The Brothers Quay & Tarsem Singh

(Cinemascope thanks guest contributor Ms. Camiele White for her latest contribution. This interesting article is on the Quay Brothers and Tarsem Singh, who have developed cult followings of their own. More details on Ms. White may be found below the post)

It’s been said that everyone has a twin roaming around this planet somewhere. Of course, sometimes those twins tend to be more than simply walking, breathing practices in physical congruency. What if, for instance, someone thought as you did, spoke as you did, had the same general understanding of the world around him as you? What a trip, right?

In the film world, while most major studios are on a never-ending trend of replicating scripts and storylines, there are a few with tickling bugs in their brains who happen to have a penchant for doing magic tricks with the cerebrum. This school of thought has found a resting place in two separate entities borne of two very different backgrounds.

One of my favourite films of all time is The Cell. I had the grand fortune to see this film back in 2000 when it was first released. I’ve always had a wide open space in my heart for psychological films and this film promised to be that and so much more. On more than one occasion I found myself warped, senses tainted and thrown into disarray. What Tarsem Singh managed to create with The Cell is a world in which the mind is incapable of seeking solace in corners or soft shadows. His is a mind that’s rational to the point of madness, pinning down, as it were, your every sensory cell and transmogrifying you into a beast in his scripture. Without a doubt, he’s one of the most compelling directors to come out of the 20^th century. All of his films follow in this vein --verging on self-indulgent, most certainly narcissistic.

I was ready to proclaim Tarsem one of the most original, if not the foremost, directors of all time. His work on small and large screen has given him an almost indelible stamp on the industry, making him one of the most sought after, if not one of the most underrated, directors in the business. However, as the old wives tale alludes, Tarsem has his own psychological twin to compete with. Somewhere in the world, he has a Siamese replica, a reflection stitched to him as a bit of membranous thought and creativity that once witnessed can’t be denied.

In fact, Tarsem’s double is a set of actual identical twins. In the early 80s, the Quay Brothers placed their stamp on the film world with their uncanny ability to get underneath the skin and do a dance as carnal as the perverse twitching of the mind of a sleeping schoolgirl. It isn’t so much that the techniques are complex – au contraire, mons amis. Their style is almost guerrilla, completely organic and unfettered with ostentation. One may go so far as to describe it as elementary. However, what sets the Brothers Quay apart is their sense of perception. They’ve managed to find the intricacies in natural movement and have augmented them to the point of combustion.

Using classic stop-motion, the Brothers Quay have stumbled upon a magnificent formula for making the simple more layered. Using household objects (old plastic dolls, push pins, buttons, etc.) they created one of the most bizarre films of the late 80s. Based on Bruno Shulz’s series of short stories of the same name, the short film The Street of Crocodiles transcended what folks were able to digest, even in the late 80s/early 90s, in which every media was heightened to its breaking point. It was a film that explored the existential crisis of existence, what it means to be living and breathing, walking a never-ending path towards a seeming oblivion. All very Maudlin and Morrissey, no? However, what separates this from the angst that was so en vogue at the time was its intelligence. No dialogue, no script, no human fallacy. It was probably one of the most cerebral films to come out of that era of high art, as it were.

When juxtaposed against each other, Tarsem and the Quay Brothers seem to follow a similar path to creation: find the details in the landscape and augment them until they’re ready to crawl into your body and create you brand new and part of the living masterpiece. Particularly, Tarsem’s The Cell pays a great deal of homage to the Brothers’ work. Most notably in the observation sequence in which child psychologist Catherine Deane is walking through serial killer Carl Stargher’s zoo of female victims.

It harkens to one of many scenes in The Street of Crocodiles in which our hapless professor is walking the streets of his delusions attempting to find his way out of his self-imposed maze. He trips a switch which in turn triggers the unveiling of a series of observation rooms. In it, we see baby dolls rigged to varying torsos dancing or genuflecting (I haven’t quite figured out which one yet). The cracked skin of the broken females’ matches in painful hue to the cracks one would see in a neglected doll (perhaps, then, that’s what we can glean from Tarsem’s effort – the female as a plaything to be broken into and explored).

Beyond The Street of Crocodiles lay hints of genius that is in the same breath unsettling and erotic. It’s something that marks the work of Tarsem Singh almost identically. In this world where everything is circular, it makes sense that at some stage the freak and fantasy of stop-motion would find its way in the living circus. Tarsem and the Brothers Quay share a bond that goes far beyond the sameness of the Hollywood jungle. However, being the arrogant animals that we are, we prefer to think of ourselves as individuals, superior in one area or another, completely unique. When we find our twin, in our rage we wrest the likeness from every limb of his body until we can build something so distorted that it defies the idea that there could ever be sameness between us and another. So goes the work of Tarsem Singh. While still maintaining the same human element as the work of the Brothers Quay, there’s something precise and exacting about his work that elevates it to something that, while often times “mainstream”, we as a visually immature audience are incapable of digesting fully.

All respect to the Quay Brothers for their innovation, foresight, and unparalleled understanding of form and function. This twisted sister pair helped give Tarsem a light with which to see the beautiful monstrosities of the human mind.

I have a keen interest in all things that shed light and colour in this dark and, at times, uninspiring world. I love film, all film --ranging from Japanese and Korean horror, to nonsensical action films. The one qualification is that it must, must entertain me. As much as I love watching film, I love even more to write about it. Right now, I get my jabberjaw jollies writing for Theatrical costumes. If you want to give me a buzz, I can be reached at cmlewhite at gmail [dot] com.

Through a Glass Darkly: Exploration through Animation’s Lens

(Cinemascope thanks guest contributor Ms. Camiele White for her latest contribution. This insightful article is on Studio Ghibli, renowned for making one acclaimed animation film after another. More details on Ms. White may be found below the post)

For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. Holy Bible; 1 Corinthians 13: 12

It’s a known cinematic fact that those things that would be considered boundaries in life are all but limitless in animation. Starting as early as the 30’s, animation has had the distinct honour of transcending the scope of filmmaking and giving light to truly astonishing feats of cinematic genius.

As regards animation, it’s my contention that some of the best storytelling comes from Japan and France; however, in American film culture, there are a few animators who’ve taken thematic content about sex, drugs, religion, and the ubiquitous Big Brother, and forced the have viewers into a sort of transcendental meditation.

It’s no surprise that one of the most powerful films to come out of America was based on a science fiction graphic novel by the ever introspective Phillip K. Dick. 2006’s A Scanner Darkly took the notion that we are nothing more than slaves to our own paranoia (therefore thrusting ourselves into a police state whenever the acid trip of life becomes too close to the skin) and painted a landscape that was equal parts psychedelic and uncompromisingly cerebral. The street drug “Substance D” (“D for death”) distorts the reality of the mind, blanketing it in a multi-faceted array of colours and shapes that spring forth right in front of our eyes. With the magic marker of Richard Linklater, the audience is crashed into, and forcibly invaded through every sensory organ until we’re unable to tell whether our reality is really there or if we’ve been completely trapped in a cyclic daydream.

Linklater tapped into something very primal in our human parade: the fear of a complete abdication of autonomy over one’s self and his actions, and then, in turn, being punished for this inherent lack of control. The animation is boundless – no lines to speak of, no singular colour palette, and no real sense of depth perception. This brand of animation, most commonly known as “cell shading”, comes in many different forms, the ultimate result being detailed facial features. When used to a certain extent it allows for cartoon characters to be more expressive; however, when coupled with a live-action base, it renders the images hyper-active – facial feature atop facial feature until the line between what the mind perceives as normal responses to stimuli becomes frighteningly distorted.

Of course, with the advent of CGI, illustrators and animators have become the new puppet masters. For my part, I think a great deal of CGI is overblown, pretentious, and soulless. However, there are those big-budget studios that’ve become more than just catalysts for box office success. Pixar, for instance, has created some of the most successful animated films of all time. But, if you actually dig deeper, you find that their brand of animation only further heightens the abstract notions of love, loyalty, betrayal, and heartbreak. They’re a studio that, no matter how much you want to hate them, you simply must be in awe of their artistic approach to capitalising on the children’s animation genre. Films like Ratatouille were able to take a very real problem – prejudices based on upbringing, culture, and ethnicity – and make it very children friendly, using a rat as the universal symbol for the proverbial “judging a book by its cover”.

In France, there’s been a very long history of augmenting the naturally outrageous through animation. Films like Les Triplettes de Belleville and Renaissance take a very interesting look into “mob-related” activities and give them depth and perspective. Triplettes was an acute look at the disparities between French and American culture (while the former is obsessed with the Tour de France, the latter is obsessed with Vaudeville and hamburgers), sensationalising the physical attributions of its characters with a very traditional ink and paper technique that saw a great deal of maturation in the form of Sylvain Chomet. Renaissance took the cell-shading technique and painted it on top of the physical expressions of its actors. Director Christian Volckman (along with writers Alexandre de La Patellière and Mathieu Delaporte) created the perfect landscape to portray an abundance of human trafficking (in order to, essentially, harvest youth and beauty) in Paris in the year 2054. A classic black and white noir with a twist, Renaissance took much the same approach as many Japanese animators and let the story dictate the animation rather than the animation being the leading force of the story.

Animation has that multi-dimensional aspect that makes it so intriguing to children and adults alike. You’re transported between time and space and given a massive playground in which to express yourself. In the instance of 2004’s Ryan, you’ve got James Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist with a bit of Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Grey in the form of Canadian animator Ryan Larkin --who saw fame come and go with his eccentric style of storytelling, a style that garnered him an Oscar for best animated short film with his 1969 film Walking. The story is both compelling and visually spellbinding, allowing the viewer to literally look past the shell of a man that Larkin has become and see the genius for the sinner. The intricacy with which the film’s director, Chris Landreth, tells Larkin’s story is notable. He manages to take the abstract ideas of hopelessness, genius lost, and emotional damage very visceral to the point where the audience is able to reach out and touch Larkin’s hollowed visage.

Animation has been and will remain one of the most honest renderings of the human experience ever put on celluloid. Going back to Fantastic Planet – in which we explore the segregation of races based on caste system and supposed mental superiority – to Heavy Metal – in which we’re taken on a journey of sexual and pharmaceutical exploration-- to A Scanner Darkly, the audience is able to see more and more of itself through the animated glass.

The line of scripture preceding Paul’s declaration of seeing through a mirror blindly, is the infamous “When I was a child, I spake as a child.” Animation is this glass through which the audience sees themselves darkly. As we grow, we’re able to capture a glimpse of who we were and what we’ve become. It’s a way in which we are forced to become aware of ourselves and our imperfections and embrace them. Animation takes the boundary off of such fallacies and forces us to ponder those darker things within us that have shaped our understanding of the world in which we live.

I have a keen interest in all things that shed light and colour in this dark and, at times, uninspiring world. I love film, all film --ranging from Japanese and Korean horror, to nonsensical action films. The one qualification is that it must, must entertain me. As much as I love watching film, I love even more to write about it. Right now, I get my jabberjaw jollies writing for Star costumes. If you want to give me a buzz, I can be reached at cmlewhite at gmail [dot] com.

Animation Miracles: The Works of Studio Ghibli

(Cinemascope thanks guest contributor Ms. Camiele White for her latest contribution. This insightful article is on Studio Ghibli, renowned for making one acclaimed animation film after another. More details on Ms. White may be found below the post)



In an industry where everything is predetermined for success depending on the amount viewers are willing to pay for a movie, it’s a rarity to find a studio that wishes to bend the preconceived ideology of what makes a good film in order to produce something that’s not only engaging, but also waxes philosophical. There are few directors, let alone entire studios, that spend their existences crafting work that’s both challenging and entertaining. However, those select few who’ve pushed beyond the barrier of typical filmmaking to produce something that forces viewers to bend their minds around something that perhaps they would’ve never even considered have taken film back to its most native form of being art that simply transports the viewer from one world to another.

Imagine if you will, sitting in a darkened room surrounded by a rabble of chattering pre-teens, yawning college students, and overextended parents. In the middle row of a crowded and padded black box, you’re expecting to be in for an average cinema-going experience. Sure, it’s a hell of a lot of sacrifice to get away from the drudgery of everyday life (not to mention expensive). But you’re willing to spend your hard earned cash and your right to be left alone in order to unwind. Suddenly, the speakers burst, the screen twists in on itself. You’re no longer sitting in the middle of a crowd of rowdy cinema-goers. You’re flying at the speed of forever towards the sky! You’re falling in love with a warlock prince with the powers to control an entire castle with his heart! You’re being chased by an evil witch who’s after your freedom!

Welcome to the shape-shifting world of Studio Ghibli.

Founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki, Studio Ghibli was the culmination of ideas about film that amounted to the creation of some of the most awe-inspiring works of art to ever emerge from the well of Japanese animation. Though anime wasn’t a new concept in the film industry in Japan and few European countries, it hadn’t quite reached a mass audience in much of the western world. What Studio Ghibli managed to do was take the foundations of film making and mould it to fit the endless potential that animation provides producers and directors.

The company’s first successful film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, ushered in a new way of storytelling that most studios hadn’t quite figured out. Indeed, the film answered the question how does one create an animated film that’s character and plot driven as opposed to driven by action and, in most cases, over the top comedy suitable for a child’s sense of reality? In truth, much of the miracle of anime lay in the fact that most films are more focused on the adaptation of historic and real-life drama unfolding before the eyes of an observing audience --including children.

So much of Japan’s turbulent past infiltrates each film --of course, borrowing from the post-apocalyptic state of the country following World War II-- that it’s impossible to liken them to anything that the States can drub up. Even the most cerebral animation birthed from North American minds is a re-imagining of films that come from Japanese, French, or even Brasilian stories.

Most of Studio Ghibli’s creations take place in an era of extreme conflict. In Howl’s Moving Castle, the audience is thrust in the middle of an endless war between the monarchy and its people. With the army being overextended, the king’s right hand man (a woman named Solomon) has enlisted the help of sorcerers and wizards who have sworn allegiance to the crown. However, a wizard’s powers are intended for the sole purpose of enriching the lives of others, not satisfying the bloodlust of a ubiquitous government. It’s this struggle between the forces of evil and the inherent goodness in those who are sworn to help the monarchy establish some sort of unity between the people and its reigning power that creates the overarching conflict. There’s no greater test of the human (and supernatural) will to survive than living in a time of civil unrest. With this in mind, the producers of Howl’s Moving Castle set out to create a timeless love story.

There’s no doubt that Studio Ghibli makes films that are meant to give a sense of warped reality. Indeed, films like Princess Mononke, Spirited Away, and Kiki’s Delivery Service bend and fold around the boundaries that even animation tends to adhere to. There’s a real feeling of the spectacular in even the most mundane activities. Princess Mononke centres on the life of the last prince of an empire, Ashitaka, who loves his home. Spirited Away follows the adventures and trials of Chihiro Ogino, a girl who constantly does chores at the behest of a vindictive elderly woman. Kiki is a young woman who runs --what else-- a delivery service. However, these three characters have two distinct characteristics in common: 1) they’re all younger children, and 2) they’re all struggling with supernatural powers, a struggle that culminates in an event of sensational proportions.

Along with the historical and traumatic subtext entrenched in each film, this magical element of spiritual awareness makes way for fantastical miracles that only a filmmaker would be able to dream up.

Studio Ghibli allows the viewers to dream in real time, to carry a miracle with them in their hands as they walk away from their seats, the rabble of teenagers, busy parents, and humdrum existences. It gives the mundane eccentricity, allowing even the most frivolous of fantasies to come to fruition if for only a few hours. It has expanded the frame of thought for film and given audiences the chance to experience a hidden corner of their minds never before explored. It’s this need to give birth to absolute fantasy that spawned Studio Ghibli. With an overwhelming desire to entertain and enlighten, Miyazaki, Takahata, and Suzuki have created a landscape that gives the mind flight and the eyes the ability to think as clearly as the images in front of them.

There is pure beauty in everything.

I have a keen interest in all things that shed light and colour in this dark and, at times, uninspiring world. I love film, all film --ranging from Japanese and Korean horror, to nonsensical action films. The one qualification is that it must, must entertain me. As much as I love watching film, I love even more to write about it. Right now, I get my jabberjaw jollies writing for Star Costumes. If you want to give me a buzz, I can be reached at cmlewhite at gmail [dot] com

The Tragic Brilliance of Sylvain Chomet

(Cinemascope thanks guest contributor Ms. Camiele White for her latest contribution. This wonderful article is on iconoclastic French filmmaker & artist Sylvain Chomet and his irreverent body of work. More details on Ms. White may be found below the post)

Once upon a time in the mind of a poet, there was a small, dimly lit cottage. In this cottage lived a brain, two narrow eyes, a grinning mouth, and two crooked hands. The brain, the two narrow eyes, the grinning mouth, and the two crooked hands were sitting around the table for tea. While the tea was being prepared, there came a knock at the door. The crooked hands opened the door. At the opening stood a figure draped in a silk, black cloak and wearing silk, black gloves. Without saying a word, the cloaked figure walked into the room and made itself comfortable at the small wooden table. The brain began to shudder; the two narrow eyes became even narrower; the grinning mouth grimaced. The crooked hands, however, rested on the table, fingers interlaced, and waited. The cloaked figure pushed forward a small gilded chest, encrusted with ruby rose petals. On the top of the chest was inscribed the words: Offer me your most prized possession and I shall give you a special treasure.

Sylvain Chomet has created some of the most tragic, elegant, twisted stories in film history. Though his career has tumultuous, it would be irresponsible for any animator worth his salt to deny the sheer potency of the man’s genius. The above story seems to me a fable of talents. Is it the mind, the eyes, the mouth, or the hands that makes a man truly a master of his craft?

As far as artists go, Sylvain Chomet wasn’t any different than most students who want to make their mark on the world. He started in ordinary fashion – raised in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, near Paris, he attended a high school for the arts and published his first comic in 1986, four years after his graduation from high school. As many up-and-coming artists with an eye for the extraordinary (despite their surroundings), he moved to London to fulfil his destiny as an animator at the Richard Purdum studio.

The brain gave up its home in order to receive inspiration. In 1996, Chomet completed work on his first short film, La Vieille Dame et les pigeons. This is the tragic tale of a starving beat cop in Paris. He spends the day trudging through parks until he comes across a parade of corpulent pigeons. He finds out that these obese birds are being fed the most delectable delights that a French patisserie has to offer. While he goes home to a half nibbled sardine, these dirty birds are happier than pigs in shit, eating foods he can only imagine. He concocts a plan to infiltrate the woman’s home and eat like a king. He fashions himself an oversized pigeon costume, head complete with a trapdoor mouth, and follows the woman to her flat – full of doilies, heirlooms, and albums full of pictures of...pigeons? Never mind, he’s only interested in her refrigerator. And what a feast he encounters: sweets, meats, and all the luscious treats his heart desires. Soon he begins to show signs of his overindulgence. On Christmas Eve, our robust copper finds himself in a drunken stupor at la vieille dame’s flat. He sputters and wobbles about until he stumbles upon a room leading out from her kitchen. He finds her sharpening oversized gardening clippers and also discovers he isn’t the first to try this stunt of dressing up as an animal --as a fat man dressed in a cat costume also partakes in the butter and chocolate la vieille dame offers. Once discovered, the old woman is after the officer with her sharpened hedge clippers and traps him atop a cabinet next to her top floor window. In an attempt to escape, he wobbles, topples, and plummets five stories to the concrete below. Fade to black...

The two narrow eyes gave up friendship in order to receive vision. In 2003, Chomet released his first full length feature, Les Triplettes de Belleville. As a true masterpiece of subtle grotesqueness, the film is a marvel. We’re transported to the fictional American city of Belleville – a pisstake on New York City. We’re first introduced to the svelte Triplets singing in front of a packed house of oversized Americans. The story then fast forwards to the future where a grandmother and her grandson are watching this old black and white clip. Grandma notices her grandson is unhappy and soon discovers his love of cycling --perhaps a lingering memory from parents he never really knew. She buys him a used tricycle, thus beginning his obsession with Le Tour de France. When the grandson is all grown up and competing in the race, he becomes the victim of a betting scam in which bikers are kidnapped and forced to race non-stop on a makeshift bike track in front of mobsters betting on who will win the endless marathon. The film takes us through Grandma’s search for her grandson where she, and her corpulent puppy, Bruno, meet the illustrious Triplets one night in an alley. They devise a plan to rescue her grandson, infiltrating the mob headquarters and taking her grandson back. Along the way, the audience experiences twisted animation, surprising sound effects, and Chomet’s warped sense of humour. However, his notoriety came at a cost. Upon release of this cinematic masterpiece, his long time collaborator, Nicolas de Crécy accused Chomet of plagiarising his graphic novel Le Bibendum Celeste. At this turn of events, Chomet’s credibility was tarnished.

The grinning mouth gave up laughter in order to produce silence. It’s around the controversy surrounding Les Triplettes de Belleville that Chomet’s relationship with the film industry became complicated (to put it mildly). Three films that were intended to be released three years ago had been either stalled or scrapped entirely. In 2005, he was set to release a film tentatively titled Barbacoa. Production was halted because of lack of funding. Chomet had the desire to produce animating talent from his school of artistic philosophy, as he found most animators from the British ideology underwhelming. The Django Films studio was set up in Edinburgh, Scotland with the intention of employing 250 artists and producing incredible animation. Beset with early funding problems (the problems cited as holding back production of the first animated film to come from the studio, Barbacoa), and lacking the funding necessary to create what was to be dubbed “the Scottish Simpsons”, the studio was shut down. To top of a very turbulent seven years following his greatest cinematic success, Les Triplettes, his image was further smeared in 2008 by very public attacks on his character when he was fired as director of The Tale of Despereaux by the film’s producer, Gary Ross. Chomet was later cited as saying he “hated the creative environment”.

The two crooked hands gave up the company of the cloaked figure for the traits the others already possessed. In 2010, Chomet released L’Illusioniste, a film based on a script by Jacques Tati. The film is a love note from a father to his estranged daughter and is more traditionally animated than Chomet’s previous endeavours. Though its release was stalled for three years, the film is still heralded as a masterpiece, on par with some of the cinematic brilliance of his previous work. This was the Sylvain Chomet that everyone had come to adore and fear --a mind as brilliant as it was twisted and disturbed.

Our fable ends with the cloaked figure leaving the small cottage, all the gifts handed out. The brain, who could never return to his home, found his thoughts cluttered. The narrow eyes, lonely and depressed, saw muddled visions dance before them. The grinning mouth never laughed again, only being able to stay silent. The two crooked hands, patient and crafting, discovered that everyone else had given up their happiness in order to be given gifts they’d already possessed. The hands took these, his new gifts of wit, sight, and laughter, and created what amounted to the most marvellous masterpieces birthed from a poet and a con artist: two professions that tend to go hand in gnarled hand.

The moral: be wise enough to know your own inspiration; be shrewd enough to see your own vision; laugh as though the world is full of silence; and let your hands be patient enough to create.

There is pure beauty and raw sex in everything.

I have a keen interest in all things that shed light and colour in this dark and, at times, uninspiring world. I love film, all film --ranging from Japanese and Korean horror, to nonsensical action films. The one qualification is that it must, must entertain me. As much as I love watching film, I love even more to write about it. Right now, I get my jabberjaw jollies writing about Halloween costumes. If you want to give me a buzz, I can be reached at cmlewhite at gmail [dot] com.