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

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.

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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.

it felt accidental at times

I think this is key, really. The whole thing is about how accidental, or incidental, things shape our lives. Chance encounters lead to deep experiences etc. so beautiful. Deft.

loved archipelago, thought exhibition was far more predictable, less interesting, and more prone to art house cliche, and also just had far less sympathetic characters. but her films are more notable for the milieu they feature and how she brings european arthouse style/formalism to middle class britishness than for anything all that stylistically novel. though i do love her.

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/learn/jem-cohen-compass-magnet/

^screening on Thursday with director.

Come back from Museum Hours. Really set up a unique tension between a documentary and this quietly powerful encounter between two people - a spinning plates trick and Cohen pulled it off as both elements were really satisfying while being almost their own separate thing. Like how Cohen took a risk by switching off the developing relationship between the Johann and Anne to then wander off to the city, around the museum and a few monologues, before then returning to that relationship -- just when you thought he wouldn't. The delay kept me on edge.

A couple of things rang false: surely the guard would've known about the punk kid's arguments against art and museums? After all, he witnesses the gallery guide's (in his favourite Bruegel room) Berger-esque Q&A with the tourists. Plus he surely would've witnessed enough dumb remarks like this in his time touring with rock bands? Additionally, there is something unsatisfying about the family member in a coma as a device for Anne to come and then stay in Vienna for as long as she has. I know you needed something to light a match, some spark so that the act of kindness could be bought out into the open -- and while this was as powerful a moment there could've been another way? Also the nudity was unnecessary, empty surrealism.

I liked the monologues a lot though -- in complete contrast to Old Masters where the guard doesn't have an independent voice. And I loved his voice, the script and delivery were near perfect (although I would've liked the last monologue to have been spoken in German as well.) In my wanders in museums I often wander what the guard thinks of what's going on, what this might be for. Haven't we all? And even if you didn't then surely museum trips won't quite be the same..also liked the conflict with tech. Cohen doesn't put too heavy a judgement either way on earphone commentary, or does he? He sure locks in to the man pulling the mobile phone out during the tour guide's talk.

that's a very good review

did jemmy lad say anything revealing afterwards

Cohen just gave an intro.

johann's voice was probably my favourite thing about the film tbh

Mary Margaret O'Hara was singing a bit though. Still got it.