So much feels lost

In a recent interview with Kelly Reichardt, director of the new film "Meek's Cutoff", she describes her experiences on the road and the monotony of the American highway system:

"Ever since I was a kid, we had one of those piggyback campers where you could ride up in the bed; I don’t think you can do that anymore. We would go from Miami to Montana pretty much every summer and take a different route out west. I’d be in that bed looking out the window, and there was just a huge feeling as each state changed, and I had my little transistor up there and got local radio, and every place was just so distinct. We would camp our way across the country. And as it’s turned out, I continued doing that. In my 20s, I used to get those rent-a-cars and drive to the next state and wait for the next car, and that decides where you’re going to go. In these last years, I’ve been going back and forth between Oregon and New York, and the drive is now just something to get through. The interstates are horrific, there are no local radio channels. It’s Clear Channel, conservative corporate radio, all the way across. It’s just a series of chains, and they never end. Days Inn, Applebee’s—you really have to go far off. Even when you take the smaller roads, you still see the motels and stuff have all been run out of business. The gap between the big corporate motel and the mom-and-pop motel is huge now. It’s not exciting. It’s not an adventure now. It’s really just more of a chore. Once you get past Colorado, there are states that are very beautiful to drive through. But you can’t help it—you have a lot of time to think about what it could have been, how great it could have been, and it’s just depression, I guess. The things that Americans value, and it has been passed on to people outside of America now… So much feels lost. It’s hard. It used to be a really inspiring thing that I would do, and now I find it just really depressing. The complete corporate takeover of the country is so evident, and you can’t escape it. Your choices are so few, and they are so bad."

I agree completely.



For further thoughts on the human habitat, check out the Kunstlercast - an excellent podcast by James Howard Kunstler.

Speaking of movies - if Herzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" is playing anywhere near you, it was captivating and highly recommended:

Upcoming Werner Herzog film

read more about the project at the Guardian.

There has to be something mysterious.

Still from My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done - an upcoming film by Herzog and David Lynch (source).

There's a interview with filmmaker Werner Herzog on Slate today (thanks for the tip C-Monster). One particularly interesting part of the interview reads,

Jacob Weisberg: I've seen you quoted as saying that you'd rather die than see an analyst. Can you elaborate?

Werner Herzog.: I think it's a mistake of the 20^th century. You could not live in a house that was illuminated to every last single corner. And human beings become uninhabitable when they are scrutinized and illuminated into their last little dark abysses. Just leave people as they are and don't touch it. I think psychoanalysis is one of the great mistakes of the 20^th century. It's one of the reasons why I would dismiss the 20^th century as a mistake. I think the 20^th century in its entirety was a mistake. Psychoanalysis is just a small brick in my argument, that I could build up.

J.W.: Filmmaking developed in the 20^th century.

W.H.: Yes, yes, some good sides as well. No doubt.

J.W.: But I'm interested in what you say about psychoanalysis. Is the concern that self-understanding would make one less of an artist, or make people less interesting in general?

W.H.: I think people become uninhabitable, as I say, and less interesting. There has to be something mysterious. Just think about being with a woman who had not, no mystery left at all. If everything was explained about a woman, it wouldn't fascinate me anymore. If I could be explained like an encyclopedia, it would be awful.

(my emphasis added)

Art and Film Friday; Vol. 3 - Stroszek

I had a hard time finding images to go with stills from Werner Herzog's 1976 film Stroszek. Looking back through the stills I realized how great this movie was -check it out if you haven't seen it yet. The stills I chose don't tell you much about what the film is about - there are more here in chronological order (but they may give away a lot):

Stills from Werner Herzog's film Stroszek

Logan Hicks (done with spray paint and layered stencils)

Still from Werner Herzog's film Stroszek

Balthus, Jeune fille endormie. Huile sur bois., 1959

Still from Werner Herzog's film Stroszek

Richard Diebenkorn, Man and Woman in a Large Room

Still from Werner Herzog's film Stroszek

Eric Fischl, The Bed, The Chair, The Sitter, 78" by 93", oil/linen, 1999-2000
image via Mary Boone gallery

Lessons of Darkness

I watched "Lessons of Darkness" on Netflix - Watch Instantly (great feature) and it was breathtaking. It is an absolutely stunning cinematic experience. The movie is from 1992, so by no means is this new news, but it was new to me and perhaps new to whomever is reading this. It is about the aftermath of the first Gulf War and the Kuwaiti oil fires, but has very little in the way of narration or dialog. Nearly the entire movie is filled with dramatic, beautifully bleak aerial shots of the fires, the oil drenched landscape, and the workers who are trying to put out the fires. At one point, the narrator (Herzog) introduces a perplexing change of events "Two figures are approaching an oil well. One of them holds a lighted torch. What are they up to? Are they going to rekindle the blaze? Is life without fire become unbearable for them?... Others, seized by madness, follow suit. Now they are content. Now there is something to extinguish again."

I highly recommend this film. If you enjoyed Baraka, or the Planet Earth series - you would surely enjoy this film as well. At only about 45 minutes, you've got nothing to lose.