Rust and Bone by Jacques Audiard

I saw the movie Rust and Bone by french director Jacques Audiard at the Stockholm international film festival. A beautiful love story between a killer whale trainer who looses both her legs in an accident and a adrenaline inflated single father fighting illegal fights for his living. It's beautiful because in my view, both charachters personalities mainly remain unaltered  throughout the movie as they would in real life. The father has his loving sides but can at the same time burst out an hit his child. He seems uncapable of a faithful loving relation, not because he doesn't care, but because he doesn't know what it means. The woman is bitter for loosing her legs and 'looks', but still their lovestory evolves while she becomes the manager taking bets when he fights. Both are very well played by actors Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts. 

When I saw the movie the director was present and a 'Face to Face' interview was made. Among many interesting things he was talking about he described a process where he used two screenplays. The first one was the original one, but the second one was based on several improvisations he and the actors performed before the production started. While shooting the movie he first shot the scene based on the first screenplay and then if they had time, also shot the scene again based on the improvised screenplay. That way he usually has a lot of raw material in the cutting process, he can choose different versions of each scene and by choosing the improvised scenes he adds content that not necessarily attributes in bringing the storyline forward but creates a discrepancy and realism into the movie. 

I found this process interesting and started thinking if I could do something with a similar effect in my work with the Golem game and/or my ceramic art. I like contradictory mixtures of what is expected - unexpected, beautiful - ugly, order - chaos, control - improvisation, skilled - unskilled, normality - abnormality and Audiards second screenplay was an interesting method to achieve some of this in his work. The effect I would like is to add content in my work that might not be part of the original story but adds features that opens up for more complex and partly uncontrolled meanings that can be for the viewer to decide and interpret. This may not be unique, probably most artists strive for this, but it's interesting when reading about practical working methods such as Audiards to achieve this effect.

Below is a clip from the festival with the trailer of the movie and parts of  the 'face to face' interview with Audiard. Second half of the clip is about another great movie I watched during the festival; Sister by Swiss director Ursula Meier.

Lana Del Rey - Video games

Lana Del Rei Live on BBC Radio 1 singing the song Video games in a beautifully skewed kind of way. This makes me wonder if is she doing this with purpose, with a total control of the vocals or singing with a tremendous 'feel' or if she's not so good in singing but able to use her limits in a perfect way. No matter what, all of the above alternatives appeals to me, because I like all kinds of skewness making the end result far more interesting than if all the notes were perfectly hit. Or is it just me hearing this? I can't really say I'm musician enough to evaluate the qualities of singing. I can say though that I think the album version of this song don't possess half of the tension that this live version do, so why do music producers vacuumclean this kind of music from errors. The errors can be assets. That's why I like rock'n'roll.

A story with a double-edged moral

Two articles in NY Times, december 1988, by John Gross and Michael Brenson reviewing ''Golem! Danger, Deliverance and Art,'' an exhibition at the Jewish Museum, NY. 

"A story with a double-edged moral. On the one hand the golem is the longed-for champion of a defenseless people, triumphant testimony to the power of faith. On the other hand he is a reminder that creation is God's prerogative, not man's, and that trying to emulate God is a presumptuous and dangerous business."
John Gross article

"What makes this a provocative art show is that the golem can also be a symbol of art. Art, too, is a human creation that may seem to be born of magic. Once a work of art leaves its maker's hands and enters the world, it, too, may take on a life of its own and serve functions very different from those for which it was intended."
Michael Brensons article

These articles also refers to the Golem legend as an inspiration for Mary Shelleys Frankenstein.

Bayerische uniform on my male figure

I chose a combined version of two Bayerische uniforms. The clothing is from 1862 but the helmet is from 1890. Next step is to animate it.

A bayerische uniform for the standard male?

CHURFÜRSTLICH BAYERISCHE INFANTERIE & CAVALLERIE AO 1803

Brown University Library has a nice browsable collection of uniforms from different eras and locations in the world. Beautiful prints of Preussian, Bavarian and German 19th century costumes. I will use them to apply a custom uniform on my standard male figure. 

Standard male

Working on a standard male figure based on a Muybridge plate. With different clothing and haircolor, he will become a farmer, soldier, priest, innkeeper, hero or the evil regent. The animations are taking so much time so I will have to systemize the process and reuse the figures with small alterations. Maybe I will have to make a less fit and fatter version of him too.

The "Golem" Syndrome

Golem syndrome: “This is a man, who as a child has neither experienced nor been trained in the three ingredients of emotional life: Attention, Love and Affection. The word "Golem" in mediaevil Jewish legend, describes a sort of machine man, a robot. "

The Neurocritic: The "Golem" Syndrome

So, there actually is a specific Golem "Syndrome". The blogger 'The neurocritic' found a couple of odd definitions published in the 70s by the austrian psychiatrist Joshua Bierer and among them was the 'Golem syndrome'. Apparently it's a male thing. 

"Such men go from woman to woman and are often considered to be excellent lovers. These women do not realise that they receive not love but hate, not compassion but revenge, not commitment but a desire to escape, that it is not a mutual emotional experience of beauty but a one-sided desire to hurt, and even to kill."

This reminds me of Simon Baron Cohen, FBA, professor in developmental psychopatology, autism researcher and cousin of actor Sasha Baron Cohen and his empathizing–systemizing theory, where he proposes that autism is an extreme of of the male brain. Sounds controversial of course, but unlike Bierer, Baron Cohen is an acknowledged front figure in the research of Autism. I read his book and I will write a specific post about this in the near future.

These articles made me think of whether my Golemfigure is male, female or something in between. Until now he has certainly been a male figure, since in my narrative of the game, one of the goals is to conquer the princess. He is also created by his maker as a physical 'strong' helper and protector - attributes traditionally associated with the male gender. In my story, he probably can't be female since I'm working with the archetypes of a good fairytale, though he might be asexual to start with, developing a kind of sexuality as the game goes on. This way the player decides with his/her actions whether Golem will become the evil patriachal rapist, pure muscles, 'mjukismacho' (Swedish expression which means Softy-macho) or even a more or less female figure.