Authors — Nicholas Rombes
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The Blue Velvet Project, #2
Second #94: Lynch had been thinking about Blue Velvet since at least as early as 1973, and while his previous two films (Dune and Elephant Man) had been based on well-known stories, Blue Velvet was a return to the trembling, inner-psychic terrain of Eraserhead. In an earlier version of the script, Jeffrey’s mom and his Aunt Barbara pick him up from the airport after he’s forced to leave college because of the financial burden of his stricken father’s medical bills. As they drive into town, there is this exchange: AUNT BARBARA: They tore down the A & P, Jeffrey. Did […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Aug 10, 2011 -
The Blue Velvet Project, #1
And so we begin our year-long journey through Blue Velvet, stopping every 47 seconds. Although released in the U.S. in September 1986, the film lingered at the dark edges of the imagination until the spring of the following year, when it was released on home video by Karl-Lorimar. The rapid ascendency of the VCR and the proliferation of rental stores (in 1980 there were only approximately 2,500 rental stores in the U.S.; by 1987 this had increased to over 27,000) meant that Blue Velvet found its way into the very same sort of leafy small towns as Lumberton. The titles […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Aug 8, 2011 -
I AM A MOVIE
by Nicholas Rombes on Jul 20, 2011 -
Six Asides on Paranormal Activity 2
Paranormal Activity 2 is not an avant-garde film, but only because no one has argued that it is. 1. The Importance of Framing The difference between commercial culture (pop culture) and the avant-garde is a matter of rhetorical framing. Jean-Luc Godard, for instance, created the conditions for the New Wave not only through his films, but through his words about his films, and about cinema in general. Confrontational, witty, manifesto-like, Godard framed the way people saw his films. Godard was an auteur of language, not just cinema. “A movie should have a beginning, a middle, and an end,” he famously […]
by Nicholas Rombes on May 10, 2011 -
Into the Splice: Jane Eyre
At the State Theater in Ann Arbor, I fell under the spell of Jane Eyre’s cold naturalism (which made the occasional flashes of heat even hotter), but not all of those seated around me did. Specifically: a woman in the row in front of me who, at the most tender, sexually charged moments in the film would sigh heavily, throwing her head back. When she wasn’t doing this, she was answering her phone calls (at least twice), fidgeting in her seat, or stretching her arms above her head. She had obviously been dragged to the film by her companion, who […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Apr 25, 2011 -
Into the Splice: The King’s Speech
I had put off seeing The King’s Speech, and for good reason it turns out, though not the reason I expected. The movie is proudly what it is, and it is hard not to fall under the spell of the story. In some ways, it’s a very old-fashioned film, in the same way that True Grit is old-fashioned. The complete absence of irony. Both films simmer at the same ahistorical temperature. On the big screen, movies still have a certain scale of force absent from smaller screens. The reason to go to the movies is to be dominated, and yet […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Feb 7, 2011 -
Into the Splice: Black Swan
Things didn’t bode well from the beginning. The crowd in the theater was restive. People shifted uncomfortably in their seats even before the movie began. I was alone, and sat in the back, the projector whirring somewhere above and behind me. But that was only the beginning. As it turns out, I had been editing Alla Gadassik’s remarkable video-essay for the Requiem // 102 project, and had learned of an obscure Italian Jennifer Connelly film from 1988, Etoile (directed by Peter Del Monte), which also happens to be a nightmarish film about Swan Lake that also features a monstrous black […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Jan 10, 2011 -
Into the Splice: After the Flood
Downtown Waterloo, Ontario. At night. A night unfinished. The previous evening I had spoken at a conference about analog nostalgia in the digital age. I brought a turntable with me from Michigan. And one single to play: “You’re Gonna Die” (1978) by the Ann Arbor/Detroit post-punk art band Destroy All Monsters, featuring Ron Asheton on guitar. At the border crossing entering Canada at Port Huron, I was asked a series of questions about the reasons for my visit to Canada. I answered in ways that made the guard skeptical, and I was told to go directly to Immigration. There, a […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Nov 30, 2010 -
Into the Splice: Let Me In
I went to see Let Me In with low expectations. Like so many, I had seen and been awed by the original Swedish version, Let the Right One In (directed by Tomas Alfredson), whose quiet pacing and lonely stretches of relative silence only made the horror more horrible when it came. An American version, surely, would speed up the pace and overload the naturalistic violence with CGI-generated hyper-energy. On the way to the theater I asked Lisa about this. “I don’t know,” she said, “give it a chance.” “But I don’t want to give it a chance. I want to […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Oct 14, 2010 -
Into the Splice: Machete
It was only later that I discovered that I had been charged admission to Machete as a “student.” I am not one, and haven’t been for many, many years. I was glad not only because it saved me two dollars, but also because I didn’t have to resort to the Harvey Korman moment near the end of Blazing Saddles, when he cuts in line to buy a ticket for the film itself, pulls out an I.D., holds it up with a skeptical smile and asks the ticket lady, “Student?” to which she replies flatly, “Are you kidding?” At 9:30 on […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Sep 28, 2010
