don't bring popcorn

I’m one of those people who really like to watch a film and do nothing else. I find it hard to engage in a film if I’m dividing my attention between eating an ice-cream, reaching for popcorn or making out. This is why, despite a home a projector, cheap DVDs and the circulation of free download-able movies, there is still great pleasure in going out and viewing a film in the dark and cold cinema. I think there has been a plethora of theoretical writing about the spectator experience in the darkened cinema and I certainly agree that it is the best environment to facilitate one’s immersion into the screen image and story.

We watched Werner Herzog’s latest film, Rescue Dawn and Catherine Breillat’s Une Vieille Maitresse. They were both great and it reminded me of how much I like modern cinema.

I re-subscribed to the Chauvel Cinematheque and off to a great start was the Monday night program-

PSYCHO CELLULOID – A program of films exploring the world of psychology.

1. Brain and Behaviour USA/1962/29mins/B&W/16mm.Demonstrates the way in which electrical activity in the brain gives us information about man’s behaviour.
2. Over-Dependency Canada/1949/32mins/B&White/16mm Dir:Robert Anderson. A case study of a young man whose life is crippled by behaviour patterns carried from his too-dependent childhood. The third film in the National Film Board of Canada’s Mental Mechanisms series noted for their psychological realism.
3. Emotional Development USA/1973/18mins/Color/16mm Dir: Barbara Jampel. Examines the theory that aggression, in both children and adults, is a behaviour that is learned in a social context. Narrated by Leslie Nielsen.
4. Sigmund Freud’s Dora: A Case of Mistaken Identity USA/1979/ 34mins/Colour/16mm Dir: Anthony McCall, Claire Pajaczkowska, Andrew Tyndall, & Jane Weinstock. A critique of the representation of women in psychoanalytic discourse is linked, in the form of an ‘essay’, with modes of representation of women’s sexuality in the visual media.

And in the proceeding program of early animation I watched an excellent Canadian animation, which I found on YouTube (who would have guessed?), here it is broken up into two parts.

La Faim (Hunger) Canada/1974/12mins/Colour/16mm Dir: Peter Foldes. Oscar nominated satire of self-indulgence in a hungry world. Music by Pierre Brault.