Wednesday 3 October 2007

Thank you, Jonathan



'Are you aware of the film makers known as the Brothers Quay?

They've made a lot of deeply spooky art films, and have said that Brno Schultz is an influence.

Bits of their work are available on youtube, such as this excerpt from Institute Benjamenta
(most of their films have been stop-motion, but this one is live-action.)

- Jonathan'

3 comments:

Mark said...

Here's where they make their films: http://tinyurl.com/29y6zt


koninck studio

Mark said...

Ah I remember now...the style reminded me of a Polish movie "Goto, Isle D'Amour" by Walerian Borowczyk which I admired when I was young.

These guys work in Southwark...the risk with this stuff is that it needs to transcend the Art School feel which infects a movie like Eraserhead. Maybe it does. I like their interview style.

One view:
"The Quays' formidable visual style stems from their masterful use of color, lighting, and texture as well as their cinematographic manipulations of camera movement and focus. The Quays' style is not that of disembodied sight, but rather consists of a visuality that is also haptic or tactile. Incorporating our bodily sense of touch into our experience of the mise-en-scene, the Quays represent a variety of textural images such as frayed cloth, rotten wood, dirt, metal shavings, cotton, meat, ice, dandelions, moldering ceramic or plastic, dirt-covered glass, hair, bone, and rusted metal—all filmed with an eye towards grain, muted color, expressive light and shadow.

We don't just see the objects depicted on the screen, but can almost feel them, smell them, and taste them. The Quays' aesthetics are one of synesthesia—we see the music and felt textures, and we hear and feel the visuals. The appeal to all of our senses—sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell—creates an aesthetic experience designed to sensually envelope and overwhelm.

The use of a macro lens allows the Quays to film small objects in close-up capturing all of their textural detail, but it also creates a shallow depth-of-field causing the middle and background spaces to be rendered severely out of focus. Unlike much stop-animation which uses a static camera, the Quays put their camera into motion dynamically exploring the spatial dimenstions of their created sets"

Anonymous said...

Love them.
Feel the special pleasure when every shot can be used as the self-acting photo.