Jonathan Rosenbaum & Adrian Martin (eds.),
Movie Mutations: The Changing Face of World Cinephilia.
London: BFI Publishing. 2003.
ISBN: 0851709842 (pb): £15.99
ISBN: 0851709834 (hb) £48.00
224 pp
(Review copy supplied by BFI publishing)
Two declarations stand out right at the start. “The Cinemas of Asia and the Middle East have, over the past decade, assumed a prominence in world film culture unimaginable twenty years ago,” says Adrian Martin. “Traversing both academia and the mainstream is something of great concern to me, the question of availability, when films become available, or whether they remain unavailable, wherever you happen to be,” says Jonathan Rosenbaum. And thus Movie Mutations, the curious and enormously engaging book they have co-edited begins its relay race of interviews, letters and comments from writers and filmmakers as varied as Sheigehiko Hasumi, Mehranaz Saeed-vafa, Natasha Durivicova and Catherine Benamou.
That Asia and the Middle East have produced some of the most interesting cinematic works of the past decade is incontestable, as is the question of availability – especially at a time when DVD and video has made so much of cinematic history available to so many so quickly. Yet questions remain about a book that quite unabashedly regards Abbas Kirarostami, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang as Pantheon figures in a manner not all that removed from the way the MacMahonists of the ’60s worshipped Lang, Preminger, Losey and Walsh. Obviously Kirarostami, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang come from quite a different cinematic world. But movie love is move love, and this observer can’t help feeling more like a sidelines spectator than a full participant. Wong Kar Wei is mentioned only in passing and Patrice Chereau (in my not at all humble estimation the greatest director in the world – encompassing opera and theater as well as film) is not mentioned at all.
The book is dedicated, most appropriately, to the memories of Serge Daney (1944-1992) and Raymond Durgnat (1932-2002). We are at the moment in the happy throes of full-press appreciation of Daney – whose contribution to the art and practice of criticism may well come to topple Bazin from his mighty throne. Durgnat is quite another matter. Far too “hot” and unresolved – even in his last book on Psycho – to win the love being lavished (quite deservedly) on Daney. One can scarcely guess what he would make of Kirarostami, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang. Perhaps he might find such works as Close-up (Iran, 1990) and Taste of Cherry (France/Iran, 1997) an opportunity to re-evaluate neo-realism. Of the others it’s difficult to say. For my own part there’s much to admire in all three, yet I find the seemingly unfettered enthusiasm for Tsai Ming-liang hard to fathom in contrast to full-blooded same-sexuality of Chereau. Clearly Kangs-sheng Lee is Tsai Ming-liang’s Anna Karina. But there hasn’t been any real commentary on this fact. Perhaps another time, another volume.
Still one can’t help but applaud Nicole Brenez when she notes “To write the history of contemporary cinema seems more urgent and difficult because, thanks to the increase and greater accessibility of technological tools, thanks to the diversity of artistic models, because of the spreading need for images, production is exploding.” In a very dark time this gives one hope.
David Ehrenstein
USA
Created on: Friday, 30 April 2004 | Last Updated: 30-Apr-04