Category Archives: Independent Film

Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair: Short Film by Guy Maddin

by Cimaxion

Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin made this short in 2009 with Isabella Rossellini in the lead role of a woman who finds ecstasy in an electric chair. The film moves beautifully with its music and entertains with its silent film mystery and accelerated movement. However, I will say that Maddin’s films seem to me overly concerned with silent film technique. This tends to turn the films into curiosities rather than genuine works of art. That’s a tricky area because the films put so much virtuosity on display. But you can hide enormous failures behind that ‘old film look.’ I’m not sure that’s what Maddin is doing, but my suspicions are growing. Maddin might be interested at some point in working with less budget.

Thank you to filmmaker Fred. L’Epée.

 

Beauty and Love Are Another Song – Song About the Youth Uprising in England

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Michel Montecrossa’s latest video examines the desperation behind the rioting in Great Britain. His direct and heartfelt approach works to cut through all the recent bullshit about the rioters being simple thugs with nothing more on their minds than robbery and destruction. Riots are open wounds that erupt after enormous damage has already been done to a population. The seething pressure is always there for a long time before exploding in everyone’s faces. By definition, riots involve damage and robbery. What else would there be to do at a riot? Riots are anger and desperate hopelessness that cannot be controlled. Yes, of course one must punish people who burn down buildings. But one must also have the intellect and social responsibility to seriously look at why children and adults would feel so awful that the only thing they can think of doing is burning down a city. That is serious rebellion and it is going to spread. The world is under incredible economic pressure and the people who suffer understand that governments tied to extreme wealth and corporate interests are responsible. Populations are going off like bombs. The uprisings in the Middle East are directly connected to the uprisings London because both groups of people have become aware that the same corporations control what happens in both places. The dictators and authoritarian regimes in the Middle East are kept there because they provide certain corporations with efficiency in the region. Assad is exterminating people in Syria because it is convenient for Western companies and politicians that he do so. The Western governments have wanted globalization and now they’ve got it. Globalization of uprisings and riots. One must remember that the riots in Great Britain were started by a policeman who killed a young man. A policeman who chose, just like the policemen in Syria, to point his gun and fire a bullet into the body of a human being. A violent reaction to such an act should be expected in most cases.

Michelmontecrossa.com

The Incredible Remix Films of Cosmotropia de Xam

by Cimaxion

ADULT CONTENT – NUDITY

When I look for films on the web I always hate it when I find well-produced films on sites like Vimeo that are made by filmmakers who treat their films as business cards leading to bigger things. When I make a film I make it for that little box on the white web page. I work like madman on those films and play them on the web because that is why they are made. This filmmaker submitted work this week to my Vimeo short films group and I was stunned by it.

The filmmaker, Cosmotropia de Xam, makes these beautiful haunting films for a European band called Mater Suspiria Vision. The films have a deep involvement with cinema and exist for themselves. They include transformed shots from 70s horror and exploitation films, but they are reborn in a totally unique and individual art form that stands on its own. Gorgeous. Captivating. This filmmaker is well aware of the great underground work in film going back fifty years. These films have depth and illusion. They seek the magic and the demons. Really fine work.

Many more films by Cosmotropia de Xam can be seen on Vimeo.

Los Angeles Plays Itself: Documentary Through the Eyes of Fiction

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

This astounding 2003 documentary by Thom Andersen takes what I am certain is the most thorough look ever at how films, both popular and obscure, have depicted the city of Los Angeles. Through the accumulation and precise organizing of clips, Andersen actually describes the essential heart of Los Angeles better than anyone I have seen before. Unfortunately, the film has never been released due to rights issues with some of the clips in the film. I can’t imaging what those issues might be since this all looks like fair use for a documentary to me. This is quite obviously a journalistic essay and he has every right to use the clips in short portions.

The film’s narration has a sort of dry weariness that tends to fit the general tendency toward crime or noirish films and their views of the city. His description of the brutal destruction of Bunker Hill is a masterpiece of documentary filmmaking, illustrating the horror of a corporate dead zone built on top of a once vibrant and colorful community that served as inspiration to many down-at-the-heel artists like John Fante, the great Los Angeles novelist who wrote ‘Ask the Dust.’

Andersen moves through a dizzying array of films including, Point Blank, Zabriskie Point, Double Indemnity, The Outsider, The Exiles, Kiss Me Deadly, Chinatown, The Omega Man, Blade Runner, Heat, Rebel Without a Cause, and many many more. It’s a tour with attitude through Hollywood’s fascination with Los Angeles. It’s also a look at how wrong many depictions of the city have been – how twisted, altered, faked and misrepresented L.A. has been. The film is a lifelong Los Angeles resident who knows what’s missing in the superficial portraits of the city and gets mad about it. But in general, Andersen’s film gradually and unremittingly builds a detailed portrait of the city like no other portrait ever attempted. He reserves some snide comments for a director that I have always considered to be one of the best at portraying L.A., Michael Mann. Andersen’s comments about the characters of ‘Heat’ who live in the hills overlooking the flats of L.A. are accurate but somewhat literal. Here’s an article that Andersen later wrote about Mann’s film ‘Collateral’ which was apparently an improvement on the city’s portrayal.

But Andersen’s irritation with fakery and distortion are what make this film work. He insists on showing the false, exposing it for what it is, and then showing us a contradictory viewpoint. One of the kickers in this magnificent film is when Andersen makes a very obvious and clear note of Steve Martin’s racist perspective on Los Angeles in ‘L.A. Story,’ where any non-white character must work in a restaurant. Frankly, I’m so tired of hearing about how brilliant the idiotic and dull Martin is that I vote for this film on that basis alone! He has scathing remarks for writers like Joan Didion who wrote about car culture, maintaining that nobody walked in L.A., but really meant to say that no rich white people walked in L.A. Meanwhile, the city has always had a huge and fully utilized mass transit system.

A further thought that comes to me while watching this film is that over the past 100 years, racism in the U.S. has in fact been led and encouraged by Hollywood. The mass majority of its product over the decades has portrayed non-whites in demeaning fashion. The treatment of black characters throughout the Hollywood studio heyday is an embarrassment to the nation. All you need to know about Hollywood is on view in any Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn romantic comedy. Just watch the way they treat their household employees. Casual and appalling.

I found this film while working on my own Los Angeles film that looks at the city through the prism of the imagination as conditioned by films. But my film looks at this distortion as actually being the real heart and living soul of the city. What makes Los Angeles the greatest American city is precisely its hidden history, its distorted images, and its ability to exist in different forms entirely within the imaginations of people who think they live there. There are vast numbers of people who live and work in Los Angeles who have never actually seen Los Angeles. When you summon the false gods and demons of L.A. they actually appear.

Part 2:

Parts 3 – 12 after the jump…

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