{ feuilleton }

“A prolonged, dense and visually visceral experience of the kind that is rare in cinema today. Difficult to define and locate, its strangeness is quite unique. That its elements are not constructed in a traditional way should not be a barrier to those who wish to cross the bridge to what Jean-Luc Godard proposed as the real story of the cinema—real in the sense of being made of images and sounds rather than texts and illustrations.”—Keith Griffiths

It was only two months ago that I enthused about Patrick Bokanowski’s extraordinary 1982 film, L’Ange, after a TV screening was posted at Ubuweb, and ended by wondering whether a DVD copy was available anywhere. Last week Jayne Pilling left a comment on that post alerting me to the film’s availability via the BAA site; I immediately ordered a copy which arrived the next day. So yes, Bokanowski’s film is now available in both PAL and NTSC formats, and the disc includes a short about the making of L’Ange as well as preparatory sketches and an interview with composer Michèle Bokanowski whose score goes a long way to giving the film its unique atmosphere. I mentioned earlier how reminiscent Bokanowski’s film was of later works by the Brothers Quay so it’s no surprise seeing an approving quote from the pair on the DVD packaging:

“Magisterial images seething in the amber of transcendent soundscapes. Drink in these films through eyes and ears.”—The Brothers Quay

If that wasn’t enough, there’s another DVD of the director’s short films available. Anyone who likes David Lynch’s The Grandmother or Eraserhead, or the Quays’ Street of Crocodiles, really needs to see L’Ange.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• L’Ange by Patrick Bokanowski
• The Hour-Glass Sanatorium by Wojciech Has
• Babobilicons by Daina Krumins
• Impressions de la Haute Mongolie revisited
• Short films by Walerian Borowczyk
• The Brothers Quay on DVD

Methodus scientiarum by Girolamo Brisiani (1588).

A work-related search for lettering designs by calligrapher Johann Neudörffer led me to the Munich Digitisation Centre, a site dealing with the digitisation and online publication of the holdings of the Bavarian State Library. The catalogue there holds a wealth of very old books and manuscripts which you can either view online or download as PDFs. Most of the works are in German or Latin but I still like to see the page designs even if I can’t read the text. Among their collection they have a large number of the classic works of alchemy. The texts of those are freely available on various alchemy websites but you rarely have the opportunity to examine in detail copies of the original publications. Lots of tasty wood engravings, vignettes and decorated borders.

Coelum Philosophorum Seu De Secretis naturae Liber by Philipp Ulsted (1528).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive

The Flandrin pose returns via this deviantART shot entitled Flandrin’s Skateboarder. Probably not what Flandrin himself had in mind but we’ve seen by now that this pose can manifest in numerous guises.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The recurrent pose archive

In Spaces Between from The Great Old Ones (1999).

Some noteworthy pieces of news as the month draws to a rain-sodden and dismal conclusion.

• Frank Woodward was in touch this week to let me know that his excellent HP Lovecraft documentary, Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown, will at last be appearing on DVD in October. This is a feature-length appraisal of Lovecraft’s life, work and influence, and includes contributions from Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, Guillermo Del Toro, Caitlin R Kiernan, Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell and Lovecraft scholar ST Joshi. A number of my artworks are included throughout and they’ll probably also be featured in a gallery section on the disc. The film was shot in HD so it’s being released on Blu-ray as well as regular DVD.

• Also Lovecraft-related, and also due out shortly, is DM Mitchell’s follow-up to the landmark Starry Wisdom anthology of Lovecraft-inspired texts and graphics. That volume was acclaimed in some quarters and condemned in others; I don’t doubt that this new work, Songs of the Black Wurm Gism, will manage the same. Contributors include David Britton, Grant Morrison and yours truly. The cover is Alan Moore’s splendid portrait of Asmodeus.

• Last but not least, Paul Schütze was also in touch this week with news that two more audio works have been added to his online catalogue. Soundworks 01 is his atmospherics created with with Andrew Hulme from the recent TV drama series Red Riding, while Tokyo/Osaka Live is two pieces of improvisation with Simon Hopkins. Both releases are available through iTunes.

Okay, so it’s not all Fifties’ design—the Moog album is from 1974—but these are more choice Flickr postings from a set devoted to album sleeves of the Easy Listening variety. Much of the music would no doubt erode my patience very quickly but there’s some nice (uncredited) design work going on. Viva! Percussion! has a distinct Saul Bass quality while The Sound of Chris Cross looks like something from the Designers Republic 20 years before its time. The Bolero album I picked solely out of shameless nostalgia. My mother used to have this among her collection of light classical albums and I’d completely forgotten about it until today. This recording would have been the first I heard of any of Ravel’s works. My sister and I used to find the cover slightly rude due to the red points on the ends of the model’s steel brassiere.

Lots more great sets at the same Flickr account; go and lose yourself. Thanks to Thom for the tip!

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Exotica!