DC's

 

Michel Ciment: Do you like poets like Francis Ponge? Your films remind one of him, and his Le parti pris des choses.
Robert Bresson: Yes. I no longer see Ponge, unfortunately, as he has moved to the south. He wrote me some remarkable letters about my films and about cinema. I like his fondness for objects, for inanimate things.

‘Francis Ponge has been called “the poet of things” because simple objects like a plant, a shell, a cigarette, a pebble, or a piece of soap are the subjects of his prose poems. For Ponge, all objects “yearn to express themselves, and they mutely await the coming of the word so that they may reveal the hidden depths of their being,” as Richard Stamelman explained it in Books Abroad. David Gascoyne, a contributor to Reference Guide to World Literature, declared: “To transmute commonplace objects by a process of replacing inattention with contemplation was Ponge’s way of heeding Ezra Pound‘s edict: ‘Make it new.’ His ever-renewed attempts to celebrate objects of everyday experience in a language enlightened by puns and complex words, with onomatopoeia, and the calligrammatic, were not a restless search for novelty but rather a way of transcending ‘modernity’ and restoring a Wordsworthian appreciation of the simple things in life: slate, the Seine, asparagus, and tables.”

‘Throughout his forty-five year writing career, Ponge was faithful to his unique approach to poetic subject. Speaking of the poet’s collected works, Sarah N. Lawall in Contemporary Literature found that “what Ponge has to say remains quite consistent, and his collected works juxtapose texts from 1921 to 1967 without any contradiction whatsoever. He still goes to the ‘mute world’ of things for his peculiar dialectic, and he still celebrates the creative power of speech.” Lawall found, too, that Ponge’s work served as an “example of systematically individual perception and expression in a world threatened by group morality and intellectual totalitarianism.”

‘Michael Benedikt, writing in The Prose Poem: An International Anthology, concluded that Ponge’s poems are “as ‘objective’ as objects in the world themselves.” Robert W. Greene, in his book Six French Poets of Our Time: A Critical and Historical Study, argued that in many of his poems, Ponge tries “to create a verbal machine that will have as much local intricacy as its counterpart in the world of objects.” Stamelman went even further in analyzing this relationship. “In Ponge’s poetry,” he wrote, “the text refers to itself and to itself alone… The only thing the text ‘represents’ is its own surging into being through language, its own act of expression. Ultimately, the text signifies itself.”

‘Ponge’s prose poems follow no set formula. They develop instead in a seemingly spontaneous manner, following a meandering path to their completion. “Ponge may be the first poet,” James Merrill wrote in the New York Review of Books, “ever to expose so openly the machinery of a poem, to present his revisions, blind alleys, critical asides, and accidental felicities as part of a text perfected, as it were, without ‘finish’”. Greene acknowledged that Ponge’s “texts hardly conform to most conceptions of what poems, even prose poems, are or should be. They contain puns, false starts, repetitions, agendas, recapitulations, syllogistic overtones, a heavy ideological content, and other features that one normally associates with prose—and the prose of argumentation at that—rather than with poetry.”

‘Ponge spent the last thirty years of his life as a recluse at his country home, Mas des Vergers. He suffered from frequent bouts with nervous exhaustion and numerous psychosomatic illnesses. He continued to write, however, and the work he was involved with at the time of his death was published posthumously in 1981. Entitled La Table, it “reflects what was Ponge’s undying, and increasingly obsessional, quest for le mot juste,” mused Gascoyne. “Its final sentence reads: “O Table, ma console et ma consolatrice, table qui me console, ou je me consolide.” For Ponge, his final subject was his writing table, which had in fact by then become his entire world.”’ — Poetry Foundation

 

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Extras

Francis Ponge et les surréalistes

“Le Pain” lu par Francis Ponge en 1962

la destruction des quartier Francis Ponge & Gaston Bachelard

Francis PONGE – Vers Francis Ponge (DOCUMENTAIRE, 1965)

 

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Further

Francis Ponge’s ‘Preface to a Bestiary’
FP’s ‘Soap’ @ Stanford University Press
Tom McCarthy on Francis Ponge
FP @ The PIP (Project for Innovative Poetry) Blog
‘Francis Ponge: Siding with things’
‘The Prefix of Prefixes:
Francis Ponge’s ‘Le Pré’ and La Fabrique du ’Pré’
Francis Ponge’s ‘l’Orange’ (bilingual)
Francis Ponge’s ‘Bread’
‘on Mute Objects of Expression by Francis Ponge
‘L’OBJET EN POESIE AU 20ème SIECLE : confrontation de quelques textes de Francis Ponge’
‘L’œuvre insupportable de Francis Ponge’
‘Commentaire hypertextuel du l’eau de Francis Ponge.
FP @ Writers No One Reads
‘THE LAST BOOK I LOVED: FRANCIS PONGE’S THE VOICE OF THINGS’
An appeciation of FP @ Lacanian Studies
Buy ‘Unfinished Ode to Mud’ @ CB Editions

 

____________
My Creative Effort
by Francis Ponge

 

THURSDAY 18 DECEMBER 1947

No doubt I am not very intelligent: in any case ideas are not my strong point. I’ve always been disappointed by them. The most well-founded opinions, the most harmonious philosophical systems (the best constituted) have always seemed to me utterly fragile, caused a certain revulsion, a sense of the emptiness at the heart of things, a painful feeling of inconsistency. I do not feel in the least assured of the propositions that I sometimes have occasion to put forth in the course of a discussion. The opposing arguments almost always appear just as valid; let’s say, for the sake of exactness, neither more nor less valid. I am easily convinced, easily put down. And when I say I am convinced: it is, if not of some truth, at least of the fragility of my own opinion. Furthermore, the value of ideas appears to me most often in inverse proportion to the enthusiasm with which they are expressed. A tone of conviction (and even of sincerity) is adopted, it seems to me, as much in order to convince oneself as to convince one’s interlocutor, and even more, perhaps, to replace conviction. To replace, so to speak, the truth which is absent from the propositions put forth. This is something I feel very strongly.

Hence, ideas as such seem to me to be the thing I am least capable of, and they are of little interest to me. You will no doubt object that this in itself is an idea (an opinion), but: ideas, opinions seem to me controlled in each individual by something completely other than free will, or judgment. Nothing appears to me more subjective, more epiphenomenal. I really cannot understand why people boast of them. I would find it unbearable should someone try to impose them on us. Wanting to give one’s opinion as objectively valid, or in the absolute, seems to me as absurd as to state, for example, that curly blonde hair is truer than sleek black hair, the song of the nightingale closer to the truth than the neighing of a horse. (On the other hand I am quite given to formulation and may even have a certain gift in this direction. “This is what you mean . . .” and generally the speaker agrees with my formulation. Is this a writer’s gift? Perhaps.)

It is somewhat different for what I shall call observations; or shall we say experimental ideas. It has always seemed desirable to me to agree, if not about opinions, at least about well-established facts, and if this still seems pretentious, at least on some solid definitions.

It was perhaps natural that with such a disposition (disgust for ideas, a taste for definitions) I should devote myself to recording and defining the objects of the world around us, and particularly those which constitute the familiar universe of our society, in our time. And why, it will be objected, do something over which has been done several times already, and firmly established in dictionaries and encyclopedias?—But, I shall reply, why and wherefore is it that several dictionaries and encyclopedias co-exist in a given language, and for the same objects their definitions fail to correspond? Why, above all, why do they seem more concerned with the definition of words than with the definition of things? Where do I get this impression, which is all in all quite preposterous? What causes the difference, this inconceivable gap between the definition of a word and the description of the thing designated by the word? Why is it that dictionary definitions seem so lamentably lacking in concreteness, and that descriptions (in novels and poems, for example) seem so incomplete (or too particular and detailed, on the contrary), so arbitrary, so random? Could one not imagine a sort of writing (new) which, situating itself more or less between the two genres (definition and description), would take from the first its infallibility, its indubitability, its brevity also, from the second its respect for the sensory aspect of things …

 

SATURDAY 27 DECEMBER 1947

If ideas disappoint me, don’t agree with me, it is because I too willingly agree with them, since that’s what they want, what they are made for. Ideas demand my assent, insist on it and it’s too easy for me to give in: this gift, this agreeableness, gives me no pleasure, but rather a certain revulsion, nausea. Objects, landscapes, events, people around give me a great deal of pleasure on the other hand. They convince me. By the very fact they don’t need to. Their presence, their obvious solidity, their thickness, their three dimensions, their palpability, indubitability, their existence of which I am far more certain than of my own, their: “that’s not something you invent (but discover)” side, their: “it’s beautiful because I couldn’t have invented it, I would have been quite incapable of inventing it” side, all that is my sole reason to exist, my pretext, so to speak; and the variety of things is in reality what makes me what I am. That’s what I want to say: their variety makes me, gives me permission to exist in silence even. As the place around which they exist. But in relation to a single one of them, in relation to each one of them in particular, if I consider only one of them, I disappear: it annihilates me. And, if it is only my pretext, my raison d’être, if it is therefore necessary that I exist, from it, it will only be, it can only be by a certain creation of my own with it as subject.

What creation? The text.

And, to start off, how do I imagine it, how could I have imagined it, how do I conceive of it?

Through works of art (literary).

(cont.)

 

_____
Things

Francis Ponge and Jacques Derrida, 1975

‘Le Galet’ by Francis Ponge & Man Ray

Ponge & Jean Fautrier

Francis Ponge, Andre Malraux, Paul Valery

Pierre Reverdy, Andre Breton, Francis Ponge

Simone DeBeauvoir, Francis Ponge, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus

 

___
Book

Francis Ponge Unfinished Ode to Mud
CB Editions

‘A bilingual French/English edition of new translations of prose poems by a writer praised by Italo Calvino as “a peerless master . . . I believe that he may be the Lucretius of our time, reconstructing the physical nature of the world by means of the impalpable, powderfine dust of words” (Six Memos for the Next Millennium).

‘Still radical, the poems of Francis Ponge seek to give the things of the world their due. Impatient with the usual baggage of literary description, Ponge attends to a pebble, a washpot, an eiderdown, a platter of fish, with lyrical precision; playing with sounds, rhythms and associations of words, he creates wholly new objects – “but which may be more touching, if possible, than natural objects, because human” (‘My Creative Method’).’ — CB Editions

 

Excerpts

Rain

The rain, in the courtyard where I watch it fall, comes down at very different speeds. In the centre, it is a fine discontinuous curtain (or mesh), falling implacably but relatively slowly, a drizzle, a never-ending languid precipitation, an intense dose of pure meteor. Not far from the right and left walls heavier drops fall more noisily, separately. Here they seem to be about the size of a grain of wheat, there of a pea, elsewhere nearly a marble. On the moulding, on the window ledges, the rain runs horizontally while on the undersides of these same obstacles it is suspended, plump as a humbug. It streams across the entire surface of a little zinc roof the peephole looks down on, in a thin moiré sheet due to the different currents set in motion by the imperceptible undulations and bumps in the roofing. From the adjoining gutter, where it runs with the restraint of a brook in a nearly level bed, it suddenly plunges in a perfectly vertical, coarsely braided stream to the ground, where it splatters and springs up again flashing like needles.

Each of its forms has a particular speed; each responds with a particular sound. The whole lives as intensely as a complicated mechanism, as precise as it is chancy, a clockwork whose spring is the weight of a given mass of precipitate vapour.

The chiming of the vertical streams on the ground, the gurgling of the gutters, the tiny gong beats multiply and resound all at once in a concert without monotony, not without delicacy.

When the spring is unwound, certain gears continue to function for a while, gradually slowing down, until the whole mechanism grinds to a halt. Then, if the sun comes out, everything is erased, the brilliant apparatus evaporates: it has rained.

 

The Young Mother

A few days after childbirth, the woman’s beauty is transformed.

Her face, often bent over her chest, grows slightly longer.

Her eyes, attentively peering down at a nearby object, occasionally look up, faintly distracted. Their gaze is filled with confidence, but seeking continuation. Her arms and hands bend together in a crescent, mutually sustaining. Her legs, grown thin and weakened, are gladly seated, knees drawn up high. The distended belly, livid, still very tender; the abdomen readjusts to rest, to nights under covers.

…But soon up and about, the tall body maneuvers through the bunting hung out conveniently high and low, which squares of wash, which from time to time are grasped by a free hand, are crinkled, tested knowledgeably, then folded or hung out again depending on the verdict.

 

The End of Autumn

In the end autumn is nothing but cold tea. All kinds of dead leaves macerate in the rain. No fermentation or distillation of alcohol: only spring will show the effect of compresses applied to a wooden leg.

The last returns are a mess. All the doors of the polling booths bang open and shut. Into the bin! Into the bin! Nature shreds her manuscripts, demolishes her library, furiously knocks down her final fruits.

Then she pushes herself up from her desk. At once she appears immense. Hair undone, head in the mist. Her arms hanging loose, delightfully she inhales the icy, thought-refreshing wind. Days are short, night falls quickly, comedy is uncalled for.

Up in the air among the other stars, the earth looks serious again. Its lit-up part is narrower, infiltrated with valleys of shadow. Its shoes, like those of a tramp, soak up water and make music.

In this frog pond, this salubrious amphibiguity, everything grows strong again, leaps from stone to stone and changes bog. Freshets multiply.

This is what you call a good clean-up, disrespectful of convention! Dressed in nothing, drenched to the bone.

And it goes on, and on, takes ages to dry out. Three months of salutary reflection in this state; without vascular incident, with neither peignoir nor horsehair mitt. Her strong constitution is up to it.

Then, when the little buds start to point again, they know what they are up to, what it’s all about – and if they peek out with precaution, swollen and ruddy, it is on good grounds.

But thereby hangs another tale, which may depend on but hasn’t the same smell as the black ruler I’m going to use to draw the line under this one.

 

The Blackberries

On the typographic bushes of the poem down a road leading neither out of things nor to the mind, certain fruits are composed of an agglomeration of spheres plumped with a drop of ink.

*

Black, rose and khaki together on the bunch, they are more like the sight of a rogue family at its different ages than a strong temptation to picking.

In view of the disproportion of seeds to pulp birds don’t think much of them, so little remains once from beak to anus they’ve been traversed.

*

But the poet in the course of his professional promenade takes the seed to task: ‘So,’ he tells himself, ‘the patient efforts of a fragile flower on a rebarbative tangle of brambles are by and large successful. Without much else to recommend them – ripe, indeed they are ripe – done, like my poem.’

 

The Crate

Midway from a cage to a dungeon, the French language has crate, a simple slatted case devoted to the transport of such fruits as at the least shortness of breath are bound to give up the ghost.

Knocked together so that once it is no longer needed it can be effortlessly crushed, it is not used twice. Which makes it even less durable than the melting or cloudlike produce within.

Then, at the corner of every street leading to the marketplace, it gleams with the modest sparkle of deal. Still spanking new and a little startled to find itself in the street in such an awkward position, cast off once and for all, this object is on the whole one of the most appealing – on whose destiny, however, there’s little point in dwelling.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Carsten, Hey. To answer your question accurately, I would need to do some research. I will say that I think it’s ridiculous and sadly telling that there are big fireworks displays virtually every night either at a sports event or music concert or an amusement park or elsewhere and very people have a problem with that, but when someone does something innovative and artistic with fireworks on rare occasions, people want to shut him down. I’ve heard very mixed things about the film of ‘Chronology of Water’, No one I know thinks it’s remotely as good as the novel. I hope your weekend ruled. ** Steve, Thanks. Her later works are odd, relative to her early works. I think ‘The Jester and the Queen’ is by far my favorite of the ones I’ve seen. My weekend … a lot of script work, coffee with a visiting curator from NY, my biweekly zoom film/book club, for which I had to watch ‘Train Dreams’, which seemed like the cinematographer wanted to make a Terrence Malick film but only half paid attention, and the director and writer wanted to make an episode of The Waltons but they took too many quaaludes. I found it unbearable. So that was my Sat/Sun in a nutshell. You finished your LP! Everyone, two big treats from Steve today. (1) He has dropped his new album HAVING A BLAST AT YOUR HUMILIATION RITUAL here, and (2) his latest “Radio Not Radio” episode featuring DJ Skaytah, Danpapa GTA, J. Cordova, De Schurrman, Iga, DJ Anderson do Paraiso, xavisphone, Kenjox & Natozie, Shadow Wizard Money Gang, Kavari, Grace Jones, the Revolutionaries, Ghost Dubs, Shackleton, Surface Access, Harriet Tubman & Georgia Anne Muldrow, Robert Grawi, Shane Parish, Hans Reichel, Tashi Dorji, Bjorn Meyer, Rachel Beetz, Aram Guleyzan, Redrose and Krone & Time is out. ** Bill, Ha, I assume he must doing quite alright. Marie Loisier did a doc on The Residents? She’s tireless. I’ll sink in if I can find it. Thanks. ** _Black_Acrylic, ‘Wolf Hole’ is interesting, much less wild than ‘Daisies’. ‘The Jester and the Queen’ is a bit more like ‘Daisies’. ** James Bennett, Hi. Is there a Gervais film prop market? Wouldn’t think so? Curious find. You’re really on the way, aren’t you? Book/film club was good. I like everything about ‘Magician’, how it’s fairytale-like like but disturbing, and maybe mostly the prose, which is crazy good. Ciao back! ** Alice, Ah, too bad about the no cinema job, but maybe it’s fate in the good way. Five Guys, wow. And what does that entail? You sound fully into what you’re working on in an engaged, confident way. You seem primed to nail it. Great about ‘Your Blues’. I think it might be all-time favorite album. Same to your week with bells on. ** Steeqhen, You’re on a roll. I haven’t seen any of those. ‘It Was Just An Accident’ is on my agenda. Yeah, we don’t qualify for that festival. Sad, oh well. We would love to show the film in Cork if you don’t making a query with that venue. Thanks. ** darbz (⊙ 0⊙ ), Hi! From the library no less! Interesting that schools still assign Salinger. That’s good, I guess. ‘Psychotic art’: sort of a nice title. Makes you want to read it. Might make you want to hate it afterwards. Sounds fun. You mean the photo of the wall? Yes, I saw it. I wanted to lie underneath it and gaze up and drift into some mental ether. No longer a crush? Well, that’s intriguing. Don’t be reluctant to be newsy about that. ** Jeff J, Hey, Jeff. As I said somewhere above, ‘The Jester and the Queen’ by my favorite of her later films. A bit of her wildness creeping back in there. Crazy amazing about the big Dorsky crowd and the reaction. Wow. You’re doing the Lord’s work there, sir. What’s next? ** HaRpEr //, Hi. My weekend was pretty good. Vain is a term that speaks to the imperfection of its user’s mental acuity. Or so says a guy who uses the word ‘great’ every ten seconds, which is a much worse offender. I don’t think you need permission to use a phrase from a lyric as a title? I’ve done it multiple times, and no artist or lawyer has ever piped up. ** Laura, Hi. I don’t know what a whole lot of my favorite films or books or art are about. If I can’t tell, that’s usually a plus. The script is hard work but going well, I think. Hm, I don’t think anything about the script writing is annoying me exactly. I’m enjoying the chasing. I suspect the blog is especial lycomfortable because you can’t see me squinting at the screen and then typing. You really did model. Wow. Thank you about ‘Closer’. Well, I did think of ‘Closer’ and ‘Period’ as bookends, so there was communing. I’m not yet zonked, but give me a few hours. ** Uday, ‘Daisies’ is a lot of fun. You’ll see one of these days. You can’t beat friendship indeed. No, I don’t care about Bad Bunny/NFL, but I see that it made Trump lose his shit, so I presume it did its job. Wingman … that means help you steer or … ? I know the word, but I don’t know what the ‘wing’ part is about. Oh, wait, I guess you just defined it. Nah, I’m not looking. I’m good. Thank you though. ** kenley, Howdy! My weekend was alright. I think I laid out its layout to Steve up above. That’s interesting: when Zac and I were in Toronto, I found myself very charmed by and comfortable with the people I met and talked to there. It’s like the LA of Canada? Happiest Monday on earth. ** Right. Do you know Francis Ponge? He’s wonderful, and the book up there is one of this best, I think. Maybe have at it? See you tomorrow.

* (restored/expanded)

 

‘Věra Chytilová (1929-2014) was the first woman to study film directing at FAMU, the Film Academy in Prague, and went on to become an important member of the 1960s Czech New Wave. As a female film director, she introduced new approaches into Czechoslovak cinema, quite unusually for the times, giving voice to the views and experiences of women.

‘The 1960s in Czechoslovakia were an era of gradual liberalization, which eventually culminated in the media orgy of freedom during the 1968 Prague Spring, which was then stopped by the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968. While there were still some residual, weakening aspects of Stalinist practice, Chytilová’s fellow students at the Film Academy in Prague testify that the atmosphere at the Film Academy was starting to be very liberal in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

‘Chytilová began studying at the Prague Film Academy in 1957. Students were able to view modern classical films from Western Europe and use them as their inspiration. The Czech New Wave filmmakers including Chytilová were undoubtedly informed by the French cinema vérité approach, but their work was primarily influenced by their own personal experiences of living under the regime of post-Stalinism, in the stagnant era of 1950s Czechoslovakia following Stalin’s death. As a result of these experiences, the Czech New Wave filmmakers aimed to show that the prevailing official ideological discourse was mendacious. They did this by giving emphasis to authenticity. They paid attention to ordinary, unpretentious, casual aspects of everyday life. They also practiced formal experimentation.

‘Věra Chytilová made films in three different eras: in the liberal 1960s, in the post-invasion “normalization” regime of the 1970s and 1980s and in post-communism after 1989. Undoubtedly, the liberal 1960s were the most fruitful period for her. During this period, she made several highly innovative and experimental films which are primarily in the center of attention of international scholars. It was much more difficult for Chytilová to communicate her message through her films in the two later periods.

‘Chytilová’s film Daisies (Sedmikrásky, 1966) is the most frequently praised and analyzed part of her work. The film is an experimental portrait of two young women, Marie I and Marie II, who decide that “the world is spoiled”, and so they will also be spoiled and destructive. But they behave like puppets and their acts of destruction are fairly innocent and infantile, mostly concentrating on destroying food. There are a few sequences in the film which mock lewd behavior of older men towards young women. Many Western commentators have seen Daisies and other work by Věra Chytilová from the 1960s as feminist, but Chytilová rejected that characterization. Nevertheless, it has to be emphasized that the female gaze is omnipresent in her work from the 1960s: perhaps unlike anyone else, Chytilová allowed women to speak and to express their view of the world and its male domination. This does not mean, as she would point out, that she has not been fiercely critical of the behavior of many of the women her films portray.

‘Daisies and especially Chytilová’s highly experimental film Fruit of Paradise (Ovoce stromů rajských jíme, 1969) were the result of the director’s collaboration with two innovative collaborators, her husband, cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, whose background was in fine art and whose contribution to the visual creativity of Chytilová’s films was absolute, and script-writer and designer Ester Krumbachová, whose creativity and intelligence provided a theoretical background to Chytilová’s feature films from this period. Fruit of Paradise is a parody of a thriller, but it is pregnant with highly metaphorical meaning on many levels. The metaphorical meaning is communicated by means of visual experimentation which provides sophisticated links between the film’s motifs and themes.

‘In the 1960s, as in the other two productive periods, Chytilová also made a number of significant documentaries, or “pseudo-documentaries”. She was praised for having created the genre of “sociological film” in Czechoslovakia, i.e. documentary filmmaking with a strong interest in social issues. Chytilová’s films such as Ceiling (Strop, 1961), depicting an ordinary day in the life of a young girl ogled by men, A bagful of fleas (Pytel blech, 1962), featuring the behavior and the views of a group of female apprentices – textile workers – living in a dormitory, and Something Different (O něčem jiném, 1963), which contrasted the futility of the life of a housewife with the futility of the life of a top gymnast, are all “pseudo-documentaries” – they were carefully scripted and acted out after Chytilová’s meticulous sociological research on their subject matters.

‘The period after the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968, which ended the liberal era of the 1960s, was a catastrophe for Chytilová. Just as many other liberal filmmakers of the 1960s, she was banned from filmmaking for seven years, only being able to occasionally make television commercials under her married name Kučerová – as a film director, she had been turned into a non-person. She also lost her two most stimulating collaborators: she divorced her husband and cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, while Ester Krumbachová, her intellectual source of inspiration, was “banned forever” by the regime. It was not until 1976 that Chytilová was allowed to make another feature film – The Apple Game (Hra o jablko) – though its premiere was threatened: Chytilová was told that the film would not be released if she did not participate in a gathering condemning the human rights manifesto Charter 77 and its signatories.

‘It was much more complicated to make films in the post-invasion period of the 1970s and 1980s than it used to be in the liberal 1960s. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was fully aware in the 1970s that it was free intellectual debate which almost caused Czechoslovakia to leave the Eastern European Bloc in the 1960s, and so it made sure that space for creativity and independent thought was extremely limited in the 1970s and 1980s. The Czechoslovaks were supposed to conform, not to think, and for this they were rewarded with mild consumerism. Experimentation with style and ideas was now practically impossible. Under the circumstances, it was a bit of a miracle that Chytilová managed to keep a degree of independence even in her films made in the late 1970s and in the 1980s.

‘That said, regrettably, Chytilová was never again able to return to her visual and stylistic experimentation of the 1960s. Her films from the 1970s and 1980s occasionally include short inter-textual sequences which briefly remind viewers of her earlier style, but on the whole, she now needed to concentrate on her message, which was communicated in a much more conventional visual style.

‘Nevertheless, Chytilová did retain her active civic attitude, never giving up her fight for public morals. Elements of feminism are present in The Apple Game decades before the #MeToo movement. The Apple Game is a critical portrait of a philandering gynecologist who becomes a symbol of the overwhelming individualistic consumerism of the 1970s and 1980s. Chytilová draws a highly critical portrait of a selfish, self-obsessed and sexually promiscuous man who assumes no responsibility for the impact of his actions. The allegedly “socialist” society is portrayed in this film as remarkably class ridden and conservative.

‘In Panelstory (1979) Chytilová reverted, up to a point, to her earlier technique of creating “pseudo-documentaries” by producing a study of life on a partially-built Prague high-rise housing estate. In a series of episodic, mosaic-like scenes, Chytilová convincingly captures the atmosphere and ethos of the post-invasion 1970s and 1980s in Czechoslovakia. People are aggressive, women are hysterical, and men are brutal. Chytilová notes that people have lost their capacity for compassion. Paradoxically, this type of behavior further developed after the fall of communism in the fundamentalist strand of capitalism after 1989.

‘In Emergency (Kalamita, 1981) Chytilová continues criticizing greed, selfishness and cynicism of Czechoslovak society of the 1970s and 1980s. The film is a story of a young man who leaves university without graduating because he feels he wants to achieve something meaningful in “real life”. He becomes a train engine driver on a branch line in the mountains, but he cannot really achieve anything due to the extreme levels of self-obsession and selfishness of all the people around him. His final train drive ends in a calamity when the train is buried in an avalanche. This is a metaphorical warning by Chytilová who argues that when people in a society are obsessed with their own individual needs, they lose their ability to act together to mitigate the impact of shared problems – the result is a catastrophe.

‘One of Chytilová’s major themes is the relentless passage of time. Since our lives are trickling irrevocably through our fingers, Chytilová asks anxiously whether we have used our time wisely and efficiently for the good of our community. She strongly warns against futility. This issue returns in her feature film The Very Late Afternoon of a Faun (Faunovo velmi pozdní odpoledne, 1983), an extremely scathing portrait of an aging bachelor who is foolishly trying to fight against the advance of old age by manically courting young girls. The film again warns against senseless consumerism and selfishness. Similar themes can be found in A Hoof Here, a Hoof There aka Tainted Horseplay (Kopytem sem, kopytem tam, 1987), a film that records a very strong sense of decomposition in the stagnant post-invasion regime of Czechoslovakia a mere two years before its final collapse. The most characteristic features of this film are again meaninglessness, consumerism and hedonism. The film features a group of young people who systematically indulge in sex with one another because there is nothing else to do in a society which has lost its purpose. Inevitably, they end up being infected with HIV/AIDS.

‘The post-communist period was, it would seem, the greatest challenge for Chytilová. Paradoxically, although she was ostracized and censored in the post-invasion era of the 1970s and 1980s, she managed to make seven feature films in the thirteen years between 1976 and 1989; in the period of freedom after the fall of communism, in the twenty-five years from 1989 until her death in 2014, she was able to make only four feature films.

‘State-owned Czechoslovak cinema was privatized after the fall of communism, despite protests by many famous Czech filmmakers of the 1960s, including Chytilová herself. Political oppression was gone, but commercial pressures immediately arose. What is more, Chytilová remained a highly critical commentator with regard to what was happening in the post-communist era and this did not go down particularly well, especially in the first years after the collapse of communism when everyone was expected to applaud the new “capitalist” regime. Chytilová did not do so.

‘Věra Chytilová’s last ever made feature film, Pleasant Moments (Hezké chvilky bez záruky, 2006) is again a scathing criticism of life in post-communist Czech Republic, this time concentrating on personal relationships. Chytilová collaborated with the psychologist Kateřina Irmanovová on the script, the film being a semi-autobiographical account of the psychologist’s experience. In the film, a psychologist passively records information about the file of her obsessive and extremely selfish patients.

‘By making this film, Chytilová complains that the foundations of contemporary Czech society have been destroyed, possibly irreparably. The reason is the deplorable state of human relations. People are almost obsessively selfish in their behavior: they indulge their own interests exclusively, they are incapable of empathy and their narcissism prevents them from seeing the world normally, which often makes them behave like madmen. This is the main message of this frenetic farce.

‘Věra Chytilová was one of the most courageous and inventive Czechoslovak film directors. In the 1960s, she was able to avail herself of the fertile environment of this highly creative era to make an important contribution to the history of world cinema, both in terms of her stylistic and thematic innovation. It was much more difficult to continue working as a filmmaker in the oppressive atmosphere of the 1970s and 1980s as well as in the new, commercial environment after the fall of communism. This meant that Chytilová had to give up most of her formal experimentation, but she never gave up her civic responsibility. A profound, critical engagement with the most salient features of the times has remained the characteristic feature of all her cinematographic output.’ — Jan Čulik

 

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Stills

 

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Further

Vera Chytilová @ IMDb
Interview with Vera Chytilova (1994)
A Courageous Voice from Central Europe
The Anarchic Cinema of Věra Chytilová
Summer with Věra Chytilová
Vera Chytilová for beginners
Vera Chytilová obituary
J. HOBERMAN ON VERA CHYTILOVÁ’S SEDMIKRÁSKY (DAISIES)
VC @ MUBI
VC @ The Criterion Channel
The films of Věra Chytilová
Review: Daisies by Vera Chytilova
Véra Chytilova, cinéaste rebelle, est morte
“IT’S STILL REVOLUTIONARY”
“I want to work”
Watch ‘Daisies” on Kanopy
The dA-Zed guide to Věra Chytilová
PETER HAMES ON VERA CHYTILOVÁ
A Czech Filmmaker Who Portrayed Eastern Bloc Life Through Women’s Eyes
In praise of Daisies
Věra Chytilová and the Czechoslovak New Wave
Czech New Wave Cinema and Věra Chytilová

 

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Extras

Vera Chytilová – São Paulo

Vera Chytilova Interview

Journey: A portrait of Vera Chytilová

Philippe Katerine à propos de “Les Petites marguerites” de Věra Chytilová

 

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Interview

 

Vera, how do you feel about having a retrospective in London?

Vera Chytilova: It’s not just in London; it’s in the United Kingdom. It feels quite normal as I have retrospectives all over the world.

Why has it taken so long for Prague to be featured in a season like this, considering there have been so many films about or set in Prague?

VC: It took London that long to make it happen.

Even though you started making films in the 50’s, most people remember your first success as being Daisies. What are your recollections of the film, particularly it being well received?

VC: Daisies as well as most of my other films was made despite the protests of the authorities. We were trying for almost half of the year to get the permission to shoot this film, so eventually they let us do it.

Were there any influences in the making of Daisies, particularly in the formal approach?

VC: In the Cinematography, Daisies is not comparable with anything else. This film was created with thanks to, and because of, our team, which was in fact ideal. The camera was done by my husband (Jaroslav Kucera), and the artistic design was done by Esther Krumbochova. This film was my first project in colour and we wanted the colour to have its function, not really a description. The authorities were under the impression that it was a film about the Czech youth. What we wanted to make was an existential film and to use it as a protest against the destruction of the country. What was interesting was that the western part of the world perceived this film as being against all conventions. So it’s clear that it depends from what angle you perceive the film. So from one point you can see the things as liberating. We thought that the creativity as well as destruction was two sides of the same coin because people who are not capable of creation get their kicks from destruction. And at the same time there was some kind of protestations against the political rehabilitations that took place at the time the film was made, which is present in the film’s final scene. The film was laughing at them, ridiculing them, and I think they understood that. Therefore, the film wasn’t shown in Cinemas.

Aside from the political perceptions, were the Surrealists or animators an influence on you?

VC: Definitely there was an influence in the direction of the actors from puppets. It was highly, highly stylized in order to create a psychological approach to acting. But as part of that they were perceived on a psychological level. It’s very difficult to make the viewer accept the idea of the form and not be taken by the story.

Your next film The Fruit Of Paradise mixes allegory with the avant-garde, and also Ester Krumbochova was involved in the making of the film. Her presence in the mise-en-scene was very evident. What was it like working with her?

VC: Because of Daisies the western producer who wanted to make the film approached me. The whole creative team was approached. We wanted to try and do as much as possible with the film language. Because at the time we were occupied by the Soviet army, we had to use allegory about love, brotherhood and friendship.

In the mid-70’s you made The Apple Game and you (Dasha Blahova) were involved as well. What are your recollections of this film and working with Vera?

Dasha Blahova: The Apple Game was her (Vera’s) first film in a long time. It was actually the first film she was able to shoot. This film was actually quite a rocket in our country.

VC: It was a huge success in the cinema and, because of that huge success, it created some sort of a scandal because at the same time the Czech Cinematography was claiming that there was a crisis in attendances in the cinemas, and suddenly this came along and people went to see it even in the mornings, which was something very unusual at this time.

DB: This film wasn’t allegory but they saw it as allegory, the system you see. It took a while for it to be accepted by the authorities.

Had that paradox, that it did very well, make people also feel uncomfortable?

DB: No, there were all sorts of fors and againsts – there was births, hospitals, that it was something new for a Communist system, people who shouldn’t really be seeing things like that, like a naked body. Whatever excuse it was, it was.

VC: They did not let the film show for half a year as my Communist colleague marked the film as pornography. Also the depiction of giving birth was considered unsuitable. So, they initiated a query which was actually a question asked afterwards by the Soviet Embassy: ‘How is it possible that in the Czech Republic, these films are being made which are not suitable, or cannot be seen because it’s unsuitable for watching by the Soviet audiences?’

DB: By the way, the film was being shown and getting praises outside of the Czech Republic before it was being shown there. It got awards in Chicago, the Soviet Union, etc., a year before it was shown in our country.

Bringing us to tonight’s film, Prague: Restless Heart of Europe, it was a series of films on European cultural cities, how honoured did you feel to be asked to make the film on behalf of Prague?

VC: They did not address me, they addressed Jiri Menzel and Menzel was not able to do it, so he asked me to do it. So I said yes, but the Italian Producer who actually ordered this film to be made, had to agree with it. They agree with this, but after the film was made they put on the credits that the film was made by Jiri Menzel. Since then I have been to court with the Italian Producers and that Court Case still hasn’t finished. It hasn’t happened before, but you send your film abroad and they do different credits, and you can’t do anything about that. We approach the European Association of Filmmakers to help us with this case and nothing really could have been done about that. Italians are not possible to be killed. What was more complicated was that the whole series was meant to have been an exchange, so they would have to withdraw the copies and change all of the subtitles, the credits, and that obviously was bad, so now you have an opportunity to correct that…it’s true because even now, when I was looking at the web pages and the credits, many still have the film as being shot by Menzel. I have just found out that here (this festival) we are going to show the film with no credits at all, so I am not happy about it, I am enraged. Because now you are in partnership with those criminals (laughs). And if you are happy about this, you are an immoral person.

 

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14 of Vera Chytilová’s 30 films

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Ceiling (1962)
‘Věra Chytilová’s Ceiling both presages this unique director’s later masterpieces and is a fascinating, fully formed, quite remarkable and unique film in its own right. Gaining unusual international and critical attention for a student production at the time of release, the 42-minute film – which Chytilová wrote and directed as her graduation project at the Prague Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts – suffers none of the tentativeness of form, conceptual terrain, and authorial style that often plagues such ‘apprentice’ works. Instead, Ceiling is soaked through with what we would come to know and celebrate particularly in Daisies (Sedmikrásky, 1966) as Chytilová’s playful and concurrently radical approach to filmic, gender, thematic, and political material.’ — FCF

Trailer

Excerpts from ‘Ceiling’ & ‘Cléo from 5 to 7’

 

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A Bag of Fleas (1962)
‘Věra Chytilová made her professional film debut with this 1962 fictional documentary set in the women’s boarding house of a textile factory, and told through the eyes of new apprentice Eva Gálová. The soft-spoken Moravian gradually gets to know her flatmates. She forms the closest relationship with Jana, who has discipline problems, and eventually receives a one-month ultimatum from the works council to improve her conduct. As part of the film’s experimental narrative structure, Eva remains invisible to the viewer – she does not step before the camera, and does not communicate with the protagonists of the story; but she does comment on events via internal monologues (this “invisible” figure was dubbed by Helga Čočková). The original, socially relevant story utilises a subjective cinéma vérité style courtesy of lighting cameraman Jaromír Šofra, coupled with an edgy, unsentimental, modernist script from writer-director Chytilová.’ — dafilms

Excerpt

Watch the film here

 

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Something Different (1963)
‘In 1963 Věra Chytilová debuted with this feature film based on her own story idea. It simultaneously tells the stories of two thirtysomething women who have never met but who at different levels have to grapple with the same problem. Feeling squeezed between the monotony of their everyday lives, and their desire for change, are Eva, a female gymnast, and Věra, an ordinary housewife. Eva is determined to round off her career as a top sports woman with some very substantial contests, while Věra grants herself some “respite” from caring for her husband and son through a love affair which, ultimately, requires a solution. In the end, however, neither of the protagonists take advantage of the chance that presents itself to them… The then 34 year-old Chytilová explores what would go on to long endure as her beloved theme: women’s emancipation. In the process, she combines, true to the spirit of the New Wave of Czechoslovak cinema, performances by both professional and amateur actors. Whereas the sports woman’s storyline approaches the documentary format – thanks to a cast that includes real-life gymnast Eva Bosáková and her fellow athletes – Věra’s story is purely fictitious and is grounded in the acting skills of Věra Uzelacová, Josef Langmiler and Jiři Kodet.’ — dafilms

Excerpt

Excerpt

the entire film

 

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Daisies (1966)
‘Maybe the New Wave’s most anarchic entry, Věra Chytilová’s absurdist farce follows the misadventures of two brash young women. Believing the world to be “spoiled,” they embark on a series of pranks in which nothing—food, clothes, men, war—is taken seriously. Daisies is an aesthetically and politically adventurous film that’s widely considered one of the great works of feminist cinema.’ — The Criterion Collection

Trailer

Excerpt

the entire film

 

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Fruit of Paradise (1969)
‘Following on from what is by far her best-known film, Sedmikrásky (Daisies, 1966), Věra Chytilová embarked on a new project, the production of which would be shaped by internal and external forces alike: on the one hand, by the director’s commitment to a kind of restless self-abnegation, the seeking out of a new style for each successive work; on the other, by the brief flowering and much longer withering of the Prague Spring, which ushered in the prolonged “normalisation” of Czechoslovakian society, and which would also see Chytilova barred from making another film until 1975. At first blush, Ovoce stromů rajských jíme (Fruit of Paradise, 1969) offers up a new take on the story of Adam and Eve, which also doubles as an allegory for the invasion of Prague by Soviet forces under the Warsaw Pact in August 1968 – the very month in which filming began. More in line with the unnamed dystopian spaces that gesture towards historical tragedy in Juraj Jakubisko’s Vtáckovia, siroty a blázni (Birds, Orphans and Fools, 1969) than with Jaromil Jireš’ direct criticism of party politics in Žert (The Joke, 1968), Fruit of Paradise avoids forthright political comment and so comes across as an unpredictable and capacious work of art.’ — Stefan Solomon

Excerpt

the entire film

 

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Panel story (1979)
‘An old man is wandering around a badly signposted and as yet mostly under construction Prague housing estate looking for the high rise block into which he is supposed to be moving with his daughter’s family. The old granddad from the countryside likes chatting, nothing escapes his eyes and he wants to give everyone a helping hand. Six-year-old Pepíček Novák has escaped from his nursery school and in the middle of the mud and dust, he is searching for a present for his dad, whom he is soon to meet for the first time.’ — Screen Shot

Excerpt

 

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Calamity (1982)
‘Almost straight forward as far as Czech sex comedies go–or Chytilova films, for that matter–this film has moments that reminded me heavily of Loves of a Blonde. I suppose there’s some subtext about sex and coming-of-age, and probably more than a little about the culture/society of the setting/source, but… mostly it seemed like a pleasantly silly little sex comedy.’ — Sally Jane Black

Trailer

Excerpt

 

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The Very Late Afternoon of a Faun (1983)
‘This film was made as a kind of a “protest-song” against the panic fear of getting old and also against flirtation. The main character (played by Leos Sucharípa) is an elderly man, admittedly competent, but not very responsible. In the continuous fear, he is trying to do as much as he can but, instead of confidence, he only finds out that in the real life one cannot just take but must give as well. Last but not least, one must be able to resign to his age.’ — KrátkýFilm

Trailer

Excerpt

 

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Wolfs Hole (1986)
‘In this Czech political allegory-cum-sci-fi adventure, ten teens from different schools find themselves chosen to take part in a special skiing workshop in the mountains. On the day of the seminar, eleven young people, each bearing an invitation, arrive. A massive avalanche occurs and the ski-lodge is cut off from outside contact. Unfortunately, food supplies are limited and the three instructors strongly advise that the youths work together to make do or choose someone to leave. Time passes and soon the kids learn that their “teachers” are not what they seem to be.’ — letterboxd

Trailer

the entire film

 

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The Jester and the Queen (1988)
‘This delirious, politically barbed fantasia swings wildly between reality and illusion as the reveries of a caretaker at a medieval castle—played by famed Czech mime Bolek Polívka—unfurl in a rush of dizzyingly expressionistic images. According to critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, “this feature is probably Chytilová’s best since the 60s… As in Daisies, her fascination with power and gender roles projects a dangerous, Dionysian sexuality.”’ — BAM

Excerpt

 

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The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday (1993)
‘I don’t know if I could fully recommend The Inheritance. Whereas Chytilova’s Daisies was light, funny and inventive, The Inheritance is bloated, forced and unimaginative, playing out interminable scenes of village folk being assholes well beyond their logical endpoint. Only the final scenes approach Chytilova’s inventiveness in her most famous film – but even that fleeting moment of surreal inspiration is quickly pissed away by the final moment of Polivka hammering the point home with his fourth-wall breaking final line.’ — Czech Film Review

Excerpt

Watch the film w/o subtitles here

 

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Traps (1998)
‘Described as a ‘feminist black comedy’, Věra Chytilová’s post-communist film continues the director’s confrontational approach with the subject of a woman who is raped by two men. Unfortunately for them, she’s a veterinary surgeon practised in techniques of castration. Also a political commentary attacking male power, it shows Chytilová treating capitalist morality with the same enthusiasm previously reserved for ‘socialist’ compromise.’ — bfi

Trailer

 

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Expulsion from Paradise (2001)
‘Longtime Czech cinema provocatrice Vera Chytilova, now 70, is back in the flesh with “Expulsion From Paradise,” a ruddy and intermittently funny yarn in which a director’s efforts to shoot an experimental docu about the difference between man and primate are complicated by 112 local nudists.’ — Variety

Watch the film here

 

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Pleasant Moments (2006)
‘Pleasant Moments is a frenetic, freewheeling film that leaves one with the emotional sensation of having fallen down a stairwell for two hours, landing at the bottom thoroughly disoriented and pleased by the shake-up. A revolving door of panicked Prague protagonists with intertwined, overlapping lives are introduced, and introduced…and introduced, to the point you feel nearly overwhelmed as psychiatrist Hana (Jana Janeková), whose office they all end up in.

‘The full Czech title of the film is Pleasant Moments Without Guarantees, better suited to a limp romantic drama than this full-on sustained citywide freakout, and rendering Hana’s repeated, increasingly unbelievable suggestion love is the answer all the more ridiculous (especially given the film’s lackluster crop of men to choose from). Chytilová’s last feature film, Pleasant Moments is a perfect capper to a career cynical towards society while ever empathetic to the wretchedly human.’ — Screen Slate

Trailer

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Bill, Hi. Nice about that bakery. Next time. I did an event with Tulathimutte in LA and hung out with him a bit, and my impression is that, for whatever reason, he doesn’t get laid very much. I liked ‘Rejection’, but, and you of all people will appreciate this, I thought it was a little verbose. ** _Black_Acrylic, Any excuse to eat toffee apples and burn stuff, right? That’s my policy. ** James Bennett, Hi, James. No, sadly, I was in the States with our film when the Pompidou thing happened. Big accidental regret. I haven’t read F. Scott since I was in college or maybe even high school. I don’t remember disliking it, but I don’t remember wanting to snap up all this books either. Huh, but now you’ve intrigued me. Maybe I’ll peek into ‘Tender of the Night. Thanks. Yes, I’m headlong into the new script revision. That’ll occupy some of my weekend. Otherwise, a friend’s gallery opening tonight and my biweekly Zoom film/book club on Sunday, this week featuring the film ‘Train Dreams’, which I will watch, and an excerpt from a not-yet published novel that I’m crazy about (Tracy Lynn Oliver’s ‘Magician’). And your weekend? ** darbz (⊙ 0⊙ ), Nice fireworks. Very minimalist. Oh, thank you for what you messaged me on instagram. That looked really cool, and I’m going to look into the artist’s other things. I hope the gig last night was way fun. I really don’t think ‘very weird’ would be a problem for SCAB. Big, rollicking weekend to you! ** Laura, Morning, L. I would have killed to see ‘Black Christmas Tree’. The script is vexing and exciting in equal measure at the moment. I don’t understand people who want to laugh during sex because it seems like it’s breaking the spell, but it’s very interesting that people want to do that at the same time. Which is to say your thing sounds most intriguing. I don’t want to have to think about what people are seeing when I talk to them. I just want to be a voice in a comfortable context. Strange, I know. Rockin’ weekend. ** Carsten, Hi. No, not the most environmentally damaging artwork in the world by a long shot. And even if it were, I think it’d be worth it. Yeah, good news about her saving the Highland Park theater. It’s been very sad to drive by its seeming corpse. And I’m the kind of guy who walks through the tribal collection in a museum at a fast clip like I’m a penniless person in a souvenir store. What a various world we live in, eh? ** HaRpEr //, If you can share that clip, that’d be awesome. If you can’t, I’ll find it somehow. It’s such a shock to wind up in some context filled with moronic assholes like the guys you described. Even for me who presents as joe blow. Their normalisation is so hateful. I’m so sorry, pal. ** kenley, Hi, kenley! I was a West Coast dude at heart for ages, but that didn’t stop me and even ended up coming in handy. Being wide-eyed is a gift. A cinematheque? Might be worth a try, although such places seem to often think new things haven’t proved themselves yet. I’ll investigate though. Have a great Saturday and even greater Sunday if that’s possible. ** Okay. For whatever reason I decided to ask you to spend this weekend with the films of the wonderful Czech filmmaker Vera Chytilová. See what you think. And see you on Monday.