Marion

Another throwback this week, this slice of heaven is an afternoon in the sun, a beautiful pair of shoes, a cold martini, and a serene pool of water. It's glamorous, the makers are banking on that I'm sure, and that catches my eye immediately. Marion Cotillard is a stunner. But what keeps me watching is the strangeness here, the awkward beauty, the moments where the rules are broken. I've said it before, but I love beauty when it's strange.

French actress and face of Dior, Marion Cotillard reduced the world to tears with her musical debut as Edith Piaf in 2007's La Vie en Rose. Now teaming up with Joseph Mount and Villaine, she's making music once more, and it's just as beautiful.

I'm also obsessed with underwater shoots, and one day I've gotta do it. Thank God they make you wait for it here, so it's quite literally a cool splash of water.

Movie Trailers: Andrea Tarkovskiy's "Stalker"

Can I just start by confessing that I have never seen Tarkovskiy's 1979 film Stalker? But I found this trailer while searching for some visual examples for a project I'm working on and I have to say: these shapes are beautiful.

[If you're caught up in the title, it should be pointed out that this is a science fiction drama in which the term "Stalker" is used to describe a "guide" who escorts individuals to and across the border of the "Zone," a restricted and dangerous area, where access is forbidden and therefore illegal.]

The first time I watched it, I watched it with the sound off. To be honest, I don't love the track, but the whispering gives me the tingles. My big thought is this: It's witchy and wonderful and reminds me a bit of what we were going for with the trailer for The Hunt. The fact that I'm seeing it a year later is only adding fuel to my fire that it's time to revisit my coven...

Click play below for a 2:40 experience.

Film title: Stalker Director: Andrey Tarkovskiy Music: Mark Morgan - Many Contrasts A little quick project as a tribute for a great movie made with windows movie maker

David Byrne: On True Surround Sound

This is a bit of a throwback, as this exhibition opened in 2009 while I was bopping around a college campus, reading books and living off dumplings, a good four years before I started to think about what it might mean to be "fully" immersed in a piece of art. David Byrne, meanwhile, was attaching an old pump organ to the literal bones of the Roundhouse for the UK premiere of "Playing the Building," an experience which expands, literally, what it means to "play." 

Imagine an old pump organ, set at the heart of the Roundhouse, with a series of low-tech cables and wires attached to the buildings pillars, pipes and beams. Then imagine the ping, rattle and blow as they vibrate and resonate in response to the organ keys, and the building itself becomes a giant musical instrument.

I've always thought that buildings had distinct personalities. David Byrne taught this one how to sing. 

On The Many Versions Of The Same Face

Created by morphing 10 photographs I took at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Art piece: "Thérèse-Françoise Potain Roland, Wife of the Sculptor" circa 1782-1783 terra cotta Artist: Philippe-Laurent Roland French Sculptor 1746-1816 Music: Bach's Prelude And Fugue No. 3 In C Sharp Major BWV 848 from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 performed by Daniel Ben Pienaar. Available at http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/dbp-wtc1a/

I have been chewing on the thought lately that we're all just variations on a nose, eyes, and a mouth. That our faces are actually not so different from other faces. That we're actually each part of a chain of faces-- and then how many chains can there be, really?

Maybe it's connected to that daily sensation of being one in the great mass. A small fish, still searching for my rainbow scales.

This Is Margot, by Liza Voloshin

A study in Monochromes

and, perhaps, also

Nostalgia.

THIS IS MARGOT for Barneys x Paco Rabanne Film by Liza Voloshin Starring Margot Music by Margot DP and Editor Russ Roe Hair Sean Bennett Make Up Yuui Vision Camera Assistant Kevin Lapsley Production by Something Artists

Inspiration Board: THE HUNT

Posted retroactively, because these were the faces that inspired me most.

Photos captured by @jrianbones, edits by me.

Mathieu Bleton And The Anatomy Of A Fall

You see now how we've missed the part where we turn around and fall up?

Gracias al proyecto Zubideak, de San Sebastián 2016, Mathieu Bleton, bailarín de la compañía Yoann Bourgeois de Grenoble, acerca la Biennale de la Danse de Lyon a San Sebastián.

This glorious flight is performed by Mathieu Bleton. For now, that's all I know, but let's hope there's more to find and see.

Adele, Simply

If there is a common thread between many of the videos I have posted on this blog as of late, I think that thread would connect the following: one (count it: one) great idea, executed fully, and some good, clean video footage. And while I am not sure if this level of cleanliness and singular vision is running through my own work yet in quite the way I intend, I will continue to post videos to this digital inspiration board and film as much as my handheld camera can take until I figure it out. 

So then. Our next example.

'Send My Love (To Your New Lover)' is taken from the new album, 25, out now.

Other things to note, while making the case for simplicity, is how delicious it is just to have a proper twirl? An idea is in there, somewhere, I feel it. Also that these digital layers might have been hokey, had they tried to be anything other than what they were. Which was layers. 

Inspiration Board: Femme Formulas

Thinking in shadows and strong silhouettes.

Inspiration Board: Eye Pretzels

Eye candy, brought to you by sunshine and shenanigans. 

via astridxvos

Sunday Morning, 1947; via Saul Leiter

via assemblynewyork

via takubeats

via muhkins

via axeloswith

via alexa chung

via jonathanwgardner

via seenthis

via outdoorvoices

via therealpeterlindbergh

Have a Look: Francine Christophe, A Piece of Chocolate, and the Remarkable Strength of Humanity

I feel that it is impossible to write on this topic. It does not feel like my place, nor my right. I'm not sure if I am even capable of articulating the incredible heaviness, the sensation that we are all lost, and hopeless in our lostness- and I think this is called despair- that I experience when I think about this moment in history. It exhausts my soul. And if this is how I feel, it can be only a tiny fraction, if that, of the weariness felt by the survivors of this cruelty.

It is good, then, that the following video needs no introduction. It is the most beautiful thing I have seen in a long time, and the sound of her voice, the power of her storytelling, and the ripple effect of one small, good deed in the face of incomprehensible evil-- these things are nothing short of miraculous to me.

I am reminded that everything, everything counts.

Born in 1933, Francine Christophe was deported with her mother at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1944. Released the following year, she continues to share her experience and memories, particularly with the younger generations.

This is just one of an incredible series of interviews that are part of the #HUMAN series. Together they make up three full length films. To see these and other excerpts, check out the official YouTube channel here.

Have a Look: Batsheva and Bob Dylan

There is a game that is played, in different variations, wherein two competitors are given a set of significantly dissimilar objects, people, or ideas, and must race to connect them to a center point, usually via Wikipedia. Clementines and the Empire State Building. An Achilles Tendon and Jennifer Aniston. The color Magenta and the River Nile. 

I think, in certain cases, you'd be allowed to modify the game and use your imagination in lieu of a computer. Let's try it now?

One:

There's not much to say about the first video clip except that it makes me BELIEVE. 

Enjoy this electricity: 

HOME ALONE is a performance evening created by the ensemble dancers of Bat Sheva - one of the top dance companies in the world. This video is a promotional video for this evening, but had a great success worldwide, and won Best Dance Film under 5min in San Francisco Dance Film Festival, "Best Dance Film" in SESIFF festival in Korea and a prize in Shortwaves Film Festival in Poznan, Poland. This video has been screened in over 40 festivals and venues worldwide and continues to tour the world to this day. For more info on Bat-Sheva Dance Company, check out their site: https://www.batsheva.co.il/en/ Director: Adi Halfin DOP: Roman Linetsky Editor: Shahar Amarilio Producers: Tamir Eting, Noam Eidelman, Adi Halfin Styling: Shani Sebban Makeup: Noa Yehonatan Art director: Netta Dror

Two:

The next thing for your eyeballs is a clip of Andy Warhol's 1965 Screen Test of Bob Dylan. Maybe what's really got my wheels, once I finish taking this all in, is the question of where exactly we go when we know we're being only-sort-of watched? It's a tricky thing to record someone in their natural state, but humans are adaptable, this is a fact. How long then before we forget that we are not alone?

And also, to bookend the week, see how much actually gets done in the pursuit of doing nothing!

...while we're on the topic of ANDY W. and his Screen Tests, we might as well (read: should definitely) watch this:

40 second moving picture. Page one of a conceptual editorial fashion story, inspired by the Andy Warhol screen tests of the 1960's. Direction, Lighting direction and design Layout by James Bareham. Stills Photography by Jeff Mikkleson Styling by Jersey Hair by Agata Helena Makeup by Kim Webber Model Emma Hansen / Elite

Start your engines and connect these dots why don't you? I think I will too. 

Inspiration Board: Screaming With An Inside Voice