Posts from — April 2012
Edison’s place in Film History
A excerpt from the letter Henri Langlois wrote to the Edison National Historic Site to request Edison’s Kinetograph for his proposed Musée du Cinéma in Paris:
“On the occasion of the inauguration of the great Musée du Cinéma in Paris, the Cinémathèque Française has assembled an exhibition on the origins of the cinema, to which the principal foreign museums, English, German, Austrian, such as the Smithsonian, have loaned us the prototype cameras that recount the history of the discovery of cinema. All these will be gathered together for several weeks in this exhibition, except that of Edison. […] This causes me great distress, since I tell myself that this absence of the Edison camera will do harm to his memory and withhold, once again, his rightful place in the chronology. […] It is of such great importance for Edison that this camera is here, even if only for a few days. […] After all, we were able to loan the Mona Lisa, and she did not suffer from her voyage.”
(6 May 1972)
From: Mannoni, Laurent. ‘Henri Langlois and the Musee du Cinema’ in Film History, Volume 18, pp. 274–287, 2006.
April 30, 2012 No Comments
Queen of Versailles
Queen of Versailles and Arrested Development. Life imitating art? American television sometimes betrays the utopian visions of the country created by mainstream cinema. In particularly television comedy does a better job of poking fun at society and ourselves. Queen of Versailles appears to embody the byproduct ofthe absurd and dysfunctional underside to the American dream. Zooms, high-key lighting, voice-overs and epilogues to the next episode that never take place subsequently are some of the tactics used to manipulate audiences in Arrested Development. While Arrested Development parodied the idea of conservative America under Bush, Queen of Versailles appears to be a just-in-time parody of the good times by examining its hollowed out remains.
April 26, 2012 No Comments