Kodachrome, a film so legendary that Paul Simon wrote a song about it, and so important that the U.S. State Parks and Services named a Park after it. And for good reason: not alone was it one of the very first films to capture color in 1935, it was also the only one of its kind: a color film that has the grain structure of a black and white film.
And being my favorite color film stock, I was saddened to hear that the very last processing center in the world for Kodachrome, Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas, was ending all Kodachrome processing, december 31st, 2010.
To properly send it off to the ‘Valhalla’ of cinema, I obtained several rolls of Kodachrome 64 in “double-8”, (that I could run through an old flea-market Bell & Howell camera) and contacted Copenhagen’s maestro’s of surf sound, El Ray.
We orchestrated a day of shooting in Copenhagen’s only Tiki bar, “Brass Monkey”, and Fredrik, cinematographer and alumni of the Norwegian Film School, volunteered to man the Bell & Howell and Bauer (the muscular 1980’s Bauer for additional shots on super8 and for its 40 frames per second). I directed, and shot some pick-up footage on a DSLR (limited to three short takes in the video).
With my film friends, Nanna (1st AD), Fredrik (D.P.), Phillip (Lighting) & Nicoline (Hair & Make-up) & Frederik (Assistant to the D.P.), and the band El Ray, I can proudly say we gave Kodachrome a proper farewell, here, from Copenhagen’s snowy streets.
My latest music video for Ugly Mac Beer & Mister Modo - “This Is Paris”… shot on glorious Super 8 and other goodies. Enjoy the trip through Paris, all with a wink and a tip of the hat to Claude (LeLouche)
Brooklyn does. Brooklyn’s finest chocolatier’s are on a first name basis with their ingredients’ proprietors, now that’s a luxury I wish I had more often. Yet the choco-meisters don’t stop there: not satisfied with ‘just’ being delicious, the Mast Brothers make it a point to make the paper, pack the chocolate, and send it fresh— and that ingredients list is simply pure, and surprisingly simple. For your own Mast Brother’s experience, head to Brooklyn, or order (like I did) from Hickoree’s (not surprisingly, also in Brooklyn)…
Fail? Or is it unusually honest marketing? And what’s with the seafood? Seen at the Queen’s Palace (Amalienborg, Copenhagen).
Melodie Lens, Big Up Film, No Flash, Taken with HipstamaticBrown butcher’s papers, Badgers’ hairs, & Made in the USA. Three things amongst others at Kasper Hostrup’s Copenhagen store: GOODS. A little film I made over two weekends— made for that little materialist “id” in all of us…
It’s Round 4 of this epic 12 rounder. You’ve survived round 1, bobbing and weaving to avoid that fatal right hook. You took in a barrage of body blows in round 2, and remembered to be careful, keeping your elbows tight, slightly rotating for each pounding fist, protecting those “oh so important” kidneys. Round 3 was spent on the ropes, looking for an opening, trying to get into the match with a decisive blow or three, but found yourself dancing around the target, looking for that “gift” that wasn’t to come. Round 4. You’re looking over at your opponent from your stool, ten seconds before being thrown back in there with the Beast. The deafening collective whistle of the sanguinous crowd is looking for one of the two gladiators to tumble— to step into that tongue-splitting uppercut, or black-out from that jaw-breaking right… Yes indeed, it’s 2011, I’m still in Copenhagen, getting water sprayed in my mouth while my over-the-hill coach yells in my ear strategies that seem so easy to those who aren’t in the fight. Yes, it’s 2011, and I still haven’t made that feature film. It’s round 4 in the Clash of Copenhagen, and if I want to stay in this fight, this round is crucial, pivotal I say, for the win. I have to fight away the normality, banality and whatever else is waiting for me with a quick exit from the fight. I want Christian Bale in my corner, but he’s not answering my calls. This Slumbering Beast of an opponent thinks it’s seen everything, been everywhere, but little does it know… Right? It’s my time to rattle that keister, whack the mole, and come at it with such speed it never saw my right hook closing in. It’s round 4, and to borrow from a certain Muhammad Ali, I have to get more in four…
Henrik Bülow is a Danish Photographic institution in and of himself. His work is to be found in all the vanguard danish fashion bibles, and in nearly all of their issues. He’s a prolific framer— his shots rolling off the printing presses are usually the first snap of every set-up— his index finger knows what he wants, and Bülow’s command of a set is as effective as it is captive.
I asked Uffe Buchard if I could film a day with Henrik Bülow & Co. on a Dansk Magazine shoot, and so I did, cutting the result to the moody ballad of “Black Room” by Moby.
Thanks to Stephen Mackinder for arranging it all.
Shot on a Nikon D7000 with 30+ year old AIS lenses: 85mm 1.8/ 50mm 1.4/ 28mm 2.8
The images of Henrik Bülow will be available in issue S/S 2011 of Dansk Magazine.
The OTHER BFF:
Above: a collage I slapped together in honor of last night. The Bicycle Film Festival guested Copenhagen this weekend, showcasing short films and features for culture lovers, artists, traffic freedom fighters, stuntmen, acrobats, adventurers, philanthropists, bike messengers, Alley Cat racers, and rockers. B.F.F.’s After Party in the old abandoned workshop on Enghavevej was an eye opener for me, as I discovered an affinity for Bike Polo. Le Foxholes, a rock n’ roll ensemble all the way from Grand Rapids, Michigan playing a set while Bike Polo was underway, didn’t hurt the mood either. See you next year, BFF.
The above is my first foray into the world of the animated ad. Quite simple in technique, it just required some creative use of Final Cut Pro, as I do not have any compositing programs of my own. A fun little cut & paste job that is being used by fashion guru’s “The House of Skins” to promote their jump onto the written page, here with their first print magazine, “Evanescent”.
(photo credit: “Somewhere” Promo kit)
Venice, Italy. An impractical dreamer’s city that would never have seen the Building & Construction Commissioner’s greenlight— were it proposed today. A treasure: Venezia, the renaissance city on water, in water, and partly underwater. An extravagant vision that has stood since (according to Wiki) the year 421. And home to the world’s oldest film festival.
The 67th roll-out of La Biennale di Venezia’s Film Festival was quite subdued. A shell of a festival— not because of budget cuts or construction— but for the lack of festivitas for the people. The whole affair felt like arriving at the party only to hear the distant cry of the bartender’s coup de grace: “Last Call!”
And what a PERFECT venue for Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere”. Completely sold out at all the showings in Lido and Venice proper, I had to take the number 5 bus to the historic cinema “Excelsior” in Mestre to catch a glimpse. I’m glad I did. While I can’t personally vouch for Hollywood, (as I haven’t been a pawn in the mix since 2004) I can with certainty state that “Somewhere” embodied the spirit of the 67th Venice Film Fest to the letter: a soft, tired idol searching for meaning.
It truly takes a masterly filmmaker to make such a banal premise enjoyable. It takes the likes of a young Kaurismaki or Jarmusch, Jonze or Fellini to entice the senses with such a dull tale of losing ones way in the GPS’d out, assisted living of the rich and famous. Who cares? Exactly. Well done Sofia.
2010: it’s already been quite an interesting year in film, a year with memorable notes: “Cold Souls”, “Sin Nombre”, “R”, “Un Prophète”, “Mary & Max”… and surprisingly, there are more to mention, instilling this writer with hope for an art-form that has been in recovery from a malignant brain-eating disease since the 70’s ushered in the 80’s. That’s a long time. Albeit the 80’s had its handful, the 90’s its rejuvenation, and the 2000’s, well, as a decade will be remembered for its dizzying herd of mastodont, third-world-buying-blockbusters, trilogies worth such staggering amounts one wonders why the world’s financial leaders haven’t been replaced with these titanic Hollywood procurers of profit.
In a way, “L’Hérisson” (The Hedgehog, or Pindsvinet for danes) the debut feature by Mona Achache, gracefully responds to the intimidating juggernaut of Tinseltown , by way of her film’s charmingly prickly protagonist: “Paloma” (played by a very promising Garance Le Guillermic). “Paloma” suggests, if you are in a quandary with regards to the status quo, express yourself, and draw a line in the proverbial sand— “Paloma’s” creative use of: a felt-tip pen, wall-paper, scissors, craft paper, a glue-stick, a Eumig Hi-8 camera, and a trenchant, in-the-moment, voice-over, cuts through the layers of superficiality like a butcher’s hatchet through whipped cream. Now I haven’t read the book on which the film is based, so I will not engage in treading the perilous waters of: ‘book vs. film’. All I can say is Madamoiselle Achache pulled off a near-perfect post-modern fairy-tale telling— a tale for a generation of self-aware adolescents. A tale for adults who still remember what innocence felt like. A tale.
Tales depend on our want to suspend disbelief, and if you aren’t too jaded by life’s many checks, “L’Hérisson” is an excellent reason to ditch that disbelief for a solid 90 minutes. Need hyper-realism? Then go experience one of the many excellent documentaries that abound these days. But if you happen to be in the market for a good ole’ sweeping off of the feet by way of a Japanese intellectual (Togo Igawa, here playing a man akin to the finest of aged Margaux’s), and if you want to remember what it was like to be an adolescent manically wired to create, or even a middle-aged romantic who’s forgotten the sensual touch, see “L’Hérisson”.
“L’Hérisson” proves that the french still deliver leaps beyond the rest of us in that most difficult of genres, the: life-affirming, fable-esque, tragi-comic social-realist film. See 2008’s “Un conte de Noël” for further reference.
(Warning, the following concluding statement references a plot element— read at own risk) For you, Mona Achache, I forgive you for the use of the automobile accident as a story catalyst— this one time— because “L’Hérisson” left a stronger impression, one meritting a pass for use of that ‘crutch’— that worn-out turning point that seems to invade films like the spanish inquisition… I don’t care if it was in the book. (*deep breath*) Cheers Mona, an excellent debut based on un-doubtedly excellent material (minus the you-know-what).
I have to write it, photograph it, make this entry just to believe it… Copenhagen, Kjøbenhavn, Copenhague… I haven’t been in love with you since 2006. We had our differences, we had a trial separation, and now, all of a sudden, you choose to romance me after 4 years of silence? Well, you had me at “sunshine and Cuban weather”… Here I am, basking in your baking sun, strolling your green grounds, taking in your cities beautiful offspring, sailing your canals, eating your strawberries, feeling the caress of your warm afternoon breeze… I enjoyed our walk today, a bronze and evergreen stroll through Churchill Park, I admired your fish-filled, swan-paddling, duck-diving still-water… Your guitar-picking, picnicking 30-somethings celebrating each other and the finest weather this city has seen since 2006. Sunny Copenhagen, I love you, now won’t you stay a bit longer, and keep your evil twin sister at bay— far, far away— just a little while yet?
David Reuss of Copenhagen’s Jazz Kælder (Jazz Basement) curated my first exhibition in Denmark— and promptly thereafter, a collector acquired this piece, my Cuban Croc pic “La Boca del tiempo perdido”— cheers to you David, cheers to you & the collectors of Copenhagen— there will be more to come.
About me
A "flashlight" for the marginal, the independent, the forgotten. All posts by A.Archimbaud
