Lockdown Paintings

Since I've never managed to commit to challenges like Inktober for more than three or four drawings, I challenged myself to post a double feature movie recommendation (available on VOD in Switzerland) accompanied by a digitally painted mashup of the two films for 33 consecutive days on instagram. Needless to say that this limited my own time for watching movies to a bare minimum.

Not everything turned out the way I imagined it, but overall, it was a satisfying exercise/project. So here are the 33 pictures in order of appearance. Hopefully, you'll see some of the films' elements and why I combined them.

Parents: MOTHER (2009) and VATERS GARTEN (2013).
The latter is not in the picture as I did not think of the mashup until after I posted the first one.

Magical island life: LA VIDA ES SILBER (1998) / SONG OF THE SEA (2014)

Parallel dimensions inside the computer:
WELT AM DRAHT (1974) / SUMMER WARS (2009)

Rhythm in your veins: WHIPLASH (2014) / BABY DRIVER (2017)

Bakeries in Tokyo and Zurich: AN (2015) / BÄCKEREI ZÜRRER (1957)

Colorful and naughty: THE FLORIDA PROJECT (2017) / ZAZIE DANS LE MÉTRO (1960)

Tangled up in the past - two masterpieces about country vs city life:
LAZZARO FELICE (2018) / ONLY YESTERDAY (1991)

April fools - exceptional conditions:
LE PRÉNOM (2012) / TURIST - FORCE MAJEURE (2014)

Far from the city: THE RIDER (2018) / SAMEBLOD (2016)

Unseen revelations: DEN SKYLDIGE (2018) / ABOUT ELLY (2009)

Party nights gone astray: VICTORIA (2015) / THE NIGHT IS SHORT, WALK ON GIRL (2017)

Shoplifters, oranges and substitute families:
SHOPLIFTERS (2018) / PADDINGTON 2 (2017)

Love in systems of oppression:
BARBARA (2012) / PHOENIX (2014) / TRANSIT (2018)

Tiny budget, incendiary speeches: ZÜRI BRÄNNT (1981) / BORN IN FLAMES (1983)

Italianitá in contemporary Roman bohemia in LA GRANDE BELLEZZA (2013) ...

...vs working class migrant workers in Basel in SIAMO ITALIANI (1964)

Self-empowerment: WOMAN AT WAR (2018) / VOLVER (2006)

Good Friday. ABOUT ENDLESSNESS (2019) / LEVIATHAN (2014)

Desire in isolation: PORTRAIT DE LA JEUNE FILLE EN FEU (2019) / HÖHENFEUER (1985)

Easter Sunday: AMAZING GRACE (1972/2018) / LA FAMILLE BÉLIER (2014)

It's never too late to engage with James Baldwin:
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (2018) / I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO (2017)

Beyond civilisation, between human and animal:
MONOS (2019) / LA TORTUE ROUGE (2016)

(Dys)functional families with a lot of heart:
MA VIE DE COURGETTE (2016) / LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (2006)

Unreliable narrators in uncomfortable literary adaptations:
BURNING (2018) / NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)

Drawn into war: CHRIS THE SWISS (2018) / LES MISÉRABLES (2019)

Hairy characters: TONI ERDMANN (2016) / DÄLLEBACH KARI (1970)

Trying to connect:
THE FAREWELL (2019) / ON BODY AND SOUL (2017) / ALOYS (2016)

On and off in black and white: COLD WAR (2018) / FRANCES HA (2012)

More than prison films:
LES HIRONDELLES DE KABOUL (2019) / THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994) / LA GRANDE ILLUSION (1937)

Growing up in different neighborhoods:
EIGHTH GRADE (2018) / DIVINES (2016)

Falling in love: CAROL (2015) / CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (2017) / GOD'S OWN COUNTRY (2017)

Family ties: MIDNIGHT FAMILY (2019) / STILL WALKING (2008)

Shifting Sympathies: A SEPARATION (2011) / MARRIAGE STORY (2019)

Back to the first theme "parents" in films about the filmmakers' own parents:
VERGISS MEIN NICHT (2012) / RAY & LIZ (2019)

Sound Effects in David Lean's Cineguild Features

Over the past few months, I have kept myself busy analyzing several aspects of two of my favorite David Lean films: THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS (1949) and BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945).

In two video essays, I focus primarily on how the film makers utilized diegetic sounds (other than source music) as storytelling devices. Since it will take some time until the second video (about the use of "silence" in THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS) will be ready, I have decided to publish them separately. So here is the first one:

Melodramatic Railway Sounds - Video Essay from Oswald Iten on Vimeo.

Description: Analysis of the narrative functions that diegetic sound effects assume in BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945).

The richly layered sound tracks of David Lean's Cineguild films of the 1940s are a real treat for anyone who appreciates sophisticated sound design (avant la lettre, of course). Although BRIEF ENCOUNTER is predominantly told from the protagonist's subjective perspective, all the sound effects are strictly diegetical (meaning that all sounds can be attributed to a source within the narrative world).

Off-screen sounds of bells, whistles and trains both open up the visible space and work as interruptions or alerts that determine the characters' actions.

But the railway sounds also form sort of an alternative score (to the dominant Rachmaninoff concerto) that comments on the action and helps express the protagonist's emotional state.

Note: This video essay utilizes excerpts from David Lean's BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945) under the guidelines of fair use for analytical and educational purposes only.

10 Years of Blogging and 30 Years of Fireflies

I've just realized that I started this blog ten years ago! The very first post appeared April 9, 2008. I have certainly been more productive during the first half of this decade. Nevertheless, colorful animation expressions (despite its overlong name) is still active.

So in order to commemorate the anniversary, here are some reconstructed pan backgrounds from my favorite film by Takahata Isao who sadly passed away on April 5, 2018 at the age of 82. Co-incidentally, HOTARU NO HAKA (GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES) was originally released almost exactly 30 years ago in Japan (April 16, 1988).

I was particularly interested in those backgrounds that are revealed by autonomous camera movements that do not follow the movement of a character on screen (there is one of those as you can see below).

Click to enlarge!

In this one I have recreated a "standard" pan where the camera follows the characters across a background.

All backgrounds reconstructed from screengrabs taken off the GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES blu-ray for study purposes only.

ISLE OF DOGS Exhibition in London

The three quarter view we never get in an Anderson film.

If you happen to be in London, try to squeeze in a visit to The Store, 180 The Strand to see and feel the sets of Wes Anderson's glorious new stop motion feature ISLE OF DOGS from a different perspective. The exhibition is free, so even if you don't have enough time to really dive into it, have a look at it.

During the ten minutes I had in there, I tried to take a few pictures that open up an alternative view on the familiarly flat Wes Anderson signature shots: three quarter views and a stereoscopic image to see what the scientists' set looks like in 3D (which obviously goes very much against the grain of Anderson's style but is great fun).

See it in 3D! Propably best viewed on a cellphone.

And that's how the lighting effects in the tunnel were achieved.

That's an advertising campaign I like!