Free Cinema...

Very interested in the mad, ecstatic, free cinema of the following visionary directors: Walerian Borowczyk, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Dusan Makavajev, Chris Marker, Ken Russell, Kenneth Anger, Jan Svankmajer, Terry Gilliam, and Guy Maddin. To some extent you could also add Peter Greenaway, Stanley Kubrick, The Brothers Quay, and Andrei Tarkovsky to the list (among others), with the understanding that they bring an infinitely more anal approach to creating worlds. They lack the unselfconsciousness and total abandon and willingness to get lost of the others.

Lately, I feel that if you're going to go to the enormous trouble of making a movie, why try to replicate the realism we are so surrounded by in our daily lives? Why not use that cinematic space, that silver screen, to mine the furthest reaches of the human psyche and attempt to express the mysterious, unbridled worlds of our dreams and nightmares? Of course, this kind of indulgence can go wrong fast - there are many moments in the works of each of these directors that leave me cold and nauseated and yearning for straight narrative. Particularly Guy Maddin. He frustrates more than inspires. But I have to admit that the inspiration these directors offer is born of nausea and a willing derailment from the familiar behaviors we use to buffer ourselves from the orgiastic realms of Hieronymous Bosch that lurk within.



(Polaroid of Alejandro Jodorowsky)