This week, Bernard talks to filmmaker/screenwriter Oren Moverman in-depth about his new movie starring Richard Gere, Time Out of Mind. Bernard also reviews the film, which he calls “the most ‘3-D’ movie of the year,” and talks about AMC’s forthcoming series Preacher, based on the classic Garth Ennis comic book and presented by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

Topics

• Preacher (1:50)
• Time Out of Mind Review (9:18)
• Oren Moverman Interview (21:15)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

Time Out of Mind NYFF Review

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Goodbye to Language 3D is 70 minutes of erratic, beautiful imagery and sounds strung together in the strangest way, with barely a sliver plot to speak of. The images are evocative and ostensibly absurd: a dog darts to and from the camera; a naked woman shares post-coital proverbs with her man in a bathroom as he farts on the toilet; a shot of flowers and foliage with the colors blown out bedazzles…but makes no sense. It doesn’t mean to. This mad concoction is the latest effort of the irreplaceable Jean-Luc Godard, to no one’s surprise, I’m sure. The French New Wave pioneer’s affinity for philosophical free-association is well-documented (Weekend is the best example), but this film takes experimentation to new, dizzying heights, for better or for worse.

The film is presented in 3-D as the title promises, and the effect is appropriately crucial to the experience. 3-D is used (abused?) by the legendary auteur in ways that had my eyes strained to tears, throbbing in pain. In one scene, for example, a man and woman have a conversation outdoors, when suddenly the woman walks away. The image splits; the left eye sees the man, the right eye follows the woman, the multi-layered image causing a terrible, splitting headache (pardon the pun). It was a diabolically painful thing to watch. Then, a revelation: unable to bear the mind-bending, superimposed images any longer, I closed one eye and saw just the man, crystal clear. Then, I switched to my right eye to see the woman, speaking with somebody else, again crystal clear. Left eye. Right eye. Man. Woman. To my astonishment, I realized I was cutting the film myself! It was a thrill, something I’ve never experienced before. Better yet, my headache was gone. The question of whether this type of interaction was intended for audiences by Godard is of no interest to me, quite frankly, but it’s this mischievousness and irreverence that makes him so beloved by film obsessives, and so insufferable to others.

Godard shows us Mary Shelley putting quill to paper, invokes the Holocaust, and most prominently features the aforementioned couple-in-the-nude and their tumultuous relationship. But ultimately, all of these things are simply allusions to deeper subjects that we can choose to mine intellectually, or not. It’s a decidedly better experience to submit to Godard’s tidal wave of stimulants rather than try to find some deeper meaning hidden within the opaque non-narrative, which would only lead to frustration. The film’s form and philosophy defies critique, really, as its intent and vision is pure to the point of infallibility. Godard invokes different philosophies and historical events because he’s using them as brushstrokes on his canvas. Don’t mull over each blotch of paint and color choice; take a step back, view the entire picture as a one piece of art, and feel it sink into your bones.

The ability to take everyday moments in our world and make them seem otherworldly is Godard’s gift. Through his eyes, things look different, and reality is heightened. Everything we see in Goodbye is downright domestic, nothing approaching the spectacle of Weekend‘s famous tracking shot down an apocalyptic roadside. The added third dimension, however, is not only stunning, but revelatory. We see a woman standing behind a metal grate, and because of the 3-D effect, the sense of entrapment and isolation in the image is intensified. Equally as stimulating is the helter-skelter sound design, which will abruptly start and stop music at the most unexpected times (the large reaction at my screening was that there was something wrong with the theater sound system itself) and bump the volume up to ear-piercing levels seemingly at random. It’s uncomfortable and extremely artful, but far, far from enjoyable.

Godard’s 84th birthday is in just a few weeks, but Goodbye to Language 3D is a testament to how pertinent, audacious, and mysterious a filmmaker he still is today. While pain and frustration will be involved in most people’s experiences with the film, the value of its boldness and uncompromising vision is unquestionable. With films like this, Godard makes filmmakers 50 years his junior look well-dressed, meek, and impotent.

Goodbye to Language 3D trailer

In 1982, Godfrey Reggio altered the cinematic landscape with Koyaanisqatsi, an immaculate, haunting film composed of documentary footage of life on earth that pondered the fraught relationship between man, modernity, and nature. This film, along with the other two documentaries in Reggio’s hypnotic “Qatsi” trilogy, 1988’s Powaqqatsi and 2002’s Naqoyqatsi, captures the majesty and complexities of earth and its inhabitants like no other films have before or since.

With Visitors, Reggio drops the “Qatsi” tag, though the spirit and form of the film are very much in line with his trio of masterpieces: he’s still making statements about man and nature, except now with his lens more fixated on the human side of the equation. Unlike its propulsive, montage-y predecessors, Visitors is segmented, crawling in pace, sobering, and cold to the touch. He shows us sleek black and white images of ominous pieces of architecture and ethereal locales, but most of the 74 minutes-long shots that make up the film are of human faces set against abyssal black backgrounds, scrolling across the screen in super slo-mo to capture every detail, every wrinkle, every morsel of emotion. This is a gorgeous film (especially if you watch it in 4k projection, as it’s being presented in theaters at the request of Reggio and “presenter” Steven Soderbergh), but it’s also a trying one.

Composer Phillip Glass, a long time collaborator of Reggio’s, enriches the imagery with his signature hypnotic, swirling orchestral swells that seem in a constant crescendo. The evocative score helps to placate the restlessness of those whose patience for the film’s deliberate pace begins to run on empty, but even then it may not be enough. Visitors, like Qatsi trilogy, is far, far removed from the conventional moviegoing experience, and has no intentions of stimulating the same pleasure centers other movies bombard so aggressively. This is the slowest moving film you’re going to see in a long, long time. Maybe ever. But there’s purpose to the plod, as it takes you (if you’ll let it) to a mental and spiritual place unreachable by conventional cinematic means.

Much like an art installation at a modern museum, the film targets our deepest of emotions, the ones inarticulable and often inaccessible without letting ourselves fall into a state of meditation or hypnosis. These feelings can be fleeting, like a whiff of food that reminds you of your childhood, but their effect is immense. When you see the human faces creep across the screen, some smiling mischievously, some screaming in agony,  perhaps they’ll remind you of a time in your life when you felt sad, or lost, or elated. When you see the spectacular first shot of the film, of a gorilla with jet black hair set against a jet black background, staring you right in the eyes, perhaps you’ll see mother earth, or think about animal cruelty. Maybe you’ll quiver in fear. Or perhaps you’ll see an all-knowing creature existing on a plane higher than ours, observing our petty lives, as we did in Au Hasard Balthazar. This is interpretive cinema at its most democratic and challenging.

The shot that’s lingered longest in the back of my mind is an early one, in which the camera is set at the foot of a towering skyscraper, craned up at an extreme angle to capture the entirety of the colossal building. The skies above rush by with a time-lapse flicker, reflecting off of the polished building. The image leaves me lonely and detached, and it haunts me as I type.

We could be the “visitors” Reggio insinuates, ravaging a planet that will inevitably devour us. Or maybe the visitors are aliens, observing the strange behaviors of the human race. Either way, Visitors is a beautiful picture, but it’s also an alienating one. I can’t say I was enamored for the entire 87 minutes (some images, like several close-ups of human hands, didn’t connect whatsoever) but it’s an experience that has unquestionably expanded my cinematic taste, which is invaluable. The dynamic movement and vitality of the Qatsi trilogy make those films more approachable; Visitors is a tough sit due to its glacial pace. But you know what? Glaciers are freaking beautiful.

After the 2010 M.I.A. album /\/\ /\ Y /\, I became weary of over stylized albums. Blame it on my fondness for the English language or, perhaps, on my aversion to juvenile StudlyCaps. Whichever it is, the chance of me picking up tUnE-yArDs’ newest album, w h o k i l l, on my own volition are pretty unlikely. But fate and talk radio stepped in, introducing me to an impressive new and individual take on music.

tUnE-yArd is the brainchild of Merrill Garbus, a New England native. Comprising her music of drum loops combined with a ukulele, bass guitar, and saxophones, Garbus manages to create a huge sound with in a small instrumental space. What really carries the record, however, is her huge voice. The album’s novel blend of lo-fi R&B mixed with poppy afro-beats gives it an almost carefree, estival feel. But there is a force in Garbus’ music, tucked within the funky loops and impressive vocals.

This is Garbus’ second release and her sound is clearly evolving. Her lyrics are provocative from the opening track through the end. The goading of the lyrics reminds us that she is not simply writing her personal narrative, but something more universal. By acknowledging duality that she feels as a woman and as an American, she is confronting what it means to living in a world with limitations. The America that Garbus sings about is raw and brutal. Tackling big issues like gender, body image, race, and human brutality, she confronts society head on. Yet, throughout all of this chaos and hurting Garbus never loses her optimism. She embraces the viciousness of the world around her, the America of the twenty-first century, while still holding it accountable and allowing it room to grow.

Music will forever be a source of social commentary. When it is done with style and esteem, there is the opportunity to create something worth believing in. With this album, Garbus has clearly done that in her own very individualistic way.