Epiphanies @ 2 AM

A Straight Line

And when you thought nothing else could happen, the idea you’d leave again torments you to the point where you ask yourself what you’re looking for. When will you finally stop – if this is even going to happen, if you’ll ever be able to detach completely.

As soon as I’m alone I long for your company. When you leave, in my mind you leave for forever. I can’t even open my mouth to say goodbye. When I know you’ll come by, I try to expand time. Neither of us allows moments to happen. We run from each other, but in the same direction. In a world where everything moves, you stand still, undecided. You allow for the fall to happen. You’d rather wait.

I walked through town today. I watched strangers. I admired their children. I’ve been a stranger in too many places. It’s been hard for me to blend in. It’s been hard for me to make plans.

I’m in no relation to time, undecided. My life’s a circle and I can’t figure out how to turn it into a straight line.

JLG - “Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.”

In what concerns my relationship with Jean – Luc Godard, it happened pretty late, long after I’ve watched movies from authors like Fellini, Antonioni, Truffaut, or Bergman. I was already studying film and Godard showed up one rainy afternoon, with his sequences of playing pool from Vivre sa vie, the absurd conversation between Anna Karina and Jean Paul Belmondo from Pierrot le fou, the dance of the two guys and this girl from Bande a part and the pan shots and monologues from his self – portrait JLG – Autoportrait d’hiver. The movie represents a search for truth, whenever a movie can be considered honest, it lacks the linearity, but it certainly doesn’t lack a concept concerning this idea: realism is the essence of cinema, but movies have to start with a start, and have a middle and an end, but not necessarily in this order. 

Even though Patrick, the liar seductive high school kid from Tous les garcons s’appellent Patrick, was conceived by Eric Rohmer, and Michael Poiccard – by Francois Truffaut, these characters obviously appear as characters belonging to Godard. Patrick, tha character interpreted by Jean – Claude Briary is an endless garrulous, who picks up girls in the garden of Luxembourg. He’s a film fan ( he mentions Mizouchi and Kurosawa) and taks about cars. The young blonde girl he picks up is wearing a striped t-shirt (a reference to the feminine character from A bout de souffle) and she listens to popular songs on her portable radio an her walls are covered in posters of James Dean and pictures of Marilyn Monroe. With these typologies for male characters, Godard changes completely the idea of movie character, turning them into people who carry words or speak them out.

In ‘ A bout de souffle’, Godard goes through the entire history of cinema, integrating in his movie the B series heritage, more precisely the one of the thriller movies produced by Monogram Pictures, in a very heterogeneous structure. Godard’s movie is a long monologue through which the hero tries desperately to communicate with Patricia, the young American girl who has a hard time trying to follow the slangy meanders and the literary quotes. It’s the bullet from the last shot that turns him silent : ‘ What a gross world!’ says Poiccard, and the rude inspector Vital tells Patricia: ‘ he said you were gross!’, and then does Michel’s gesture, touching his lips with the tip of his finger.

Even though Godard repudiated it, ‘ A bout de souffle’ had, after more than 50 years, the same impact as in the beginning, which, looking back, turns it into the movie – manifesto of the New Wave. The feature films  Godard directed later were as inventive as this one, but in very different directions.

Godard’s style stays on the same line with the shape generated by the creation concept of the movies that belong to the New Wave: long shots, which show several subscenes, so that the visual information is sent all at once, not having excessive cutting. He didn’t want the rending of the sensation of reality a cut transmitted. This type of shot can be recognized in most of Godard’s movies, but on the other hand, he uses the same amount of jump cuts. 

 

Jean – Luc Godard sau both the art and the society declining: he first theorized the idea, and then made movies that included it. Using the contradiction technique, but also bringing new forms of art, he underlined society’s decline and the impossible labyrinth of art. Godard was probably the first personalities in art to suggest the idea of minimalism in film, always saying that all you need to make a movie is a woman and a gun. Another present aspect in his movies is politics – even in his shorts he situates the situations in the foreground in a political context, which will play the role of a background, connecting with the actors’ interpretations and the dialogue. Very conscious, but also active politically, Godard doesn’t miss any occasions to connect the foreground to the background. In the beginning of ‘Pierrot le fou’, in the car sequence, Marianne (Karina) hears a piece of news on the radio about the war in Vietnam, and later in the movie she says “Damn Americans!’, subtly suggesting the director’s opinion  concerning the contemporary society. 

            Of Godard’s trademarks, I love the most the fact that he uses Anna Karina in a lot of the female roles, also having an actor in the foreground and the portrait or the image of another actor or personality in the background. The references to the American B series cinema (noir movies) or the frequent quotes from French literature give his movies a familiar air, almost touchy.  JLG’s movies are special because of the alert editing style, which looks like jumps, which doesn’t care much about the 180˚ rule or about continuity, space becomes limited, but in a lot of his movies he manages to send out the feeling of not belonging to a place, the same way Antonioni uses it.

He really trusts the atmosphere created by the long shots (sequence – shots) and the sincerity these send out, so much that he claims every cut is a lie, hiding a time unit. 

He’s still fascinated by the shapes and structures the cinema allows him to use, so much that his movies have been a turning point in the worldwide cinematography, because of the way Godard used these structural elements – he helped the cinema’s stylistics evolve. He wants everything to be obvious, to almost hurt the spectators’ eyes, especially concerning the camerawork and the cinematography itself, but also when he edits, and these elements give rhythm and continuity , ‘rounding up’ the movie. The concept behind the editing has a rhythmic sense. 

His characters are superficial, the lack substance, but explode from so much charm.

Game of Bow and Arrow

You would want every girl in the world while I’ll wait until you realize that when I say the game doesn’t mean more than a few hours spent in the company of a stranger, I mean I am done searching. 

Even when I allow people to get close, to understand, it doesn’t mean that much, as long as it is me who settles the rules and limits. 

For me, the game is DONE. It doesn’t get my attention anymore. I remain silent and wait for you to read me – like a book that would never tell its story unless you open it.

White Room

A single fluorescent light bulb rules over the white room. It's preferable to watch the walls than to let your eyes drop on the piles on the floor. Two chairs play the role of bedsides or hangers, whatever the situation. Jars full of change await their turn. The DVD boxes  brace one another. The rug is blue and it's barely visible.
While I lay on my back in the fluffy cloud - blue, but mostly white - the vertical lines of the curtain start moving. I look away, but look to the right, where an acid trip is perfectly illustrated: the green curtain is covered in red spots through which, even at night time, light seems to be passing. I lay there silently for more than half an hour, after which I start to lose control over my body and conscience. The orange curtain's stripes play tricks on my perception. Music underlines words like 'world', ' yours', 'devoured', the back of my neck seems to get deeper and deeper into the blanket.
Randomly,  you're telling me about how this song always makes you think of me - the one without a future, the undefined being, I say to myself -, and my right knee touches your leg, while it keeps a beat. I wish we talked more, but there's never enough will for this. I fall asleep.

Straight shadows, stern shadows decompose to form other curly shadows on these white, empty walls. 

Smell My Memories

In a strange house, shortly after stepping inside the room, vaguely knowing the host, I discovered in a bottom cabinet. At some point in my life, it just happened that I opened a jar. You open it and, as an instinct, try to smell inside of it. You will then feel a smell of food. Which arrived - or better - stayed there from past times. No matter how well that jar had been washed in the beginning, once closed the glass will send out all of the flavor it was keeping for itself.
After stepping inside my freshly rented apartment, i started to check it out and opened some drawers and some cabinets. I took out a 400gr jar, with a red-orange cover. The tempting smell of baked red peppers came out, from across time. I mentally said hello to the grandma that cooked them and put them inside the jar. I was happy to smell the flavor of some food from the 90s, sitting on some plate near an audacious high school student, wearing a white ribbon in her hair, and a blue uniform.
The smell is the universal sense, the one that spills the jar of memories.

Bokeh for Hope

The Scars We Don't Show

For those of you who spent hours in the bathtub, the shower hitting you with every drop, having visions of it being rain, for you who hours seemed like days and days turned into terrible decisions, for all of you - I have the answer: do I really?

There's no kindness in any type of words. Promises turn into smoke as soon they're pronounced. For those of you who still seek the right path, I respect your belief.
 

I wish I could still see clearly.
And tell right from wrong.

The Story of Waiting

There’s this numb silence sitting all over the place. I thought you’d hear it when you went outside this morning. The stillness hasn’t changed – it never does. Even when the wind blows, you can tell only by the movement of trees and by the circling of the little iron bird on top of the building. I feel like I’m watching this great landscape – it doesn’t even change throughout the seasons.

Outside, the bench is cold and the grass is dewy. The air is clean – it’s an exact opposite of what we share. I sit alone, legs crossed, listening to the sounds of the street. My heart pounds with every car I head, every footstep gives me anxiety.

Even from the inside, I make all noises disappear. I can almost see the exterior with my ears. You lack from this picture.

It would’ve been so much nicer with you in it