2/18/2016

RIP Andrezj Zulawski




I guess now that he's passed away we're gonna get all sorta of retrospective and superlatives for Zulawski, but it's definitely frustrating that he and his contemporaries have such a hard time getting films made nowadays. Zulawski hadn't made a film in 15 years until he finished Cosmos last year. Dusan Makavejev is alive and well and teaching and hasnt made a feature film in 22 years. Monte Hellman, one (amazing) feature film in the last 28 years. Why is this drought being made to happen? So we can have Transformers 4, 5 and 8? Marvel movies? And honestly the results I've seen from crowdsourcing funding for movies have been... rough. To say the least. Whats up Annapurna pictures? A24? Get behind these living legends while you still can, maybe?
Shout out to Agnes Varda, Leos Carax, Andrzej Wajda, Paul Schrader (you've been screwed the most, contractually oblige final cut, dude), Phillipe Garrel, Michael Haneke, Sally Potter, Catherine Breillat, Fassbinder, Godard, John Waters, for using this amazing platform, which I see now as really the convergence of all artforms, so well in the face of capital destroying anything but a vernacular for monetary gains. If the people were only given the option to have their soul nutured, they wouldn't have it any other way, but as they are given the opposite they scoff at the possibility, I see born filmmakers like you as dissidents against an ailing punishing systemic quashing of the human spirit. Film can open the door to circumventing our subjugation. I have a hard time seeing these eulogies for A Zulawski talking about how he made no concessions to the marketplace or audiences comfort so the reader can be reminded "Wow, people used to be able to do that, isn't that crazy? There were films for arts sake"