Entschuldigen Sie bitte

Well. It's been a while. Too long, really - months. Edward Yang, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni have all passed away and are probably now in heaven, being assaulted by the vicious ghost of Klaus Kinski. We will miss them.

Meanwhile, Kino-Eye has been suspended in limbo for the last few months, and for that I apologize. Summer employment came to monolpolize most of my free time, thus preventing me from updating this site as often as I would have liked. But today is my final day as an espresso jockey and, from here on in, I should (school work aside) be able to devote myself to this site in a way that I haven't been able to recently.

And I am happy to report that as soon as I finish this little update-cum-apology, I will be able to post an interview that has been in the works for sometime now, one which I'm quite happy to have secured. In terms of postings to come, there are a few things in the works but, as usual, the content of this site will largely be determined on the spur-of-the-moment. And by all of you, who I am hoping will contribute articles and keep me posted on film-related happenings in Toronto.

So, again, big apologies for abandoning this site - it won't happen again.

'Before I speak, I have something important to say.'

I assume a few of you are curious as to the origins of this blog's title, 'Kino-Eye'. Perhaps a few of the more clever students out there have already deciphered this cryptic phrase. If so, well done - your prize is the satisfaction of knowing that you truly are a film geek (and possibly a communist as well). For the rest of you, the answer is maybe more mundane than you might have hoped. 'Kino-Eye' is simply the name of a movie I happen to enjoy, by a director whose name I feel more sophisticated just by pronouncing, Dziga Vertov.

A friend of mine - himself a director - originally alerted me to the Soviet Dziga Vertov, specifically Vertov's film 'Man With A Movie Camera'. An amazing work, but a little too cumbersome to be the title of a blog. I opted instead for the title of one of Vertov's earlier works, 'Kino Glaz' ('Kino Eye'). It has a nice ring to it. More to the point, it allows us to imagine that we are that eye, redirecting the gaze of cinema (narcissistically, perhaps) back upon itself - in this case, the Toronto film scene.

But I think Vertov himself said it best:

"I am the eye. I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, am showing you a world, the likes of which only I can see... My road is towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus I decipher in a new way the world unknown to you."

(Many thanks to my friend Kohei for supplying me with the quote.)

I don't pretend to possess the qualifications to write at length about early avant-garde Soviet cinema, but I will say that I find it immensely fascinating that some of the most innovative films ever committed to celluloid were produced under the watch of the 'Man of Steel', Joseph Stalin. But then again, it might not be so bizarre. 'Casablanca' is nothing if not a paean to America's Free-French allies during the Second World War. And of course, there is Akira Kurosawa's first feature, 'Sanshiro Sugata', itself intended by his producers to instill in a war-time Japanese audience the correct sense of 'Yamato damashii'. Perhaps the relationship between the (totalitarian) state and art is more symbiotic than we would like to believe.

If you're curious about this Vertov fellow, or maybe are in need of some time to kill while you should be working on an essay (and if so, shame on you), then head on over to Google Video where you can watch the entirety of 'Kino Glaz' for free (along with, as I've just discovered, a slew of classic Chinese films from the Nationalist period). Too lazy to search the site yourself? All right. Here's the link. Happy?

(With many thanks to Groucho M. for supplying the title to this post.)

Welcome to the Panopticon

Kino-Eye has officially joined Facebook as a group! Just search for 'Kino-Eye' under groups and you should be able to find it. Hopefully this Facebook group will help assemble an informal staff of writers for the blog as well as serve as a message board for discussion related to the Toronto film scene. A few people have already expressed interest in writing for Kino-Eye. That's great - but even if you don't feel comfortable writing articles for the blog, you can always send me an email to alert me to people, events or anything else you think worthy of attention.

Many thanks again to my friend Peter for designing yet another logo for the blog.