Burn After Reading (2008)

Happy Homework day! I'm taking advantage of having missed doing this [homework] for the last four years. I got out of bed with the up most alacrity and started my readings.  I was disappointed in how bored I was with my first reading for my SSC class (Self, Society & Cosmos) aka Western Lit. Man and Nature in the New Testament, a lecture by Ethel M. Wood at the University of London in 1964. I did, however, like an aspiration by George Herbert, "That, as the world serves us, we may serve thee, And both thy servants be."


Reading on I found a set of verses that try to describe the union between man and inanimate nature.


"All things search until they find
God through the gateway of thy mind. 
Highest star and humblest clod
Turn home through thee to God.
When thou rejoicest in the rose 
Blissful from earth to heaven she goes; 
Upon thy bosom summer seas
Escape from their captivities;
Within thy sleep the sightless eyes

Of night revisage Paradise;
In thy soft awe yon mountain high
To his creator draweth nigh;
This lonely tarn, reflecting thee,
 Returneth to eternity;
And thus in thee the circuit vast
Is rounded and complete at last,
And at last, through thee revealed
To God, what time and space concealed."

‘To Everyman’ (Edith Anne Stewart, The Nation, November, 1918). 


Pretty cool, huh? 

In Art History I started working on my 'notebook/sketchbook" and I'm having fun with it. We are starting with the earliest non-representational 'art' object found in the Blombos Cave in South Africa. 75,000 years ago!!! 


Meet Woman of Hohle Fels (bottom image) a figurine standing only 2.4 inches tall made of mammoth ivory. The figure on the top is The Woman of Willendorf. Check them out, they are very interesting. And the arguments surrounding them are also entertaining (whether they are images of fertility and sensuality).




The chapters I have to read in Editing are killing me. It's very informative, but the font in the book, I think is 4. The readings are on Pudovkin, Griffith & Eisenstein. 


Pudovkin was a Soviet filmmaker from the 1920s-50s. Notable for introducing the Soviet montage theory, and relying heavily on the editing aspect of film. 


Griffith is most known for The Birth of a Nation, Active 1900-30s. 


Eisenstein also a pioneer in the Soviet montage theory. Both October (Eisenstein) and Birth of a Nation (Griffith) are on Netflix instant watch if you're interested. Pay attention to the lack of continuity. 


"Once more I repeat, that editing is the creative force of filmic reality, and that nature provides only the raw material with which it works. That, precisely, is the relationship between editing and the film."
-Pudovkin

Kuleshov maintained that the material in filmwork consists of pieces of film, and that the composition method is their joining together in a particular, creatively discovered order. He maintained that film art does not begin when the artists act and the various scenes are shot--this is only the preparation of the material. Film art begins from the moment when the director begins to combine and join together the various pieces of film. By joining them in various combinations in different orders, he obtains differing results. 

After some rocking' Moroccan chicken, I trotted my derriere to the Main Theater where our first SGA/Town Hall meeting was held. Guests included Dean Kerner and Asst. Dean Grillo. The hot topic tonight being the potential halt on filming with 16 & 35 mm film. Mainly focusing on digital due to the budget. My attitude remains, I'm grateful for anything and I understand the future of film is digital. In the next 2 years there will be no theaters that screen their films in film (print), it will all be digital. So for those of you who enjoy the nostalgia of film, find it, enjoy it and tell your kids about it. 

That's all I have for you today. I'm still steadily reading that editing assignment. Buenas noches!