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The Love Witch 2016
Biller writes the early exchange between Elaine and Trish — where the former says she’s the artist and the latter, trying to position herself as somewhere in that relative sphere, rejoins that she’s an interior decorator — fully knowing that she herself will be labeled as an interior decorator and not an artist. A cursory glance at most reviews on here proves as much. This is probably because she has none of what Joyce would call the artist’s silence, exile,…
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Winter Light 1963
A more intelligent film than I think the people I follow on here grant. Bergman’s interest is with logos, or indeed Logos, which is to say with meaning. What is and isn’t unintelligible, what is and isn’t God’s voice. What does it mean when a room is flooded in natural light? What does it mean when a man shoots himself? What does it mean that electric lights must be used in church? What does it mean to mean? Is that…
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Riefenstahl 2024
To me, it is incontestable that Riefenstahl’s films helped promote Nazi ideology and, thus, are accountable in some part for the holocaust. At the same time, however, it is also incontestable to me that there are moments in her films that comprise the apotheosis of cinema. What these two opinions have to do with each I’m not entirely sure nor do I ever think I will be entirely sure I understand the relationship between aesthetics and politics. Certainly Riefenstahl goes…
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The Brutalist 2024
A bit of a confused film. The epilogue, and of course the film has an epilogue, is entirely unnecessary as we are already informed of the political ambitions of Laszlo’s projects earlier in the film (and I must add it is a strong argument for politics as affirmation of life via creation of apolitical permanent artifice). Thus the disconcerting tonal whiplash of the epilogue can be avoided and we are left to ruminate on the light of the cross which…
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