(46) Book Review: "My Lunches with Orson" edited by Peter Biskind (2013)

My Lunches with Orson edited by Peter Biskind (2013).

It took me a while to finish the last thirty pages or the last two conversations of the book, it was neither because the book got boring, nor because the conversations were not engaging, it was only because I knew the ending of it - Orson Welles will die. After acquiring such engaging, delightful, humorous and witty friends - Orson Welles and Henry Jaglom - it seemed unfair and hard that I will have to leave them sitting in Ma Maison by their lunch table. But it has come to that - the book is finished. This is The End. I am left in awe that for a quite some while I had two intelligent, shameless and captivating lunch chums.

I have no doubt that after reading this book quite a few directors are grinding their teeth, because now not only they have to compete with Welles as a filmmaker, but also as a brilliant raconteur outside of the film set.

From 1983 till 1985 Henry Jaglom, the director and friend of Welles, recorded his conversations with Welles over lunches at Ma Maison, the bistro in Hollywood. Not sure whether these recordings were Welles approved or not, because the "tape recorder was one of the only two things we [Jaglom and Welles] didn't speak about. The other was his [Welles] weight and its health implications." (Biskind 289), they reveal Welles unplugged, and it can be said with a certainty that throughout his life Welles stayed a first-rate raconteur and storyteller.

Orson Welles, 1977.

There is no need for a long introduction to Orson Welles (1915-1985), what he was and what he did, his work does the talking, moreover Welles was not only a skilled director, he was also a producer, an actor, a screenwriter, an author of essays, articles, plays and stories, and quite often he was joggling from one profession to other, often pressured for financial reasons. As Jean-Luc Godard remarked, "Everyone will always owe him everything." (Biskind 2). Now back to the lunch table, while I reveal for you some of my favourite moments from this enchanting book.

In the conversations with Jaglom, Welles is truthful, harsh, intimate, gives a revealing insight into a film industry, he is honest, rude and shocking, he has opinion on and about everything and everyone. Despite all that, Welles was an unlucky wretch when it came down to selling his own work, that can be seen in the conversation where Susan Smith from HBO joins Welles and Jaglom's lunch table, as Welles himself admits "I'm a bad seller."

Remembering that Marilyn Monroe was born on this day, June 1, I must note, true or not, but there might'n be Monroe, as we know her, if not for Welles. He tried to promote her career by taking her to the parties and introducing her to people, as Welles notes in the 6th conversation with Jaglom:

I [Welles] would point Marilyn out to Darryl [Zanuck], and  say, "What a sensational girl." He would answer, "She's just another stock player. We've got hundred of them. Stop trying to push these cunts on me. We've got her on for $125 a week." And then about six months later, Darryl was paying Marilyn $400,000, and the men were looking at her - because some stamp had been put on her.

In the first conversation Welles talks about "such a thing as physical  dislike" in which he states how much he dislikes Woody Allen physically and how Allen has "the Chaplin disease" - a particular "combination of arrogance and timidity", later in the same conversation Welles describes Brando's neck being "like a huge sausage, a shoe made of flesh" and reveals that he is a racist and dismisses Spencer Tracy as "one of those bitchy Irishmen", and states how he prefers Irishmen from Ireland over Irish-Americans:

Seven hundred years of bitter oppression changed their [Irish] character, gave them that passive meanness and cunning. All I can say is what Micheál Mac Liammóir said when we were making Othello, and I asked him, "Describe the Irish in one word." He said, "Malice." Look, I [Welles] love Ireland, I love Irish literature, I love everything they do, you know. But the Irish-Americans have invented an imitation Ireland which is unspeakable. The wearin' o' the green. Oh, my God, to vomit!

After living for a year in Ireland and now visiting for the last two years, I felt particularly excited, when I got to know that Welles has met William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory and other "famous Gaelic nationalists"; who knows maybe he walked around Coole Park and maybe I have walked where he once walked.

This is only a dip in the first forty or so pages of the book, I have to stop now, before I re-tell you all of the stories. Every conversation will make you laugh, cry, yell, smile or argue back, it definitely won't leave you apathetic. So next time, when you sit down to a lunch table use this opportunity to get closer to a legend, Orson Welles, in the best part he has ever played - Orson Welles.

(38) Short Film Sunday #23: The Hearts of Age (1934)

Orson Welles, co-filmmaker of The Hearts of Age (1934).

I finally got my hands on Peter Biskind's edited book "My Lunches with Orson" and I love it. It is a fantastic read, not easy, but certainly entertaining. I was nicely surprised, when I found out that Orson Welles has met William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory, while he was in Ireland at the age of 16, Welles certainly was a great magician not only on the stage or behind the camera but also in life. You can look out for my book review some time in January.

While reading the book I was looking into biography and filmography of Welles and I came across a weird and surrealist short film The Hearts of Age (1934), which Welles shot together with his friend William Vance in 1934, Welles was only 19 years old. Hence, technically speaking Citizen Kane (1941) wasn't Welles first film, as it is often regarded.

The Hearts of Age is an 8 minute long short, shot in two hours on a Sunday afternoon, its cast consisted of four people: Welles, Vance, Virginia Nicholson and Paul Edgerton. The short has no real plot or meaning, it was made out of fun, as Welles noted in his interview with Peter Bogdanovich, The Hearts of Age was a parody of Jean Cocteau's film The Blood of a Poet (1932).*

Enjoy this surreal piece of work, no making notes or doing any kind of analysis, just enjoy!

Here is to a New Year and all the bizarre things that expect us!

*Information about the interview taken form OpenCulture homepage, you can view it here.

(16) Bates Motel (2013-) for sleepless nights

Bates Motel, TV show (2013).

If you are not looking forward to a good night's sleep, but instead, seek for some sleepless nights, then stop by and read on.

New, successful and captivating TV show Bates Motel is already confirmed for a second season and if you missed the first season on your TV screens, go and get the first season's box set. You have to watch it, you have to see it! It is not a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho or Robert Bloch's novel Psycho it is a prequel to Psycho set in modern times, which occasionally pays homage to "the good old films" from Hitchcock's Psycho era. It is a story of how Norman Bates became Hitchcock's iconic psycho.

Many thought that this show would not work, that it should not work, that Bates Motel shouldn't exist, but the executive producer from Lost, Carlton Cuse, and the writer of Friday Night Lights, Kerry Ehrin, somehow succeeded, even so much that it makes you wonder why TV producers didn't come up with this idea sooner?

Freddie Highmore from Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and August Rush (2007), the little chocolate loving and guitar playing boy has grown up and becomes Norman Bates, alongside the exceptional Vera Farmiga starring as Norman's all loving mother, Norma Louise Bates. A lovely addition to both of them is Norman's half-brother Dylan, played by Max Thieriot. The cast is fantastic for this show, Highmore fearlessly steps into Anthony Perkins' shoes and captures the essence of Norman Bates, the chemistry between Farmiga and Highmore is so deep and indisputable, that sometimes it tricks the viewer into believe that the relationship between Norman and Norma is normal and perfectly sane. However Thieriot's character Dylan is there to remind us how insane and wrong it all is. I would say that out of all the characters, Dylan is the only rational one, but despite this fact, it is still quite easy to relate to all of the characters, there is nothing paranormal about them, nothing that would alienate them from the viewer, despite all the horror they go through and inflict.

The picturesque village and lovely landscape shots reminds me of David Lynch's created TV show Twin Peaks. Both shows inhabit a little picturesque village full of dark secrets, weirdoes and, obviously, high crime rate. I just hope that Bates Motel won't go down the path of extra-terrestrial creatures, the spiritual world and backwards speaking midgets (don't get me wrong, I love Twin Peaks), I just hope that Bates Motel will strongly hold its foot in this world. Although, from Hitchcock's Psycho you know who is the psycho, still after every episode you want to see the next one and the next one... Suspense and horror is there to keep you awake for few nights and to keep you coming back for the next episode.

---SPOILER ALERT---

Burns: But all she really ever wanted was home.

Bruce: Well, I'll try to give her one.

Burns: I know you will, Bruce. Are you going to live with your mother?

Bruce: Just for the first year,

Burns: That'll be nice. A home with mother. A real honeymoon.

The opening dialogue of Bates Motel is from His Girl Friday (1940) (read about it on my blog here), and with these lines opens up the world of Norman and Norma Bates and the line "That'll be nice. A home with mother.", will stay and echo in the viewer's mind all throughout the first season.

The story immediately sets off, mother and her son moves to the house that overlooks the notorious motel in the beautiful village of White Pine Bay. All the craziness starts, threats, attack, a rape scene, murder, a manga book, Asian sex slaves, a mysterious man from room number 9, a murdered police officer, fields of pot, a burned man in a car, a burned man hung, an eye for an eye and a hand for a hand... A lot happened in the first season, almost too much. If the first episodes kept a bit of mystery with controlled pace, in which the viewer could keep a track on who is involved in what story line, then starting from episode 3 or 4 it just all started to boil over, it seemed a bit too much. However by the end of the season the show found its footing again, and luckily, also found conclusions for a few cases, at least the Asian sex slave case, although we never get to know what happened to the girl after she ran into the woods.

In spite of the quick pace and many twists and turns, Bates Motel still delivers engrossing tales, for example, the viewer gets to know how and when Norman's black outs start to appear, we all know, that Norman's black outs don't lead to anything good. Furthermore we get to know how and why Norman fell in love with taxidermy. After all, there are loads of stuffed birds in Psycho (watch the short clip from Psycho below). In Bates Motel, when Norman's dog Juno gets hit by a car, he says that it feels disrespectful to bury Juno, so he goes to Emma's father to learn taxidermy, so in some ways he can keep Juno.

Furthermore, we get to know Norman's infamous mother better. Despite all the burned men and severed arms, Norma's rape scene, in my mind, will stay as the most horrific scene of all. Norma's rape scene aroused a weird mix of feelings, fear, shock, sympathy, disgust, repulsion, and somewhere far, far back in my head a tiny voice was saying that she deserved it, because of what she is doing and will do to Norman. Then, in the last few episodes of the season we get to know that Norma's brother raped her during her childhood, then the rape scene starts making more sense, her need to be in control of everything and to know everything makes sense and all of a sudden, she doesn't seem as such a monster who is ruining Norman's life, instead she becomes more human. Norma is simply a ruined human being. Because she doesn't know how to exist in this world, she also doesn't know how to let Norman live in this world. 

So in the end, despite all their wrong doings, you feel sympathy for the characters, you understand them, you still know that what they are doing is wrong, even evil, but somehow it seems the only way they can exist.

I loved it! I loved the first season, it had its pros and cons, but I am positively surprised how well it all turned out.

P.S. To answer the question whether Norman killed his teacher or not, I am on the side of the argument that says he did. He has his black out, we hear the key phrase: "You know what you have to do, don't you?". And the next thing he is running away and she is on the floor dead.

Well, I might be terribly wrong, but we won't know till the second season, will we?

(12) Breathless (1960): Godard's first full breath

It might be because soon enough I am moving and I am looking at all the lasts I will do and see, last time when I walk down the prom, last time when I will have a cup of coffee in this coffee shop, last time when I will go for a swim here, last... And on and on... However I am trying to look at all the firsts that await me as it awaited Alfred Hitchcock with his FIRST Technicolor film Rope (read my previous blog post on it here) and Breathless is Jean-Luc Godard's phenomenally successful FIRST feature.

Breathless (1960)

Breathless is directed by Jean-Luc Godard who established the French New Wave, it is a jazzy story set in Paris, there is a femme fatale played by Jean Seberg (for which Godard spent a quarter of the film's total budget) and there is a perfect gangster played by Jean-Paul Belmondo, and behind all the crime and games there is a French New Wave kind of love story. It is a mix of truth and beauty, and yet it leaves a feeling that you have just set your foot in Wonderland, where the border between real and unreal has vanished, that is full of unhappiness and ends in madness and tragedy. Yet Breathless is a moment of hope and joy. Breathless brought a breeze of energy and inventiveness into the industry of cinema, with its jagged and unpredictable style the film gaining worldwide acclaim even to this day.

Interestingly, starting with and since Breathless (original title: À bout de souffle) (1960) Godard has been making his own film trailers, Vinzenz Hediger (For Ever Godard, you can also read his piece here) writes:

The trailer for À bout de souffle gives us and idea of what a good classical trailer essentially is: a cinematic list poem about a film.

Please, take your time and before you continue to read, watch Godard's poem about Breathless here.

It is not unusual that a director make trailers for his own films, as Hediger marks, it is more unusual that most of Godard's trailers have been actually used to introduce his films. Making a good film trailer asks for a detachment from the film, which director's usually lack, but as a former film critic for Cahiers du cinéma and an alumnus of Fox's publicity department in Paris, Godard was well aware of what a good film trailer needs. In the trailer for Breathless, a female's voice simply names the things we see, also indicating protagonists and their characteristics ("The pretty girl, The bad boy ... The nice man, The bad woman"), while a man's voice, which is Godard's voice, steps in to inform us, the viewers, that the author of the screenplay is François Truffaut, then names the technical advisor, before going on to name the director and who is starring in the film. Godard's trailers then aren't as much an advertisement for the film, but more serves as an introduction to the film, as Hediger writes, "Trailers, then, let the film begin before it actually begins." In comparison to mainstream trailers, Hediger argues that:

While mainstream trailers often contain all the best scenes from the movie, Godard's films contain all the best scenes that make up the trailer, because in them, as in so many cinematic realisations of Novali's infinite novel, the film never entirely begins, and the trailer certainly never ends.

So it should be, a trailer should introduce the film to the viewer without revealing what is going to happen. The trailer for Breathless portrays the film being in the film noir style, it even pays homage to Howard Hawks' classic Scarface. However, after watching the film, although there are film noir elements - a stolen car, a shooting, a murder - it still somehow feels too light and airy for film noir, though it still leaves a taste of sadness. Godard himself after releasing the film realised, that it is not as realistic as he intended it to be, as David Serrit writes:

[Godard] intended the seminal Breathless to be realistic, but realized soon afterward that it was closer to Alice in Wonderland than to the hard-boiled film noir tradition that he wanted to emulate.

Breathless (1960)

Although the characters are as real as the film allows, the film itself seems somehow unreal, an almost surrealistic world. The protagonists, Patricia and Michel, are both care free, casual, young and beautiful, and full of dreams. That is the lightness that Breathless leaves, that hope for change and blithe life. Breathless is regarded as the seminal film of the French New Wave, nevertheless it still, after more than 50 years, seems revolutionary and innovative, fresh and new, seductively dangerous. It is the camera work, that brings the film to a new level, it is the camera that innovates. Godard valued his own personal expression in cinema, significantly Godard used caméra-stylo or "camera pen", embracing that a film should be an intimate act. As Godard marks "In my early days I never asked myself whether the audience would understand what I was doing", for him the importance of the film was hidden in his relationship with the film. In Breathless, Godard enjoyed doing things for the first time, being innovative, trying something that no one has done before, something that would be more interesting, because the first time is fascinating, when it is done a second time it is less interesting, as Godard puts it "Pictures are made to make seen the unseen."

http://www.unifrance.org/annuaires/personne/15597/jean-luc-godard#photo-55653

Godard sees that all three moments in making a film are equally important: before, during and after. In contrast, Godard notes about Hitchcock, "With somebody like Hitchcock everything is calculated down to the last second, so editing is less important. À bout de souffle owes a great deal to the montage. It is a film in three movements, the first half-hour fast, the second moderato and the third allegro vivace again".

"Films are the only things by which to look inside of people,

and that's why people are so fond of movies and why they'll never die."

/Jean-Luc Godard/

P.S. After his successful debut and screening of Breathless at the Cannes film festival (it didn't take a part in the competition) in 1960, Godard gave a somehow sad interview, which leaves us with a feeling that he has lost something, because his first film was so successful.

"We have to fight the audience."

(11) Rope (1948): Hitchcock's remarkable achievement

http://hitchcockwiki.wordpress.com/category/films/rope-1948/

Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) is often regarded as a mistake, not only by audiences and critics, as David Thomson claims, Rope is "flawed by unwieldy or wrongheaded situations", but also by the master of suspense himself, as Hitchcock puts it: "As an experiment, Rope may be forgiven." However, I personally loved the film, whether this is because of my love of the stage and the reality that mistakes are more apparent on the stage, I don't know, however I enjoyed it immensely.

Rope, which originally was a play staged in London in 1929, provided Hitchcock with many technical challenges, it was his first Technicolor film, the first film where he was also a producer, moreover Hitchcock also wanted to see whether it was possible to make a film without cutting and editing, he wanted to create a film with a continuous action, designed to take place in real time. Hitchcock showed that it is possible, that film can be just like a play - a curtain opens and a play starts, a curtain closes and a play ends. Hitchcock wanted to make it as a stage production, only for the cinema:

I undertook Rope as a stunt ... The stage drama was played out in the actual time of the story; the action is continuous from the moment the curtain goes up until it comes down again. I asked myself whether it was technically possible to film it in the same way. The only way to achieve that, I found, would be to handle the shooting in the same continuous action, with no break in the telling of a story that begins at seven-thirty and ends at nine-fifteen. And I got this crazy idea to do it in a single shot. (Hitchcock by Truffaut)

A film sequence is divided into five to fifteen seconds long shots, therefore the film that runs one hour and thirty minutes will have around six hundred shots. In some Hitchcock films there might be as many as a thousand shots, for example, "there were thirteen hundred and sixty shots in The Birds." Whereas in Rope each shot runs from four to ten minutes, that is, "the entire film roll in the camera magazine, and is referred to as a ten-minute take. In the history of cinema this is the only instance in which an entire film has been shot with no interruption for the different camera setups." Therefore, Rope only has as many as eleven shots. That is an admirable achievement and Hitchcock went through a great trouble to achieve this continuous action.

A representation in LOOK magazine of the shot sequences in Rope. http://www.fulltable.com/vts/s/si/r.htm

Rope was Hitchcock's first Technicolor film. In 1948 if you filmed a Technicolor film, that meant less mobile camera movements, thus lighting couldn't be adjusted to each scene as it was done by the Americans in 1920. Hitchcock used a dolly for the camera and every single movement was mapped out well beforehand, plus the set of the film was the one that moved, "Walls are being moved and lights are being raised and lowered", everything was set on silent rails and furniture was mounted on rollers, so it could be moved around. Even clouds outside the window were moved slowly to indicate time passing. I can imagine that the whole set of Rope resembled a massive doll's house, where Hitchcock was the master of the house and dolls.
It took ten days of rehearsals with the cameras, the actors and the lighting, after that there were eighteen days of shooting, nine days of which were for the retakes, because of 'the too orange sunset', so the last five reels were done all over again. One mistake meant re-taking of the whole reel, re-shooting roughly ten minutes of the film.
Besides the continuous action, the moving set and all the problems with color, on top of that Hitchcock managed to create a direct soundtrack for the film, which is remarkable, and it was never done before neither in Europe nor in Hollywood. As Truffaut puts it, Hitchcock reached "the painstaking quest for realism. The sound track of that picture is fantastically realistic ... toward the end ... one hears the noises gradually rising from the street." Which really was the case! Hitchcock gathered a group of people who would talk about the shots, the scene which appeared at the end of the film, and the microphone was put six stories high, so it would coincide with the apartment in the film. Moreover, in order to create the sound of police sirens  coming towards the apartment Hitchcock "made them to get an ambulance with a siren. ... placed a microphone at the studio gate and sent the ambulance two miles away...". That's how Hitchcock created the soundtrack for Rope.
Doubtless, Rope was technically a remarkable and admirable achievement, it might imply that Hitchcock sometimes was more interested in technique and filming process than the meaning of the film and importance of the story. Rope mightn't be Hitchcock's most suspense building film, but nevertheless it still 'brutalizes our nerves' with its story about two young homosexual men, who Hitchcock wanted initially to be played by Cary Grant and Montgomery Clift, who murder their college friend as an intellectual challenge in order to commit the perfect crime.

P.S. As many of you might know Hitchcock enjoyed making brief cameos in his films. So, where can you find Hitchcock's cameo in Rope?

He appears in the opening credits, however his profile also appears on the red neon sign outside the window. Quite a colourful appearance for his first Technicolor production. Hitchcock said: "My cameo appearances were ... reminding the audience, it's only a movie." All together the master appeared in 39 films. Which reminds me of 39 Steps to Hitchcock, if you want to delve deeper into Hitchcock's wit and are spellbound by his work as I am, then take this BFI created step-by-step journey through his life and work, that made Hitchcock the cinema's master of suspense.

Rope (1948) - 00:55:22 - http://www.ifc.com/fix/2012/11/alfred-hitchcock-cameos

Rope (1948) will also be available on Blu-ray, pre-order now on Amazon here, it will be released on June 4, 2013.

(7) His Girl Friday (1940)

http://www.lostinthemultiplex.com/images/His_Girl_Friday_2.jpg

I would like to congratulate all women on the International Women's Day and thus I offer you to watch His Girl Friday (1940), directed by Howard Hawks and starring charming Cary Grant as Walter Burns and magnificent Rosalind Russel as Hildy Johnson.

His Girl Friday is one of Hollywood's Golden Age 'screwball' comedies, where there are no excuses for outrageous behaviour, and that's the key - 'screwball' comedies don't make excuses. It's "the newspaper-room comedy as swift and stinging as a paper cut" (Sight&Sound, vol. 23, issue 2).

Fantastic acting, quick paced and breathtaking, after the film you will feel like you just left a gym!

The final draft of the film was almost on 200 pages, but the film is only 92 minutes long, I guarantee your eyes will be peeled to the screen all these 92 minutes and your mouth will stay open all throughout the film!

Now go!

You can watch the full film here:

(5) Three Colours: Red

Just before I start to discuss the film, I would like to note that Red stars the charming and fascinating Jean-Louis Trintignant, who also is a protagonist in the Oscar nominated film Amour, directed by Michael Haneke. I highly recommend this film, it shows the art of cinema at its highest point, an intelligent, heartbreaking and warm film.

Back to the trilogy, we have reached not only the last film from the Krzysztof Kieślowski's trilogy, but also the last film directed by the great director: Three Colours: Red. If you missed last posts, you can read a short introduction about the trilogy here, and you can read about the first two films of the trilogy: Blue here and White here. Before you carry on with reading, please, take your time and watch Three Colours: Red and remember, that it is important that you have seen the previous two films as well.

To give you a bit of atmosphere of Red, you can find the last song of the film's soundtrack here.

Blue - liberty, white - equality, red - fraternity. Kieślowski looks at the themes and the ideals in the trilogy from "a personal aspect, which is more universal" (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy), thus despite the fact that the trilogy are based on French national motto, its themes are universal, not unique to France. Red tackles the last part of the French motto - fraternity. As within the previous films, it does not tackle the theme of fraternity directly, it starts of by looking at the theme of privacy. Kieślowski has said that:

Red is my most personal film, I think. It reflects not only my way of thinking about life, but about cinema: that film can come just that little bit closer to literature than one would imagine. It's a bit like one of those car commercials you see on television; it seems so small - there's no action - and yet it's so large inside. There are so many layers there you can find if you want. (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy)

I must agree with the director here, Red offers so many layers and stories, nevertheless with extreme precision it links together all three films, making the audience think retrospectively. 

Three Colours: Red is a story of communication, privacy and, of course, fraternity. The film follows the main protagonist Valentine (Irene Jacob), who is a student and a part-time model in Geneva and the development of her communication with a retired judge Joseph Kern (Jean-Louis Trintignant).

The film's opening sequence shows a hand dialing a phone number and then the camera follows this call by following the lead to the plug socket, where the tempo of the film increases, and the camera traces the cables, that go underground and beneath the sea and then a flashing red light appears, which indicates that the line is busy.

The opening sequence.

Immediately the opening sequence shows that "the film is to be an audacious and original exploration of the hidden forces that affect communication between individuals in the modern world." (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy) Camera then cuts to Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit), a law student, who lives in the opposite house of Valentine's and he owes a red jeep. The viewer once again hears a ringing phone and the camera moves into Valentine's apartment through a window (echoes of White, when Karol was watching at Dominique through a window). The viewer learns that it is Michel, Valentine's boyfriend, who the viewer never sees throughout the film. Michel has just returned to England after being in Poland, where he got robbed (again echoes of White). Michel interrogates Valentine, being jealous and aggressive, even though Valentine says that, because she felt so lonely she slept with his red jacket. While the conversation continues, the camera cuts back to Auguste, who is calling to his girlfriend. In the first 3 minutes it is already a third phone call, it is the modern world's way of communication.
Valentine is a model for a chewing gum advertisement, for which the slogan is "A breath of life", she poses in front of a red drape, her photo then becomes a symbol of the film, Valentine returns Kern's "breath of life".

A breath of life.

Later in the evening Valentine inadvertently passes Auguste, who drops his laws books on the pedestrian crossing, one of his books falls open at the exact page from which he will later get his exam question. The same thing happened with Kern, before his exam. Kieślowski draws parallels between Kern's life and Auguste, Kern's younger counterpart.
Kieślowski slowly starts to interconnect the characters from all three films from the trilogy. Since you have all seen the film I am not going into the details of the story, I will just mark, in my opinion, the most important points of the film, parts which meant the most for me.
Throughout the film Valentine inadvertently passes Auguste, she almost meets him at the bowling hall, in the record store, where they both are listening to Van den Budenmayer, echoes Blue. Valentine and August are both interlinked in the film in so many layers and yet, they aren't aware of each other.
In the scene after the fashion show, when the storm just starts, Kern tells Valentine about his past, his love, that "Maybe you're [Valentine] the woman I never met." Once again Kieślowski draws parallels between Kern and Auguste, because Valentine will be the woman which Auguste will meet, or so it is hinted at the end of the film. Kern also reveals, that he caught his girlfriend making love with another man. Moreover, just before the fashion show, Auguste founds his girlfriend making love with another man, once again echoes of White, Karol saw Dominique making love with another man through the window, however Auguste's view is more revealing than Karol's.

Through the window.

After Kern and Valentine say their farewells, Valentine notices that an old woman is struggling to deposit a bottle in the bottle bank and she goes to help her, indicating her selflessness. In Blue and White, Julie and Karol accordingly were both too self-occupied and caught up with themselves that they didn't notice, how an old lady, in Blue, or an old man, in White, was struggling to deposit a bottle. Could it be a reference, to that inevitable day, when they will be in the same situation - struggling with such a trivial thing as a bottle bank?

White, Blue, Red - the bottle bank scenes.

Then we see how Valentine boards a ferry, after her also Auguste and his dog boards, however they are both directed to different decks. For the viewer it might seem that they should recognise each other, they are practically neighbours, Valentine passed Auguste in her car, they almost met in the bowling hall, they both at the same time listened to a Van den Budenmayer CD, despite all these coincidences Valentine hasn't noticed Auguste and Auguste has only once seen her on the billboard poster. They don't meet each other, just yet.

Meanwhile, in Geneva, a thunderstorm starts, therefore Valentine's billboard poster - "A breath of life" - needs to be removed, a symbol that Valentine has returned Kern's breath of life, that he is free to live once again.

The next morning Kern reads about a ferry disaster in the English Channel, after turning on the news, he learns that besides the couple (Auguste's ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend), who were yachting in the English channel, the storm has taken 1400, only 7 survivors on the ferry: Julie Vignon, the widow of a French composer, an English citizen and barman on the ferry Stefan Killan, Karol Karol, a Polish businessman, a French citizen Dominique Vidal, Frenchman Olivier and two Swiss citizens: Auguste, a judge, and a model Valentine. Kern smiles to himself when he sees Auguste and Valentine together, and the film fades out with the shot of Valentine, after being saved from the ferry disaster, a shot which is almost identical to her "sad" profile on the billboard poster.

Six of the trilogy's main characters are brought together in the last scene.

Kieślowski explained the idea of the last scene: "... a few people are saved from the ferry, so let's see who they are, how they live, and perhaps even find out why they were on the ferry." (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy) I think it is an amazing way how to conclude the story, the trilogy makes you sympathise with the characters before the culmination of the trilogy, the ferry disaster. It makes the viewer feel part of the action, because as the viewer you already know who they are and why they are there.
Although the ending of the film might seem happy, because Valentine and Auguste are finally brought together and the viewer sees that also Julie and Olivier, Karol and Dominique are together. However, 1400 passengers and even Auguste's dog died in the ferry disaster. As for the viewer, 

what makes the conclusion emotionally satisfying is the compassion extended, not only by Kern to Valentine and a reflection of his younger self, but by Kieślowski hismelf to the major characters of the enitire trilogy. Seeing the protagonists of Blue and White take their place as survivors alongside those of Red, we are not only given hope regarding their (hitherto ambiguous) futures, but we may somehow feel that we the audience have been rewarded by Kieślowski for taking a sympathetic interest in their fates. (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy)

The colour red in the film is reflected in a car, a jacket, a dog leash, bowling balls, a rocking chair, a sweater, a drape, stop lights, it is a colour of passion, danger and in this case it is a colour of fraternity and as suggested by Geoff Andrew, most importantly, it is a colour of the life force.

Kieślowski explains the plot point and the importance of some scenes in Three Colours: Red.

To conclude, as Kieślowski put it:

All my films are about individuals who can't quite find their bearings, who don't quite know how to live ... and are desperately looking.  (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy)

(4) Three Colours: White

Three Colours: White is the second film from the Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colour trilogy. You can read an introduction about the trilogy here and you can read about the first film of the trilogy Blue here.

Now we are moving from the first colour, blue, in the French flag to the second, white, where white stands for equality. As in Blue, also in White music has a significant role, you can listen to the part of the film's soundtrack here. Of course, before you continue to read this entry, please, take your time and watch the film, there are spoilers ahead.

After watching Three Colours: Blue, the emotionally deep and dramatic film, one would expect this dramatic tone to continue in the next part of the trilogy. Thus, it is quite surprising to discover that White is a dark comedy.

Three Colours: White is a fight for equality between a Pole, Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski), and his French wife, Dominique (Julie Delpy), who is filing for a divorce from Karol, since their marriage is not consummated. In the court room Dominique tells that she no longer loves Karol, which sends him off to his humiliating banishment. In order to gain back his status and equality with his now ex-wife, Karol goes back to Poland, where he through shady deals becomes wealthy and starts up his own business. It is easier to earn money than love. In order to get Dominique to come to Poland he fakes his death and leaves his money to her. Karol now sends her into banishment. 

Portrayal of White is similar to that of Blue, in a use of colour filters and lighting, however it is less expressionist, less artistic, White is more naturalistic, even simpler. However, Kieślowski's precise work with a camera and montage stays.
The film opens with a sequence: a suitcase on an airport conveyor belt, a man's feet walking on a pavement, then camera slowly reveals the man's face and then once again back to the suitcase.

The opening sequence.

Although at this moment the viewer has no idea how this man is related to the suitcase, Kieślowski portrays it as having significance, showing that there is a link between this suitcase and the man. Indeed, as it is revealed later on in the film, the suitcase scene is flash forward in time, in the man's future, he will be travelling in this suitcase.
The film then reveals that Karol is in front of a court house and while standing there, "The streak of pigeon droppings (the first flash of white) that fall on Karol's suit as he stands on the court steps introduces the theme of humiliation - sexual, economic, social and physical - which will weave throughout the film." (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy)
Karol is being sued for a divorce, because their marriage is unconsummated - indicating Karol's sexual humiliation. Furthermore, Karol argues that in the court he is unequal, because he doesn't speak fluent French. He tries to explain, that before their marriage and moving to France, they hadn't any sexual problems, that problems started after they got married and moved to France. He claims that all he needs is some time, and that love is still there. Kieślowski then inserts a flashback of their wedding day, from Karol's point of view, where he sees Dominique from the back walking in her white dress out of the church and then turning around smiling. 

Karol remembering their wedding day.

Dreamlike white tone of the scene suggests that it might be only Karol's fantasy, especially, when afterwards Dominique claims that she doesn't love him anymore. Thus, Kieślowski looks at the theme of love differently than in Blue, where "Love is patient, love is kind. It bears all things, it hopes all things. Love never fails." (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy) In White Kieślowski shows that love can be cruel, painful, humiliating or  even comic.
Karol's humiliation continues, after the court Dominique leaves his suitcase, eventually he loses his bank card,  and after going into the bank he finds out that his account is frozen by Dominique, a clerk in the bank then cuts his card in front of Karol. Geoff Andrew suggests that in this scene "Karol's wincing expression clearly points to the act's castratory connotations." (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy) Slowly and involuntary Karol loses all his possessions, everything that he once was, whereas in Blue that was Julie's aim, which she didn't succeed to reach.
Later on Karol is so observed with himself, that he doesn't even think of helping a man to deposit a bottle in the bottle bank, a similar scene, as mentioned in the previous post, was in Blue.
After wandering around streets, Karol discovers that he has keys for Dominique's hairdressing salon, he decides to spend the night there. When Dominique finds him there in the morning and Karol once again unsuccessfully tries to make love to her, she threatens him and accuses that he never understood anything about their love.

In the metro Karol meets a fellow Pole Mikolaj, they share a drink and later on Karol wants to show him Dominique, so they go to look at her through the window, they see her silhouette and then a man's silhouette, out of despair Karol calls her from a pay phone, once again he suffers a humiliation, she makes him listen to her moaning. Now Karol is left with a 2 franc coin and a stolen white plaster bust of a woman. Thus, he agrees to go back to Poland with Mikolaj, but in his own humiliating way. Here we return to the suitcase from the opening sequence, Karol travels back to his homeland in a suitcase with his 2 franc coin and a plaster bust.

A white plaster bust of a woman.

After returning home in Poland, he goes back to his brother's place. Slowly he starts up his own money business, he needs to learn how to survive in the new Poland, "a place of corruption, violence, greed and dishonesty." (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy) Besides all that, Karol still hopes that he can renew his relationship with Dominique, he starts to learn French and trains kissing the white bust as a comic form of practice.
Dominique doesn't return his calls, therefore Karol decides to fake his death. Symbolically, he throws last remains of his past - a 2 franc coin - in the coffin. In his will Karol leaves everything to Dominique, so she would come to Poland. After the funeral, Karol surprises Dominique. Karol reassures her that he is not a ghost and they make love. At the moment of  her orgasm screen turns blindingly white, black and then it shows both of them lying in the bed.

Karol: "You moaned even louder than on the phone." Dominique: "Yes."

Finally, Karol has reached his equality, the end of his humiliating banishment. As suggested by Andrew, Karol highlights Kieślowski's thesis that "people don't want equality, they just want to be more 'equal' than others." (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy) Therefore, now Karol needs to make Dominique suffer as he did. He leaves her, and soon the police arrives to take her away, for she is accused of his murder. Dominique is put in prison, where in the night Karol sneaks in to once again look at her through a window. This time Dominique is not embraced by other man, this time she is showing, that once this is over, she is hoping that they can start afresh, for their love is not lost. Karol is in tears and smiling. Kieślowski leaves a hope for their love. Now that equality is attained, their love might be restored as well, someday. There is a hope.

Their hope.

In White, love is not healing or forgiving as it was in Blue, quite opposite, it is shown that love can be selfish, cruel and can embrace vengeance. Only at the end Karol and Dominique recognise their love, they understandd that "genuine love requires time and mutual understanding in order to develop." (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy)
Three colours: White is a ticklish dark comedy, an ironical discussion of love and equality. Emotionally it is not as intense as Blue or Red, however, as marked by Andrew it is "probably quite necessary drop in emotional intensity between the more draining first and third stories; it is the lull before the final storm." (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy) In my opinion, it is the weakest one out of three, although it balances well between being too comical or too emotional or too bitter, but it still misses the depth of Blue and Red.

Here, for your enjoyment, is a short and equally frank interview with Julie Delpy, where she explains the last scene in Three Colours: White.

(3) Three Colours: Blue

In the previous post I gave a brief introduction about the Three Colours trilogy. Three Colours: Blue is the first film of the Kieślowski's admirable trilogy, Blue discusses liberty, a search for personal freedom. Since music is a significant form of expression in the film, I would suggest to open its soundtrack here, before you continue with reading, moreover, make sure to watch the film before you read further.

When Julie (Juliette Binochi) loses her husband Patrice, a famous French composer, and her daughter Anna in a car crash, she starts her personal search for freedom in a form of a self-denial. Julia gets rid of all of her belongings, acquaintances, memories, responsibilities, anything that ties her to the life she had with her husband and daughter, anything that ties her to the past. However, her husbands unfinished concerto for Unification of Europe drags her back to the past and reality, she is the only one who can finish it. Furthermore Julia finds out that her husband had a mistress, who now is pregnant. Despite all her persistence, she understands that it is impossible to lock herself away from everyone. 

Although at the end 1980s Julliette Binochi had every opportunity to abandon Europe's cinema and head off to Hollywood, especially after receiving offers from Spielberg and other notable directors, she declined and stayed in Europe. Moreover, in 1993 she accepted Kieślowski's offer to work on Three Colours: Blue. Without Binochi in the role of Julie the film would have been completely different, Kieślowski himself has said, that it is easier to write a role with a certain actor in mind, because you know his or her abilities. Binoche's performance in Blue is deep and strong, which strengthens the film's emotional power.

The film opens with a sequence of close ups: showing a car speeding through the blue night, followed by a shot, where Anna is holding a blue candy wrapper, and then a sequence continues with a close up on the brake cable from which fluid is dripping, suggesting that an accident is imminent.

The opening sequence.

The silence of this scene is intense, that when the car hits the tree the loud noise comes like a shock penetrating the viewer. Kieślowski's precise use of sound creates a rhythm and a tone to the film. The sound is accompanied with the colour blue, which becomes a symbol of loneliness, solitude, coldness and melancholy. 
In all three films, but especially in Blue Kieślowski uses camera as a sentient instrument. Therefore the viewer has ability to look at the film through the eyes of characters, the viewer is let into their world and the viewer can feel their emotions. Kieślowski uses close ups to describe Julie's emotions and inner world, to make the viewer look into the protagonist's mind, as it is done in the next scene after the opening sequence. To both, the viewer and Julie, it is revealed that Anna and Patrice both died in the car crash. The viewer perceives Julie's emotions through this extreme close up of her eye with a doctor's reflection in it. There is no use of explanatory 'thoughts' or voice over narration or dialogue. All the sensations are captured in the most intimate and extreme close up imaginable - the human eye.

Extreme close up of Julie's eye.

Thus, Kieślowski uses camera to create the film's emotions, so that the viewer would continually be aware of Julie's state of mind.

After Julie learns about her husband and daughter's death, she starts her journey for personal freedom. After an unsuccessful suicide attempt in the hospital, Julie starts to reconstruct her life through complete self-denial, so her "new" life would be free of pain, memories, relationships and responsibilities. However, already in the hospital she is visited by the  past, that is, she hears a part of the concerto, that her husband or she was composing to commemorate Unification of Europe. When this music starts to play the colour blue emerges. Thus, blue becomes a symbol of her solitude. Throughout the film the past keeps haunting Julie and intrudes on her solitude. However, she is so caught up in her isolated world that she doesn't notice an old lady struggling to deposit a bottle in a bottle bank. The scene echoed also in the next two films of the trilogy, thus it becomes one out of many links between all three. Another example being a scene in the court house, where the two protagonists from White appears. The only thing, that Julie keeps as a reminder of the past is the blue chandelier from the blue room.

Julie in the blue room with the blue chandelier.

While sitting in the coffee shop she hears a street musician playing music similar or almost the same to that which she composed with her husband. Once again, Kieślowski uses close up to show the passing of time - by a movement of shadow. 

Time is passing.

Triggered by music, people and memories Julie ultimately starts to reconcile with her past and recognises her needs, emotions and humanity. First off, she visits her mother in a nursery home, but leaves with no communication. Afterwards, she visits Olivier. Thus, Julie doesn't suppress her urge to compose and decides to help Olivier to finish the concerto.

Julie composes again.

To settle everything with her past, she gives her old house to Patrice's mistress and expresses her wish that the baby would be named after Patrice. Julie now is ready to accept her humanity and Olivier's love. 

Kieślowski shows that personal freedom is impossible and Three Colours: Blue celebrates Julie's acceptance that she needs love and other people, after all as Kieślowski said, "'Love is a much more human emotion than the desire for freedom.'" (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy)

Consequently, Julia now is ready to live again and face her past and future, thus in a way she has achieved some kind of freedom. She finally is free to grieve and accept love.

In the same way the film started it ends - a non-narrative shot sequence with all the major characters, the camera slowly moves from one image to the other and we finally hear the whole chorus of the concerto.

Though I speak with the tongue of angels, if I have not love, I am become as hollow brass. Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have enough faith to move the mightiest mountains, if I have not love, I am nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It bears all things, it hopes all things. Love never fails. For prophecies shall fail, tongues shall cease, knowledge will wither away. And now shall abide faith, hope and love; but the greatest of these is love. (The 'Three Colours' Trilogy)

The final sequence: liberty and love.

Three Colours: Blue is the emotionally deep study of loss, grief, solitude and liberty. The film is shot, scored, scripted and performed with an admirable sensitivity. Out of all three films, Blue is the most dramatic, and my personal favorite.

For those who are amazed by Kieślowski's trilogy as I am, below is his cinema lesson on Blue, where he explains his obsession with close ups and why they are so important, as well as his idea of unity. Enjoy the words of true and pure talent!