If you are of a sensitive disposition I advise you never to watch this film.
They have used this film as a teaching aid in French schools for many years...
Alain Resnais' film encapsulates the horror of the concentration camps by juxtaposing b&w footage of 'inmates' to modern photography of Auschwitz and Majdanek as they stand today.
There is content here that they do not tell you in textbooks. It makes you sick to your stomach how certain plans could ever have been dreamed of, never mind even put into action.
There's footage of Himmler and his cronies nonchalantly perusing diagrams for the gas chambers, calmly discussing how effectively they can eliminate thousands of people.
And there's stills of the victim's themselves, and how they were hence turned to ash via the enormous ovens which showered the camps with a snow-like dusty film.
Friday 26 February 2010
"Like buttons and pins, this mess we're in dissolves in time..."
New friends are wonderful. Easy/Lucky/Free...
Make me feel even more like this crazy kid.
Listening to - Pulp Fiction soundtrack, The Velvettes, This Town Needs Guns, The Knife (always)
Make me feel even more like this crazy kid.
Listening to - Pulp Fiction soundtrack, The Velvettes, This Town Needs Guns, The Knife (always)
Thursday 25 February 2010
More juicey snippets from Gustav Metzger
A walk in the woods.
The Supermarket as a surrogate for picking berries in the woods.
Low down, but accesible.
A new market - nature surrogates.
The bath as a sustitute for the glades -
Jacuzzi.
Gustav Klimt - The Blood of Fish ^
Wednesday 24 February 2010
You think that's pretty clever, don't you boy?
I really don’t care how uncool or physics-student-locked-in-his-bedroom-all-alone cliché Radiohead are, I freaking love them.
High & Dry, All I Need and No Surprises are my top 3 songs for shocking flashbacks and nostalgia through my skull when I least expect it, those chords literally pull on your heartstrings. Clever-clever, amazing wonderful Thom Yorke.
There’s something decidedly Creepy about a bunch of starched white shirted kids, stock still, angelically crooning
“A heart that's full up like a landfill,
a job that slowly kills you,
bruises that won't heal.
You look so tired-unhappy,
bring down the government,
they don't, they don't speak for us.
I'll take a quiet life,
a handshake of carbon monoxide”
Because it’s unlikely that they have a clue about what the words they are singing, what they have no doubt practised for weeks, really mean.
Radiohead can be an antidote for that modern apathy at life, but good Lord sometimes it can be the wrong idea to wallow in this vein.
I think of the first time I head Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon: an album heard since childhood, it finally hooked me, and in a candlelit room these lyrics scared the shit out of me:
All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.
Kudos to Stella from the Off The Wall tribute band for fighting off heckles from various middle aged losers to belt out a gorgeous rendition of Great Gig in the Sky, bring a tear to my Dad’s eye.
http://www.go2offthewall.com/
High & Dry, All I Need and No Surprises are my top 3 songs for shocking flashbacks and nostalgia through my skull when I least expect it, those chords literally pull on your heartstrings. Clever-clever, amazing wonderful Thom Yorke.
There’s something decidedly Creepy about a bunch of starched white shirted kids, stock still, angelically crooning
“A heart that's full up like a landfill,
a job that slowly kills you,
bruises that won't heal.
You look so tired-unhappy,
bring down the government,
they don't, they don't speak for us.
I'll take a quiet life,
a handshake of carbon monoxide”
Because it’s unlikely that they have a clue about what the words they are singing, what they have no doubt practised for weeks, really mean.
Radiohead can be an antidote for that modern apathy at life, but good Lord sometimes it can be the wrong idea to wallow in this vein.
I think of the first time I head Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon: an album heard since childhood, it finally hooked me, and in a candlelit room these lyrics scared the shit out of me:
All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.
Kudos to Stella from the Off The Wall tribute band for fighting off heckles from various middle aged losers to belt out a gorgeous rendition of Great Gig in the Sky, bring a tear to my Dad’s eye.
http://www.go2offthewall.com/
Gustav Metzger/Jenny Saville being violent in general.
"And now men fly to the stars.
And men paint flying to the stars.
At this moment in London millions of men millions of objects millions of machines.
Millions of interactions each fraction of a second between men objects and machines."
Tuesday 23 February 2010
Monday 22 February 2010
Gin. And camels walking free drinking honey tea...
"Mothers' Ruin"
or as Snoop put's it, best with "juice".
I can honestly say after the past weekend it may well be my ruin as well, what else could induce impassioned renditions of Ricky bloody Martin and general hysterical happiness?
This is my downfall, last weekend should have been filled with studious hours of art history study akin to those of my A level years, but no, I was spending every penny of my tips on crazy good, diaphanous, magical Gin.
The construction for this mad complex essay is complete, but there's a good 20 or so hours of reading to do before even setting sail with the thing.
These are the crazy good pieces I'm going to study down to the last detail:
Gustav Metzger's acid action painting, 1961 [also looking at Flailing Trees, 2009]
Cecily Brown – Teenage Wildlife, 2003
Caravaggio - Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1598-9
However, I could still crack out an epic poem on my love for the Gin...
Kudos to everyone who remembered the lyrics to Nikki FM in the Lowther!
Currently listening to Converge, Sikth, Belle & Sebastian, Rolo Tomassi, Slagsmalklubben & The Kinks.
Mad dice mate :)
or as Snoop put's it, best with "juice".
I can honestly say after the past weekend it may well be my ruin as well, what else could induce impassioned renditions of Ricky bloody Martin and general hysterical happiness?
This is my downfall, last weekend should have been filled with studious hours of art history study akin to those of my A level years, but no, I was spending every penny of my tips on crazy good, diaphanous, magical Gin.
The construction for this mad complex essay is complete, but there's a good 20 or so hours of reading to do before even setting sail with the thing.
These are the crazy good pieces I'm going to study down to the last detail:
Gustav Metzger's acid action painting, 1961 [also looking at Flailing Trees, 2009]
Cecily Brown – Teenage Wildlife, 2003
Caravaggio - Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1598-9
However, I could still crack out an epic poem on my love for the Gin...
Kudos to everyone who remembered the lyrics to Nikki FM in the Lowther!
Currently listening to Converge, Sikth, Belle & Sebastian, Rolo Tomassi, Slagsmalklubben & The Kinks.
Mad dice mate :)
Sunday 21 February 2010
Black Hole
by Charles Burn
This masterpiece took Burns 10 years to complete in a 12 part series.
& it was my first experience of a graphic novel!
Doing a fine art course you'd thought I would hate this perfect, polished aesthetic but my inner art geek freaking loves it, it's undeniably "cool".
Mentalist graphics, high contrast, defined shadows, like crazy chiaroscuro.
Focusing on a community of 1970s Seattle teenagers and the spread of a creepy s.t.i., or "teen plague", Burns' idiosyncratic taunt line conveys the youth of the protagonists, and makes their respective demises seem even more poignant.
I came across this at Ferg's house. Happily supping on Scrumpy Jack at his fort party, it just captivated me, so yes I was the sad girl at the party - reading.
I couldn't wait for him to lend it so bought my own copy, and devoured in within 2 sittings.
I love the blatant sexuality of it all, literally every image is saturated with teenage tension.
The trees are gathered to resemble a virgin's legs spread, Eliza's tail is more than phallic, Chris' cut foot is a vagina, speech bubbles quaver with anxiety, you can practically smell the alcohol and sweat of it all.
Burn's has apparently conceded that the warts, hair, mutations et al can be metaphors for "adolescence, sexual awakening and the transition into adulthood".
To me it's one big treat, after wading, unsuccessfully through Dostoevsky (I will complete it, I will) I once more feel my love for books burning bright.
This masterpiece took Burns 10 years to complete in a 12 part series.
& it was my first experience of a graphic novel!
Doing a fine art course you'd thought I would hate this perfect, polished aesthetic but my inner art geek freaking loves it, it's undeniably "cool".
Mentalist graphics, high contrast, defined shadows, like crazy chiaroscuro.
Focusing on a community of 1970s Seattle teenagers and the spread of a creepy s.t.i., or "teen plague", Burns' idiosyncratic taunt line conveys the youth of the protagonists, and makes their respective demises seem even more poignant.
I came across this at Ferg's house. Happily supping on Scrumpy Jack at his fort party, it just captivated me, so yes I was the sad girl at the party - reading.
I couldn't wait for him to lend it so bought my own copy, and devoured in within 2 sittings.
I love the blatant sexuality of it all, literally every image is saturated with teenage tension.
The trees are gathered to resemble a virgin's legs spread, Eliza's tail is more than phallic, Chris' cut foot is a vagina, speech bubbles quaver with anxiety, you can practically smell the alcohol and sweat of it all.
Burn's has apparently conceded that the warts, hair, mutations et al can be metaphors for "adolescence, sexual awakening and the transition into adulthood".
To me it's one big treat, after wading, unsuccessfully through Dostoevsky (I will complete it, I will) I once more feel my love for books burning bright.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
