Ewan Wilson

Dear QQs,
Of course. I can be reached at [email protected] if e-mail contact is amenable?
Regards,
Ewan

The aforementioned dissertation, for anyone interested:

https://www.academia.edu/7481472/E_Wilson_-_Diagrams_of_Motion_Stop-Motion_as_a_Form_of_Kinetic_Sculpture_in_the_Short_Films_of_Jan_Svankmajer_and_the_Brothers_Quay

Dear QQs,

I can’t say that I’d expected you ever to see this article; I sincerely hope that these kind comments aren’t just someone pulling my leg. I’m likewise unsure if you’ll see this reply, but the article is drawn from my undergraduate dissertation on the works of both yourselves and Jan Svankmajer, a copy of which I would love to provide for you should you wish to read it. Should we cross paths in said Enoteca, the wine is on me.

Kindest regards,
Ewan

A nice reading of ‘Labyrinth’. I haven’t come across Propp before – I usually fall back on Joseph Campbell for mythic structure – but I’ll have to look him up.

I’m surprised that nobody’s mentioned Neil Jordan’s ‘Company of Wolves’ – based on Angela Carter’s eponymous short story – given it’s thematic similarities. If nothing else, it’s another wonderfully cheesy, visually lavish 80s film.

Great article, well done!

And thank you for the comment. You’re right, Tarkovsky wasn’t particularly interested in entertaining his audience; he compared ‘mass appeal films’ to ‘bottles of Coca-Cola’ due to its lack of emotional depth.
I suppose considering this film deep depends on what we mean by the word. You can call it deep in that, as Lukas said above, you can feel the film rather than understand it, but in terms of meaning I really don’t feel that there’s much there that doesn’t make itself evident. It is, as you say, about life and belief, and any specific readings, such as those about communism and the west, are and can be projected onto it exactly because it’s so vague or open.

I agree that it avoids any one, easy interpretation. As I said in the article, Tarkovsky was more interested in an emotional experience than an intellectual one, and given that you found it easy to relate to the images, I guess he succeeded. I like the idea of ‘feeling the story’, I’d have liked, in retrospect, to see the film for the first time without the subtitles.

Thank you. I agree, the long shots are nice, you can really feel the time on the screen. I remember reading that Tarkovsky wanted Stalker to feel like one continuous take, almost like it was unfolding in real time. It’s something that Theo Angelopolous and Bela Tarr do wonderfully, too.

Initially I was a little disappointed that this article wasn’t about set-building and stop-motion animation, but that’s the fault of my preoccupations, not yours. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, and not just because of the numerous references to cartoons from my childhood; I watch most of the current shows you mention, too. Titles like ‘Avatar’ and ‘Adventure Time’ which throw in the odd nod to a wider mythology always go down well with me, in no small part because they open up scope for further stories or spin-offs.