La Science de Michel Gondry: online scholarship on his films & videos

Last updated April 19, 2010

Electric Dreams? Above and below, images from Be Kind Rewind (Michel Gondry, 2008)

 

Michel Gondry and Robert Stickgold discuss dreams, filmmaking and the scientific method (SeedMagazine.com, 2007).

Film Studies For Free presents un petit hommage -- en images, hypertexte, et vidéos --to one of its favourite filmmakers, Michel Gondry, French maestro of the music-video form, and also responsible, as director, for the audiovisual brilliance of the following films: Human Nature (2001); Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004); La Science des rêves/The Science of Sleep (2006); Be Kind Rewind (2008); and The Green Hornet (2010).

There are some truly wonderful scholarly resources linked to below: merci bien, as ever, to their authors, editors and publishers for making them freely accessible online.

• Dwayne Avery, 'The Future is behind you: the Reclamation of Place in Be Kind Rewind', Movement 1.1: the futures of cinema, 2009 
• Jim Batcho, 'Overlapping Levels of the Diegesis in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', Offscreen Journal, Vol. 11, Nos. 8-9, Aug/Sept 2007
• New Julia Driver, 'Memory, Desire, and Value in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', in Christopher Grau (ed), Philosophers on Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (Routledge, 2009)
• New Michel Gondry, 'Foreword', in Christopher Grau (ed), Philosophers on Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (Routledge, 2009)
• New Christopher Grau, 'Introduction' to Philosophers on Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (Routledge, 2009)
• New Christopher Grau, 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the morality of memory',  Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 64 (1), Winter 2006
• Carolyn Jess-Cooke, 'Narrative and Mediatized Memory in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', Scope, Issue 8, June 2007
• Brandon M. Hancock, 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', Journal of Religion and Film, Vol. 9, No. 1 April 2005
• Erin Hill-Parks, 'From Film to Life: The Construction of Identity in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I “Heart” Huckabees', From Camera Lens To Critical Lens A Collection Of Best Essays On Film Adaptation, edited by Rebecca Housel (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006) 
• Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - screenplay, 2003
• John Finlay Kerr, ‘Rereading’ Be Kind Rewind (USA 2008): How film history can be remapped through the social memories of popular culture', Screening the Past, Issue 24, 2009
• Mike Lim, 'Review of Garrett Stewart, Framed Time: Toward a Postfilmic Cinema. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2007', Screening the Past, Issue 23, 2008
• Colm O'Shea, 'Out of His Head: Metaphysical Escape Attempts in the Screenplays of Charlie Kaufman ', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 63, February 2009 
• Heidi Peeters , 'The semiotics of music videos: it must be written in the stars', Image [and] Narrative, Issue 8, May 2004
• A Raz, and M Paasivirta, 'The Science and Fiction of Memory Removal', PsycCRITIQUES, Vol 50(42), 2005
• Richard Rushton, 'Cinema After Deleuze After 9/11', Postmodern Culture, Volume 19, No. 2, 2009 
• Fredericka Shulman, 'The Objects of Memory: Collecting Eternal Sunshine', Philament, Issue 5, 2005
• Jason Sperb, 'Be Kind Rewind / or, an incomplete essay on Off-Modern American Cinephilia', Jamais Vu, December 13, 2009
• Gunnar Strøm, 'The Two Golden Ages  of Animated Music Video', Animation Studies, Vol.2, 2007
• Dayton Taylor and Hector Macleod, Digital Air Techniques (2008)
• Scott Thrill, '"How My Brain Works": An Interview with Michel Gondry', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 53, August 2006
• José van Dijck, 'Memory Matters in the Digital Age', Configurations, Volume 12, Number 3, Fall 2004
• Thomas E. Wartenberg, 'Film as Argument', Film Studies, Issue 8, Summer 2006

Matt Zoller Seitz shares his thoughts with fellow filmmaker critic Kevin B Lee while rewatching Michel Gondry's 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, May 2009

 

 The original music video of Gary Jules' and Michael Andrews' cover version of Tears for Fears' song Mad World, directed by Michel Gondry. This song features in the soundtrack of Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)

The Chris Marker Issue of IMAGE [&] NARRATIVE

Image from Owls at Noon (Chris Marker, 2005)

Film Studies For Free can barely contain its excitement as it rushes you news of the latest IMAGE [&] NARRATIVE (Vol. 11, No. 4, 2010) - a special issue devoted to philosophically informed discussion of the work of Chris Marker.

The names of the esteemed contributors to the issue (Christa Blümlinger, Sarah Cooper, Matthias De Groof, Sylvain Dreyer, Sarah French, Adrian Martin, Susana S. Martins, and editor Peter Kravanja) provide a very clear guarantee to the reader of the extremely high quality of the work on offer here. So, there's nothing more to say, other than: enjoy! Direct links to their essays are given below, but be sure to visit the IMAGE [&] NARRATIVE website for some remaining (non-Marker-related) articles in this wonderful issue.

• 'Introduction', Peter Kravanja Abstract PDF

• 'The Imaginary in the Documentary Image: Chris Marker's Level Five', Christa Blümlinger AbstractPDF
  

• 'Montage, Militancy, Metaphysics: Chris Marker and André Bazin', Sarah Cooper Abstract PDF

• 'Statues Also Die - But Their Death is not the Final Word', Matthias De Groof Abstract PDF

• Autour de 1968, en France et ailleurs : Le Fond de l'air était rouge', Sylvain Dreyer Abstract PDF
  

• '“If they don’t see happiness in the picture at least they’ll see the black”: Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil and the Lyotardian Sublime', Sarah French Abstract PDF
  

• 'Crossing Chris: Some Markerian Affinities', Adrian Martin Abstract PDF
  

• 'Petit Cinéma of the World or the Mysteries of Chris Marker', Susana S. Martins Abstract PDF

Michael Snow videos and links

My paintings are done by a filmmaker, sculpture by a musician, films by a painter, music by a filmmaker, paintings by a sculptor, sculpture by a filmmaker, films by a musician, music by a sculptor ... sometimes they all work together. (Michael Snow)

[N]o other artist has done so much to destabilise our approximation of the visible than Michael Snow. By threatening the very tools we rely on to process what we perceive, the artist creates unnerving yet frequently poetic works. His avant-garde film-making is less about a way of understanding the camera as a device for recording than as an instrument whose structural, material properties can form the main focus of the work. (Tim Clarke)

Today, Film Studies For Free brings you another video gem from the Tate Channel in which the highly distinguished Canadian artist Michael Snow, one of the most influential experimental filmmakers (including of such masterworks as Wavelength [1967)], La Région Centrale [1971], and *Corpus Callosum [2002]) discusses his work. Snow, who will reach the grand old age of 80 this December, gave this illustrated talk at the Tate Modern in London on October 26, 2001, on the occasion of a major retrospective of his work that year at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol. The talk, a very detailed and insightful revisiting of the entirety of his work to that point, lasts just under two hours.

Here also, as is FSFF's wont, are links to further wonderful, freely accessible, online, scholarly Michael Snow resources. Below the list are two other embedded videos: the first, a ten minute overview of Snow's work; the second, a video version of Snow's 1967 experimental film Wavelength (please read the comments on this post for a discussion of the ethics of reproducing this very poor copy of the film):

• The Michael Snow Dossier, Offscreen Journal, November 2002 (Michael Snow: A Brief Introduction by Peter Rist;La Région Centrale by Peter Rist; Wavelength Revisitedby Donato Totaro; Master Lessons With Michael Snowby Louis Goyette;Weathering the Creative Storm: An Interview With Michael Snow by Donato Totaro and André Habib;Transcending the Fragmentation of Experience: The acousmêtre on the air in the films of Michael Snow by Randolph Jordan)

• Cleo Cacoulides, '"Too Busy Making Work":Michael Snow', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 44, 2004

• Bruce Elder, 'On Michael Snow', Ciné-Tracts 9; Vol.3, No. 1, (Winter, 1980) scroll down in pdf

• Alex Farquharson, 'Michael Snow', Frieze, Issue 64, January-February 2002

• Adèle Flannery and Maia Lussier-Seguin, 'Snow at Concordia: An Interview with Michael Snow', Offcreen Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 3, March 2009

• Maximilian Le Cain, 'Snow Drift: The 2007 Lucca Film Festival 28 September – 6 October 2007', Senses of Cinema, Issue 46, 2008

• Brett Kashmere, 'Underground Film, Into the Light: Two Sides of the Projected Image in American Art, 1945-1975', Synoptique 8, March 2005

• Tila Landon Kellman, Figuring redemption: resighting my self in the art of Michael Snow - (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2002 -Google Books)

• Jane Simon, 'Reading in the Dark', M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, January 12, 2004

• Michael Snow, with Louise Dompierre, The collected writings of Michael Snow (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University press, 1994 - Google Books)


• Michael Snow and Bruce Elder, 'In conversation', Ciné-Tracts 5, No. 1, (17), Summer/Fall, 1982) scroll down in pdf


• Michael Snow and Jesse Stewart, 'In Conversation: Toronto, November 2005', Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, Vol 3, No 1 (2007)
  

Jarman Award 2009 winner is Lindsay Seers

Recording of part of Lindsay Seers' exhibition 'Swallowing Black Maria'
(more info here)

'Lindsay Seers tells seductively tall tales.'
Laura McLean-Ferris, guardian.co.uk, February 27, 2009

Lindsay Seers's Extramission 6 (Black Maria) [is] one of the real finds of [the Altermodern: Tate Triennal exhibition, 2009]. Seers shows a semi-autobiographical, quasi-documentary film about her life, screened in a mock-up shed whose design is a copy of Thomas Edison's Black Maria, his New Jersey film studio. The story is implausible, troubling, and beautifully told by different narrators.

As a child, Seers is so overwhelmed by visual stimulus that she cannot speak. As soon as she sees a photograph, she decides she wants to be a camera. She uses her mouth as the camera, and goes about with a black bag over her head. As she grows up, Seers stops being a camera, and wants instead to be a projector. She wears a model of Edison's studio on her head, projecting the movies in her mind. She struggles to illuminate the world.

The whole story is both dreamlike and moving. How much of it is true? There are interviews with Seers's mother and with a psychologist. Are they really who we think they are? As I staggered out, someone muttered "What is she on?" Adrian Searle, guardian.co.uk, February 3, 2009

Film Studies For Free is very happy to add its congratulations to the many being deservedly delivered today to Lindsay Seers following the award to her yesterday of this year's Jarman prize for artists working with the moving image. Seers, whose hypnotic work as an artist includes film practice-based research produced as a lecturer in arts practice at London's Goldsmiths College, receives a cash prize, but also a very valuable broadcast commission – to make four artworks for Channel 4’s acclaimed Three Minute Wonder slot (3MW). FSFF looks forward to watching those.

The Jarman Award was inspired by British avant-garde film-maker Derek Jarman, one of the most innovative, esteemed and visionary artists of the last century. Interviews and features on this year’s award shortlist and Jarman's legacy can be found at Engine, an online forum from Animate Projects.

Below are some further links to online and openly accessible resources, reviews and information about Lindsay Seers' work.

• David Berridge, 'Lindsay Seers: It has to be this way, More Milk Yvette: A Journal of the Broken Screen, February 9, 2009
• Chris Fite-Wassilak, 'Lindsay Seers', Frieze Magazine, Issue 122, April 2009
• Rebecca Geldard, 'Lindsay Seers: It Has to Be This Way', ArtReview magazine, 21 April 21, 2009
• Tom Morton, 'Remember Me [monograph on Lindsay Seers]', Frieze Magazine, Issue 124, June-August 2009
• Jennifer Poole, 'Lindsay Seers: Eyes of Others...', Circa Arts Magazine, 2005
  
• Lindsay Seers at the Event Horizon exhibition (2008) webpage at the Royal Academy
• Lindsay Seers' webpages at Smart Project Space
• Lindsay Seers, 'Artist's Text', Arts Council England website, 2003
  

Expanded Cinema and Video Art: Tate Video and Essays from REWIND (Cubitt, Atherton, Hatfield)

Expanded Cinema: Activating the Space of Reception. A Tate Video - Works identified as Expanded Cinema often open up questions surrounding the spectator's construction of time/space relations, activating the spaces of cinema and narrative as well as other contexts of media reception. In doing so it offers an alternative and challenging perspective on filmmaking, visual arts practices and the narratives of social space, everyday life and cultural communication.

Today, Film Studies For Free brings you more choice links to valuable resources on the topics of 'expanded cinema' and video art. Not only the wonderful Tate Video embedded above but also, courtesy of a great scholarly website -- REWIND - Artists' Film & Video in the 70s and 80s -- the following essays:

• 'Greyscale Video and the Shift to Colour' by Prof. Sean Cubitt, University of Melbourne, Australia. View a pdf of the Essay in 'Art Journal', Fall 2006 edition here. A video essay version of the paper is viewable here.
  

• 'Projection: Vanishing and Becoming' by Prof. Sean Cubitt, University of Melbourne, Australia. In Grau, Oliver, Eds. MediaArtHistories, pages pp. 407-422. MIT Press. View a pdf of the Essay here.

• 'The Trouble with Video Art' by Kevin Atherton, Head of Media, National College of Art & Design, Dublin. View a pdf of the Essay here.

• 'Expanded Cinema - And the "Cinema of Attractions"' by Dr. Jackie Hatfield. (Published in Filmwaves, Issue 27/1/2005). View a pdf of the Essay here.

• 'The Subject in Expanded Cinema' by Dr. Jackie Hatfield. (Published in Filmwaves, Issue 24/2/2004). View a pdf of the Essay here.

An addendum: if you live in London, or care about cinema in that city, Film Studies For Free urges you, please, to visit the website of the Picture Palace Campaign for the regeneration of the former art deco cinema, now bingo hall, soon to be (possibly) evangelical church, at 25 Church Road, SE19 (Crystal Palace). It was originally built in 1928 as a cinema and the beautiful interior was designed by the renowned cinema architect George Coles (see also here).