Joanna Hogg, painterly, modernist Brit filmmaker utilizing static frames, uneasy vibes

hardly any of it. it's probably my favourite film of the past few years.

cool, i shall watch it

i started watching exhibition last night but i had to watch on my computer because maria wouldn't stop playing her zombie game. gonna watch the whole thing tonight or soon on the t.v. i really liked the ambient sounds from the street in the scenes where she is alone in her office room. i also like how the use of silence is completely different from the use of silence in that stray dogs movie i've been watching all week. silence is never the same! i do like seeing movies that remind me of why i like movies. or why i liked movies in the past. it's encouraging.

Joannna: painterly, modernish, Brit

you shd watch exhibition!

archipelago to follow soon

been dragging my heels on hogg catchup since ward bumped this thread in early december. what should i start with?

nakhers stanned for the last two. reverse chronological order seems as good as any order tbh

will watch museum hours too, ty for the recommendation

reverse chronological order

― pro war Toby Keith songs would rub you the wrong way (imago), Sunday, 8 February 2015 02:37 (14 minutes ago)

What a brilliant film Exhibition is, comical but quietly devastating. Thought the two leads were excellent, both conveying this weird blank anxiety.

I just read Viv Albertine's bio (which is great btw)

the first time she met Liam Gillick they had a massive argument and he ended up quitting the film and told her "you're not intelligent enough to play my wife"

jesus

Haha. He's clearly playing himself throughout, but he's good at it.

I arrive at the location at 8 p.m. with all my bags, an assistant helps me unload the taxi and then leaves me and Liam alone. Tomorrow we start filming. I’m going to stay the night in someone else’s empty house, with a man I just met. How weird. He suggests we go to the pub. We sit outside under an electric heater and discuss life, art, having children. As we talk, I realise that an old friend of mine went to Goldsmiths art school with him. I text her to ask what he was like. She texts back: VERY ambitious. Meanwhile Liam is telling me what a lovely big cuddly socialist he is. I don’t care that he’s ambitious, lives in a fancy penthouse and has round-the-clock nannies for his child, I just think it’s funny. I start to I arrive at the location at 8 p.m. with all my bags, an assistant helps me unload the taxi and then leaves me and Liam alone. Tomorrow we start filming. I’m going to stay the night in someone else’s empty house, with a man I just met. How weird. He suggests we go to the pub. We sit outside under an electric heater and discuss life, art, having children. As we talk, I realise that an old friend of mine went to Goldsmiths art school with him. I text her to ask what he was like. She texts back: VERY ambitious. Meanwhile Liam is telling me what a lovely big cuddly socialist he is. I don’t care that he’s ambitious, lives in a fancy penthouse and has round-the-clock nannies for his child, I just think it’s funny. I start to tease him about it but he explodes.
He’s not at all amused. I think I’m being quite flirty calling him a Thatcher’s child and a careerist. (I have been off the dating scene for seventeen years.) I thought we’d got to a place during the evening where we could say stuff like that to each other, wind each other up with a smile, but I’ve hit a raw nerve. He goes mental, jumps up off the bench, practically turns over the table, grabs his (designer) coat – face bulldog angry and red, chest puffed out – and says he’s not doing the film, it’s not going to work, he’s going to pack his bags and fuck off back to New York.

As I watch Liam scurry off up the street in a huff, my mouth in an O shape, I dimly recall Joanna saying something like ‘Be gentle with him’ the last time I saw her. She knows me only too well. I’d better sort this out or the film isn’t going to happen. I run after Liam and try to placate him; I explain that I was only teasing and I really like him. I put my hand on his arm, he shakes it off like I’m a leper and hisses, ‘Don’t touch me.’ He looks disgusted by me. Wow. I go back to the house and watch him pack. He’s still snarling and hissing, ‘You’re not smart enough to play my wife,’ and, ‘You’re lazy and unprofessional.’ (Because I haven’t Googled him yet.) ‘I don’t want to be in this bourgeois film anyway.’ It seems to matter very much to him how he is perceived in the ‘art world’. On and on he rants. I give up trying to pacify him and say, ‘I understand if you think the film’s not right for you and I’m not the right person to play your wife, you have to do what’s best for you and your image.’ His expression softens, he stops packing, says he’s not going to leave the film after all, he’s going back to the pub and he’ll see me later.

#0

I could have watched the shot of D at the front of the bus for the full hour and a half btw.

It's like TS Eliot's A Cooking Egg in cinematic form.

sold

I thought Exhibition was striking, in a muted way. (Can something be mutedly striking?) Want to see the others.

and distinctly un-British, closer to Taiwanese cinema.

For sure. Some midpoint between Hou and Haneke.

and distinctly un-British

There are lots of things in Hogg's style that connect her to earlier British avant-garde filmmakers like Laura Mulvey and Sally Potter, without even addressing the distinctly British concerns - class, social hierarchy - that are embedded in the films themselves.

I was thinking of the tradition of late twentieth century loquacious British cinema, but Potter's a good call.

yeah there are all kinds of Brit cinema no matter what Eric H sez

Nahkchivan, did you see Museum Hours?

― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Saturday, February 7, 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was this based on Bernhard's Old Masters?

Or not based...as its from the pov of the guard but some googling says no although this rev mentions both.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/museum-hours

Yes, watch it!

There are lots of things in Hogg's style that connect her to earlier British avant-garde filmmakers like Laura Mulvey and Sally Potter, without even addressing the distinctly British concerns - class, social hierarchy - that are embedded in the films themselves.

― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Tuesday, 17 February 2015 09:49 (12 hours ago

quite

saw museum hours the other day, very good

That slant review is excellent. And I'm interested in reading that Bernhard too.

i think the non-sex scene in exhibition might be the greatest non-sex scene i've ever seen in a movie. hilarious/horrible is so hard to pull off.

also, i think that house should have been nominated for a best supporting actor oscar.

^^^^^^^^

yes, i'd like to swing by there on a visit

That house gave great stair!

has anyone feigned illness at dinner parties after seeing this?

The snot/snob sister in Archipelago is my favorite recently viewed movie villain.

yes, i'd like to swing by there on a visit

unfortunately, it's now a sainsbury's local

lol

sequel imo

fuck me, archipelago might be even better

There are lots of things in Hogg's style that connect her to earlier British avant-garde filmmakers like Laura Mulvey and Sally Potter, without even addressing the distinctly British concerns - class, social hierarchy - that are embedded in the films themselves.

― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Tuesday, 17 February 2015 09:49 (3 weeks ago)

have you seen 'riddles of the sphinx'

fuck me, archipelago might be even better

― vacuum head tree disease (imago)

thx for the dn

have you seen 'riddles of the sphinx'

Yeah, I've got the BFI blu - thought the 'performance' sequence in Exhibition was especially similar to the acrobatic sequence in Sphinx, and that both films used a long take aesthetic to explore gendered domestic spaces

no, Archipelago is not better

https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=cinemabornagain

Laura Mulvey talk on the 21st April. Seen her speak in discussions before, she is awesome.

Have now seen Museum Hours - it's astonishing and the two protagonists are superb characters (also, the visiting lecturer bit is great) - could listen to Johann opine on art and its spectators for hours

a beautiful well-composed conjecture on art, survival and the search for context with one of the lightest dramatic touches I've seen - it felt accidental at times, as if a documentary, even though it was clearly complex and thought-out

makes me want to spend more time in art galleries, which will have pleased the person I watched it with

excellent!

yeah ty! even more amazing is that it was a debut feature film (i think) by an admittedly seasoned documentarian & music video maker

it felt accidental at times

^ lovely

I'm really glad you watched Museum Hours. It's a small project of mine to get people to watch it -very pleased! When MMO'H sings alone in her room "there is a crying in my heart..." - tears every time.

I've watched the whole thing 4 times I think.

I think this was it: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jan/23/honor-swinton-byrne-interview-souvenir-tilda-joanna-hogg

"“From what I understand, she couldn’t find Julie in these posey professional actresses who were very comfortable in front of a camera. She just said they’re all too pretty. And then she cast me. Which, you know, I took as a compliment,” says Swinton Byrne. She lets out a throaty laugh, wriggles her feet out of a pair of sparkly stilettos and snuggles herself more comfortably into a sofa at the upmarket central London hotel that is the base for her first solo publicity round, for the sequel to that first film."

Yer faither wid be proud

that quote nails it!

idk I like the sass. American actors are reluctant to show it.

Thanks for that link plax, understand your bf's reaction.

This film added up to less than the sum of its parts, other than the aforementioned Carly-Sophia Davies. Maybe it needed more heaving bosoms, if it is indeed "two parts Hammer"?

SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER

Tilda seemed to be cured of her psychotic episode quite sharpish at the conclusion!

Great comment.. Did the film need that malevolent detachment? Is that mode even Hogg's specialty?

right. it’s an interesting decision. i like that she tried it. not sure it worked.