Lumière and Company

This DVD is a collection of the interesting, although scattered, results of an inspired project. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Lumiere Brothers' first motion picture, 40 directors from around the world are each allowed to shoot a short film using their original hand-cranked model. The participants have to follow three rules: 1. The film is 52 seconds. 2. No synchronous sound (most use musical scoring or dub in foley sound, and many are silent) and 3. They have to get it within three takes. Unfortunately for the viewer, several of the filmmakers opt to merely capture trite snapshots of everyday life. While this keeps in tradition with the Lumiere Brothers' original films, which wowed audiences unfamiliar with moving images a century ago, it makes for a pretty unremarkable experience today. Patrice Leconte pays tribute to their film of a train arriving in La Ciotat, France in 1895 by documenting the arrival of a modern day streamliner at the same location. Alain Corneau applies the technique of color tints to footage of a dancer twirling about. Some of them set up elaborate sequences (Gabriel Axel, Jerry Schatzberg, Peter Greenaway), some are intentionally minimal (Wim Wenders, Regis Wargnier, Andrei Konchalovsky) or simple and symbolic (Arthur Penn, Abbas Kiarostami, Francis Girod, Cedric Klapisch) and a large number turn the camera on itself (Liv Ullmann, John Boorman, Claude Lelouch, Gaston Kabore, Youseel Chahine, Helma Sanders). David Lynch is one of the few directors who rises to the challenge with an exceptionally creative effort, and his is easily the most impressive of the bunch. I'm sure it was an honor for them to be approached for the project, but the entries of Spike Lee, Nadine Trintignant, Lasse Hallstrom, and Merchant Ivory are quite unimaginative and forgettable. The menu screen lists the directors alphabetically, allowing you to jump directly to your favorite ones. Each short is designated by a chapter stop, accompanied by brief behind-the-scenes moments and interviews in which the directors awkwardly answer questions such as "Why do you film?" and "Is cinema mortal?" These unsuccessful attempts at insight are best summed up by Michael Haneke's reply: "Never ask a centipede why it walks or it'll stumble." As a tribute to film history, it's a novel and occasionally successful idea, but much of the work is too inconsistent to earn repeat viewings.

This film was made to celebrate one-hundred years of the first camera used by the Lumiere Brothers. Forty directors from around the world were asked to make a short film with the original camera. The rules being it lasts no longer than fifty-two seconds, only three takes allowed, and no synchronous sound. The directors are predominately French, with a few notable exceptions like David Lynch, Peter Greenaway and John Boorman. Lynch's segment is far and away the most creative and satisfactory effort. Most of the others are mainly static and ordinary. But it's a fascinating documentary with insights and comments from the all the directors, and worth seeing for Lynch's film alone. That was the prime reason I watched it.

The idea to gather 40 recognized film directors to shoot a mini film of less than a minute, or what would have been the format the Lumiere brothers used in their revolutionary camera, seems a great idea in paper. Unfortunately, what comes out is an uneven film where some of the short films hold our interest and some others that don't go anywhere.

What must have been an interesting idea doesn't translate to brilliant film making in the finished product. This documentary is for fans of the medium, but will not be of any interest to a casual viewer. Some of the most enjoyable ones are the ones by David Lynch, Helma Sanders, Claude Lelouch, Jaco Van Dormael, and Bigas Luna, just to mention a few. The rest, hold some interest, but don't quite add anything new to the idea behind the project.

The film would be inherently fascinating even if it were no good, but there's actually a lot here of genuine interest. The repeated questions about why the directors make cinema and whether it's "mortal" receive predictably lame responses, but the glimpses of them at work, punctuated with their 50 second films, is mesmerizing. Many of them turn the project into a commentary on cinema in some form - Boorman films Neil Jordan at work, with the actors looking quizzically into the camera (a common device here, also used by Angelopoulos and Costa-Gavras); Lelouch has a sort of reverse version of the Vertigo kiss, designed with great panache. in which a historic parade of cameras observes the spiraling lovers; some, like Rivette, just take varied people and let them play (he's very engaging, seen protesting that the film is too short). Lynch's segment is magnificently skillful and striking, with a potted narrative of police, a 50's style family, and a bunch of space aliens holding a captive woman - it's almost as effective as the whole of Lost Highway and utterly distinctive. In all, it's a tumbling parade of cinematic images that evokes love, passion and breadth, whether the directors take a playful approach (a majority) or aim for greater seriousness (as in Handke's filming of a potted TV news bulletin).

This video was given to me by a friend who knows that I look at film not merely as entertainment, but art as well. This project with its 40-odd 50 second vignettes done by a mix of directors of varying talents and celebrity, using an antiquated camera, gives an opportunity to see snapshots of their work as pure art. All of them are at least passable, with over half being very, very good. A few of them are truly outstanding, the most notable being Andre Konchalovsky's gem on life, death, temporality and nature. David Lynch's segment is a close second. I highly recommend this to any serious student of film as art.