Bronson (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009)

I finally got around to see Bronson upon its recent DVD&blu-ray releases in the UK. The film overall was quite enjoyable as a bio-pic yet in the act of its dramatic execution it was perpetuating a bit pretentious, uber-glossed and highly stylized plaster of filmmaking. (As one who is familiar with Refn's Pusher series would have expected) Rather than laying out a bloodfeast of violence, it was focussing more on the main character's self-parodic thereby self-indulgent theatritical performance of his recounting of his own past. This foray however seems to be persevering the most enjoyable core of the film, by the time film moves into a final thread where quoting other films becomes more explicit (hence obnoxious) than ever -hence launching a sort of parody throughout that reveals something less interesting than its initially set premises. Thus, Bronson seems to get failed in the act of gesturing into other films throughout its final momentum instead of digging more into different layers of the Bronson character. Remarkable lead performance by Tom Hardy deserves to be cited though. Angeresque camp color scheme as well.. Overall, after Pusher series, a good move for Refn into English language. But to say the least, does it really stand out? I am not sure... 6.5/10

de-hal

"Deha caliskanliktir." Dehayi belirleyen en onemli olgulardan birisi onun hayatin zemin katina biraktigi silik ayak izleridir. Bu izlerin silikligi ona olan uzaklikla ya da bakisin olusmaya basladigi anda dahil oldugu bir duzenekle ilintili degildir. Aksine hatirlayisin koyu pariltisiyla, ve belki bunun sonucunda kisiye getirdigi sonsuz tembellik hissiyle ilgilidir. Kendini dinleyisin ortaya cikardigi bu sezgisel an, hic beklenmedik bir duzlemde de kendisini ortaya cikarabilir. Iste boyle anlar, donusmeye baslayisin gune sizdigi ve sonsuzlugun bakisiyla kesistigi durgunlukla beslenen aralara yerlesir. Sonsuzlugun kendi kendisine hatirlattigi olum kanisi bu yazgida hic de beklenmedik degildir. Yeni bir yaziya ya da caliskanliga ulasmanin gundelik ve mekanik edimi belki de bu baglantida baslamalidir.

"But genius is the power to labor better and more availably. Deserve thy genius: exalt it."
Emerson

From Gehr

"A still has to do with a particular intensity of light, an image, a composition frozen in time and space.
A shot has to with variable intensity of light, and internal balance of time dependent upon an intermittent movement and a movement within a given space dependent upon persistence of vision...
A still as related to film is concerned with using and losing an image of something through time and space. In representational films sometimes the image affirms its own presence as image, graphic entity, but most often it serves as a vehicle to a phot0-recorded event. Traditional and established avant-garde film teach film to be an image, a representing. Bu film is a real thing and as a real thing it is not an imitation. It does not reflect on life, it embodies the life of the mind. It is not a vehicle for ideas or portrays of emotion outside of its own existence as emoted idea." (Ernie Gehr, Programs Notes, Film Culture no. 53-55 (Spring 1972)

What is to be Done? -- Jean Luc Nancy

What is to be done, at present? The question is on everybody's lips and, in a certain way, it's the question people today always have lying in wait for any passing philosopher. Not: What is to be thought? But indeed: What is to be done? The question is on everybody's lips (including the philosopher's), but witheld, barely uttered, for we do not know if we still have the right, or whether we have the means, to raise it. Perhaps, we think more or less discreetly to ourselves, perhaps the uncertainty of 'what is to be done?' is today so great, so fluctuating, so indeterminate, that we do not need even to do this: raise the question.

Especially if the question were to presuppose that one already knows what is right to think, and that the only issue is how one might then proceed to act. Behind us theory, and before us practice - the key thing is knowing what it is opportune to decide in order to embark on specific action. But this is what is presupposed most ordinarily by the question. And 'what is to be done?' means, in that case, 'how to act' in order to achieve an already given goal. 'Transforming the world' then means: realising an already given interpretation of the world, and realising a hope.

But we do not know what it is right for us to think, or even properly to hope. Perhaps we no longer even know what it is to think nor, consequently, what it is to think 'doing', nor what 'doing' is, absolutely.

Perhaps, though, we know one thing at least: 'What is to be done?' means for us: how to make a world for which all is not already done (played out, finished, enshrined in a destiny), nor still entirely to do (in the future for always future tomorrows).

This would mean that the question places us simultaneously before a doubly imperative response. It is necessary to measure up to what nothing in the world can measure, no established law, no inevitable process, no prediction, no calculable horizon -absolute justice, limitless quality, perfect dignity -and it is necessary to invent and create the world itself, immediately, here and now, at every moment, without reference yesterday or tomorrow. Which is the same as saying that it is necessary at one and the same time to affirm and denounce the world as it is -not to weigh out as best one can equal amounts of submission and revolt, and always end up halfway between reform and accomodation, but to make the world into the place, never still, always perpetually reopened, of its own contradiction, which is what prevents us from ever knowing in advance what is to be done, but imposes upon us the task of never making anything that is not a world.

What will become of our world is something we cannot know, and we can no longer believe in being able to predict or command it. But we can act in such a way that this world is a world able to open itself up to its own uncertainty as such.

These are not vague generalities. I am writing these lines in January 1996. France's December strikes showed clearly the whole difficulty, not to say aporia, that exists in 'what is to be done?' once all guarantees are suspended and all models become obsolete. Resignation in the face of the brutalities of economic Realpolitik clashed with feverish or eager words that hardly took the risk of saying exactly what was to be done. But between the two, something was perceptible: that it is ineluctable to invent a world, instead of being subjected to one, or dreaming of another. Invention is always without model and without warranty. But indeed that implies facing up to turmoil, anxiety, even disarray. Where certainties come apart, there too gather the strength that nor certainty can mathch.

Translated by Leslie Hill