Edward Yang and the nature of art.

This comes a little late but I was shocked and really saddened this week at the death of Edward Yang. Yang, the revered Taiwanese filmmaker of Yi Yi and A Brighter Summer Day passed away after a battle with cancer at only 59. I have never seen an Edward Yang film, and really only very little of the Taiwanese New Wave that he was a part of. But his passing really affected me. Just the thought of an artist dieing before his time, an artist that I was not familiar with but wished to be, just kills me. There is a sadness to the finality of a filmmakers body of work. One day soon I will see Yi Yi or another Yang film, and perhaps I will love him. I might seek out all his other terribly hard to find films but eventually that will be it, I have seen everything he made. There will be no feeling of waiting for that next film, waiting for another potential masterpiece.

But why do films matter, anyway? Why does any art or artist matter in the world? It is a difficult question, and one that I have been thinking about every day for the last few weeks. My answer, and the only one that rings true for me, is that art is not merely a facsimile or representation of the world. Art, true art, in films or any other form is not a replacement for real experiences. Art and especially film can connect you to people, to worlds, to life in a way that you could not necessarily experience otherwise. Watching great films is like being taken into a world or introduced to characters and experiencing it and them through the eyes of someone that understands more about that place and those people than perhaps I ever could. Watching Abbas Kiarostami or Hou Hsiao Hsien I understand more about Iran or Taiwan than I could watching the news, visiting as a tourist, or possibly even than I could get from a good documentary. Watching Hawks or Cassavetes gives me insight into the relationship of men and women. Tati teaches me about the modern world and what we have lost. Malick makes me experience the natural world and why people and nature are integrally combined. Woody Allen tells me to laugh at sadness, Welles warns me of fascism and brings me a living Shakespeare. Watching Godard answers my questions about art and poses a thousand more.

Why do films matter? When I watch films, when anyone watches good films, I feel more connected to all the varieties of the world. Why are we here? I think it is so that we can learn more about the people, places and things that make up our world and to find a place in it that we can contribute to the good of all. Watching films helps to make a connection to the world in a profound way that is good for the viewer. From a film that calls to social action to a film that just helps you understand better your family, your friends or a stranger on the street, taking these journeys and listening to the artists brings me closer to the world and the people in it.

Avalon co-op

No one else might know it, but the Avalon co-op in Austin was a pretty amazing place to live during 2003-2004. We were a close group of artists, politicos and just plain cool people. Two more of those great housemates have really fantastic blogs: Kevin covers politics from the center in DC over at Mulling it over from the Middle while Joel, who seems to have learned a new language every time I talk to him, continues his great journalism in more depth at The Wandering.

Check out their stuff, both are great reads.

Pure cinema.

All films, good and bad, fall along a spectrum that spans from Tati to Godard. At one end is Godard,the champion of a "mixed cinema", combining image-sound-text-language. His films combine poetic and chaotic images and sounds with language and polemic, a Godard film is intellectual view of the world. At the other end of the spectrum is the "pure cinema" of Tati, audio visual works that eschew verbal language and even intellectualization to deliver their ideas with a sensory and emotional appeal to the viewer. An example from Playtime (1967):

The scene is a great study in contrasts. The businessman, all right angles and precision, versus loveable M. Hulot, a picture of an unkempt and thoroughly unmodern man. Hulot's amazement with his environment seems almost childlike in comparison to the urban businessman. Yet I have no doubt that it is Hulot that is experiencing life, while the businessman will be continually checking his watch. It is Hulot's anachronism, his wonder at the sound of the cushions and the sounds of the businessman's movements, that sets him apart and makes him warm in this otherwise cold, hermetically sealed world. Through the images of Hulot, the businessman and the office and through the sounds of those cushions and that briefcase, Tati subtly brings up his distaste with the modern world and his love of those gentle and silly people who can no longer find a place in it.

In Godard's hands the scene would have played as Marxist critique, as the comic fool pointing out the damnable folly in the businessman. There would be text, speeches and a feeling of intellectual rigour. From Tati the scene is gentler, with a lighter touch that is no less damning but that plays more toward sadness than fire. Hulot may be one of the last gentle souls on Earth, but he handles it with a perplexed sigh, gently walking towards the edge of the frame after being rebuked, confident in his own time.