Perfect Days 2
Dec. 9th, 2025 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo Perfect Days was showing at the Towner a few months back. People who'd seen it were going on about how wonderful it was. Oddly enough none of them mentioned that it was directed by Wim Wenders.
Back in the day we cineastes used to talk in terms of directors. Stars and screenwriters were secondary. The director was the man (he generally was a man)- and as much in control of the work as a novelist is of their novel. We went to see a movie because it was a Bergman movie or an Antonioni movie or- even- a Wim Wenders movie. These guys were auteurs- you knew when you went to see one of their films that you were entering a certain kind of world, that a certain kind of imagination was at play. You loved 'em, you felt an affinity- or you felt a distaste. I gave up going to Polanski's stuff because it radiated negativity. I became a Bergman completist even though, objectively speaking, some of his films were crap.
Wenders is one of the last of the old style European auteurs. And Perfect Days is one of the last of the old style auteur movies. You can see, feel, intuit that it comes from the mind that gave us Alice in the Cities way back in 1974. It was made under auteur conditions too- for very little money, with a shooting schedule (which it stuck to) of a mere 16 days, and without studio interference.
Contemporary cinema interests me very little. Maybe I'm just old. Or maybe the golden age is over and what we're being fed is silver at best. Still, if Wenders (who is 80) manages to make another movie I'll be wanting to track it down......
Back in the day we cineastes used to talk in terms of directors. Stars and screenwriters were secondary. The director was the man (he generally was a man)- and as much in control of the work as a novelist is of their novel. We went to see a movie because it was a Bergman movie or an Antonioni movie or- even- a Wim Wenders movie. These guys were auteurs- you knew when you went to see one of their films that you were entering a certain kind of world, that a certain kind of imagination was at play. You loved 'em, you felt an affinity- or you felt a distaste. I gave up going to Polanski's stuff because it radiated negativity. I became a Bergman completist even though, objectively speaking, some of his films were crap.
Wenders is one of the last of the old style European auteurs. And Perfect Days is one of the last of the old style auteur movies. You can see, feel, intuit that it comes from the mind that gave us Alice in the Cities way back in 1974. It was made under auteur conditions too- for very little money, with a shooting schedule (which it stuck to) of a mere 16 days, and without studio interference.
Contemporary cinema interests me very little. Maybe I'm just old. Or maybe the golden age is over and what we're being fed is silver at best. Still, if Wenders (who is 80) manages to make another movie I'll be wanting to track it down......
Thoughts
Date: 2025-12-09 08:58 am (UTC)The last film I saw that I'd call truly an Art film was actually animation: Flow. I wound up not liking it very much because the poor cat spent most of the time miserable, and few things are as distressing as a wailing cat. But the imagery was still stunning and doing a whole film without spoken dialogue was daring. It just felt like Art -- all that attention to view and color and detail. I wish we had more Art and less Product.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-12-09 10:48 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-12-10 01:43 am (UTC)A town near us still has an art theater, but I think that's the last left in the area. We had a second-run theater closer to home that often had something artsy or foreign on the list, but that closed a couple decades ago. Now the theaters are for new films that are more flash than substance. I admit that I've bought some just for the FX ("It's raining dinosaurs: shut up and take my money") but I'd like to have more variety.
For a while I was finding great stuff on YouTube but their current policies made me cut way back. Then I realized that AI was creeping into the content in ways that undermine its usefulness. I like the educational stuff. I was watching a piece about pterosaurs and realized the images were dead wrong. One was folding its wings like crossing its arms. Another had multiple fingers like a bat. :/ Now, I know these are wrong, but what else is wrong that I'm not spotting? And I used to watch for the student films that would pop up, little 5-10 minute segments, sometimes really cool experimental stuff like playing with color filters or unusual angles. But now that's all splodged in with AI slop I don't want to watch, with no easy way to distinguish which. *grumble*
On the other hoof, historic crafts seem to be gaining ground from people who are disgusted with modern (fill in the blank) so they're all, "Fuck it, I'm gonna try drop-spinning."
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-12-10 07:09 am (UTC)I pick up old movies on the internet. It's amazing what rarities one can find.....
Our local art gallery has a small cinema attached- which shows arthouse films.
Yes, there's a lot of junk on YouTube. There's no quality control- and you can waste a lot of time on content that's being put out by people who don't know what they're talking about.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-12-10 07:38 am (UTC)Sure there's a lot of junk, but what is driving me bats is the rise of wrong content on formerly reliable educational channels. I'm a serious outlier in having recreational interest in things like plate tectonics and paleoevolution -- most people who create content on those topics are experts, or at least as far along as grad students.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-09 12:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-12-09 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-12-09 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-12-09 02:45 pm (UTC)I used to think it was Powell's most personal film but apparently he's on record as saying it was basically Pressburger's movie and he was just along for the ride. Also that he didn't think it a success.