Thanks Rosie..
Stay in your good mood, Rosie. You have to fight for what you feel is right, but not let it consume you.
Speaking af good, and consuming. Yen just whipped up some broiled chicken wings in a spicy apricot sauce! Wow!
We are headed out to see what I think will be a very interesting film. 'The Russian Ark,' the whole film is shot in one continuous hand held shot, no editing. They got it all right in one feature length take.
RUSSIAN ARK / **** (Not rated)
January 31, 2003
The Marquis: Sergey Dreiden
Catherine the Great: Maria Kuznetsova
The Spy: Leonid Mozgovoy
Himself: Mikhail Piotrovsky
Orbeli: David Giorgobiani
Alexander Chaban: Boris Piotrovsky
Himself: Lev Yeliseyev
Himself: Oleg Khmelnitsky
Wellspring presents a film directed by Alexander Sokurov. Written by Anatoly Nikiforov and Sokurov.
Running time: 96 minutes. No MPAA rating (unobjectionable for all).
BY ROGER EBERT
Every review of "Russian Ark"
begins by discussing its method.
The movie consists of one
unbroken shot lasting the entire
length of the film, as a camera
glides through the Hermitage,
the repository of Russian art
and history in St. Petersburg.
The cinematographer Tillman
Buttner, using a Steadicam and
high-def digital technology,
joined with some 2,000 actors in
an tight-wire act in which every
mark and cue had to be hit
without fail; there were two
broken takes before the third
time was the charm.
The subject of the film, which is
written, directed and (in a
sense) hosted by Alexander
Sokurov, is no less than three
centuries of Russian history.
The camera doesn't merely take
us on a guided tour of the art on the walls and in the corridors, but witnesses many visitors who
came to the Hermitage over the years. Apart from anything else, this is one of the best-sustained
ideas I have ever seen on the screen. Sokurov reportedly rehearsed his all-important camera move
again and again with the cinematographer, the actors and the invisible sound and lighting
technicians, knowing that the Hermitage would be given to him for only one precious day.
After a dark screen and the words "I open my eyes and I see nothing," the camera's eye opens
upon the Hermitage and we meet the Marquis (Sergey Dreiden), a French nobleman who will
wander through the art and the history as we follow him. The voice we heard, which belongs to the
never-seen Sokurov, becomes a foil for the Marquis, who keeps up a running commentary. What we
see is the grand sweep of Russian history in the years before the Revolution, and a glimpse of the
grim times afterwards.
It matters little, I think, if we recognize all of the people we meet on this journey; such figures as
Catherine II and Peter the Great are identified (Catherine, like many another museum visitor, is
searching for the loo), but some of the real people who play themselves, like Mikhail Piotrovsky, the
current director of the Hermitage, work primarily as types. We overhear whispered conversations,
see state functions, listen as representatives of the Shah apologize to Nicholas I for the killing of
Russian diplomats, even see little flirtations.
And then, in a breathtaking opening-up, the camera enters a grand hall and witnesses a formal
state ball. Hundreds of dancers, elaborately costumed and bejeweled, dance to the music of a
symphony orchestra, and then the camera somehow seems to float through the air to the
orchestra's stage, and moves among the musicians. An invisible ramp must have been moved into
place below the camera frame, for Buttner and his Steadicam to smoothly climb.
The film is a glorious experience to witness, not least because, knowing the technique and
understanding how much depends on every moment, we almost hold our breath. How tragic if an
actor had blown a cue or Buttner had stumbled five minutes from the end! In a sense, the long,
long single shot reminds me of a scene in "Nostalgia," the 1982 film by Russia's Andrei Tarkovsky,
in which a man obsessively tries to cross and recross a littered and empty pool while holding a
candle which he does not want to go out: The point is not the action itself, but its duration and
continuity.
It will be enough for most viewers, as it was for me, to simply view "Russian Ark" as an original and
beautiful idea. But Stanley Kauffmann raises an inarguable objection in his New Republic review,
when he asks, "What is there intrinsically in the film that would grip us if it had been made--even
excellently made--in the usual edited manner?" If it were not one unbroken take, if we were not
continuously mindful of its 96 minutes--what then? "We sample a lot of scenes," he writes, "that in
themselves have no cumulation, no self-contained point ... Everything we see or hear engages us
only as part of a directorial tour de force."
This observation is true, and deserves an answer, and I think my reply would be that "Russian Ark,"
as it stands, is enough. I found myself in a reverie of thoughts and images, and sometimes, as my
mind drifted to the barbarity of Stalin and the tragic destiny of Russia, the scenes of dancing
became poignant and ironic. It is not simply what Sokurov shows about Russian history, but what
he does not show--doesn't need to show, because it shadows all our thoughts of that country.
Kauffmann is right that if the film had been composed in the ordinary way out of separate shots, we
would question its purpose. But it is not, and the effect of the unbroken flow of images
(experimented with in the past by directors like Hitchcock and Max Ophuls) is uncanny. If cinema is
sometimes dreamlike, then every edit is an awakening. "Russian Ark" spins a daydream made of
centuries.
Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc. |
