Lost Something: Nicolas Roeg’s ‘Walkabout’ & Sibylle Baier’s ‘I Lost Something In The Hills’

I had listened multiple times to “I Lost Something In The Hills”, the second track of 'Colour Green', the only album by German singer-songwriter Sibylle Baier. Then, as if responding to the call made explicit in the fourth verse of the song (“Oh, what images return …”), the images from the ending of Nicolas Roeg’s 'Walkabout' (1971) came back to me …

Desire as Pedagogy: ‘The Academy of Muses’ (José Luis Guerin, 2015)

In 'The Academy of Muses', pedagogy is portrayed as the circulation of desire between teacher, students, and texts—while becoming also the trigger of the central dramatic conflict: Rosa, Raffaele’s wife, starts to feel that her husband’s teaching philosophy is a threat to their marriage… Desire is not just the literal (and literary) object of study in Pinto’s seminar; it is the force that propels the whole film.

Notes on Film Criticism (V): A Free Replay

There was a time when Marker's essay was the latent theory behind everything I wrote. I don't think 'Vertigo' would mean for me what it means today if it weren't for Marker. To my knowledge, I've properly quoted 'A Free Replay' only once before; but its sentences return to me again and again, claiming their place in my heart and mind—sometimes in the form of ideas, images, or literal expressions that inscribe themselves quite naturally in my writings. These disguised quotes become signposts conjuring a world full of meaning, but mysterious and elusive...

Launching our ‘Multimedia Lectures On Film’ series

What we do in these videos are in-depth analyses of major films in film history  ('major' meaning, simply, that we love them: bear with us and you might be surprised by some of our future choices, since the only canon we'll follow is that of our own desire). There are no windy, textbook generalities about genre, auteur or historical context; we go straight to the material details that (in our view) illuminate the films, how they work and how they feel...

Playing with ‘Meshes of the Afternoon’

This January I taught – for the second year – a week of audiovisual criticism at EQZE. My program makes enormous sense to me (and hopefully to my students), but it does not follow pre-established paths – my group is studying curatorship, so I hope they'll appreciate the extravagant lines of my work of curation, here. We watch a number of audiovisual essays made by critics (me included), but also some fragments from film essays and found footage films, plus a couple of clips that are (plain and simple) amazing examples of montage...

The Video Essay Podcast + An Annotated List

The latest episode of "The Video Essay Podcast", hosted by Will DiGravio, features a great conversation between him and Adrian Martin. Topics discussed include: audiovisual essays, film criticism, multimedia criticism, writing, love, collaboration, creativity, Raymond Bellour, radio, dreams, Jerzy Skolimowski, François Truffaut, artistic gesture, montage, Robert Mitchum, electric condensation, arte povera, Serge Daney, Jean-Pierre Léaud, heterogeneity, voice, John Flaus, performance, teaching, Marco Bellocchio, academia, audiences...

Isak’s Tale: ‘Fanny and Alexander’ (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)

The sequence is part of the fifth chapter – titled “Demons” – of the TV version of 'Fanny and Alexander'. When it takes place, we have already been immersed in the misfortunes of the Ekdahl family for more than four hours. Isak Jakobi has managed to rescue Fanny and Alexander from their wicked stepfather, Vergérus, whose abuses have become intolerable. Isak shelters the siblings at his labyrinthine residence, shows them the room where they will sleep and proceeds to read them a story...

The Geometry Lesson: ‘The Book of Mary’ (Anne-Marie Miéville, 1985)

The triangle is an important figure in Anne-Marie Miéville's 'The Book of Mary'. This short film chronicles the separation of a couple focussing on the effects it has on their 11-year-old daughter, Marie. This sudden mutation of the stable family triangle is abstracted in a geometry lesson – a scene between father and daughter, happening halfway into the film...