June 2014

'La Belle et la Bête (1946 )
Dir: Jean Cocteau

'Doc. of the Dead' (2013)
Dir: A. Philippe

'Birth of the Living Dead' (2013)
Dir: Rob Kuhns

'Le gamin au vélo' (2011)
Dir: The Dardennes

'Bullhead' (2011)

Dir: Michaël R. Roskam

'Big Bad Wolves' (2013)
Dir:Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado

Netflix Arts Documentaries pt.2

Netflix is a great resource for those obscure documentaries on art and film that play festivals then disappear. Here are some the best of the new releases . . .

'Pablo' (2012)

Dir: Richard Goldgewicht

The career of legendary film titles designer Pablo Ferro. Documenting his professional partnerships with Stanley Kubrick, Hal Ashby, Norman Jewison, Steve McQueen.

'Far Out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story' (2012)

Dir: Brad Bernstein

The life and times of illustrator and cartoonist Tomi Ungerer. A revealing and candid portrait of this iconoclastic artist.

'Light Keeps Me Company' (2000)

Dir: Carl-Gustav Nykvist

Ingmar Bergman's cinematographer Sven Nykvist is revered by every top D.O.P. This film details their creative partnership and Nykvist's subsequent career shooting films for Hollywood.

'Two In The Wave' (2010)

Dir: Emmanuel Laurent

The friendship between these two giants of the French nouvelle vague Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut.

'Milius' (2013)

Dir: Joey Figueroa, Zak Knutson

Larger than life writer and director John Milius has crafted some of Hollywood's most memorable scenes, dialogue and characters including Conan, Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now and the USS Indianapolis speech in Jaws.

'Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan' (2011)
Dir: Gilles Penso

The master visionary behind the stop-motion creatures of the original Sinbad movies, 'Clash of the Titans' and 'Jason and the Argonauts'.

'Nightmare Factory' (2011)
Dir: Donna Davies

A documentary on Greg Nicotero and his KNB fx group- creators of some of the most memorable screen monsters in cinema and TV including 'The Waling Dead.'






See the first part of my Netflix recommendations here

May 2014

'Maleficent' (2014)
Dir: Robert Stromberg

'Topaz' (1969)
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock

'Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2' (2013)
Dir: Kris Pearn & Cody Cameron

'Pablo' (2012)
Dir: Richard Goldgewicht

'Pain & Gain' (2013)
Dir: Michael Bay

'Don Jon' (2013)
Dir: Joseph Gordon Levitt

'Diana' (2013)
Dir: Oliver Hirschbiegel

'Two In The Wave' (2010)
Dir: Emmanuel Laurent

'Far Out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story' (2012)

Dir: Brad Bernstein

'Light Keeps Me Company' (2000)
Dir: Carl-Gustaf Nykvist

'Bergman Island'  (20040
Marie Nyrerod

'Marley' (2012)
Dir: Kevin McDonald

'Sans Soleil' (1983)
Dir: Chris Marker

'La Jetee' (1962)
Dir: Chris Marker

'Ender's Game' (2013)
Dir: Gavin Hood

'Scoop' (2006)
Dir: Woody Allen

'A Fantastic Fear of Everything' (2012)
Dir: Crispin Mills

The significance of plot without conflict

In the West, plot is commonly thought to revolve around conflict: a confrontation between two or more elements, in which one ultimately dominates the other. The standard three- and five-act plot structures—which permeate Western media—have conflict written into their very foundations. A “problem” appears near the end of the first act; and, in the second act, the conflict generated by this problem takes center stage. Conflict is used to create reader involvement even by many post-modern writers, whose work otherwise defies traditional structure.

The necessity of conflict is preached as a kind of dogma by contemporary writers’ workshops and Internet “guides” to writing. A plot without conflict is considered dull; some even go so far as to call it impossible. This has influenced not only fiction, but writing in general—arguably even philosophy. Yet, is there any truth to this belief? Does plot necessarilyhinge on conflict? No. Such claims are a product of the West’s insularity. For countless centuries, Chinese and Japanese writers have used a plot structure that does not have conflict “built in”, so to speak. Rather, it relies on exposition and contrast to generate interest. This structure is known as kishōtenketsu.

Kishōtenketsu contains four acts: introduction, development, twist and reconciliation. The basics of the story—characters, setting, etc.—are established in the first act and developed in the second. No major changes occur until the third act, in which a new, often surprising element is introduced. The third act is the core of the plot, and it may be thought of as a kind of structural non sequitur. The fourth act draws a conclusion from the contrast between the first two “straight” acts and the disconnected third, thereby reconciling them into a coherent whole. Kishōtenketsu is probably best known to Westerners as the structure of Japanese yonkoma(four-panel) manga; and, with this in mind, our artist has kindly provided a simple comic to illustrate the concept.

Each panel represents one of the four acts. The resulting plot—and it is a plot—contains no conflict. No problem impedes the protagonist; nothing is pitted against anything else. Despite this, the twist in panel three imparts a dynamism—a chaos, perhaps—that keeps the comic from depicting merely a series of events. Panel four reinstates order by showing us how the first two panels connect to the third, which allows for a satisfactory ending without the need for a quasi-gladiatorial victory. It could be said that the last panel unifies the first three. The Western structure, on the other hand, is a face-off—involving character, theme, setting—in which one element must prevail over another. Our artist refitted the above comic into the three-act structure to show this difference.

The first panel gives the reader a “default position” with which to compare later events; and the second panel depicts a conflict-generating problem with the vending machine. The third panel represents the climax of the story: the dramatic high point in which the heroine’s second attempt ”defeats” the machine and allows the can to drop. The story concludes by depicting the aftermath, wherein we find that something from the first act has changed as a result of the climax. In this case, our heroinesans beverage has become a heroine avec beverage.

What this shows is that the three-act plot, unlike kishōtenketsu, is fundamentally confrontational. It necessarily involves one thing winning out over another, even in a minor case like the one above. This conclusion has wide-ranging implications, since both formats are applied not just to narratives, but to all types of writing. Both may be found under the hood of everything from essays and arguments to paragraphs and single sentences. As an example, the reader might re-examine the first two paragraphs of this article, in which a “default position” is set up and then interrupted by a “problem” (namely, the existence of kishōtenketsu). The following paragraphs deal with the conflict between the two formats. This paragraph, which escalates that conflict by explaining the culture-wide influence of each system, is the beginning of the climax.

As this writer is already making self-referential, meta-textual remarks, it is only appropriate that the article’s climax take us into the realm of post-modern philosophy. It is a worldview obsessed with narrative and, perhaps unconsciously, with the central thesis of the three-act structure. Jacques Derrida, probably the best known post-modern philosopher, infamously declared that all of reality was a text—a series of narratives that could only be understood by appealing to other narratives, ad infinitum. What kinds of narratives, though? Perhaps a benign, kishōtenketsu-esque play between disconnection and reconnection, chaos and order? No; for Derrida, the only narrative was one of violence. As a Nietzschean, he believed that reality consisted, invariably, of one thing dominating and imposing on another, in a selfish exercise of its will to power. The “worst violence”, he thought, was when something was completely silenced and absorbed by another, its difference erased. Apparently, Derrida was uncontent with the three-act structure’s nearly complete control over Western writing: he had to project it onto the entire world. Eurocentrism has rarely had a more shining moment.

Kishōtenketsu contains no such violence. The events of the first, second and third acts need not harm one another. They can stand separately, with Derrida’s beloved difference intact. Although the fourth act unifies the work, by no means must it do violence to the first three acts; rather, it is free merely to draw a conclusion from their juxtaposition, as Derrida does when he interprets one narrative through the lens of another. A world understood from the kishōtenketsu perspective need never contain the worst violence that Derrida fears, which would make his call for deconstruction—the prevention of silence through the annihiliation of structure—unnecessary. Is it possible that deconstruction could never have been conceived in a world governed by kishōtenketsu, rather than by the three-act plot? Is the three-act structure one of the elements behind the very worldview that calls for its deconstruction? Can the Western narrative of the will to power remain coherent in the face of a rival narrative from the East? This writer would prefer to ask than to answer these questions.

Now, dear readers, comes the aftermath. The dust left over from the climax is settling. Kishōtenketsu has been shown to generate plot without conflict, which reveals as insular nonsense the West’s belief that they are inseparable. The repercussions of this extend to all writing; and, if this writer’s conclusion is to be believed, to philosophy itself. Despite this, it should be noted that many of history’s greatest works have been built on the three- and five-act structures. By no means should they be discarded. Rather, they should be viewed as tools for telling certain types of stories. At the same time, this writer would like to end by calling for a renewed look at kishōtenketsu in the West. It offers writers the opportunity to explore plots with minimal or no conflict. Perhaps it could even change our worldview.

Still Eating Oranges

April 2014

'The World's End' 2013
dir: Edgar Wright

'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' 2012
dir: Timur Bekmambetov

'Milius' 2013
dir: Joey Figueroa, Zak Knutson

'For No Good Reason' 2012
dir: Charlie Paul

'Last Ride' 2009

Glendyn Ivin

'Girl 27' 2007

David Stenn

'The Verdict' 1982

dir: Sidney Lumet

'Under The Skin' 2014
dir: Jonathan Glazer

'Birth' 2004
dir: Jonathan Glazer

'Siegfried' 1924
dir: Fritz Lang

March 2014

'The Grand Budapest Hotel' 2014
dir: Wes Anderson

'The Great Beauty' (2013)
dir: Paolo Sorrentino

'Not Fade Away' (2012)

dir: David Chase

February 2014

'Ghostbusters' (1984)
dir: Ivan Reitman

'The Great Outdoors'  (1988)
dir: John Hughes

'Elysium' (2013)
dir: Neill Blomkamp

'The Wind Rises' (2013)
dir: Hayao Miyazaki

'The Summit' (2012)
dir: Nick Ryan

'The Lego Movie' (2014)
dirs: Chris Miller & Phil Lord

'Mr. Peabody & sherman' (2014)
dir: Rob Minkoff

'Proof' (1991)
dir: Jocelyn Moorhouse

'The Monuments Men' (2014)
dir: George Clooney

'A Field In England' (2013)
dir: Ben Wheatley

'The Crash Reel' (2013)
dir: Lucy Walker

'Sleeping Beauty' (1959)
dir: Clyde Geronomi


'The Selfish Giant' (2013)

Dir: Clio Barnard

Northern England.  Bradford present day. Young lad literally in the wrong side of the tracks when he and a mate steal the cable from under the noses of adult thieves. They sell it in to a local scrap dealer, Kitten, whose pony they have borrowed for the caper.  Dickensian. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer of the north.

Mum distraught. Tries to get him to take his medication for his ADD. He's thrown out of school.  Scrap collecting.  The kids get more ambitious. Want to make some real money. His 'pikey' pal demonstrates an affinity with horses.  His grandfather was a rag and bone man.

The grown ups race horses and chariots. The Scrap dealers' horse loses. He's described as a 'wannabe gypsy'.   The friend's parents are visited by debt collectors- he's able to hold them off with the cash he earned for last batch of scrap and save their settee.

Swifty goes to school. Arbur hires the scrap dealers horse.  Goes to pick up friend from school.  They go scrap hunting.  Copper wire. Bold theft of a giant roll of wire used by tv cable installers. They burn off the rubber outing. Arbor sees electricity cable as potentially lucrative.

They get more cash than ever for their latest haul. Swifty allowed to test his horse &cart driving ability.   Kitten is impressed.  Arbor takes off on the cart. Admonished by Kitten but he reveals the worth of the horse= 15,000.
The boys return home- Arbors mum in tears- window smashed. Axe buried in front door.  Older brother in trouble with drug circle.  Arbor consoles her. The boys play around with a hammer on a trampoline in the yard.  Police come around.  Arbor insists they remove their shoes.  The formally interview him under caution.  Investigating railway trespass, vandalism, cable theft.
Mum denies his involvement but orders Arbor keep away from Kitten.
Arbor and Swifty are straight back with Kitten training with the horse . He asks Swifty to race.
Arbor repeats his mums warning to Swifty: Kitten's using you
The boys find a rusted old car and try to dismantle it. Arbor enlists the help of local lads to lift the car onto their cart. They manage to get it back to the scrapyard . A burnt out car has no value.
Arbor steals more copper from the yard. He has lost all trust in Kitten.
Swifty finds his stash of stolen copper. Swifty wants to keep I Kittens favor so he can race.  The boys argue but go out scarp collecting around gardens.
They find a fallen electricity cable. Arbor makes it to test it on a dial. Swifty stops him. Arbor removes the stolen copper from his shed. Takes horse and cart into town. Industrial scrap yard. Foreman dismisses him.
Dealers filial to him show up in a van. Discover the copper and Arbors scheme. They take it in for him. They keep all the money leaving him with nothing. Swifty returns to downed cable to find the dial killed by it. He's crushed. Blames Arbor.
Arbor returns the horse and cart to the yard.  Sees Swifty. Kitten takes himself, threatens him with golf club. Threatens to cut off his hand. Demands his money -1000 . Sends him I a mission to steal cable. Swifty looks concerned for his friend. Concrete blocks over manhole covers indicate the treasure. Swifty shows up and confronts him about the foal.  Arbor swears he's not responsible. They reconcile and shift the block and cut theougj the manhole cover together.  Arbor saws through the wire but Swifty is electrocuted. Time passes. Arbor awakes to find his friend  a charred corpse.
Arbor is devastated .  Wild geese on the soundtrack.
He loads Swifty's body onto the cart. Returns to the yard.  Kicks Kitten in the balls. Strangles him. Wife fights him off. Workers lock him up. Kitten
sees the body.  Police show up. Release Arbor, still angry.  Kitten takes responsibility and is arrested. Arbor runs off. Tramps through a field in the rain .  Finds the dead foal. Returns to Swifty's  home in terrestrial downpour.  Mum turns him away. Knocks again. Rejected a second time.  Sits outside in the rain.  A third knock gets him a cuff around the ear from the father.  He sits outside the ought he night. Morning.  His own mum appears - tries to console him. Swifty's mum watches. Arbor refuses his mums touch. He's lying beneath the bed where the film began.  His brother finds him. Appeals for him to come out. Swifty appears to him and holds his hand. He lets go of Arbors hand. Mum enters . Swifty's mum has come around. Arbor comes out from under the bed and hugs her tightly .
He is in a stable brushing the horse, Diesel.

Black screen, ambient sounds. The end.


'Out of the Furnace'  (2013)
Dir: Scott Cooper

Open on a drive in theatre.  Woody Harrelson's character DeGroat abuses his partner and beats a man who tries to protect her.

Cut to modern day Pittsburgh. Steel mine. Eddie Veder soundtrack . Christian Bale's character, Russell, leaves work. He spots his brothers' car outside a gambling den. Discovers he is in debt. They part.
Cut to next morning.  Russ is in bed with his girlfriend. They talk.  She wants a baby.
Cut to pulls up at his dads place. Rodney is there in army fatigues. Their uncle is there.  Dad in deaths door imbed . The brothers agree to meet at a bar later and part.

Cut to the bar. Campaigning for Obama on the TV.
Casey doesn't show. Chats to barman, goes in back. Finds Woody threatening Willem Defoe . Confrontation with Bale. Pays him money that Rodney owes. Bale drives into the night. Car crash. He comes too. Checks the other car. Sees body of a child. Stops another car.

Cut to him welding.  He's in Prison.  Rodney visits.
He mops the halls. Dissolve to bedtime. Writing to girlfriend. Next day. Confronted by a gang and beaten. Saved by the guards but injured. Fade to black .

Time has passed. Rodney with a beard. Beaten face healed . Their Dad has died.
He gets a tattoo of his brothers name on his arm.
Chapel. Released. Rodney meets him at the gate now shaven headed.  They drive back to the steel mill town. They visit their dads grave . Cut to night, home - the brothers talk. Girlfriend has left him.

(This is very economical storytelling)
Next day. Police man drops off the ex girlfriend. Forest Whitaker. He sees Bale watching her.
Taking paint off door. Helicopter shot- bare knuckle fighting in abandoned steel mill. Rodney fights. Defoe watches.
Intercut with Bale repairing windows. Painting .
Rodney beats his opponent until he's dragged off him. Admonished by Defoe for NOT throwing the fight . Rodney suggests fighting up in Jersey where the money is better.  Defoe advises him to steer clear of it and go work in the mill like his dad and bro.

He returns home later that night . Bale siting outside . Brief exchange.
Next day. Bale looks at his brother asleep on the couch. Covers him with a blanket. Back at the mill.
Washes dishes and cleans
Up that night. Finds bloodied bandages. Confronts Rodney- asks to see his hands. Bruised knuckles.
Rodney does not want to work at the mill. The mill killed their dad. Recounts war horrors. Anger at the lack of work for returning servicemen. Dorms out.
Rodney goes to John and demands a goo fight up in Jersey. John refuses point blank. Rodney begs.  He relents but warns him.

Another fight. Woody watches. Answers call from John.

Bale, home thinking of his ex. Watches her. With school kids. Approaches her in playground. She is happy to see him. They go for a walk together.  They discuss the mills imminent closure. He tells her how much he has Missed her And wants to rekindle Their relationship. She reveals she is pregnant . They cry together and hug. She leaves him alone on the bridge. Cross dissolve to mom at the sene of the car crash holding a bunch if flowers. High angle crane down. He breaks down as he lays them on the road.
Factories spewing plumes
Uncle reg sips by. Bale still working in the house. He has a flower for the cemetery . They visit the grave then head out to hunt together. Cross cut with John driving Rodney north. Each brother with an older man. John finds the hillbillies outbuilding . Woody playing cards. Confrontation , sizing each other up.
Cut back to the hunters . Back to the fighters . Rodney reluctant to take a dive for Woody. The hunt, cross cut with fight prep. Bale finds a deer. He can't shoot it. Woody gathers Rodney for the fight and instructs him no bad ages- bare knuckles. Uncle Reg skins his catch.
Fight is on. Hunters drag the deer carcass to their truck. The fight is brutal. Defoe watches- looks
Like his character in Wild at Heart. Rodney does not throw the fight . The deer dead in the back of the truck at night. Rodney bears his opponent . Defoe tries to appeal. Rodney tries to make
Or look like he loses. Lets himself be beaten to a bloody pulp. The crowd aren't happy . The hunters bleed the deer.  Rodney is badly hurt.  Woody comes Back to talk to him. He almost reneges on a . they are pursued es by Woody and his gang. The gang take them into the woods. Russ finds alerted from Rodney back at the home. Gang drag Rodney into the woods. He is shot dead.
Voice Over Rodney reading his letter - one last fight. Reg finishes skinning the deer carcass. Police knock on the door. Ex girlfriends man. Early morning . . Phone recording of Woody and Defoe. Gunshot.
Police chief talks of hillbilly justice. Russ is standoffish and dissatisfied. Uncle Reg encourages him to leave. Russell enquires for an address for DeGroat. They go to John Petty's place and discover he owed a lot of money to DeGroat . Russell leaves, talks to Uncle Reg.  they drive into the Appalachians. Night.  They stop at drugstore , ask local youths for drugs.  They follow the tattooed punks to their  hovel - squat, addicts lie around , squalid. They're led to the attic, the boss quizzes them. Calls their bluff by asking Russ to test the crystal. Enquires about Harland DeGroat .  Discovers they're in his house ! They leave. Back at the drugstore . A cop rolls up and quizzes them - gun drawn . He knows who they are- alerted by chief Barnes. Russell refuses to leave the state. He cop insists and escorts them out .  Back at the steel town. Russ examines a picture of his brother . Walks and remembers them as children playing around the steel mill. Camera circles him, he's mulling his options. Walking
Into work. Bumps into chief Wesley. Jersey police have found his brothers body.  Night - Red, Russell, Wesley and the ex. Eat dinner together .
Intimate scene in kitchen between Russ and ex . She appeals to him not to try anything else  in revenge . Wesley warns him too.
Back at the country house DeGroat cooks up.  Match cut to smelting ore in mill. A junkie hillbilly knocks in the door. A silent tactical force approach across the field. DeGroat injects himself. Between toes.  He's not in the same house- Silence of the Lambs trick!
Russ gets a phone all and rages. Church. A black priest sermonizes . Russ decides to go after DeGroat. Act 3
Goes through Johns desk looking for the ledger.  Finds the address. Cut to the fight shack. DeGroat gets a phone call from Russ offering to settle Johns debts. Tempts him to the town.
Showdown.
DeGroat shows up John place with a flunky. Russ approaches with a loaded rifle. DeGroat beats Johns associate Dan. Forces him to open safe. Shoots Dan and

makes off out the back with money. His van doesn't start so he runs away towards abandoned steel mill.  Russ stalks him like the deer in the forest .  They tussle. Russell takes aim and shots DeGrot in the thigh , forces him to get up and limp outside. Shoots him again, in the back.  DeGrot is down but still alive. Shit in the side. He gets up again. Police race to the scene. DeGrot walking into a fiel. Russ takes aim a final time. Chief Wesley implores him to drop the weapon.  He fires and kills his brother's murderer.