I STAND ALONE SCREENING

“Fiercely intelligent.  Cinematically sophisticated… the most disturbing film of the decade.”

-Amy Taubin, THE VILLAGE VOICE

“Stunning… A rigorous cinematic intelligence at work… harrowing, sensational.”

-Gavin Smith, FILM COMMENT

“Phenomenal!  The confidence and gleeful skill of Gaspar Noe are the undeniable hallmarks of a major filmmaker in the making.”

-Andrew Johnson, TIMEOUT NY

I STAND ALONE (1998), Gaspar Noe’s first feature film, follows an embittered nameless butcher who is alone in the world.  Unable to find love or a job, the butcher is willing to place blame on everyone but himself.  Filled with hate, this racist, misogynist unemployed ex-con rages against the world with a short temper and death wish.  Rather than shy away from this abominable character, Noe unflinchingly enters the mind of this troubled being.  A sequel to CARNE (1992), Noe’s earlier short, I STAND ALONE is a cornerstone of the New Extreme in both content and form.  Its characters and form of cinema can only be described as cruel. 

For more information on Noe.

Suggested Supplemental Screening:  TAXI DRIVER (Martin Scorsese, 1976), FALLING DOWN (Joel Schumacher, 1993), and LA HAINE (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995)

VIOLENCE AND MEDIA

If you're at all interested in Haneke's interest in violence and media be sure to check out Sidney Lumet's NETWORK (1976).  The film looks at television and its audience's desire for violence and shocking material.  It is a fascinating film that examines the extremes of violence and media.  Even after thirty-five years NETWORK is still as relevant today, perhaps more so in a world of reality television.  As far as commentary on violence and media, NETWORK is essential viewing.

SURREALIST ART ASSIGNMENT

For our first out of class assignment, you should to a quick search on surrealist art.  Find a painting, sculpture, or any surrealist artwork that for some reason leaps out at you.  Then simply write a short paragraph identifying the work and artist as well as explaining what about the work draws you in or gets you thinking.  Print out the paragraph with an image of the work for Tuesday 2.1.11.

FUNNY GAMES SCREENING

The secondary screening will be Michael Haneke's FUNNY GAMES US (2007).  Considered by some to be a brilliant treatise on violence, media, and entertainment and others as intolerable cruelty, FUNNY GAMES is shocking and cerebral.  The film delves into the inherent blood lust of the cinema and reflects the spectators own perverse desires to see violence.  In many ways Haneke's film has been seen as a critique of violence in American cinema, which is ironic considering this a shot for shot remake of his original FUNNY GAMES (1997).  An interesting possibility for analysis might be too look at the FUNNY GAMES as a European Art Film and THE STRANGERS (Bertino, 2008) as both have similar content, yet remarkably different form.  As far as remaking his own film, Haneke is in good company.  Alfred Hitchcock remade himself in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934 and 1956).  Evoking numerous films and stories of violence Haneke touches on everything from Tom and Jerry cartoons to the famous Leopold and Loeb case.

Suggested Supplemental Screenings:  ROPE (Hitchcock, 1948), COMPULSION (Fleischer, 1959), SWOON (Kalin, 1992).  All based on the media sensation and murders of the Leopold and Loeb case.  These films, like FUNNY GAMES, perhaps link sexual desires, especially repressed desires, to violent and destructive behavior.

MAY '68

The events of May '68 are monumental to the state of modern France.  WEEKEND as well as Godard's LA CHINOISE (1967) tap into the intensity of the time and the nations near communist revolution.  Interestingly, it was cinema that can be seen as the spark that ignited the near revolution.  The following video looks at who cinema can inspire such passion, resistance, and determination.  It certainly comments the political capabilities of film as a medium as well as those inherent dangers. 

This excerpt comes from the special features on a dvd for Bernardo Bertolucci's THE DREAMERS (2003).  The film explores the intense friendship and erotic relationship between a French brother and sister and the American student they take in.  The story revolves around the Cinematheque Francaise and the events of May '68.

THEATRICAL REVOLUTION

Both Antonin Artaud (with his Theater of Cruelty) and Bertolt Brecht (with his Epic Theater) proposed two very deliberate, distinct, yet intertwined forms of theater.  In both cases, an attempt to revolutionize the theater is evident and to create a new expereince in the spectator.  Artaud and Brecht can be seen as influences on Godard's WEEKEND as well as many of the films we will view during the course (especially the work of Gaspar Noe and Michael Haneke).  If you are interested in this idea of theater as revolution or even theater as terrorism (a medium to provoke the sensibilities and classes) an interesting double feature would be David Fincher's FIGHT CLUB (1999) and Bernardo Bertolucci's PARTNER (1968).  Both films evoke the same social criticisms as WEEKEND as well as employ some of the same techniques to distance the audience and provoke the spectator.  Bertolucci, an Italian director, was very interested in the French New Wave and Godard.  PARTNER represents his most Godardian film and can be seen as indicative in the political content, graphic material, and counter-cinematic production of the late 1960s and early 1970s.  FIGHT CLUB represents some of the same critiques of consumer society levied by WEEKEND with a particular focus on a crisis of masculinity that will emerge as the class continues.  PARTNER would most likely not exist without WEEKEND and FIGHT CLUB would not exist without PARTNER.

WEEKEND SCREENING

As an entry point into the New French Extreme, we will be screening Jean-Luc Godard's apocalyptic masterpiece of alienation WEEKEND (1967).  The film initial evokes a relaxing sojourn in the idyllic country side for a bourgeois couple.  However, the weekend quickly turns horrific through a series of traffic jams, auto accidents, class conflicts, and cannibalistic revolutionaries.  A sharp and shocking social critique of modern France, Godard's film is both arresting and prophetic (as it points to the political and social upheaval that would shake France in May of 1968).  The film displays the self-destructive aspects of capitalism and its associations with man as animal.

Suggested Supplemental Screenings:  LA CHINOISE (Godard, 1967)

INVISIBLE LIGHT

UN CHIEN ANDALOU