Paris: The Luminous Years

#parisluminousyears

(To appreciate Midnight in Paris even more watch this film first.)

Narrator, referring to popular spirit in Paris after World War I: "One aspect, euphoria, the urge to celebrate being alive." (1:08)

Art Historian Serge Fauchereau: "Show your unconscious." Referring to Dada and automatic writing, he says, "By opening the door to the unconscious surrealism offered stimulating new possibilities to visual artists." (1:14)

euphoria | unconscious

Concetta Tomei, Serge Fauchereau 2010

Sarah's Key

#sarahskey

Spoiler alert!

"Roundup" organization researcher Franck Levy tells writer Julia, "This work is necessary and probably also cathartic." (0:35)

Survivor Sarah discover's the body of her younger brother Michel in the closet. (1:00)

Sarah's car swerves in front of an oncoming truck. (1:22)

Chef William tells his sick father Richard, referring to his mother Sarah, "You're saying she killed herself." (1:32)

Bereavement | catharsis | family secrets | suicide | survivor guilt

Kristin Scott Thomas, Niels Arestrup 2010

Read the book:





Sarah's Key

Rabbit Hole

#rabbithole

Watch and Twitter Chat
6:00 PM Pacific Time, Tuesday March 6

Every Tuesday around 6PM PT (so right coasters can join in and still get to bed on time) watch the designated movie and chat with Twitter. While watching I will Tweet notes you can follow along with tweetchat.com or twitterfall.com. If you Tweet your comments, too, I will put it all together for my blog post about the film.

I begin each comment that refers to a specific place in the film with the time displayed (with Roku streaming the time displays when you pause the film.) to the earlier minute. For example, 0:12.

You can watch instantly with your Roku, computer or other device via Netflix, order the DVD, or view on demand from Amazon.

Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Wiest 2010

Rabbit Hole

Waste Land

@wastelandmovie | Facebook | Official site

His assistant Fabio tells artist Muniz, "Well first of all the place is surrounded by favelas owned by the drug traffic." (0:07)

Muniz tells his wife Brooke, "They're all drug addicts." (0:10)

Muniz tells Fabio, "I don't see people depressed." (0:16)

Union president Tiao's young daughter tells him what she wants to be: "A psychologist."
Tiao: "Did you know that psychologists take care of crazy people?"
"No? So what do psychologists do?"
Daughter: "And she told me that if I wanted I could be a psychologist." (0:33)

Garbage picker Suelem tells Muniz, "Their father is a drug dealer." (0:47)

Suelem: "I'm proud of my work because at least I'm not involved with the drug traffic." (0:51)

Muniz: "They died from drug traffic..." (1:04)

Picker Isis: "The sad story is that I lost my son when he was three years old. I saw my son died when he was three years old... I saw him dying. Breathing his last breaths and everything... They called me to identify my son's body... The only thing I didn't do was do drugs, thank God. But I started going out and drinking and getting wasted. I started drinking moonshine all the time." (1:07)

Fabio: "And I think it has a lot to do with denial." (1:10)

Muniz: "I had to buy a lot of crap to get rid of that complex." (1:27)

Bereavement | complex | denial | psychologist

Vik Muniz 2010


Waste Land

Bob Le Flambeur

#bobleflambeur

Gambler Bob shooting craps. (0:02, 0:15)

Playing cards. (0:07, 0:20, 0:27)

Gambler Paolo shooting craps. (0:08)

Slot machine. (0:24)

Betting on horseracing. (0:29)

Baccarat. (0:32, 1:29)

Bob says, "I'm broke." After playing cards. (0:34)

Narrator: "Now Bob will play his last hand..." (1:21)

Bob plays roulette. (1:27)

Bob plays blackjack. (1:30)

pathological gambling

Gerard Buhr, Daniel Cauchy, Claude Cerval 1956

Paris

#parismovie

History professor Roland and his brother architect Philippe grieve the loss of their father at a cemetery (Pere Lachaise?). (0:07)

Roland records for a television documentary, referring to Baudelaire, "It was here that the hashish club met... beget this obsessive detail." (0:47)

Pierre tells his cardiologist, "I just had one beer. I had such a craving."
The cardiologist: "With your daily cocktail of beta blockers..."
"The whole team met yesterday... Endocrinologists, shrinks..." (0:48)

Roland meets a psychoanalyst for the first time: "Well, you, this... The couch, psychoanalysis."
"That whole Oedipus complex thing."
"'He's acting out his defense mechanisms,' as you say."
"It's an anxiety I can't wrap my mind around."
Psychoanalyst: "You've just realized the unconscious exists. They say that deciding to see a shrink is already half the battle."
Rowland: "my father died a month ago."

Roland tells Philippe, "I went to see a psychoanalyst."
Felipe: "Why a shrink?"
Roland: "Nervous depression I think."
Philippe: "You're not depressed." (1:00)

Referring to Roland Philippe tells his wife, "He's seeing a shrink."
"He's depressed." (1:01)

Roland tells student Laetitia, "I'm incredibly anxious." (1:07)

Her friends grieve after learning that Caroline has died. (1:27)

Caroline's ex, Jean spreads her ashes from the top of Tour Montparnasse. (1:31)

Bereavement | craving | defense mechanism | hashish | Oedipus complex | psychoanalysis | psychoanalyst |
unconscious

Juliette Binoche, Romain Duris, Fabrice Luchini 2008

Boccaccio '70

#boccaccio70

Mr. Mazzuolo hallucinates a gigantic Anita Ekberg: "It must just be a little nervous breakdown." (1:17)

hallucination | macropsia | nervous breakdown

Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren, Romy Schneider 1962