29
'Film can't just be a long line of bliss. There's something we all like about the human struggle!'
David Lynch
B: 1946 / N: American
To source ideas and images for his films, David Lynch plunges into the pool of his subconscious via transcendental meditation. What makes his work so exceptional - and idiosyncratic - is a willingness to share the fruits of these interior deep dives and make sure they are largely unadorned and uncensored. It is the life of the mind writ large, and it has meant that, as a modern behemoth of cinematic creativity, Lynch has been able to perch in that liminal space between traditional romantic genre cinema and full-bore experimentation that sometimes borders on the abstract. One moment that remains emblematic of his project is the breathtaking opening sequence to 1986's Blue Velvet, in which a hauntingly manicured vision of provincial America is punctured with scenes of a man suffering a stroke while spraying his lawn, followed by a delve into the grass, where we experience the sub-aural thrum of an ants' nest. We run the gamut between ethereal beauty and nauseating dread in record time. In the mellow pageant of American life, Lynch sees beauty and horror not so much as opposite sides of the same coin, but as a singular entity that can permeate everyone and everything simultaneously. His formidable 1977 debut Eraserhead looked at birthing and parenthood through a surreally baroque lens, while later works, such as Wild at Heart (1990) and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), danced on the precipice where raging, intense love tips over into splenetic violence.
'Film can't just be a long line of bliss. There's something we all like about the human struggle!'
David Lynch
B: 1946 / N: American
To source ideas and images for his films, David Lynch plunges into the pool of his subconscious via transcendental meditation. What makes his work so exceptional - and idiosyncratic - is a willingness to share the fruits of these interior deep dives and make sure they are largely unadorned and uncensored. It is the life of the mind writ large, and it has meant that, as a modern behemoth of cinematic creativity, Lynch has been able to perch in that liminal space between traditional romantic genre cinema and full-bore experimentation that sometimes borders on the abstract. One moment that remains emblematic of his project is the breathtaking opening sequence to 1986's Blue Velvet, in which a hauntingly manicured vision of provincial America is punctured with scenes of a man suffering a stroke while spraying his lawn, followed by a delve into the grass, where we experience the sub-aural thrum of an ants' nest. We run the gamut between ethereal beauty and nauseating dread in record time. In the mellow pageant of American life, Lynch sees beauty and horror not so much as opposite sides of the same coin, but as a singular entity that can permeate everyone and everything simultaneously. His formidable 1977 debut Eraserhead looked at birthing and parenthood through a surreally baroque lens, while later works, such as Wild at Heart (1990) and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), danced on the precipice where raging, intense love tips over into splenetic violence.
41
What is the essence of the director's work? We could define it as sculpting in time.
Andrei Tarkovsky
B: 1932 / N: Russian
Russian maestro Andrei Tarkovsky made films about why life is worth living and why death is worth dying. He took up the mantle of locating meaning in the evanescence of existence, whether through confirming the presence of an obscure, spiritual higher power (1966's Andrei Rublev), speculating on our complex relationship with the untapped cosmos (1972's Solaris), or merely reflecting (as in 1979's Stalker) our collective desire to find a secret place of infinite knowledge and understanding that will allow us to answer the one true question: why? In his later films, he shifted away from contemplating matters metaphysical to focus on stories that emulate human memory and our perception of time (1975's Mirror and 1983's Nostalgia). In his 1985 book Sculpting in Time, he drilled down into his creative impulses and waxed philosophical about the power of the camera as a piece of heavy machinery that can be used to make art through minutely calibrated (and intellectually invested) montage and framing. All his later inspirational and aesthetically dazzling achievements were foreshadowed in his 1962 debut proper, Ivan's Childhood, a deceptively conventional drama about a 12-year-old boy acting as a messenger on the Russian front during World War II. From its opening dream sequence onwards, Tarkovsky daintily chips away at time with his trusty arsenal of tools, obsessed by the fragility of human consciousness in a world rife with torments and reasons to lose faith in it all.
What is the essence of the director's work? We could define it as sculpting in time.
Andrei Tarkovsky
B: 1932 / N: Russian
Russian maestro Andrei Tarkovsky made films about why life is worth living and why death is worth dying. He took up the mantle of locating meaning in the evanescence of existence, whether through confirming the presence of an obscure, spiritual higher power (1966's Andrei Rublev), speculating on our complex relationship with the untapped cosmos (1972's Solaris), or merely reflecting (as in 1979's Stalker) our collective desire to find a secret place of infinite knowledge and understanding that will allow us to answer the one true question: why? In his later films, he shifted away from contemplating matters metaphysical to focus on stories that emulate human memory and our perception of time (1975's Mirror and 1983's Nostalgia). In his 1985 book Sculpting in Time, he drilled down into his creative impulses and waxed philosophical about the power of the camera as a piece of heavy machinery that can be used to make art through minutely calibrated (and intellectually invested) montage and framing. All his later inspirational and aesthetically dazzling achievements were foreshadowed in his 1962 debut proper, Ivan's Childhood, a deceptively conventional drama about a 12-year-old boy acting as a messenger on the Russian front during World War II. From its opening dream sequence onwards, Tarkovsky daintily chips away at time with his trusty arsenal of tools, obsessed by the fragility of human consciousness in a world rife with torments and reasons to lose faith in it all.
66
AN INTERVIEW WITH ISABEL SANDOVAL
'I feel like the best films are essentially a Rorschach test!
You're interested in something you refer to as 'sensual cinema' - could you define what that is?
For me, sensual cinema is really about desire. And I think that's one of the main reasons why we go and watch films, or experience art. We are drawn to something that elicits that feeling of desire within us. The making of films is essentially a way for the creators or artist to project or translate the desire that they feel into something visible that can be experienced by spectators. I think it's also part of my personal evolution as both a person and an artist - especially after my transition. After my transition I've become more comfortable and more open about sensuousness and sensuality in my work, in that it's now no longer shrouded in a feeling of shame or guilt. I was born and raised a Catholic in the Philippines, and I think my transition and the psychological and emotional process that I went through helped me to overcome that. With desire, and tackling desire in art and on film, our experience with the art transcends rationality because desire is rooted in something more primordial, even biological. I would consider a film that I make to be successful if it allows viewers to experience desire beyond rationality. Where someone realizes they like or love a film, but can't pinpoint the reason why.
[...]
For me, the most sensual films are actually about desire being repressed rather than being satisfied or consummated. I think that repression and actively yearning is a more realistic human experience than physical gratification. The films that give you the ending that you want and that sense of closure are energy expended. You can go back to your life and routines and everything is fine. But it's the ones that got away that linger within us. If Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love [2000] ended happily, then no one would still be talking about it.
AN INTERVIEW WITH ISABEL SANDOVAL
'I feel like the best films are essentially a Rorschach test!
You're interested in something you refer to as 'sensual cinema' - could you define what that is?
For me, sensual cinema is really about desire. And I think that's one of the main reasons why we go and watch films, or experience art. We are drawn to something that elicits that feeling of desire within us. The making of films is essentially a way for the creators or artist to project or translate the desire that they feel into something visible that can be experienced by spectators. I think it's also part of my personal evolution as both a person and an artist - especially after my transition. After my transition I've become more comfortable and more open about sensuousness and sensuality in my work, in that it's now no longer shrouded in a feeling of shame or guilt. I was born and raised a Catholic in the Philippines, and I think my transition and the psychological and emotional process that I went through helped me to overcome that. With desire, and tackling desire in art and on film, our experience with the art transcends rationality because desire is rooted in something more primordial, even biological. I would consider a film that I make to be successful if it allows viewers to experience desire beyond rationality. Where someone realizes they like or love a film, but can't pinpoint the reason why.
[...]
For me, the most sensual films are actually about desire being repressed rather than being satisfied or consummated. I think that repression and actively yearning is a more realistic human experience than physical gratification. The films that give you the ending that you want and that sense of closure are energy expended. You can go back to your life and routines and everything is fine. But it's the ones that got away that linger within us. If Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love [2000] ended happily, then no one would still be talking about it.
100
As a filmmaker, you have to believe in the people - in their power - because if you do not believe in the people, then why do you make film... for what? Béla Tarr B: 1955 / N: Hungarian
Hungarian writer-director Béla Tarr plays 45pm genre film records at 33rpm speed. He uses cuts very sparingly, instead opting for sinuous sequence shots where his somnambulic camera slow-waltzes across, around and through a given space. Although Tarr's work may appear antithetical to the snappy 'genre' entertainments produced during Hollywood's Golden Age, he does co-opt the iconography and story structures of musicals, westerns and noirs, and then drags them into his own dismal microcosm of dive bars, boggy fields and desolate townships. Damnation (1987) is a classic film noir, but displaced to a run-down burg where the only true pleasure to be had is watching a torch singer at the local pub. It has the femme fatale, the tragic patsy, the scheme that goes wrong and the downer ending, but these elements are presented to emphasize the crushing duration of dead-end boredom. The artful expression of torpor, done in a way that is utterly compelling despite its testing duration, is Tarr's stock in trade, and the ne plus ultra of his project is 1994's seven-hour magnum opus Sátántangó (Satan's Tango). This includes a famous scene in which a young girl plays with a cat and becomes ever more aggressive with it. Tarr will not allow you to look away while the scene runs on and on. He pushes the idea that cinema has the ability to imprison you in a moment, and the director gets to decide the length of your sentence.
As a filmmaker, you have to believe in the people - in their power - because if you do not believe in the people, then why do you make film... for what? Béla Tarr B: 1955 / N: Hungarian
Hungarian writer-director Béla Tarr plays 45pm genre film records at 33rpm speed. He uses cuts very sparingly, instead opting for sinuous sequence shots where his somnambulic camera slow-waltzes across, around and through a given space. Although Tarr's work may appear antithetical to the snappy 'genre' entertainments produced during Hollywood's Golden Age, he does co-opt the iconography and story structures of musicals, westerns and noirs, and then drags them into his own dismal microcosm of dive bars, boggy fields and desolate townships. Damnation (1987) is a classic film noir, but displaced to a run-down burg where the only true pleasure to be had is watching a torch singer at the local pub. It has the femme fatale, the tragic patsy, the scheme that goes wrong and the downer ending, but these elements are presented to emphasize the crushing duration of dead-end boredom. The artful expression of torpor, done in a way that is utterly compelling despite its testing duration, is Tarr's stock in trade, and the ne plus ultra of his project is 1994's seven-hour magnum opus Sátántangó (Satan's Tango). This includes a famous scene in which a young girl plays with a cat and becomes ever more aggressive with it. Tarr will not allow you to look away while the scene runs on and on. He pushes the idea that cinema has the ability to imprison you in a moment, and the director gets to decide the length of your sentence.
119
The cinema was an explosion of my love for reality.
Pier Paolo Pasolini B: 1922 / N: Italian
The films of Italian polymath Pier Paolo Pasolini demonstrate that the term 'reality' can be subject to multiple definitions. The concept of his 1964 film The Gospel According to St Matthew was to present the life of Christ as terse realism rather than romantic fantasy. What if Jesus were a real person, and his miracles mere humdrum acts administered at random? Pasolini started out working in the neorealist vein popular in postwar Italy, and his 1961 debut feature, Accattone, remains one of the finest examples of this influential movement interested primarily in the life of the common man. His casting of non-professional actors and his fulsome embrace of life's squalid underbelly would remain with him until the last. All of his films, whether set in the past or adaptations of bawdy medieval stories Bocaccio's The Decameron, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales), speak to contemporary mores. He is a filmmaker with a thrilling sense of purpose and urgency. Prior to his brutal, unsolved murder in 1975, Pasolini directed Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, a loose adaptation of the eighteenth-century novel by the Marquis de Sade. It is one of the most punishing and difficult films ever made, detailing a procession of violent acts and sexual humiliation inflicted on a group of teenagers by four wealthy middle-aged men. Salò deals in the reality of degradation, as Pasolini remains unflinching in his belief that witnessing these horrors is the only way to truly comprehend the reality of fascism.
The cinema was an explosion of my love for reality.
Pier Paolo Pasolini B: 1922 / N: Italian
The films of Italian polymath Pier Paolo Pasolini demonstrate that the term 'reality' can be subject to multiple definitions. The concept of his 1964 film The Gospel According to St Matthew was to present the life of Christ as terse realism rather than romantic fantasy. What if Jesus were a real person, and his miracles mere humdrum acts administered at random? Pasolini started out working in the neorealist vein popular in postwar Italy, and his 1961 debut feature, Accattone, remains one of the finest examples of this influential movement interested primarily in the life of the common man. His casting of non-professional actors and his fulsome embrace of life's squalid underbelly would remain with him until the last. All of his films, whether set in the past or adaptations of bawdy medieval stories Bocaccio's The Decameron, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales), speak to contemporary mores. He is a filmmaker with a thrilling sense of purpose and urgency. Prior to his brutal, unsolved murder in 1975, Pasolini directed Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, a loose adaptation of the eighteenth-century novel by the Marquis de Sade. It is one of the most punishing and difficult films ever made, detailing a procession of violent acts and sexual humiliation inflicted on a group of teenagers by four wealthy middle-aged men. Salò deals in the reality of degradation, as Pasolini remains unflinching in his belief that witnessing these horrors is the only way to truly comprehend the reality of fascism.