We can agree that the film industry is going through a bit of a nostalgic phase right now, with films like THE ARTIST and HUGO at the forefront of awards season and documentaries like THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY nabbing an "epic" amount of screentime (15 hours!) at the MoMA.
These films do not simply idealize the past; they attempt to show how a consciousness of film's history can strengthen an appreciation for cinema's present and future, too. But with the frustration many cinephiles (including myself) have with the current environment of mainstream film (CANDYLAND THE MOVIE! BATTLESHIP!), are these types of generalized, linear narrative, period films sufficient to rekindle the magic of film in the present?
I find that the most dynamic way to share film's power is by mixing genres and contexts, shaking up the audience's understanding of image and sound in any way (hence my own use of experimentation in my short documentary, VINTAGE REVENGE). The timelessness of film can be shared through daring clashes of eras and aesthetics; both challenging and inspiring, these clashes spark innovation while maintaining reverence for the past.
French electronic duo Air recently scored a restored version of the iconic film, Le voyage dans la Lune (1902) by George Melies, one of the fathers of cinema. The 30-minute Air album is due out on February 6th, extended from the 15-minute runtime of the film. The album will be streaming free on NPR next week.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Le voyage, it is a technical triumph from the early days of cinema about a space journey to the moon, a fantasy where the moon is a face with monsters dwelling in its caves (imagine: a sci-fi movie before CGI!).
One of the spectacular parts of the restoration, which debuted at Cannes last year, is that the color has been completely restored. Yes, Melies had each frame hand-colored in the original version in wildly saturated pigments. Talk about magic...
This restoration of Le voyage is part of a trend in cinema to look back at early technology and breathe in new life; by using a contemporary, electronic score, the film is given an opportunity to stretch in ways never thought before, placing the audience in a time-warp that's both thrilling and off-putting.
There are some other great examples of this; La cinematheque francaise in Paris recently hosted a series on Fritz Lang featuring an event called "Cine-Mix", where electronic music artist Jeff Mills scored La Femme sur la Lune (Lang, 1928). Mills has also written scores for METROPOLIS and other silent films. I've also had the strange pleasure of seeing a version of Sergei Eisenstein's BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925) with a score by the Pet Shop Boys. Funky...
We can also see new life in restored silent films through the aid of well-known producer and director Serge Bromberg. I was able to see his series on 3-D films from the early 1900s at Telluride Film Festival in 2009; what an amazing collection. The audience was able to experience 3-D film from the period not because cinema at the time was drawing in audiences with the spectacle; instead, films were shot stereoscopically in order to prevent copyright infringement from Europe to the US, circulating different versions of films. Of course, when you project the two prints in a theater and wear glasses, the films have that surreal tangibility of 3-D. Incroyable!
With cinephiles like Bromberg constantly uncovering magic in cinema's past, film needs not only idealize its past by creating period pieces. In order to protect its future, it needs to mine its own history to preserve its foundation and challenge itself as an artform of spectacle, fantasy, and escape. So let's turn on some Tycho, get the projector whirring Marcel Duchamp's Anemic Cinema, and jump through a time wormhole.
These films do not simply idealize the past; they attempt to show how a consciousness of film's history can strengthen an appreciation for cinema's present and future, too. But with the frustration many cinephiles (including myself) have with the current environment of mainstream film (CANDYLAND THE MOVIE! BATTLESHIP!), are these types of generalized, linear narrative, period films sufficient to rekindle the magic of film in the present?
I find that the most dynamic way to share film's power is by mixing genres and contexts, shaking up the audience's understanding of image and sound in any way (hence my own use of experimentation in my short documentary, VINTAGE REVENGE). The timelessness of film can be shared through daring clashes of eras and aesthetics; both challenging and inspiring, these clashes spark innovation while maintaining reverence for the past.
French electronic duo Air recently scored a restored version of the iconic film, Le voyage dans la Lune (1902) by George Melies, one of the fathers of cinema. The 30-minute Air album is due out on February 6th, extended from the 15-minute runtime of the film. The album will be streaming free on NPR next week.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Le voyage, it is a technical triumph from the early days of cinema about a space journey to the moon, a fantasy where the moon is a face with monsters dwelling in its caves (imagine: a sci-fi movie before CGI!).
One of the spectacular parts of the restoration, which debuted at Cannes last year, is that the color has been completely restored. Yes, Melies had each frame hand-colored in the original version in wildly saturated pigments. Talk about magic...
This restoration of Le voyage is part of a trend in cinema to look back at early technology and breathe in new life; by using a contemporary, electronic score, the film is given an opportunity to stretch in ways never thought before, placing the audience in a time-warp that's both thrilling and off-putting.
There are some other great examples of this; La cinematheque francaise in Paris recently hosted a series on Fritz Lang featuring an event called "Cine-Mix", where electronic music artist Jeff Mills scored La Femme sur la Lune (Lang, 1928). Mills has also written scores for METROPOLIS and other silent films. I've also had the strange pleasure of seeing a version of Sergei Eisenstein's BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925) with a score by the Pet Shop Boys. Funky...
We can also see new life in restored silent films through the aid of well-known producer and director Serge Bromberg. I was able to see his series on 3-D films from the early 1900s at Telluride Film Festival in 2009; what an amazing collection. The audience was able to experience 3-D film from the period not because cinema at the time was drawing in audiences with the spectacle; instead, films were shot stereoscopically in order to prevent copyright infringement from Europe to the US, circulating different versions of films. Of course, when you project the two prints in a theater and wear glasses, the films have that surreal tangibility of 3-D. Incroyable!
With cinephiles like Bromberg constantly uncovering magic in cinema's past, film needs not only idealize its past by creating period pieces. In order to protect its future, it needs to mine its own history to preserve its foundation and challenge itself as an artform of spectacle, fantasy, and escape. So let's turn on some Tycho, get the projector whirring Marcel Duchamp's Anemic Cinema, and jump through a time wormhole.
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