidence.
Tags: architecture, koolhaas, kunsthal, nia, oma, photos, polycarbonate, rem, rotterdam, tour
The Suburbs Redux I – An in depth track by track look at Arcade Fire’s new release
1 Sep
The Suburbs sprawls across an hour’s worth of shimmering sonic terrain – a familiar topography for the band. We sit in the passenger seat of Win Butler’s car and watch a world of families, bored adolescents and ageing adults pass by. Arcade Fire’s newest work is more fixed in the real thanever before. It’s a more nuanced, detailed and observant work – the lights of a police car in bike reflectors, the glitches of a perfectly judged synth riff, the disco and motown influenced syncopation structuring many of the album’s most upbeat moments.
Reviews of the album are everywhere. From the good, to the bad. So to avoid that whole discourse I’m going to take a look at a few tracks close up. The paintstrokes and the pixels that make up the beautiful whole.
I – Empty Room
The opening strings are a mix of signature Owen Pallet and Funeral-era Arcade Fire tracks – an energetic flutter which calls to mind Heartland. Like the boundless energy of a six year old let loose to play in the backyards of the neighborhood this insistent heartbeat powers through the track. The strings push on and on…an adrenalin surge… the smell of burning bicycle tires and sunny weekend air. Like Heartland’s uptempo string sections which mark journeys and adventures, Arcade Fire drag you along with all the pedal power they can muster, the suburban streets flying past in a blaze of youthful exuberence. This seems likes an adventure. Whoever this kid is, they’re taking over the neighborhood, the town…
The playfulness seems simple and sweet. But the song is far from a one trick pony. It’s painfully short – like the innocence of youth. For above all, the song is a love song – whether that’s love for a relative, friend or lover isn’t clear. Playful, childlike at the one time, there’s a romantic sehnsucht that guides the song’s lyrical progression. For all the soaring, boundless spirit of the opening, the lyrics reveal it all to be imagination – a multicoloured world conjured up out of the banality of the suburbs. A fantasy growing from loneliness and lost feeling.
Said your name in an empty room
Said your name in an empty
Something I would never do
I’m alone again.
Place in the song becomes something of a set of russian dolls. The mind, the empty room, the suburbs… and somewhere imagination and love exist. Guitars wail, soaring and diving like conflicting emotions, the highs and lows of love and the memory of a special one. But in the suburbs these feelings are forced to fight for survival. The empty room (be it the relationship, the mind, the heart) is completely overwhelmed by sound – by emotion. It’s an escape from suburbia through fantasy – the search for self and identity in a world of organised sterility. The single room, the space of the mind and of self-reflection, becomes more than a refuge – it’s a safe place. An archive of feeling. The place of secrets.
When I’m by myself I can be myself
And my life if coming
But I don’t know
when
Win and Regine sing side by side. Regine slightly higher in the mix, and taking the reigns at the end as she sings in french…the cryptic lines:
Toute ma vie, est avec toi.
Toute ma vie, est avec toi.
Moi J’attends, toi tu pars.
All my life, is with you. Me I wait. You, you leave.
It’s the pain of growing up and moving from a home. It’s the tearing apart of old connections, the effort to keep relationships alive. The pain and the loneliness of memory. The Empty Room seems to stand for our strongest relationship – which, once full, is now without one of the partners. It’s the struggle to let go when someone else has and the pain and pleasure that come with being left alone with our imaginations. How can you forget, when it is so easy to remember? And what is a memory but the unobtainable past ?- a living echo of a dead past. Like a black and white photograph in a technicolour world, the central lyric sticks in the head:
You were burning, now you’re black and grey
More to follow….
Tags: analysis, Arcade Fire, empty room, lyrics, regine chassagne, review, suburbs, win butler
The Suburbs
19 JulA video I made last night for the first single and title track off Arcade Fire’s upcoming masterpiece The Suburbs
Tags: 1950s, aerial, Arcade Fire, leak, mp3, old video, ready to start, skateboarding, sprawl, stock, suburbs, the suburbs, video, we used to wait
