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rushthatspeaksRhetorical question: I am going to stop being this tired sometime, right? /has spent last two days on couch.
Did get out tosovay's the day before that and watch The Angelic Conversation, though; she has a spontaneously-generated copy, in that a friend, years before we knew who Jarman was, gave her what she thought was the soundtrack, and instead it turned out to be the film entire.
The Angelic Conversation is Jarman going back to his roots in handheld video, specifically highly saturated Super-8. There was no synced sound and no budget for post-dubbing, so the audio is a combination of music (mostly by Coil, some Benjamin Britten), occasional sound effects, and Judi Dench reading from Shakespeare's sonnets. Now I desperately want an audiobook of Judi Dench reading all of Shakespeare's sonnets. Her readings are revelatory, the way she works with and against the meter, and the way she lets the inversions and rhymes chase each other without overwhelming the sense. It's a perfect balance between conversational speech and reading-aloud, because she's let her Received Pronunciation be tinted just enough with a more Renaissance approach to the vowels for the rhymes to work and not be overstressed, and never let anyone tell you reading poetry aloud is not an art in itself, because this is a great artistic achievement and one which awes me. I mean it makes me like the poems better. It's especially impressive because she's doing a mix of the less-famous ones (and they don't sound minor) and the more-famous ones (and they don't sound the way they did when you read them in school).
Anyway, so of course the sonnets are commentary (sometimes direct, sometimes allegorical, sometimes ironic) on the imagery, and this is where we get into the territory that means I insist this is not a review of The Angelic Conversation, because I have no idea how Derek Jarman did the things he does in this movie.
The experience of watching the film went something like this:
ME: That young man walking through the rocky declivity is an angel. Why do I know that? There has been absolutely nothing visual that ought to suggest it to me, but I am incredibly certain.
sovay: Oh, hey, those angels are working through invocations of each element in order.
ME: I knew that. How did I know that? Why did that occur to me?
THE GHOST OF DEREK JARMAN, LURKING SOMEWHERE BEHIND THE TELEVISION: Look! These two angels are going to summon each other, because each of them, although completely happy with the jobs they've been doing in the sense that they're doing the jobs they've been created to do and are fulfilled in their existence by carrying the jobs out correctly, is nonetheless incredibly lonely and also the jobs are really hard, so each of them just wants somebody to love! Did you know angels could summon each other, in the classical Renaissance magical sense, and that it would make them fall desperately in love with one another? Doesn't it make sense now that you think about it?
ME (tosovay): ... so, is the ghost of Derek Jarman psychically communicating to you that--
sovay: YES.
ME: It's a picture of a guy walking through some rocks! With smoke! In slow motion! In sepia! WHY DO I KNOW THESE THINGS ABOUT IT?!
THE GHOST OF DEREK JARMAN: Look! This guy, who is just sitting there chilling on a rock with a towel wrapped around his waist, is actually God! Aren't his tattoos hilariously ironic?
ME: -- yes, yes they are, WHY DO I KNOW HE IS GOD HE IS A DUDE WITH A TOWEL ON A ROCK
ANGELS (IN FILM): *adore him* *cause sudden beautiful visual allusion to William Blake's Albion*
SWORD THE PROTAGONIST OF THE NOVEL I AM WRITING CARRIES AROUND: *is suddenly sitting in God's lap for no apparent reason*
ME: BZUH NEED SCREENSHOTS TO HANG IN MY STUDY but hey at least we have visual proof now that we were not just hallucinating the things we deduced about this film earlier from no actual evidence
LAST TRUMP (IN FILM): *sounds*
ANGELS (IN FILM): Yay time off! *make out* *with more numinous* *no, more numinous than that even*
MY BRAIN: *breaks*
sovay's BRAIN: similar, I suspect
THE GHOST OF DEREK JARMAN: *serene smile*
So. That happened. I have no idea how this film, which consisted mostly of beautiful young men carrying heavy things through rocky valleys, communicated any of what was going on until the ambush-via-William-Blake. That means I can't call this a review, because I have no idea whether, if anyone not me or my girlfriend watches the film, the ghost of Derek Jarman will turn up and insert into your brain also the knowledge of what is going on, or whether it will be a set of shots of beautiful young men carrying heavy things through rocky valleys. Because it could have been all in our heads, or it could have been a fiendishly visually clever set of ways of communicating information, or some mixture of the two, and I am grateful to Derek Jarman's ghost for turning up but I don't know if he works full-time? I mean maybe the next time I watch this it will make no damn sense. It's very possible.
It's really pretty if you like saturated Super-8. So there's that.
Did get out to
sovay's the day before that and watch The Angelic Conversation, though; she has a spontaneously-generated copy, in that a friend, years before we knew who Jarman was, gave her what she thought was the soundtrack, and instead it turned out to be the film entire.The Angelic Conversation is Jarman going back to his roots in handheld video, specifically highly saturated Super-8. There was no synced sound and no budget for post-dubbing, so the audio is a combination of music (mostly by Coil, some Benjamin Britten), occasional sound effects, and Judi Dench reading from Shakespeare's sonnets. Now I desperately want an audiobook of Judi Dench reading all of Shakespeare's sonnets. Her readings are revelatory, the way she works with and against the meter, and the way she lets the inversions and rhymes chase each other without overwhelming the sense. It's a perfect balance between conversational speech and reading-aloud, because she's let her Received Pronunciation be tinted just enough with a more Renaissance approach to the vowels for the rhymes to work and not be overstressed, and never let anyone tell you reading poetry aloud is not an art in itself, because this is a great artistic achievement and one which awes me. I mean it makes me like the poems better. It's especially impressive because she's doing a mix of the less-famous ones (and they don't sound minor) and the more-famous ones (and they don't sound the way they did when you read them in school).
Anyway, so of course the sonnets are commentary (sometimes direct, sometimes allegorical, sometimes ironic) on the imagery, and this is where we get into the territory that means I insist this is not a review of The Angelic Conversation, because I have no idea how Derek Jarman did the things he does in this movie.
The experience of watching the film went something like this:
ME: That young man walking through the rocky declivity is an angel. Why do I know that? There has been absolutely nothing visual that ought to suggest it to me, but I am incredibly certain.
sovay: Oh, hey, those angels are working through invocations of each element in order.ME: I knew that. How did I know that? Why did that occur to me?
THE GHOST OF DEREK JARMAN, LURKING SOMEWHERE BEHIND THE TELEVISION: Look! These two angels are going to summon each other, because each of them, although completely happy with the jobs they've been doing in the sense that they're doing the jobs they've been created to do and are fulfilled in their existence by carrying the jobs out correctly, is nonetheless incredibly lonely and also the jobs are really hard, so each of them just wants somebody to love! Did you know angels could summon each other, in the classical Renaissance magical sense, and that it would make them fall desperately in love with one another? Doesn't it make sense now that you think about it?
ME (to
sovay): ... so, is the ghost of Derek Jarman psychically communicating to you that--sovay: YES.ME: It's a picture of a guy walking through some rocks! With smoke! In slow motion! In sepia! WHY DO I KNOW THESE THINGS ABOUT IT?!
THE GHOST OF DEREK JARMAN: Look! This guy, who is just sitting there chilling on a rock with a towel wrapped around his waist, is actually God! Aren't his tattoos hilariously ironic?
ME: -- yes, yes they are, WHY DO I KNOW HE IS GOD HE IS A DUDE WITH A TOWEL ON A ROCK
ANGELS (IN FILM): *adore him* *cause sudden beautiful visual allusion to William Blake's Albion*
SWORD THE PROTAGONIST OF THE NOVEL I AM WRITING CARRIES AROUND: *is suddenly sitting in God's lap for no apparent reason*
ME: BZUH NEED SCREENSHOTS TO HANG IN MY STUDY but hey at least we have visual proof now that we were not just hallucinating the things we deduced about this film earlier from no actual evidence
LAST TRUMP (IN FILM): *sounds*
ANGELS (IN FILM): Yay time off! *make out* *with more numinous* *no, more numinous than that even*
MY BRAIN: *breaks*
sovay's BRAIN: similar, I suspectTHE GHOST OF DEREK JARMAN: *serene smile*
So. That happened. I have no idea how this film, which consisted mostly of beautiful young men carrying heavy things through rocky valleys, communicated any of what was going on until the ambush-via-William-Blake. That means I can't call this a review, because I have no idea whether, if anyone not me or my girlfriend watches the film, the ghost of Derek Jarman will turn up and insert into your brain also the knowledge of what is going on, or whether it will be a set of shots of beautiful young men carrying heavy things through rocky valleys. Because it could have been all in our heads, or it could have been a fiendishly visually clever set of ways of communicating information, or some mixture of the two, and I am grateful to Derek Jarman's ghost for turning up but I don't know if he works full-time? I mean maybe the next time I watch this it will make no damn sense. It's very possible.
It's really pretty if you like saturated Super-8. So there's that.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-16 09:22 pm (UTC)This is awesome.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-16 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-17 12:07 am (UTC)And the experience sounds like a complete trip.
Meantime, can you two also spontaneously generate a DVD of The Wrong Box?
no subject
Date: 2012-03-17 01:37 am (UTC)And can I have one?
Nine
no subject
Date: 2012-03-17 07:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-16 10:10 pm (UTC)Nine
no subject
Date: 2012-03-17 06:29 am (UTC)The BFI thinks so, even if I think they're silly about the interpretation.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-17 07:05 am (UTC)I will forgive the reviewer some of her issues on account of how you have to read Jarman writing about 'The Art of Mirrors' to know that that one shot of a mirror is always, in his work, about angel-summoning. It is fair for a person not to be able to pluck that out of thin air. I will not forgive her for having seen 'The Art of Mirrors' and still having some of those other issues.
... she was right about the Powell and Pressburger, though, and I hadn't consciously thought it, so. That's one thing.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-17 09:03 pm (UTC)The BFI are the same people who are responsible for the stupidest article about H.D. and Bryher ever. There are things they are not good at.
... she was right about the Powell and Pressburger, though, and I hadn't consciously thought it, so. That's one thing.
Yes. Especially, actually, A Canterbury Tale. ("I'll believe that when I see a halo round my head.")
I will get you a screencap of Yetzirah's sword.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-17 06:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-17 07:07 am (UTC)I love you.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-17 11:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-17 12:08 pm (UTC)Surly_monkey and I are listening to the opening act of the Aimee Mann concert, and after song #2 I joke "they're a secret Christian band." More seriously after songs 3 & 4. No really. They're a secret Christian band. Listen! I mean it. No I'm not nuts. By the end of the set we're in agreement without actual confirmation. Subsequent Googling discloses they're a band of Christians who've taken pains not to cast themselves as a Christian band.
We remain very curious how they and Aimee Mann got on the same circuit. It was a peculiar mix.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-18 03:31 am (UTC)And no, it's not just you (two). And yes, he totally meant it to be that way.