(Source: lovequotesrus)
(Source: lovequotesrus)
Kieth Harring’s exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum was an unexpected pleasure. I was impressed that he read critical theory and very much enjoyed seeing how he put it to use in his art. He saw language as something that could still be played with, especially when paired with images.
One lovely thing about not speaking French and loving French Cinema is that I get to see the words physically paired with the frames. It sounds strange, but it’s pleasurable. Like in La Belle Personne when she enters the diner from the rain and ”Elle était si jolie” plays as everyone in the diner exchanges glances.
I don’t know, just a thought.
(Source: chiemiyajima)
La Belle Personne is a great movie to watch on a cloudy day when the outlook on life already seems bleak. Its a cold, underrated film. Although it features many archetypes of cinema narrative, there is no happy ending or pleasurable conclusion. I like that the film juxtaposes practical and impractical love, and the toll it takes on not only other’s opinions of us, but our course of action. I hope the class enjoyed the screening.
(Source: wondersickness)
Comme La Pluie - La Belle Personne
(Source: witch-of-pittenweem)
“We look each other in the eyes; but what for?”
-Breathless, Jean Luc Goddard 1960
Paris Je T’aime, New York I Love You.
World Cities obtain their own grand narrative through culture. That is why I find films like Paris, Je T’aime and New York, I Love You so interesting to watch. They work to address the grand narrative while also presenting the meta-narratives of cultural identity. As a New Yorker, it’s easy to identify with New York, I Love You, it lends narrative to the lives that surround my every day. Even Paris Je t’aime lends itself to my identification because Paris as a city is so characterized by the world. This idea is explored through Steve Buscemi and the woman from Denver’s short stories. Everyone has an idea about a particular place, but what happens when the fiction of our imagination meets up with the sensory real?
I also appreciate, as Grace noted, that Paris Je’taime does not attempt to tie everything together. They are separate stories, told by different film makers that combine only in their attempt to tell the story of Paris. New York I Love You on the other hand, tries a little too hard to keep the narrative connected, thus the viewer is caught watching pans of the various boroughs and trying to sort out how everything is connected, rather than appreciating the fact that the geography is the connection.
(Source: serialstranger)
This will always be my favorite story in Paris Je’Taime.
(and not just because Natalie Portman is in it).
(Source: jeymijey)
“Sometimes we have to avoid thinking about the problems life presents. Otherwise we’d suffocate.”
-Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)
