Terribly Nice

"I think it would be more exciting to be one of a number of artists working together... I think it would be terribly nice to have someone to talk to. Today there is absolutely nobody to talk to."

Francis Bacon

Posters #1

I love this poster that Mark Gowing design created for Hopscotch's release of Raising Victor Vargas some years back. I love it. I. Love. It. That is all.

Advice to the Deskbound #1

For what it's worth, this is my advice for today: 

If, like me, you're tied to the desk, churning out words while listening to rowdy tunes, looking out the window and wishing you were elsewhere, do not, under any circumstances, procrastinate by looking at Chad Moore's photos. They are way too beautiful. Way too energetic. Way too much fun. Way too loose. Way too romantic. Way too lyrical. Way too blissful. Way too reckless.

They make doing this uptight, cautious, redrafting and writing thing pretty much unbearable. 

Of course, if you want to be a masochist and indulge, there is plenty more of his work to look at.

All photos by Chad Moore.

Songs that Should be Films #5

Here we go again...

Songs that should be films. That have the energy, the dynamism, the emotion, the immersion, the complexity, the drama, the mystery, the elusiveness that films these days need a whole fucking lot more of...

"Don't You Hit Me No More" - Carla Thomas
"Day 6" - Explosions in the Sky
"We Only Fuck to Black Sabbath Vol. 4" - Love Like Electrocution
"California (All The Way)" - Luna
"Born on the Floor" - the Make Up!
"Patins" - CSS
"Hated Because of Great Qualities" - Blonde Redhead
"Personal" - Stars (although, holy hell, this would be a bleak heartbreaker of a flick)
"Ooltewah" - The Sonora Pine
"Bad Trails" - Battles
"Góðan daginn" - Sigur Ros
"After the Storm" - Mumford & Sons
"Rebel Soldierin" - Johnny Clark

And...

Although they might not make a film in and of themselves, try telling me any of these songs wouldn't make the most kick-ass film dance scenes.

"Piquè Ta" - O Corrascos
"Fascist Pig" - Suicidal Tendencies
"Bobby Babylon" - Freddie McGregor
"Devil Woman" - Charles Mingus

Desire #2

 "...Cinema is a desire, not a school. Cinema just happens, full stop. Nobody can tell you how to do it or what the rules are. And you do it with new faces. Personally I don't like actors who have already been the bearers of other withered desires. Isn't the camera more suitable for discovering than for filming - for discovering the inner soul through those big, big, mystery- revealing close ups of which I am so fond?"

Catherine Breillat

Soul Ache

Wasted Rita says,

 

and,

 and,

Meet Me Here #3

These have been lost weeks.

Meeting after meeting, draft revision after draft revision, budget discussion after budget discussion.

In between a mountain of other work, we've had to fit numerous dances, shimmies and shuffles as we teeter on the verge of getting a new flick off the ground. If all goes well, we'll be filming a feature drama on location in Canberra early next year. I've written on it in these pages before and, I imagine, if all goes well, I'll be writing on it a whole hell of a lot more as we descend into the seven circles of pre-production hell.

So, I am in hiding. Deep in a bunker in my folks house in the outer suburbs. Surrounded by sheaves of paper and the occasional glimmer of insight.

I've got a handful of books and films with me for company that have nothing to do with my film and offer no threat of diluting the difficult script decisions I need to make by offering comparison or consolation:

Books:

John Berger's 'The Sense of Sight'
Mario Vargas Llosa's 'Feast of The Goat'
and a sentimental favourite, Garcia Marquez' crystalline 'No One Writes to the Colonel'

Films:

Alamar by Pedro Gonzalez Rubio
Le Petit Voleur by Eric Zoncka (a joyless, sublime favourite from way back)
The Headless Woman by Lucrecia Martel
Children Underground by Edet Belzberg
Madeinusa by Claudia Llosa
and
a regular touchstone for me... Nenette et Boni by Claire Denis

I also have my nephew for occasional company.

He seems to know what's going on.

Encounters

"However it is encountered, beauty is always an exception, always in despite of. This is why it moves us."

John Berger, from essay 'The White Bird'

Meet Me Here #2

 

Meet Me Here #1