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20
00:00:13,438 --> 00:00:15,587
The 1980s, greed is good.
21
00:00:15,612 --> 00:00:18,873
Thatcher and Reagan
are in power in the west.
22
00:00:18,898 --> 00:00:25,713
Around the world, conservative ideologues
tell false stories about life and love.
23
00:00:26,578 --> 00:00:31,008
The most innovative filmmakers
speak back at these falsehoods.
24
00:00:31,033 --> 00:00:32,771
This is their story.
25
00:00:32,796 --> 00:00:35,838
The story of '80s protest.
26
00:00:37,002 --> 00:00:41,538
The story of speaking truth to
power in the '80s starts here:
27
00:00:44,236 --> 00:00:45,560
China.
28
00:00:49,432 --> 00:00:54,239
Probably the most interesting place
on earth at the time.
29
00:00:59,501 --> 00:01:03,208
China looked like this
in the '80s.
30
00:01:14,275 --> 00:01:16,635
But it looked like this too.
31
00:01:17,407 --> 00:01:19,483
There was a new openness
in China.
32
00:01:19,507 --> 00:01:26,040
It was debating where it stood in the world,
how modern and Democratic it wanted to be.
33
00:01:26,067 --> 00:01:30,068
Standing up
to the old Maoist repressions.
34
00:01:30,093 --> 00:01:33,018
The fervent was thrilling
and moving.
35
00:01:33,043 --> 00:01:38,203
And out of it came the greatest rebirth
in filmmaking of the whole decade.
36
00:01:38,229 --> 00:01:42,591
Mao's cultural revolution had stamped out
the fire of movie-making in China,
37
00:01:42,616 --> 00:01:47,433
and closed its legendary film school,
the Beijing film academy.
38
00:01:49,200 --> 00:01:51,032
Director Tian Zhuangzhuang.
39
00:02:11,556 --> 00:02:15,703
The so-called, 5th Generation,
who graduated from it in 1982,
40
00:02:15,728 --> 00:02:19,986
would be the most distinguished ever
to spill out of a film school.
41
00:02:22,162 --> 00:02:25,259
They made some
of the best films of the '80s.
42
00:02:26,724 --> 00:02:28,651
Tian's film, The Horse Thief,
[Dao ma zei]
43
00:02:28,676 --> 00:02:33,686
spoke truth to power because it focused
on a very un-Maoist subject.
44
00:02:33,712 --> 00:02:35,916
We're at a traditional burial.
45
00:02:37,211 --> 00:02:40,066
A horse thief's young son
has died.
46
00:02:40,068 --> 00:02:43,996
Tian films Buddhist monks
in subtle slow motion.
47
00:02:48,988 --> 00:02:55,838
And these vultures who eat the corpse,
a horrifying idea to westerners
48
00:02:55,864 --> 00:03:00,261
but a sacred sky burial
for the horse thief and his family.
49
00:03:01,636 --> 00:03:04,213
Tian was interested
in the mystical traditions
50
00:03:04,262 --> 00:03:08,716
of his characters,
themes that were banned under Mao.
51
00:03:11,867 --> 00:03:15,762
The themes of Sergei Parajanov
in the Ukraine.
52
00:03:18,710 --> 00:03:24,106
Having eaten the body,
the vultures take its spirit into the sky.
53
00:03:29,074 --> 00:03:31,390
And Tian's films
looked different.
54
00:03:42,912 --> 00:03:47,330
He framed like this
and treated color like this.
55
00:03:48,847 --> 00:03:51,094
Martin Scorsese called
The Horse Thief
56
00:03:51,119 --> 00:03:54,140
the best film of the decade.
57
00:03:55,930 --> 00:03:59,991
Whereas Maoist films were about patriotic
and exemplary types,
58
00:04:00,016 --> 00:04:02,530
the 5th Generation were challenging
their times
59
00:04:02,555 --> 00:04:05,836
by making movies about
individual psychology.
60
00:04:32,034 --> 00:04:37,480
The greatest village film made in China
in the '80s was this one, Yellow Earth.
[Huang tu di]
61
00:04:37,505 --> 00:04:42,350
Again, we're far away
from modernity and big cities.
62
00:04:42,375 --> 00:04:46,396
Static shots, a sense of the scale
of the landscape.
63
00:04:46,421 --> 00:04:49,207
Muted yellows and Greens.
64
00:04:55,346 --> 00:04:58,924
Communist soldiers
collecting folksongs.
65
00:04:58,949 --> 00:05:02,994
He writes the ones he hears,
here, in this notebook.
66
00:05:04,995 --> 00:05:07,752
Then the soldier meets
this 14-year-old girl
67
00:05:07,777 --> 00:05:11,966
and the film becomes about her gentle,
but confident femininity.
68
00:05:11,991 --> 00:05:13,234
She's sewing.
69
00:05:13,259 --> 00:05:15,192
Her head's down-turned.
70
00:05:15,217 --> 00:05:17,220
The frame's static.
71
00:05:17,245 --> 00:05:20,391
She questions the soldier
but doesn't look at him.
72
00:05:21,053 --> 00:05:25,148
Women in Maoist cinema were supposed
to be strutting and heroic.
73
00:05:56,401 --> 00:05:59,750
Director, Chen Kaige, and cinematographer,
Zhang Yimou,
74
00:05:59,775 --> 00:06:05,592
who had himself became a successful director,
framed the imagery like Chinese painting.
75
00:06:06,325 --> 00:06:10,773
Instead of being here,
the horizon would be here.
76
00:06:12,176 --> 00:06:13,788
Or here.
77
00:06:19,057 --> 00:06:22,036
Male and female stood together
in Yellow Earth's
78
00:06:22,062 --> 00:06:24,821
remarkably framed landscapes.
79
00:06:24,846 --> 00:06:28,693
The film wasn't Maoist
because it had little action or conflict.
80
00:06:28,719 --> 00:06:32,105
But nor was it traditionally male
and Confucian.
81
00:06:32,107 --> 00:06:35,661
The girl wants to join the army,
to strike out at life
82
00:06:35,686 --> 00:06:37,492
rather than to stay home.
83
00:06:37,976 --> 00:06:41,043
Instead, it used emptiness
within the frame
84
00:06:41,068 --> 00:06:45,775
as a compositional element,
and saw maleness within femaleness,
85
00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:48,276
and good within bad.
86
00:06:55,646 --> 00:07:02,288
Ideas more associated with
another great Asian philosophy: Taoism.
87
00:07:02,314 --> 00:07:05,671
All this was deeply challenging.
88
00:07:07,527 --> 00:07:11,611
The legacy of Chinese film
of the '80s was complex.
89
00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:19,803
Tian worked consistently until 1993,
when his film about the cultural revolution,
90
00:07:19,828 --> 00:07:23,768
The blue Kite, [Lan feng zheng] was banned
and he was forbidden to work
91
00:07:23,793 --> 00:07:26,275
for nearly a decade.
92
00:07:31,569 --> 00:07:33,972
Yellow Earth's cinematographer,
Zhang Yimou,
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00:07:33,998 --> 00:07:38,729
went on to direct some of the most
rigorously beautiful movies of the '90s.
94
00:07:40,663 --> 00:07:43,886
His film, Raise the red Lantern,
was boldly symmetrical
95
00:07:43,911 --> 00:07:48,279
and had a striking
orange-red color palette.
96
00:07:50,529 --> 00:07:55,272
But even it didn't prepare us
for his mastery of digital cinema.
97
00:08:00,021 --> 00:08:02,949
We're in a richly decorated
poony pavilion.
98
00:08:02,974 --> 00:08:08,191
Zhang studied Chinese painting
and uses its ultra-widescreen compositions.
99
00:08:08,216 --> 00:08:14,166
Slow motion and a gravity defying
Buddhist sense of the grace of movement.
100
00:08:19,523 --> 00:08:22,675
A pictorial master class.
101
00:08:23,468 --> 00:08:30,489
The imagery in Chinese cinema was becoming
as beautiful as anywhere in the world.
102
00:08:32,605 --> 00:08:35,234
All that was in the future.
103
00:08:35,260 --> 00:08:40,010
But back in the '80s, five years
after the release of Yellow Earth,
104
00:08:40,035 --> 00:08:45,548
the sun went down on China's moving and
exciting decade of self-discovery.
105
00:08:47,274 --> 00:08:51,371
Thousands of pro-democracy protestors
were killed by their own government
106
00:08:51,396 --> 00:08:53,520
in Tiananmen square.
107
00:08:55,883 --> 00:09:01,152
One of the greatest images ever
of speaking truth to power.
108
00:09:10,215 --> 00:09:15,550
In another communist sphere, Eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union in the '80s,
109
00:09:15,576 --> 00:09:19,688
the powerful communist authorities
were starting to lose their grip.
110
00:09:21,024 --> 00:09:26,171
Life was tough but people persevered
and society began to open up.
111
00:09:26,819 --> 00:09:30,661
Filmmakers told stories about taboo subjects,
112
00:09:30,686 --> 00:09:34,505
the resulting movies literally changed
the world in some cases,
113
00:09:34,530 --> 00:09:37,603
and are some of the most
troubling films ever made.
114
00:09:39,832 --> 00:09:43,914
This film, Repentance, [Monanieba]
created a sensation.
115
00:09:50,962 --> 00:09:55,472
It tells, in an almost comic
book manner, of this dictator.
116
00:09:55,497 --> 00:09:59,896
He has a Hitler moustache
but, like Stalin, is Georgian.
117
00:10:02,021 --> 00:10:05,970
A woman imagines
that she and her man are buried.
118
00:10:05,995 --> 00:10:10,667
An echo of this much earlier
Soviet film, Arsenal.
119
00:10:12,317 --> 00:10:17,198
A haunting static shot
of a smiling dead soldier.
120
00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:27,750
The Stalin-like dictator eventually dies
but, astonishingly, a woman digs up his body
121
00:10:27,776 --> 00:10:32,558
and stands it here,
in the garden of his morally corrupt son.
122
00:10:32,583 --> 00:10:37,714
The corpse looks unremarkable,
like it's just relaxing against a tree.
123
00:10:37,739 --> 00:10:43,002
Director Abuladze had it filmed
from far away, in daylight.
124
00:10:44,300 --> 00:10:50,163
A symbol of course, of the fact
that atrocity cannot be buried.
125
00:10:50,188 --> 00:10:54,335
That the Stalinist genocide
stinks of death.
126
00:10:55,444 --> 00:10:58,539
The president of Georgia
and the new modernizing boss
127
00:10:58,564 --> 00:11:02,702
of the Soviet Union in the '80s,
Mikhail Gorbachev, saw the film
128
00:11:02,727 --> 00:11:04,780
and approved it for release.
129
00:11:04,805 --> 00:11:08,678
It was seen by millions
and helped spark glasnost,
130
00:11:08,703 --> 00:11:12,518
the period of new openness
in the Soviet union.
131
00:11:12,543 --> 00:11:17,616
A rare example of film
actually changing the world.
132
00:11:20,163 --> 00:11:25,806
Repentance was premiered here,
the film union building Dom Kino, in Moscow.
133
00:11:27,070 --> 00:11:34,325
As was this astonishing Soviet film
from the mid '80s, Come and See.
[Idi i smotri]
134
00:11:34,351 --> 00:11:38,042
We're in Belarus in 1943.
135
00:11:43,846 --> 00:11:47,583
Nazi bombs have just exploded.
136
00:11:52,983 --> 00:11:56,386
Into the frame comes
the teenage boy of the story.
137
00:11:56,411 --> 00:11:58,076
He's fighting the Nazis.
138
00:11:58,100 --> 00:12:01,058
The camera moves up a bit,
to adult height.
139
00:12:01,084 --> 00:12:04,810
The boy seems to get smaller
because of the wide angle lens.
140
00:12:04,836 --> 00:12:08,525
The peak of his cap seems
to reach out to us.
141
00:12:09,324 --> 00:12:11,646
The bomb has given him tinnitus.
142
00:12:11,672 --> 00:12:12,620
Whistle.
143
00:12:12,645 --> 00:12:14,207
Roar.
144
00:12:25,389 --> 00:12:28,575
He meets a girl,
they go to his village.
145
00:12:28,600 --> 00:12:31,352
He can't find his family.
146
00:12:43,671 --> 00:12:46,500
They run to look for them.
147
00:12:53,950 --> 00:12:57,010
Then the girl looks back,
and sees them.
148
00:12:57,036 --> 00:12:58,370
He doesn't.
149
00:12:58,395 --> 00:13:05,336
The wide angle camera tracking them,
as if it's the awful thing she's just seen.
150
00:13:11,409 --> 00:13:15,449
In their flight, they come
across this bog.
151
00:13:25,490 --> 00:13:28,760
This is acting at the limit
of endurance.
152
00:13:28,785 --> 00:13:30,435
The roar of fear.
153
00:13:30,460 --> 00:13:32,949
We hardly hear their screams.
154
00:13:32,974 --> 00:13:37,453
The absurdity of a Viennese Waltz
on the sound track.
155
00:13:44,170 --> 00:13:47,006
No film is more physical.
156
00:13:47,031 --> 00:13:50,887
Another Soviet film
about a near burial.
157
00:13:54,030 --> 00:13:58,623
Come and See's acting, sound design,
staring wide angle camerawork,
158
00:13:58,648 --> 00:14:03,983
and moral seriousness made it
the greatest war film ever made.
159
00:14:09,359 --> 00:14:12,368
The director of Come and See,
Elem Klimov,
160
00:14:12,394 --> 00:14:15,591
became head
of the Soviet film union in '80s.
161
00:14:15,598 --> 00:14:21,263
In this very room in the union building,
he and politicians discussed censorship,
162
00:14:21,297 --> 00:14:25,039
the digging up of the past,
and films that had been banned
163
00:14:25,065 --> 00:14:31,491
because they were anti-Soviet, because they
spoke truths other than the sanctioned ones.
164
00:14:31,497 --> 00:14:37,180
One such film was this one, Long Goodbyes,
[Dolgie provody]
directed by the brilliant Kira Muratova.
165
00:14:45,753 --> 00:14:47,250
We see a middle aged woman.
166
00:14:47,706 --> 00:14:48,930
Cut to a train.
167
00:14:48,956 --> 00:14:53,998
Looking outside first, then zoom out
to show that the mother is talking to her son.
168
00:14:54,005 --> 00:14:55,140
Jump cut.
169
00:14:55,166 --> 00:14:56,484
He's trying to sleep.
170
00:14:56,510 --> 00:14:57,623
She talks.
171
00:15:03,663 --> 00:15:07,018
The strange high-pitched voice
on the sound track.
172
00:15:07,020 --> 00:15:09,734
No sound of the train itself.
173
00:15:09,736 --> 00:15:12,195
Throughout the film, Muratova
has the mother and son
174
00:15:12,221 --> 00:15:13,667
look away from each other.
175
00:15:30,712 --> 00:15:32,175
She nags him.
176
00:15:32,387 --> 00:15:34,628
The music erupts.
177
00:15:38,511 --> 00:15:40,158
Match cut to a man.
178
00:15:40,184 --> 00:15:41,899
Then to the son.
179
00:15:45,070 --> 00:15:47,982
A strange jump cut on his hands.
180
00:15:53,094 --> 00:15:56,369
The man has been replaced
by an older man.
181
00:15:56,394 --> 00:15:59,882
More splintered cuts
from different angles.
182
00:15:59,907 --> 00:16:05,287
Then we're outside the train
and then we seem to be in an airplane.
183
00:16:12,676 --> 00:16:14,809
What was all this about?
184
00:16:16,076 --> 00:16:18,976
This earlier scene helps us see.
185
00:16:18,976 --> 00:16:20,702
The mom and son again.
186
00:16:20,727 --> 00:16:22,898
Not looking at each other again.
187
00:16:22,923 --> 00:16:25,083
Filmed in a long lens again.
188
00:16:25,108 --> 00:16:29,939
A lens so long that the space
seems paper thin.
189
00:16:35,652 --> 00:16:40,115
Muratova's theme here was the way
people can suffocate each other.
190
00:16:41,394 --> 00:16:45,728
Soviet films of the '70s and '80s
were supposed to be about social themes
191
00:16:45,753 --> 00:16:49,151
but this one's
about psychological bondage.
192
00:16:51,582 --> 00:16:54,978
They couldn't accuse Muratova
of being anti-Soviet
193
00:16:55,003 --> 00:16:57,613
but the archives say
that the authorities were
194
00:16:57,638 --> 00:17:01,484
"terribly unnerved by the form"
of this film.
195
00:17:02,203 --> 00:17:05,280
And so, like the films
of Sergei Paradjanov,
196
00:17:05,305 --> 00:17:10,446
whom Muratova adored,
Long Goodbyes was banned.
197
00:17:11,387 --> 00:17:15,586
Maybe they thought Muratova's long lenses
and almost hidden camera positions
198
00:17:15,612 --> 00:17:18,588
were commenting
on Soviet surveillance?
199
00:17:18,613 --> 00:17:19,773
Whatever.
200
00:17:19,798 --> 00:17:24,909
One official wrote:
"How can you allow such an outrage?"
201
00:17:24,934 --> 00:17:29,541
Written on chalk on the film's canister was:
"Not to be given out."
202
00:17:31,678 --> 00:17:34,887
But back in this smoke-filled room
in the late '80s,
203
00:17:34,912 --> 00:17:38,996
a decade after it was made,
Muratova's beautiful film
204
00:17:39,021 --> 00:17:43,373
was unbanned
and released to acclaim.
205
00:17:43,398 --> 00:17:47,400
It had come back from the dead
to speak a truth to power.
206
00:17:48,978 --> 00:17:53,947
She's one of the most underrated director's
in the whole story of film.
207
00:17:57,665 --> 00:18:02,109
By the '80s, large chunks
of the eastern block looked like this.
208
00:18:04,341 --> 00:18:07,089
But what if you did this to it?
209
00:18:07,092 --> 00:18:10,299
And what if you shifted
its color to this?
210
00:18:11,457 --> 00:18:15,911
These are the questions that the Polish
director, Krzysztof Kieslowski, asked.
211
00:18:15,936 --> 00:18:19,680
His answers were
about love and death.
212
00:18:20,538 --> 00:18:25,527
Meet Yacek, this 20-year-old,
in an '80s Polish city.
213
00:18:27,734 --> 00:18:31,142
Kieslowski pictures him
in yellow-green imagery.
214
00:18:31,167 --> 00:18:34,510
The shots are hooded, jaundiced.
215
00:18:35,757 --> 00:18:37,740
He sees a rock.
216
00:18:39,872 --> 00:18:43,013
He decides to do harm
with the rock.
217
00:18:52,207 --> 00:18:55,009
If he can do this,
he can do anything.
218
00:18:55,038 --> 00:18:56,802
This makes us scared of him.
219
00:18:56,837 --> 00:18:58,755
An old Hitchcock trick.
220
00:18:59,733 --> 00:19:01,748
What'll he do next?
221
00:19:08,657 --> 00:19:10,781
This is what he does next.
222
00:19:10,806 --> 00:19:12,966
He gets in a taxi.
223
00:19:14,272 --> 00:19:18,407
He's going to kill the taxi driver,
but the driver doesn't know this.
224
00:19:18,432 --> 00:19:21,666
He stops to let kids
cross the road.
225
00:19:24,705 --> 00:19:28,456
An echo of the scene in Hitchcock's
Psycho, where Janet Leigh,
226
00:19:28,481 --> 00:19:32,485
who doesn't know she's about to die,
let's people cross the road.
227
00:19:36,707 --> 00:19:40,933
But where Hitchcock's film
was fear as entertainment,
228
00:19:40,958 --> 00:19:45,203
Kieslowski's film is about
the dirt and sickness of fear.
229
00:19:45,986 --> 00:19:48,389
Yacek strangles the man.
230
00:19:48,414 --> 00:19:53,551
We see the man's foot come out of his sock,
he takes forever to die.
231
00:20:07,061 --> 00:20:10,668
The scene lasts 3 minutes,
45 seconds.
232
00:20:10,672 --> 00:20:12,479
35 shots.
233
00:20:12,504 --> 00:20:14,230
Real time.
234
00:20:18,021 --> 00:20:20,128
The man's saliva.
235
00:20:23,693 --> 00:20:28,276
The masking of the imagery is so heavy
that, at times, it looks like night.
236
00:20:28,301 --> 00:20:30,441
The man's false teeth.
237
00:20:30,906 --> 00:20:35,720
The murder reduced to a sock,
spit, and dentures.
238
00:20:36,909 --> 00:20:38,966
Extraordinary innovation.
239
00:20:42,151 --> 00:20:46,976
Then we jump a year and Yacek is
sentenced to death for his crime.
240
00:20:47,007 --> 00:20:49,812
Green light
and hooded imagery again.
241
00:20:49,837 --> 00:20:52,249
The ugly fury of death.
242
00:20:52,363 --> 00:20:54,174
He's gone in a moment.
243
00:21:04,941 --> 00:21:07,961
And then the shit drips
from his body.
244
00:21:20,880 --> 00:21:26,884
Only at the end, in this starburst,
after Yacek has died, is the light white.
245
00:21:28,846 --> 00:21:30,373
A Short Film About Killing
[Krótki film o zabijaniu]
246
00:21:30,398 --> 00:21:34,489
has used physical things to rage
against the dying of the light.
247
00:21:35,059 --> 00:21:37,775
Literally, because
the greenness and masking
248
00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:40,817
make it look like the light
of the world is dying.
249
00:21:42,051 --> 00:21:45,376
A Short Film About Killing
has to be seen to be believed.
250
00:21:45,402 --> 00:21:48,564
It changed the death penalty
in Poland.
251
00:21:52,892 --> 00:21:55,944
Talking truth to power, indeed.
252
00:22:08,829 --> 00:22:11,774
African cinema in the '80s
was not undergoing
253
00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:14,950
such dark days
as the films of Eastern Europe.
254
00:22:15,281 --> 00:22:18,593
Although some African countries were forced
to mortgage their economies
255
00:22:18,618 --> 00:22:23,867
to the international monetary fund,
innovation in African movies soared.
256
00:22:25,769 --> 00:22:30,239
In the '70s, African films had been
about society, the here and now,
257
00:22:30,264 --> 00:22:32,892
the immediate post-colonial world.
258
00:22:33,818 --> 00:22:37,706
But in the '80s, directors started to look
beyond the present tense,
259
00:22:37,731 --> 00:22:42,837
to the horizon, the past,
before colonization.
260
00:22:44,696 --> 00:22:48,209
A rethink of
what African cinema was for.
261
00:22:49,516 --> 00:22:53,443
This man, Gaston Kaboré, did
this brilliantly.
262
00:22:54,898 --> 00:22:58,903
His movie, Wend Kuuni,
was one of the first films to do so.
263
00:22:58,928 --> 00:23:01,922
A landmark in African cinema.
264
00:23:04,331 --> 00:23:07,847
This orphan boy called Wend Kuuni,
which means "gift from god",
265
00:23:07,873 --> 00:23:11,372
has been found in the bush,
he doesn't speak.
266
00:23:11,397 --> 00:23:13,140
He herds goats.
267
00:23:14,162 --> 00:23:17,259
Director Kaboré's camera
follows him from a distance
268
00:23:17,285 --> 00:23:21,303
and frames him alone,
outside the village.
269
00:23:25,112 --> 00:23:28,757
Then we get a flashback to a time
when his mom was still alive.
270
00:23:29,482 --> 00:23:32,774
The boy's sick,
they're under a tree in the shade.
271
00:23:33,309 --> 00:23:37,304
Then Kaboré makes the time line
of his film more complex.
272
00:23:37,831 --> 00:23:45,009
I put in, when Kuuni, a flashback
inside another flashback
273
00:23:45,035 --> 00:23:49,464
and I did it without questioning myself
and it worked.
274
00:23:50,518 --> 00:23:54,461
Here, the mother
has her own flashback to her husband.
275
00:23:54,486 --> 00:23:57,019
A flashback within a flashback.
276
00:24:02,582 --> 00:24:10,115
You see how aesthetic could be invented
just because an artist is doing
277
00:24:10,140 --> 00:24:20,706
what he feels or she feels to be good
for the story he or she is telling.
278
00:24:36,219 --> 00:24:40,957
Then we return to the first flashback,
the boy's memory of his mom.
279
00:24:40,982 --> 00:24:44,978
And soon afterwards,
we get back to the present tense.
280
00:24:46,248 --> 00:24:49,849
I believe in mixed instinct
in art.
281
00:24:49,874 --> 00:24:57,031
I believe in audacity,
you know, in art.
282
00:24:57,056 --> 00:25:10,016
And Africa has a tremendous treasure
of stories, tales, mythology, legends.
283
00:25:12,206 --> 00:25:16,357
We need that because
it's the food of the souls.
284
00:25:17,677 --> 00:25:21,537
Kaboré's film speaks truth
to the past, you could say.
285
00:25:21,562 --> 00:25:27,093
But then came another African film
about the past, the dream time.
286
00:25:31,539 --> 00:25:34,709
In this film, Yeelen,
which means "brightness,"
287
00:25:34,734 --> 00:25:39,454
this man, Niankoro, has been tracking
down his sorcerer father.
288
00:25:41,094 --> 00:25:44,326
Director Souleymane Cissé
tracks around Niankoro,
289
00:25:44,351 --> 00:25:46,948
like in a Sergio Leone
shoot out.
290
00:25:47,449 --> 00:25:51,411
Niankoro has to destroy
his father so he's in tears.
291
00:25:52,368 --> 00:25:53,867
He faces him.
292
00:26:05,363 --> 00:26:11,621
A water buffalo in slow motion
and a Sci-Fi roar on the sound track.
293
00:26:41,817 --> 00:26:45,717
Cissé tracks up
to Niankoro's stony look.
294
00:27:19,723 --> 00:27:23,189
Then his father becomes a mythic elephant,
295
00:27:26,463 --> 00:27:29,412
and Niankoro is a lion.
296
00:27:46,621 --> 00:27:51,953
And then mystical rods seem to channel
the brightness of the cosmos.
297
00:28:16,140 --> 00:28:18,940
Yeelen is as big as
Lawrence of Arabia.
298
00:28:18,966 --> 00:28:22,579
As shape-shifting as
2001: A Space Odyssey.
299
00:28:22,581 --> 00:28:28,479
A magic realist film, and one of cinema's
most complex works of art.
300
00:28:39,452 --> 00:28:41,115
In America in the '80s,
301
00:28:41,140 --> 00:28:44,724
if power was anywhere
it was here on Wall Street.
302
00:28:46,362 --> 00:28:47,768
Greed was good here.
303
00:28:47,770 --> 00:28:51,027
Money gushed through this canyon
like a torrent.
304
00:28:51,963 --> 00:28:55,711
This man, Ronald Reagan,
America's president,
305
00:28:55,737 --> 00:28:59,339
said that the money
would trickle down to places like this...
306
00:29:06,056 --> 00:29:07,585
But it didn't.
307
00:29:13,106 --> 00:29:16,192
A new television channel,
Music Television,
308
00:29:16,217 --> 00:29:20,805
broadcast its first music video,
this one, in 1981.
309
00:29:28,014 --> 00:29:29,858
The song was about video.
310
00:29:29,859 --> 00:29:32,954
The imagery used screens
within screens.
311
00:29:32,979 --> 00:29:36,948
Pink light, fast editing
and stepped cuts.
312
00:29:36,973 --> 00:29:39,101
All of these things
became part of the language
313
00:29:39,126 --> 00:29:41,235
of popular imagery around the world.
314
00:29:51,674 --> 00:29:55,817
A scene like this shows
how music video influenced film.
315
00:29:55,842 --> 00:29:59,451
The editing is fast, the angles
are numerous and sexy.
316
00:30:00,484 --> 00:30:02,920
The music is the only thing
on the sound track,
317
00:30:02,945 --> 00:30:07,737
we don't hear her feet, for example,
and the scene has no story element.
318
00:30:07,762 --> 00:30:10,096
It's pure impressionism.
319
00:30:12,725 --> 00:30:17,588
But '80s America was mostly
a male Reagan-ite dreamland.
320
00:30:17,615 --> 00:30:20,376
This film was part
of the dreamland.
321
00:30:21,418 --> 00:30:24,774
Rich color.
A roller coaster in the sky.
322
00:30:26,828 --> 00:30:30,135
Close-ups of pilots,
like those in Star Wars.
323
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:32,936
Tom Cruise is flying
over the Persian Gulf.
324
00:30:32,961 --> 00:30:37,249
He encounters Russian mig pilots,
so flies upside down,
325
00:30:37,274 --> 00:30:41,228
this close,
and gives them the finger.
326
00:30:42,105 --> 00:30:44,136
Greetings.
327
00:30:46,275 --> 00:30:48,521
Watch the birdie.
328
00:30:49,471 --> 00:30:51,766
Jeez, I crack myself up.
329
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,621
Pure cold war, male fantasy.
330
00:30:57,844 --> 00:31:03,417
Many of the shots last just 2 or 3 seconds,
the cutting rate of pop promos and adverts.
331
00:31:03,442 --> 00:31:05,241
Edited on computers.
332
00:31:05,266 --> 00:31:07,922
Scenes could be moved around,
shorted, lengthened
333
00:31:07,947 --> 00:31:11,495
and reviewed
in computer edit suites in seconds.
334
00:31:12,412 --> 00:31:16,100
An advert for the new masculinity
the new America,
335
00:31:16,126 --> 00:31:18,813
the new cinema,
and the new dreaming.
336
00:31:19,845 --> 00:31:23,396
No American dream
was more potent than this one.
337
00:31:27,237 --> 00:31:32,709
We float into David Lynch's Blue Velvet,
like a spaceship landing on earth.
338
00:31:32,734 --> 00:31:35,440
We're in an idealized
American small town.
339
00:31:35,465 --> 00:31:38,759
The sort of place
where firemen wave as they pass.
340
00:31:44,313 --> 00:31:48,768
White picket fence,
children go to school in slow motion.
341
00:31:55,907 --> 00:32:00,334
But Lynch's velvety textures usually
give way to something more fearful.
342
00:32:00,955 --> 00:32:03,849
He took us to the dark world
of Victorian London
343
00:32:03,874 --> 00:32:07,188
in The Elephant Man, for example,
and tracked in to a close up
344
00:32:07,213 --> 00:32:10,474
of a doctor who's sympathetic
to John Merrick.
345
00:32:10,499 --> 00:32:15,180
Just as the actor,
Anthony Hopkins, drops a tear.
346
00:32:15,205 --> 00:32:18,323
Luck and beautiful craftsmanship.
347
00:32:38,716 --> 00:32:42,619
But the movie shows us
the surrealism of Lynch's imagination.
348
00:32:42,644 --> 00:32:48,391
As he filmed side on, the bulbous growths
on Merrick's skull, here for example,
349
00:32:48,416 --> 00:32:53,272
he was reminded of the explosions
of smoke from a recently erupted volcano,
350
00:32:53,297 --> 00:32:55,497
Mount St. Helens.
351
00:32:57,444 --> 00:33:00,369
A deeply original, visual rhyme.
352
00:33:01,585 --> 00:33:04,678
Such connections
take us to the crux of Lynch.
353
00:33:04,703 --> 00:33:10,150
His films protest against the rationality
and understandability of everyday life.
354
00:33:10,796 --> 00:33:15,651
He worked with unconscious material
the way that a carpenter works with wood.
355
00:33:19,315 --> 00:33:22,168
He says that the key scene
of many of his films,
356
00:33:22,193 --> 00:33:26,058
the scene that often combines
the beauty of life with its terror,
357
00:33:26,083 --> 00:33:28,956
is the "eye of the duck scene."
358
00:33:30,620 --> 00:33:33,657
Because, as he put it,
"when you look at a duck,
359
00:33:33,682 --> 00:33:36,952
the eye is always
in the right place."
360
00:33:43,064 --> 00:33:44,622
? A candy colored clown ?
361
00:33:44,648 --> 00:33:46,492
? they call the sandman ?
362
00:33:46,493 --> 00:33:49,991
The eye of the duck scene in
Blue Velvet is this one.
363
00:33:50,745 --> 00:33:52,488
? Just to sprinkle stardust ?
364
00:33:52,513 --> 00:33:56,076
? and to whisper go to sleep ?
365
00:33:56,101 --> 00:34:00,928
? everything is alright ?
366
00:34:00,953 --> 00:34:05,649
? I close my eyes ?
367
00:34:05,675 --> 00:34:10,242
? then I drift away ?
368
00:34:10,268 --> 00:34:13,589
? into the magic night ?
369
00:34:13,615 --> 00:34:16,544
The beauty of Roy Orbison's song
combines with
370
00:34:16,569 --> 00:34:19,527
the intoxication of
Dennis Hopper's character.
371
00:34:19,553 --> 00:34:23,616
? Oh smile and pray, ?
372
00:34:23,618 --> 00:34:28,480
? like dreamers do. ?
373
00:34:28,482 --> 00:34:32,476
? Then I fall asleep to dream ??
374
00:34:32,502 --> 00:34:35,243
As if that beauty hurts.
375
00:34:39,028 --> 00:34:41,466
In dreams indeed.
376
00:34:42,715 --> 00:34:44,330
Like Ronald Reagan, David Lynch
377
00:34:44,355 --> 00:34:47,806
had an almost abstract fear
of the outside world.
378
00:34:49,204 --> 00:34:51,894
But he didn't try to push
that fear away.
379
00:34:51,919 --> 00:34:55,368
He stared at it through
a brilliant frame.
380
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:01,934
Lynch said that as people get older,
their window on the world closes.
381
00:35:01,959 --> 00:35:06,969
This is what was happening
to his country in the '80s, and its cinema.
382
00:35:15,083 --> 00:35:18,207
After David Lynch,
the second great American director
383
00:35:18,233 --> 00:35:21,918
to emerge in the '80s,
was Spike Lee.
384
00:35:21,925 --> 00:35:25,943
He thumbed his nose at white America
and bourgeois blackness
385
00:35:25,968 --> 00:35:28,781
and was inventive
with movie form.
386
00:35:30,109 --> 00:35:34,820
Take his film, Do the Right Thing,
which was shot on this block in Brooklyn.
387
00:35:34,845 --> 00:35:39,423
It's set on a single, sweltering day
and builds like a pressure cooker
388
00:35:39,448 --> 00:35:43,443
as tensions between local blacks,
Latinos, and whites
389
00:35:43,468 --> 00:35:46,235
are sparked
by events at a pizzeria.
390
00:35:47,352 --> 00:35:51,858
Lee and his cinematographer,
Ernst Dickerson, use heightened colors
391
00:35:51,883 --> 00:35:54,602
to match the film's
boiling themes.
392
00:35:55,554 --> 00:36:00,327
They filmed with tilted camera angles
to render things off kilter.
393
00:36:00,332 --> 00:36:02,642
Move on.
You're blocking my view.
394
00:36:04,895 --> 00:36:08,431
You are ugly enough.
Don't stare at me!
395
00:36:08,456 --> 00:36:11,028
The evil eye doesn't work on me.
Mother-sister.
396
00:36:11,980 --> 00:36:15,033
A technique borrowed
from one of Lee's favorite films,
397
00:36:15,059 --> 00:36:19,487
The Third Man,
in which the non-horizontal camera
398
00:36:19,512 --> 00:36:23,122
was used to show the imbalance
of the world of the story.
399
00:36:25,552 --> 00:36:29,604
Lee himself plays the character Mookie,
in the film's climax,
400
00:36:29,629 --> 00:36:34,457
the most striking moment
of protest in '80s American cinema.
401
00:36:34,482 --> 00:36:36,512
Again, saturated color.
402
00:36:36,537 --> 00:36:39,503
Lee picks up a trashcan.
403
00:36:43,827 --> 00:36:45,947
The camera tracks with him.
404
00:36:51,242 --> 00:36:52,644
Hey!
405
00:36:53,325 --> 00:36:56,376
Then it rushes with the can
as Lee throws it
406
00:36:56,401 --> 00:36:58,586
through the window
of the pizzeria.
407
00:37:06,516 --> 00:37:11,524
At the end, Lee pairs a quotation
from Martin Luther King denouncing violence
408
00:37:11,549 --> 00:37:16,962
with one from Malcolm X,
advocating it in self-defense.
409
00:37:21,621 --> 00:37:24,300
David Lynch and Spike Lee
were high water marks
410
00:37:24,325 --> 00:37:27,931
in the otherwise low tide
of American cinema in the '80s.
411
00:37:28,353 --> 00:37:32,650
Neither, however, spoke the truth
about modern life and helped create
412
00:37:32,675 --> 00:37:36,385
the radical independent film movement
in America in the '80s
413
00:37:36,410 --> 00:37:38,827
as much as this man and woman.
414
00:37:38,852 --> 00:37:42,839
Writer-director John Sayles and
producer, Maggie Renzi.
415
00:37:42,864 --> 00:37:46,312
They used a road less travelled
to get their movies made,
416
00:37:46,338 --> 00:37:49,559
and became America's state
of the nation filmmakers.
417
00:37:49,584 --> 00:37:54,112
When we started we really
had no idea of the future.
418
00:37:54,114 --> 00:37:59,373
Yeah, that there was any place for us,
we didn't really analyze it a whole lot.
419
00:37:59,379 --> 00:38:00,754
We just started making stories.
420
00:38:00,755 --> 00:38:02,653
We probably knew by that time
421
00:38:02,679 --> 00:38:05,833
that like Lucas and Spielberg
had gone to film school,
422
00:38:05,858 --> 00:38:09,296
but they belonged to Hollywood
which was a place that we never
423
00:38:09,321 --> 00:38:11,456
thought we would have
anything to do with, although,
424
00:38:11,482 --> 00:38:13,376
John had started writing
for Hollywood.
425
00:38:13,401 --> 00:38:15,598
So there you were
on the periphery of it,
426
00:38:15,623 --> 00:38:17,360
but there was no expectation that
427
00:38:17,385 --> 00:38:20,755
we were building a career when we
made "Return of the Secaucus Seven".
428
00:38:23,001 --> 00:38:26,350
It was about the reunion
of a group of college friends,
429
00:38:26,375 --> 00:38:31,577
ten years after they'd been arrested
on the way to an anti-war demonstration.
430
00:38:31,602 --> 00:38:36,895
The film felt truthful because
it wasn't edited in a flashy, MTV, way.
431
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:43,013
The camera patiently observed intelligent,
adult conversations about politics.
432
00:38:42,994 --> 00:38:44,846
- I mean fighting
for what you believe in.
433
00:38:44,871 --> 00:38:47,632
- No offense, but your senator
is just fighting to keep his job
434
00:38:47,658 --> 00:38:49,116
and his house on
Martha's vineyard.
435
00:38:49,141 --> 00:38:50,860
- Do you know that?
Do you really know that?
436
00:38:50,884 --> 00:38:52,241
Have you looked at his record?
437
00:38:52,267 --> 00:38:54,677
- Alright, how did he stand
on the canal treaty?
438
00:38:54,704 --> 00:38:55,475
- Wait a minute.
439
00:38:55,501 --> 00:38:58,000
When we started making movies,
one of the things
440
00:38:58,025 --> 00:39:03,791
I was always interested in was:
What do I see in life around me
441
00:39:03,816 --> 00:39:05,766
that I don't see
on a big screen?
442
00:39:06,681 --> 00:39:10,884
When I started working for the studios,
a lot of those were more heroic movies
443
00:39:10,909 --> 00:39:15,222
and I was aware of,
you know, that's movie making.
444
00:39:15,248 --> 00:39:15,739
You know?
445
00:39:15,765 --> 00:39:18,426
There is the hero
and the girl and the best friend
446
00:39:18,451 --> 00:39:20,266
and everybody else is an extra.
447
00:39:20,291 --> 00:39:26,579
Whereas the stories I was interested in,
and I came out of being a novelist,
448
00:39:26,604 --> 00:39:35,411
on screen, the characters were more complex
and they weren't absolutely heroic.
449
00:39:35,436 --> 00:39:39,683
They might be the protagonist but
like your friends they might be somebody
450
00:39:39,709 --> 00:39:44,597
you love and care about,
but they don't always act in a noble way.
451
00:39:44,623 --> 00:39:47,032
They don't always do
what you wish they would do.
452
00:39:48,541 --> 00:39:51,374
I think from the beginning
the smartest thing we did
453
00:39:51,399 --> 00:39:54,309
is decide to make
the movies in our own way.
454
00:39:54,334 --> 00:39:58,931
That meant casting them in our way
and having complete creative control
455
00:39:58,956 --> 00:40:03,173
over the way we made
them, and that includes
456
00:40:03,198 --> 00:40:06,593
non-hierarchical
and not luxurious.
457
00:40:06,617 --> 00:40:11,309
It was like Hollywood was only there to
see if John could get screenwriting work.
458
00:40:11,335 --> 00:40:13,993
I have less and less respect
for them.
459
00:40:14,018 --> 00:40:17,253
I think they don't even do
what they do very well anymore.
460
00:40:17,278 --> 00:40:19,473
They spend much too much money.
461
00:40:19,498 --> 00:40:23,592
They have lost whole huge sections
of the market place.
462
00:40:23,617 --> 00:40:26,232
I was talking before
about the adult audience.
463
00:40:26,257 --> 00:40:30,680
It takes them, you know,
nine writers to come up with a script
464
00:40:30,706 --> 00:40:33,142
that's no better
than the first version.
465
00:40:33,167 --> 00:40:36,522
I used to be afraid of them
and intimated by them,
466
00:40:36,547 --> 00:40:39,695
and now I realize that they don't
do their jobs very well.
467
00:40:40,383 --> 00:40:43,000
And that's one reason
why the dinosaur is dying.
468
00:40:43,025 --> 00:40:44,786
And now you are older than them.
469
00:40:44,812 --> 00:40:49,039
And now I'm older, now I could be
their mother heaven for fend.
470
00:40:49,064 --> 00:40:56,464
Our movies do require paying attention,
taking time, engaging with characters
471
00:40:56,490 --> 00:41:01,229
and because of that,
I mean the legacy is good.
472
00:41:01,255 --> 00:41:04,379
It's tough... Tough to get the money
for what we do,
473
00:41:04,405 --> 00:41:06,857
but when I meet the
audience I'm always glad
474
00:41:06,883 --> 00:41:08,600
that we have never changed that.
475
00:41:08,625 --> 00:41:12,292
Yeah, and most, you know,
mainstream filmmakers that we know
476
00:41:12,317 --> 00:41:16,191
who work within the studio system,
haven't done much better than we have.
477
00:41:16,216 --> 00:41:18,913
As far as the number of movies
they've gotten to make
478
00:41:18,939 --> 00:41:21,744
and getting to make
their dream projects or whatever.
479
00:41:21,769 --> 00:41:24,154
And they're much more likely
to end up saying,
480
00:41:24,179 --> 00:41:28,199
"oh you should have seen my cut,"
which we've never had to do.
481
00:41:29,625 --> 00:41:35,130
Sayles and Rrenzi were the standard bearers
for new independent American film.
482
00:41:35,155 --> 00:41:41,014
Much of the do-it-yourself and political cinema
of the '90s derives from their approach.
483
00:41:45,294 --> 00:41:48,307
In France in the '80s,
movies seemed to want to kick
484
00:41:48,332 --> 00:41:51,929
the protest films of Sayles
and Renzi in the teeth.
485
00:41:52,804 --> 00:41:56,852
Influenced by advertising,
cinema became shining again.
486
00:41:59,572 --> 00:42:04,383
French philosophy had become interested
in popular culture and postmodernism.
487
00:42:06,331 --> 00:42:08,491
This was a protest too.
488
00:42:08,698 --> 00:42:11,813
A reaction against seriousness.
489
00:42:18,884 --> 00:42:22,779
Into all this sped Luc Besson's,
Subway.
490
00:42:22,805 --> 00:42:26,627
Besson had excelled at pop promos
and had lived in America.
491
00:42:27,736 --> 00:42:30,422
A roller-skater's snatched
a handbag.
492
00:42:30,447 --> 00:42:34,743
His flight from the cops filmed
like a car chase on skates.
493
00:42:34,768 --> 00:42:36,243
The flow of action.
494
00:42:36,268 --> 00:42:38,311
The camera in his point of view.
495
00:42:38,373 --> 00:42:42,059
Wide angle shots
to make the space deeper.
496
00:42:49,301 --> 00:42:52,905
The best new French director of the '80s,
Leos Carax,
497
00:42:52,930 --> 00:42:56,713
combined the visual hyperactivity
of Besson with a punky sense
498
00:42:56,738 --> 00:42:59,176
of outrage at modern life.
499
00:43:02,030 --> 00:43:06,151
We're on the Pont Neuf in the grand center
of Paris, the city of light.
500
00:43:06,157 --> 00:43:07,408
Fireworks.
501
00:43:07,434 --> 00:43:09,007
Public enemy plays.
502
00:43:09,009 --> 00:43:11,338
Juliette Binoche.
503
00:43:19,641 --> 00:43:22,934
This could be a modern dance
about high class people,
504
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:25,706
but in fact
these characters are homeless.
505
00:43:25,714 --> 00:43:27,792
They sleep rough on the bridge.
506
00:43:27,794 --> 00:43:31,059
She's going blind, he's a drunk.
507
00:43:34,211 --> 00:43:39,527
Around this gritty truth about modern life,
Carax built his gigantic film.
508
00:43:39,533 --> 00:43:42,172
The most expensive
ever made in Paris.
509
00:43:42,197 --> 00:43:46,945
He had the entire bridge rebuilt as a set,
a "folie de grandeur,"
510
00:43:46,970 --> 00:43:53,298
with sweeping camera moves, glossy
and wasteful in a glossy, wasteful age.
511
00:43:54,861 --> 00:43:58,570
The plight of homelessness
was treated with the exact same style
512
00:43:58,595 --> 00:44:00,175
as this Hollywood musical.
513
00:44:00,967 --> 00:44:08,934
Grand studio sets of Paris, modern dance,
color splashed across the screen.
514
00:44:16,536 --> 00:44:20,277
Romantic ecstasy and agony.
515
00:44:25,858 --> 00:44:31,428
Sashay down to Spain in the '80s and you
find that protest had had a sex change.
516
00:44:31,453 --> 00:44:36,952
On the left is Pedro Almodóvar
in his 1982 film Labyrinth of Passions.
517
00:44:36,977 --> 00:44:42,429
Camp, a touch of goth in his eyeliner
and purple drawn-on sideburns.
518
00:44:42,454 --> 00:44:44,784
Purple '80s lighting.
519
00:44:47,700 --> 00:44:49,841
Dictator Franco had died.
520
00:44:49,866 --> 00:44:54,406
Madrid's underground culture
was transgressive, anarchic.
521
00:44:55,527 --> 00:45:01,969
And to this, Almodóvar lobbed in a dash
of the stylistic antics of this Beatles film.
522
00:45:01,994 --> 00:45:06,952
He loved its celebration of pop music,
camera work that makes you feel you're there.
523
00:45:07,181 --> 00:45:09,245
It's youthful surface.
524
00:45:14,469 --> 00:45:17,099
A scene like this
was so provocative.
525
00:45:17,125 --> 00:45:21,539
It's a porn shoot,
which conservative Spain would have hated.
526
00:45:21,564 --> 00:45:25,227
But the porn star is male,
even more of a no-no.
527
00:45:25,252 --> 00:45:29,053
And it's making fun of the so called
Driller Killer, video nasty.
528
00:45:29,078 --> 00:45:33,422
And the porn star's wearing fur,
and the color's bright,
529
00:45:33,448 --> 00:45:36,078
and the style
is cheap, not classy.
530
00:45:45,669 --> 00:45:48,650
Almodóvar's signature
was the comic grotesque.
531
00:45:48,675 --> 00:45:53,196
He challenged old-fashioned Spain
with sex and style.
532
00:45:56,444 --> 00:45:59,087
And in complete contrast,
to see the range
533
00:45:59,112 --> 00:46:02,459
of Spanish cinema after Franco,
look at this film.
534
00:46:02,484 --> 00:46:03,913
The Quince Tree Sun
[El sol del membrillo]
535
00:46:03,939 --> 00:46:06,507
directed by Victor Erice.
536
00:46:07,833 --> 00:46:11,722
A man has been painting
this quince tree for weeks.
537
00:46:11,724 --> 00:46:15,325
He painted a line on the fruit
then drew a line on the canvas,
538
00:46:15,352 --> 00:46:18,164
to get the fruit's
position exactly right.
539
00:46:18,189 --> 00:46:23,394
But then, the fruit tree drooped a bit,
so he painted another line and another.
540
00:46:24,302 --> 00:46:26,580
Erice uses no camera moves.
541
00:46:26,583 --> 00:46:30,848
Natural light and a gentle pace
to capture the passing of time
542
00:46:30,874 --> 00:46:33,318
and the delicacy of the moment.
543
00:46:38,269 --> 00:46:41,529
Spain, under Franco,
was all about lies.
544
00:46:42,982 --> 00:46:47,273
The Quince Tree Sun
was a return to the truth.
545
00:46:47,298 --> 00:46:50,351
A national detox.
546
00:46:58,420 --> 00:47:04,669
Where politics softened in Spain
in the '80s, here in Britain they hardened.
547
00:47:04,675 --> 00:47:09,034
A right-wing government
brought protesters to the streets.
548
00:47:09,036 --> 00:47:12,221
The government's view was
that culture should reassure
549
00:47:12,246 --> 00:47:15,621
and bolster a traditional sense
of national pride.
550
00:47:16,114 --> 00:47:21,497
But the best filmmakers kicked back
or focused on other identities.
551
00:47:26,301 --> 00:47:27,419
We're in London.
552
00:47:27,444 --> 00:47:29,851
A high level shot
like a musical.
553
00:47:29,876 --> 00:47:34,889
A middle class Pakistani business man
is reopening his launderette.
554
00:47:34,914 --> 00:47:37,748
The right-wing government
liked entrepreneurs.
555
00:47:37,773 --> 00:47:40,380
Immigrants, less so.
556
00:47:40,406 --> 00:47:43,260
He dances with this white woman.
557
00:47:43,557 --> 00:47:45,872
A Sardu of South London.
Yes.
558
00:47:45,899 --> 00:47:49,154
But the film lobbed in
more provocations.
559
00:47:49,179 --> 00:47:53,113
In the back room
the entrepreneur's nephew is having sex.
560
00:47:53,138 --> 00:47:54,586
With a bloke.
561
00:47:54,611 --> 00:47:56,317
A white bloke.
562
00:47:56,342 --> 00:48:00,842
The guy dribbles champagne, the drink
of '80s "nouveau riche" yuppies,
563
00:48:00,867 --> 00:48:03,684
into the mouth of the nephew.
564
00:48:06,153 --> 00:48:08,664
Gay, mixed race sex.
565
00:48:08,689 --> 00:48:11,715
Oh, and the white bloke
is a Neo Nazi.
566
00:48:13,102 --> 00:48:16,504
A waltz of multi-cultural Britain.
567
00:48:18,130 --> 00:48:22,387
My Beautiful Laundrette was a knee
in the balls to the right-wing government.
568
00:48:22,413 --> 00:48:28,596
As much as a provocation
as Bunuel's films were in Franco's Spain.
569
00:48:32,921 --> 00:48:35,355
Shit!
570
00:48:35,380 --> 00:48:39,773
Far more serious
but equally bold was this Scottish film.
571
00:48:39,798 --> 00:48:45,464
This boy, wee Jamie, is being brought up
in poverty by his granny.
572
00:48:50,582 --> 00:48:52,468
She sits at the fire.
573
00:48:52,493 --> 00:48:54,249
Keeps her back to him.
574
00:48:54,274 --> 00:48:58,219
He's always behind her here,
in the cold, watching.
575
00:48:59,468 --> 00:49:02,629
This shot's exactly
from Jamie's point of view.
576
00:49:02,654 --> 00:49:04,100
Under the table.
577
00:49:04,125 --> 00:49:06,866
We see the top of it
in the image.
578
00:49:06,891 --> 00:49:11,209
The granny sits down as usual,
ignoring Jamie.
579
00:49:13,552 --> 00:49:17,895
But then, unusually,
she takes a swig of beer.
580
00:49:21,022 --> 00:49:24,062
The beer seems
to warm her heart...
581
00:49:33,568 --> 00:49:37,691
Because she reaches back
into Jamie's space.
582
00:49:37,692 --> 00:49:41,536
As director Bill Douglas
had rigorously filmed the spaces,
583
00:49:41,561 --> 00:49:44,687
we know
how unusual this reach is.
584
00:49:51,929 --> 00:49:58,587
A simple scene but one of the great moments
of reconciliation in cinema.
585
00:50:00,521 --> 00:50:02,877
Who is it, my darling?
586
00:50:07,311 --> 00:50:11,880
Another Scottish filmmaker, Bill Forsyth,
looked at working class life too,
587
00:50:11,906 --> 00:50:13,694
but he was more romantic.
588
00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:19,617
I mean I could just sit in a hole
and look at a housing estate
589
00:50:19,642 --> 00:50:24,065
and listen to the ice cream van,
you know, for quite a long while, you know,
590
00:50:24,091 --> 00:50:27,229
that would fill me
with good feelings.
591
00:50:27,863 --> 00:50:29,901
Do you want to dance?
592
00:50:29,926 --> 00:50:30,889
It's really good.
593
00:50:30,914 --> 00:50:34,813
You just lie flat down
and dance.
594
00:50:34,838 --> 00:50:35,978
I'll show you what I mean.
595
00:50:36,003 --> 00:50:39,375
I'll start it off and you just join in
when you feel confident enough.
596
00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:40,334
Okay.
597
00:50:42,349 --> 00:50:45,762
Forsyth's movie,
Gregory's Girl, looked at young people
598
00:50:45,787 --> 00:50:48,989
and the ordinary places
where they fall in love.
599
00:50:50,755 --> 00:50:54,089
For most of the film,
the camera's horizontal, as normal,
600
00:50:54,115 --> 00:50:57,690
but then he has it tilted,
a touch of poetry.
601
00:50:57,699 --> 00:51:00,769
We are clinging to the surface
of this planet while it spins through space
602
00:51:00,793 --> 00:51:06,490
at a 1,000 miles an hour,
held only by the mystery force gravity.
603
00:51:06,516 --> 00:51:07,508
Wow.
604
00:51:07,562 --> 00:51:11,698
A lot of people panic when you tell them
that and they just fall off.
605
00:51:11,723 --> 00:51:14,016
I see you're not falling off.
606
00:51:14,042 --> 00:51:15,475
That means you've got
the hang of it.
607
00:51:15,745 --> 00:51:19,733
You know, people in landscape,
I don't mean that in a visual way,
608
00:51:19,758 --> 00:51:24,082
but just someone finding themselves
somewhere in that moment of, you know,
609
00:51:24,107 --> 00:51:28,835
apprehension that you are here
and this is where you are.
610
00:51:29,129 --> 00:51:31,911
It's a difficult moment
to describe.
611
00:51:31,913 --> 00:51:36,668
But it's a moment
that is very, very cinematic for me.
612
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:42,764
This man, Terence Davies,
made the greatest British film of the '80s,
613
00:51:42,790 --> 00:51:45,615
Distant Voices, Still Lives.
614
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:50,702
We're in Davies' own childhood,
Liverpool in the 1950s.
615
00:51:50,727 --> 00:51:54,554
A family home
terrorized by a brutal father.
616
00:51:54,579 --> 00:51:59,737
We see his mom in the present
and then hear the kids in the past.
617
00:51:59,762 --> 00:52:04,174
We're flashed backwards in time
without a cut.
618
00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:07,181
So this image is a memory image.
619
00:52:07,207 --> 00:52:09,481
Tony are those two sisters
of yours up yet?
620
00:52:09,507 --> 00:52:10,090
Yeah.
621
00:52:10,116 --> 00:52:11,589
They're just coming down.
622
00:52:13,732 --> 00:52:15,525
Hiya mum.
623
00:52:15,552 --> 00:52:17,830
Morning Maisie.
624
00:52:17,856 --> 00:52:19,935
Morning mum.
625
00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:22,136
Morning Eileen.
626
00:52:22,161 --> 00:52:23,856
Nervous, love?
627
00:52:23,881 --> 00:52:25,246
A bit.
628
00:52:25,281 --> 00:52:29,036
Have a cup and a ciggy.
629
00:52:29,062 --> 00:52:32,919
? I get the blues ?
630
00:52:32,944 --> 00:52:36,697
? when it's raining. ?
631
00:52:36,731 --> 00:52:40,702
? The blues I can't lose ?
632
00:52:40,727 --> 00:52:43,834
? when it rains. ?
633
00:52:43,859 --> 00:52:47,354
? Now each little rain drop ?
634
00:52:47,487 --> 00:52:50,224
Davies' camera tracks down
the hallway.
635
00:52:50,250 --> 00:52:51,779
? Falls on my window pane ?
636
00:52:51,804 --> 00:52:56,113
? reminds me of the tears I shed ?
637
00:52:56,138 --> 00:53:00,142
? the tears were all in vain ?
638
00:53:00,167 --> 00:53:03,947
? so I sit and wait ?
639
00:53:03,972 --> 00:53:07,686
? for the sun to shine ?
640
00:53:07,711 --> 00:53:14,372
? to shine all my blues away ?
641
00:53:14,397 --> 00:53:18,263
? it rained when I met you ?
642
00:53:18,302 --> 00:53:22,479
? and it rained when I lost you ?
643
00:53:22,504 --> 00:53:26,831
? so I get the blues ?
644
00:53:26,856 --> 00:53:30,481
? when it rains ??
645
00:53:30,846 --> 00:53:34,575
One of Davies' signatures
is the very slow dissolve.
646
00:53:36,408 --> 00:53:42,841
? There's a man going 'round ?
647
00:53:42,867 --> 00:53:48,801
? taking names. ?
648
00:53:48,826 --> 00:53:51,925
? There's a man... ??
649
00:53:51,951 --> 00:53:54,844
Davies nearly always
frames symmetrically.
650
00:53:55,092 --> 00:53:58,708
I think it's due to Catholicism
and because when I was growing up
651
00:53:58,734 --> 00:54:01,843
it was the Tridentine mass and you were...
652
00:54:01,869 --> 00:54:05,044
The altar was there and you
were looking at it like this
653
00:54:05,070 --> 00:54:07,043
and it was literally like that.
654
00:54:07,068 --> 00:54:15,214
And everything in the church
tended to be like that, symmetrical.
655
00:54:15,240 --> 00:54:20,570
My great love is Vermeer,
and I am sure that has had a huge
656
00:54:20,595 --> 00:54:24,976
subconscious effect on me,
you know, that stillness that you get,
657
00:54:25,002 --> 00:54:29,901
that everything tends to be
symmetrical and beautifully composed.
658
00:54:29,903 --> 00:54:34,057
There's the most wonderful
stillness about it.
659
00:54:34,530 --> 00:54:37,586
Davies' love of the slow
forward tracking shot
660
00:54:37,611 --> 00:54:41,192
comes from this moment
in Intolerance.
661
00:54:41,633 --> 00:54:44,041
And they literally
built a crane.
662
00:54:44,066 --> 00:54:48,264
And they haul the camera up this crane
and you see it come up like this.
663
00:54:48,289 --> 00:54:51,169
And these elephants and all these people
going up these steps.
664
00:54:51,194 --> 00:54:52,964
Absolutely breathtaking.
665
00:54:53,643 --> 00:54:59,275
If you were feeling exactly the same
at the beginning and the end of the track,
666
00:54:59,301 --> 00:55:02,033
you're using the track incorrectly.
667
00:55:02,058 --> 00:55:05,480
You've got to feel different
towards the subject.
668
00:55:09,971 --> 00:55:13,132
And another influence on Davies
was this crane shot,
669
00:55:13,158 --> 00:55:15,763
in the Hollywood musical
Young at Heart.
670
00:55:15,788 --> 00:55:18,611
A main character seems
to have killed himself,
671
00:55:18,647 --> 00:55:20,637
a painful moment in the story.
672
00:55:20,663 --> 00:55:25,637
But the camera glides beautifully
into a perfect world.
673
00:55:33,190 --> 00:55:38,698
And Davies uses this combination of beauty
and pain in Distant Voices, Still Lives.
674
00:55:38,723 --> 00:55:41,198
His youth was often painful.
675
00:55:41,223 --> 00:55:44,603
He lines it up
and re-enters it through cinema.
676
00:55:44,629 --> 00:55:49,193
? There's a man going 'round
taking names ?
677
00:55:49,218 --> 00:55:54,351
In doing so he makes it beautiful
and so transcends the pain.
678
00:55:57,735 --> 00:56:02,394
A wholly cinematic way
of speaking truth to power.
679
00:56:06,271 --> 00:56:12,052
? Oh death is that man ?
680
00:56:12,077 --> 00:56:17,058
? taking names. ?
681
00:56:17,083 --> 00:56:19,533
? He has taken... ??
682
00:56:21,143 --> 00:56:25,398
And then look at this movie
by the Welsh filmmaker Peter Greenaway.
683
00:56:25,423 --> 00:56:30,314
Like Terence Davies, Greenaway likes
his frames to be perfectly symmetrical.
684
00:56:32,084 --> 00:56:35,004
But here he takes symmetry
much further.
685
00:56:35,301 --> 00:56:37,667
Why do we have to have
two nostrils?
686
00:56:37,692 --> 00:56:39,912
Why do we have to have
two of everything?
687
00:56:39,938 --> 00:56:41,269
Symmetry is all.
688
00:56:41,294 --> 00:56:42,407
We're twins.
689
00:56:43,090 --> 00:56:45,917
The two chairs
and lamps balance.
690
00:56:45,943 --> 00:56:49,558
The woman's hair is echoed
by the gilt mirror.
691
00:56:49,583 --> 00:56:54,720
Everything is symmetrical except
that the woman has only one leg.
692
00:56:56,384 --> 00:57:01,968
And so, like the director himself,
she wants to make the scene, her world,
693
00:57:01,993 --> 00:57:06,767
symmetrical,
so she has the other leg cut off.
694
00:57:07,738 --> 00:57:12,531
Greenaway analyzed imagery more
than any other British director.
695
00:57:12,533 --> 00:57:17,633
He says that the story of film
is only just beginning.
696
00:57:19,912 --> 00:57:23,232
If British cinema of the '80s
was a brilliant tempest,
697
00:57:23,257 --> 00:57:27,573
its god of thunder
was Derek Jarman.
698
00:57:28,601 --> 00:57:31,973
A man walks through a bleak,
ruined landscape.
699
00:57:31,998 --> 00:57:36,032
It's like we're in an Italian
rubble movie after World War II.
700
00:57:36,057 --> 00:57:40,812
This is intercut, fast, '80s style,
with men with machine guns,
701
00:57:40,837 --> 00:57:45,983
and Morris dancers, a symbol
of genteel village England.
702
00:57:47,003 --> 00:57:49,759
It's like there's been
an ideological storm.
703
00:58:00,998 --> 00:58:04,801
Jarman's rage and values
could not be clearer.
704
00:58:04,826 --> 00:58:08,182
Here, a male dancer is intercut
with a wreath
705
00:58:08,207 --> 00:58:12,065
to remember the war dead
of the British empire,
706
00:58:12,090 --> 00:58:16,065
and with a fire,
and we hear a Nazi speech.
707
00:58:22,619 --> 00:58:25,427
Video editing meets Leni Riefenstahl,
708
00:58:25,452 --> 00:58:30,125
meets Kenneth Anger's imagery
of magic, and dance, and frenzy.
709
00:58:30,915 --> 00:58:34,480
The Last of England
was a thunderbolt in '80s cinema.
710
00:58:36,181 --> 00:58:41,790
It's hard to imagine a greater provocation
to the establishment.
711
00:58:45,138 --> 00:58:48,607
As was this film, Videodrome.
712
00:58:50,485 --> 00:58:57,296
A man is watching TV alone, late at night,
half switched off, half turned on.
713
00:58:57,911 --> 00:59:00,530
The TV throbs.
714
00:59:03,518 --> 00:59:05,255
I want you, Max.
715
00:59:06,605 --> 00:59:07,703
You.
716
00:59:10,347 --> 00:59:12,263
Come on.
717
00:59:14,519 --> 00:59:16,092
Come on.
718
00:59:21,583 --> 00:59:27,615
The idea that a machine can be sensual,
something that we can kiss, have sex with.
719
00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:31,715
Writer director David Cronenberg
is foreseeing the sexualization
720
00:59:31,741 --> 00:59:35,522
of our solitary relationships
with screens.
721
00:59:37,143 --> 00:59:38,146
Please.
722
00:59:56,033 --> 00:59:58,349
Cronenberg continued
to be fascinated
723
00:59:58,374 --> 01:00:03,311
by the boundary between hard and soft,
skin and metal, in modern life.
724
01:00:04,417 --> 01:00:08,386
Never more so than in this scene
from his film Crash.
725
01:00:09,597 --> 01:00:13,033
A car show room
as an erotic place.
726
01:00:13,058 --> 01:00:15,223
Almost whispered dialogue.
727
01:00:15,917 --> 01:00:18,082
I'm caught.
728
01:00:20,585 --> 01:00:23,375
No outside traffic noise
or music.
729
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:25,251
Gleaming metal.
730
01:00:25,276 --> 01:00:27,243
Pacing like velvet.
731
01:00:27,268 --> 01:00:32,164
Rosanna Arquette's hair the same color
as the leather upholstery.
732
01:00:49,398 --> 01:00:55,127
Cronenberg's using a novel by J.G. Ballard
to tell modern, liberal society
733
01:00:55,153 --> 01:00:59,466
that we are all more down
and dirty than we pretend.
734
01:01:02,977 --> 01:01:07,420
Canadian directors have been
particularly good at blasting hypocrisy.
735
01:01:07,445 --> 01:01:12,061
Norman McLaren won an Oscar
for this astonishing stop frame animation,
736
01:01:12,086 --> 01:01:16,564
in which two neighbors fight
over a single flower in their garden.
737
01:01:20,051 --> 01:01:23,369
They use an innovative
electronic score.
738
01:01:23,394 --> 01:01:27,165
A white picket fence,
a symbol of suburbia.
739
01:01:31,755 --> 01:01:37,234
Painter Pablo Picasso
called it the best film ever made.
740
01:01:40,418 --> 01:01:43,599
And in French speaking Canada
the decade ended
741
01:01:43,624 --> 01:01:48,543
with this brilliant assault
on hypocrisy and '80s consensus.
742
01:01:50,074 --> 01:01:53,615
A group of actors stages a passion play
as a promenade,
743
01:01:53,640 --> 01:01:57,014
where the audience walks
to follow the action.
744
01:01:57,039 --> 01:01:59,538
The brutalization of Christ
is very real
745
01:01:59,563 --> 01:02:03,963
but the actors describing
historical crucifixions do so coolly,
746
01:02:03,988 --> 01:02:06,207
like a textbook almost.
747
01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:18,409
And they make the audience
feel uncomfortable
748
01:02:18,434 --> 01:02:20,950
by pointing out their voyeurism.
749
01:02:35,194 --> 01:02:41,129
Jesus of Montreal, like the best films
of the '80s, again speaks truth to power.
750
01:02:41,155 --> 01:02:45,451
This time, the power is us,
the audience.
751
01:02:51,387 --> 01:02:55,275
It and Cronenberg's films
tell us that we lie to ourselves
752
01:02:55,300 --> 01:02:59,130
about our bodies,
our sex, our values.
753
01:03:00,510 --> 01:03:04,601
The bravery of the best '80s films
was exciting.
754
01:03:04,603 --> 01:03:09,867
And then came the '90s,
the era of digital and the Internet.
755
01:03:09,869 --> 01:03:17,537
When reality started to lose its realness,
but cinema entered another golden age.
64873
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