Three beautiful films

Here are some screenshots from three films with a colour palette that I find very appealing: muted and earthy, almost monochromatic, with rich, warm accents. Their compelling effect is produced through a combination of the skills and aesthetic sensibility of the director, cinematographer, production designer, art director and costume designer. This is of course an entirely subjective experience, but there is something about the colours and textures in the following pictures that deeply moves me. They project humility and honesty, and a raw imperfection that one can sympathise with while being inspired by its quiet, unassuming beauty.

Hopefully you get the same vibes as I do (click on the pictures to enlarge them).

From John Hillcoat’s Lawless, with cinematography by Benoît Delhomme, production design by Chris Kennedy, art direction by Gershon Ginsburg and costume design by Margot Wilson.

From Emanuele Crialese’s Golden Door, with cinematography by Agnès Godard, production design by Carlos Conti, art direction by Laurent Ott, Filippo Pecoraino and Monica Sallustio, and costume design by Mariano Tufano.

From Yôji Yamada’s The Twilight Samurai, with cinematography by Mutsuo Naganuma, production design by Mitsuo Degawa, art direction by Yoshinobu Nishioka and costume design by Kazuko Kurosawa.

These two photographs by the American photographer Jack Delano (1914 – 1997) have a similar feel.

30.10.12

The photography of René Maltête

I recently came across a collection of photos in the pages of Milk magazine that captivated me with its humour, wit and serendipity. The photographer was a Frenchman named René Maltête (1930 – 2000). Though less well-known than his French-American peer Elliott Erwitt, Maltête had the same eye (and timing) for spontaneous, funny moments that were only immortalised on film thanks to the pairing of good fortune with the adroit touch of the photographer. It’s a kind of photography that really impresses me – and inspires my own approach – because of its emphasis on the subject matter, rather than technical polish or elaborate contrivance. Photographs taken by Maltête or Erwitt are never trite.

Some of Maltête’s best work (click to enlarge):

"You are the majority"

Genetics 101

"The seven deadly sins"

More of Maltête’s delightful photos can be viewed here.

23.10.12

Angelo Flaccavento featured on The Sartorialist

Awhile ago I posted my thoughts on a fashion article by Angelo Flaccavento, who wrote about wearing a ‘uniform’ i.e. having a deliberately limited choice of clothing that becomes one’s signature style. I didn’t realise when I read his article that I had actually seen photos of Flaccavento before on The Sartorialist blog. True to his credo, he has a distinctive manner of dressing that doesn’t vary to any significant degree, a consistent look that can be summed up as ‘beard + glasses + bow tie + well-fitted suit’. But at the time I didn’t know that the stylish man in the photos was also the articulate man who wrote the ‘uniform dressing’ manifesto that spoke to my own sartorial sensibilities.

Scott Schuman, who runs The Sartorialist and took those photos of Flaccavento, has a recent post where he interviews the dapper, intelligent gent. I especially like Flaccavento’s answer when asked what his “most memorable gift” was.

Good to know the face behind the words.




Photo by Elena Braghieri




20.1.12

On wearing a uniform (that isn’t a uniform)

Fashion is primarily a visual affair. While I can only speak for myself, I find a lot of fashion writing to be akin to postmodernist twaddle: pretentious in its depiction of the superficial as profound and in its forced, obscure intellectualism, stale with its mix-n-match pastiche of trite phrases, clichés and silly neologisms (seriously, ‘murse’?). I would much rather look at pictures of interesting clothes that haven’t been mediated through fashionspeak. This is why I prefer fashion blogs like The Sartorialist that focus on the imagery of clothing and the people wearing it, unlike other more chatty blogs that run often inane commentary alongside the pictures.

But on rare occasions, I come across fashion writing that doesn’t try to pass itself off as deconstructionist prose. Where the writing is honest, intelligible and even humble, if that word could be applied to something as narcissistic as fashion. The autumn/winter 2011 issue of menswear magazine Dapper Dan has such writing, in an article by Angelo Flaccavento (‘Long Live the Immaterial’). Flaccavento is a proponent of ‘uniform dressing’, though he doesn’t mean it in the institutional sense (military, corporate, sports etc). I’ll let the man himself explain.

[W]hat people do with their own wardrobes and lives is none of my business. Prescriptions are proscriptive and I am no teacher. Still, I’d like to humbly suggest another way: uniform dressing. I am not talking about military gear, brass buttons and epaulettes, though I am wildly fascinated by them. I am referring to a formulaic approach to dressing up: choosing what’s best for you and sticking with it. Abandoning the perils of the fashionable for the cozy retreat of the familiar and tasteful. Playing it safe, some might say. But it takes time, care and attention to create a uniform that is not a uniform. Along the way, you will discover the liberating joy of having no options. All of this can be done without forsaking the deep pleasures of dress-up.

Flaccavento is my kind of sartorial ideologue. His ‘uniform that is not a uniform’ describes my dress sense. I almost always wear the following: a classic hat, whether a felt fedora, wool fisherman’s cap or straw sunhat; leather lace-up boots or plain canvas slip-ons; a tailored two-button jacket; ankle-length pants with little to no break; button-up shirts, plain or vertically striped (and always tucked in). It has taken me about 4 years of experimentation to finally settle on this selection of garments that constitute my Flaccaventonian uniform.

Here are some of the key influences on my style (click on the images to enlarge them):

Lewis Hine’s early 20th century photos of European migrants, working class men and child labourers.

Winslow Homer’s 19th century paintings of rural Americans.

The period costumes in films like Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard and Claude Berri’s Jean de Florette.

The picture below is from Manon des Sources, the sequel to Jean de Florette. The woman’s clothes display the colours and textures that I’m fond of.

This is Flaccavento’s dressing manifesto. I would happily sign up to it.

1. Be light. Don’t turn your opinion of fashion into a declaration of war. Maintaining a uniform is your choice, not a dogma.

2. Know that you are in good company. Coco Chanel, Diana Vreeland, Gio Ponti and Beau Brummell all excelled in the practice. But don’t use it as an excuse to look down on others. Refrain from judging.

3. Look at yourself in the mirror, thoroughly and severely. Consider your pros and cons, and decide what to highlight. It can be everything. Sometimes cons are more charming than pros; a prominent belly can be more sensational than a six-pack. Trust your instincts, and the uniform will begin to feel natural.

4. Trust in Dieter Rams: “Less, but better.” Edit down to the bare essentials, plus, perhaps, a tiny bit more. You should be able to get ready in a flash with a thoughtful, quick edit. Likewise, never plan an outfit in advance; the result will be rigid. A little mistake here and there feels lively.

5. Be modular: you will augment your sartorial possibilities in a logical, efficient way. If you can mix and match, your wardrobe will expand virtually without taking up vital space.

6. Choose your uniform according to the idea of yourself you have in mind. Let the immaterial shape your material expression of your persona, without restrictions or boundaries. Stripes and mismatched patterns can be to you what solid black or clerk-like grey is to others. That’s how the game works.

7. Ignore what people say. Wear a suit to the grocery store, if you wish. Clothes should be an expression of your inner self, but they should also display courtesy. Dressing appropriately is a gesture of kindness, for oneself and for others.

8. Look at what’s happening in fashion. Be critical, but look. Then adopt and adapt, or you’ll turn into a grumpy old statue covered in dust.

9. Evolve, avoiding dogmatism and orthodoxy. You’re not the same person from day to day. Your uniform should change accordingly.

10. Defy expectations. Don’t let the uniform take over, and don’t allow yourself to be identified by your uniform. Break it up once in a while. Be a prankster. Remember: situationism rules.

11. Hey, they’re just clothes: you’ll get tired of them sooner than you think.

6.12.11

Even chicks look good in classic menswear

Not trying to get all essentialist here, but as per my recent post on the return of classic menswear, you know a style has got something fundamentally appealing about it when it looks classy on either gender.

21.6.11




Photo by Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist

Classic styles are back

I go to church on Sundays.

Metaphorically speaking, of course. My house of worship is a three-storey 19th century building with mod-con refurbishments that contains, among an assortment of businesses, a magazine shop that also makes coffee. My Sabbath ritual involves easing myself into a sinfully comfortable leather armchair on the shop’s second floor, then quaffing a mocha while I peruse the stock, usually art, history, culture and fashion magazines (I avoid reading ‘hard’ stuff like current affairs, politics and science on Sundays, ‘day of rest’ and all that).

Today I read fashion mags. One noticeable trend in menswear (whether on magazine pages or Melbourne streets) is the return of early to mid 20th century styles, in clothing, shoes and accessories like hats or braces. I’m partial to the menswear of that era, so it’s satisfying to see a large-scale resurrection of fitted jackets and vests, smart cardigans and pullovers, tailored pants, dress shoes and boots, hats that aren’t baseball caps, ties both narrow and wide on shirts with all kinds of collars, and satchels or briefcases instead of backpacks.

I’m not going to analyse the causes of the current menswear Renaissance. But this sartorial example from the 1950s may provide some clues to answering this question: why do classic styles have such staying power?

The photo was posted by the owner of the Shorpy Historic Photo Archive website. This was a presumably candid (as in frank, though posed) shot of the photographer’s father in 1955. Yet the distinguished-looking gentleman and his apparel would not look out of place in the magazines I browsed this morning. In fact, they would be very much of the moment. The rich texture of the knitted vest, the clean lines of the shirt (whose elegant minimalism is emphasised by covered buttons!), the warm brown and gold of the tortoiseshell spectacles suitably contrasting with the cool blue and grey of the gentleman’s ensemble and neatly combed hair – all these parts form a complete aesthetic that pleases the eye in some inexplicably fundamental way.

There must be a reason why classic 20th century menswear styles are making a comeback, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. All I can offer is this weak assertion: these styles are back because they look good.




19.6.11

Reading the world

A photograph is not created by a photographer. What they do is just open a little window and capture it. The world then writes itself on the film. The act of the photographer is closer to reading than it is to writing. They are the readers of the world.

- Ferdinando Scianna

About a month ago I came across the work of Italian photographer Ferdinando Scianna. He’s a member of Magnum Photos, that venerable stable of photographers and photojournalists whose numbers include a few of my own aesthetic, if not technical, mentors.

Like a lot of his colleagues, Scianna covered various genres: portraiture, fashion, documentary, still life. Many of his photos were complemented by his writing. Scianna’s images can be witty like Elliott Erwitt’s, dignified like Henri Cartier-Bresson’s, poignant like Robert Doisneau’s, or brooding like Robert Frank’s. He’s not distinctive, but assuming he was influenced to some extent by the more idiosyncratic styles of the masters, I can sympathise.

Scianna’s comment about photography being “closer to reading than it is to writing” however is uniquely his, and it sings to me. Until I read those words, I – like most people presumably – saw photography as a process of authorship. It seemed obvious that photographers took pictures the way painters applied paint or how bakers baked bread. It was an act of creation. Or at least that was how it appeared.

Not to Scianna though. His is a more humble view of the art. To him, the photographer is merely an enabler; he facilitates the artificial expression of the beauty and wonder (and the ugliness and horror) that already exists out there, in the world. He does not make anything new.

There is a tender charm to this self-abnegation. Scianna’s gentle photographer does not seek artistic glory. He does not presume to be the author of reality. He is only a keen, and grateful, reader.

As someone who avoids excessive manipulation and artifice in my image-making, I feel closer to Scianna’s photographer-as-reader than to, say, the sort of creative types populating ad agencies and marketing departments. I could be happy just being a reader. In fact, my own peregrinations have yielded a few photographs that require literal reading.




6.4.11

“It’s got to do with intention”: The photography of Robert Frank and Elliott Erwitt

Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy - the tone range isn't right and things like that - but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention.

- Elliott Erwitt

Stumbling across Erwitt’s comments on his fellow photographer’s work was a moving moment for me. They reaffirmed my own thoughts on photography and its values, and reassured me that I wasn’t alone in having such thoughts. When it comes to technical knowledge I’m still an ignoramus who has trouble telling his f-stops from his film speeds. But Erwitt’s words give form to an attitude that I embrace. They hint at a manifesto that I would gladly be a signatory of.

Andre Kertesz

The photographer Andre Kertesz wrote the following in his diary in 1930:

I am an amateur and I intend to stay that way for the rest of my life. I reject all forms of professional cleverness or virtuosity... As soon as I have found the image that interests me, I leave it to the lens to record it faithfully.

Kertesz's sentiments are mine too. I'd like to think that had we been contemporaries, we might have been friends who spoke a common photographic language. Not for us the slick techniques that strip the photo of its authenticity, its 'is-ness', often with the principal motive of selling a product and its associated glamour. Or at least that's what happens when photography is hijacked by purely commercial interests.

Kertesz's photographic philosophy emphasises a visual honesty that makes it a closer relative of photojournalism than of fine art photography, though his work bears elements of both. If there's one lesson that I've imbibed from Kertesz's approach to capturing slivers of Life, of reality, it's that the photographer must dare to be true to his subjective experience of whatever it is that compelled him to pause, to look, and to shoot. He must, as it were, repel the invading considerations of public opinion, 'expert' authority, personal legacy and stylistic ambition. Though Kertesz was not immune to these considerations - for one thing he had a deep psychological need for validation of his work and was easily hurt if he felt he had been unjustly denied the recognition he thought he deserved - nonetheless his stubborn refusal to abandon his subjective vision inspires me to remain true to mine.




12.7.08

Artistic credibility in photography

I'm at the NGV viewing a photography exhibition (black and white, early 20th century) and it strikes me that there are two determinants of the photograph's 'respectability': the framing and the level of effort or technical skill involved in the photo's creation. I say this because in this age of easy-to-use/produce digital photography, a modern photo bearing similar 'artistic' qualities to that of the 20th century photos doesn't occupy the same exalted level of credibility or status simply because of the comparatively effortless process of producing the modern digital photo.

This 'demotion' in rank is compounded if the modern digital black-and-white photo isn't haloed within a frame, preferably of a sombre wood construction. Oh, and having plenty of white or off-white space between the photo and the frame (to let the photo 'breathe' you see) is a necessary element of credible art photography.

Frame any image and its rating on the 'credibility-o-meter' jumps up a few notches.




8.6.08