Emigholz's houses
Aug. 10th, 2007 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusIt seems to be film week here at Click Opera! Which is odd, since I'm supposed to be someone who hates film culture. But I love films that also, in a sense, hate film culture.
Today I want to tell you about a filmmaker I admire a lot: Heinz Emigholz, Professor for Experimental Film Design at UDK (the main Berlin art school). German, and born in 1948, Emigholz could in a certain way be compared to Wim Wenders -- he's obsessed by filming American landscapes with a particularly German eye, as Wenders did notably in Paris, Texas. In Emigholz's case, though, you get the gas stations without the melodrama, the buildings without the actors, "utopia without dramaturgy". Emigholz's main subjects -- his main characters -- are space and time, and particularly how buildings exist in space and time. He's developed his own genre: architecture as autobiography.
I've just rented three videos (from Kreuzberg's great Amerika Gedenk Bibliothek) of early experimental films by Emigholz entitled SCHENEC-TADY. They're structural films, landscapes shot in Europe in the early 1970s but inspired by a retouched 1930s postcard of the American town of Schenectady.
The Emigholz film I know best is 2003's Goff in the Desert, the life -- in 62 buildings -- of Bruce Goff (1904-1982), a little-known, somewhat mystical architect with a string of otherworldly suburban houses to his name. The lack of voice-over narrative, and the excellent sound design, gives this work a sense of time and space which films very rarely convey (I've seen it both on DVD and at the Kino International on the Karl-Marx-Allee -- obviously in the kino it's better). "Liberated of allocations of meaning, things can speak for themselves again," Emigholz told Camera Austria. "Film can go back to just showing, and must allow itself to be measured by what it portrays and how it does so."
That "just showing" is key; it sounds so simple, but "just showing" is difficult to achieve because of the way the demands of entertainment (plot, character, action) and academia (concept, system, language) structure most films. It's the undue dominance of the word which most impoverishes the image.
This year Emigholz released Schindler's Houses, a study of the American buildings of Rudolph Schindler (1887-1953). It's the 12th installment in Emigholz's Photography and Beyond series. I can't wait to see it, and will certainly rent the DVD or see it on a big screen when I can. For the time being, though, torrents of the film are apparently avaiable via this page. If anyone succeeds in downloading the film -- torrents are really not something I've worked out yet -- perhaps they could let me know in the comments section.
Today I want to tell you about a filmmaker I admire a lot: Heinz Emigholz, Professor for Experimental Film Design at UDK (the main Berlin art school). German, and born in 1948, Emigholz could in a certain way be compared to Wim Wenders -- he's obsessed by filming American landscapes with a particularly German eye, as Wenders did notably in Paris, Texas. In Emigholz's case, though, you get the gas stations without the melodrama, the buildings without the actors, "utopia without dramaturgy". Emigholz's main subjects -- his main characters -- are space and time, and particularly how buildings exist in space and time. He's developed his own genre: architecture as autobiography. I've just rented three videos (from Kreuzberg's great Amerika Gedenk Bibliothek) of early experimental films by Emigholz entitled SCHENEC-TADY. They're structural films, landscapes shot in Europe in the early 1970s but inspired by a retouched 1930s postcard of the American town of Schenectady.
The Emigholz film I know best is 2003's Goff in the Desert, the life -- in 62 buildings -- of Bruce Goff (1904-1982), a little-known, somewhat mystical architect with a string of otherworldly suburban houses to his name. The lack of voice-over narrative, and the excellent sound design, gives this work a sense of time and space which films very rarely convey (I've seen it both on DVD and at the Kino International on the Karl-Marx-Allee -- obviously in the kino it's better). "Liberated of allocations of meaning, things can speak for themselves again," Emigholz told Camera Austria. "Film can go back to just showing, and must allow itself to be measured by what it portrays and how it does so."
That "just showing" is key; it sounds so simple, but "just showing" is difficult to achieve because of the way the demands of entertainment (plot, character, action) and academia (concept, system, language) structure most films. It's the undue dominance of the word which most impoverishes the image.
This year Emigholz released Schindler's Houses, a study of the American buildings of Rudolph Schindler (1887-1953). It's the 12th installment in Emigholz's Photography and Beyond series. I can't wait to see it, and will certainly rent the DVD or see it on a big screen when I can. For the time being, though, torrents of the film are apparently avaiable via this page. If anyone succeeds in downloading the film -- torrents are really not something I've worked out yet -- perhaps they could let me know in the comments section.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-10 10:21 am (UTC)If anyone has an invite to Demonoid let me know please.
If I manage to download Schindler's House, I'll upload it to http://badongo.com/ and from there you can just download it as you would any other file online.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-10 10:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-13 10:40 pm (UTC)Or, I could do a search for Schindler's Houses on Demonoid and download it myself.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-14 03:24 pm (UTC)I'm not sure how fast your connection is, it could take a quite a few hours. I'd really like to see the film but it'd entirely up to you.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-14 07:18 pm (UTC)I don't want to clog up Momus's blog, so you can e-mail me at microworlds@gmail.com if you would like to help me out!
Die gezeichnete Welt
Date: 2007-08-10 12:12 pm (UTC)when i was emigholz' student some years ago those screenings were open not only to UdK people but to everyone who's interested (and probably even free).
one of my favourite emigholz films is »Die Basis des Make-Up« which features pages of emigholz' impressive note- and sketchbooks. this film will be part of this semester's programme.
you can find it here:
http://www.udk-berlin.de/sites/content/themen/aktuelles/veranstaltungskalender/index_ger.html?
record_id=e4272
eRiC
Re: Die gezeichnete Welt
Date: 2007-08-10 12:16 pm (UTC)By the way, I saw you on the Kastanien Allee the other day! You came out of your doorway and wobbled off on a bike before Hisae and I could catch you!
Re: Die gezeichnete Welt
Date: 2007-08-10 12:44 pm (UTC)"the basis of make-up" is shown jan 08, for example.
unfortunately i developed that habit to escape Casting Allee to avoid a confrontation with the herds fashion victims that populate the street during the summer.
too bad i missed you.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-10 12:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-10 04:56 pm (UTC)But when you banish words in one place, they have a tendency to pop up in another. For instance, you might do a dance piece, or do a film like Tsai Ming-Liang's, eradicating almost all dialogue. But although you banish words from the script, you encourage people to write lots about your work, or interview you to discover its hidden meanings.
Then again, the verbal can take you to non-verbal places you couldn't reach without words. For instance, lyrics can generate melodies that a composer would never think of without words.
And concepts can generate something that appears concept-free. For instance, Emigholz's way of "just showing" is highly conceptualized and self-conscious. His expulsion of ideas is itself an idea. Words are hiding under the rug, and bulging.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-10 05:24 pm (UTC)As for words, one of Rudolf Steiner's main concepts behind Waldorf education was to keep children away from written language as long as possible, even up to the age of 12 or so. He thought that exposing a child's mind to symbols early on closed off their avenues of expereintial learning, or of "formulating pictures" in their minds.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-10 05:19 pm (UTC)One, Heinz Emigholz's film about Schindler's houses is playing on 12th and 19th August at 12.15pm (noon) at Kino International, Karl-Marx-Allee 33, Berlin.
Two, gallerist Javier Peres has recently moved into a Schindler-designed house in LA and talks about it (and cruising!) in his interview in Butt magazine.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-10 05:25 pm (UTC)The film website is here (http://www.rudolph-schindler-film.com/).
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-10 06:46 pm (UTC)Suggestions
Date: 2007-08-10 06:09 pm (UTC)Ill be in Berlin in the coming 21st and 22nd! how lucky to find you in movie-mode, mister Momus. I am a recently graduated film director from Barcelona and would love to get any film related happenings in berlin in those days.
Any sugestions?
Passing through Budapest right now and hoping to catch the Leipzig festival projections.
It would be great if u could reply me at alexandrepiedade@hotmail.com
Macht spaß !
Suggestions
Date: 2007-08-10 06:10 pm (UTC)Ill be in Berlin in the coming 21st and 22nd! how lucky to find you in movie-mode, mister Momus. I am a recently graduated film director from Barcelona and would love to get any film related happenings in berlin in those days.
Any sugestions?
Passing through Budapest right now and hoping to catch the Leipzig festival projections.
It would be great if u could reply me at alexandrepiedade@hotmail.com
Alexandre
Macht spaß !
I met your mum the other week
Date: 2007-08-10 06:16 pm (UTC)Re: I met your mum the other week
Date: 2007-08-10 06:21 pm (UTC)mentaly disturbed
(not in a creative way whatsoever, just shite rollicking useless mad)
Re: I met your mum the other week
Date: 2007-08-10 08:27 pm (UTC)I can't understand it why you want to hurt me
After all the things I've done for you.
I buy you champagne and roses and diamonds on your finger -
Diamonds on your finger -
Still you hang out all night
what am I to do?
My girl wants to party all the time
Party all the time
party all the time.
My girl wants to party all the time
party all the time.
She parties all the time - party all the time
She likes to party all the time - party all the time
party all the time - she likes to party all the time
party all the time.
Girl
I've seen you in clubs just hanging out and dancing.
You give your number to every man you see.
You never come home at night because you're out romancing.
I wish you bring some of your love home to me.
But my girl wants to party all the time
. . .
My girl wants to party all the time
. . .
Party
party
party she likes to party all the time.
She likes to party all the time -
She lets her hair down
she lets her body down:
She lets her body
she lets her body down.
Party all the time - do you wanna get any party
yeah.
Party all the time - party all the time.
Re: I met your mum the other week
Date: 2007-08-10 08:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-11 03:13 am (UTC)Japan
Date: 2007-08-18 10:01 pm (UTC)I'm not even sure I'm leaving this note in the right place so my apologies if..
Thanks
-A