Nessun Dorma

or, free indirect discourse -

(India Song; Marguerite Duras, 1975)

On Doors (3): La Belle Noiseuse

(La Belle Noiseuse; Jacques Rivette 1991)

On Doors (2): The Diary of a Chambermaid

The closed door marks a boundary - the forbidden territory of desire.


Desire and violence occupy the same space. In Renoir's films, desire only leads to violence and death.


Renoir shuts the door on desire and violence - but only to let it burst through more forcefully.


Renoir's fascination with backs - doors in themselves, slightly ajar.

(The Diary of a Chambermaid; Jean Renoir 1946)

On Doors (1): Vanina Vanini

In response to Pedro Costa's seminar.

(Vanina Vanini; Roberto Rossellini 1961)

Rossellini and Giotto

(The Seven Virtues: Charity; Giotto 1305)

"But in later years I came to understand that the arresting strangeness, the special beauty of these frescoes derived from the great part played in them by symbolism, and the fact that this was represented not as a symbol (for the thought symbolized was nowhere expressed) but as a reality, actually felt or materially handled, added something more precise and more literal to the meaning of the work, something more concrete and more striking to the lesson it imparted."

(The Miracle; Roberto Rossellini 1948)

"And quite possibly, this lack (or seeming lack) of participation by a person's soul in the virtue of which he or she is the agent has, apart from its aesthetic meaning, a reality which, if not strictly psychological, may at least be called physiognomical." -- Marcel Proust

(The Miracle; Roberto Rossellini 1948)

Il pleure dans mon coeur

Rain and cherry blossoms (2/27/2010)

Thoughts on the close-up (1)

"There is no close-up of the face. The close-up is the face, but the face precisely insofar as it has destroyed its triple function [individuation, socialization, communication] - a nudity of the face much greater than that of the body, an inhumanity much greater than that of animals."

(The Brown Bunny; Vincent Gallo 2003)

"The close-up has merely pushed the face to those regions where the principle of individuation ceases to hold sway. They are not identical because they resemble each other, but because they have lost individuation no less than socialization and communication. This is the operation of the close-up. The close-up does not divide one individual, any more than it reunites two: it suspends individuation ... It absorbs two beings, and absorbs them in the void ... The facial close-up is both the face and its effacement." -- Gilles Deleuze

(The Brown Bunny; Vincent Gallo 2003)