What I ended up seeing on screen really impressed me. Trimpin: The Sound of Invention is a very subtle film that mixes verite elements with a few talking heads to great effect. Not once does Pete make his filmmaker presence known (no cameos, narration, etc). This film is what it should be: a portrait of Trimpin. The film had some really great sound design, incorporating Trimpin's musical inventions in a nice way. As Pete mentioned, there is a bit of an arching narrative, but this narrative never gets in the way of the artist portrait. Towards the end of the film, I began to understand what it is that makes Trimpin tick. Leaving the theater, I was inspired to create my own musical inventions. Needles to say, I've yet to follow through on this inspiration, but hopefully I can dive right into this undertaking in the near future.
The whole film experience was made better by the fact that I got to meet Trimpin himself. The artist had his own mini gallery set up inside the State Theater downtown. I tell you, nothing is cooler than getting to hand out with a really insane/brilliant artist/inventor. Not only did I get to meet the subject, but I also got to experience some of his incredible work first hand. As all this was transpiring, I couldn't help but wonder why Trimpin isn't more well known. Hopefully Peter's doc will raise the artist's profile. Here's hoping that film gets distributed, and that some day, I can commission Trimpin to make an invention for myself!
So glad you got to see the film and meet the star, Jason! Peter is sending his film so that the class can view later in semester. He also sent his favorite quotes which I will attempt to post here:
ReplyDeleteELECTED QUOTES peter esmonde
“Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.”
-- Jean-Luc Godard
“The greatest danger for those working in the cinema
is the extraordinary possibility it offers for lying.”
-- Michelangelo Antonioni
“Among all the arts, cinema is probably the most responsible for this enormous
process of conditioning and stupefaction that has been going on.”
-- Roberto Rossellini
“Isn’t it horrifying? In cinema we keep repeating the same things over and over again.
The only change possible is in the choice of certain frames, in a new lighting trick.
What matters is to prove that we can repeat the same story over and over again,
always providing it with the same variations. This is a sign of enormous impotence.”
-- Roberto Rossellini
“A filmmaker does not invent an infinity of different types of shots and scenes.
Rather, he invests each shot and scene with his [own] philosophy.”
-- Nagisa Oshima
“The future of cinematography belongs to a new race of young solitaires
who will shoot films by putting their last cent into it and not let themselves
be taken in by the material routines of the trade.”
-- Robert Bresson
“Filmmakers who use the thick walls of film companies as an excuse for failure
to become actively involved deserve condemnation . . . Those walls are far
more frightening when they take away the filmmaker’s active involvement
than when they reject it . . .”
-- Nagisa Oshima
“The great danger for an artist is to find himself comfortable. It’s his duty
to find the point of maximum discomfort, to search it out.”
-- Orson Welles
“The thing that’s important to know is that you never know.
You’re always sort of feeling your way.”
-- Diane Arbus