Sunday, May 6, 2007

following the ring
















milos forman: loves of a blonde, 1965


joseph cornell rose hobart, 1936

milos forman: loves of a blonde, 1965
sequence where married man looking to meet young girl, takes off his ring, puts it in his pocket, but then it falls out as he is talking with her and he follows it under a table.
i watched this sequence over and over this weekend, much of the appeal for me was the music forman used. it added such a dry humor and absurdity to the events, the scene became one of those perfect examples of movie magic.
the use of music reminded me of the 2 songs used by joseph cornell in his film rose hobart, 1936. here cornell played with absurdity and repetition, and strangely also dealt with a ring. i use to have a cassette of these two songs, and would listen to them over and over again for hours, and everything that took place before my eyes had such a bizarreness and artificiality, the film (and the world) took on new dimensions.
it also seems interesting to reduce moments in a film to frames, and how this abstraction gives new meaning when the frames are viewed like a list.
glenn gould said the playing of the music was unnecessary if you could read the score. it was just done for people that lacked the ability to read.