There are heroic impossibilities in all of the following films, relating either to subject, setting, method, or ramification. In each of these cases, the impossible actually proves to be attainable...
Nanook of the North
US, 1922
Directed by Robert Flaherty
If you look closely there’s lots of scattershot material here. Cobbled together, shaggy-dog elements kind of come through the cracks. This is partly because at the time of production the modern documentary hadn't exactly been invented yet. It's also because this is a barnstormer’s independent film production, and a crazy gamble of a production at that. No wonder it’s sloppy! Other than that, great things abound. The oft-celebrated igloo sequence is celebrated for a reason. It is one of cinema's miracles. (See entry in Ian Aitken, ed., Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film, Routledge, 2006.) The (faked) tug of war with the seal is arresting and amusing. It might distract you from the more matter-of-fact, much more important aftermath. Look at the detail on the carve-up! Nanook/Allakariallak is an architect, and artist, a holy man, a warm-hearted vocational instructor and a terrific butcher to boot.
Directed by Robert Flaherty
If you look closely there’s lots of scattershot material here. Cobbled together, shaggy-dog elements kind of come through the cracks. This is partly because at the time of production the modern documentary hadn't exactly been invented yet. It's also because this is a barnstormer’s independent film production, and a crazy gamble of a production at that. No wonder it’s sloppy! Other than that, great things abound. The oft-celebrated igloo sequence is celebrated for a reason. It is one of cinema's miracles. (See entry in Ian Aitken, ed., Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film, Routledge, 2006.) The (faked) tug of war with the seal is arresting and amusing. It might distract you from the more matter-of-fact, much more important aftermath. Look at the detail on the carve-up! Nanook/Allakariallak is an architect, and artist, a holy man, a warm-hearted vocational instructor and a terrific butcher to boot.
"Nanook" is a great character, but there’s more than just him to this movie. With all its fibs and fudges, it still reaches back across industrialization and conquest to primordial antiquity, and in a way that few films have managed. (Dreyer’s “Joan,” City of Gold, Heartland, Master and Commander, anything by Paradjanov.) This feels like creation’s dawn. It may be a wintry morning, but it still makes you optimistic about mankind and its possibilities. How consoling this must have been back in war-traumatized 1922! Back to the elemental basics, to humans in a natural space, and to all the good that follows.
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| Ungava |
Curiously, I found Abraham Maslow (the obligatory "A Theory of Human Motivation," 1943) jumping out at me during the film's concluding half hour. For all of the previously described positivity, there’s also a powerful, looming fatality to this whole thing. Look at that amazing late shot as they all walk out of focus, cross that blasted space, become mere silhouettes. Talk about direness! These people struggle to cover their physiological and security needs. And Nanook dies within two years of this production; they ultimately don’t cover those needs all that successfully.
But the grace with which these people eke! How did they leap from physiological and safety needs right up to self-actualization? Flaherty, and more particularly his subjects, gives us a punishing elemental saga that doesn’t result in Jack London-like naturalism. Yes these Inuit eat raw meat, but compare the unforced, thoroughly infused cheerfulness of these subjects with those snarling savage dogs. You can't quite choose your lot, but you can kind of choose what you do with it.
Another igloo film: http://www.nfb.ca/film/how_to_build_an_igloo/
Toccata for Toy Trains
US, 1957
By Charles and Ray Eames
This has got to be the Eames' masterpiece. It’s so jaw-dropping that it feels almost like the masterpiece of the whole medium, at least insofar as the medium lovingly photographs things that exist within and move through a physical space. The introduction is clear, as are its concepts about toys and play and craftsmanship. After the introduction all the curatorial and cinematic stops get pulled. There’s a story here, and a pace that builds to quite a crescendo at the same time that it remains ultimately, classically calm. Trains in a station, in a city. People approaching, to sell or to travel or to recreate. They’re off, severally, and in several directions. After exploring and enjoying and all manner of movement, they all come back. How wonderfully simple, and sufficient. How surprisingly abundant.
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| Charles, Ray, shooting this very film |
The assembly of objects here is beyond amazing, or describing. The scale and variety too; they've amassed a whole world here. It’s like visiting the Victoria and Albert (in Bethnal Green, East London) or Edinburgh museums of childhood. Like, but better, because in this case everything is taken out from behind the glass. Actually, that would be something of an understatement. Toccata for Toy Trains takes the modeled play of the Eames’ earlier Parade (1952) and multiplies it almost incalculably. These most beautifully fashioned toys are operated and articulated in the most wonderful, creative ways imaginable. Talk about scaffolding! (Cf. Vygotsky's zones of proximal development, 1934/'78.) This is play of practically godlike proportions.
This observation applies as much to the capture as to the things captured. In addition to its recreational virtuosity the film is an anthology of photographic possibility. The sense of planes, of depth, of integral space is utterly Wellesian. But the actual depth of field is so incredibly narrow, and active. Now who do we cite? Von Sternberg? That's it, but this is so much healthier! Focus, field, composition, movement. The photography is dizzyingly multiple, and yet no problem for a little kid to follow. For all of the multiplicity—this goes back to that story, and to the techniques they use to tell it—everything is always clear.
There are a few
racially/attitudinally unfortunate toys here, but in the end the fundamental
impression is absolutely ecumenical, even utopian. Incompatibilities of material or period or
style are simply swept away. Physical
proximity, consistency of method, and depths of affection eliminate dire difference. Could adults, in the real world, do similarly? Could kids exposed to the likes of this and other inclusive films do even better?
One could continue enumerating the cool things that the toys and the filmmakers do (how on earth did they manage those linked micro-tracking shots?), but you’d eventually have to explicate the whole movie. Man! The challenge, or maybe the shortcoming of this piece, is that our concentration/dedication isn’t quite up to the Eames's. It’s a pretty rich meal, and who can take it all in properly? Make that Tops (Eames, 1969) as the medium’s ultimate masterpiece.
One could continue enumerating the cool things that the toys and the filmmakers do (how on earth did they manage those linked micro-tracking shots?), but you’d eventually have to explicate the whole movie. Man! The challenge, or maybe the shortcoming of this piece, is that our concentration/dedication isn’t quite up to the Eames's. It’s a pretty rich meal, and who can take it all in properly? Make that Tops (Eames, 1969) as the medium’s ultimate masterpiece.
Volcano: an Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry
Canada, 1976
Written and directed by Donald Brittain
Written and directed by Donald Brittain
Here is a complete mastery of the
documentarian’s, and the documentary biographer’s art. This is an expository film (again, cf. Bill Nichols, 1991), so the narration leads. But it leads in a way that always gives precedence to the subject, as
well the interviewees’ perspectives thereon.
That means that modesty, or maturity, prevails; Brittain devotes all of his
considerable resources to the service of the story. All that is pretty conventional. What sets Volcano... apart is the mastery of
what is usually called B-roll, which here is so much more than just
illustrative. The picture’s relation to
the expository soundtrack is actually a lot like film music, or the complete
range of film music’s possibilities.
Here it’s parallel, there it’s perpendicular, and eventually it ends up exploring
just about every point in between. In
fact there are a number of visual cues that are quite brain-busting, having
something of the quality of Virgil’s epic similes. We’re seeing something unlike, but elaborated
with an intelligence and thoroughness that reaches toward the poetically
encyclopedic: when it comes down to it, nothing is unrelated.
Brittain et al. make these connections in a number of ways. They connect by establishing and elaborating the setting, and through the photographic quality of their location shooting. Their Mexico is especially vivid. Another reason for the film's connectedness is its source, this writer, his work, and especially that book. Richard Burton reads from Lowry's writings, and from Under the Volcano most particularly. His readings are superbly integrated, and something of their allusiveness, their terrible and terminal penetration informs the entire film. Then, finally, it’s the subject. Volcano... is a portrait of monumental entropy and degradation. It’s a terrible prospect, though it is not in itself degrading. They’ve got sin and self-loathing and despair about right, but it’s all leavened by a clear account of a writer’s process, and by this writer’s uniquely infernal/transcendental genius. What a terrible life. What a book!
Here it is: http://www.nfb.ca/film/volcano
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| Lowry (1909-1957) |
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| Popocapetl, the volcano in question |
Brittain et al. make these connections in a number of ways. They connect by establishing and elaborating the setting, and through the photographic quality of their location shooting. Their Mexico is especially vivid. Another reason for the film's connectedness is its source, this writer, his work, and especially that book. Richard Burton reads from Lowry's writings, and from Under the Volcano most particularly. His readings are superbly integrated, and something of their allusiveness, their terrible and terminal penetration informs the entire film. Then, finally, it’s the subject. Volcano... is a portrait of monumental entropy and degradation. It’s a terrible prospect, though it is not in itself degrading. They’ve got sin and self-loathing and despair about right, but it’s all leavened by a clear account of a writer’s process, and by this writer’s uniquely infernal/transcendental genius. What a terrible life. What a book!
Here it is: http://www.nfb.ca/film/volcano
The Tree of Life
US, 2011
Written and directed by Terrence Malick
If the Endowment were undertaken by a filmmaker/philosopher with Catholic roots, tons of nerve, and infinite reserves of imagination and perspective and tenderness, this is what it would look like. Not only does Malick have the effrontery to start his film thusly... :
Where wast
thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast
understanding.
Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job, 38: 4-7)
... he then has the effrontery to be adequate to the illustration and elaboration of both concept and event, and implication besides.
This is heady, exalted, even exalting stuff. I'm wondering. Here's 3 Nephi 19, expressing a common trope.
32 And tongue cannot speak the words which (Jesus) prayed, neither can be written by man the words which he prayed.
33 And the multitude did hear and do bear record; and their hearts were open and they did understand in their hearts the words which he prayed.
In part, for sure, I believe. We can't conceive of certain things. Inexpressible sights and sounds and feelings await. And, or, is this partly rhetorical? How can you possibly formulate a nobler expression than the one found in Job? And can images and sounds, and sorrow and comfort be more beautifully expressed than they are in this film?
You might leave it right there, just leave it at that. It might even be best, so as to allow and require each communicant to work it all out himself or herself, for each struggle to resolve into revelation and apotheosis, or just gentle gratitude. But you try to put vastitude into words, don’t you? More importantly, this is an almost unprecedentedly intimate, phenomenological film. That is to say that it requires your contribution and conversation, and it isn't finished until you respond, engage, and apply.
It all starts with a localized grief, indirectly observed and barely articulated, with a mother's anguish about the death of her son. What is the reason, the meaning, the point of it all? That's the detail, the close up, from which we pull back to consider the context in which the detail operates, and signifies. That context is nothing less than the great Plan of Salvation, from the creation of the cosmos—through and including the birth of mercy in the infinite reptilian past—to the joyful advent and painful passage of this one obscure family in one little Texas town.
At first glance there might seem to be a problem of scale here. Galaxies, then Waco? It is a problem, but it far predates this film, which is correct to take it on. It's a Pilgrim's paradox, a theological conundrum, one of Christ's temptations (http://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/matt/4?lang=eng), the annihilating prospect that gives way to our greatest desire, and our greatest comfort. Man is puny, inconsequential, contemptible; man, and woman, and child, are the reason for and the centre of all creation.
Here: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/you-matter-to-him?lang=eng
Here: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1986/10/my-son-and-yours-each-a-remarkable-one?lang=eng
Samuel Beckett famously concluded his famously sorrowful novel The Unnamable (1953) with these shattering, impossible, strangely encouraging words:
High modernism, leading to a paralyzing and terminal despair? Or every communicant, kneeling at an altar, on the brink of promised, further light and knowledge? Beckett and Malick are on the same frequency, except that the latter might be seeing farther.
This fictional family, and all of Creation. The entire cosmos all for this, for all this, to allow for this very sorrow. Having taken this much on Malick pushes on, quite naturally and convincingly, to the Resurrection of the Just.
A person could resist all of this. Many have. But why? Tree of Life is like the Eames’ Powers of Ten (1977; here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0), or rather the galactic principle that film illustrates. Actually Roman Kroitor and Colin Low's Universe (1960) might be a more suitable, a more suitably majestic comparison. (Here: http://www.nfb.ca/film/universe/) Each of these films accords us a microscopic view that is exactly parallel to and completely balanced by the macroscopic totality. Malick adds to that conceptual grandeur a nearly innumerable array of tiny, perfectly observed interactions, the cruelties just as exquisite as the kindliness. Is it too soon to make a call like this? Probably. Let's make it anyway. This is one of a very few candidates (Ordet, Pather Panchali) for the best and most important film ever made.
If the Endowment were undertaken by a filmmaker/philosopher with Catholic roots, tons of nerve, and infinite reserves of imagination and perspective and tenderness, this is what it would look like. Not only does Malick have the effrontery to start his film thusly... :
 |
| Georges de la Tour, Job... (1650) |
Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job, 38: 4-7)
... he then has the effrontery to be adequate to the illustration and elaboration of both concept and event, and implication besides.
This is heady, exalted, even exalting stuff. I'm wondering. Here's 3 Nephi 19, expressing a common trope.
32 And tongue cannot speak the words which (Jesus) prayed, neither can be written by man the words which he prayed.
33 And the multitude did hear and do bear record; and their hearts were open and they did understand in their hearts the words which he prayed.
34 Nevertheless,
so great and marvelous were the words which he prayed that they cannot be
written, neither can they be uttered by man.
In part, for sure, I believe. We can't conceive of certain things. Inexpressible sights and sounds and feelings await. And, or, is this partly rhetorical? How can you possibly formulate a nobler expression than the one found in Job? And can images and sounds, and sorrow and comfort be more beautifully expressed than they are in this film?
You might leave it right there, just leave it at that. It might even be best, so as to allow and require each communicant to work it all out himself or herself, for each struggle to resolve into revelation and apotheosis, or just gentle gratitude. But you try to put vastitude into words, don’t you? More importantly, this is an almost unprecedentedly intimate, phenomenological film. That is to say that it requires your contribution and conversation, and it isn't finished until you respond, engage, and apply.
 |
| See above image... |
It all starts with a localized grief, indirectly observed and barely articulated, with a mother's anguish about the death of her son. What is the reason, the meaning, the point of it all? That's the detail, the close up, from which we pull back to consider the context in which the detail operates, and signifies. That context is nothing less than the great Plan of Salvation, from the creation of the cosmos—through and including the birth of mercy in the infinite reptilian past—to the joyful advent and painful passage of this one obscure family in one little Texas town.
At first glance there might seem to be a problem of scale here. Galaxies, then Waco? It is a problem, but it far predates this film, which is correct to take it on. It's a Pilgrim's paradox, a theological conundrum, one of Christ's temptations (http://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/matt/4?lang=eng), the annihilating prospect that gives way to our greatest desire, and our greatest comfort. Man is puny, inconsequential, contemptible; man, and woman, and child, are the reason for and the centre of all creation.
Here: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/you-matter-to-him?lang=eng
Here: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1986/10/my-son-and-yours-each-a-remarkable-one?lang=eng
Samuel Beckett famously concluded his famously sorrowful novel The Unnamable (1953) with these shattering, impossible, strangely encouraging words:
"... Perhaps it's done already,
perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the
threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would
surprise me, if it opens, it will be I,
it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the
silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on ..."
High modernism, leading to a paralyzing and terminal despair? Or every communicant, kneeling at an altar, on the brink of promised, further light and knowledge? Beckett and Malick are on the same frequency, except that the latter might be seeing farther.
This fictional family, and all of Creation. The entire cosmos all for this, for all this, to allow for this very sorrow. Having taken this much on Malick pushes on, quite naturally and convincingly, to the Resurrection of the Just.
A person could resist all of this. Many have. But why? Tree of Life is like the Eames’ Powers of Ten (1977; here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0), or rather the galactic principle that film illustrates. Actually Roman Kroitor and Colin Low's Universe (1960) might be a more suitable, a more suitably majestic comparison. (Here: http://www.nfb.ca/film/universe/) Each of these films accords us a microscopic view that is exactly parallel to and completely balanced by the macroscopic totality. Malick adds to that conceptual grandeur a nearly innumerable array of tiny, perfectly observed interactions, the cruelties just as exquisite as the kindliness. Is it too soon to make a call like this? Probably. Let's make it anyway. This is one of a very few candidates (Ordet, Pather Panchali) for the best and most important film ever made.
