Author Archives: Cimaxion

Western Italian Style: 1968 Spaghetti Western Documentary

by Cimaxion

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This is a 1968 television documentary about the Italian film phenomenon known as the Spaghetti Western. These bold, violent, colorful movies took a dark and sometimes comic look at the western genre. In many cases, I think these films surpassed the American westerns they emulated by playing more loosely with the violence and morality that often made for a kind of stiffness in the American films. If you aren’t familiar with the full scope of the Spaghetti Western, it’s really amazing how many full length versions are available on YouTube.

 

 

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Cosmic Voyage: 1936 Soviet Science Fiction Film About a Moon Landing

by Cimaxion

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This is an absolutely fascinating and rather beautiful 1936 Soviet science fiction film that foretold how a future 1946 moon mission would work. It’s got incredible zero gravity effects, miniature models of a fantastic space ship on a launch ramp, and very cool technical details like filling the cockpit with fluid to buffer the cosmonauts from launch forces. Then there’s a marvelous sequence on the surface of the moon with excellent stop motion animation inter-cut with live actors. Apparently, the Soviet censors banned the film after a short but successful first run because they felt the cosmonauts were having too much fun on the moon. They were right. These characters go hopping and bounding about with so much joy it’s almost an embarrassment. Citizens of the Soviet Union were not supposed to be happy.

Don’t worry about understanding Russian. The film was shot as a silent and is more or less a completely visual experience.

It was directed by Vasili Zhuravlov, but what’s really most interesting about the production history is that Constantin Tsiolkovski, a Soviet scientist and professor, became enthusiastic about putting some of his theories on space travel into a film. He consulted with the filmmakers in an attempt to lend verisimilitude to the moon voyage. Many years later, Werner von Braun credited Tsiolkovski’s calculations as having been correct.

So here is a old Soviet film that went to great lengths to get many of its details right.



Here is an interesting article about the film.

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Tarot: World Card From 1400s Italian Visconti Deck

by Cimaxion

The Italian Visconti-Sforza Tarot deck dates from around 1450. There are several incomplete decks scattered around the world in various museums and private collections. A few of the cards are permanently missing. Apparently, the Tower and Devil cards are among those that got modern replacements to complete printings of this beautiful deck.

Recently, there have been highly successful reconstructions of various Tarot decks. One of the most well-known is the result of several years of work by the filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and Philippe Camoin who worked on their version of the famous Marseille Tarot deck in the 1990s. Jodorowsky's research and writing about the meanings contained in the that deck are fascinating essential reading for anyone interested in Tarot. He leans toward using the Tarot for self-knowledge and healing. His writing is inspiring. If you want to read what is probably the best book on Tarot, go get 'The Way of Tarot – The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards' by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Marianne Costa.

However, the actual cards produced by Jodorowsky have a hard-edged, overly precise clarity to them. Everything is edged in black line. The colors are flat and super saturated. It's too clean and modern looking. It misses an essential ingredient in any great Tarot deck: imprecision. My mystical mind prefers some mess. A little blur always makes a symbol more powerful. Clarity brings Tarot too close to the realm of text. The images should be shrouded, revealing multiple meanings only to close and slightly irrational observation. There are other Marseille decks that avoid this fatal flaw. The Visconti deck appears to have the chaos that I require in spades!

 

The Magnificent and Mysterious Animations of Myrrha Jamil

by Cimaxion

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The beautiful animations of Myrrha Jamil evoke dreamscapes of ever-shifting fairytale realities in which people and animals come from the earth, briefly drift, and return to nature like wisps. The drawings are done with chalk, watercolor and oil paints. She sometimes photographs her films with a vertical frame, making her little magical world seem barely glimpsed through a keyhole. There’s a mystical quality to these films. They are like messages from the fairy world.

This is work in the creative realm of filmmakers like Yuri Norstein, where the vague impressions and delicate renderings of nature and the subconscious are paramount. Myrrha Jamil is a profoundly talented and obviously brilliant filmmaker.

The Little Ones Who Grow in the Rain from Myrrha Jamil on Vimeo.

A Lullaby from Myrrha Jamil on Vimeo.

Egretta from Myrrha Jamil on Vimeo.

Chalk Boat from Myrrha Jamil on Vimeo.

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The Charles Bukowski Tapes by Barbet Schroeder

by Cimaxion

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During the lengthy production of the film ‘Barfly,’ director Barbet Schroeder conducted a series of short interviews with the poet Charles Bukowski. This is the complete set of those interviews and comes in at nearly four hours. Observe Bukowski and see what you think of his style. He was an incredibly sensitive soul trying to be a boxer. He was also one of those people who when they speak you just can’t wait to hear what they might say next. A real page-turner of a person.

If you want to read a fascinating book about the time of making Barfly, read Bukowski’s novel, ‘Hollywood.’ He changes the names of all the people involved, but you can easily figure out who they are. It is the best book about making a movie I have ever read in my entire life – without exception.