A Philosophy Junky Reviews To The Wonder

The following paragraph is a variation of what Heidegger wrote in his Bremen Lectures. It’s one of 2 keys that helped me with understanding Terrence Malick’s lastest film, “To the Wonder.”

The Internet or Jet Age does not equal closeness. Almost everything is at our fingertips. Journeys that took months now take less than a day. News of major world events took years to make their way around the world, if they completed their journey at all. The Internet gives us major world events in seconds. Food out of season, I can have delivered to my table in the coldest and harshest winter in a day. I can see distant cities from long ago as if they were here today. The Internet and Jet Age which has reduced all distance, is the foundation of our commerce Yet, despite reducing all distances, no closeness seems to exist. There is even more loneliness and alienation.

The film starts off with a woman played by Olga Kurylenko saying in French, “I am newborn.” The trailers pretty much tip off that this newborn-ness is the sort you get when you fall in love and the entire world gets transfigured.

The audience is then given vignettes and montages of a couple exploring Paris and Le Mont St. Michel. The first 5 minutes are actually filmed with a digital harinezumi, a cheap Japanese digital camera that gives video a gritty, edgy feel through grain while saturating and washing out colors in unexpected ways.

The man in the couple, played by Ben Affleck, asks the woman and his daughter to come back with him to live in Oklahoma. The relationship unravels from there and never seems to have the intensity and vitality it had in France. While in Oklahoma we are presented with Malick’s trademark scenes involving fields of wheat shot during “magic hour,” the hours around sunrise and sunset when golden light casts everything better than it really is, or so it seems.

It’s not only for aesthetic reasons that Malick shoots during “magic hour.” There are sections of Being and Time where Heidegger finds the origins of our entanglement with the world in the sun:

Taking care makes use of the handiness of the sun giving forth light and warmth. The sun dates the time interpreted in taking care. From this dating arises the most natural measure of time, the day… Thrown being-together-with things at hand is grounded in temporality. (Being and Time, II.vi.413)

There is no division between humanity and nature. We are imbued with each other, intertwined, yet when Malick films “nature” he is trying to return us to something more primordial – time measured in the intensity of light, not in numbers.

If nature is sick, through our lack of taking care, then we, too, shall be sick. This is a theme that echoes lightly in the background of the film. The man in the couple has some work related to the environment. The machinery we see seems to be used for fracking to get oil. The townspeople all echo that either the dogs or the children have started to act strangely because of some environmental collapse. The water is polluted and tar seeps out of the cracks in concrete.

It’s around this time that we got introduced to a priest played by Javier Bardem. Wow, it’s tough being a priest. You try to take care of things but then at the same time feel so isolated. An elderly woman tells him that she will pray for him that he might find joy.

The woman from France eventually has to go back because her visa expires. It’s at this time that Affleck’s character meets up with a local woman from his youth and starts a relationship with her. This local woman played by Rachel McAdams does lots of the voice overs. Although the land is sick, and her ranch is struggling, there are the buffalo – lots of them.

At the end of the movie, I felt the part about the priest didn’t make sense for the longest time. I also wondered why the movie ended with the image it ended with.

Luckily I ran into a nurse who went to see To the Wonder with a bunch of philosophy grad students. She had a BBQ and there I met one of them that supplied the missing piece, Kierkegaard’s Works of Love.

In this work Kierkegaard talks about 2 sorts of love: the kind that blossoms and so must eventually die, and the love where we must care for everyone but never dies. Both are inevitable, and the inevitability of either kind of love is a theme in Malick’s movie. The couple has the first kind of blossoming love; whereas the priest has the second kind of love.

There are images that just stick with you, and I’ve often wondered why Malick doesn’t also do photography. Perhaps it’s because in a Heideggerian sense, photos are a covering up of temporality.

One of the images that just sticks with me is of the water flowing up slowly during high tide at Le Mont St. Michel. Another is of the fields of wheat with the sun. These alone would make strong photos.

Heidegger’s Bremen Lectures and Kierkegaard’s Works of Love seem to be a pre-requisite for this film. I really loved it even though I was missing the Kierkegaard piece.

A Review of the Lubitel 166+

I’ve been shooting with the Lubitel 166+ and quite frankly it’s not as sharp as you’d get say shooting with an old SLR like a Minolta XE-7 or Pentax ME Super with a 50mm 1.4 lens.

The Lubitel 166+ is a Lomography remake of the Lubitel 166, which is a Twin Reflex Lens camera that was produced in the former Soviet Union. It’s made of plastic but has a glass lens. It takes 120 film. The operation is fully manual requiring you to figure out shutter speed and aperture. The guide in the back is crazy inaccurate unless, I’ve realized, you are shooting color film with the goal of cross-processing it – the so-called X-Pro effect.

xpro_sunset

It costs about $349 as of the publishing of this post at the Lomography Store. You can get the above mentioned SLRs with sharper photos and less hassle for a 1/3 of the price on eBay or Amazon.

Below is a landscape I shot using the Lubitel 166+. I feel that this didn’t have enough contrast.

lubitel_landscape

I feel the Lubitel 166+ does best in high contrast situations when you’re shooting directly into the sun. Check out the photos below.

lubitel_sun_trees

lubitel_write_suns_rays

For all its quirks, the Lubitel 166+ is a good camera. I wouldn’t use it for anything professional, but definitely for something artsy. It costs a bit too much, and I would recommend getting an older Lubitel 166 off of eBay for cheaper.

Pros:

  • artsy effects like vignetting, an interesting lens flare
  • glass lens
  • nice bokeh
  • fully manual experience great for training your eye in order to figure out exposure
  • It’s light weight.
  • You don’t need batteries.

Cons:

  • It’s pricy. You can get better quality cheaper on eBay or Amazon.
  • If you lose a part, you are SOL.
  • It’s not that sharp for something using 120 film. A Rolleiflex will give you way better quality.
  • Or for just $100 more you might be able to find a 120 film SLR camera on eBay.

Check out the Lubitel 166+ photo pool on Flickr to get a good idea of the shots you can take.

Cloud Atlas Review

Cloud atlas is six stories happening in 6 different time periods, or maybe just 6 stories told in one.

I won’t go into the acting or special effects. I never felt that the story dragged yet for a tale with a vast epic sweep I can’t say I felt any strong emotion except for one part. This part takes place in a post-apocalyptic Hawaii and has something to do with karma. No spoilers here.

The film has a very strong stance on technology. It’s there in the background, but it can be heard loud and clear if you look for it. No matter what time period it is, technology is not a historical and progressive force. I don’t want to say that technology won’t save us or that it is bad. Neither is a message in this movie. Instead, the 6 stories all seem to be about freedom in some way and that can be achieved regardless of what the technology may be.

A Florilegium of Seneca’s Apothegms

Without an antagonist prowess fades away.

Prosperity unbruised cannot endure a single blow, but a man
who has been at constant feud with misfortune acquires a
skin calloused by suffering; he yields to no evil and even
if he stumbles carries the fight on upon his knee.

A gladiator counts it a disgrace to be matched with an
inferior; he knows that a victory devoid of danger is a
victory devoid of glory.

But the greater the torment, the greater the glory shall be.

Prosperity can come to the vulgar and to ordinary talents,
but to triumph over the disasters and terrors of mortal
life is the privilege of the great man.

No one can discover what he can do except by trying.

Disaster is virtue’s opportunity. Those whom an excess
of prosperity has rendered sluggish may justly be called
unfortunate.

All excesses are injurious, but immoderate prosperity is
the most dangerous of all.

By suffering misfortune the mind grows able to belittle suffering.

Your good fortune is not to need good fortune.

The life we receive is not short but we make it so.

Procrastination is the greatest waste of time.

Expectancy is the greatest impediment to living: in
anticipation of tomorrow it loses today.

The present is fleeting. . . it ceases to be before it has become.

The only people really at leisure are those who take
time for philosophy. They alone really live.

All virtues are fragile in the beginning and acquire
toughness and stability in time.

Less labor is needed when your concern is for the present.

For however unadvertised virtue may be, it is never wholly
unknown but gives signs of its presence, and the worthy will
track it down.

Nothing can equal the pleasure of faithful and congenial friendship.

It is important to withdraw into one’s self.

What is the happy life? Self-sufficiency and abiding tranquility.

The good lies not in the thing but in the quality of selection.

Working on Street Photography

At around lunch time I grab my Canon T3i and the kit lens that it came with to do street photography.

I started a few weeks ago.

I’ve been inspired by Eric Kim and his blog to do this. If you haven’t checked out his videos using a GoPro to record how he does street photography, you got to check them out.

When I photographed something on the street (which isn’t street photography) in the past, it looked something like this:

Now I’ve changed what I’ve photographed a bit.

Most of the shots that would get likes on Instagram were landscape related, but something came over me. I talked to the owner of the coffee shop, Reverie, and asked him what’s changed in 10 years. He said all the middle class are gone (from Cole Valley). It made me think that I need to use photography to preserve what’s left of what I love about San Francisco so that people do not forget.

Even though my “street” photos don’t get as many likes like the one above, I feel it captures what San Francisco is like right now, workers have cell phones and the cars look a certain way.

Compositionally, It’s far from perfect, there’s a rhythm that’s lacking and it’s not very HCB, but out of the hundreds of shots I’ve taken, I think this is my first real street photograph.

What is a photograph?

The mobile application, Instagram, woke me up to photography. I feel the need to see light in different, novel arrangements and colors and to capture these.

What is a photograph?

fog

So far my efforts have been mimetic. I see something pleasing and wonder how can I reproduce the same thing. The fog photo you see above is done in a style of a local photographer who does nothing but fog.

But an imitation is far from authentic; it is a play acting.

For a photograph to be authentic work of art it cannot be a substitution for a thing. Most momentos are like this. It cannot be mere representation. Yet what is placed on the film or CCD is mere representation. How is it more in the hands of an artist?

Back in LA again

It seems that my life is out of whack now. I thought I’d be in SF but a few things happened. I fell for someone. I followed her back here. She does not want to talk to me.

Work is great. It’s challenging.

Am I living a truly engaging life? Am I authentically in the here and now? Or only following some script?

I hope to get this sorted out soon

Today I’ll enjoy reading “Being and Time.”

Memoir Break: Moved to Venice and Why?

I just moved to Venice on a sunny Thursday on July 15, 2010.

I am very aware this is shocking to some of you SF folks and readers of City of Quartz, which I have read.

This is the walk to my coffee shop:
Venice Canals in California

I moved for very different reasons. It wasn’t for a woman or a job. I am making less money, 20% less than what I’d get doing an easier, lifer job at an ad agency or tech. Believe me, I got lots of offers to work at different start-ups.

I believe that LA is the new frontier. The opportunities in Los Angeles are boundless if you can figure out how to shape into a meaningful layout its amorphous contours.

Cycling: There’s a growing amount of “early adopters” who know that driving 50 miles a day is simply not sustainable, and who also believe that life spent in traffic is no way to live.

I believe that cycling takes care of the top 5 problems ailing this country:

  • heart disease
  • obesity
  • pollution
  • traffic
  • alienation

LA is slowly getting turned on to that.

Mass Transit: I’m pretty amazed that there’s mass transit in LA. There’s still the stigma of it being for lower class use and being not safe.

I’m still busy listening to LA. Every city has a different and unique message. I’m trying to figure out what LA’s message is.

There was a cutesy message of LA being the place where someone breaks your heart and your heart break becomes a source of following your path in (500) Days of Summer. They showed a use of LA’s urban core that was too cutesy: recently graduated hipsters using the subway and parks free of your fine, boho chic clothing being a hobo magnet. However, it’s a very appealing and seductive use with a message full of hope.

Downtown Los Angeles

Back to the memoir in a bit…