Haiku project
This is a short film I made last year, and I just realized today that nobody's ever seen it.
posted by Sturgeon General at 8:53 PM
Monday, January 29, 2007
This is a short film I made last year, and I just realized today that nobody's ever seen it.
6 Comments:
I was just reading some Kafka before bed, and realized that this chapter bears an unheimlich resemblance to the film I posted earlier today. It is from his short story, "Description of a Struggle"
ii A Walk
I walked on, unperturbed. But since, as a pedestrian, I dreaded the effort of climbing up the mountainous road, I let it become gradually flatter, let it slope down into a valley in the distance. The stones vanished at my will and the wind disappeared.
I walked at a brisk pace and since I was on my way down I raised my head, stiffened my body, and crossed my arms behind my head. Because I love pinewoods I went through woods of this kind, and since I like gazing silently up at the stars, the stars appeared slowly in the sky, as is their wont. I saw only a few fleecy clouds which a wind, blowing just at their height, pulled through the air, to the astonishment of the pedestrian.
Opposite and at some distance from my road, probably separated from it by a river as well, I caused to rise an enormously high mountain whose plateau, overgrown with brushwood, bordered on the sky. I could see quite clearly the little ramifications of the highest branches and their movements This sight, ordinary as it may be, made me so happy that I, as a small bird on a twig of those distant scrubby bushes, forgot to let the moon come up. It lay already behind the mountain, no doubt angry at the delay.
But now the cool light that precedes the rising of the moon spread over the mountain and suddenly the moon itself appeared from beyond one of the restless bushes. I on the other hand had meanwhile been gazing in another direction, and when I now looked ahead of me and suddenly saw it glowing in its almost full roundness, I stood still with troubled eyes, for my precipitous road seemed to lead straight into this terrifying moon.
After a while, however, I grew accustomed to it and watched with composure the difficulty it had in rising, until finally, having approached one another a considerable part of the way, I felt overcome by an intense drowsiness caused, I assumed, by the fatigue of the walk, to which I was unaccustomed. I wandered on for a while with closed eyes, keeping myself awake only by a loud and regular clapping of my hands.
But then, as the road threatened to slip away from under my feet and everything, as weary as I myself, began to vanish, I summoned my remaining strength and hastened to scale the slope to the right of the road in order to reach in time the high tangled pinewood where I planned to spend the night that probably lay ahead of us.
The haste was necessary. The stars were already fading and I noticed the moon sink feebly into the sky as though into troubled waters. The mountain already belonged to the darkness, the road crumbled away at the point where I had turned toward the slope, and from the interior of the forest I heard the approaching crashed of collapsing trees. Now I could have thrown myself down on the moss to sleep, but since I feard to sleep on the ground I crept - the trunk sliding quickly down the rings formed by my arms and legs - up a tree which was already reeling without wind. I lay down on a branch and, leaning my head against the trunk, went hastily to sleep while a squirrel of my whim sat stiff-tailed at the trembling end of the branch, and rocked itself.
My sleep was deep and dreamless. Neither the waning moon nor the rising sun awoke me. And even when I was about to wake up, I calmed myself by saying: "You made a great effort yesterday, so spare your sleep," and went to sleep again.
Although I did not dream, my sleep was not free from a continuous slight disturbance. All night long I heard someone talking beside me. The words themselves I could hardly hear - except isolated ones like "bench... by the river," "cloudlike mountains," "trains... amidst shining smoke"; what I did hear was the special kind of emphasis placed on them; and I remember that even in my sleep I rubbed my hands with pleasure at not being obliged to recognize single words, since I was asleep.
"Your life was monotonous," I said aloud in order to convince myself, "it really was necessary for you to be taken somewhere else. You ought to be content, it's gay here The sun's shining."
Whereupon the sun shone and the rain clouds grew white and light and small in the blue sky. They sparkled and billowed out. I saw a river in the valley.
"Yes, your life was monotonous, you deserve this diversion," I continued as though compelled, "but was it not also perilous?" At that moment I heard someone sigh terribly near.
I tried to climb down quickly, but since the branch trembled as much as my hand I fell rigid from the top I did not fall heavily, nor did I feel any pain, but I felt so weak and unhappy that I buried my face in the ground: I could not bear the strain of seeing around the the things of the earth. I felt convinced that every movement and every thought was forced, and that one had to be on one's guard against them Yet nothing seemed more natural than to lie here on the grass, my arms beside my body, my face hidden And I tried to persuade myself that I ought to be please to be already in this natural position, for otherwise many painful contortions, such as steps or words, would be required to arrive at it.
The river was wide and its noisy little waves reflected the light. On the other shore lay meadows which farther on merged into bushes behind which, at a great distance, one could see bright avenues of fruit trees leading to green hills
Pleased by this sight, I lay down and, stopping my ears against the dread sounds of sobs, I thought: Here I could be content. For here it is secluded and beautiful It won't take much courage to live here. One will have to struggle here as anywhere else, but at least one won't have to do it with graceful movements. That won't be necessary. For there are only mountains and a wide river and I have sense enough to regard them as inanimate. Yes, when I totter alone up the steep path through the meadows in the evening I will be no more forsaken than the mountains, except that I will feel it But I think that this, too, will pass.
Thus I toyed with my future life and tried stubbornly to forget. And all the time I blinked at that sky which was of an unusually promising color. It was a long time since I'd seen it like this; I was moved and reminded of certain days when I thought I had seen it in the same way. I took my hands from my ears, spread out my arms, and let them fall in the grass.
I heard someone sob softly from afar A wind sprang up and a great mass of leaves, which I had not seen before, rose rustling into the air. Unripe fruit thudded senselessly from the trees onto the ground Ugly clouds rose from behind the mountain. The waves on the river creaked and receded from the wind.
I got up quickly. My heart hurt, for now it seemed impossible to escape from my suffering. I was already about to turn and leave this region and go back to my former way of life when the following idea occurred to me: "How strange it is that even in our time distinguished people are transported across a river in this complicated way. There's no other explanation than that it is an old custom." I shook my head, for I was surprised.
do you realize that as a person you could be labled as a loud breather?
I love this...
my alarm just went off as I watched it a second time
the cut from the tap water
back to the fire
is wonderful, as is from the paper's edge burning away
to the edge of the water (OPEN)
and then OUT
the ambulance/police alarm that begins the sea sequence is also wonderful
you should submit this somewhere, it was better than any of those shorts we saw at the RISD museum, no?
anyway I love it
i love the confusion of warmth and cold, movement and stasis, particularly in the pairings of fire/alarm clock, siren/water, and sponge/water/drain. the opening actually reminds me very much of a video I made the summer after freshman year, which I'll post one day if I can ever find it amongst my old DV tapes. one question I had, was "with very little fuss" part of the original haiku? also, the sea sequence reminds me of that piece you did last year based on aeschylus (i forget which story)... is that piece too long to post to you tube? i'd be interested in seeing it again. anyway, this piece is great, and it does happen to work incredibly well with that kafka!
Thanks for the comments, I appreciate them (loud breather #1 ichiban). Inga, I actually posted that old film to this blog when I finished it, but it's probably lost forever now in some dim pulse thump recess of the giant electrode (fed with our ugly soul-syrup). I still have an almost analog copy somewhere on a DV tape in my top drawer next to the unmentionables so I will attempt to throw that up here soon from (into?) the slop glut digital cavity. I don't know how I feel about that film though. Ah well, my motto is (should be?) flaunt your failures. But you're right, it is too long for youtube - maybe this would be a good excuse to re-edit it... Maybe i could even submit it to the Ivy Film Fest (submissions are due by the way "technically" today - but I work for them, and any of you duderineeoas can have another week).
And to answer your other questions, the shots of the ocean are from my B-roll for the Agamemnon film... so you're right about the resemblance... (those shots are from the chasm, overlooking 2nd beach - Robert Adams and BenbonBright, im looking in your direction) and the "very little fuss" part is part of the original haiku. Issa Kobayashi writes a lot about bugs. Actually, that very little fuss part was different in another version of the haiku: that version was:
The snail gets up
and goes to bed
just as he is.
But "very little fuss" was the original version I read and I felt that it wasn't so much about getting the translation right as about the experience of the haiku and what it produced within me. Also, there's just something about the image of a snail fussing about going to bed that tickles me.
ps if you guys want to know more about where the images come from physically, and mentally, i would be happy to explain, but i dont want to ruin the artistic aura (would it increase it?) by doing so unprompted. But I don't think that art should be like a magic trick.
I liked this, and I feel lost in the blur of comments already here. So I'll leave it at that. Keep it up fishface
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