John Cook at AFA

Early last month, Anthology Film Archives presented an almost-retrospective (3 of 4 feature films) of Canadian-Austrian filmmaker John Cook, active throughout the 1970s in his adopted home of Vienna. It is the type of programming AFA excels in- a spirited retrieval of a minor yet dynamic artist, a vital contribution to a cinephilic education in an age of haphazard digital proliferation. Although Cook’s oeuvre presented here did indeed strike me as minor, he apparently has become posthumously (Cook died in 2001) revered in Austria. This may have as much to do with the miniscule national film industry as it does with the nature of the films themselves. Olaf Moller tackles the question here-http://www.cinema-scope.com/cs27/feat_moller_cook.html- the best English language writing on Cook I’ve found on the web. The 3 prints screened by AFA were on loan from the Austrian Film Museum, and were preceded by introductions from the American distributor of new dvd releases.
Despite its brevity, Cook’s retrospective satisfied, displaying creative variation and rapid artistic development. The quantum leaps in technique and effect between the three films (all produced in a six year time-span) suggest a thoughtful, independent artist searching for a style in a new medium (Cook came to Europe as a professional photographer.) One can speculate on the periods of reflection and correction in the interims. Development of the auteur’s process aside, the retrospective offered many attractions: the vivid capturing of Vienna in the 70s, an inside look at its working class and bohemian milieus, and even a portrait of Cook himself, who acts in Slow Summer. Cook’s work is close to experience, if not outright autobiographical, and situated in the present. In all three works, a tension emerges between Cook’s nouvelle vague-influenced casual impulsiveness, and the langourous drag of small budgets, cinematic inexperience, and authorial persona. Only the last work, Clinch, seems worthy of occupying any place in the Austrian film canon, although the other pieces are not mere expat diletantism. If not quite sparkling, they are the products of a grown man and mature artist with an admirable bent towards exploration inward, and outward towards his new, adopted country.
The earliest work, 1973’s I Just Can’t Go On, is a documentary-like look at the small but bustling life of Cook’s building janitor. A frumpy but good-natured mother of three, she is inexplicably married to a young, aimless gypsy, a would-be prize fighter stuck in a working-class rut. They make an odd couple, an obvious fact that Cook downplays. Instead the film is a microsociology of working-class life, specifically its small limitations, disappointments, and diversions. Although the portrait’s protagonist mutters “I just can’t go on” in the last reel, its clear that she can, and does, but devoid of any real hopes or expectations for a better future. Between work hours she plays cards with her family, accompanies her husband to outdoor fights, and keeps her household in order. There is a tenderness between the couple, even after she realizes that his boxing career is a pipe dream- he is pummelled in his first and only fight, and must find gainful employment to avoid imprisonment on a youthful criminal conviction. Cook records both work and play with a handheld camera and natural lighting; anything but such a verite approach would be off-key. Audio and image are mostly unsynced, and at times completely autonomous, the former extended monologues by husband and (mainly) wife, the images roughly stitched together of their daily activities. The boxing montages are roughly lyrical, despite the crude technique. Essentially a home movie, a dry run of method, it is a precursor to the better and more professionally accomplished look at working-class ennui in Clinch. However, its roughly hewn vitality and the odd charisma of its subjects generate a melancholic charm.
Slow Summer, coming three years later, begins with a metanarrative trope- Cook visits a friend to review footage from a previous summer. Their commentary recedes to allow a conventional, if indeed molasses slow, narrative about Cook (or a Cook-like character played by the director, to be precise) and a clique of friends to unfold. None of these petty-bourgeois bohemians is particularly likable, but Cook, pining and stewing over a break-up (he is trying to make “the Ilse movie” in her honor) comes off the worst. Self-deprecation notwithstanding, he’s a manipulative jerk without much screen charisma. As director, however, Cook demonstrates a rapid development from his previous work. Although still shooting on grainy black-and-white, his montage is confident, dialogue and continuity well executed. The dive into cinema evident in I Just Can’t Go On’s rough form enters the narrative here as a conceptual concern, albeit with a framing device that doesn’t quite deliver what it suggests. A bigger problem is the dull characters; their little romances and endeavors fail to draw much more then a shrug from them or us. There’s not enough charm in its drowsy rhythms for Slow Summer to rise above much more than a modest snapshot. The moments that remain are not the characters or their obscure motivations, but interesting asides amongst the talking, driving, drinking- a rude cabbie, naked children on scooters, a discussion of Lou Reed’s Transformer album.
Finally there was Clinch, based on a novel by Helmut Zenker, and announcing its break from the previous features immediately with its bright color compositions. In the first sequence a fantastically repulsive gang of park landscapers, who break up their day with drinking and whoring, try to compel a middle-aged woman to show her parts. Protagonist Hermann dourly navigates the depravity of his peers, but silently seethes over his life conditions. With a sullen child’s demeanor and the habits of a sailor, Hermann’s hapless charm emerges only slowly. Incapable of commitment, he disappoints his loving girlfriend, is estranged from the conservative family with whom he still lives, and eventually walks off his miserable job, falling into a crisis that concludes with imprisonment for beating up his brother, an intolerable aspiring yuppie. Whats with Hermann? Perhaps a close literary likeness is Berlin Alexanderplatz’s Franz Biberkopf, the marginalized laborer on the razors edge of lumpenproletariat, led by overwhelming external powers, “like an animal to slaughter,” to a terrible end. In short, he suffers acutely from an alienation unique to prosperous and comfortable societies (represented by his family passively gathered around the television), as well as a real exploitation in his role of unskilled laborer. Although his facade is inscrutable, Hermann’s slow persistence upon returning to the world is evidence of a well-spring of resilient inner resistance. Clinch surprises in its sophisticated maintenance of dread in the midst of which Hermann scores a series of believable lucky breaks: a decent job with loyal coworkers, the return of his girlfriend, now with child. The film abruptly ends as the last and only wedding guest departs, leaving Hermann staring headlong into a future, although vastly improved, still limited by the melancholic horizons of working class stability. Developing from I Just Can’t Go On, Cook lets this final work live and breathe with the daily concerns of working-class life: discussions of work routines, patient sequences of Hermann and the truck he drives, minor flarings of workplace disputes. An obvious debt here to both Italian neo-realism as well as the post-68 cinematic return of the declasse from the likes of Tanner, Godard, Fassbinder, and others. If this was to be the culmination of Cook’s career (or at least this retrospective), it is a principled and solid finish.

-Ben Webster

Upcoming Films

International House

Wednesday Jan. 26 at 6:30pm Viridiana and The Phantom of Liberty by Luis Bunuel - Free double feature screening incorporation with ICA's Set Pieces Exhibition

Thursday Jan. 27 at 7:00pm The Oldest Profession by Franco Indoyvina, Mauro Bolognini, Philippe de Broca, Michael Pfleghar, Claude Autant-Lara, and Jean-Luc Godard - Screening of this rare French omnibus film from the 1960s. Most notable for Godard's short, which is the last film he made with Anna Karina.

Opening at the Ritz (January 28th)
Another Year by Mike Leigh
Bhutto by Duane Baughman and Johnny O'Hara

Film Comment You Have to be Kidding

I received the Jan/Feb 2011 issue of Film Comment in the mail this week and discovered that they have decided to put a picture of Reese Witherspoon from James L. Brooks' film How Do You Know on the cover. No, this is not a joke, but Film Comment has now decided that they are willing to completely compromise their integrity as long as they sell a few more issue. They actually put Reese Witherspoon on the cover; this, I have to say, is unforgivable. I can make an exception for Inception because at least there is something to talk about and Christopher Nolan has made interesting films the past, but James L. Brooks? Reese Witherspoon? How Do You Know? A completely uninspired romantic comedy with almost no artistic or cinematic merit! This is almost reason enough to cancel my subscription and include a letter of utter shock and disappointment. Do they really think the audience they appeal to gives a shit whether or not Reese Witherspoon is on the cover? How many more issues are they going to sell with this? Not many, I suspect because as soon as someone picks up this issue and looks inside, they will most likel lose interest anyway. Film Comment is supposedly the premier film magazine in the United States, which purports to offer insightful and in depth commentary on both contemporary and classic cinema and yet still, they feel the need to appeal to the masses. Why? I really cannot fathom this choice. Either they think this will sell a lot more issues or, which may be even worse I'm not sure, they legitimately believe How Do You Know is an important piece of cinema worthy of not only the cover of an issue, but also a full spread and interview with the director. Either way, this is a fucking disgrace!

THE OSCARS: COMPLACENCY EQUALS VIOLENCE

Stay down mother fucker! The nominations for the awards show that even the mainstream critics criticize have been announced. Expect a more theoretically charged analysis of the Oscars and awards shows in general in issue 2 of SW.

I just want to announce the surprises. It is a good to see Winter's Bone even get nominated, when the mainstream said it wasn't going to and 4 times (Best film, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay). I personally was not a fan of the film, but it represents somewhat of underground spirit with how it was made (a bunch of documentarians got together and "just made a movie" in a lot of ways) and its dark subject matter (its a modern gritty film noir that takes place in the Ozarks and/or 'real America'). Still, where was the best director nod? The director, Debra Granik, surely deserved it over Tom Hooper whose King's Speech had nothing going on, Darren Arononfsky who made his worst to date, and David O Russell whose The Fighter film ends with showing us its aim of acquiring Oscars. Or is that Bigelow won, so now get a break from female director nominations for a few?

Then with the foreign category we did not see Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives or White Material. Not sure if those films were not the ones submitted, but the former at least represents one of the best films made in years.

Expect more hate come issue 2!

BLACK SWAN AS CINEMATIC POVERTY

I apologized to humanity for this film already. Now I will destroy it on a theoretical level never seen. Here we go, this film can be debased on several levels. First, it attorns the stylings of Cronenberg, Polanski and Powell & Pressburger. One sees The Fly, Repulsion and The Red Shoes so thoroughly throughout we are then forced to confront what elements Aronofsky posits: lack of an authorial input, a confused female empowerment, simple symbology that yields little impact, and a lack of a cinematographic plan. Such, as I will prove, leads to a film that works on absolutely no levels. I only could laugh at its cinematic poverty and hope for revenge with Aronofsky being sentenced in a needed future cinema court that will work along the lines of Cinematic Justice to give him only a life hard labor with no hope of parole, which the pain he will go through sums up what I felt watching his film.

Aronofsky openly borrowed from films and filmmakers. Art is formed out of other art. Yet, what he formed was too referential, too unimaginative, and probably due to lack of vision. There is no greater purpose to what he was trying to author. He just seemed to be making a pretentious film. Take the whole story for example, it is based on a two sentence description of a common and non-challenging ballet. It is ballet nonetheless to Aronofsky, so that counts as histrionics to him. He then uses his ballet film to explore the lives of ballerinas in some scenes, but this is unnecessary. He wants to create The Sporting Life at times just to say he did his ethnographic work, but the film is not trying to be about ballet. Aronofsky sets his sights on larger themes, so why do we care of the main character's feet bleed? Strike one of many for Aronosfky.

Then there is this obnoxious female empowerment, a Halloween-style patriarchal fascism of the virginal female battling her sexuality to ultimately gain sin and death. Is Aronofsky even in the 21^st century? The conversation intellectually is now about ontology (Judith Butler, the Trans community's battles) and sexual positivity (the Third Wave's immense logic and that influence). The mythos that Aronofsky could of eluded to in Black Swan barely delves into the horror of female submission that has existed since the first class antagonism of man over women when Homo sapiens left tribal society. Something that Catherine Breillat's films do and with such intelligence, but where is her award show nominations and Hollywood financing? His analysis barely moves beyond that of teenager, that wonders why boys can explore and girls cannot, but cannot grasp the larger picture. Can women expect to gain strength from such a film?

With Aronosfky's symbology, he makes the good and virginal main character wear white the whole film and gives the evil one a tattoo and makes her wear black. She smokes cigarettes, does drugs and engages in promiscuous sex. She is a sitcom character put into a film that fashions itself as high art. The virgin battles this character, engages in an unneeded lesbian scene, then starts to take on her attributes. Rebelling against her authoritarian mother and coming into her own. With film, simple symbols can give one measurable result, as with the color schemes in a film like Godard's Weekend or the simple, but profound resonance of images in the films of Robert Bresson. We do not have this with Black Swan due to cinematographic issues, as I state later, but also due to the inane nature of what he expounds. Then, with his surrealist moments, Aronosfky uses the template of good battling the evil within and the fact there were swans in Swan Lake. We have Portman seeing her face on people in the street and in other main characters, but this device becomes stale quick because it's too obvious and founded on themes that cannot carry weight. And we are just uncertain of why she is battling herself. Then there is Portman turning into a black swan. The Cronenberg influenced transformation metaphor lacks Cronenberg's intellectual poeticism. It seems due to the lack of purpose for this film to exist, is Aronosfky's got is a budget to do a bit of FX and there are swans in the ballet he was supposedly inspired by, so that is why he does them.

Then the camera work leaves little to be desired. Aronosfky's admixture of cinema verite with more formalistic shots believes it is adding heightened emotion and realism to the real and surreal. Aronosfky in this film is mixing what he did in The Wrestler and The Fountain. The combination of both though was not calculated enough. Just to do a through experiment, the usage of handheld with non-handheld in Lar Von Trier's Antichrist, just to note is a film that dealt with similar themes to Black Swan, was a part of that film's system. The system of Black Swan is a cluster of images that are sometimes handheld and sometimes not, with no differentiation, which means there is not the magnification of what little Aronosfky has or could say. He has to also think his cinema verite leads to emotion or realism, so when he shoots that way sometimes, he probably then justifies it to himself later. 

VERDICT: TOTAL SHIT. This is a film that has surrealism and realism, pretension, muddled feminism, influence from great filmmakers and films. This film, dealing with areas that would be SW approved, as a whole is too simple and too unaware of its pretension that we are given a crucial film. We should of come to expect this from studying Aronosfky previous work, that he doesn't have much to say, but he tries to say it in stylized (Pi, Requiem For A Dream), gimmick (Pi), psuedo-political (The Wrestler, Black Swan) and pseudo-intellectual (The Fountain, Pi, Black Swan) ways that fool the audience.