josé antonio sistiaga impressions en haute atmosphere - 1989
classic drone series
sound, sound design, music in film
music - waslaw s. beklemicheff
third time seeing the phenomenal film impressions from the upper atmosphere by the basque filmmaker and painter josé antonio sistiaga.
first at harvard film archives in the mid ninities, seen in the articulated light: the emergence of abstract film in america series, curated by bruce posner and introduced by stan brackage.
second in san francisco at the sf cinematheque, although the films were shown with music by savage republic.
third time the other night at the moma, in the from doodles to pixels: over a hundred years of spanish animation series.
here is an excerpt of the soundtrack. i couldn't find out anything really about waslaw s. beklemicheff. he seems to be to be an unknown master. his work reminds me very much of thomas köner. if any readers of this site have info on him, i would be much appreciative. here is the full film.
6 comments:
Interesting that savage republic was the music for this at one point,was it live?I'll have to dig for Beklemicheff,sounds intriguing.Speaking of Brackage,do you happen to know the types of paints that he used or that other film makers like him used to paint on film.I think i read that it is some type of coal based paint,but i would like to know exactly.Thank you.
for brakhage, he talks about it (i think) on the criterion set, wikipedia says "In a video interview in 2002, he explained that his cancer was caused by the toxicity of the aniline dyes he had used to paint directly onto film". very sad.
yeah the savage republic was live. i think they did it to get people to show up.... it wasn't like offensive or anything but it kind of added a level to the films that is not there. i was just glad to see his work. can't imagine folks sitting through his longer film silent.... too bad that Beklemicheff didn't show up
I actually think Harry Smith is the hardest film maker to watch,and this is coming from a huge fan of Pedro costa,Bela Tarr,Brackhage,Tarkovsky,ect.People have no attention span now,and want spoon feed plots where they aren't challenged to figure out how the film could relate to them.
it is true. always liked the harry smith paintings!
thanks so much, I wasn't aware of Sistiaga.
Beklemicheff sounds like a russian name to me. my quick "investigation" gave no results (apart from finding this interesting platform http://www.sejm-wielki.pl/n/Beklemiszew), but could that just be a pseudonym?
and you are right with Köner comparison (if you are into him I have this book "The Cinematic Experience" with an interesting interview with him).
as a way of saying "thank you" for that recommendation I can recommend a movie I've just seen - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0176666/ no drones here but still aurally captivating.
hi piotr,
thanks for the movie link and that book. looking at pdf on line, looks very interesting.
i was wondering if it was a made up name myself.... or maybe it was done by Sistiaga himself. not sure. seems like very mature work, not something by a fly by night artist. hearing it in the theatre, the subtleties were quite amazing, not really audible in the vimeo deal.
hope all is well!
matthew
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