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“Cinema is choreography, catching things moving in space, catching a secret. Try to frame the world so it can be expressed as strongly as possible and always relate to the image as something that is completely alive.”
-Agnès Godard-
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Tagged with Overheard at Tóxico …
OVERHEARD AT TÓXICO: CHRISTOFFER BOE
On conventions, familiarity, strangeness and limbs
“Completely conventional movie making doesn’t make sense to me. Why would anyone want to do a film that someone else could have done? Unless you want a commercial film. An art-house film wants to say: I am a little different from what you’ve seen. And I will not bore you, trust me. Art-house movies should experiment more. We have less expectations to contend with. So make something interesting and personal. How can we cut a scene to contain different emotions? How can we twist a theme, make it both familiar and strange? But the more stylized or quirky your movie, the more natural the acting has to be. There has to be something to connect with, an anchor that you can relate to and that drags you into a strange world. Because if there is a certain point of departure that seems understandable, then the movie can twist and turn you, from this gravitational point onwards and take you out on a limb. But you need something to lure people to the limb first. Actors are one of the strongest anchors in movies. So they have to be very real. I am only conventional in the picking of my actors. I only choose the very best; it is that simple. I have used some of the best European actors in my films.”
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(Boe gave a fabulous Tóxico Workshop in 2008. We were supposed meet again, a month ago, in Copenhagen. But, alas, life had it otherwise. Hopefully soon. Plus a new Tóxico interview. His thoughts on cinema still swim in our heads.)
OVERHEARD AT TÓXICO: AMY STEIN ON DOUG DUBOIS
“The woman sits in the semi darkness of what appears to be a living room. She is alone. Her eyes are red rimmed and still. At her throat is a bandage that seams together a long surgical incision. She fixes you with a knowing gaze. If you thought you could hide or pretend in the face of that gaze, forget it. She has your number, she’s figured you out and she knows a hell of a lot more than you do about life and pain and love.
This image of Doug DuBois’ mother is from his book ….all the days and nights. Published by Aperture, it contains 62 images spanning 25 years. In the mid 1980’s DuBois began photographing his family just before his father suffered a fall from a commuter train. This event and the challenges his family faced during his father’s convalescence set in motion an unraveling of sorts that plays out in subtle ways throughout the book.”
-Amy Stein
(Amy’s great Tóxico Workshop is going on as I write. We have been going over many other photographer’s work, and many books, including Dubois’. Above an excerpt from an article Amy just wrote for Ahorn Magazine. Read the rest here.)
OVERHEARD AT TÓXICO: CHRISTOFFER BOE
On the paradox of uniqueness
“if you think about it, being unique should not be that difficult. There are 6 billion people on this planet and yet we all look different. But we usually still try to be or seem like everybody else. It is the same with film. And there is always a battle between the collectiveness of language and a personal point of view. On one hand, I want it so that my film could have not been done by anybody but Herr Boe & Co. On the other hand, I need a context that can make it live outside just my own worldview. The question is always how to make a personal language collective, or how to make this collective language personalized. It has to be unique but it also has to make sense. You want to find a private language but let people know enough of this language to extract meaning from it.”
(Christoffer Boe–acclaimed Danish film director–gave a fabulous Tóxico Workshop in February 2008.)