(Harbourfront Centre, 6 October 2012)
"Expire": Subordinating two bodies to either mind in turn, stifling each other's voices by mutual consent, exchanging sacrifices for favours---this is a strangers' compromise, sustainable and brutal. Friendship connects those who seek to not dominate, but merge their minds spontaneously.
"We will": Unconditional respect invites trust. Then, one can generate conflict intentionally, in order to debug, not insult, nor reject. Restart until it is right. Only that final time counts.
9 October 2012
3 October 2012
Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years
(The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 30 September 2012)
Warhol's goal was to diagnose---not cure, nor soothe, nor gratify. His specialty was anxiety.
Warhol's goal was to diagnose---not cure, nor soothe, nor gratify. His specialty was anxiety.
Stravinsky/Balanchine: The Collaboration
(New York City Ballet, 29 September 2012)
Many a classical ballet could have been improved had it been feasible to separate some dancers and eliminate others. A ballerina's spins and dives would have been greater technical achievements had she not been supported by the man. When a man has a dramatic role to play, it is typically one of watching the woman admiringly. Dancers hardly communicate. Their relationship does not develop onstage, but is delivered frozen in a rather dull state designed to look pretty. It often does.
Balanchine breaks with the aesthetic convention of classical ballet in Part II of the "Symphony in Three Movements." The dancing couple creates an entity that exists in its own right and imbues each constituent individual with life. The remaining dances are explorative, occasionally baroque---Citizen Kanesque in that they contain innovations (e.g., non-classical positions, no plot), but these innovations add up to a study, not a perfected work of art.
Balanchine's dances are Art Deco. They communicate little, worship the form, and suppress individualism. They worship the machine and subordination---with individuals being means, not human beings enriched and exposed in interactions with others.
One cannot blame Balanchine for not being a Hitchcock. Balanchine lacks Hitchcock's obsession with human relationships. Balanchine's interest is in that which transcends the human, and that which transcends is at risk of speaking little to humans.
Many a classical ballet could have been improved had it been feasible to separate some dancers and eliminate others. A ballerina's spins and dives would have been greater technical achievements had she not been supported by the man. When a man has a dramatic role to play, it is typically one of watching the woman admiringly. Dancers hardly communicate. Their relationship does not develop onstage, but is delivered frozen in a rather dull state designed to look pretty. It often does.
Balanchine breaks with the aesthetic convention of classical ballet in Part II of the "Symphony in Three Movements." The dancing couple creates an entity that exists in its own right and imbues each constituent individual with life. The remaining dances are explorative, occasionally baroque---Citizen Kanesque in that they contain innovations (e.g., non-classical positions, no plot), but these innovations add up to a study, not a perfected work of art.
Balanchine's dances are Art Deco. They communicate little, worship the form, and suppress individualism. They worship the machine and subordination---with individuals being means, not human beings enriched and exposed in interactions with others.
One cannot blame Balanchine for not being a Hitchcock. Balanchine lacks Hitchcock's obsession with human relationships. Balanchine's interest is in that which transcends the human, and that which transcends is at risk of speaking little to humans.
16 September 2012
Vertigo (1958)
Hitchcock is too impatient to seek out accidental beauty; he constructs beauty. Circumstances change; ideals persist. Hitchcock's pictures age little. For him, beauty and class are not fetishes, but are essential for fluent expression. Beauty is efficient on screen. Dignity is the appropriate surrogate off screen. By revealing the rungs of the social ladder, Hitchcock invites to ascend.
Movies that last preserve that which has no logical structure, that which one remembers well, but cannot evoke on a whim: rich colours, deep shadows, supple movements, unrecognised longings, the plurality of lives and their bearers.
Obsessions animate, nearly consume. Obsessions with people possess nobility, denied to all other obsessions.
Movies that last preserve that which has no logical structure, that which one remembers well, but cannot evoke on a whim: rich colours, deep shadows, supple movements, unrecognised longings, the plurality of lives and their bearers.
Obsessions animate, nearly consume. Obsessions with people possess nobility, denied to all other obsessions.
20 August 2012
Harrison, TX
(59E59, 18 August 2012)
In provinces, one excels by doing well in the game. In big cities, one excels by changing the game. For some, it is best to accept the game and to master one's strategy, instead of being a perpetual amateur player in an ever-evolving game that no one else wishes to join. With the rules of the game well defined, the game itself becomes a character, in provinces.
In the "Blind Date," individuals crave others' company, not others' individuality. And they know it and accept it.
"The Midnight Caller" advocates individualism. Ultimately, for everyone's good, one ought to act selfishly, and let another exercise his choice, as this exercise cannot be forestalled, but only delayed, at a cost for all.
One needs partners in play; one does not need particular individuals---most of the time. Yet, one is not deterred from electing someone specific to be that partner, and craving this someone specific, thus denying the power of abstraction.
The key to contentment is to pride oneself on having solved a constrained optimisation problem.
In provinces, one excels by doing well in the game. In big cities, one excels by changing the game. For some, it is best to accept the game and to master one's strategy, instead of being a perpetual amateur player in an ever-evolving game that no one else wishes to join. With the rules of the game well defined, the game itself becomes a character, in provinces.
In the "Blind Date," individuals crave others' company, not others' individuality. And they know it and accept it.
"The Midnight Caller" advocates individualism. Ultimately, for everyone's good, one ought to act selfishly, and let another exercise his choice, as this exercise cannot be forestalled, but only delayed, at a cost for all.
One needs partners in play; one does not need particular individuals---most of the time. Yet, one is not deterred from electing someone specific to be that partner, and craving this someone specific, thus denying the power of abstraction.
The key to contentment is to pride oneself on having solved a constrained optimisation problem.
Smuin Ballet
(Joyce Theater, 18 August 2012)
The dancers' movements lack inevitability. They convey the ambition to succeed at ballet, instead of conveying ideas that admit no means of expression other than ballet. The movements lack amplification through resonance with music, and through weight and momentum transfers between dancers. Thus emerges not a conversation but a show, deliberately choreographed, competently danced, but neither superhuman, as elite classical ballet can be, nor super human, as a ballet by a smaller company has no choice but to be.
The dancers are more comfortable using the classical ballet vocabulary in the "Medea" (an illustration for a borrowed story) than jogging through the "Oh, Inverted World," which, even though premiered in 2010, comes across as conceived in 1980s, not least because of the puerile costumes. In these two ballets, the intensity of the dancers' sexuality is curtailed by their haphazardly revealing costumes, which obfuscate the intention of the movement, instead of accentuating that intention.
The third, redeeming, romantic, piece "Soon These Two Worlds" suits the company's character, which seeks to gratify and cheer.
The dancers' movements lack inevitability. They convey the ambition to succeed at ballet, instead of conveying ideas that admit no means of expression other than ballet. The movements lack amplification through resonance with music, and through weight and momentum transfers between dancers. Thus emerges not a conversation but a show, deliberately choreographed, competently danced, but neither superhuman, as elite classical ballet can be, nor super human, as a ballet by a smaller company has no choice but to be.
The dancers are more comfortable using the classical ballet vocabulary in the "Medea" (an illustration for a borrowed story) than jogging through the "Oh, Inverted World," which, even though premiered in 2010, comes across as conceived in 1980s, not least because of the puerile costumes. In these two ballets, the intensity of the dancers' sexuality is curtailed by their haphazardly revealing costumes, which obfuscate the intention of the movement, instead of accentuating that intention.
The third, redeeming, romantic, piece "Soon These Two Worlds" suits the company's character, which seeks to gratify and cheer.
11 August 2012
Le Dernier Métro (1980)
A film does not merely tell a story. It constructs a world into which one is drawn. It teaches how to construct a world of one's own.
Le Dernier Métro culminates in a compromise. It does not strive towards ideals that could be mixed at will. Instead, it offers a ready-made mixture, a dignified resignation, along with a manual spelt out in prose. It is a child conceived to be as old as its parent, now gone.
Le Dernier Métro culminates in a compromise. It does not strive towards ideals that could be mixed at will. Instead, it offers a ready-made mixture, a dignified resignation, along with a manual spelt out in prose. It is a child conceived to be as old as its parent, now gone.
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