Nicoleh08's Weblog

The 5 Obstructions

nicoleh08 — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:45:51 +0000

Whilst watching this I found myself to be very intrigued throughout, its because I didn’t really know what to make of it. I have never seen something like this before, where someone has given themselves obstructions and then try and recreate something else. If I had not read anything about this then I really wouldn’t have known what to write for this 100 words that is why I have done it so late. I have read that it is described as a game between the two, Jørgen Leth and Lars von Trier. Jorgen Leth made ‘The Perfect Human’ and then the remake by Von Trier. Snatches of ‘The Perfect Human’ appears in the 5 Obstructions, but Von Trier seems to have answered some questions as in ‘The Perfect Human’ a voice over asks ‘is this the perfect human?’, whereas in the 5 obstructions the voice over states what is going on ‘this is a perfect human dancing’, it tells you more of what is going on instead of asking a question.

www.cinescence.com

Jan Svankmajer

nicoleh08 — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:53:28 +0000

After watching bits from Little Otik I was a little freaked out. Its one of the strangest things I think I have seen but I really like the way Svanmajer has intertwined the skill of stop motion together with live action. I think that it works really well in getting across the fact that this couple believe that this tree stump is an actual child. Svankmajer has been described as a mad genius of cinema, and this clearly comes across in his work even though I have only seen little snippets of things. I have read that like many Disney films little Otik is based on a European folktale but while Disney cleans these stories up to have a sugar coating Svankmajer plunges into the dark side of these stories maybe portraying them for what they really are.

Some other work…..

Meat Love (1989)

Alice

Cinema Verite

nicoleh08 — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:03:17 +0000

Free Cinema – UK

Direct Cinema – USA/Canada

Cinema Verite – France (French phrase lierally meaning ‘True Film’

Richard Leacock

Michel Brault

Gilles Groulx

Robert Drew

Jean Rouch

D.A Pennebaker

Albert & David Maysles

Fred Wiseman

Barbara Kopple

http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue10/reviews/cinemaverite/

Documentary genre that originated between 1958 & 1962
Capture Reality and represent the truth
Question relationship between reality and cinema

I thought that all of these were just different terms for cinema verite but I read that direct cinema is supposed to be stricter than cinema verite because its more strictly observational.

Robert Drew spoke about the differences saying that cinema verite is more intruding, between the two there was a contradiction. Direct cinema (Drew & Leacock) -

Two people
Unobtrusive
Capturing the moment