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Cinema is Sex Part Deux
So in continuation of my previous post which didn’t go down that well (surprise surprise) I shall profile some filmmakers whom I think exemplify my pet theory.
Despite being totally different in terms of the techniques they employ and the genres they usually work in they also have a lot of common attributes apart from being incredibly prolific.
1) They work with low to mid budgets
2) Tend to work with actors instead of stars
3) They always seem to push they envelope and sometimes they fall flat on their ass
4) The amount of fun they have in the process of filmmaking is very apparent
5) Their weakest films have occurred whenever they have gone commercial / mainstream
Michael Winterbottom
17 Films in 13 years
One of the most innovative and provocative filmmakers around who has been making indie gems for a long time. A very well respected counterculture filmmaker who is known for his keen adaptations of acclaimed literature as well as meditations on contemporary politics and issues. Has embraced digital technology in recent years and loves to mix formats in his films.
My fav films - Welcome to Sarajevo, In this World, 9 Songs, The Road to Guantanamo, The Claim
Richard Linklater
18 films in 21 years
Revered deity of the American Indie film movement. A darling of film schools around the world coz his films are living proof that just two people talking can be as exciting as car chases and gunfights. Master of the long take who generally eschews plot altogether in favor of strong characterization and masterful dialog.
My fav films - Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Tape, Dazed and Confused, Slacker
Note - Both Winterbottom and Linklater are attempting somewhat similar films in the vein of Michael Apted’s sublime “UP” saga. Interesting to see how influential the saga has been which is not surprising as its considered to be transcendental art. Even Lars von Trier has been making something similar for years.
Takashi Miike
70 films in 18 years !!!!!!!
My hero. Im gonna write a post dedicated esp to him so ain’t gonna prattle here.
My fav films - Black Society Trilogy, Dead of Alive Trilogy, Audition, 4.6 Billion years of Love, Happiness of the Katakuris
PS - Since I haven’t seen all of the films of the 3 directors mentioned my statistics can be off by a bit so please excuse.
So if you see the body of work of these amazing dudes you will kinda notice that they are very cutting edge even if they do it in a retro fashion like Linklater who favors Ophuls while Winterbottom is more docudrama. Miike of course is pure Absinthe flavored meth.
May their tribe increase.
19 Responses to “Cinema is Sex Part Deux”
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Recent Posts:
Hottest Today:
Winterbottom’s best - ROAD TO GUANTANAMO & 9 Songs
Lintekar’s best -
Slacker, Sunrise & Sunset, Tape. Waking Life
Takashi -
I have only seen AUDITION & was blown by it. Its really mindblowing how he keeps making movies.
I would include Gus Van Sant in this section. That man is just growing more & more. And his subjects are usually teenage american kids. I’m in awe of him. His ELEPHANT was a masterpiece.
Can’t wait to see PARANOID PARK.
@ Mithun Da!
I loved your article. I love Winterbottom and Linklater. Haven’t seen Takashi. Will surely see his works!
I love Waking Life by Richard Linklater.
@Mainak
I would also love to see Gus van Sant in this. His ELEPHANT wan great. According to me, GOOD WILL HUNTING was a beautiful film. He desrves praise for that.
Thanks for suggestion of van Sant!
i was blissfully unaware of top two. sample them soon.
i have seen audition by takashi miike
—–
we have five ‘gyanindriyan’- sensory organs.
whatever the impression we take in through these sensory organs, those impression affect our consciousness. what we see, make us. what we read, make us. what we eat, make us.
one should be careful about what is going in.
we have a word ‘aahar’
it is not synonymous with ‘bhojan’
‘bhojan’ is intake through ‘tounge’
‘aahar’ is total intake by five sensory organs.
what we see, what we hear, what we smell, what we touch, is included in ‘aahar’.
all, that we take in, shape us.
——–
i didn’t finish auditon. i chose not to.
and i choose not to see anything from him again.
bhale duniya unko top manti ho.
:-$=;
Gus’ record is quite spotty with more misses than hits. IMO his opus was My own Private Idaho and he hasn’t made anything since that even comes close.
I should have added Herzog but a majority of his work are docus and I wanted to limit myself to narrative.
Takashi is probably the most polarizing filmmaker around today. It’s instant love or hate. No middle ground. Even I find some of his films like Ichi the Killer too hard to stomach but then he makes all kind of films.
Art can be divided into two parts. Ninety-nine percent of art is subjective art. Only one percent is objective art. The ninety-nine percent subjective art has no relationship with meditation. Only one percent objective art is based on meditation.
The subjective art means you are pouring your subjectivity onto the canvas, your dreams, your imaginations, your fantasies. It is a projection of your psychology. The same happens in poetry, in music, in all dimensions of creativity - you are not concerned with the person who is going to see your painting, not concerned what will happen to him when he looks at it; that is not your concern at all. Your art is simply a kind of vomiting. It will help you, just the way vomiting helps. It takes the nausea away, it makes you cleaner, makes you feel healthier. But you have not considered what is going to happen to the person who is going to see your vomit. He will become nauseous. He may start feeling sick.
Look at the paintings of Picasso. He is a great painter, but just a subjective artist. Looking at his paintings, you will start feeling sick, dizzy, something going berserk in your mind. You cannot go on looking at Picasso’s painting for long. You would like to get away, because the painting has not come from a silent being. It has come from a chaos. It is a byproduct of a nightmare. But ninety-nine percent of art belongs to that category.
Objective art is just the opposite. The man has nothing to throw out, he is utterly empty, absolutely clean. Out of this silence, out of this emptiness arises love, compassion. And out of this silence arises a possibility for creativity. This silence, this love, this compassion - these are the qualities of meditation.
Meditation brings you to your very center. And your center is not only your center, it is the center of the whole existence. Only on the periphery we are different. As we start moving toward the center, we are one. We are part of eternity, a tremendously luminous experience of ecstasy that is beyond words. Something that you can be… but very difficult to express it. But a great desire arises in you to share it, because all other people around you are groping for exactly such experiences. And you have it, you know the path.
And these people are searching everywhere except within themselves - where it is! You would like to shout in their ears. You would like to shake them and tell them, “Open your eyes! Where are you going? Wherever you go, you go away from yourself. Come back home, and come as deep into yourself as possible.”
This desire to share becomes creativity. Somebody can dance. There have been mystics - for example, Jalaluddin Rumi - whose teaching was not in words, whose teaching was in dance. He will dance. His disciples will be sitting by his side, and he will tell them, “Anybody who feels like joining me can join. It is a question of feeling. If you don’t feel like, it is up to you. You can simply sit and watch.”
But when you see a man like Jalaluddin Rumi dancing, something dormant in you becomes active. In spite of yourself you find you have joined the dance. You are already dancing before you become aware that you have joined it.
Even this experience is of tremendous value, that you have been pulled like a magnetic force. It has not been your mind decision, you have not weighed for pro and for against, to join or not to join, no. Just the beauty of Rumi’s dance, his spreading energy, has taken possession of you. You are being touched. This dance is objective art.
And if you can continue - and slowly you will become more and more unembarrassed, more and more capable - soon you will forget the whole world. A moment comes, the dancer disappears and only the dance remains.
There are in India statues, which you have just to sit silently and meditate upon. Just look at those statues. They have been made by meditators in such a way, in such a proportion, that just looking at the statue, the figure, the proportion, the beauty… Everything is very calculated to create a similar kind of state within you. And just sitting silently with a statue of Buddha or Mahavira, you will come across a strange feeling, which you cannot find in sitting by the side of any Western sculpture.
All Western sculpture is sexual. You see the Roman sculpture: beautiful, but something creates sexuality in you. It hits your sexual center. It does not give you an uplift. In the East the situation is totally different. Statutes are carved, but before a sculptor starts carving statues he learns meditation. Before he starts playing on the flute he learns meditation. Before he starts writing poetry he learns meditation. Meditation is absolute necessity for any art; then the art will be objective.
Then, just reading few lines of a haiku, a Japanese form of a small poem - only three lines, perhaps three words - if you silently read it, you will be surprised. It is far more explosive that any dynamite. It simply opens up doors in your being.
Basho’s small haiku I have beside the pond near my house. I love it so much, I wanted it to be there. So every time, coming and going…. Basho is one of the persons I have loved. Nothing much in it: An ancient pond…. It is not an ordinary poetry. It is very pictorial. Just visualize: An ancient pond. A frog jumps in…. You almost see the ancient pond! You almost hear the frog, the sound of its jump: Plop.
And then everything is silent. The ancient pond is there, the frog has jumped in, the sound of his jumping in has created more silence than before. Just reading it is not like any other poetry that you go on reading - one poem, another poem… No, you just read it and sit silently. Visualize it. Close your eyes. See the ancient pond. See the frog. See it jumping in. See the ripples on the water. Hear the sound. And hear the silence that follows.
This is objective art.
Basho must have written it in a very meditative mood, sitting by the side of an ancient pond, watching a frog. And the frog jumps in. And suddenly Basho becomes aware of the miracle that sound is deepening the silence. The silence is more than it was before. This is objective art.
Unless you are a creator, you will never find real blissfulness. It is only by creating that you become part of the great creativity of the universe. But to be a creator, meditation is a basic necessity. Without it you can paint, but that painting has to be burned, it has not to be shown to others. It was good, it helped you unburden, but please, don’t burden anybody else. Don’t present it to your friends, they are not your enemies.
Objective art is meditative art, subjective art is mind art.
- from The Last Testament, Volume 3, #24
above piece is copy paste from this link.
http://www.osho.com/Main.cfm?Area=Magazine&Sub1Menu=Tarot&Sub2Menu=OshoZenTarot&Language=English
[-o<
Osho ??? Lol.
Did he actually believe his own ramblings or was it all a con job?
decide on your own
http://www.oshoworld.com
@};-
decide on your own
http://www.oshoworld.com
here you can find complete archieve of his dicourses in audio and text format.
@};-
No thanks. I’m wary of self styled godmen and gurus.
I’d like your opinion though as it seems you have studied them.
well
why care about my opinion also.
it is bound to be biased.
^:)^
I’m off to play ping pong. Or as the Chinese say, “ping pong”
Winterbotttom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
aaaah!!
best eclectic range of work ever…
@vishrant…
for a moment i thgt we had to call u vishrant baba or swami vishrant..
:-)
but thanks for the copy paste
Does Wong Kar Wai count? Days of Being Wild and Chungking Express had a very low budget feel to them. Then of course, there is In the Mood For Love and later, 2046. Condition 1 is satisfied here.
As for actors, Leslie Cheung would become famous a year after Days… was released, with Farewell My Concubine. Tony Leung was an established star by the time In The Mood came out. But still, his performance rocked and he did work with WKW on Happy Together. So thats condition 2.
Conditions 3 and 4: Just look at how different the visuals are in each film. Contrast the long shots in Days… with the slow mo, frame dropping camera work in Chungking, the tight shots in In The Mood.
5) The apology of a film that was My Blueberry Nights. Mr. Wong Kar Wai goes to Hollywood and boy! Does he dissapoint.
Here’s my fav scene from Days of Being Wild.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=K6Tm4VtYPqw
My uninformed guess is “Steadycam”. But how?
I’m a noob. :P
I think Wong Kar Wai is the master in this category…
Sheikhchilli thanks for taking us back to Days of Being Wild…
As much as I love WKW his stats are 11 films in 20 years which does not really make him prolific.
He is an absolute creative genius. The film he did for the BMW films is my favorite even though it hasn’t got any adrenaline in it at all.
Mithun da!
It’s true that we may not include Gus van Sant or WKW in this list, but I think “his stats are 11 films in 20 years which does not really make him prolific.” this should not be a judgment!!
Me being judgmental on WKW ?????
Perish the thought. May my tongue be cleaved before I utter such blasphemy.
Being prolific and being insanely genius are two diff things altogether.
Oh and plz drop the da. I’ve never been comfortable with honorifics. :d