January 2007 – Film Journey

Contemplative cinema and Honor of the Knights

January 8, 2007 Doug Cummings Commentary, Film festival, Film review

“Contemplative cinema” is obviously a vague term. It could mean the kind of thought-provoking movies that essayists mine through lengthy analyses, or it could mean the exact opposite: films that resist conceptualization and push beyond words and thoughts toward silence and meditation. This second category of contemplative films is the hardest to describe. That’s not to say ideas can’t emerge, or that these films defy formal descriptions, only that engaging them is less about amassing their information and articulating their meanings than sharing their sights, sounds, and rhythms in deeply experiential ways.

I’m in my second or third day of …

Animation Unlimited

January 4, 2007 Doug Cummings Texts

Before heading off to the Palm Springs film festival, I thought I’d post a collection of links I’ve amassed inspired by a book I recently received: Animation Unlimited: Innovative Short Films Since 1940. It’s a large, glossy paperback published in the UK in 2003 that features short write-ups on 50 animators, over 500 color stills, and–best of all–a two-hour, region 2 DVD sampler containing 29 of the works (in part or in whole) that the authors cite.

I’m still exploring it, and so far I’ve been favoring non-digital work over digital entries (co-writer Liz Farber is a managing partner …