Svankmajer's Introduction
Hi,
can someone please summarise what Svankmajer says in his intro to this film, because I was late and arrived just as it was finishing.....
B
(cutnpaste)"Ladies and Gentlemen, what you are about to see is a
horror film, with all the degeneracy peculiar to that
job. It is not a work of art. Today, art is all but
dead anyway. In its place is a kind of trailer for the
reflection of the face of narcissism.
Our film may be regardes as an infantile tribute
to Edgar Allan Poe, from whom I've borrowed a number
of motifs, and to the Marquis de Sade, to whom the
film owes it blasphemy and its subversiveness.
The subject of the film is essentially an
ideological debate - about how to run a lunatic
asylum. Basically, there are two ways of managing such
an institution, each equally extreme.
One encourages absolute freedom. The other, the
old-fashioned, world tried method consists of control
and punishment. But there is also a third one, that
combines the very worst aspects of the other two.
And that is the madhouse which we live in today."
Pretentious bastard, isn't he?
sharePretentiousness is when one does something for the sake of it. I think Svankmajer believes everything he says.
share
Svankmajer put that introduction in for the sake of it.
"Art is dead." Okay, thanks for imposing us your philosophy. Can we see your movie? Not yet? What? Oh damn the old man is indulging again...
Not to say he's rubbish of course. He joins Michelangelo Antonioni ranks...
It wasn't really a very long intro to be honest. I'm sure you survived.
shareI wonder what he means by "art is dead".
shareHe actually says: "art is ALMOST dead, anyway".
sharedid you also watch it on film4, antvolley
shareYes I most certainly did! Film4 often show (and also finance/produce/whatever) esoteric, interesting work like his, don't they? I think we're blessed in the UK to have such a good free film channel...they sometimes show good/obscure films in the mornings/early afternoons, too, like when they did the Studio Ghibli films (I could think of more obscure examples but it'd take me a while to remember...I know they put Local Hero on in the early afternoon, not that it's a particularly obscure film...but it is a good one!).
share