Hazy and Clear

--Visual effects of The Fall of the House of Usher and Variations

In The Fall of the House of Usher, Jean Epstein produces a series of hazy shots by setting mist or smoke in front of the camera. These hazy images appear at many scenes from the beginning to the end of this film generating a supernatural atmosphere. On the contrary, in Nathaniel Dorsky’s Variations, texture-rich and color-saturate images present objects in a clearly and naturally. However, both of images subordinate to the emotions of films functioning well.

Epstein’s work is an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem which tells a story about Usher’s illness and his wife’s death. He made the picture to serve the story telling in a cinematic way. All the mise-en-scene is to help to achieve this goal. In my opinion, adding the mist in the frame is to create spooky atmosphere. Early in this film, when the carriage is approaching to Roderick Usher’s house, we can see a group of hazy images. From point of view shots of carriage driver, we see that a heavy mist without a single pedestrian or animal in it. This drops a hint that something unusual will happen in the Usher’s house, which is death. The voice over followed this shot also indicates the supernatural atmosphere. I even have a feeling that the road that they are driving on is not in the world of immortals. At the end of this film, when the house is in fire, we see more hazy shots than in any other parts in the film. After a shot of heavy mist in Usher’s house that we can barely see the other objects in the frame, Roderick’s wife walks into the screen, which happens after they buried her body. She walks through the smoke and comes towards Roderick. When she reaches him, the smoke and fire spread around all over the house. At this time, not only the smoke makes audience feel in a supernatural way, but also the appearance of Usher’s wife in the frame is impossible to believe. However, by doing so, Epstein successfully creates a mood that compatible with Poe’s poem. He fills the frame with moody, Gothic and unrealistic atmosphere by using these hazy shots.

What are so different from Epstein’s hazy shots are the clear images of Variations. Dorsky has been pursuing the most natural views that a camera can provide to audience by filming ordinary city landscapes. In the frame of Variations, we can see images in details closely and clearly which reveal graphic contrasts and color variations. Although splendor and breath-taking, these images are not expected to have logical relations between each other. Our world has its beauty in their natural look. If you want to see images such as the reflecting of sunlight by a dog’s wet nose, shadows of ripples on a bird’s feathers, silhouettes of trees and flowers on a car’s window or a snail on a grass, you have to make sure there is no smoke or frog in front of the camera. It is these clear images that provide the possibility that we are able to see the details of these objects. Also, they present the genuine textures and colors of objects. My favorite shot is the dog’s nose. In a sunny day, a dog is standing on the street and looking towards Dorsky’s camera. Its wet and black nose is reflecting the sunlight. And because it is breathing, the nose vibrates slightly and the reflected light changes the directions slightly. It is not telling any story in the frame and is a picture which presents a lovely movement in our life. Dorsky leads us to look through the window-the screen to discover the own story of nature.

Some Thoughts

In Act/React exhibition, Deep Walls is an art work that interests me because Scott Snibbe creatively integrates simple elements into the work producing dynamic images. Silhouette of visitor’s movements in separated frames is one element, while juxtaposition of frames is another element that serves as the complement. Nathaniel Dorsky’s Three Songs: Song and Solitude, Winter and Sarabande are three silent films which present breathtaking images even though most of them are mundane outdoor landscapes. Similarly, there are two characters that function together to promote the dynamics in these films. Although silent, Dorsky’s films speak to viewer in powerful images with extraordinary saturated in color and superimposition of texture. Whether showing the landscapes reflected on the window, or the flowers in the brush, his images are on a splendor level. I even have the illusion that I am looking at strong paintings due to their powerful colors. Another character for these films is that two scenes are superimposed in one frame. Branches in one scene would interweave with furniture in another scene. The superimposition creates a magical effect that as if viewers are looking at transparent glass that one behind another. The images seem to be printed on the glass. There is one scene in Sarabande that there are some drops on a window. Each drop not only reflects lights to different angles, but also reflects the distorted images of building, people and surrounding decorations on its hemispherical surface. Besides that, the color and texture of the flowers on the images of another scene appear behind the window. The application of saturated color and superimposition generate a visual attraction to viewer’s eyes. As images are shown continually, a flowing color in the screen involves me into this world. After I watched his all three films that night, I couldn’t remember a single image. But when I closed my eyes, I could feel the dynamics that provided by the integration by these two characters.

The striking color of images from Dorsky’s Three Songs leads me to think about Deep Walls. At a glance, Deep Walls and Three Songs can be significant different regarding the images. The former is a group of black-and-white images featuring ever-changing movements. The latter are vivid color images without extraordinary movement. Yet they have similarities in a surprise way. Deep Walls applies the juxtaposition of sixteen frames on a screen that each frame presents moving images. Three Songs integrate two scenes into one frame. The movement in one scene would appear more dramatically with the superimposition of another scene. For example, with the existence of another scene which serves as an extra background or foreground, the angles of the reflected lights are enlarged in our eyes. The images of superimposed scenes produce a flowing color and movement without showing many moving objects. In a nutshell, Snibbe and Dorsky apply elements that I mention above to enhance the complexity of composition in images in order to create the dynamics. Snibbe intends to involve visitors into his art work by focusing on the movements in his images, while Dorsky allows viewers to see through the screen as a window to a vivid world.

It is interesting to imagine the situation that Deep Walls and Three Songs are projected on one screen. Apparently there will be huge conflicts between two works on several levels. Deep Walls is an installation art work and the images are recorded by digital camera, while Three Songs are motion pictures filmed in 16 mm film. The characteristics of images are different. Contrasts would be made between saturated color and black-and-white, juxtaposition of frames and superimposed images in one frame. For Deep Walls, viewers would easily notice two elements that I mentioned in paper#2: silhouette and frames, which generate the dynamics. For Three Songs, gay images play a key role in drawing viewer’s attention. The contribution to the floating of the color from other factors such as montage editing cannot be denied, yet the feeling of the floating color is driven by superimposition greatly. This may be a little more difficult to discover. For an understanding of all these elements and their functions in Deep Walls and Three Songs, I need to pay attentions and devote my thinking. So at last, I realized that approaches that used to produce complexity, dynamics, and perspective illusion or to enlarge angles vary from work to work. However, the goal of the artists is to create a work that can trigger a viewer’s active thoughts.
Click to see information of Dorsky's films.

A Door to another World

Art Encounter Series Three

Key Words: Sound, Aaron Ximm


There is always more than one way to learn about the world around us. Sound artist Aaron Ximm introduces a fantastic world for us by his field recording sounds which collected in his journey to many countries. I went to the performance which Aaron presented his two long pieces. Aaron also came to our class and performed his works with other sound artists. I was lucky to listen to his live performance and felt very sad that I could not listen again. One of his sound pieces lasts for forty minutes, but I felt that it was a very short time. Perhaps it was so musical to me that I forgot the time when I was listening.

Aaron opens a door for me, a door to a world which I need to learn to listen in a new way. His field recordings show me how to experience the world through listening. Field recordings from Aaron are sounds including human sounds, mechanical sounds and natural sounds. Many of them are ambient sounds of certain areas. Aaron combined these sounds into short or long pieces. But he would not add musical sounds into his sounds. Just as Glenn told us in his lecture, “Nature has its own music, and we should listen to this music”.

I went to Aaron’s performance in theater. That is a large room and equipped with great speakers. We sit in dark and listened. One of his sound pieces tells the story that his wife was giving birth. The whole piece lasts for forty minutes. At the very beginning, there was a drone growing gradually. It needs much attention to hear. With the drone was going on, it was silence but uneasy. I knew that it would prepare us to enter the climax. And then people started talking and making sounds with medical equipment in the operation room. A woman started moaning because of pain in her body. Doctors’ voices and her husband’s voices were added. Her moans seemed to come from a far place but still clear. At this time, I could feel the intense atmosphere even in dark. Everyone seemed to be able to feel her pain. But suddenly, there was a surprised silence. And then we all heard sweet baby crying sounds which melt our hearts. The silence-sound contrast that Aaron made in this piece is amazing. I felt that for the sweet baby voice, all the suffering from the silence and drone was nothing. At the end of this piece, I felt that I arrived to a bright world after traveling through darkness. Aaron didn’t use any musical sounds to help us experience his story. So I guess that is why Glenn said in class, let the sound speaks and tells the story.

Listening to Aaron’s sound pieces makes me feel warm. But why and how do I have such feeling? I think because they are come from common sounds but organized in a way that I like. Aaron would compose his raw materials into long pieces by combining and editing sounds pieces. However, he did not add musical instrument sounds into them. When he came to our class and performed his sound pieces, I just sit there and listened to one piece. I could not remember the beginning part, but then I heard the sounds of flip-flop, sounds of a window blew by wind and sounds of raindrops. And it was such a silence after the rain stopped that I could only hear the window shaking lightly in a breeze. My eyes were closed. I saw that I was in my sweet old house and just awoke after a nap at an afternoon twelve years ago. The contrast between the silence and sounds is powerful. When I heard the silence after sounds of raindrop, my memory of that afternoon was so clear that I could remember the shapes of the raindrops on my window. It was not a special afternoon and the sounds were not very euphonious. But they related to my memory of lovely childhood which I didn't have too much homework to do and didn’t have to face pressure from school. I would not talk about such experience in that afternoon because it is too trivial. But it never lost in my memory. So I was moving when I heard these sounds. Aaron has the ability to present beauty with these common sounds.

Aaron also has a talent to capture beautiful sounds which we may not familiar with. Most of his field recordings were collected in warm places such as India, Vietnam and South America. The ambient sounds in certain areas, just like images, have their own tune. Usually, people in these places are able to enjoy many outdoor activities most of time in a year. They are fond of dance and gathering together for celebration. So it is not strange that there would be sounds of singing, music and talking. Even the sounds of thunders and rain seem to be pleased. Aaron said that there are many interesting sounds in India and he would travel there again.

Aaron decided that he would make his sounds warm. Given the same raw materials, different people would make different sound pieces. It is just like to make a movie. A director would use the footage to make a movie which reveals his or her own personality. Aaron’s every sound piece that he performed for us likes a movie. We need to experience his stories using our ears. His sound pieces reveal his personality. But he did not dominate the stories in his works. We listen and imagine our own images in the mind, which is promising.

Aaron’s exploration in sounds which exist in human societies and natural environments opens a door for me. I entered a strange world that I saw people’s daily lives, a train with passengers, rain and thunder, a flying bird……I even saw a world that in my memory. If they are appeared in front me in the form of a movie or pictures, I would not feel exciting at all. When I was watching movies, my eyes and ears accept the information together. When I was looking at pictures, my ears could fall asleep. But when I was listening to Aaron’s work, my ears were totally awoke and activated to accept the information. I am trying to learn this world in a new way. It is so amazing to have more than one way to know about the world.

Click to visit Aaron Ximm's website.

Pursuing the Seriousness

Media making is changing so fast today due to many factors such as the development of technology and people’s lifestyle. Media in 21st century applies new tools and appeared in new forms that challenge our knowledge about art. Film, as a traditional form of media art, is also influenced by similar factors. Although I am very concerned about the state of filmmaking today as well as its future, I don’t have the confidence that I would find a satisfied answer. It is difficult to discuss the state of filmmaking today without working for years and doing a lot of research in this field. However, through my limited reading of this journal, I feel that filmmakers are still pursuing the seriousness of cinemas.

Filmmaking can be approached by many innovative ways nowadays, while they are revealing serious subjects. For examples, one of the important new forms is animation film. To make a film is to build a world based on a story. Filmmakers’ imagination plays a key role on telling the story artistically. Now with the computer techniques, filmmakers are able to create almost any special effects that they want. This would enable filmmakers to extend the border of film to subject matters that they have never touched before. Under some conditions, without the limitations of actors and actresses’ performance, animation would free filmmakers to achieve a film easier. But if some people think that animation film is only cartoon for kids, they are wrong. It is not only because films that refer to science or mythology would have to apply animation today, but also some animation films would just made for serious themes and meanings. For instance, a recently screened animation film Persepolis tells a serious story about people’s lives under war. It is true that there are scenes which reveal a sense of humor, but you can not help to feel the sorrow after watching this movie.

Through my reading on this journal, I found that the seriousness that people searching for on filmmaking always has something to do with humanity. Humanity would reflect different aspects in different situations. Certain events or conditions such as war could enlarge or distort aspects of humanity. It is very common for people in a real life that they suffer so much because they cannot obtain the emotions, objects and lives that they expected. In many films, these suffering would be artistically enlarged and presented so that people can see themselves from this “mirror”. Since the very beginning of making films, people have concerned about humanity.

Filmmaking today is still a way of trying to know about ourselves and pursuing the seriousness.

You Only Live Once from Fritz Lang

Recently I read an article about You Only Live Once from Fritz Lang by Christopher Justice. I am really interested in this film and would like to watch it. This film is considered as a great work which marks Fritz Lang’s successfully transition from silent to sound film. But what is attractive to me is that the film noir and the sadness of protagonist in the story. According to Justice, the protagonist Taylor is victimized by the injustice of his community while trying to lead a normal life with his wife Joan. He and his wife can not avoid the violence that destroys them at last. In Justice’s article, he discusses that how Lang uses expressionistic style to present the protagonist’s fate and his relationship with the society in this film noir. Justice thinks that Lang is interested in and highly skilled at the depiction of implication of innocent soul.

Reading Justice’s description of the story, I think that he summarizes some very good points for this film. When Justice introduces Eddie (the protagonist)’s jail experience in the film, he says that Eddie is right and society is wrong. This situation can bring so many troubles to anyone who wants to be right. When the majority stand on the other side in our society and whatever they are right or wrong, the minority may have to succumb to its power. This is also the Eddie’s destiny in the film. It reminds me the infamous revolution which happened in my country at 1970s. At that period, many great writers, scholars and scientists were killed because they insisted on being right. The result is a disaster, which the majority not only killed those people, but also destroy the culture. We all know that there are political and historical reasons for certain events, but we will not be able to avoid its occurrence. People’s personality can be complicated in that period. Justice mentions Eddie’s words “It’s fun to see an innocent man die”. Although I have not seen the film, I feel that this sentence will be perfect to describe the majority in a society that in this film. And it is the same as the people in the revolution that I mention above. As the wrong power of the majority grows, it will triggers inappropriate activities of common people. Consequently, anyone who wants to be right and insists on being right usually has to struggle to live under this power.

As Justice states in his article, perhaps that director wants us to think about the justice according to the society, which is the actual shelter for us. A film which refers to violence and unfortunate fate of protagonists would always bring deeper thoughts for viewers. In fact, sometimes it can be suffering for watching and thinking about these kinds of film. However, we still need these films for the introspection of human society.

Two interesting elements of Deep Walls from Scott Snibbe

Section#1
One of critical elements of Scott Snibbe’s Deep Walls is the silhouettes of visitors’ movements in separated frames. When visitors walk by a wall, a camera will capture visitors’ movements and cast the silhouettes on the screen on the wall. The silhouette in each capture occupies one of sixteen frames in the screen. From the silhouette, I was able to watch the documentation of my interaction with this art work. It is interesting that they are moving silhouettes but not clear motion pictures in color, which is comparatively abstract in terms of visual effect. I am very fond of the color and the texture of these moving silhouettes. The differences of visitors such as clothes, colors of hair cannot be informed from silhouettes. Scott Snibbe’s choice of silhouette eliminates those information and leads visitors to focus their observation and thinking on the movement. This choice also greatly encourages visitors to be involved in the interaction. In a public area like this museum, compared to watching videos with sharp images of themselves, people would feel more comfortable with watching their shadows. I felt very relax and comfortable when I watched my silhouettes and tried new gestures in front of the screen. I just simply moved back and forth at first. But soon I found that to watch the walking of my shadow is not very fun. So I began to experiment more dramatic movement in my recreation of video. I jumped as high as I could while walking in front of the camera, imitating a kangaroo. If it would be a color video, I would be too shy to perform this. And I was very satisfied with my kangaroo-jump-image which almost looks like cartoon. After watching their silhouettes, many other visitors also became more and more brave and brisk in experimentation of body movement, which could be any kind of modern dance.

Section#2
The juxtaposition of sixteen small separated frames on one screen is a complement element to the silhouette in single frame. For an Act/React art work, if the idea that to capture a visitor’s movement and cast the silhouette to the screen seems very common, the juxtaposition of many silhouettes from different visitors would make Deep Walls very attractive because of its abstraction and creation. When I entered the room which the Deep Walls is installed, I was shocked by the juxtaposition of sixteen frames occupying a whole wall. The changing images without connections in the context on the screen produce a visually abstract representation, which slows down my speed in understanding this art work. I had to spend a couple minutes to study the composition and context in each frame. To me, it seems like watching sixteen persons’ shadows walking on a same screen in separated frames. But these shadow images were displayed in a creative way. After I realized those images were records of visitors’ activities, I came to a stage of searching for certain silhouette in single frame. It can be said that this juxtaposition produce a visual effect that hooks and transfers me to a more detailed observation, which is my experience that I describes in section#1.

Section#3
The silhouettes in separated frames and juxtaposition of these frames are the complements of each other. Being piled up to form a fun-to-watch network, these visually attractive images could draw interests from visitors immediately after they enter this area. Then visitors would like to start their interactions with art work. They begins to look at each frame carefully, they would find that the movements were documented in the form of silhouette in order to encourage visitors to join the interaction, which is creatively designed by Snibbe. The combination of these two elements of Deep Walls not only enhances the dynamic visual effect, but also results collaborations of visitors. From the real-time documentations of a group of visitors’ interactions on same screen, I could learn from other people’s movement and created my own. Or I could repeat their movements in my own way, which would also create a different silhouette. According to my observation, everyone begins the interaction by watching and learning other people’s images. And everyone’s record may become the material that other people would like to study before they join the creation. Some families and couples also imitate each other’s gesture and improve the old ones in their interaction. For instance, I saw a couple was holding hands together when they walked. Soon, another couple was holding and kissing each other which was more complicated while they were walking. Strangers talks to each other about their images on the screen and even recreate the video together. It could be said that the visitors formed a dynamic community while they were participating in this interaction.

The Lacking Diversity in Mainland Films

In Senses of Cinema's website, I found an interesting report from Adrian Danks:A City of Forgetting: The 32^nd Hong Kong International Film Festival. This report provides me an access to review the films of Asian region at last year. In his report(A City of Forgetting: The 32nd Hong Kong International Film Festival ), Danks talked about his opinions about this festival and some screening which I didn't have a chance to see.

According to Danks, the films in this festival include films in different genres. I began to recall the films I have seen or heard about last year in China. Except The Sun Also Rises from Wen Jiang, there is no other film mentioned in this article that I have heard about in mainland film festivals. Basically, for most of mainland films, to me, documentaries and experimental films have more artistic value than narrative films. Firstly, documentary especially scientific documentary is my favorite genre. However, they are rare and almost inaccessible in theater but only on television sometimes. Some of early mainland documentaries I have seen are low quality because of lacking of finical support. Although I aware that documentaries have the same problem in most of countries because they are not produced for the commercial purpose. When it comes to experimental film, I have no idea what mainland experimental films look like since some narrative films usually as disorienting as experimental film. After the encounters of experimental films in Milwaukee, I disagree with the point that some films are thought to be experimental films only because their contexts are controversy.

Danks mentioned that the sameness lies in most of mainland Chinese films that he saw in this festival. Although I have not seen all those films, unfortunately I agree with Danks about the sameness in mainland Chinese films. Briefly, the lacking of encouragement and the support of the government cause the poorness in cinema diversity. Basically, only the films produced by very famous filmmakers and said to be high-budget can be seen in most of the cities, which actually are in pretty poor quality. The famous directors have more advantages in circulation of films. The Sun Also Rises from Wen Jiang is more or less experimental compared to other mainstream films. And it is fortunate that he is famous enough to make his film to be screened in the theaters. As a matter of fact, there are many promising films produced by unfamiliar filmmakers every year in China. But because of unknown reason, their works can barely be screened in public. To sum up, the lacking of diversity in mainland cinemas are the results of above reasons and would be impacted by similar reasons in the future.

However, I still expect to see more non-mainstream films from Asian region. It is not because of the boring mainstream films, but the hope that to extend the life of cinema in China.