First day on the brand new site, feels good. All previous materials will end up here throughout the coming months and be archived, of course.
Let's talk mantras for a moment, the site has collected works from all angles involving film and video, anything and everything. There'll be video content to watch, visual essays, written essays, this blog, etc. The aim is to curate, but also to add a context, a narrative to the evolution of the visual language. The visual language began with paintings on a cave wall and continues to this day as a universal method of communication that plays across cultures and divides, it's a language of symbols and visual cues. What separates photography and cinema from the previous visual mediums is their ability to take control of the eye, crafting a surrogate field of vision, the act of seeing through the eyes of another. This internet enclave will detail the vocabulary, grammar and greatest works of a language that is able to speak in abstract concepts and emotions just as easily as I type these words.
As a first foray, I'd recommend a few films be taken into account. Below are selected works, five per decade and will be the first films reviewed on the site.
1910's Cabiria(1914), Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages(1916), and Broken Blossoms, or The Yellow Man and the Girl (1919).
1920's Greed (1924), The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), The Docks of New York (1929).
1930's The Blood of a Poet (1930), L'Atalante (1934), The Twentieth Century (1934), Alexander Nevsky (1938) , The Rules of the Game (1939).
1940's The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Lost Weekend (1945), Gilda (1946), My Darling Clementine (1946), The Red Shoes (1948).
1950's Winchester '73 (1950), The Big Heat (1953), Aprajito (1956), The Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Hiroshima mon Amour (1959).
1960's L'Avventura (1960), Harakiri (1962), Chelsea Girls (1966), Week End (1967), Faces (1968).
1970's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), Scenes from a Marriage (1973, TV Version), Killer of Sheep (1977), Stalker (1979).
1980's Every Man for Himself (1980), My Dinner with Andre (1981), Possession (1981), Body Double (1984), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).
1990's Naked Lunch (1991), Basic Instinct (1992), Dead Man (1995), Lost Highway (1997), Eyes Wide Shut (1999).
2000's Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), Y tu Mama Tambien (2001), Tropical Malady (2004), Battle in Heaven(2005), A Serious Man (2009).
2010's Uncle Boonmee, Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), Certified Copy (2010), Tabu(2012), Goodbye to Language 3D (2014), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)