Dans l'Obscurite

Last month my friend Doug sent me a link to the above video, the contribution from the Dardenne brothers to an anthology of shorts, TO EACH HIS OWN CINEMA, devoted to celebrating the Cannes Film Festival and the idea of film as a collectively-experienced human endeavor. The latter concern is particularly timely. It's not at all hard to find people who will tell you that they love to watch movies and that they watch them constantly but that they loathe theaters for the same reasons that people dislike public toilets. The masses are noisy and inconsiderate and things are just cleaner and better at home at my theater of one or two. As we become more and more attached to lives with fewer and fewer human contacts, we feel at ease in the self-controlled environment of home theaters and pause-able DVD. Home video windows continue to get smaller and there are fewer compelling reasons to go to the movies, the thinking goes. But what if one of the distinguishing characteristics of film as an artform-- one of the things that makes film film-- is its ability to wrap itself around a group of people simultaneously and draw their subjectivities in together? Of course, you don't need to spend much time telling the people who go to festivals that there is still profound, irreplaceable value in seeing films with groups of strangers. DANS L'OBSCURITE approaches the question from even higher ground and posits that there is an actual moral benefit to the theater.

Doug's got a great formal analysis of the short at his website. The short features two actors with connections to past Dardenne films. Jeremie Segard plays another dark blonde-haired young man who needs to be rescued from wayward living, while Emilie Dequenne plays the woman he tries to rob. The casting is a thank-you note to Cannes, as Segard played a pivotal role in L'ENFANT, which won the Palme d'Or in 2005, and Dequenne conquered the known universe as ROSETTA, which took the top prize in 1999. And after having their names associated so often with Robert Bresson (while essentially remaking MOUCHETTE and PICKPOCKET), it feels like a reunion of sorts, or like cutting out the middleman, to have the short take place against the backdrop and under the weighty influence of AU HASARD BALTHAZAR. Apart from those connections, what's most fascinating to me is how this three-minute film manages to perfectly distill the Dardennes' aesthetic. It contains every element that makes the features so powerful-- the unknown or unspoken motivations of the characters, the conflict, the moment of encounter, and the quick cut away after the moment of encounter, as the Dardennes don't presume to tell us how the work of redemption is brought to completion, if it ever is. The touch is light and the emotions are genuine. For the longtime fan, it's a chorus or reprise of the themes they've been tracing throughout. For the uninitiated, it's a perfect three-minute introduction to their form.

There are two ways I can think of to read the young woman's actions; either she knows full well what the boy was in the midst of doing and is moved by the film to immediately forgive him and seek to redeem his actions, or she is "merely" so moved by Bresson's film that she is in need of some human touch and she grasps the first hand that comes to her, oblivious to his intent. It's difficult to overstate just how audacious the first reading is, and I prefer it thoroughly to the other. This sort of forgiveness and indifference to one's own self-preservation is so implausible that it's generally the sort of thing seen only in advertisements. But the Dardennes are way too earnest to pull something like that. Instead we're faced with the challenge that a movie--that the right movie--has the power to confront us with enough beauty and compassion that we would be inspired to forgive and embrace a person seeking to rob us.

I would rather be rendered permanently mute...

...than to have to ever use the word "ginormous."

DAN ROONEY: FOAM PILLOWS ONLY

The Smoking Gun has published the document sent out by the Steelers describing their hotel requirements. It's bland reading beyond the first few pages, but it provides a little insight into the sort of overblown production created by a traveling NFL team these days. And while I've seen it mentioned a few places that the restrictions on incoming calls to players' rooms after 11 p.m. are an incoming booty call-deterrent measure, I think it's more likely the team is trying to prevent enterprising fans from the home team from prank-calling players and disrupting their sleep. And I totally understand their efforts. You can't be too careful these days, lest you end up with another Chiefs incident.

WORLD'S FINEST WEBJUNK (Installment #1)

Virginia's Favorite Superhero Is Elektra

INT. HOUSE - VIRGINIA'S BEDROOM - NIGHT

VIRGINIA (3 years old) is being tucked into bed by ALI

VIRGINIA
Why didn't daddy choose me when he was finding a wife?
(considers the matter)
Oh, I wasn't a grown-up lady when you were a grown-up lady.

ALI
...

(after a beat; out of nowhere)
VIRGINIA
Daddy's better than you.

CUT TO:
INT. MINIVAN - DAY

VIRGINIA (to ALI, unrelated to any conversation at hand)
When you die, daddy and I will live happily ever after.

ALI
(laughing)

LEAH and RUBY (in unison)
What did she say?

ALI
Oh, nothing.

VIRGINIA
Tell them!

EBERE!

Our God is good.

The New Man in Black

It's been really hot the last two weeks-- mid- to high nineties and humid. Mike Tomlin's the only guy in Latrobe wearing black clothing. Last year his predecessor spent the dog days of training camp wearing a straw Bermuda hat and white or khaki clothes. At various times in the past few years home teams in hot climates (notably the Jacksonville Jaguars) have worn white jerseys when the Steelers came to town in hopes of making them uncomfortably hot. So why the hot clothes, coach?

Tomlin has worn black every day of training camp, but for the past two days he's at least in shorts and not the long pants he wore last week. He's still wearing long-sleeved black shirts, though, as temperatures hover around the 90s at Saint Vincent.

Finally, yesterday, he let on why.

"It's part of the mental warfare. I don't want guys coming up to me and talking about how hot it is because they know I don't care. And that's part of it. I hope it gets hotter."

Picture and text courtesy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

I've yet to read anything about Tomlin that didn't make me like him more. I'd like to see him carry the color scheme over to the regular season sideline and make it into a sort of identity, like a Jerry Glanville who can actually coach.

July, 2007 Film Viewings

7.4 THE NAKED KISS
7.9 HUMAIN, TROP HUMAIN
7.13 SPIDER BABY
7.14 FULL METAL JACKET
7.18 HAPPY TOGETHER
7.19 IDIOCRACY
7.21 GEORGE WASHINGTON
7.25 WENDIGO
7.26 KNOCKED UP
7.27 NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM
7.29 THE ILLUSIONIST