Tarkovsky & Top Ten

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I'm just checking in to say hi. I didn't see any posts on FB today, so maybe you weren't around. Either that or it's because my lousy FB feed has reduced things to a trickle. It shows me all the political claptrap generated by the non-stop posters, but anything by you I have to actively search for. Usually, when you do post, it will show up in "posts You like" shortly thereafter, but anyhow........I know I've said all this stuff a million times before.

I went to the movie at CSUN, and we saw "The Mirror" by Tarkovsky. I have it on dvd and have seen it about four or five times previously on a tv screen. I don't know what to say about such a movie, in which actors (mainly one actress and some children) are presented in situations almost entirely without context, no plot line is developed, only vague bits of back story are revealed, and the whole thing is interspersed with actual footage of WW2 bombings and social uprisings in places like China and Spain. It's One Weird Movie, and despite some viewers and critics who claim to "get it" after many viewings, I myself do not get it, and I believe that the folks who say they do are being disingenuous. No real story is presented, only vague hints of story, and even those are so disjointed as to render them impenetrable as a whole entity.

Having said that, it's still a Tremendous Film, and that is because it's all about the flow of images onscreen. Thus, every image and scene - and the way they are edited - are essential to making the picture work. Most movies succeed or fail on the strength of their story. This one succeeds on flow, because that is literally what you are watching, a flow of disconnected scenes and imagery that is yet given perfect continuity by the piecing together of all it's parts. It's a remarkable achievement, and thus it's no wonder that "The Mirror" has wound up on many critics and film institutions' lists of the greatest films ever made. Many put it in the top ten.

Just for the heck of it, I will try to make a list of my own Top Ten. This is the kind of thing I will try to do on nights when I have nothing else to write about, when you aren't able to post on FB for any particular reason. I can't guarantee I'll always be successful, because the days of me writing just to myself, putting my thoughts out there off the top of my head, are long past. But anyway, here goes.......

My Top Ten, let's say of great foreign art films, would be, in no particular order:

1) "Diary Of A Country Priest" by Robert Bresson

2) "La Aventura" by Michaelangelo Antonioni

3) "Late Spring" by Yasujiro Ozu

4) "The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse" by Fritz Lang

5) "Pather Panchali" by Satyajit Ray

6) "Nights Of Cabiria" by Federico Fellini

7) "Three Colors : Red" by Krzysztof Kieslowski

8) "Children Of Paradise" by Marcel Carne

9) "Last Year At Marienbad" by Alan Resnais

10) "The Mirror" by Andrei Tarkovsky. I am putting him last just because I was already writing about him tonight. He could easily be much higher on this list, and actually if I were gonna pick my absolute favorite, the top would be "Country Priest". And with Tarkovsky, I might even pick "Andrei Rublev" or "Stalker" instead of "The Mirror", but the latter is just so weird, and so coherently weird, that I've gotta go with it.

Of course, there are hundreds of tremendous foreign films, and just as many if not more great American films, Hollywood style and otherwise. But since I was talking specifically about foreign movies tonight, and was thinking of ones from a classic time period, of say.... the late 40s to the 80s, these are the ones I chose for my Top Ten.

With movies, there are so many genres and so many eras that you've gotta do separate lists for separate types, "ten best Noirs", "Westerns", etc.

It's tougher with movies than with music, because so many films have been released over the last 87 years of Talkies. An average of 3 or 400 movies per year, just in America and the other main countries.

With music, it's different, because there aren't as many releases, and great albums bear hundreds of repeated plays (whereas even the greatest movies are only viewed perhaps tens of times). So music is interpreted perhaps more as a personal emotional intake. Film may be more cerebral or generally life oriented, interpreted from so-called "experience". Music is pure emotional intuition, with lyrics that just hint at experience in three minute bursts.....

Oh hell, I dunno.  :)

This is what happens when I write off the top of my head, haha.

See you in the morning, Sweet Baby. Post if you wanna.

I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)