I miss cinema. I'm so sorry I've been neglecting you. I'll get back to you one of these days, I promise. Once I get this other stuff out of the way.

I love diving into a film, though. The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant. For some reason, Fassbinder's films never really engage me on a visceral level, not that I don't appreciate them (and even love a couple). But, I seem to have to work at it when I'm watching his stuff. But, if I'm in the right mood, it's great. I love the decadence and the dilapidation. I love that long slow pan that begins on Petra and goes across the room, mostly out of focus, and comes to rest on Marlene just as she reacts to Petra's words. I'm thinking of Herzog's great quote, "Film should be looked at straight on, it is not the art of scholars but of illiterates." I remember I thought the idea of analyzing a film was terribly daunting, and I was watching Glenn Erickson's commentary on Night and the City, and he talked about how one of the characters was waiting in his office and the lighting made a pattern that looked like a spiderweb. So, he compared the character to a spider, waiting for everybody to be caught in his web. So simple, so perfect, so obvious. If it looks like a dog...

I'd love to go through a film someday, any film (I mean, any good one) and just stop it every 5 seconds and ask why. Like in Petra, there's a shot of Petra and Marlene's (or Karin's) feet, only their feet, and it looks like they're dancing. It goes on for a while, and just ends. Why film only their feet? Why pick that song? Why dress them the way they're dressed? Any director worth his salt never does anything without a reason. So, I'd love to, just once, ask why about everything.

It's funny, I can't really relate to Fassbinder's use of space, in a physical sense. I mean, some people can drop you into a scene and compose it so perfectly that you understand the lay of the set almost instantly. You know where everything is. Kurosawa does this, and the transcendental directors (Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, Tarkovsky) do it effortlessly. Even though Petra takes place entirely in one small room, I never really understand the geography of it. Because of my faith in cinema, I imagine this is intentional on Fassbinder's part.