Lumiere & Company
Directed by: Sarah Moon
Featuring: David Lynch, John Boorman, Wim Wenders, Costa Gravas, Spike Lee, Lasse Hallstrom, Peter Greenaway and Arthur Penn (this is a list of the unpretentious, non-French directors featured)
Year: 1995
Well, this is going to be short. It’s hard to write about a DVD that really just consists of a bunch of short films (under a minute) made by mostly international (read: unknown) filmmakers.
Get this for pretentious: A bunch of directors get together and film short films using THE original movie camera, the Cinematographe invented by the Brothers Lumiere. Just a short history lesson: these are the two who projected the train arriving into the station – one of the first public film showings. Amazingly, the camera was quite portable, much smaller than the behemoths of today. In addition, it was able to disassemble and act as its own projector.
Lumiere and Company gathers this mostly French (add another layer of pretentiousness) speaking group of forty directors and puts them to the test. The results are a mixed result group of short films. Most simply let the camera linger, and the only one who really succeeds in squeezing some emotion out of this technique is one of the least visually-oriented filmmakers in the pack. Spike Lee’s camera stays static on his young daughter as he goads her to say Dada. It’s a mesmerizing piece of footage.
But really, the highlight of the entire disc comes from, well, the MOST visually oriented director – David Lynch. His is aptly the last film shown. It contains his typical symbolic, retro-feel visuals (cops in old uniforms, 50’s housewives) coupled with his usual, scary shit (monsters, shadows, puffs of smoke.) It’s all cut together in something resembling narrative, but I can’t really tell. If you’ve seen Eraserhead or the end of Mulholland Drive, you know what to expect.
If you like stuff like this, you’re probably a nerd like me or you’re teaching a film class. Either way, the audience is pretty limited.
Movie Grade: C
Video: 3 out of 5
It’s full frame shot on video. The Cinematographe sections are black and white. That is all.
Full Frame 1.33:1
A frame from Lynch’s short. I was going to put the shot of the monsters here, but I realized it had a naked woman in it. Not that I care, but I want people to be able to read this at work and school. I’m such a caring guy, aren’t I?
Audio: 3 out of 5
Does audio really matter in an experimental film? I’m not really sure. And I’m not about to review the audio for this disc. Who cares?
French (Dolby 2.0)
Extras: 0 out of 5
Nada. Nothing. Zip.
Overall: 2 out of 5
Naturally, this overall score doesn’t go for all the film studies nerds out there, but for general entertainment purposes, this isn’t a good choice. Here’s the way it’ll probably be used: you’ll invite your hipster friends who wear brown sweaters and thick black glasses over to your house. You’ll serve gin and tonics and martinis, not because they taste good, but because they’re retro. Same goes with the Jell-O with pineapple. This DVD will be playing in the background but no one will really be watching because they’ll I’ll be too busy talking about the latest graphic novel they’re drawing, or the experimental film they’re creating with their Fisher-Price cameras. Then you will listen to Wilco, The White Stripes and Neil Diamond (ironically of course) followed by awkward sex with your art studio lab partner. That’s how it will go. I’m only hypothesizing of course.