Love (III)

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.

"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.


George Herbert

able to reach

Οἶον τὸ γλυκύμαλον ἐρεύθεται ἄκρῳ ἐπ᾽ ὔσδῳ ἄκρον ἐπ᾽ ἀκροτάτῳ λελάθοντο δὲ μαλοδρόπνεσ,
οὐ μὰν ἐκλελάθοντ᾽, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἐδύναντ᾽ ἐπίκεσθαι. 

As a sweet apple turns red on a high branch,
high on the highest branch and the applepickers
   forgot—
well, no they didn’t forget—were not able to reach 

- Sappho (translated by Anne Carson)

Aminta

Forse, se tu gustassi anco una volta
La millesima parte de la gioie
Che gusta un cor amato riamando,
Diresti, ripentita, sospirando:
Perduto è tutto il tempo
Che in amar non si spende. 

Aminta (Torquato Tasso, 1573), Act I, sc. i

The village graveyard

The fallen leaves are red and dry.
Autumn burns. The still lake mirrors
a blue October sky.
In the cemetery the forgiven and unforgiven
lie side by side.

Hoarfrost on the goldenrod.
On the northern mountains new-fallen snow.
Time like a kindly god
reserves some open spaces in each row
for the living dead.

How long do we have who follow the sky?
Beneath the rustling maple leaves
in a green plot eleven by five
these ashy bones compact our fond belief
that the sun won’t die.
—F. D. Reeve

virility and courage

Socrates (Roberto Rossellini, 1971)

Le seul film intéressant sur les événements,
le seul vraiment fort que j'ai  vu (je ne les ai évidemment pas tous vus),
c'est celui sur la rentrée des usines WONDER,
tourné par des étudiants de l'IDHEC,
parce que c'est  un film terrifiant, qui fait mal.
C'est le seul qui soit un film vraiment  révolutionnaire.
Peut-être parce que c'est un moment
où la réalité se transfigure à tel point
qu'elle se met à condenser toute une situation politique en dix minutes
d'intensité dramatique folle.

C'est un film fascinant, mais on ne peut dire qu'il soit du tout mobilisateur,
ou alors par le réflexe d'horreur et de refus qu'il provoque.
Vraiment, je crois que le seul rôle du cinéma, c'est de déranger,
de contredire les idées toutes faites, toutes les idées toutes faites,
et plus encore les schémas mentaux qui préexistent à ces idées:
faire que le cinéma ne soit plus confortable.

J'aurais de plus en plus tendance à diviser les films en deux:
ceux qui sont confortables et ceux qui ne le sont pas;
les premiers sont tous abjects, les autres plus ou moins positifs.
Certains films que j'ai vus, sur Flins ou Saint-Nazaire, sont d'un confort désolant:
non seulement ils ne changent rien,
mais ils rendent le public qui les voit content de lui;
c'est les meetings de “l'Humanité.”

Jacques Rivette

Les Cahiers du Cinéma, no. 204, September, 1968

(via David Phelps, here)


La Reprise du travail aux usines Wonder (Jacques Villemont, 1968):

darkness (light)

***

"This mere existence, that is, all that which is mysteriously given us by birth and which includes the shape of our bodies and the talents of our minds, can be adequately dealt with only by the unpredictable hazards of friendship and sympathy, or by the great and incalculable grace of love, which says with Augustine, ‘Volo ut sis (I want you to be),’ without being able to give any particular reason for such supreme and unsurpassable affirmation."
— Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

"Amo heißt volo, ut sis, sagt einmal Augustinus: ich liebe Dich - ich will, daß Du seiest, was Du bist."
“Amo means volo, ut sis, Augustine once said: I love you - I want that you be what you are.”
— Martin Heidegger, in a letter to Hannah Arendt, 1925

Death Don't Have No Mercy

"Death Don't Have No Mercy," performed by Reverend Gary Davis, from Lionel Rogosin's Black Roots (1970)

Canto XLV

With Usura

With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that design might cover their face,
with usura
hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luz
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,
with usura
seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly
with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour
with usura the line grows thick
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling.
Stonecutter is kept from his tone
weaver is kept from his loom
WITH USURA
wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the maid’s hand
and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin’ not by usura
nor was ‘La Calunnia’ painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St. Trophime
Not by usura Saint Hilaire,
Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling
Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man’s courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom
                           CONTRA NATURAM
They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet
at behest of usura.

2012: A Year in Cinema

L'Apollonide: Souvenirs de la maison close (Bertrand Bonello, 2011)
Napoléon vu par Abel Gance (Abel Gance, 1927)
The Rising of the Moon (John Ford, 1957)
Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
Trás-os-Montes (Margarida Cordeiro & Antonio Reis, 1976)
Leonard Cohen - The Partisan - Le partisan - Original 1969 - French TV (Leonard Cohen, 1969)
Ana (Margarida Cordeiro & Antonio Reis, 1984)
Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965)
Tabu (Miguel Gomes, 2012)
Titanic 3D (James Cameron, 1997/2012)
Jeonju Digital Project 2012, Raya Martin Message (Raya Martin, 2012)
The Return (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2011)
The Enjoyment of Reading (Lost and Found) (David Gatten, 2001)
The Great Art of Knowing (David Gatten, 2004)
August and After (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2012)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt, 2011)
The Devil, Probably (Robert Bresson, 1977)
Secret History of the Dividing Line (David Gatten, 2002)
Pastourelle (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2010)
Mera Naam Joker / My Name is Joker (Raj Kapoor, 1970)
Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel, 2012)
Apocalypse Now (Jessie Darling, 2012)
Moxon's Mechanick Exercises, or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing (David Gatten, 2004)
Somebody Up There Likes Me (Bob Byington, 2012)
Collateral (Michael Mann, 2004)
A Dog's Life (Charles Chaplin, 1918)
The North Star (Lewis Milestone, 1943)
Tristana (Luis Buñuel, 1970)
Ape (Joel Potrykus, 2012)
Mad Detective (Johnnie To & Wai Ka-fai, 2007)
Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2011)
Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987)
So Sure of Nowhere Buying Times to Come (David Gatten, 2010)
Film for Invisible Ink, Case No. 323: Once Upon a Time in the West (David Gatten, 2010)
How to Conduct a Love Affair (David Gatten, 2007)
The Matter Propounded, Of Its Possibility or Impossibility, Treated in Four Parts (David Gatten, 2011)
The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
Hitler's Madman (Douglas Sirk, 1943)
Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present (Matthew Akers & Jeff Dupre, 2012)
Margaret (Extended Cut) (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011 / 2012)
Tony Scott (Phil Coldiron, 2012)
Lonely Are the Brave (David Miller, 1962)
Dodsworth (William Wyler, 1936)
Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo, 2011)
Human Desire (Fritz Lang, 1954)
The Wild Child (François Truffaut, 1970)
We Won't Grow Old Together (Maurice Pialat, 1972)
D.O.A. (Rudolph Maté, 1950)
Beggars of Life (William A. Wellman, 1928)
Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993)
The Case of the Grinning Cat (Chris Marker, 2004)
Mudar de Vida (Paulo Rocha, 1966) 
Indiscretion of an American Wife (Vittorio De Sica, 1953)
Love Affair (Leo McCarey, 1939)
Rembrandt's J'Accuse (Peter Greenaway, 2008)
The Spanish Earth (Joris Ivens, 1937)
Run of the Arrow (Samuel Fuller, 1957)
Halftime in America (David Gordon Green, 2012)
View from an Engine Front - Barnstaple (1898) (1898)
The Exile (Max Ophuls, 1947)
Robbery (Oliver Ressler, 2012)
Wind Across the Everglades (Nicholas Ray, 1958)
An Owl Is An Owl (Chris Marker, 1990)
Cat Listening to Music (Chris Marker, 1990)
Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas, 2012)
The Immigrant (Charles Chaplin, 1917)
Zoo Piece (Chris Marker, 1990)
Remembrance of Things to Come (Chris Marker & Yannick Bellon, 2003)
Jaime (Margarida Cordeiro & Antonio Reis, 1974)
The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (Chuck Jones, 1965)
Slon Tango (Chris Marker, 1993)
Beyond the Hills (Cristian Mungiu, 2012)
Bullfight in Okinawa (Chris Marker, 1992)
Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies (Arne Glimcher, 2008)
Le Jour se lève (Marcel Carné, 1939)
Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000)
Daisies (Věra Chytilová, 1966)
MacGruber (Jorma Taccone, 2010)
Extinction Number Six (Rachel Thompson, 2011) [trailer]
The Key (Michael Curtiz, 1934)
Time Bandits (Terry Gilliam, 1981)
Copia imperfecta (José Luis Torres Leiva, 2012)
In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt's Unfinished Revolution (Jon Alpert & Matthew O'Neill, 2011)
Conte de printemps (Dani Abo Louh & Mohamad Omrad, 2011)
Homs: City Under Siege (anonymous/CNN, 2012)
Dots (Norman McLaren, 1940)
Men in Black (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1997)
Valerie and her Week of Wonders (Jaromil Jireš, 1970)
The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
Alice (Jan Švankmajer, 1988)
Paradise: Love (Ulrich Seidl, 2012)
Junkopia (Chris Marker, 1981)
Five Million Years to Earth (Roy Ward Baker, 1967)
La femme publique (Andrzej Żuławski, 1984)
Logan's Run (Michael Anderson, 1976)
Montreal in the 60's (Jimmy Deschênes, 2009)
Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas, 2012)
Reality (Matteo Garrone, 2012)
The Mask of Dimitrios (Jean Negulesco, 1944)
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Frank Capra, 1933)
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Kevin Reynolds, 1991)
The Flame and the Arrow (Jacques Tourneur, 1950)
Rosa de Areia (Margarida Cordeiro & Antonio Reis, 1989)
We Eat the Fruit of the Trees of Paradise (Věra Chytilová, 1970)
Septien (Michael Tully, 2011)
View From An Engine Front - Ilfracombe (1898)
Gun Fury (Raoul Walsh, 1953)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012)
Room in Rome (Julio Medem, 2010)
Faster (George Tillman, Jr, 2010)
Sun Don't Shine (Amy Seimetz, 2012)
Almanac of Fall (Béla Tarr, 1984)