"Sculpting in time" and "The sound of no music"

"Sculpting in time" and "The sound of no music"

Both these titles are very attractive seeds, I imagine them both leading to something fruitful.

How do you "Sculpt in time"?  This is a book on cinema by Tarkovsky and "The sound of no music" is a film review.

Sculpt in time means to me adding subtracting lengths of time here and there to ... a scene?  You spend more time looking at here this spot, there that passage? and then  you link your trajectory and that makes a movie.

As for the sound of no music, if there is no music, there might be noise, or sounds coming from friction, movements, a kind of left over disorganised sounds.

But I really should read the original texts to see what was said, however i am in a stretch of no rush no urgency mood.  What should I read in such moments?

I think of all those sunny songs that are not love songs.  Sad unrequited love, separation loves, waiting languishing loves are all unsatisfied love stories.  If you remove all these type of hopeless, powerless stories what kind of love songs do we have?

I will try to round up a few off the top of my head, and then follow through with researched titles

"Raindrop keeps falling on my head"

"A whiter shade of pale"

"sukiyaki"

"Help" (Beatles)

"A wonderful world"

"Shame shame shame"

Dimash, Kazak's culture, hair, language, singing, lyrics, film music, Gohatto

Shuengit's feedback

answer to the Kazaks journalist - Meruyert Burkitbayeva - invitation for feedback of introducing kazahs culture through Dimash music.

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For the use of fb

Through D's beautiful voice and visual presentations, humour, I was able to appreciate the mass media approach to enjoy neo classical music. The very rich access to various international tv performances not only shows me how D's music has been received in different cultures, but also the host tv stations programming and styles and fellow performers in each country for example Kazaks, Russia, and China are so interesting to watch. I wish all the best to Dimash and hope to see more of his works to come.

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Why I find the singer Dimash so interesting to watch.

First of all, his public persona truly reminds me of everyone's first dream boyfriend, or a very kind older brother, who has the same style, tall, athletic, and with his private slight sadness - youthful beauty, we were once all beautiful and young with each our own sadness.  Some of which is more profound and others a kind of youthful fluff, but doesnt matter the size of the sadness and seriousness of the source, the effect on the person involved is the same.  Takes up the same amount of time!   If you only broke some small object, and to the ruining of a whole seasons work, up to destruction of a whole family thats beyond your own control... at the end, if your trouble is a small one or a larger one, you suffer, you will have your share of suffering.  Nobody could help you.

This sadness that Dimash sings, is inherent in all human beings.  Do you think a baby does not know of the sadness of not seeing his/her mother all the time?  When the baby needs the mother, its a searing want.  This separation and sadness at a baby's level is as heart wrenching as any later breakups in adulthood.  This sadness, universal sadness at whatever level is present in the sad songs that Dimash sings, especially the songs in the original Kazak langugage.  ( Not present in the foreign language ones.  )

 I first heard the song "The crown (of thorns) " in Dec 2020, the Chinese version has a really good, easy to follow sing along music tune.  The beginning verses playfully uses standard double character to present a common heart break situations, as in Chinese language almost all situations has standard 4 words phrases to package the moment neatly - so much so that its almost over used and young Chinese people could only think along in the language set ups - just like all language allows some kind of thinking and not other kinds.  This is the nature of using language to formalise our feelings and life experiences.  So the beginning of the songs quick and neat sums up heart break, deception, slight of hand treatments of love, and fading of the love memories, this slew of quick paced summing up of the person singing then overlaids the story with an image of a martyr wearing the crown of thorns.  Great lyrics, super catchy tune.  Beautifully sung - with a marvellous little solo near the end displaying the skill of the singers voice, decorative, terrific, memorable amongst the lyrics making references to western museums, suffering sculptures, playing with martyr images; with tongue in cheek humour. Then it ends, fast and easy, that love is a beautiful sumptuous decaying process.  The end.  What an interesting song.  Its contemporary, love is not about being apart, or un reachable longings - which is the theme for so long in Chinese pop music, since the 60s or even earlier i am sure.  When women are to stay at home to wait for the man.   But this song is about cruelty with a tongue in cheek humour.  Similar love songs i heard by Chinese musicians have a much more dashing lyric, how the new generation is already miles and miles away from the waiting game.  Its about getting the guy to be honest, its about love is not such a glorious game, about eating fried chicken at the public square and some intrique, about stupid beautiful women who languishingly waits makes herself all pretty and lying to herself etc, very funny, very realistic lyrics.  And then, there are also back to lyrical poetry type of verses, thats classic chinese songs.  

This "The Crown" (Kim Eken in kazaks) is a very good song for everyone to sing.  Chinese or non Chinese, easy to learn. It is not profoundly sad, just a little, and easy to remember due to the repeating couplets.  What a great song!!!  Music is by Kazahs composer Ulukpan Zholdasov.  

So I thought if i were to have a musical event for a Chinese audience, this would be a good song for the audience to sing along with the singer. 

After that, I watched some other music videos of Dimash, and saw a picture of him as a child. What a cute baby he was !! It is always amazing to see a small child grown into a big tall good looking young man.  You could only see this progress from people you know personally, like your nephew or little brother, so these pictures somehow makes you feel close to the public super singer Dimash, almost as if he was your little brother!  I dont see other pop stars sharing their lives in such a detailed way.  Very generous and much in need in todays much needed love hungry societies.

Little by little listen to more songs, discovered the family system and values of Kazaks people as expressed by Dimash and his family. 

I thought, I didnt know that they are really very similar to Chinese traditional closely tight knitted family values. I also saw the same remarks by Indian viewers, they also thought Kazaks family - Dimash family - is v similar to their own Indian family.  The very heart warming mutual support system of grand parents taking care of grand child so the young parents could develop with their own work. But I suppose in all old countries its very similar - in France for example, in the previous generation it is the same, but today its no more grandma baby sitting, its the professional baby sitting service; grandmas go line dancing, have a full program of entertainment to occupy their precious leisure time well earned after a life of child raising.., there are many variations of families with different details.

The cultural variations are in the details. What makes one culture a particular flavour and another with a different twist depends on the details. I will not go into details here. 

Then, I noticed when Dimash sings his songs in a foreign language - in all his non-kazaks songs, he has a high performing musical flow and artistry.   However he does not have the slightly urgent raw beat with a kind of rush - that is in his kazak songs. 

When he sings in Kazaks, it has a different, an additional underlying movement thats more than musical artistry which is very interesting. He's almost like another person - a youthful male energy rushing up to the surface. Then I saw recently an old interview on Kazahs tv with D's mother - who is a prize winning singer - said D's hair is naturally curly, then I imagine if he had curly hair, what kind of young man does he look like?  He would of course be a handsome one.  As an Asian, my hair is straight, but I was obliged to get perms as a child because my own mother wants to see curly hair on me.  Then much later, in the 80s it was very popular to have an afro hair, which I found so good looking too.  So I also got an afro - very few Asians get afros then - but a perm is only a perm, it takes a lot of continuing care to make that afro stay.  So after a few perms I just got tired of this high maintenance task.  

So this hair thing is kind of interesting - a hair style stays with you you take it with you everywhere unless you use wigs then you could change hair.  Straight hair people wants to have curly hair and curly hair people wants straight hair.  

So unless I know some Kazaks language, this is as far as we could go, just by external appearance. To know a country and a culture, knowing the language allows you to enter another world. Without the language, it is all on the surface, mainly visual, sensual on the skin so to speak. 

Through D's beautiful voice and visual presentations, humour, I was able to appreciate the mass media approach to enjoy neo-classical music. The very rich access to various international tv performances not only shows me how D's music has been received in different cultures, but also the host tv stations programming and styles and fellow performers in each country for example Kazaks, Russia, and China are so interesting to watch. I wish all the best to Dimash and hope to see more of his works to come.

Next

So, after I begun listening to the great voice of Dimash, I listen to other great singers and try to see what are the parallels in pop music.  The various ways of singing, methods of training a voice.  Everybody has a voice, and all the teachers online says basically that what is important is not how high or how low an  extraordinary voice is, but it is in the transmission of your feelings.  Dimash himself often says that yes he could sing very high but that is not the most important thing in his singing.

So, I decided to see if i could also train myself, and up to what point?  So I bought a keyboard, a vintage yamaha ps25, because even though it has only 48 keys it does the job, it covers my upper and lower voice range.  And I really like the sounds of this 80s synthesiser.  Now, what kind of songs?  What do I like to listen to?  I re-discover Sinéad O'connors, Prince, Angelina Jordan, Beatles, Sam Cooke, Tina Turner, Little Jimmy Scott, Chet Baker, Barry White, Camille, Momo Wu, Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Karen Carpenter, Dolly Parton, Cleo Laine, Pavarotti, Lucio Dalla and many many others.  Not only I listen to singing, I also listen to analysis of different kinds of music.  Somebody told me about Erroll Garner, who learnt to play the piano by sight, he did not read music!  And he grunts along with his piano playing.  All this is listening in parallel.  I get a tuner to see did i hear myself sing correctly?  A huge colorful world is opened in front gradually.  I listen to the Kazaks versions of the sounds along side the Chinese versions, the English versions, also looking at the lyric translations, whats the song about?

What are people singing?

Aside from this, I look at Michael Jacksons last preparations for his concert  "This is it", and many other shows.  Talent shows for children, for seniors, for regular The Voice, so many talented singers.  And so many so young too.  So many , 17 years old, 11, incredible and amongst all these talented singers is an an exceptional voice, Angelina Jordan , at a very young age, she already had all the nuances of phrasing that we sometimes hear in mature musicians.  Amazing.  

I also started paying much closer attention to film music.  Film music is a voice, a narrators voice, it supports the images to tell a story.  Images follows the sound.

Then I remember the movie Gohatto by Nagisa Oshima with the eerie minimal sounds, and of course, the center character a very beautiful young man - I re-watched the whole movie.  In fact, not only the central character is beautiful, almost all the rest of the cast are quite handsome each in their own style.  Each samourai has their own character and beauty, courage finely expressed indirectly.  How did the director transmit the intangible tremor of desire?  Interdiction and beauty together, woven by little suggestions of a few music notes.  Ryuichi Sakamoto is the composer.  

From day to day, we dont always pay attention to every details in sights and sounds, in nature, in man made materials, in imaginary suggestive constructs, but when we do, there are infinitesimal levels of refinement that we could focus on.

more later...

starting point of this entry

Face Book :

 Meruyert Burkitbayeva

Could you share your thoughts on how Dimash encourages you to learn Kazakh culture? What inspires you the most to explore a new language, traditions, way of life, people? I am a journalist. I am writing a piece on how Dimash promotes his culture. I would appreciate your answers Please feel free to DM me if you have anything to share with me. Thanks a lot. I am also a fellow fan)) Please share your personal story. It will be published in one of the biggest national newspapers in Kazakhstan "Egemen Qazaqstan".

Shuengit Chow Through D's beautiful voice and visual presentations, humour, I was able to appreciate the mass media approach to enjoy neo classical music. The very rich access to various international tv performances not only shows me how D's music has been received in different cultures, but also the host tv stations programming and styles and fellow performers in each country for example Kazaks, Russia, and China are so interesting to watch. I wish all the best to Dimash and hope to see more of his works to come.

"Bully" by Larry Clark, based on real life event ***half

 "Bully" by Larry Clark, based on real life event   ***half

I only watched half of it.

As a movie, its not boring, you keep on watching.  But the film is so sordid and has such a sad and shabby take on life, that watching half is enough.  I dont want to use my life time to watch the rest.

This movie reminds me of a mix of white trash and middle class white people - who are likely to be racist.

With such a large context, reminds me of how tough it is to grow up in middle lower class North America, without suffisant accessible ressources and with little support -and often negative resistance from their own kind.  (Look at the Marty character, but here, its not quite convincing to me, a big guy, kind, but fatally flawed because he has a weak character.  But he is v kind to others, the young little boys look up to him due to his surfing skills.  But surfing as the father of Bobby says, is just useless activity - useless as in cant make a living from doing it.)  But Marty thinks its fun and thats something.  Marty has the prospective of an aristocrate who does not think in terms of how things works, but how to live life as is, to amuse only.

The reality of these people are miles away from the very constructive workaholic Asians.

The two do not cross paths, and its just pure sadness.

"Apprenti Gigolo" 2013, dir John Turturro ***half; "Bell Flower " 2012 dir Evan Glodell ***

 "Apprenti Gigolo" 2013, dir John Turturro ***half; 

A smooth candy cane movie for entertainment.  I like the details about the Jewish rabbi's life, what the women's lives must have been like.  Vanessa Paradis sang a song in the movie, she has always the voice of a baby cute v nice sweet voice.  Sharon stone and Spanish beauty all dreams come true of men, not only they get the women, no responsibility and being paid for too, paid for handsomely.  A fairy tale for men.  

"Bell Flower " 2012  dir Evan Glodell *** 

Brutal love story, grunge, punk, super cars customised to have a whisky pump.  Rough games.  Watching this movie and hearing the way current dialogues are spoken, I think yes, I am of a passé generation.  There are points thats not clear to me, how do these flame thrower inventors make a living?  They dont seem to hang around people without money problems, so why are they hanging out with them.  How do they really live? There is always mention of not able to pay rent on time... kind of a fairy tale with "king of desert with super car maker friend" he is the boss, girls fall for him, friends are loyal to him, gives him gifts of super pumped up cars, while he could just trade it for a vintage motocycle thats hammered together... slightly non sense story lines with violence.  But, not boring, watched it to the end.  Grunge glamour?

"Lust Caution", dir Ang Lee, ***half

 "Lust Caution" , dir Ang Lee, ***half  2007

Just finished watching Lust Caution for the first time.  It has been most famous for the real love scenes.  Also the actress Tang Wei has been banned in China from making films for a few years after the movie came out, but not the actor nor the director.  Which is not fair at all.  

Maybe, in a conservative society, if they allow a woman to act out any kind of scenes as they dare in a movie, thats v dangerous for the whole of society.  A woman is supposed to have much more self restraint, many things they must not do, ie swear words in v crude language, challenging male sex come ons, having babies according to their own desire, having it or not having it, women has control over their own body and bodily desires.  So, why is Tang Wei the only one banned?  Because she dared to do all these things and if the board of censure passes this, what happens to the general everyday women, what if they no longer want to cook and clean and keep house all day for no paid for their man?  This 50% of slavery human power will be gone, and what to do? who is going to do all those work?  How are they going to keep the society running?  No no no.  Not allowed!  Too much freedom of will power and achieving dreams.

So onto the movie,  when it first came out (many years ago), I had watched it a few times for a few minutes at the beginning and did not continue.  But this time, after so many years, finally i got around to it because the film is based on a famous writer Aileen Changs short story which I have read a long time ago.  And I had just watched the "The Lover" also a movie based on a famous writers Marguerite Duras' autobiographical novel.  "The Lover" was a movie set in Vietnam about real physical love as a truly unforgetable binding act between two people who right from the start would not be able to carry the love to a destiny of plenitude - due to race and social ranks and ressources.  

The Lover was shot by  JJ Annaud, a non vietnamese, so his perspective is always a bit exotic.  Duras herself spoke perfect Vietnamese and passed high school diploma in Vietnamese, even though she is a white woman, she would have a true understanding of Vietnamese culture.  Asian culture.  But of course, her unique understanding of eroticism makes her novel a sort of a very unique voice, in-real-time flow of  breathing hot work.   Her writings all have this slow moving speaking from the guts ambiance. Whereas the Aileen Chang novel is cinematographic right from the start, from cool analytical angles with a lot of graphic details, arrangements of colors of the various settings in all her novels.  Aileen Chang is a very visual writer whereas Duras is a very musical writer.  Ang Lee is very careful about details in his movies, visually succint, very economical, he does not waste time on general broad strokes of unnecessary details.

  

Back to Love Caution,

The setting was in the Japanese occupation period of Shanghai, and Hong Kong.  Story is lines of intriques woven around a traitor and a group of University students who were patriotic and did underground work as spies.  As they were very young and inexperienced in life, and no match against the bona fide hard boiled traitors - the ending is tragic, the students all got arrested and executed.  In fact right at the beginning, the students were a kind of tool to an end, the side they worked for and the side they are fighting against did not hesitate to sacrifice the students.  The moment they decided to join the underground service they are more or less little lambs getting used and then chopped up sooner or later.  There were no consideration for them as human beings.

So, cut to the details, what i love about this movie is that all the scenes, the pacing, the setting are efficient, no dragging.  The scenes set in Hong Kong even though very few shots, expresses the ambiance so well, the colors, i could smell the air from looking at the screen.  Shanghai is also a bit exotic but well set.

The reason i did not watch much the first few times is that there has been so many movies set in the same period w the same Shanghai beauties, nostalgic fashions and it seems to be similar to a point of being trite.

However, the tension of whats said, and non spoken and the women playing mahjong are all perfectly tensioned.  Did the women know what Mr.Yi the traitor actually handles in his day to day life?  Did Mrs. Yi know or suspect of the love affair between her husband and this innocent pretty young thing?  All this is to be guessed by the viewers and not expressed.

And then, the love making scenes, tension, heat, violent rape like love making because it is only in extreme violence, mentally and physcially consuming the love object that the Mr.Yi could feel he is alive.  He is a person numbed by his everyday doings.

The scene in the Japanese restaurant where Tang Wei sings "Tian Ya Ge Nu" (Song of the sing song girl) is a bit too direct, not subtle for the character of Tang Wei.  If she has chosen another song, more lyrical musical and not so verbally speaking to the Mr.Yi character it would have been much better.  As is, its "drawing a doll with intestines showing" , too charicatural like a comic book figure.  Or maybe, I should say its a case of missing opportunites to transmit emotion via music, instead a point blank direct spoken lyrics has been used.  If she was presenting herself or that he wanted to perceive her as simple innocent woman - unlike a real geisha or prostitute whose job would be point blank to please - but here she is expressing her true desire for him, love for him, then she should be singing some other song, not this overtly mating match making confirmation couples song.  This is a popular folk song sung by pop sing song girls and not by say, people who has pretense/real education.

Good tight fast pace movie, but i am not convinced that violent real love making on screen actually does that much wonder for the film.  I feel that the actress has been sacrificed to make this movie.  The fact is, she hasn't had much film work that's interesting or important afterwards and she did do a very good job, and is very good.   Why why why?  

Did Lee Ang know that it would end up like this?  This point may not be part of the review of a normal movie making / analysis of the quality of the movie as a creation.  But somewhere along the line, sacrificing others to make this movie for "art" and the outcome is yes, v gd, but vis a vis the amount of efforts/sacrifice invested and the result, i would say, the output is not worth it, not enough - sacrificing other people for your own "artistic" ends, even if they agree to it, is not very pretty.  

In fact, the actress did not know that there were scenes like his.

L'Amant, The Lover 1992, dir JJ Annaud based on novel by Marguerite Duras ***half

 "L'Amant" The Lover 1992, dir JJ Annaud based on the novel by Marguerite Duras ***half

I have seen it once a long time ago, but wanted to see it again to see if I remember certain details.

I remember immediately one regrettable detail of the film. The actress was slightly too old for the character who was supposed to be 15.5 year old, in the movie, Jane March is fresh pretty and young, but she wasnt quite young enough to generate the tension of a multiple transgressions of a white minor - strong willful inexperienced one, poor, shameful, stuck in turmoils of her family w no way out - she took to entertaining a sexual physical love w a moneyed weak experienced Asian man of 33.  He is weak because he is facing a superb pretty white girl, in love with a treasure that no money could procure easily.  The terrific dynamics in a struggle of social complexity involving colonialism and race is the main heart of the story.  Here the girl is a bit too static.  But Jane March has done well already.  It is not an easy character to play especially when we all knew the original model - Duras herself, in all her fame and glory and beauty, the star has to come up to this level is quite a challenge.  The Tony Leung character is not melancholic, he looks also a bit static, especially the dialogue in Chinese - but most viewers who don't speak Chinese would not notice this aspect - he also did well but not poetically melancholic and rich, which this story depends on.  (If we had John Lone, the melancholy would be natural, but he would have been too handsome - the girl would have no complex about falling in love with a man this gd looking. )

So we are now onto the setting, v beautiful, nostalgic, and we could almost smell the heat and food through the colors light, sun, water, retro luxury car.  I love the setting.

One question, what happened to the girl at the boarding school with the beautiful body?  Did I miss something?  What became of her?

I have read the book several times back in 86 - i suppose she is the foil nature in full bloom against the intellectual skinny sensual Jane march.  A fleshy beauty goes around nude, healthy w no complex, in full splendor observed by the complicated narrator. The narrator is just a voice, we are with her internal turmoil at all times.

The movie has a lot of love making scenes, these look realistic, whether its real or not is not important but the camera wants us to believe that we are looking at real acts.  There is no intention of the habitual cinematic use of "symbols/suggestion of love making" but rather the scenes are shown to the limits of whats possible before it gets moved to next category of film rating.  This is the real thing, the camera says.  The camera wants to show raw physical sex but within limits so that it could be viewed for a general public.  But if you had gone this far, the kissing etc is too tame.  Sex here is shown as the maximum of what the lover could do - the narrator says so herself, he only has this to do in his life as he was v rich - and what the girl could do, she engages herself beyond the stuffiness of the rest of her life.  Both characters are at the maximum of their beings, coinciding.  Is it necessary to show sex in the real? 

Anyway at the year of 86, the book was a sensation.  So many women could relate to the sexual passion and love of Duras writing.  The book was shocking because it is as if the writer has put herself in total nakedness and women could understand what its like to be double triple bind and still have the luxury of being loved.  Then a movie is made, the heat has subsided, we still want to see how a movie treat the novel visually.  The book is so well know, so we watch and see how the story is being told.  Not such a daring film amongst the mainstream general public movies.  (Other more explicit daring movies showing sex which were not pornography were banned for many years, ie the Mistress, made in 1976 w Gerard Depardieu and Bulle Ogier, which when we look at it today - bdsm - is not secret visuals/news)

Compared to the original text, the movie did not carry over the intense erotic tension nor the profound devotion of hopeless passionate first love - for both the man and the woman/girl.

The movie relies on voice over to tell the interior feelings of the girl, however, it still some how did not bring over the "heart murmur" thats particular to the writings of Duras.  The novel beats the movie by many miles, but, writing is not movie making.  Each reader re creates in their minds fresh pictures thats unique to their own experience and emotions.  Many people think Dura's writing  is very boring ,  and a boring film maker, puts you to sleep some say.  But my impression is that Duras writes in the present moment, when you read her texts its always in the present, a breathing moment, and also in her films - not necessary that interesting to watch, not an entertaining genre, no amusement, no distraction as any good competant main stream movie could do - her films are also working in the present.  Her films are in the present, its not story telling, it is bringing you to a live moment to be participant.  You end up watching carefully as if you are one of the people in the film.   

The voice over in the movie, Jeanne Moreau reading , is telling the viewers, from the girl to us directly.  Maybe since you already have the voice over, how could we use the images to complete the rhythm - breathless/ passionate/ willful/ opportunistic all this... thats experienced by the girl?  

In the end, both the novel and the movie is spoken visualised via the eyes of the girl isnt it?

Movie goers are there for entertainment, not all are there to enjoy the movie at some other intricate participatory level.

If we could make a movie that has a multiple level broad appeal that would be the ultimate achievement of a mainstream film.  The story has to have that kind of life to begin with.

I like the Annaud movie because its very measured.  It does what it can within reality already, w Jeanne Moreau doing the voice over - w Jane March pretty fresh Euroasian face and Tony Leung, apparently someone told me it took 10 years to find the right actor.  But thats not been confirmed by any source.

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