djross wrote:Here is the philosopher Bernard Stiegler discussing the film:
http://www.parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia20/parrhesia20_stiegler.pdf
This no longer works. I watched CU recently, and wanted help with understanding.
djross wrote:Here is the philosopher Bernard Stiegler discussing the film:
http://www.parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia20/parrhesia20_stiegler.pdf
paulofilmo wrote:This no longer works.
djross wrote:paulofilmo wrote:This no longer works.
That must be quite recent. Not sure if it is really gone or if the site may just be down. If you message me your email address, I can send it to you.
djross wrote:Yes it is true he was one of a kind. One reason, I think, is the long apprenticeship he served in the Iranian children's film unit (just as Bergman served a long apprenticeship in theatre and making his early films). Unlike some directors who may have started out making commercials in the advertising industry, or making music videos, Kiarostami's apprenticeship involved tackling the problem of what cinema is and what it is for, how it can and should relate to the audience, and how to allow young audiences room to interpret the movie without making things too obvious nor treating them as simpletons. The lessons he learned through this unique history and process were different from those learned by other filmmakers, and this perhaps goes some way to understanding the singularly direct yet allusive character of his approach.
karamazov. wrote:I daresay what you described about Iran being kind of an interesting cultural experiment might be not entirely disanalogous to [the lack of] cinema in France during the occupation [which, as we know, was part of the cultural context for the nouvelle vague, and so on].
karamazov. wrote:djross wrote:[If you message me your email address, I can send it to you.
fyi, it's also been archived on the "way back machine": here.
Whereas he is reading a book that is the scenario of a film he has seen, with his imagination being the seat of
an experience he has of a work across another work, something happens in Sabzian’s head—something entirely
crazy—which consists in the fact that he tries to pass for Makhmalbaf to see if by doing so he can make Mrs.
Ahankha believe that he is Makhmalbaf—to see if he can make cinema, no doubt to the point of starting to
believe in it himself.
djross wrote:For me, Kiarostami was responsible for the best movie of the year on three occasions: in 1990 with Close-Up, in 1994 with Through the Olive Trees and in 1999 with The Wind Will Carry Us.
Rumplesink wrote:the best film of 2002: Ten.
djross wrote:Do documentaries never participate in, or conjure up, what you describe as the magic of cinema? That said, Close-Up is not at all a documentary, even if it contains elements of documentation.[/i].
paulofilmo wrote: But the magic of cinema frays for me because CU feels like a Documentary. This is my trouble.
Halfway through, when it based on the plot provided at that point seems to be a rather dull exercise in film, Kiarostami shifts a piece and reveals his master plan. The first, second and third film are respectively about the relationship between child and elder, community and man and woman, each determined by social norms, passion and a queeste which has every character channeling the spirit of those in the other parts, effectively taking part in the same meta-narrative again, again and again
Considering the most important things pertaining to hope, symbolized by the flower, but also its general vision of virtue, vice and community have already been touched upon, I'd like to expand on a more minor element, namely its contrivances. Surprisingly, these not only not grate, but actually work in its favour, perhaps because Kiarostami is so forthcoming and open in using them: having the kid repeat a line, unheard by the adults or framing them out of the screen.