Paul Schrader on Transcendental Style in Film | On Film | TIFF 2017
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- Опубликовано: 21 ноя 2024
- Legendary director and screenwriter Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ) discusses the themes of his book Transcendental Style in Film.
Featuring segments from:
Ida - Paweł Pawlikowski (2013)
Courtesy of Music Box Films, and Films We Like
Umberto D. - Vittorio De Sica (1952)
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels - Chantal Akerman (1976)
Tokyo Story - Yasujirō Ozu (1953)
Pickpocket - Robert Bresson (1959)
Courtesy of Janus Films / Criterion Collection
tiff.net
This is the most beautiful explanation of edging ever recorded.
I’m a lover of cinema, and I find this deliberately reserved style to be what effects me the most emotionally. I also find it the hardest style of filmmaking to achieve. Just as Paul points out here, it’s easy to bore people with this particular approach to filmmaking, but when it comes off, there’s nothing else like it.
M. HLC great comment man
This is an excellent explanation, must people associate fast cuts with action, and when you linger on a single shot for longer than 5 minutes people get bored.
I understand the thought process behind the fast cutting technique and why this fixation with time makes for more dynamic and, relatively speaking, less boring movies. But when you're able to communicate so much and get the audience to be invested with single yet well thought shot, that's a sign of a true master filmmaker.
Fully agreed! 💪
First time I watched Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’, I thought it was so boring. Then I decided to watch it again last night. BOOM! That’s it. I love it! Can’t explain what the experience felt like but all of a sudden I understood the film and the beauty of it.
I felt the same way about Taxi Driver! I didn’t hate it, but didn’t get why it was so loved. Some movies I hated (but not because they were boring) were Rashomon, Brazil, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I thought the Exorcist, Halloween, Psycho, we’re just ok but nothing good special. But with a rewatch I loved them. I guess it’s all about finding the right movie for the right time
Schrader puts Yasujiro-Ozu and Robert Breeson in that box of over the moon tricks, which he calls the transcendental style. It is slow-paced, and aware. Nothing happens, but life. A touch, softly, on a shoulder, is meaningful. A cough, a look, a kiss; opens your eyes, and makes you wonder. It becomes a film you too find truth in. Because it's in you, not simply on screen.
I remember describing Tokyo Story after my first viewing as opening a telephone book at random and picking a name of a stranger to observe their uneventful life in real time. I never knew there was a name for this style. Btw, I could watch a 2 hour film of just Setsuko Hara's facial expressions reflecting what she was thinking with zero dialogue.
Same here, bro, on Setsuko.
Setsuko Hara was in Late Spring. With Tokyo Story, it was the first of a trilogy by Yasujiro Ozu. It is a sweet soft film. It is also a gorgeous film, and she hardly speaks. No one really speaks. And the dialogue there, when heard, is heard more than in any film you're likely to watch. It has a touch of Chekov, but it also has a touch of that Japanese thing that Schrader, simply, calls transcendental.
She was an acting genius: I could watch her ride a bike for 2 hours and it would still be amazing. I realise I'm responding to a 3yo comment, but if you get a chance to see her in Kurosawa's rendition of Dostoevski's "The Idiot", you'll get to see her under a very different director than Ozu and yes, she's still wonderful
The Idiot is great because you get to see Ms. Hara depart from the kind of roles she tends to play in her more famous Ozu films. Tokyo no josei as well to an extent. The Hara movie I really want to see is A Woman in the Typhoon Area, where she plays a "bad" girl
She’s one of my favorite actors. Watching her was like a dream.
More of these kinds of films need to be made nowadays.
try burning by lee chan dong
Olivia Brocklehurst Yeah Burning is pretty good
Olivia Brocklehurst Burning is amazing!
Cold war of pawel the director of ida!
Hirokazu Koreeda films are right up your ally!
Interesting Jeanne Dielman is featured here, and recently just topped Sight and Sounds greatest 100 movies list. Shrader himself had interesting things to say about it.
That’s sort of cinema I’m in love with
Must people call static long shots boring, but I much prefer a well thought and beautifully composed shot than having uninspired shot reverse shots and arbitrary camera movements that don't add anything to the movie other than giving me a headache.
in marshall mcluhan terms, it's about cooling down a hot medium
I think this has become my favorite thing on youtube
He did that music method in first reformed
in First Reformed, the arcing camera movement in the final scene, after restrained movement for the entire film.
I'm not gonna lie and say that I watch all ur videos cause I don't, but boy those that I do watch are enough for me to tell that u make a great film school.
It also reflects the theatre of Robert Wilson's who says in his theatre he gives the audience space to think and to activate their imagination
I would say Andy Warhol's Burger King "Eating a Burger" ad is a transcendental masterpiece.
great!
Boring is never a valid criticism. People will find physics, slow movies, classical music, long stories, etc as boring.
ngl there are boring movies.
Movies can be slow without being boring. Movies can be fast and be boring. Lifeless is lifeless
Of course it can be valid. If the reasoning is shit, then calling it boring sure is a bad criticism, but someone who finds a movie as slow and pensive as Tokyo Story isn’t automatically wrong.
Drive my car is insultingly boring
Portrait of a Lady on Fire comes to mind
thank you so much. you added one more fen
My introduction to this style/ meaning/ lenguage was Bresson...A Man Scaped...this is jn my opinion a firts steep , then, Pickpocket ....❤
Ida might be the most beautiful film ever made
What a weird way to say “every film made by tarkovsky”
euphorus Kubrick also applies ahah
I come from an article which links this video, and Schrader apparently thinks you're spot on. Check out the diagram on which he places directors: www.openculture.com/2020/09/paul-schrader-creates-a-diagram-mapping-the-progression-of-arthouse-cinema.html
@@diebartdie2837 he made one movie like this
The Card Counter could have followed William "Tell" (Tillich) explaining card playing and his daily routine much longer than it did. It was very compelling and didn't need the Ty Sheridan character.
Yeah found that movie quite disappointing, especially following the brilliance of First Reformed. Paul’s an odd filmmaker.
Are the opening shots from Pickpocket? Only one there I haven't seen. Looks beautiful.
Ida.
Space and motion.
I really don't think that 'boredom' is the right way of conceptualising this style. Like the guy says, if you're bored then actually it isn't working. What you should be is not bored but mesmerised, absorbed in what you're seeing, like you might be by a beautiful landscape.
Its a rare case, he wrote a seminal book that became more important than all the films that he directed.
Well he is a writer at his core I believe
I bet you haven't seen Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
I ask a different set of questions to making a movie. Commercial movies assume they are selling attention. They use quick short cuts to make attention heightened. Note then how motion is being used. This to me doesn’t arouse questions about how attention works. Rather, the passivity of the viewer in traditional movies obscures the point of agency in a movie. The question is about the realism of agency. That is what movies fail at in our culture. There is so little awareness of the meaning of agency it’s quite hard to even envision how one makes such a movie. The most basic question such as is it real or not has no import about boring content, or slow movies that eschew fast cutting styles of presentation.
TURIN HORSE by Bela Tarr!
satantango
Why does PS say there is no music in Pickpocket except at the end? (2:08-) Not true at all, eg, Much earlier - when Michel trips up the stairs to his apartment after being tricked by the Inspector there is Mozart as well...Anyway - we are talking about the genius who made Taxi Driver so hardly worth demurring with this guy!
He was referring to sudden burst of music. Music comes after a very long time which creates a very different sensation
But you have to stay in a determinate mood and peace ( neutral) of mind....it' s like some kind of meditation and controlled brief....😅❤
Breathe
tokyo story
I remember a movie from the '40s French New Wave that had a scene in which the protagonist prepared breakfast
in about as much time as it takes to make breakfast. It's like the British 'kitchen sink' realist movement.
But as an American critic said about that, "who wants to watch a movie about poor people?"
"Dead time" "Watching nothing." "Boring"? A quintessentially American opinion talking to American movie goers. Bresson, Ackerman, Tarr, Ozu, De Sica were brilliant filmmakers.
You missed the point entirely.
The big contrast at the end, for me at least, is not enough to set me free. I don't need a film to be around my neck, but personally, I don't go to the cinema to watch just regular things for 2 hours straight. It's not interesting enough even if I cared to lean in. The assumption is that cinema is to get something. But if you go to the theater to be reminded of the mundanity of life and that sometimes life doesn't give anything, then that's a different story... it's a different expectation.
I prefer his talking this way and its contents to the movies he is talking about. I realize that I am not a fan of cinema, be it Ozu or not, at all. I am a fan of people talking about cinema with this enthusiasm. Not cinema itself. I came to avoid watching movies.
I feel the same. I hardly ever watch movies, and when I do, I don't think it's a big deal. But I can spend hours watching all kinds of content about cinematic technique, great directors and storytelling concepts. I find it much more interesting
This is simply because the internet has destroyed your attention span.
vay
In simple words is realism, why make it this hard to understand?, in real life when you try to connect an USB port you fail 2 times until place it the right way, that's realism if you film it. we are not Steven Spielberg perfect. I think the use of the word boredom was unfairly used here but hey, he is older than me so....he might be right don't listen to me
I also love this technique, but I wouldn't call transcendental... It's a beautiful way of naming it, but it's just being able to toy with the audience's attention while remaining true to some real life situations. We rarely cry if ever cry in the direct moment of a sad moment. We have to take time to assimilate and accept that information as true. Or we push back the emotion to stay rational, until someday, somewhere, for some reason, we crack up and let go our thoughts to truly feel in the moment and true to our emotions. You might find this funny, but it is the exact thing they did in one of the final Hunger Games movie. Maybe the last one. Something happens to one character, but the main character does not react instantly in terms of emotions. It's just very later in the film that she bursts out crying. I was pleasantly surprised by that scene. Never seen much smart writing like this in blockbuster movies like this one. Well, the story stays more boring than anything else, but that exact scene did surprised me.
It's that one scene : ruclips.net/video/1m-JTVcBhwg/видео.html
But of course you have to watch the movie to feel the emotions bursting. No music, also. Good acting.
Paul Schrader actually puts it very clearly, he mentions this technique as "boring" not because he thinks it's boring, but because he understands it is the approach to filmmaking that a wide audience will call as that, boring.
Furthermore, he doesn't explain it further but his example with Umberto D. says subtly that there's a meaning behind it. Showing a character trying to light a match three times change the action from lighting a match, to failing to a match. It has a porpose, so unless you have a clear vision on why you want to take that approach it can be annoying to the audience and be perceived padding to fill time.
Basically space odyssey
I hate this kind of experimental cinema that we find more in Europe than in America. There's a reason the Hollywood formula works better. On the other hand, any serious lover of Cinema, especially those who want to do it, would do well to study this more artistic, freer genre, less stuck in a classic narrative structure. They can then incorporate it in a more “commercial” way later. A great example of that is the conclusion of the film ''Big Night'' (Stanley Tucci - 1996).
🤔... The transcendental style in film sounds objective, not immersive.
*Real Life is all Dead time...When you go see a Movie you don't want that...A Great movie should be like a Great piece of Music...Allways Moving and building and commuting a Feeling along the way...I PERSONALLY don't like this...A Movie also is like a first Meeting with someone you and to impress ...Also ppl in movies have the chance to be Immortal...only two times in life does that happen...Have a Child and being in a Movie*
transcendental style would only be called "boring" by an American. what is certainly boring in any language is a commenter proclaiming themself to be a "lover of cinema". YEAH WE KNOW THAT you are and its very unremarkable.
It is not trascendental, nor boring. Its time-image, go read some Deleuze.
go get some friends
Deleuze was actually inspired by Paul's book.
@@jamk2668 No, he was not, he was actually very critical of it, specially since Schrader is mistaking trascendental for transcendent, which are two very distinct philosophical categories
You call it transcendental. I call it boring.
He called it both, no?
well congratu-fucking-lations, you are part of the problem, be proud of yourself
Poxow I think it's best to stick your braindead blockbusters, kiddo. Why even bother coming here? Iliterate.
Marco Gianesello Your arrogance is part of the problem, since you’re not open to other people’s interpretations.
The Protagonist You just assume I only watch braindead blockbusters because I don’t find transcendental style effective when in reality, you don’t know shit about my taste in film. I’m a fan of Taxi Driver and First Reformed, so you can shut up now.