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      <title>Comments On: Material witness
    
      by Pat Graham</title>
      <link>http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/04/17/material-witness</link>
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      by Pat Graham</description>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:01 -0600</pubDate>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: Material witness]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/04/17/material-witness/#969435]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Ben]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[I saw Balloon last week and it is possibly his best film of the decade. After Flowers of Shanghai, Hou is moving to a different direction and Balloon is that fruition. I want to see it again as Hou's work usually rewards your patience in repeat viewing, especially his sublime Puppetmaster. Thanks for this entry on Hou, one of the greatest living filmmakers.
    
    Ben aka HHH fan
        
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          Posted by Ben]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Sun, 11 May 2008 21:03:15 -0500</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: Material witness]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/04/17/material-witness/#971757]]></link>
    
    <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/04/17/material-witness/#971757]]></guid>
    <author><![CDATA[Noel Vera]]></author>
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      <![CDATA[Ah no, no--I agreed re: No Country vs. Funny Games, heartily agreed re: Apatow, but here we part ways. Hou's easily the greatest Chinese filmmaker alive in my book (I like Wong, cna't say I worship him; think Fruit Chan's actually more interesting).
    
    That surface-oriented restless camera came to fore around the time of Millenium Mambo, I believe; before that, his camera was mostly static, and considerably more contemplative. City of Sadness may be his best work--The Godfather without the melodrama.
        
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          Posted by Noel Vera]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:48:37 -0500</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: Material witness]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/04/17/material-witness/#955288]]></link>
    
    <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/04/17/material-witness/#955288]]></guid>
    <author><![CDATA[pat g.]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[STEVE--"without implied focus" doesn't mean there isn't one, though to a greater degree than we're used to in auteur-driven films, hou seems willing to be led by the seductive surfaces his camera uncovers 
    
    still: i'm not expecting a full aleatory dosage in BALLOON--more on the order of conventional good manners, like a visitor on cultural audition, since he's straying so far from "native" production grounds ... which i'll be finding out for myself (or not) when i see the film tonight!
        
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          Posted by pat g.]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:30:55 -0500</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: Material witness]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/04/17/material-witness/#955581]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Steve S.]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA["Without implied focus or direction"? Hmm, but why pretend he hasn't made choices when he has?(Where to place the camera, what to film, which actors to cast, etc.) Thanks, this has helped me clarify my reaction to Red Balloon. I think "riff" is a well-chosen word. There was definitely a jazzy imrpovised feel. 
    
    The main thing I noticed was an emphasis on revealing the mechanics/craft behind the art, i.e. the inside & tuning of the piano, the performers' side of the puppet show set, the foregrounding of a filmmaker and her processes, etc.
        
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          Posted by Steve S.]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:10:15 -0500</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: Material witness]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/04/17/material-witness/#968464]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[pat g.]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[DIGITRAMP--can't address the sadomasochism angle, which runs pretty far afield, since if we apply your standard consistently--"control" apparently being the determining s&m factor--then just about anyone putting up an artist's shingle gets dumped on ... i mean, isn't that what "art"/aaarrrttt's supposed to be about, consciousness/intentionality rearranging the phenomenological furniture?
    
    though if you're AGAINST this kind of manipulation, then late hou ought to appeal, since ultimately it's the surface itself that guides you, that provides whatever epiphanies there are (though obviously it's still the "controlling" artist that gets you there: he's the one who has to see it first)
    
    BEN--one of the keys to reading hou (though admittedly i'm divining: not sure it's ever literally been laid out this way) is watching his camera behave as a good phenomenologist (or scientist) might: what can you know from the ACCIDENTS of things and how can you be sure you know it? * there's always the insistence on PERSPECTIVE, how, e.g., angle of vision determines what's seen, and the implied refusal of omniscience is one of the more daring things hou does, a willingness to follow the method out wherever it may lead * so in FLOWERS the camera paces back and forth at the edge of a room, trying to find a more favorable vantage to see what the more optimally placed guests are picking up on their own * which becomes pretty funny actually, the distress of the mechanized witness implicitly wringing the hands it doesn't have--"o dear, what to do, what to do ..."
    
    PAT H--opted for "thereness" since i was stuck for a word and didn't want anything highfalutin: seems pretty degree zero meaning-wise, just trust to the connotations ...
        
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          Posted by pat g.]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:25:15 -0500</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: Material witness]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/04/17/material-witness/#947457]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Pat H.]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[For the most part, I've always thought of Hou's work as a triumph of cinema, as in we can finally concern ourselves with what is in front of the camera rather than behind it. Pat, I'm still trying to grasp your definition of "thereness," but when I saw Juliette Binoche break down through a series of brow flinches during the piano tuner scene in "Flight of the Red Balloon," I couldn't help but feel such "thereness" is all I really need.
        
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          Posted by Pat H.]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:09:52 -0500</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: Material witness]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/04/17/material-witness/#955989]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Ben]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[Pat -
    
    I've only seen a handful of Hou's films; and while I appreciate them, they aren't movies I take away lasting impressions from.  I admire Hou for what he's gotten me to consider aesthetically. (And your post sussed this out pretty nicely.) But to be honest, I feel a stronger connection with films that have riffed on these considerations to more emotional ends -- Lou Ye's "Summer Palace" is the most recent example that comes to mind.
    
    As for Oliveira, he's a director I love unconditionally.  It's odd, since his movies seem to deny as much Hou's aesthetically.  But since his Oliveira seems most concerned with what things mean (e.g., the philosophical free-for-alls in "A Talking Picture"), I can better understand -- and therefore empathize with -- where he's coming from.
    
    I don't want to turn this strand of comments into a Hou-bashing session.  There's great poetry to his films, always some images I retain.  But since your post did a good job at playing devil's advocate by asking basic questions of how we respond to movies, I thought I'd respond honestly.
        
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          Posted by Ben]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:33:37 -0500</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: Material witness]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2008/04/17/material-witness/#971571]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[DigitalTramp]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[It&acirc;&#128;&#153;s masochistic.
    Underprivileged and lost in the crowd: Hou denies himself and his audience, and we like that sort-of self-flagellating, existential, loss of control, yet still, in the end, it&acirc;&#128;&#153;s illusory &acirc;&#128;&#147; we get our perspective (signifying no one) and Hou guides us (to nothing).
    Most probably missing from the work of feckless primitives is control, and isn&acirc;&#128;&#153;t that what S&M is all about?
        
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          Posted by DigitalTramp]]>
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    <pubDate>Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:22:20 -0500</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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