Bohumil Harbal Too loud a solitude – Kick starter

 

I got an email from the makers of this project a film of the book Too Loud a solitude by the Czech writer Bohumil Harbal .link to the kickstarter page 

EW YORK, NY (October 11, 2016) – Award winning artist and short film director Genevieve Anderson (“Boxed”, “Sunlight”, “ola’s box of clovers”) will bring to life Czech author Bohumil Hrabal’s beloved novella Too Loud A Solitude (Příliš hlučná samota ,1976), marking her feature film debut and the first of Hrabal’s works to be adapted by an American director.  Hrabal fans worldwide are invited to support the project via the film’s Kickstarter campaign, which launched under the Sundance Institute’s curated page on September 27, 2016 and will run through November 1.

With a script by Alex MacInnis (This American Life, “Down to the Bone”), and visual effects supervised by Evan Jacobs (“Captain America”, “Ant Man”, “Avengers”, “Alice in Wonderland”). “Too Loud a Solitude” will utilize live action puppets, animation, stock photographs and footage to tell the story of a waste paper compactor within a police state who has acquired an education so unwitting he often can’t tell which are his thoughts and which come from his books.

Golden Globe and Emmy winner and Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti is attached to lend his voice talent to the main character of Hanta. Producers Steve Gaub (“Beauty and the Beast”, “Unbroken”, “Oblivion”), Kelly Miller (“Forgiven”, “Y Tu Mama Tambien”, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), and Frank Rehak (Fulbright Fellow, Academy of Film & Photography – FAMU – Prague; Johns Hopkins University) are poised to begin pre-production in Spring 2017.

“The outpouring of support for this project has been amazing over the years,” said Anderson. “We have been working on this project in one form or another since 2004.” In fact, the crew was able to shoot a 17-minute excerpted version of the feature script in 2007, funded by the Rockefeller Media Artist Foundation, Heather Henson, and the Jane Henson Foundation.

Hrabal is widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of the 20^th century, and has had two novels adapted to film by director Jirí Menzel, including the 1968 Oscar-winning Closely Watched Trains, and six other film adaptations [see here for the source: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/feb/23/classics.culture ]. Hrabal’s poignant visual writing style has had wide-ranging influence on writers, including Philip Roth and Louise Erdich [see here: http://www.themillions.com/2014/07/the-academy-of-rambling-on-on-bohumil-hrabals-fiction.html ], and artists such as the Australian singer/songwriter Nick Cave, among many others.

Renowned contemporary video artist and collaborator Bill Viola describes Anderson’s work as follows:

“Watching Genevieve’s films, and the worlds they evoke, give me the distinct impression that I am seeing right into someone’s private inner world, a place where the characters and situations were the direct embodiments of the feelings for the events and not simply their visual, dramatic representations. This indicates to me that her impressive technical skill is in service to something else.”

 

WINGS OF DESIRE (DER HIMMEL UBER BERLIN)

Richard at caravana de recuerdos is hosting the foreign film challenge for the Orbis terrarium challenge so I had a look through my DVD’S i ve about 50 films in various languages and decide on my all time favourite film .

WINGS OF DESIRE –

the film is set in berlin and was directed by the German director Wim Wenders his films are always great viewing  probably best known for Pari Texas ,This is considered his masterpiece .the film follows two angels ,Daniel played by Bruno Ganz best known for Downfall now where he played Hitlers last days and Cassiel played by Otto Sander who also appear in Das Boot as a U Boat Captain .The films opens with a flash through different people in Berlin and there thoughts these include Peter Falk on a plane ,the angels listen to these thoughts and wander the city .Then we met daniel she him listen to some kids who can see him ,then he meets Cassiel and they discuss a=what they ve seen a woman closing an umbrella and getting wet ,a man jumping of a building ,as they talk Daniel laments the fact they only see and don’t feel even simple things like print on the paper coming of on his hands ,he says he wants to live not view ,Cassiel disagrees they part ,meanwhile a trapeze artist Marion is practising on the trapeze for what turns out is her last performance as the circus has to close for the winter at this point Daniel enters and is taken by this beautiful young woman played by the late Solveig Domartin ,he follows her into her caravan where she plays her records Nick Caves from here to eternity album the track the carny about a circus performer that has run of and we hear her thoughts about how sad it is the circus is moving on .then he go’s to the main Berlin Library where a lot of angels are listen to people at this point we met the other main character Curt Bois he plays Homer an aged poet who is looking back on his life and what has happen to his beloved berlin ,also Peter Falk is making a world war two film and sketching people he sense Cassiel and Daniel and tries to talk to them .At this point Daniel decides to become human he wakes by the Berlin wall with a suit of armour and he sets of to find Marion in the end catching her at a Nick Cave concert where there is an obvious spark between them .

the filming is mainly in black and white and only in colour when the angels aren’t there ,claire Denis was assistant director who directed Chocolat after this .the city is beautifully shot and becomes a character in its own right ,the dialogue is beautiful the script was a joint project between Wender and the German novelist Peter handke .it uses Rainer Maria Rilke poetry as a spring-board with a recurring theme of Child hood via a song ,it shows how poetic german can be .I love the innocence of the film it is a simple love story of a couple and a city . there was a poor american remake of the film .