SCFZ poll: Jan Svankmajer

[flip]

Polling the films of director Jan Svankmajer

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Svankmajer films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Friday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline up to three days, if someone requests an extension

- next poll: whoever posts the first ballot in this thread is free to nominate the director we poll next, unless you've nominated in this round already (everyone should get a chance). Already nominated this round: greennui, bure, roscoe, kanafani, greg x, silga, oscarwerner, john ryan, mrcarmady, umbugbene, evelyn, m arkadin, jiri, brian d, nrh, rischka, aberration, searchlike, st gloede

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

one rule for nominees: at least 3 scfzers need to have seen 10+ of a nominee's films, or at least 4 scfzers need to have seen at least 8 of the nom's films, so if it isn't clear if that will be the case, we'll confirm that's true before moving forward

if 24 hours pass after a poll opens, and no one eligible to nominate has posted a ballot, then i'll nominate someone, and then we'll start over, and everyone will be able to nominate again

[flip]

Alice
The Last Trick
The Ossuary
Dimensions of Dialogue
Conspirators of Pleasure

seen ten (well, more but can only remember ten well enough to put them in a ranking)

[greennui]

8.

Alice
Jabberwocky
Darkness, Light, Darkness

[ofrene]

seen 7

Dimensions of Dialogue
Alice
Darkness, Light, Darkness

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Seen 6 (for sure. Pretty sure I've seen more, but I'm not sure which ones, I'll have to look through and update if I catch any I've missed)

Food
Virile Games
Alice

[brian d]

seen 14

faust
the ossuary

[sally]

seen 31 apparently!

conspirators of pleasure
faust
a quiet week in the house
the garden
jabberwocky

[Curtis, baby]

Seen 11

The garden
The flat

[Holymanm]

GREEDY GUTS?! NO!!!

only seen little otik aka greedy guts; it ruined my appetite for life

[St. Gloede]

Seen 12:

Otesánek / Little Otik
Alice
Sílení
Food
Surviving Life (Theory and Practice)

[thoxans]

oh. apparently i have seen one. alice. neato

[MrCarmady]

Could've sworn I'd seen more but I'll throw a vote to 1/2 and try to watch a few more.

Dimensions of Dialogue

[niminy-piminy]

Conspirators of Pleasure
The Garden
Surviving Life (Theory and Practice)
Ossuary
Insect



Despite i have a strong affinity to surreal, i don't have a super-strong affinity to JŠ's whole film oeuvre.
I like many of his films a lot, i like JŠ as a person, i share with him and his (deceased) wife passion for art brut (outsider art), but i consider him a bit an old-school surrealist (deeply rooted in Czechoslovak surrealist group stemming from Breton's group and to my taste too much preoccupied with Freud).
As i already mentioned related to ACÉPHALE (in the "Zanzibar" thread), i am more passionate about "Le Grand Jeu" — the group excommunicated from Breton's surrealist group. And i am more interested in Jung or Wilhelm Reich, and (most of all) in Otto Gross (Freud's antipode) than in Freud. Within my perception, Freud was someone whose ultimate goal (despite all the preoccupation with the subconscious) was to bring "sick" ppl back to conformity with patriarchal order. Otto Gross was an "anti-Christ" of psychoanalysis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Gross
A maverick early disciple of Sigmund Freud, he later became an anarchist and joined the utopian Ascona community.

A champion of an early form of anti-psychiatry and sexual liberation, he also developed an anarchist form of depth psychology (which rejected the civilizing necessity of psychological repression proposed by Freud). He adopted a modified form of the proto-feminist and neo-pagan theories of Johann Jakob Bachofen, with which he attempted to return civilization to a 'golden age' of non-hierarchy. Gross was ostracized from the larger psychoanalytic movement and was not included in histories of the psychoanalytic and psychiatric establishments. He died in poverty.

Greatly influenced by the philosophy of Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche and the political theories of Peter Kropotkin, he, in turn, influenced D. H. Lawrence (through Gross's affair with Frieda von Richthofen), Franz Kafka, and other artists, including Franz Jung and other founders of Berlin Dada. His influence on psychology was more limited. Carl Jung claimed his entire worldview changed when he attempted to analyze Gross and partially had the tables turned on him.

He became addicted to drugs in South America where he served as a naval doctor. He was hospitalized several times for drug addiction, sometimes losing his guardianship of himself to his father in the process. As a Bohemian drug user from youth, as well as an advocate of free love, he is sometimes credited as a founding grandfather of 20th-century counterculture.

Btw. if you noticed in the aforementioned wiki resume "he influenced Franz Kafka" and "sometimes losing his guardianship of himself to his father in the process" i can add to these clues that i have heard (not sure if true) that figure of Josef K. in Kafka's "Process" was directly inspired by Otto Gross (and the trial started by his father to deprive drug-addicted & uninhibited Otto of legal rights).

Now, specifically to the oeuvre.

1/ It might sound like "stalking writer Horatio Clare" (& i didn't even mention rum yet — i am boozing seldom, it gives me no revelations, only headache — but rum is one of the few types of booze that i can consume without feeling pain within my skull — anyway, back to Švankmajer) but my fav movie is CONSPIRATORS OF PLEASURE. As just mentioned (related to booze), i am not really a hedonist but i can relate to the hedonism displayed in this movie. Inventive and bizarrely playful devices giving pleasure somehow convene with my idea of hedonism as ultimately a ridiculous endeavor for fulfillment — that can never really happen (because senses are never really satiated).

2/ Next comes THE GARDEN. I don't remember if i watched it for the first time in the last days of the "old regime" or the first days of the "new regime" but i can still recall my surprise at how well this film sums my perception of life in Czechoslovakia in 1980s. Thus whenever i need to recall my feeling of the 1980s i watch this short. And if i would be supposed to curate "an introduction via the film into the socio-political atmosphere of quasi-socialist Czechoslovakia" i would offer the viewers THE GARDEN, BE SURE TO BEHAVE (Peter Solan, soon available with Eng subs), THE EAR (Kachyňa). And after this trio (as an extra) ELECTIVE AFFINITIES (Karel Vachek), the documentary in "direct cinema" style capturing the election of a new president that was carried in 1968 shortly prior to the Warshaw Pact invasion (it shows the enthusiasm and naivety of locals that transition from Stalinism to democratic socialism is possible). In any case, i consider THE GARDEN to be a seminal socio-political film.

3/ Third comes OSSUARY because bones & skulls are simply cute. Ossuary displayed in this film can be found in Sedlec (city of Kutná Hora). I have some vague idea i might had visit it during my childhood (i have seen some ossuaries then but not sure which ones). Making ossuaries was a quite popular pastime in baroque Bohemia. The last ossuary i visited (in 2016) is the one in the underground of the city of Brno. Skulls and bones are not arranged in ornamental fashion there but on the other hand, you can hear on the spot (while gazing on the skulls) the site-specific tunes (music specifically composed for the place). These are two snapshots i did on the spot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brno_Ossuary
It is estimated that the (Brno) ossuary holds the remains of over 50 thousand people which makes it the second-largest ossuary in Europe, after the Catacombs of Paris.

4/ Then, I cherish within my memory INSECT (an adaptation of the play by Čapek bros). I like Josef Čapek a lot (i already mentioned elsewhere how nasty way he died — from 1939 until 1945 going through various concentration camps and ultimately dying on typhus just a few days prior to the liberation of Bergen-Belsen), he was a great painter. Karel Čapek (the writer and journalist) i like somewhat less but i read nearly his whole oeuvre because my (paternal) grandpa was his huge fan and thus i had almost all writings of Karel Čapek at my disposal. So, naturally, i read also INSECT ("PICTURES FROM THE INSECT'S LIFE" is the title of the play) already as a teen. (The film) INSECT i not only watched (not long ago) but also subtitled. It is the only case, i was making Czech subs (no translation, only transcription). A guy from Russia wanted to make Russian subs but besides existing English subs he wanted to consult Czech subs too, so he started a decent (transcription) subs POT that i grabbed. So, i got the opportunity to become quite familiar with the film and i like a lot many of its parts. During my viewing, i got somewhat interested who is one of the actresses playing one of the insects. With the rest of the cast, i was familiar so i was just wondering who is the unknown lady?! She is Ivana Uhlířová (an actress with a decent amount of acting credits). Few days after finishing my preoccupation with the film, i stumbled in GoOut (an application that displays all the cultural events taking place in Prague and via which one can buy tickets) on an upcoming stage play supposedly based on a book called "Jarmila Glazarová: Rainforest, Congo, Pygmies, and other works". I don't remember if the book is a complete fabrication or just a mystification based on some real snippets of trivia, but it is supposedly a diary of communist (Stalinist) novelist Jarmila Glazarová (1901-1977) found in a hut in the jungle of Congo where late Jarmila was spending autumn of her life. This "diary" suggests she was living there a life of an austere recluse, marveling about the exotic nature and occasionally preaching about comrade Stalin and the Comintern (Communist International) to Pygmies (who to her annoyance showed near to zero interest about this subject). Naturally, i got intrigued and my interest was even increased when i noticed the main part (of late Jarmila) is played by Ivana Uhlířová (one of the insects). I attended the play, it was great. Thus i might tend to somewhat overestimate INSECT (the film) due to my cluster of (disparate) pleasing perceptions & memories related to the film.

5/ I can't recall clearly what short films i watched vs. didn't watch. I expect it is about half to half. I will list above (either as a part of the ballot or with counterstrike) only those i will rewatch onwards.

6/ Out of the long films, I didn't watch ALICE, SURVIVING LIFE (THEORY AND PRACTICE), LITTLE OTIK, FAUST yet. LITTLE OTIK is based on a fairy tale that is notoriously known to every local kid (i heard it several times as an infant). So, i might finally watch also the film for the poll. SURVIVING LIFE (THEORY AND PRACTICE) i intend to watch for a long and always postponing (so finally the time has come, i guess). The other two... maybe (depends how fast the deadline will come).

7/ LUNACY i watched and was not much intrigued. However, then (as a part of JIDFF screenings a few months ago) i watched the ATHANOR: THE ALCHEMICAL FURNACE (documentary about JŠ) and there JŠ speaks about the making of this film. Coincidentally, during that time he lost his wife and suffered a mental breakdown. After few days of complete inertia, he slipped into delusions and was for a short period of time hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital. Thus due to some strange play of fate, his shooting of LUNACY became intertwined with his own real-life lunacy slip. I regret i didn't know this trivia before watching the film. I believe my viewing would be more attentive to details and thus more immersing. So, i expect to rewatch this film at one point (most likely not for the poll tho).

8/ Aforementioned documentary about JŠ called ATHANOR: THE ALCHEMICAL FURNACE (Jan Daňhel, Adam Oľha, 2020), i strongly recommend!
https://letterboxd.com/film/alchemical-furnace/
I posted the pic already in JIFDD thread, but it can't hurt to post it again.
It is a marital bed of Jan and Eva. Since Eva died, Jan stopped sleeping in it.

[sally]

well i may (grossly, grossly!) offend our czech friend(s) with my racist generalisations, but JS is a super example of a delicious, identifying quality that has seeped through my extremely limited brush with the films & literature of czech culture...that is best expressed as.....icky? ickiness?

the senses may be remorselessly infinite, but the material world isn't, and it's just this experience of the sensuality of the finite, of decay, a wonderfully tactile celebration of the limit of substances, all the yucky snotty gloopy sticky dusty rusty stuff of stuff...that screams (or rather, insists with a saliva-dripping tongue inserted into my ear) 'czech' at me (& what other country would give you the warmly erotic inky arse-stamping scene in closely watched trains? ♥♥♥) oh there's politics too but even those films etc seem so grounded in thinginess going wrong....

on the other hand (a dry, adequate hand) i may just have watched & read (stalked inadequately) the wrong (right) things...but i have no time for huge culture project right now because my feet hurt & i'm going to bed.

[niminy-piminy]

i guess i have finaly found my ideal username.
it is very sensual (with tricky — tr(icky) — reference to the local titillating ickiness), hides my real name (i can finaly stage my persona without any hindrance), and reference to oval cinema (contradiction) & Novalis (anti-foundationalism) is still there as well.
not to speak that "Ickykino" sounds like a name of a Japanese auteur (Kinoshita, Terayama, Ickykino).
i am very happy!
i almost feel like starting a new thread called "story behind your username".

[sally]

well i'm glad you took it so well

[niminy-piminy]

how else could i take it?
it was very flattering, in my opinion!

[Monsieur Arkadin]

but JS is a super example of a delicious, identifying quality that has seeped through my extremely limited brush with the films & literature of czech culture...that is best expressed as.....icky? ickiness?

I very rarely have students walk out of films I screen for them, but Svankmajer seems to have the highest rates. I think it's his approach to sound that really pushes people over the edge. Food in particular has lots of wet, flappy-cheek, mouth smacky sounds that seems to irk a lot of folks.

[niminy-piminy]

and it is gonna be worse after pandemics.
ppl will demand disinfected cinema experience!

[niminy-piminy]

i wish JŠ making one more film and call it "My Blisters Have Blisters"

[wba]

Love him! Wonderful filmmaker. His use of sound is especially delicious.

01. Dimensions of Dialogue (1983)
02. The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia (1991)
03. J.S. Bach: Fantasia in G minor (1965)
04. The Flat (1968)
05. A Quiet Week in the House (1969)

Svankmajer seen: 13

[niminy-piminy]

CZECH NEW EXTREMITY!

watching SURVIVING LIFE (THEORY AND PRACTICE).
before, i wasn't aware of the icky side of the local cinema.
all from domestic provenance seemed to be pretty normal and average.
after, getting feedback (viz above) from abroad i tried to focus on icky sounds and icky stills.
i reached only about 20 min of the film and i am already shocked!
such an excess of "appalling" visual & aural stimuli within such a short period of time is truly "sickening".
i don't wonder anymore some viewers opt to walk out.
i was truly blind and deaf before.
it is obvious that "french new extremity" has its local icky counterpart.

[niminy-piminy]

+ SURVIVING LIFE (THEORY AND PRACTICE)

cinema theater Bio Svět (Cinema World) where the dream of the hero starts...



is a cinema from my neighborhood called nowadays Bio Oko (Cinema Eye)...


this is how it looks/looked (not sure of the current state) inside...

[sally]

such an excess of appalling visual & aural stimuli

but in a good way! am not going to compose an ode to the unctuous, but surely such excess is evidence of JŠ's affectionate largesse to the intimate senses. if those neurotic over-sanitized students ran away from mouth sounds then they've got bigger problems than film studies (will they kiss each other from 5 metres away?)

if the new french extremity is there to repel (i am utterly repelled, so it must be) then czech extremity is there to suck you in to the point of digestion/blissful dissolution (i think i have alzheimer's today, i have a migraine anyway - is there a word that means in-tremity?)

[sally]

also, i had never really analysed 'ovalis' other than assuming it was something to do with eggs. (ov(a) - ulation) which now strikes me as incredibly apt - being both slimy and gloopy & totally generative...

[niminy-piminy]

but in a good way!
czech extremity is there to suck you in to the point of digestion/blissful dissolution

i am almost sure that i made in the past a screenshot within some film by João César Monteiro with a replica linking affection to devouring.
i was really surprised JŠ is so explicit in those particular depictions & sounds (more than i perceived if not specifically focusing on it).
however, i ofc sympathize will all those weirdly voracious devorados! (they are my folks after all)

[niminy-piminy]

ovalis (or "kino ovalis" or "ki Noovalis") is there primarily to make a reference to Novalis (and remotely refer to my similar real surname) and secondarily to refer to all those silly shapes of the screen in Lubitch's "wild cat" (suggesting that cinema screen doesn't need to be only square).
minor side note: occasionally (alternately) i am using also the username "Neon Ovalis" (cryptic writing of "Neo Novalis") here and there.

[niminy-piminy]

placed "appalling" and "sickening" above in quotation marks to make clear i am not really appalled and sickened tho i can perceive with more clarity "appalling" and "sickening" potential of many (far more than i was aware before) stills and sounds in JŠ's oeuvre.

[niminy-piminy]

+ SURVIVING LIFE (THEORY AND PRACTICE)

Dreams and the Way to Direct Them:
Practical Observations, Including an Appendix with a Record of a Dream After Taking Hashish
by Léon le Marquis d’Hervey-Saint-Denys
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/556 ... irect-them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Jea ... aint_Denys
Marie-Jean-Léon, Marquis d'Hervey de Saint Denys (1822-1892) was a French sinologist also known for his research on dreams.
...
More recently Hervey de Saint Denys has begun to be known for his introspective studies on dreams. D'Hervey was also one of the earliest oneirologists (specialists in the study of dreams), and is nowadays regarded as "The Father" of modern lucid dreaming.
...
In this book, the author proposed a theoretical framework, techniques to control dreams, and he described dreams in which the "dreamer is perfectly aware he is dreaming".

(second-hand bookshop scene)

[oscarwerner]

seen 9:
1-Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) (2010)
2-Conspirators of Pleasure (1996)
3-Alice (1988)
4-Darkness Light Darkness (1989)