Pedro Costa em destaque em Setembro Lançamento da monografia cem mil cigarros – OS FILMES DE PEDRO COSTA, edição de O SANGUE em DVD reposição de O SANGUE em sala e reedição em DVD de ONDE JAZ O TEU SORRISO? Dia 22 de Setembro, terça-feira, na Cinemateca Portuguesa, às 19h30, será apresentada a monografia cem mil cigarros – OS FILMES DE PEDRO COSTA, uma edição de mais de 300 páginas com textos de 28 críticos, ensaístas, realizadores e artistas de todo o mundo, coordenada por Ricardo Matos Cabo e publicada pelas edições Orfeu Negro. Serão também apresentados os lançamentos da Midas Filmes da edição em DVD do primeiro filme de Pedro Costa, O SANGUE, a partir de um novo master digital de alta definição 2K, com restauro digital de imagem e som, e da reedição em DVD de ONDE JAZ O TEU SORRISO? Às 21h30, segue-se uma sessão de O SANGUE na sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro. O filme será objecto de uma reposição em cópia nova, no dia 24 de Setembro, em exclusivo no cinema UCI El Corte Inglés, em Lisboa, vinte anos depois da sua estreia mundial em Veneza. As edições em DVD dos dois filmes são edições de coleccionador com várias horas de complementos e estarão à venda a partir do dia 1 de Outubro. O DVD de O SANGUE tem como extras: “Sangue antigo e sangue novo por João Bénard da Costa”, “Órfãos um comentário de Phillipe Azoury”, “Jeanne Balibar canta duas canções um filme de Pedro Costa”, “13 Fotografias de Paulo Nozolino”, “Fotografias de rodagem”, “Filmografia de Pedro Costa”, “Trailers” e “Capítulos”. ONDE JAZ O TEU SORRISO? tem como extras “Danièle Huillet, Jean Marie Straub, Cineastas – filme da colecção cinema de notre temps”, “6 Bagatelas – seis cenas inéditas montadas especialmente para esta edição”, “O Viandante e O Amolador – duas curtas-metragens inéditas de Danièle Huillet e Jean Marie Straub”, “Filmografias Pedro Costa, Danièle Huillet e Jean Marie Straub”. Em Novembro, a Midas Filmes estreará ainda NE CHANGE RIEN, o último filme do realizador, antestreado na Quinzena dos Realizadores em Cannes. A estreia do filme contará com a presença da actriz Jeanne Balibar. NE CHANGE RIEN foi também já apresentado na Filmoteca de Madrid, onde foi exibida uma retrospectiva completa do realizador, no Festival de Marselha, na Haus der Kulturen der Welt, em Berlim, e seguem-se apresentações em mais de vinte festivais em todo o mundo, entre os quais o Festival de Nova Iorque e a Tate Modern em Londres, onde em Setembro e Outubro será apresentada uma retrospectiva completa da obra de Costa e uma selecção de filmes que o inspiraram enquanto realizador.

Raros filmes... (uma excepção)

My childhood 1972, 45’ My ain folk 1973, 55’ Bill Douglas História permanente do cinema (prog. Antonio Rodrigues) Sáb, dia 26 de Setembro, 22h Cinemateca, Lisboa cf. «As flores e a caneca» e «A fixação autobiográfica»

A blank screen, the images I might yet display

The reason for this lingering interest in me may have been nothing more than the common preference of plainsfolk for the concealed rather than the obvious—their weakness for expecting much from the unfavoured or the little-known. Although I asked no questions on my own behalf, I learned in time that I was considered by a small group to be a film-maker of exceptional promise. When I first heard this, I had been about to reply that my cabinets full of notes and preliminary drafts would probably never give rise to any image of any sort of plain. I had almost decided to call myself poet or novelist or landscaper or memorialist or scene-setter or some other of the many sorts of literary practitioner flourishing on the plains. Yet if I had announced such a change in my profession I might have lost the support of those few people who persisted in esteeming me. For although writing was generally considered by plainsmen the worthiest of all crafts and the most nearly able to resolve the thousand uncertainties that hung about almost every mile of the plains, still, if I had claimed even a small part of the tribute paid to writers I would probably have fallen out of favour with even those who shared this view of prose and verse. For my most sincere admirers were aware also of the plainsman's scant interest in films and of the often-heard claim that a camera merely multiplied the least significant qualities of the plains—their colour and shape as they appeared to the eye. These followers of mine almost certainly shared in this mistrust of the uses of film, for they never suggested to me that I might one day devise scenes that no one could have predicted.

What they praised was my apparent reluctance to work with camera or projector and my years spent in writing and rewriting notes for introducing to a conjectured audience images still unseen. A few of these men argued even that the further my researches took me away from my announced aim and the less my notes seemed likely to result in any visible film, the more credit I deserved as the explorer of a distinctive landscape. And if this argument seemed to classify me as a writer rather than a film-maker, then my loyal followers were not perturbed. For their very denials justified their belief that I was practising the most demanding and praiseworthy of all the specialized forms of writing—that which came near to defining what was indefinable about the plains by attempting an altogether different task. It suited the purposes of these men that I should continue to call myself a film-maker; that I should sometimes appear at my annual revelation with a blank screen behind me and should talk of the images I might yet display. For these men were confident that the more I strove to depict even one distinctive landscape—one arrangement of light and surfaces to suggest a moment on some plain I was sure of—the more I would lose myself in the manifold ways of words with no known plains behind them. Gerald Murnane, The plains, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1982, pp. 169-172.

Ao pé da letra #61 (António Guerreiro) «A bouffonnerie política e mediática é o nosso destino

Aqui, como em boa parte da Europa, a vida política italiana tem suscitado a pergunta: como é que um país com uma cultura tão requintada tem Berlusconi como Presidente? A Itália, nos aspectos político e social, foi quase sempre um laboratório. Podemos então prever que a pergunta antecipa a difusão geral da bouffonnerie de Berlusconi. Mesmo a França, tão zelosa da bienséance dos políticos e dos media, sucumbiu, com este novo Presidente, a tentações que mimetizam o modelo transalpino. Por cá, a bouffonnerie italo-berlusconiana vai fazendo a sua caminhada, sem espírito nem graça.

Quando na Itália de Berlusconi se discute a liberdade de imprensa que manifestamente por lá já não existe, aqui a discussão é quase idêntica e tem como pretexto um jornal televisivo que tinha muito de buffon, excepto a magia sarcástica. Pode ser que o seu fim signifique de facto um atentado à liuberdade de imprensa. Mas se apenas ele (e não aquilo sobre o qual ele se edificou: a devastação operada pela televisão e por alguns media) é capaz de causar um tal sobressalto, então podemos estar seguros de que a bouffonnerie já cá chegou.» António Guerreiro, «Ao pé da letra», Expresso-Actual, 12.9.2009.

Pier Paolo Pasolini portrait published by Jon Jost in «Mala Italia»

Under Construction: Film & TV Research Seminar Series Under Construction is an ongoing series of public research seminars in the field of Film and Television Studies, that highlights ongoing research and work in progress. Direct enquiries to Adrian Martin. Selected recordings of previous seminars are available for download. Extra screenings: Semester 2 2009 Under Construction is held every second Thursday throughout the semester S704, Menzies Building, Clayton Campus, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia 4-6pm 13 August 2009 PINK (Greece, Alexander Voulgaris, 2006) From the home of civilization and philosophy comes the ultimate ‘BAD CINEMA’ teen trash movie! Do not skip out before the ending. 27 August 2009 SHIRIN (Iran, Abbas Kiarostami, 2008) Melbourne premiere of a film scandalously omitted from MIFF! This is the latest masterpiece by the great Iranian director – a film like no other, about the act of watching films. 10 September 2009 THE BURNT THEATRE (Cambodia/France, Rithy Panh, 2005) IMDb has only two words to describe this film: ‘documentary’ and ‘war’! Panh is among the key political filmmakers of our time. 24 September 2009 AFTERNOON (Germany, Angela Schanelec, 2007) Angela Schanelec (born 1962) is a part of what has been dubbed the "Berlin School" of the "New German Wave" of the past decade. Alongside filmmakers including Valeska Grisebach and Christian Petzold, Schanelec's films "consistently focus on middle class people drifting through their lives, unable to make decisions that could free them from their constant state of melancholy" (Ekkehard Knörer). A modern adaptation of Chekhov's THE SEA GULL, AFTERNOON is "concerned with both qualities of light and with passages, moments of transition and liminality" (Michael Sicinski). All films are selected and introduced by PhD student, programmer and blogger André Dias, visitor to Monash from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal ALL SCREENINGS IN S704, MENZIES BUILDING, CLAYTON THURSDAYS 4-6PM Inquiries: Adrian.martin@arts.monash.edu.au

[a rubrica de recomendações cinéfilas «Raros filmes de ...», ausente em Agosto por escassez de oferta e Setembro por distância física extrema, será retomada apenas em Outubro]

Ao pé da letra #60 (António Guerreiro) « A defesa da liberdade de opinião pode ser uma falácia

A polémica em curso, tendo como motivo um texto do crítico de música João Bonifácio, no Público (no qual se referia a Os Belenenses em termos que direcção do clube e alguns adeptos acharam insultuosos, o que levou a um pedido de desculpas de Nuno Pacheco, director-adjunto do jornal), centrou-se na questão da liberdade de opinião. Julgo que o problema não está aí e que o jornal apenas tentou gerir, de maneira inábil, as guerras irracionais da opinião. A verdade é que o discurso ‘crítico’ de J.B., não sendo insultuoso, entra no entanto mais facilmente do que devia na lógica dos que protestaram, por se tratar de um discurso dos juízos lapidares, que não precisam de ser justificados e se limitam a fazer a coisa mais fácil e ociosa do mundo: exercer um ‘estilo’ vazio e decorativo, que serve apenas para engendrar tagarelice.

Este tipo de opinião não é refutável nos seus princípios, que só por eufemismo podemos chamar ‘críticos’. A opinião é o que, nos jornais e nas redes virtuais que os prolongam e substituem, mais tem prosperado em liberdade. De tal modo que o privilégio concedido à opinião tem um enorme poder de impor e excluir – e isso, sim, tem de ser pensado e exige resistência.» António Guerreiro, «Ao pé da letra», Expresso-Actual, 15.8.2009.

Our fear of growing up. A conversation with the director Alexander Voulgaris

	Having seen this amazing minor film – ROZ / PINK (2006) by Alexander Voulgaris – twice at IndieLisboa International Film Festival in 2008, I had the chance to have this small conversation with the young Greek director. His incredible formally inventive and deep film soon became my favourite of all seen that year. Unfortunately, it’s not so well known as it surely deserves, not even in the somewhat pretentious film festival circuit or throughout online cinephiles. So, now that I could present the film in the context of the “Under Construction” series, organized by Adrian Martin at Monash University in Melbourne, it was time to finally publish our conversation here. My thanks to Alexander and to Adrian, for letting me present it... Our fear of growing up A conversation with Alexander Voulgaris, the director of ROZ / PINK
ANDRÉ DIAS – It’s strange how your film ROZ / PINK seems to be in a state of grace. Audiences end up kind of enchanted by it. Why do you think that happens?	ALEXANDER VOULGARIS – The main thing we did, and I think it works, is that we re-recorded the whole sound, including the voices, in order not to have emotions on anything. I wanted every actor to behave as if he had taken some pills to stabilize his senses. I wanted them to be like the faces we create when we read books; we read something and we create an image of a character, and he doesn’t move or talk... That’s why some of them, like the one played by me, wear the same clothes and are somewhat comic characters.
There’s also the singular editing, mixing very distinct sections like the dream or the family setting, accompanying a lot of different characters and including your own voice-over. What was your attitude towards the editing of the film?	When a character, like the main character, is in a depression, and he is, he tends not to realize time. He remembers something that happened ten years ago, but it’s so strong inside that’s like it happened today. Or he fantasizes so much with something that it is like it really happened. I wanted to move from reality, let’s say reality, to dreams and to the past with no big changes. All this was happening now. That’s why, for the scenes in the past, as in the school, we didn’t change a bit the clothes. We didn’t want to come up with another era. The substance is what’s happening, and we don’t care about the rest. And there’s only one time, the time that he has in his mind.
At a second vision of the film one senses the music much more. It’s always there, following... But you do have a subtle way of putting a lot of music in a film. And you’re a musician also... How did the music appear regarding the film?	I think a lot about music, simply because I also play it. But thinking about the music in the film, I couldn’t really decide. I considered not having music at all. Then I chose to create a soundtrack with several different sounds and music, but to be felt as if just one person had made it. Not having a soundtrack like, let’s say, a Scorsese or a Tarantino’s film. In my soundtrack there are music from ten different musicians, but felt as if a written soundtrack for the film, not songs put together. I also put some of my own music to stabilize this feeling.
And at least the Greek music does feel local, like what people are actually hearing on the radio... Usually music overstates in a film, but here, if we except the last scene that does have a building up with it, in general the music stays very low profile...	Music and film is a very sensitive subject. I don’t like when people put a super-song under one scene and you feel it’s so powerful... but because of the song, not of the scene. I tried not to do it. I wanted to have music that was not specific or part of a style. Melodies, mostly...
How about the set, with the buildings made of cardboard? Maybe you didn’t have any money to film the exteriors? Also, in the beginning, then it kind of fades away, you have this feeling of old Super 8 movies, with a very sharp editing, and sometimes you even get the flashes from the end of the roll... How did came about with these options?	The first film that I’ve made showed a lot of the city. In a way, the main character was Athens. When I did this one I was in a more Kafkaesque period. I hated my city. I was in a war with it and didn’t want it to be in my movie to ruin the things I had in my mind. So I created this city. Which is close to what the main character does. Whatever he doesn’t like, he simply creates what he wants in his own mind. I was seeing a lot of Guy Maddin and Méliès’s films at the time, so I had the feeling that when something is beautiful or true, it doesn’t hurt if it’s not realistic. For this film, if we were to be realistic, whatever that means, it would be less true than now. I’m only interested in what is true, not the realistic... I tried to approach the soul of the subject, the substance, so to say. So I had to build everything...
I sense that you emphasise the state of mind aspect of your character, the dreamlike condition, etc., but... How can I say this? Somehow, you could be stating that to avoid a possible dangerous lecture of your film as being related to paedophilia. Not that the subject of the film is paedophilia itself. It has surely much more to do with the relationship between people from different ages. One feels that not only in the relation of your own character with the young Snezana, but in every other... It’s a very courageous film in that sense. But if you emphasise the dreamlike condition and the state of mind, you protect yourself or the film, but maybe also kind of diminish its power to think relationships today. Your film could be an answer, a wonderful answer to the fear of the body, to the fear of intimacy. You offer tenderness as opposed to fear.	The subject of paedophilia came a lot in the discussions about the film. I was wondering if maybe film critics (good film critics) could be a kind of director’s psychoanalysts. When I did the film I was just following an instinct. When you paint a wall, you have certain colours, a dark grey or a bright grey, and you just choose one because you feel like it... I did the film that way. So I can’t really say what the film is about. But having past two years discussing it and doing the psychoanalysis of it, I still don’t think the film is talking about paedophilia. It’s talking about the fear of growing up and childhood memories. Paedophilia is a childhood memory that most people lived in a way or another. Maybe not as a real fact, but at least as a fear. I mean, when you were small and your parents told you “don’t get candies from strangers”, what they really meant is “you’ll get fucked by them”! Actually, I was really thinking about fairytales, which are very close to this: getting to know the fears, getting to know the outside world. So the film is mostly about everything that has to do with life and growing up... Every relationship here has this age difference. This is the way the main character chooses to see his universe, and also the way I was seeing relationships at the time. Relationships not with real communication, but with dependence because of a few reasons: trying to find your childhood, or your mother, or your father, etc. None of the characters are mature, in this sense. Cause mature means you take responsibility for your actions and stop blaming your parents.
You’ve mentioned that you see the last scene as a closing down. Actually, I saw it completely different, as a kind of a utopian dream where that kind of honesty, that kind of tenderness, would be possible... But you don’t show the kiss! And if you did it would surely be a problem for today’s society...	When I wrote it, I considered the kiss. But in the end, I thought the interesting thing to be to have him just waiting to be kissed with his eyes closed. Cause this shot speaks about the whole movie. Maybe everything he tries to do is to find tenderness... I was listening then to the “All you need is love” song. Whenever I heard it I felt it was a really happy song. Suddenly, I heard it last week and thought it to be one of the cruellest songs ever written. I mean, it puts everything down to zero. It just says that everything else doesn’t matter, cause all you need is love... Like you’re some addict! In the last three or four scenes you see the girl looking more mature. It’s the way he wants to sense her, since he wants to grow her up a bit so he can kiss her. I thought of it like a Hollywood film end scene with a kiss... But you have the music, that although it’s a bit sentimental, it’s also tense and a bit scary, and all that blood that comes down. He’s really getting into his own mind with the kiss, getting into his own reality and forgetting about Emily, which is the reality that does exist. He takes this step forward into his own imagination. That’s why the set of this scene doesn’t exist; it’s not a room, it’s just a wall with painting...
The film has this incredible scene of a school massacre. Maybe it was not constructed in that way, but it almost seems an ironic comment on Gus Van Sant’s ELEPHANT. It’s very violent, almost brutal – you see the gun in the kid’s head, for instance –, and at the same time has this completely fake white blood coming out of the wounds, which doesn’t resolve the violence. It’s very powerful...	I felt sad when I saw ELEPHANT, just after writing. What I understood is that I came from the same generation as those of the Columbine shooting. I was really dreaming this stuff when I was a kid. Not that I would do it, but dreaming that I would save the girl, etc. I think it was a form of communication, like a film is a form of communication for me. I can’t really say what I want to say through my girlfriend, my friends, my government or other people. For the white blood there were two references. One was BUGSY MALONE (1976), the film by Alan Parker, which was very brutal... but with yogurt. But the main reference was Andrzej Zulawski’s POSSESSION (1981). I saw a lot of that film in the period, and also Cronenberg’s. I had read an article that mentioned his, not just simply horror movies, but psychological horror movies. When I saw Zulawski’s, I was seeing the monster and all the rest, really frightening, but not in a slasher film kind of way. It was very deep. You were really afraid deep inside you. This monster was searching inside to find something to hold you. I was thinking about juices in general in the film. Something that comes out of the imagination... I wanted it to be a really violent scene, but at the same time like a kids play. It was weird because all the children were waiting for this shoot. They really wanted to play with the white stuff, the guns and all. And this kind of influenced us. Something really scary and also like a school performance, some of it with no blood. Made as if very rough or amateur, so as to have mixed emotions about it...
As I’ve said before, you tend to emphasise the state of mind of the main character represented by you as the creator of that universe. In some way, it might diminish the kind of utopian aspect of those relationships, which I find very moving. And even the secondary characters’ importance, which are truly developed and all of them very interesting: the brother, the mother, the father... and the amazing Snezana, the Ukrainian girl! Does she exist? Did she make those puppets and drawings?	No, it was another girl just my age, an artist... I didn’t have money to shoot the film. I started with 800 Euros, which is no money. We used old stock of film, borrowed cameras, etc. Everyone worked without money, of course. I wanted to find a crew that was very close, cause at first I was thinking of doing a children’s film. In the way STAND BY ME is a children’s film, or maybe ALICE IN WONDERLAND. So I wanted a young crew for the film. The costume designer was sixteen; the set designer was eighteen. All of them, except the director of photography, were around that age, sixteen to twenty, so that the kids in the film felt more close to us. And I would have more respect because I was twenty-three. I was the old one! And it really worked well. As for the other characters, at first I had them on my mind or in my life. And the actors who played them were very near to what the characters are like, in a way. We didn’t rehearse at all. In my first film we did a lot of rehearsals for six months. In this one I didn’t wanted to rehearse at all, because I wanted them just to say the words to come out smoothly; not feeling anything, not getting into anything. Just being able to tell the words that I thought were adequate and no need to act more than that. Since they really liked the screenplay and understood it, it helped. The structure of the script was not that straight. I was considering Salinger’s books, where we move on the psychological, not throught the plot changes. At some point, while writing the script, I felt the need to focus on something. My first film suffered a bit from that lack of focus. So I felt the need to focus on the main character and had to pull the others a bit back. Although it doesn’t seem that way, the film was shot and edited completely as it was written. We didn’t throw one shot away and didn’t change a thing. Because I have trouble stating my opinion to my editor, saying to her what I want, a way to do it was to invent something that couldn’t really change, since everything depended on everything else.

Hurbinek (Primo Levi)

In the course of those few days a striking change occurred around me. It was the last great sweep of the scythe, the closing of accounts; the dying were dead, in all the others life was beginning to flow again tumultuously. Outside the windows, despite the steady snowfall, the mournful roads of the camp were no longer deserted, but teemed with a brisk, confused and noisy ferment, which seemed to be an end in itself. Cheerful or wrathful calls, shouts and songs rang out till late at night. All the same, my attention, and that of my neighbours in the nearby beds, rarely managed to escape from the obsessive presence, the mortal power of affirmation of the smallest and most harmless among us, of the most innocent, of a child, of Hurbinek. Hurbinek was a nobody, a child of death, a child of Auschwitz. He looked about three years old, no one knew anything of him, he could not speak and he had no name; that curious name, Hurbinek, had been given to him by us, perhaps by one of the women who had interpreted with those syllables one of the inarticulate sounds that the baby let out now and again. He was paralysed from the waist down, with atrophied legs, as thin as sticks; but his eyes, lost in his triangular and wasted face, flashed terribly alive, full of demand, assertion, of the will to break loose, to shatter the tomb of his dumbness. The speech he lacked, which no one had bothered to teach him, the need of speech charged his stare with explosive urgency: it was a stare both savage and human, even mature, a judgement, which none of us could support, so heavy was it with force and anguish. None of us, that is, except Henek; he was in the bunk next to me, a robust and hearty Hungarian boy of fifteen. Henek spent half his day beside Hurbinek’s pallet. He was maternal rather than paternal; had our precarious coexistence lasted more than a month, it is extremely probable that Hurbinek would have learnt to speak from Henek; certainly better than from the Polish girls who, too tender and too vain, inebriated him with caresses and kisses, but shunned intimacy with him.

Henel, on the other hand, calm and stubborn, sat beside the little sphinx, immune to the distressing power he emanated; he brought him food to eat, adjusted his blankets, cleaned him with skilful hands, without repugnance; and he spoke to him, in Hungarian naturally, in a slow and patient voice. After a week, Henek announced seriously, but without a shadow of selfconsciousness, that Hurbinek ‘could say a word’. What word? He did not know, a difficult word, not Hungarian: something like ‘mass-klo’, ‘matisklo’. During the night we listened carefully: it was true, from Hurbinek’s corner there occasionally came a sound, a word. It was not, admittedly, always exactly the same word, but it was certainly an articulated word; or better, several slightly different articulated words, experimental variations on a theme, on a root, perhaps on a name. Hurbinek continued in his stubborn experiments for as long as he lived. In the following days everybody listened to him in silence, anxious to understand, and among us there were speakers of all languages of Europe; but Hurbinek’s word remained secret. No, it was certainly not a message, it was not a revelation; perhaps it was a name, if it had ever fallen to his lot to be given a name; perhaps (according to one of our hypotheses) it meant ‘to eat’ or, ‘bread’; or perhaps ‘meat’ in Bohemian, as one of us who knew that language maintained. Hurbinek, who was three years old and perhaps had been born in Auschwitz and had never seen a tree; Hurbinek, who had fought like a man, to the last breath, to gain his entry into the world of men, from which a bestial power had excluded him; Hurbinek, the nameless, whose tiny forearm – even his – bore the tattoo of Auschwitz; Hurbinek died in the first days of March 1945, free but not redeemed. Nothing remains of him: he bears witness through these words of mine. Primo Levi, The Truce. A survivor’s journey home from Auschwitz, transl. Italian by Stuart Woolf, The Bodley Head, London, 1965, pp. 21-23.

Ao pé da letra #59 (António Guerreiro) «A biopolítica apoderou-se da homossexualidade

A possibilidade do casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo resolve seguramente questões relacionadas com direitos legítimos e satisfaz desejos de integração simbólica. Mas o discurso que tudo isto gera e as representações que se criam é um preço elevado a pagar. O resultado mais nefasto consiste no facto de a ideia de homossexualidade ficar aprisionada nas malhas da biopolítica, isto é, nos mecanismos de governamentalização da vida das pessoas. Por outro lado, reforça a vontade mimética de entrar na normalidade geral das relações sociais e de reivindicar uma identidade representável perante o Estado.

Na medida em que protege e resolve questões pragmáticas, o casamento é um direito – e já passou o tempo da homossexualidade heróica, à maneira de Pasolini. Mas, no plano das linguagens, assistimos a um discurso que não tem nenhuma virtualidade: não inventa, não perturba, encerra-se com boa consciência no estereótipo e no Kitsch. E porque é que haveríamos de exigir-lhe mais? Porque, se não dá lugar a uma cultura – e Foucault disse-o bem –, a homossexualidade não passa da identificação com as máscaras que lhe são impostas.» António Guerreiro, «Ao pé da letra», Expresso-Actual, 8.8.2009.

Ao pé da letra #58 (António Guerreiro) «A palavra “Auschwitz” tornou-se um tópico místico

Na sua crónica da passada quarta-feira, no DN, escreve Baptista-Bastos: “Quando o grande poeta Paul Celan saiu de Auschwitz, onde sofrera impiedosos tormentos, foi visitar Heidegger.” Celan nunca esteve em Auschwitz, e o seu célebre encontro com Heidegger só se deu em 1967 (e, já agora, ao contrário do que diz Baptista-Bastos, se houve coisa que Celan nunca ocultou foi o constrangimento que lhe provocou tal encontro, que decorreu algumas horas depois de se ter recusado, na Universidade de Friburgo, a ser fotografado ao lado do filósofo).

Mas o erro do cronista é coisa de pouca importância e não ousaria evocá-lo se não fosse para ver nele o princípio de outra coisa que pode ser detectada com frequência em muitos discursos: a palavra “Auschwitz” ganhou um poder de fascínio negativo, corresponde àquele território que é o de uma espécie de sublime (ainda que se trate do sublime do terror) que é quase da ordem do teológico. Haverá certamente muitas razões para esta atitude extática, e uma delas decorre desde logo da palavra “Holocausto”. Mas será ela hoje conveniente? Nâo corresponderá àquele espanto inicial que se tornou uma reserva retórica?» António Guerreiro, «Ao pé da letra», Expresso-Actual, 1.8.2009.

 

Ao pé da letra #57 (António Guerreiro) «A linguagem dos gestos é da esfera pré-política

Um incidente recente na Assembleia da República pôs muita gente a interrogar-se porque é que um gesto de valor indefinido na mímica codificada dos insultos causou maior escândalo do que muitas palavras – proferidas no mesmo contexto – que entram abertamente no discurso insultuoso. Para percebermos o que há de inassimilável no gesto de um político, devemos recordar a definição de Aristóteles: “O homem é um animal político, isto é, dotado de linguagem” (aqui, a palavra grega é logos, que também significa “razão”). O gesto não releva do logos, mas do pathos, advém de uma energia emotiva da esfera mágica e religiosa.

A linguagem dos gestos é pré-política, e mesmo quando é recodificada politicamente (o punho cerrado dos comunistas, a saudação nazi) guarda a memória das fórmulas do paganismo primitivo. Obama é um político que compreendeu tudo isto muito bem: quando mata uma mosca durante uma entrevista para a televisão, aponta esse seu gesto como algo não espontâneo, mas como uma interrupção voluntária do discurso político. E assim introduz um segundo grau, traduzível desta maneira: “Estou a representar um papel político, mas não coincido inteiramente com ele”.» António Guerreiro, «Ao pé da letra», Expresso-Actual, 25.7.2009.

[Gap the mind: this blog has now entered in unpredictable Melbourne mode; all normal routines are therefore suspended until further notice.]

Ao pé da letra #56 (António Guerreiro) «A crise das imagens é hoje uma questão fundamental

A crise da linguagem é uma questão muito importante em toda a literatura moderna. Os autores vienenses do princípio do século XX viveram-na com especial intensidade. O documento extremo dessa consciência crítica é a “Carta a Lord Chandos” (1902), de Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Quando hoje se fala do triunfo e do predomínio das imagens, do lugar privilegiado que elas ocupam na nossa sociedade, tendemos a esquecer que também há uma crise das imagens, e não menos grave. Só quem tem uma visão ingénua e muito simples do que é uma imagem é que não percebeu ainda que o fluxo imagético a que estamos submetidos corresponde, no fundo, à impossibilidade da nossa cultura de produzir imagens e símbolos que superem a anestesia geral.

A crise das imagens – cuja face mais visível é o excesso – é um sintoma de esterilização cultural. Por isso, correr atrás das imagens como a ‘linguagem’ própria da época é o mesmo que praticar a tagarelice, a conversa que ninguém ouve e já nada comunica a não ser a própria erosão da linguagem. A arte contemporânea sabe muito bem o que isso significa. Quem diria que a cultura da imagem se situa, afinal, do lado da cegueira?» António Guerreiro, «Ao pé da letra», Expresso-Actual, 18.7.2009.

On (the dangers of) actively forgetting (the tradition of) film criticism André Dias Saturday, July 18th, 4 pm – Lecture Theatre 3, Dalhousie Building, University of Dundee, Scotland A spectre is haunting film philosophy – the spectre of film criticism... The present foundation of an academic sub-discipline around the hypothesis of a philosophy of film is not without its methodological dangers. Despite a few balanced approaches, film philosophy has been largely establishing itself through the active forgetfulness of a whole tradition, that of film criticism. In the absence of a consensual definition of its range and scope, film philosophy is now negatively defined by its neglect of film criticism’s broad contributions to the knowledge of cinema. Such a naiveté or conscious neglect can nevertheless be considered as a strategic position, since it might allow for the glimpse of a philosophical tabula rasa of cinema, as if cinema’s virginity remained intact to the very late but kind in heart philosopher’s approaches. The corresponding disciplinary open field will then give room for some philosophical pirouettes while at the same time dramatically overlooking the most demanding and creative cinematic works, precisely those the tradition of film criticism was able to establish in the vicinity of thought.

Ir ao cinema e ver um filme (Stanley Cavell)

«Poder-se-ia dizer que as projecções de cinema começaram pela primeira vez a ser frequentadas por uma audiência, ou seja, por pessoas que chegam e partem ao mesmo tempo, como numa peça. Quando ir ao cinema era algo de casual e entrávamos em não importa que altura das ocorrências (durante as actualidades ou nas curtas metragens ou algures na longa – desfrutando o reconhecimento, mais tarde, do retorno do momento exacto em que se tinha entrado, e a partir daí sentindo-nos livres para decidir quando sair, ou então para ver de novo por completo a parte conhecida), levávamos as nossas fantasias, companheiros e anonimato para dentro e saíamos com eles intactos. Agora que existe uma audiência, é feita uma demanda sobre a minha privacidade; por isso importa-me que as nossas respostas ao filme não sejam verdadeiramente partilhadas. Ao mesmo tempo do mero facto de uma audiência fazer esta demanda sobre mim, quase parece que a antiga casualidade de ir ao cinema foi substituída por uma casualidade de ver um filme, que interpreto como uma inabilidade para tolerar as nossas próprias fantasias, quanto mais as dos outros – uma atitude que também não posso partilhar.

Sinto que estou presente num culto cujos membros não têm nada em comum senão a sua presença no mesmo lugar. As coisas são diferentes – não necessariamente mais agradáveis – se o filme já faz parte da história e é em si algo em torno do qual um culto transitório se formou. Suponho que a velha casualidade protegia o valor de ilicitude que desde o começo fez parte de ir ao cinema. Mas os constrangimentos da nova audiência não afastam a ilicitude ou tornam-na desnecessária; a audiência não é uma reunião de cidadãos para confissão honesta e aceitação de uns aos outros. A nova necessidade de reunião é tão misteriosa como a antiga necessidade de privacidade; portanto, a exigência de que eu abdique da privacidade é tão ilícita quanto o meu requisito de a preservar.» Stanley Cavell, The world viewed. Reflections on the ontology of film, Harvard U.P., Cambridge, (1971) 1979, pp. 11-12.

«Que poder é o do cinema que conseguiu sobreviver a (e até lucrar artisticamente com) tanta negligência e desprezo ignorante por parte dos que tinham poder sobre ele? O que é o cinema?»

«What is the power of film that it could survive (even profit artistically from) so much neglect and ignorant contempt by those in power over it? What is film?» Stanley Cavell (1971)

Ao pé da letra #55 (António Guerreiro) «Entre os ícones e os ídolos, instaurou-se a confusão

De onde vem o equívoco que leva a uma utilização inadequada da noção de ícone, quando se diz, por exemplo: “Michael Jackson era um ícone da nossa época”? “Ícone do meu tempo” foi como Malevitch definiu o seu Quadrado Negro, em 1915. E, três anos depois, com o seu Quadrado Branco sobre Fundo Branco, alcançava a pureza absoluta de uma pintura que se liberta do visível, contrariando o que Schleiermacher tinha sentenciado um século antes: “Nenhum pintor faz uma pintura sobre um fundo branco.” A noção de ícone, tem na sua origem, uma dimensão religiosa, que está bem patente no debate bizantino sobre a legitimidade dos ícones, da representação do divino.

Um ícone cumpre plenamente a sua missão negando-se como imagem, ou melhor, instaurando-se como imagem totalmente transitiva, através do qual se acede ao reino do invisível, do qual o ícone é uma epifania. Deve ter havido um momento, muito próximo de nós, em que o ícone foi tentado a abandonar a via da pureza, da ascese, da desencarnação da imagem e a experimentar a tentação da carne exuberante – um momento em que os deuses se retiram e os ícones passaram a ser ídolos.» António Guerreiro, «Ao pé da letra», Expresso-Actual, 11.7.2009.

Interlúdio cognitivista (Raymond Bellour)

«– [...] Existe um paradoxo do cognitivista que reside na própria natureza da ciência que ele queria poder aplicar, e que induz neste sentido a um cientismo (reencontramos, de resto, os sonhos mecanicistas de alguns filmólogos, dos bons tempos da psicologia experimental – é por isso que, diga-se de passagem, a filmologia voltou a estar na moda). Por um lado, o verdadeiro cognitivista sonha com poder exprimir em termos de localizações, de modalidades e quantidades reais (zonas do cérebro, tipos de neurónios, redes associativas, percursos traçáveis, etc.) toda e qualquer operação do filme; por outro, como ainda é impossível, e de qualquer forma problemático, e como não nos podemos satisfazer com puras virtualidades, faz, como outro qualquer, a partir do momento em que volta a cair no filme, tudo o que quer (salvo psicanálise, é verdade!): narratologia, formalismo (russo ou não, ou seja neo), estilística de todo o género, estruturalismo (pré ou pós), ou simplesmente crítica, como outro qualquer, em suma, a análise mais ou menos feliz ou infeliz, de acordo com o seu humor, talento, sensibilidade (se ousarmos empregar tal termo face a tanta “ciência”), convicções variadas (incluindo ideológicas, que não lhe faltam). – Você diz “ainda”, o que supõe que uma aproximação verdadeiramente científica venha um dia a ser possível.  – Quem sabe? Henri Michaux bem que sonhava, já em 1942, com ver aquilo a que chamava o “ser fluídico”, é tão belo que tenho que citá-lo: “(...) esses percursos bizarros chamados sentimentos, que não fazem senão aflorar na fisionomia e marcar-se nos actos, um dia, estou convencido que um dia e não tão distante, felizes os valentes que os contemplarão, um dia vê-lo-emos. Veremos, graças a qualquer invenção, os sentimentos, as emoções formarem-se, enlaçarem-se, e os seus mecanismos cada vez mais próximos até se tornarem do interesse de todos os indivíduos. Veremos o amor.*” * Henri Michaux, «En pensant au phénomène de la peinture», Passages (1950), Œuvres complètes, t. II, Gallimard, 2001, pp. 322-323.

Mas mesmo que tal se tornasse verdade, e que acabássemos por ver, e portanto por poder até calcular, exprimir em termos verdadeiramente neurobiológicos o efeito do desenrolar de um filme num corpo-cérebro, permaneceria o problema de saber o que fazer desse segundo “filme” científico, que por sua vez seria necessário compreender, situar, quer dizer, interpretar, por mal vista que seja a palavra. E nem falo sequer das distâncias entre os cérebros... Tudo isto me lembra uma recordação dos tempos antigos da análise de filmes. Visitava em Nova Iorque, em meados dos anos 70, o departamento de Film Studies da Universidade de Columbia; evocava os meus problemas de então (parar, anotar, descrever, avaliar, construir, analisar). Pois então acabaram por me dizer: mas é precisamente isso que nós fazemos, análise! E estenderam-me um documento impressionante (tão impressionante que o conservei): cem páginas de decomposição plano a plano dos 72 planos da sequência do duche em PSYCHO, todos redesenhados, codificados, diagramatizados, segundo os eixos, as durações, as luzes, etc., de modo a produzir, a todos os níveis possíveis, equivalentes quantificados e visualizáveis da sequência tornada talvez a mais célebre da história do cinema. Algumas páginas modestas e precisas como introdução (assinadas por Linda Montanti) não diziam em certo sentido mais nada, a não ser que depois de ter sido assim transcrita, contabilizada, meta-esquematizada, essa sequência onde explodia o génio de Hitchcock assustava ainda tanto. Imagino deste modo, num futuro provável ou improvável, milhares, milhões de neurónios assim redistribuídos numa gigantesca partição matemático-musical. » Raymond Bellour, «Un spectateur pensif», Le corps du cinéma. Hypnoses, émotions, animalités, P.O.L., Paris, 2009, pp. 189-190.