Vlog of Mattie: Homage to Josef Sudek

I believe that photography loves banal objects, and I love the life of objects.

The words belong to Josef Sudek, the photographer who lived in Prague; an eggshell, a pin, a leaf, something that’s looking as the shape of an old book: Sudek took banal objects and pulled out grains of sky. Minimalism: one more detail would have spoiled the image, one less detail would have made the image poor.

And here comes Mattie, who loves the minimalism of the images of Sudek and Ozu, and dreams of re-creating it on his vlog. Watch his video; it is a search for the banal objects of Josef Sudek: looking for them, finding them, asking them about their beauty, playing with their answer.

Unfortunately the width of my blog cannot accommodate the size of the video, so I give you some screenshots instead:








Interesting is that Mattie had the visual acuity to grasp those small details giving a kind of Austro-Hungarian, Central European flavor, characteristic for the image world of Josef Sudek. I don't know, it's probably the way the objects are arranged.

(Vlog of Mattie)

A Black Country Sonata

(A Black Country Sonata, video created by jovossuck123)

This video is amazing. It's created by jovossuck123, a young Briton who has a deep passion for art movies. The real name of jovossuck123 is Matt; friends call him Mat for short.

His videos are all about this kind of movies. Mat has lists of preferences and created videos commenting his choices. His number one is Ozu's Late Spring: I always come back to this movie, it astonishes me.

What makes Ozu such a great film director? He is really one of the few who could be considered the greatest. There are a lot of books about his art, written by big shots, like Bordwell, like Richie, like Schrader, like Vick. Every aspect of Ozu's movies was scrutinized.

I believe his greatest gift was the way he was telling his stories. Each of his movies has a simple story, told with decency and economy, but with such grace!


Let's come back to the list of preferences of Mat. You'll find there Kiarostami's The Wind Will Carry Us, and Hou's Dust in the Wind, and Ray's Pather Panchali, and other great names.

My number one is Pather Panchali, no question about it, but I'm talking now about Mat's preferences, and Ozu is really a great master and a great wizard.

Let's talk about Mat's video, about his Black Country Sonata. He created it as a tribute to Ozu, and it's made with exquisite finesse. Each image is a gem. As you watch the video, you feel the mastership of the author, as well as his deep love for Ozu's movies. I was so captivated that I captured some stills from the video.

Some images reminded me also some other great film directors. Take this image for instance:

It's just the first of the video: it recalled in my memory a movie from 1930, Alexander Hammid's Bezucelná procházka (Aimless Walk). I had the chance to find the movie on the web and to watch it a few times. It's no more available and it's a pity: a stroll towards the outskirts of Prague, following freely your own thoughts, distracted by buildings and landscape at random.


There is then by the end of the video an image with a pair of scissors; its elegance in simplicity reminds me the photos of Josef Sudek (who was believing in the love of art for banal objects)



Now look at the image below:

(still from Mechanics of Love)

It's from Mechanics of Love, made in 1955 by Willard Maas and Ben Moore. Well, I promise to tell you soon about this five minutes jewel, you'll not find it on the imdb.

The image from the video recalls for me also another image, from Meshes of the Afternoon, the masterpiece of Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid:

(still from Meshes of the Afternoon)

This image is so exquisite: the minuscule leaves on the contortionated stem shaping a hieroglyph, bringing a plus of fantasy to the elegant geometry of the whole.





The moving clouds appear often in Ozu's movies, to bring the short moments of stasis during the development of the plot (or the final stasis); they recall also scenes from Bresson's movies (creating also the short stasis to support the development of the story).




I like a lot the scene from the video where the author sits down in the yard, framed very Ozu-like.



And this image is great: the clothes moved slowly by the wind


Well, this is the Black Country Sonata: black-and-white like most of Ozu's movies.

(Vlog of Mattie)

Recurrent Dreams

(click here for the Romanian version)

My repetitive dream: living the real life in Bucharest. I just woke up, Bucharest is far away. Saturday morning. Incredible weather for January: over sixty degrees! Bucharest is far away, only weather is the same there – I just called.

It’s time for some hiking. Where to go? Anyway, some place up the Potomac border. To Brookmont maybe? And then to descend some steps on the Valley Road towards Little Falls? Or to the Glen Echo Park? Then I’d descend on the border beyond the Sycamore Island. Or even up to Cabin John Bridge? It used to be there the terminus stop for the old street car, linking these villages to Georgetown. The street car stopped running back in the eighties, now you can hardly see its trace here and there along Potomac Avenue.

I prepare hastily some snacks, throw them in my backpack, then run to take the metro from Vienna. Virginian Vienna, in the Greater DC area.

Austrian Vienna … Living in the Communist paradise and dreaming at normality …. Vienna was our closest dream. Someone was telling me, that morning when I arrived at Vienna, as I get off the train, from the station platform you could see the whole city. I breathed deeply the air; it smelled like freedom. Suddenly life deserved to be lived. It was back in the seventies.

I took a book in the backpack. I’ve read it, only it’s hard to leave. A Romanian book, by Felicia Antip, Aventuri ale constiintei de sine. A book speaking about books speaking themselves about imaginary books. The world of Felicia Antip – a universe of universes … the world of recurrent dreams.

A joyful, noisy group steps in. Two families, husbands, wives, kids. They speak seemingly Greek, seemingly Spanish. I ask them, are you Brazilians? Yes, comes their reply, and where are you from? Romania, I say. They look at me joyfully surprised.

At Metro Center I switch trains, I’m going to Bethesda.

Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had… the text from the Gospel according to John, on an iron plate in front of the large bookstore in Bethesda.

Only I don’t want to go to that bookstore, it is another one, a small one, of used books, the books to be found everywhere on the shelves and on the floor. This bookshop used to be in Georgetown. They moved to Bethesda, only they kept their name, Georgetown Bookshop. It’s the place where I discovered Sudek, the great photographer from Prague, famous between the two world wars.

And it is the place where I met again Boris Pilniak. I had left him in the pages of a book by Alexandru Sahia, an edition printed in the thirties – Stalin would send him to disappear in the Gulag, then Pilniak disappeared also from the other editions of Sahia’s book, as they were printed after 1944. Now Pilniak is here, at the Georgetown Bookshop in Bethesda.

Josef Sudek, the photographer who lived in Prague – an eggshell, a pin, a leaf, something that’s looking as the shape of an old book – Sudek took banal objects and pulled out grains of sky.

And a bit further, also on the floor, an album with the churches of Kremlin. Blagoveshtcenskii Sobor among them, with the iconostasis painted partly by Rubliov, partly by Feofan Grek. I remember the day when I was there to look at Rubliov’s icons. It was an afternoon, the other excursionists went to the Museum for Oriental Art, only I chose to come again to the Kremlin, to see Blagoveshtcenskii Sobor, and the iconostasis. A small cathedral, very well balanced – it used to be the imperial chapel in the very old times. The icons of Rubliov, with their incredible blue, and their incredible grace. One day before I had been at Tretiakov, to find the icon section there closed for a perpetual renovation. So now, at Blagoveshtcenskii Sobor it was my first meeting with Rubliov’s art face to face. The first and the last encounter – I would meet Rubliov after that only in albums.

I bought from that bookshop some time ago an album with icons by Omiros - a Greek-American contemporary painter, who is trying to revive Byzantine art, using a non-figurative approach. His saints are guessed shapes, among grains of tears.

Only this bookshop is today closed, and the windows are filled with thick paper. I enter the hair design saloon nearby and ask the cashier what happened. She says, I think he knows, and shows me one of the hair dressers, an old guy with a very gentle approach. He comes to me smiling, how nice to see you again. Have you come on purpose, or just to say to me hi?

I am a bit puzzled, I think you are making a confusion. We haven’t met before, except if you come from Romania.

No, not from Romania. Are you born there? he asks me.

No, in Paris, it’s a bit complicated And you?

I’m born in Germany.

Well, so we don’t really know each other. Actually I came to ask you about the bookshop.

Oh, what a pity! They closed it, now it’s only on the web. What a pity, there were so many folks coming and spending hours among the books, what a pity! I feel so sorry for you.

He seems to me as a hero who has just descended from the novels of Gustav Meyrink.

Many years ago, in Beijing, as I was in front of a shopkeeper, he started the conversation exactly the same, how nice to see you again!

I’m afraid you confuse me. I’m coming here for the first time in my life.

Then your face reminds me of someone else… Mr. Dan came today here, such a nice gentleman! But you all, Romanian gentlemen, are very nice.

How do you know that I am a Romanian?

Oh, I am pretty sure that you came here before.

I am now far from Bethesda, in the woods. I don’t know yet where my destination will be. A tourist post warns me suddenly with its arrow: 10,000 Km to Luxor. That’s okay, at least I know now where I am.

(Bethesda)

Vise recurente

(click here for the English version)

Ma trezesc brusc din visul meu repetitiv: traind viata adevarata in Bucuresti. Ma uit in jur. Bucurestiul este foarte departe. E sambata dimineata. Vreme incredibila pentru ianurie: peste cinsprezece grade. Bucurestiul este foarte departe, dar si acolo vremea e la fel. Tocmai am telefonat.

Imi fac cateva sandvisuri la repezeala si pornesc la drum. Unde? O sa vad. Undeva in sus pe malul Potomacului. Poate la Brookmont, si de acolo sa cobor spre Little Falls. Sau si mai departe, la parcul din Glen Echo? De acolo as cobori spre Potomac dincolo de Insula Sicomorului. Poate chiar pana la Cabin John Bridge? Pana acolo ajungea pe vremuri tramvaiul care facea legatura cu Washingtonul.

Iau metroul din Viena. Viena virginiana, din zona Washingtonului.

Viena Austriei ... Traitori in paradisul comunist si visand la normalitate, Viena era visul nostru cel mai apropiat. Povestea cineva, am ajuns la Viena, m-am dat jos din tren. De pe peron se vedea deodata intregul oras. Am tras aerul adanc in plamani - am simtit deodata mirosul libertatii. Mi-am zis, merita sa traiesc! Era prin 1978.

Mi-am luat in rucsac o carte - am citit-o dar nu ma pot desparti de ea, o rasfoiesc din nou. Aventuri ale constiintei de sine. O carte care vorbeste despre carti care vorbesc la randul lor despre carti imaginare. Lumea Feliciei Antip ... un univers de universuri ... lumea viselor recurente.

In metro urca un grup vesel si galagios. Doua familii, sotii, sotiile, copiii. Vorbesc intre ei intr-o limba care pare ba spaniola, ba greaca - ii intreb, sunteti din Brazilia? Da, raspunde unul din ei zambind, dar de unde esti dumneata? Din Romania, zic. Brazilienii imi zambesc cu un amestec de admiratie si surpriza.

La Metro Center, schimb metroul, il iau pe cel de Bethesda.

Iar în Ierusalim, langa Poarta Oilor, era o scaldatoare, care pe evreieste se numeste Vitezda, avand cinci pridvoare. In acestea zaceau multime de bolnavi, orbi, schiopi, uscati, asteptand miscarea apei. Caci un inger al Domnului se cobora la vreme în scaldatoare si falfaiala aripilor tulbura apa si cine intra intai, dupa tulburarea apei, se facea sanatos, de orice boala era tinut ... textul luat din Evanghelia dupa Ioan este inscris pe o placa de fier in fata marii librarii din Bethesda.

Dar nu la libraria asta vreau sa ajung, este o alta, mica, un anticariat superb prin neoranduiala lui. Pe vremuri se afla in Georgetown. S-a mutat aici, in Bethesda, dar si-a pastrat numele, Georgetown Bookshop. Acolo l-am descoperit pe Sudek, fotograful praghez, acolo l-am regasit pe Boris Pilniak. Il lasasem in paginile cartii lui Sahia din editia tiparita prin anii '30 - Stalin avea sa il trimita in Gulag, si Pilniak avea sa iasa si din edtiile urmatoare ale cartii lui Sahia, tiparite dupa 1944 ... Acum e aici, in libraria din Bethesda.

Josef Sudek, fotograful praghez - o coaja de ou, o pioneza, o frunza, ceva care pare conturul unei carti - Sudek care a stiut sa scoata graunte de cer din banalitatea obiectelor.

Si un pic mai departe, tot pe podea, un album cu catedralele Kremlinului. Intr-una din ele, Blagoveshtcenskii Sobor, iconostasul este pictat parte de Rubliov, parte de Teofan Grecul. Imi amintesc sfiala cu care priveam icoanele lui Rubliov. Era o dupa amiaza, restul excursionistilor se dusesera la un muzeu de arta orientala, eu m-am dus din nou in Kremlin, sa vad Blagoveshtcenskii Sobor, si icoanele lui Rubliov. O catedrala de dimensiuni mici, foarte bine proportionata - fusese paraclisul imperial. Icoanele lui Rubliov. Le priveam pentru intaia oara. La Tretiakov, sectia de icoane era inchisa intr-o perpetua renovare. Aveam sa le vad dupa aceea, icoanele lui Rubliov, numai prin albume.

Din libraria Bethesdei am cumparat acum catva timp un album Omiros - un pictor greco-american contemporan care incearca sa revitalizeze arta bizantina a icoanelor, dintr-o perspectiva non-figurativa. Rezultatul este uluitor, sfintii lui Omiros sunt contururi ghicite printre boabe de lacrimi.

Numai ca libraria are acum are vitrinele acoperite de hartie groasa de ambalaj, ce s-a intamplat? Intru in salonul de coafura de alaturi. Casierita ma priveste surprinsa. Ii explic. imi spune, cred ca dansul va poate lamuri si arata spre un coafor batran, cu barba si mustati.

Omul vine spre mine zambind, ce bine imi pare ca va revad! Ati trecut cu o treaba anume sau doar ca sa ma salutati?

Ii raspund usor incurcat, domnule, cred ca nu ne cunoastem. e o confuzie. Decat daca sunteti si dumneavoastra originar din Romania.

Zice, nu, nu sunt din Romania. Acolo v-ati nascut?

Zic, e mai complicat, la Paris. Tot acolo si dumneavoastra?

Zice, nu, in Germania.

E clar, zic, nu ne cunoastem. De fapt vreau sa va intreb despre librarie.

Zice, da, ce pacat, au desfiintat-o - acum e numai pe Internet - pacat, veneau oameni si zaboveau ore intregi cu cate o carte in mana. veneau profesori, veneau artisti, imi pare foarte rau si pentru dumneavoastra.

Pare un erou coborat din cartile lui Gustav Meyrink.

Cu ani in urma, la Pekin, ajuns in fata unui vanzator de Cloisonée-uri, intr-un mare magazin, am fost intampinat cu aceeasi fraza, ce bine imi pare ca va revad!

Dar vin pentru prima data in magazinul acesta.

Eu sunt convins ca ati mai fost.

Nu, nu am mai fost.

Atunci figura dumneavostra imi este foarte simpatica si vorbiti excelent engleza. Si domnul Dan a trecut de dimineata pe aici, ce om simpatic! Va rog sa ii transmiteti salutarile mele.

Dar de unde stiti ca sunt roman?

V-am spus ca nu veniti prima data aici.

Sunt de acum departe de Bethesda, prin padure. Inca nu stiu unde o sa ajung. Deodata un indicator kilometric, o sageata - raman inmarmurit - pana la Luxor sunt 10.000 kilometri. Okay, barem stiu unde ma aflu.

Josef Sudek - Still Life from his Studio

I believe that photography loves banal objects, and I love the life of objects.

Josef Sudek



(Modernism in Central Europe)