Friday, May 05, 2006

The Gospel According to Abbas... to say nothing of Lars

The Gospel of Judas has been much in the news of late, as they've just published the text of this lost Gnostic gospel, which paints Judas in a good light. I've just read it, as I'm currently writing a book on Gnosticism, which is due for publication later in the year. Non-canonical gospels appeal to me greatly, as I think I must have been a heretic in a previous life; I certainly feel like one in this life.

In order to make Folie as good a film as we can, therefore, we need to proceed in a mainly non-orthodox way. We don't have the money to do things normally, for a start, but it's one of those stories that doesn't need much money, as the drive and production value of the story are in the characters, their emotions and the extraordinary situation they find themselves in (and believe me, it is extraordinary. And based on a true story, as I think I've said elsewhere on this blog.) All the actors who are so far on board are very keen on the semi-improvised nature of the film, and we are all relishing the prospect of having this freedom, as we may not have it on the next film any of us do.

To keep the old inner man bright eyed and bushy tailed, I've been watching films by and about Abbas Kiarostami and Lars von Trier. Lars has been one of my favourite directors ever since Europa, and the fact that he could then abandon his style totally and start again from scratch with The Kingdom and Breaking the Waves only makes me love him even the more. My love for him, however, does not quite extend to seeing his johnson, which is on show in The Humiliated, a feature-length doc about the making of The Idiots. I admire him for directing naked from the waist down, but please, Lars, we don't do things like that in Old Blighty! (except in certain parts of Dorset, so I hear). Put it away! But the film is great as it shows him taking ludicrous risks, and, of course, it worked brilliantly.

I've also been watching Kiarostami's 10 on Ten, in which the great man holds forth on his theories of filmmaking. While I don't agree with him on certain things - the notion of what truth is, for instance; I'm much more in agreement with Werner Herzog on this one - he does say some great things. One of the statements I had to go and copy down is this:

I don’t believe a film is to be understood. Do we understand a piece of music? Do we understand a painting? Or the exact meaning of a poem? It’s ambiguity that attracts us to a work, not understanding the subject or the story. However, human beings are standing between heaven and hell because of their existential ambiguity, and art displays this ambiguity. Pascal said that you cannot show a single event in somebody’s life and claim to have said everything about him. The secret department of the soul prevents this, and this is what becomes the plinth, the basis for the art of cinema.

The film also shows him shooting A Taste of Cherry with a crew of about 4 or 5. He's very much against doing things the Hollywood way, but stresses the importance of looking at why American films work. It's a paradox I like. Like the idea of Judas being a good man, and Christ's favourite disciple (after, presumably, Mary Margadelene!). Many people, it seems, can't handle that life itself is one big paradox, and it's up to us as storytellers to remind them. Whether they want to be reminded or not.

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