Slow Moving Pictures @LewisBeerBlog

@TownTattle @sapphicspielbrg Elsewhere on Letterboxd, David Ehrlich called Lovelace and Hot Girls Wanted 'sex-negative'. I have a lot of problems with both films, but they're based on real-life accounts of abuse/exploitation, so I have to wonder what the 'sex-positive' versions of them would look like.

Look at the shadow on the pillow in this shot: it echoes that expression-less head-sculpture, translating it from a blank-white space (the artist’s empty canvas, full of possibilities) into an ominous shadow (the inexpressible mysteries of love and death, which transcend art).

Who could forget the giant head-sculpture in Carl Dreyer’s silent masterpiece, Mikaël? No wonder this image resonated with a director so preoccupied with the power of a close-up: he loves to ‘enlarge’ the human head and examine its opaque surfaces.

it is very reasonable to suggest that cell phones / social media are distracting & can be particularly injurious to young impressionable persons; cyberbullying along could devastate a teenager's life. but can't resist noting that, for some (of us) a cell phone isn't a distraction but a necessary means of escape from bullies who dominate conversations with monologues & vacuous chatter. why is listening to a real-life boor preferable to scrolling through a cell phone catching up on email or seeing what the new awful news is; or, for some (of us), proofreading our work in a quiet & unobtrusive way? cell phones have revolutionized our capacity to elude capture by persons who dominate conversations.

Joyce Carol Oates @JoyceCarolOates

9 months ago

Jonathan Haidt Brings New Evidence to the Battle Against Social Media nytimes.com/2026/01/16/pod…

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@TheMelbFlaneur Yes - makes me think also of the poles humming in the breeze in L'eclisse. And, in a very different context (but still linked to a kind of existential dread), the wood-creaking sounds in the forest in Miller's Crossing, which recur at the end in Tom Reagan's boarding house.

Why does this image from Blow-Up affect me so deeply? The pervasive green-ness, the distance between the two trees, and the predatory grace with which David Hemmings skips between them – there is a secret, lightly embedded in this sequence, about the nature of loneliness.

‘The blue it speaks so full, it’s like the beauty one can barely stand, or too much things dropped in your hand. And there’s a green like the peace in your heart, sometimes…painted underneath the sheets of ashy snow.’ (Dar Williams, ‘Mark Rothko Song’)

What do we want from a work of art, what parts of ourselves does it expose and fulfil, and how are we changed afterwards? This revelation is awe-inspiring, for better and for worse. It amazes us but is amazingly mundane. It gives us what we want but feels uncanny, unsafe.

The Room in Stalker: it grants your innermost desire, but do you know what that desire is? Would you want it to be fulfilled? What might that entail, in the ruined world we inhabit? The camera enters the Room and takes us with it, leaving the characters to watch at a distance.

At the end of Red Desert, Valerio points at the poison-smoke: ‘Do the birds die when they fly through it?’ He is not worried - just curious. It is Giuliana who identifies with those little birds that have learnt to avoid danger. But the danger keeps expanding...

Two meta-cinematic confrontations from Lemohang Mosese: ‘Many saw death, but the Daughter of No One saw a resurrection.’ (from This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection) ‘I stare into the mirror. Do you know what I see, mother? I see you.’ (from Mother, I Am Suffocating)

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‘Now the painting is desperate but the crowds wash away.’ In the final part of this series, I explain why the ending of Red Desert makes me think of Dar Williams’s Mark Rothko Song, and how 'desperate' art has saved my life. slowmovingpictures.org/p/everything-t…

Marcello Mastroianni and Monica Vitti in La notte: who is behind the glass, and who is reflected in it? No matter how many times I watch the film, the answer always surprises me. This is both a profound existential insight and a measure of my poor spatial awareness.

‘Another perspective on reality takes shape before our eyes,’ says Edward Yang on the commentary track. We see Min-Min reflected in the interior of the office window, floating amongst the buildings outside; then the lights come on, and she is re-inserted in reality.

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Can you see the human figure in this image from Yi Yi? Edward Yang uses transparent-and-reflective surfaces to show how, in our glass-encased urban environment, we can find ourselves occupying multiple spaces at once – or perhaps, as in this lonely hotel room, a kind of no-space.

Eiko, in Eros+Massacre, is warned to stop researching the past. She stands in front of a screen on which images of that past are projected: she is part of the historical narrative but also a reminder of its artificiality. She stares at the light as the slides change.

Giuliana stares into the Red Desert; the Red Desert stares back and says, ‘Get out.’ This week, I argue – for about the 51st time – against redemptive interpretations of Antonioni, and draw comparisons with Tarkovsky’s and Mosese’s revelatory endings. slowmovingpictures.org/p/everything-t…

A key shot from Eros + Massacre: Yoshida films Itsuko from above, against a white floor, flanked by two stairways going in opposite directions. She looks into the lens of the distant camera. This is a ‘true story’ but an overtly artificial one; history re-sculpted and re-framed.

‘I have tried to reinsert myself in reality. It seems I have succeeded.’ What is reality, how can you be re-inserted in it, and why does this success feel like defeat? Guest appearances (and weird camera angles) from Edward Yang and Kijū Yoshida. slowmovingpictures.org/p/everything-t…