These points also describe the best science fiction, to my mind. Replace "magical elements" with "phenomena that we cannot yet explain" such as interstellar travel or contact with alien species, and you'll see the resemblance. And these phenomena are usually left unexplained. And it's easy to see social criticism in any Star Trek or Twilight Zone episode. Roddenberry and Serling considered their shows mainly as platforms for showing the follies of our society.
Below is copied from (where you can read more about it) https://kegglers.com/blog/yoni-and-lingam/ The word yoni comes from the Sanskrit word which means source, abode, womb, vagina, or vulva. In Hinduism, it symbolizes the Hindu goddess Shakti, a feminine generative power and the consort of Shiva. She is the mother goddess, a personification of sacred femininity that represents power, strength, energy, and force. The term “lingam” or “linga” comes from the Sanskrit word which translates to sign, distinguishing symbol, evidence, and proof. In Hinduism, the lingam is a symbol of the god Shiva. It is a symbol of male creative energy, often stylized and representing the cosmic pillar which emanates its energy to the universe. The lingam is often depicted as combined with the yoni and revered as an emblem of generative power.
Power House Mechanic (1920) photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine Here's what the Brooklyn Museum says about it: The clean muscularity and precise industrial order presented by Lewis Hine in Power House Mechanic demonstrates the photographer’s shift, in 1919, from a gritty documentary style to what he called “interpretive photography”—an approach intended to raise the stature of industrial workers, who were increasingly diminished by the massive machinery they operated. To me, it seems the man in the photo is more powerful than the machine. What do you think this photograph is saying about man and machine?
“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. ” ― Archimedes
To me it looks like he's conforming to the shape of it. In the next one I expect him to have picked up his feet and curled into a fetal position inside the circle. It seems to say that we've made these massive machines and now we, or some of us anyway, must serve them. Like Moloch in Metropolis, which famously had a scene based on this image, that was later imitated in a Madonna video. This part was left out of that scene, and this is what makes it obviously based on that picture:
I see what you're saying about the photo. Serve the machine - serve capitalism. Very powerful film clips. Definitely art - a part of the German Expressionism that emerged in Germany in the 1920s. Metropolis is an example of the intersection of art and politics. I have just been reading about the film. In time, director Fritz Lang repudiated the film as it became associated with Nazi ideology. He did not intend it as a piece of Nazi propaganda, but the Nazi establishment loved it, and offered him a job. He escaped Germany the very next day. Ninety Years on, Fritz Lang's Dystopic 'Metropolis' Still Has the Power to Unnerve
I saw Metropolis when I was in graduate school, thanks to a roommate who invited me along to her classic films course for the the showing. It was remarkable. I bought a copy years ago to share the dance sequence with my dance students and was surprised all over again by the film.
Brigitte Helm, the actress who played Maria as both a woman and a robot, was the premiere expressionist actor in the world. She made all the others look like hacks (which many of them were). The most remarkable physical acting I've seen by her was in a French film called L'Argent (Silver):
And while we're on expressive dance and expressionist acting, here's a modern take on Metropolis featuring one of the dancers from AyaBambi, a pair of Japanese dancers who accompanied Madonna on her Vogue tour. Weird, so many Madonna connections all of a sudden! And all through Metropolis. Strange synchronicities. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Mx41167av/?uid=4256314D7834313136376176 (can't get that one to embed) The good part begins @ about 1:15. She's combining Brigitte Helm's Metropolis dance with the type of Voguing her and her partner are famous for (I don't remember which one she is, I think she's Aya?) And here's the video that brought AyaBambi to fame, at least the first one I saw: I think they're pretty remarkable, and there's already a hint of the Brigitte Helm style in there.
Wow, what an actress. Mesmerizing. True art, using her face and body as the form of expression. I wonder if it is something of a lost art, that something was lost once dialogue was expressed with sound.
Very remarkable. Thanks so much for sharing. The first video is wild. The second really shows dancing as an art form, too.
I don't want to swamp this thread with videos, but I couldn't help but think of this one. It's an illustration of an old theater idea, that the actors on the stage should always dynamically move in order to maintain visual balance on the stage, as if it could tip if too many of them get on one side. These guys just took that concept and literalized it:
Not entirely lost—many directors continued to use arresting cinematography, sometimes even to express ideas, which most do strictly through dialogue. But you've got some great ones like Kubrick, Lynch, Cronenberg, and others around the world, such as Fellini, Bergman, and Kurosawa, who all make excellent use of lengthy silent passages, often without even music, that are the most spellbinding parts of the films. I've noticed in certain creature or monster movies this happens too, for instance as much as I don't like Peter Jackson's overlong, rambling and self-indulgent remake of King Kong, there are a few parts with the CG Kong and some dinosaurs where of course nobody talks, and the action is riveting. It's becuase the physical acting and mise-en-scene (everything contained within the frame of the picture) plus the movement tells a story that you can understand. It allows you to watch with the right hemisphere, the one it was made with, rather than doing everything strictly through the talky and unremarkable left. That's why it has such a strong dreamlike quality when it's done well. There was even a scene at the beginning (I think) of Alien vs Predator that was captivating for this reason.
One of my favorite directors who was a master of visual cinema is Joseph von Sternberg, the one who made so many movies with Marlene Dietrich. The best by far is The Scarlet Empress. Even though it was a sound movie and had plenty of dialogue, the visuals were busy telling their own story. Bask in the cinematic excellence: He designed sets and costumes and apparently wrote or had a hand in writing the music as well. He was a complete director, who wanted to take care of every aspect, and had the skills to do it. About what I said concerning the visuals telling a different story from the dialogue: Belated Appreciation of V. S. written by Jack Smith, famed American performance artist - originally printed in Film Culture #31 (winter, 1963-'64) "People never know why they do what they do. But they have to have explanations for themselves and for others. "So von Sternberg's movies had to have plots even though they already had them inherent in the images. What he did was make movies naturally - he lived in a visual world. The explanation plots he made up out of some logic having nothing to do with the visuals of his films. The explanations were his bragging, his genius pose - the bad stories of his movies. Having nothing to do with what he did (and did well), the visuals of his films. "In this country the movie is known by its story. A movie is a story, is as good as its story. Good story - good movie. Unusual story - unusual movie, etc. Nobody questions this. It is accepted on all levels, even "the film is a visual medium" levels by its being held that the visuals are written first and then breathed to life by a great cameraman/director. In this country the blind go to the movies. There is almost no film an experienced & perceptive blind man couldn't enjoy. This is true. I was a B'way barker once and was approached by a blind man! The B.M. was right - there must be others! The manager - nobody thought it was strange - at the time I didn't - and don't now. I do think it strange that nobody uses their eyes. Occasionally a director will put in a "touch" - that can't be explained with words, needn't be, and this is always telling. But the literature of the film, its words, trite, necessarily so far as they are always doing something they shouldn't have to do, they are forced into triteness because they shouldn't be there at all - they should be in novels, anecdotes, conversations etc - (No, movies are not conversations - why should they be so limited!). Music belongs, film is rhythm, so is music - if dialogue could be seen as rhythm it would belong. But just rhythm - not the printed page. "I don't think V. S. knew that words were in his way, but he felt it - neglected them, let them be corny and ridiculous, let them run to travesty - and he invested his images with all the care he rightfully denied the words. And he achieved the richest, most alive, most right images of the world's cinema - in company with men like von Stroheim, the genius of Zero de Conduite, early Lang, & that limited company - Ron Rice today. "His expression was of the erotic realm - the neurotic goth deviated sex-colored world and it was a turning inside out of himself and magnificent. You had to use your eyes to know this tho because the sound track babbled inanities - it alleged Dietrich was an honest jewel thief, noble floozy, fallen woman etc, to cover up the visuals. In the visuals she was none of those. She was V. S. himself. A flaming neurotic - nothing more nothing less - no need to know she was rich, poor, innocent, guilty etc. Your eye if you could use it told you more interesting things (facts?) than those. Dietrich was his visual projection - a brilliant transvestite in a world of delerious unreal adventures. Thrilled by his/her own movement - by superb task in light, costumery, textures, movement, subject, and camera, subject/camera/revealing faces - in fact all revelation but visual revelation. An example of how visual information informs. The script says count so and so (in Devil as a Woman) is a weak character. The plot piles up situation after situation - but needlessly - von Sternberg graphically illustrates this by using a tired actor giving a bad performance. If his hero is a phony for the purposes of the story, V. S. casts an actory actor in the part & leads him into hammy performance. Which comes to acting in V. S. films. He got his effects directly through the eye. If the woman is deceptive he would not get Dietrich to give a great (in other words the convention of good acting wherein maximum craft conveys truthfulness) perf. of a woman conning. He would let her struggle hopelessly with bad lines she couldn't handle even if she were an actress. He let her acting become as bad as it could become for her. A bad actor is rich, unique, idiosyncratic, revealing of himself not of the bad script. Select the right bad actor and you can have a visual revelation very appropriate to the complex of ideas and sets of qualities that make up your film. V. S. knew this and used bad acting regularly as a technique for visual revelation (not story telling). For he was concerned with personal. intuitive, emotional values - values he found within himself - not in a script. With people as their unique selves, not chessmen in a script. "Possibly he might have been afraid of reaction if it were known that this visual fantasy world was really his own mind. He might have deliberately obscured, distracted attention from the shock that might have occurred if his creation had been understood through the eye. To close the ears would have thrown the viewer into an undersea, under-conscious world where the realities were very different from what the script purported. He needn't have worried . As it was, no one had that ability to see. He was misunderstood and well understood. Well understood in that his covert world disturbed; Misunderstood in that no one knew why or appreciated the wonder of being disturbed. Misunderstood and done an injustice to in that finally when opinion turned against him it was for the wrong reason: (wrong not because people should not be disturbed) the insipid stories, bad acting, bad dialogue etc. Wrong reasons because they were, to be true to his expression, deliberately bad. Then he was punished - turned out of Hollywood and never again allowed to work. Only frightened people punish. Ostensibly because he had violated good technique. Good technique being used as something people hide behind when they are frightened by something they wouldn't like in themselves therefore is in themselves. And the hypocrisy of good acting, good this, good that - good movies being perpetuated - good empty - banal - untrue movies - impersonal movies." - Jack Smith A lot of great visuals that were missing from the other trailer:
Sergei Eisenstein, one of Russia's originators of the Montage technique, saw Scarlet Empress and changed his approach, almost in imitation of it. Suddenly his formerly sparse visuals were lavish and intricate and expressionistic: And some powerful silent storytelling.
That video can just as easily be applied to balance in the art of writing fiction. A story develops tension/conflict and balance is restored with climax and resolution. Balance includes the struggle of the protagonist, balance between characters, all sides of the theme, and also balanced lengths of the beginning, middle and end of the story.
@Xoic Thanks for sharing those clips. I always loved the old movies. They do have an infectious quality that hits you deep. I subscribed to Turner Classic Movies for years and years until I couldn't get it anymore.
Thanks! It looks like a masterpiece. The full movie (with English subtitles) can be streamed on YouTube:
When I first discovered that movie the only way it was available was on a DVD I had to order from the Czech Republic. There was no English version and no English subtitles. I watched it many times over, and a few years later a version came along with English subs, but they were pretty bad. Bought that one. Then a few years later a good English subbed version. I have like 4 versions now. And I'll probably get it in full glorious 4k if that's available. So anyway, I figured out much of the story just from the visuals. Oh, and the words are rather strange anyway, very surreal. I think the only way you can really figure it out is visually. I've solved parts of that puzzle, but much mystery remains. That makes it intriguing to keep watching. And is it just me, or do none of the videos on this page load? It's probably at my end, this happened once before and after a little while it was fine. I figured maybe I overloaded the page with videos or something. EDIT—The videos are coming back. It's like they're slowly loading, going down the page. Only the last one remains. And it's back now too. Good to know.
Yes, I have noticed, they go in and out. If you wait long enough, they load. I did watch (and enjoy) every video you posted. Thanks again.
@Xoic Isn't 4K overkill for most classic cinema? Even the standard 1080x1920 HD shows the film grain in most 35mm color movies I watch in it, meaning that its resolution is finer than the original.
I don't know. I've only had a 4k player for a little while and only have a few movies in 4k. Thanks for alerting me to that though, I'll pay attention to it. I recently got Apocalypse Now in 4k, supposed to be a brilliant restoration with better color than ever before, and it doesn't look all that great to me. Would probably help if I had a 4k TV. Well, it's a moot point since only the restoration was done in 4k, the release was a blu ray, probably the Criterion one I have already.
