exterior shots/urban landscapes fromchantal akerman's news from home - 1976
(in connection with)
- the early morning urban photographs of eugène atget (no people)
- movement and abstraction (later images [10-17] abstracted by car and train travel)
- storefront architecture : see the book store front: the disappearing face of new york
- joe zawinul's arrival in new york from the album zawinul - 1971 (the reverse of the closing shot of this film)
- scott macdonald's writings on the urban landscape in the garden in the machine: a field guide to independent films about place
- early martin scorsese films (mean streets, taxi driver, american boy: a profile of: steven prince, san francisco photography in the last waltz)
- the cinematography of babette mangolte
- other street posts * and films listed there (ernie gehr etc.)
- interiors in akerman's films *
- suggestions?, more urban posts to come (because i can no longer stand being in the city?)
11 comments:
some key shots in "The French Connection" make a wonderful parallel between NY in the early 70's and hell.
very true, similar colour palette
Many years ago I saw a great b&w NYC film noir, Blast of Silence, at the short-lived tiny theater maybe on Vandam St. operated by a French shrink and his wife(Jackie?). It was part of a summer series of Noir. Half the time I wasn't even charged the entry fee by the shrink/ticket taker. I was aware how anachronistic this place was of a New York already vanished. When does nyc become unbearable? For me after I spent a year working in Turkey. Kate
dear martin, thank you for the message.
i love them.. well, the ones i know, esp. hopper, i love his drawing of a man walking down a city street at night. i will check the rest.
kate - hell of a depressing thing to see nyc in this film and compare to now, or cities in general, and see them now. i hate most contemporary architecture... and the cost of things/rents, great places are few and far between.
i am most struck by how beautiful cars are and people's outfits in that time period, now all is ugly.
blast of silence is a great film.
matthew
Reading a book on Irish lit years ago the editor made an interesting observation about the lack of "aura" in our world. Maybe that's why so many of us are nomadic. I remember somebody's comment about Blast of Silence...that it documented a time when the shop windows sparkled (before the 1970s when the City went broke.)I like Abel Ferrara's King of New York a lot.
ferrara has a good "aura", i agree that is part of the attraction of many of the street films from this time period. as with the photographs of atget, such a strong aura from them, it is really quite intense just to look at his photos, even the idea of them... mean streets
I agree about Atget's "mean streets": they look like living "arteries" and from the little I know he was capturing a vanishing world making it even more poignant.
Honestly, reading your blog which I found through Woolgathersome is a new experience for me as I don't have a computer...I'm on my sister's laptop. It's just fantastic.
the wool.... best around.
so beautiful that old atget would get up and shoot at dawn to avoid distractions. and lug around his heavy equipment. quite a fine gentleman, along with j. cornell, another wandering gentleman.
thanks for reading. glad it is enjoyable. and thanks for the fine words.
Just a question, I want to enjoy the older posts so if I have a comment should I just make it even if it were a couple of years ago?
sure - i will see them, or email me on my contact page,
best,
matthew
this is great, thanks.
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