I was looking for somewhere to post comments on Landscape in the Mist, and realised there was no filmmaker thread for Angelopoulos, so here you go. There's been a bit of dicsussion of his work in other places on the forum (particularly in connection with the Lists Project), so feel free to copy anything you've said over there here.
Landscape in the Mist - As promised, this is major Angelopoulos, with none of the shortcomings that leave me unsatisfied with some of his later works. Once again, there's an inconclusive journey, patterned with interruptions, and those travelling players are still trying to do justice of Golfo the Shepherdess, but Angelopoulos' mode here is that of a fable or fairy tale. That simplicity / openness of structure accommodates mood shifts into the fantastic (the children's magical escape while the adults are transfixed by a snowfall), the horrific (the harrowing slow track in on the back of the truck) and the metaphysical (the enshrouded conclusion) much more easily than the more ambitious, lumpier narrative / symbolic constructions of Ulysses' Gaze and Eternity and a Day.
So many breathtaking sequences - the emergence of an enormous stone hand from a harbour is a real Angelopoulos moment, and its treatment here show off his similarities and differences with Fellini, who treats similar material in La dolce vita and Casanova to quite different effect - but in this film they sit comfortably within the slender, dream-like narrative throughline.
Fantastic post and a quite startling omission - until now! He really is a grandmaster. I have given up on New Star delivering the missing titles on DVD (after so many false promises)... With his extensive use of deep focus photography, we really need to see Angelopoulos on Blu Ray!
I hope you don't mind, zedz, but I've used my mod privileges to add half a dozen more links (which I think are definitely worth a look - particularly the NFT interview) to your original post...
foggy eyes wrote:I hope you don't mind, zedz, but I've used my mod privileges to add half a dozen more links (which I think are definitely worth a look - particularly the NFT interview) to your original post...
This seems to me effortlessly Angelopoulos best film of the 90s. The film has all the stylistic virtues of Ulysses’ Gaze and Eternity and a Day but far fewer of their detractions / distractions: rickety thematic apparati, overloaded symbolism, clunky exposition, poorly integrated set pieces.
I think one of the keys to the success of this film is that Angelopoulos has hit upon a subject that ideally suits his thematic preoccupations. He tends to structure his films around journeys that never reach their explicit destination, through a pattern of interruptions and repetitions, and is preoccupied with borders and transitions: spatial, political, temporal or metaphysical, but generally all of those and more (which is why his films risk becoming thematically overburdened).
In The Suspended Step of the Stork, whose titular event / image of a person poised mid-step before armed guards at a border crossing neatly synthesises a suspension between states in at least three senses ('state' as geopolitical entity, 'state' as personal legal status and 'state' as living or dead), the consideration of refugees in the bureaucratic limbo of a border town finesses many of the director's concerns. The refugees are physically, politically and legally isolated, and ‘crossing over’ the physical border involves a drastic change of status and the very real risk of death.
Piled onto this, but in a relatively organic way, are more specific transitional states represented by the largely symbolic marriage of a young girl and the shifting identity of the character played by Marcello Mastroianni, who seems to be the only character ultimately capable of moving between the many states contemplated by the film. At the point that Jeanne Moreau finally confronts her long-lost husband (Mastroianni), she turns to us and explains plainly, “it’s not him,†but since she had previously noted that, the last time she’d seen him, he was in the process of “turning into somebody else,†this statement has its own depths of ambiguity.
So, for the most part, this film manages to dovetail beautifully the metaphorical / metaphysical significances that threaten to overload some of Angelopoulos' other films. The only element that seems a little shaky to me is the ‘filmmaker angst’ one: the whiff of narcissism invariably weakens Angelopoulos’ films. Gregory Karr’s performance as the journalist is also a bit of a weak point, especially when he’s performing in too-actorly English.
But the set pieces, when they come, blow all such concerns away. The climactic riverbank wedding is a tour-de-force. The complex, multi-plane action is staged like Jancso but shot as pure Angelopoulos, with slow, penetrating zooms exploring the landscape. You can feel the chill of the morning air.
I also loved the matched plans-sequences which focus on Jeanne Moreau’s relationship with the film crew, one beside a motorway at night and the other in the border town when she finally encounters Mastroianni. In both cases, the physical movement in depth gives way to a view of the interior of the filmmakers' van, where we can see the action doubled on video. It’s an ingenious way of affording Moreau a couple of privileged (and quite essential) close-ups without violating the director’s rigorous long-shot aesthetic.
And finally, there’s the magnificent closing shot which features Angelopoulos’ characteristic yellow-boiler-suited workmen incongruously converting the film’s unadorned landscape into some kind of bizarre art installation. It’s definitely a WTF moment, and arguably over-reaching and pretentious, but the formal effect is so striking I’ll give it a pass.
Thanks for your thoughts zedz. I have always loved this film. I first saw it on the big screen dubbed in German in a near-empty lecture hall at the university in Dresden.
That final scene is for me one of the most powerful in the film, especially in its symbolic resonances. The workers are setting up telephone lines, but these are running only along one side of the river/border. It emphasizes one of the film's persistent themes of our constant efforts to establish communication with others that will only ever run laterally, but never actually across those crucial borders needed to make real connections. In sum: it's a metaphor of our always-already failed intersubjectivity.
All the existing New Star Angelopoulos titles have English subs (well there are three I don't have, but all the other ones do). I found a seller on eBay who had them all available with reasonable shipping late last year.
It seems there's no Angelopoulos DVD thread, and as I am desperately seeking any editions of his films, I thought we should consolidate any info on him. Does anybody know the quality of this boxset? Also, is the site reliable at all, I'd hate to pass up the chance to own close to his entire oeuvre for under $50.
I think that set is one of those Asian bootlegs that are on eBay all the time.
From what it seems, the best available DVDs of his work are the Greek releases. Unfort, these are hard to find, and since I don't know any Greek Online Stores that are Latin-friendly, the closest I've gone to buying one is looking on eBay (But even on eBay these are selling for $50 each).
Anyone know any reliable, English friendly online DVD stores? I'm interested in finding out when his new film "The Dust of Time" is going to be released on DVD in Greece. It was released theatrically in January, so a DVD release is due.
Stefan Andersson wrote:I think LANDSCAPE is still available on Madman´s site.
It's a shame Landscape in the Mist isn't more readily available, I'll pick Eternity from hkflix, and then just wait and see if I can find Landscape anywehere at a decent price. I would love to find the Greek boxes, but I think I'll have to settle for hunting down individual releases instead.
The only way to go is the Greek New Star DVDs, which can be ordered easily through eBay (for example, see here for Landscape in the Mist). The transfers are great, and they all come with English subs - do not hesitate to pick up The Travelling Players or The Suspended Step of the Stork! I wouldn't bother with the Madman discs - the transfers are ports of the New Stars but with added yellow subs. The UK disc of Weeping Meadow from Artificial Eye is probably exactly the same as the Greek disc (fine transfer), but much cheaper.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure there's loads of info on the board about Angelopoulos DVDs - try the other threads under his name...
foggy eyes wrote:The only way to go is the Greek New Star DVDs, which can be ordered easily through eBay (for example, see here for Landscape in the Mist). The transfers are great, and they all come with English subs
Can anyone speak to how the New Star DVD compares to the OOP New Yorker of Landscape? I'm very tempted to pick this up, but have difficulty justifying spending that much on a title that I can easily pick up (the NYer version anyway) from my local library anytime I want.
Also, stupid question: does "all region" imply that it will play in both NTSC- and PAL-compatible players?
No, all region just means it's Region 0. You still have to have a PAL-capable DVD player-- though I'm not sure I've ever seen a DVD player that didn't let you toggle between PAL and NTSC direct from the menu without any code
