…literature does not recognise Reality as such, but only levels. I’ve also enjoyed Italo Calvino’s ‘The Uses of Literature’, in particular his essay ‘Levels of Reality in Literature’. It’s fools errand to try distill Calvino’s lucid argument into a blog post, but this is a scrapbook after all – so here is the vibe of it; Different levels […]
An old friend moved cross-country and left me with a bunch of film books that I’ve been flicking through recently. I really like this idea of orchestration from Lajos Egri’s ‘The Art of Dramatic Writing’; When you are ready to select characters for you play, be careful to orchestrate them right. If all the characters are the […]
I’ve been writing with Sam and we’re up to a sequence set in a forest. I don’t live in a forest, or even near a forest, so sometimes I forget what a forest looks like. I wish I could spend a couple months trekking through the wilderness to address this problem. Photos are a more […]
One of the arguments recently levelled against Australian films is that they tend to be too bleak or too miserable (Last Ride, Beautiful Kate, Blessed, etc.). But many of the greatest films ever made are incredibly dark to the point you might label them ‘bleak’ or ‘miserable’. So what makes a film ‘too bleak’? I […]
In the most terrifying moments in film, there is always a face The face of someone who shouldn’t be there. (Bob, at the end of the bed in ‘Twin Peaks’) The face of the dead. (The girl in the jar of formaldehyde in ‘The Kingdom’) The face of the old. (The old woman in the […]
Mulholand Dr. (2001, David Lynch) City of God (2002, Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund) / Elite Squad (2007, José Padilha) The Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan) Zodiac (2007, David Fincher)/ The Departed (2006, Martin Scorsese) Punch-Drunk Love (2002, Paul Thomas Anderson) You, The Living (2007, Roy Andersson) District 9 (2009, Neill Blomkamp) Dancer in the Dark/ Dogville / Antichrist (2000, 2003, 2009 – Lars Von […]
Like the magician’s left hand… Three Colours Blue: A beach ball rolls out of the crashed car, across the road and onto a field. The Limits of Control: Two men carry a bathtub across the piazza. The Mirror: The encounter with the doctor; the fence breaking, the locked briefcase, the wind rustling through the bushes […]