Glimpses at CLERGYMEN

29. November 2021 • Jugend ohne Film • BLOG

JAMES WATERS:

“It’s like this. You see I’ve been a minister for a long time. I like it. I’ve been at this church and this church is very good. In fact, the people are very warm to me and they love me very much, which is very good. Because what that pulls out of me, is [also] what gives them something, pulling something out of them also.”

Rev. Luther Williams from Bill Gunn’s Ganja and Hess

The film begins and ends with the Rev. Williams (Sam Waymon, also the film’s composer). He narrates the film’s opening minutes, delineating his vocation as an inner-NYC minister from his profession as Dr. Hess Green’s chauffeur (Dr. Hess played by Duane Jones). Rev. Williams describes his employer as a victim, not a criminal – much in the way he impartially delineates his own employment/vocation dichotomy. Bookending the film, he ordains it with an aura of forgiveness that eludes Hess for the film’s interceding runtime.

Dr. Hess Green’s vocation is as an anthropologist, specialising in studies of the Myrthians, comprising an ancient African tribe of vampires/cannibals. Having been stabbed and cursed by one of their relics – a dagger at the hand of his academic protégé, George Meda (played by Gunn himself) – Hess drinks the blood of the inner-city underclass, trawling bars for prostitutes and vagrants who live day-to-day, fodder for Hess’ own, eternal bloodlust. Unlike Rev. Williams, Hess experiences no spiritual guidance and transacts from his community to feed a curse, one that plunges him deeper into his immortal self, away from death and – additionally – any kind of spiritual awakening.

Riddled with guilt, Hess goes to the church where his chauffeur ordains; a church within one of the communities Hess used to scout for warm bodies. This scene at church lasts upwards of 10 minutes and its energy is one of exultance. Rev. Williams’ forgiveness is cast along the entire church. He dances and wails into a microphone, dripping with sweat. One gets the impression that Williams was waiting for his employer to join his parishioners and return to the fold, planting the initial seed with an opening narration that hangs over both Hess and the film. Until this point, Waymon’s score was a non-diegetic ringing of the church’s opening sounds, with manipulated tape loops of choral voices echoing through the mental and physical spaces Hess inhabits throughout. But in this final scene it’s a return to the film’s opening aural diegesis and verité-aesthetic (a form likely dictated by the fact that it was filmed at an actual church with its parishioners, emphasised by the visible tungsten lights, snap zooms and multiple cameras shooting).

There’s an ecstasy in Hess’ absolution. He’s the only one to step up for forgiveness in the church, shuddering under Williams’ hand and rising up in tears. Returning home, he finds a makeshift cross hanging from a string and shot through with the glow of a lightbulb. Stepping under the cross’ shadow, Hess can finally partake in a death that serves a greater purpose; a life (his own) that he gives, instead of one that he takes.

SIMON WIENER: Wenn ich an Geistliche im Kino denke, kommt mir gleich meine Lieblingsfigur aus Stagecoach in den Sinn: Peacock, gespielt von Donald Meek. Peacock wird von anderen zwar stets als “reverend” bezeichnet, ist aber keineswegs Priester, sondern Whiskeyverkäufer. Tatsächlich kann man den unscheinbaren Peacock in jeder Hinsicht als Gegenteil dessen sehen, was ein Priester verkörpern sollte. Er hat keinerlei natürliche Autorität, keinerlei Einfluss über seine Mitmenschen, kann sich nie Gehör verschaffen. Seinen Namen kann sich niemand merken. Wenn er spricht, muss er sich zuvor räuspern, stottert dann unsicher, verspricht sich; seine Meinung wird aber ohnehin übergangen. Angesichts drohender Gefahr bleibt er nicht etwa ruhig, gibt keine besänftigenden Worte von sich, möchte ihr nicht gegenübertreten, sondern nur wieder zurück nach Hause. Peacock steht in vielen Einstellungen nur im Hintergrund herum. Eine der vielen Vergnügen, die der Film bereiten kann, besteht darin, seine Reaktionen zu beobachten. Das nervöse Klappern seiner Finger; die Aura des sich-Peinlichseins, die ihn beständig umgibt; seine Mimik, die wie ein Seismograph Handlungen der anderen aufzeichnet, vergrößert, kenntlich macht. Alles scheint ihn zu erschüttern; vor lauter Erschütterung ist ihm jegliche eigene Handlungsfähigkeit genommen. Zittriges Lächeln, unangenehme Betroffenheit. Peacock ist selbst fürs Ängstlichsein zu ängstlich. Dennoch versteht man, dass die anderen ihn für einen Priester halten. Sein Gebaren und seine Kleidung geben ihm trotz dem oben Aufgeführtem etwas Feierliches, Würdevolles, Ernstliches, ebenso die Aufmerksamkeit, mit der er zuhört.

SIMON PETRI: The distinctive characteristic of the priests I observe lies in their inseparable reticence and ostentation. They’re blue-eyed, frail and thin, bearing witness to the education that kept them from wind and sunburn and didn’t teach them how to land on their feet. At the same time, they’re theatrical and vain, finding fulfillment in speech acts and performances. They take pride in their sonorous baritone on the distant heights of the pulpit, but they turn quiet when rude practicalities approach them up close and indiscreetly.

Karpo Godina’s Zdravi Ljudi Za Razonodu approaches from up close and is indiscreet. It’s a film of simultaneous dimensions itself: a pictorial, ethnographic snapshot of centuries-long multi-ethnic coexistence in Vojvodina, which makes the inhabitants jubilantly sing about the people of the area. Yet, it’s also a prism that reflects the artificiality of exoticizing ethnographic films with rich irony through the mistrustful half-smile of the performers, who find the paean for the neighboring ethnicity both merited and absurd. There is mischief in the exquisite images: if it’s not the locals‘ prankish spirit, the director tilts the landscape’s pastoral beauty with a modern rock song.

The first priest in the film – out of the five it features – subtly radiates the described ambiguity. He talks about a receipt, chanting words like “pumpkin”, “cottage cheese” or “apple” on a high-pitched, transfigured tone. He constantly looks away from the camera, showing his irritation, questioning why he is asked to do this in the first place. Then he suddenly reappears, posing in two different costumes, wearing the weight of glamorous silk and velvet with the utmost personal honour, preceding the excess of the ecclesiastical fashion show in Federico Fellini’s Roma.

But that look remains, wishing to be left alone by the bothersome crew.

DAVID PERRIN: Es ist schwierig über jemanden zu schreiben – in diesem Fall einen Priester – vor dem man im wirklichen Alltag wenig Achtung empfinden kann. Es fehlt nicht nur die Sprache, sondern die Bilder überhaupt. Da kann das Kino helfen: Eine Figur zu vermenschlichen, ihr einen Glanz zu schenken, den sie in der Wirklichkeit selten hat. (Oder besser gesagt, die ich persönlich nie erlebt habe – darauf kommt es ja immerhin an) Zum Beispiel die Figur des Don Pietro Pelligrini, der Priester in Rosselinis Roma città aperta. Ein Widerstandskämpfer gegen die Nazis, der am Ende des Films von den Faschisten an einem Stuhl unter freiem Himmel gebunden und von einem deutschen Offizier durch einen Kopfschuss von hinten hingerichtet wird. Im Moment vor seinem Tode blickt er mit seinen ermüdeten Augen in dem Himmel, dann kommt der Knall: Der Tod eines Helden.

Oft, um eine für mich unsympathische Person oder Figur in etwas Liebenswürdiges zu verwandeln, habe ich mir immer vorgestellt, wie diese Person einen alltäglichen Vorgang verrichtet, wie zum Beispiel eine Katze füttert, ein Auto fährt, den Abwasch erledigt oder im Schlaf spricht.

„Wie gern der Priester Auto fuhr, und wie schnell, vor allem in dieser weiten, ziemlich leeren Grenzlandebene, wo er damals in seiner Verlobungszeit sogar bei einem Amateurrennen mitgemacht hatte, auf dem Volkswagen großaufgemalt die gleiche Nummer wie dann die für die Wäsche im Spätberufenen-Internat.“ (Peter Handke, Mein Jahr in der Niemandsbucht, S. 375)

Gerne würde ich einen Film sehen, in dem ein Priester während des gesamten Films nur durch eine Landschaft fährt, von frühmorgens bis spätnachts, wie er danach sich in seiner bescheidenen Wohnung, die sich am Rande einer Kleinstadt befindet, zurückzieht, seine Katze füttert, sein Abendessen kocht, danach eigenhändig das Geschirr abspült und schließlich vor dem Fernsehen einschläft, unheimliche Satz-Fragmente in sich hineinmurmelnd. Aber diesen Film gibt es (noch) nicht. Er müsste erst gemacht werden.

ANNA BABOS: A sickly, troubled woman arrives in a pink room for confession. On the wall is a picture of the heart of Christ, the priest is seated next to a cross. Instead of penance, he gives her a needle to prick herself with until she comes closer to the truth. Then, while lying in a hospital bed, the woman keeps the needle with her, under the blanket, pressed tightly to her breast. A visitor arrives and, while patting her kindly, accidentally presses the needle into the woman’s heart.

In Kutya éji dala, the director, Bódy Gábor plays the role of a pseudo-priest, a gesture that is usually understood as a self-confession, referring to his role as an informer in the Hungarian socialist Kádár regime. Although this interpretation seems rather obvious, it would be a pity to simplify his character to a biographical element. It opens up new ways to think about his conscious and narcissistic artistic position, but the pseudo-priest can also be approached as the essence of the Hungarian underground scene of the eighties. Together with other characters, Bódy represents a narrow, unique and outsider stratum, both in thought and humour, which, in addition to its unconcerned criticism of the system and society, looks at people with interest and is open to romantic sentimentalism.

Bódy appears as an eccentric pseudo-priest, who is out of place, doesn’t know the tools, but wants to work for and with the community. In the end, in a truly priest-like combination, there is warmth behind his egomaniac introspection.

SEBASTIAN BOBIK:

I will never forget seeing Strasti po Andreyu for the first time. It was on a small laptop in Russia, where I had been gifted the DVD by a gracious family who knew about my interest in cinema. It was on a cold winter evening that I decided to give the film a try. My friends had gone out to drink, while I had remained at home and sat in complete silence and amazement for three hours. I had never seen anything like it. From the opening, seemingly mythical hot air balloon flight, to the four horses standing in the rain at the end, I was stunned by this overwhelmingly physical and spiritual experience. I remember once recounting this experience and jokingly saying: “Whenever I watch Tarkovsky, I believe in God”. The image is the trinity (in Russian: Троица, pronounced Troitsa) by Andrei Rublev, the Russian icon painter, who was immortalized in cinema by the Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. Andrei makes a film about Andrei. In it, he reckons with the struggles of being an artist and being a man of faith, by showing us a man who is also both. For Tarkovsky this trinity by Rublev represented everything he wanted to tell in this film. It takes place in the 15th century, a time of chaos, violence and murder. The film makes sure to show us these acts of violence on several occasions. At this time, the painter Andrei Rublev was commissioned to create a work of art to honour Saint Sergeius of Radonezh. After leaving the sheltered walls of his monastery, Rublev was confronted with the chaos and frightening state of the world around him. In response to this his Trinity was made, to embody the values of spiritual unity, of love, fraternity and humility. In the film we are thrown for three hours into the uncertainty and suffering of this world. At the end of these dizzying and overwhelming wanderings through this world, the images, which had been black & white, suddenly turn into glorious color. A choir sings as we see finally the works of Andrei Rublev. His paintings are filmed in a combination of zooms and pans by Tarkovsky. And there among these works we also find his most famous work, this trinity, which is often seen as the greatest of all Russian icons.

ANDREW CHRISTOPHER GREEN: Kierkegaard thought that we cannot be true to anything if we don’t experience doubt. Doubt doesn’t signify a lack but a beginning. It’s a curious paradox. “A person laments that he has lost his faith, and when a check is made to see where he is on the scale, curiously enough, he has only reached the point where he is to make the infinite movement of resignation.” If Abraham hadn’t thought he was really going to sacrifice Isaac, if he knew God would provide him with a ram, if he didn’t doubt God, then he wouldn’t have had faith, and he wouldn’t have been a great man. The meek, unassuming pastor in Bresson’s Journal d’un curé de campagne practices his faith humbly in a fallen world. He is very ill and tends to his dwindling congregation despite their lack of devotion. The priest assumes this all to be a test of his faith. He gets sicker and sicker until he faces death with a conviction that borders on delusion. But we don’t question the authenticity of his faith, and he’s not at all a simple-minded person. He sees all the ugliness and cruelty of the world with sober eyes. I’ve been told its very hard to make films now, without any political or moral convictions, without hope. Those commitments have become a thing of the past, and we can’t work in the good old days but have to face the bad new ones. I think this is why Bresson’s Priest has always seemed so heroic to me. He holds fast to his beliefs amidst a social breakdown not as an escape from his suffering but out of a love of the world that could be. “The only philosophy that can be practiced responsibly in the face of despair is the attempt to contemplate all things as they would present themselves from the standpoint of redemption.”

RONNY GÜNL: Männer gedrängt in engen Reihen. Gesenkte Blicke, gehüllt in lange Talare. Die Konturen ihrer Körper verschwinden hinter den faltenlosen Stoffen. Reglos verharren sie an ihren zugewiesenen Plätzen. Ein raunendes Murmeln erschwert die stickige Luft. Kratzende Federn auf leerem Papier. Augen gezeichnet von frommer Demut und unterdrücktem Begehren. Eine winzige Handbewegung tritt aus dem Schatten heraus. Sie dirigiert das Geschehen.

Verschwiegen durchkreuzen Blickachsen den Raum. Perspektiven verschieben sich. Jede Richtung ist ein Bekenntnis, das sein Geheimnis verbirgt. Ein Loch in der Wand erscheint. Die aufgerissenen Augen dahinter kennen keinen Namen. Vor ihnen die Offenbarung, im Dunkeln das Unbekannte. Ein Augenblick erfüllt von Unbehagen und Neugier zugleich. Begrenzt vom Ausschnitt verliert sich das Bild im Taumel der Einbildungskraft.

Ergeben richtet sich der Kopf zum Himmel. Die Begegnung scheint den Widersinn aufzuheben. Es bleibt ein verzweifelter Rest. Robert Bressons Procès de Jeanne d’Arc lässt zwischen den Bildern keinen Platz für spekulative Erhabenheit. Stattdessen der Versuch, sich dem Schatten des Schicksals zu entledigen. Ängstliches Sehen hält entgegen daran fest.

Decisions, Dreams: Giotto, Fra Angelico, and John Ford

4. Januar 2021 • Andrew Christopher Green • BLOG

The pictorial strategies developed in the Trecento are most generally appreciated for their innovations in the representation of geometric space. Unlike flat byzantine mosaics, Trecento pictures started to become a plane, space began to recede outwards. Paintings were becoming something like a window through which the beholder witnessed the depth of his world expanding out, drawing him in. Panofsky writes that this was “an objectification of the subjective [experience].” And yet, at the time Cimabue, Giotto, and Gaddi were experimenting, the emphasis of a painting wasn’t on the representation of a frozen moment in time. This pictorial demand came later. In the Trecento pictures worked in the service of narrative, what Alberti called the Istoria. And for this reason they’re very economical; everything has to move quickly, to imply the before and after. They use quotations and summarize as much as possible. It strikes us how multiple events can happen simultaneously in these panels. People can appear twice, performing different acts in different places, and this isn’t a contradiction.

Fra Angelico,“The Vision of Pope Innocent III; Saints Peter and Paul Appearing to Saint Dominic“, Tempera on panel, ca. 1452–55

A few frescos and predella-panels by Giotto, Gozzoli, and Fra Angelico depict a story called „The Dream of Pope Innocent III.“ They were all commissioned by Franciscan orders to visually imagine the community’s most important foundational story. Pope Innocent III had initially denied St. Francis’s request to form an order of monks. The church was then in crisis, and Innocent III was trying to hold it together by maintaining a central papal authority. A legend claimed the Pope dreamt later that night of the Lateran Basilica falling, and of St. Francis propping it up. It was then that he changed his mind. Le Monnier recounts; „‚Truly,‘ cried the Pontiff, ‚this is indeed the man who has been called to sustain and to repair the Church of God.'“

Giotto, „Legend of St Francis: 6. Dream of Innocent III“, Fresco, ca. 1297-99, in the San Francesco, Assisi

These works show the pope sleeping, dreaming. His dream is conveniently always shown right next to him, in the very same panel. These artists weren’t forced to create a panel for the dreamer and another for the dream. In Giotto’s fresco in Assisi the Basilica is about to fall on Pope Innocent III, though it doesn’t seem to have any weight. Most other renditions of the scene show the church cracking somewhere, but this basilica is completely in tact. Even its foundation tilts, or is raised above the ground level by Francis’s confident right arm. There is something unbelievable about the threat. It looks less like Francis is supporting the church than he is lifting it off the ground with one hand, as if it were a nearly life-size model made of foamcore. And note the entrance; it’s too small for Francis to enter. To give Giotto a bit of license, though, we all know how malleable space can become in our dreams.

Giotto, „St. Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata,“ Tempera and gold on panel, ca. 1295-1300

A portico’s pillar splinters in the predella to his “St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata.” The church seems to fall as much in the direction of the viewer as it does onto the pope. Here Francis does not seem so confident, using both hands and an outstretched leg to brace it. Our eyes don’t only read left to right, as in the fresco, but from foreground to background (note the receding line of pillars inside the church). There’s a black void where it’s foundation should be. As in his fresco, the floor is tilted at the same angle as the rest of the church. But there’s no ambiguity, here, as to whether or not St. Francis is lifting the church. He’s most certainly breaking under it, about to snap like the pillar. He was not a super-human miracle-worker but a humble saint. When asked by Brother Messeo why the brothers should follow Francis he responded; „Wouldst thou know why all men come after me? Know that it is because the Lord, who is in heaven, who sees the evil and the good in all places – because, I say, his holy eyes have found among men no one more wicked, more imperfect, or a greater sinner than I am; and to accomplish the wonderful work which he intends to do, he has found no creature more vile than I am on earth; for which reason he has chosen me, to confound all strength, beauty, greatness, noble birth, and all the science of the world, that men may learn that every virtue and every good gift cometh from him, and not from any creature, that none may glory before him; but if any one glory, let him glory in the Lord, to whom belongeth all glory in eternity.“ This predella always appears first in the series, it is both the cornerstone of the order’s identity and the architectural cornerstone upon which the entire panel rests. St. Francis holds the Basilica in place in the Pope’s dream as this composition holds the panel in place. To witness this act is not to behold an imagination of the miraculous, like the great mysterium of theology in Angelico’s Annunciations, but rather it demands its viewer conjure in faith the fortitude to not bow under the pressure of the world.

Fra Angelico, „Coronation of the Virgin,“ ca. 1434–1435

Angelico’s versions, made a century and a half after Giotto’s, are more nightmarish, the predella to the „Coronation of the Virgin“ in particular. It was an early work. (The other two versions Angelico made follow Gozzoli’s composition, which more strictly demarcate the space between the dream and the dreamer.) In this first predella the open view from the Pope’s bed turns the drama of Francis’s brace into a theater. The flowers of the meadow which have been so carefully rendered will get smashed if Francis grows tired (Pope Innocent will remain outside the path of destruction, though). Angelico elongated the distances between things in a creepy, expansive way. This is intensified by the details of the pink Basilica. Just look at its molding, the flutes of the engaged columns and their faint ornamentation. They’re going to imprint themselves into the soft meadow if he falters. And there is yet another grouping of flowers we can see to the left of Pope Innocent III’s chamber, and just beyond them there is a slim view of an entry way, maybe its a passage to the tall cylindrical tower in the distance. Why all of these details in such a small predella, why so many places for the eye to run away to? Amidst these distractions, St. Francis maintains his focus. The threat of an architectural catastrophe is held confidently in all these images; their economy is so well suited against the threat of disintegration. They don’t make a spatial appeal to us the way Masaccio will, who becomes a victim to the precision of his schemata, a delicacy always on the verge of being shattered. No, these pictures of St. Francis are allowed to set their own rules. They express a confidence in their logic, a certainty that the myth of Francis of St. Francis holding up the Laterna Basilica in Pope Innocent III’s dream will endure the tests of time.

Fra Angelico, Detail of the predella with the Dream of Innocent III, in „Coronation of the Virgin,“ ca. 1434–1435

While looking at all these early renaissance paintings John Ford kept coming to my mind. „When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.“ Ford’s films often tell two stories at the same time; they create a myth and break it apart simultaneously. They don’t ‚deconstruct‘ myths so much as they provide insights on the ways we create them, the ways we depend on them. Like Giotto and Angelico, Ford shows us the dreamer and the dream in a single work.

How Green Was My Valley? is an exemplary case; the main character Huw narrates his childhood in a mining town on the coast of Wales with a nearly pathological idealism. Like his family and his fellow townspeople he cannot adapt to change. This ineptitude ultimately tears his family apart, destroys the church, forces his brothers run away to America, and climaxes with his fathers death inside the mine. And in the face of all this Huw maintains a myopic fantasy. The film begins as the mine has dried up and Huw is literally forced to leave his hometown of barren economic necessity. Nonetheless his narration begins; “I am leaving behind me fifty years of memory. Memory… Who shall say what is real and what is not? Can I believe my friends all gone when their voices are a glory in my ears? No. And I will stand to say no and no again, for they remain a living truth within my mind. There is no fence nor hedge around time that is gone. You can go back and have what you like of it… So I can close my eyes on my valley as it was.”

John Ford, How Green Was My Valley?

Lesser interpreters have condemned this film as Ford’s idealization of proletariat life, painting a pretty picture of industrial misery, saying that life is all a matter of the attitude you take towards it. Nearly the entire film is in a first-person narration (Tag Gallagher notes that only Max Ophüls Letters to an Unknown Woman employs this radical narratorial format), and perhaps this is why so many viewers have mistakenly viewed this film as pessimistic naivety. This is because they identify Ford’s vision of the world with Huw’s. But Gallagher shows how clearly Ford isn’t identifying with, nor subjecting his audience to an identification with, Huw’s idealism. Rather, the film looks over his shoulder. We see Huw’s attempt to idealize his life in a critical relief to the brutal events transpiring. Huw witnesses his father die in the mine, and yet a few scenes later the father is walking with him through the valley, greeted by his brothers who left for work in America long ago. We empathize with Huw’s ideation but are not absorbed by it. The subjective is objectified. We see the dreamer dreaming and we see his dream.

John Ford, How Green Was My Valley?

How Green Was Huw’s Valley? It might have been quite green, but it has long since been buried beneath layers of soot. Ford’s genius is his ability to show the grass and the soot. And like these pictures of St. Francis and Pope Innocent III dreaming, in Ford’s films duality isn’t a contradiction, it is their realism.

Ford und Beethoven

20. Juli 2018 • Simon Wiener • BLOG

Dieses Bild bleibt in meinem Kopf, auch zwei oder drei Jahre, nachdem es mir in einem Film begegnet ist. Es gibt Filmbilder wie dieses, die ein Eigenleben entwickeln, die emblematisch werden für einen Film, einen Regisseur, eine Denkweise; andere Aspekte ordnen sich ihnen unter, und wir biegen Informationen natürlicherweise so zurecht, dass sie diesem Bild entspricht, oder besser: dass das Bild im Gesamtzusammenhang Sinn ergibt, auch wenn dieser weit hergeholt ist.

Das Bild stammt aus John Fords Drums Along the Mohawk, aber wenn ich mir dieses Bild vergegenwärtige, muss ich nicht nur an Ford, sondern oft auch an Beethoven denken, was unter anderem sicher von meinem Hintergrund als klassischer Musiker (Geiger) herrührt. Vergleiche von Filmemachern mit Komponisten oder anderen Künstlern anzustellen, ist verlockend, aber auch heikel: man läuft Gefahr, Künstler misszuverstehen, sie in ein vorgefertigtes (Denk-)Muster zu drängen, sie zu unkomplexen Schachfiguren zur Illustration von naiv-fehlgeleiteten persönlichen Erwägungen zu marginalisieren. Dennoch drängen sich mir einige solcher Vergleiche auf: Ford – Beethoven, dann Akerman – Schönberg (hier gibt es auch interessante biographische Parallelen), Chaplin – Mozart, vielleicht auch Nicholas Ray – Schumann oder Straub/Huillet – Luigi Nono. (Doch wer wäre etwa das Pendant von Sternberg? Eine Person, die vielleicht in allen anderen Künsten leicht eine Entsprechung fände, da ihr Profil derart klar umrissen und einflussreich ist… abgesehen von der Musik; was ist Ästhetizismus in der Musik? Sogar: „was ist Form in der Musik?“ ist nicht klar: nicht nur der „Grundriss in der Zeit“ gehört dazu, sprich deren Architektur mit gegebenenfalls wiederkehrenden Elementen; sondern auch das Tonmaterial, aus dem geschöpft wird, das Harmonik und Melodik bestimmt… Ist Musik also reine Form?) Ich beschränke mich im Folgenden aber auf das eingangs genannte Paar.

Das Bild zeigt eine Frau auf einem sanften Hügel, die einen Soldatentrupp betrachtet, der gerade in den Krieg aufbricht. Schon der Gesamtcharakter des Bildes – melancholisch, pastoral, naiv, einfach, weit / weitgreifend (ample), „klassisch schön“ – erinnert an einen langsamen Satz Beethovens, oder zumindest der Wiener Klassik; besonders auch die Freude und Trauer, die gleichzeitig den Moment heimsuchen, ihn bestimmen, sich treffen in einer einzigen Geste: dem Blick der uns abgewandten Frau. Aber nicht nur diese Elemente sind Beethoven-artig: die Art und Weise der Konstruktion des Bildes (respektive die Art und Weise wie es zu uns spricht) entsprechen exakt der Methode, mit der Beethoven seine Wirkung zirkelt – ich spreche hier hauptsächlich vom frühen oder mittleren Beethoven. Die schein- und sichtbare Einfachheit des Bildes / der Musik ist das Resultat einer komplexen Arbeit; gleichzeitig kreiert diese Einfachheit starke Emotionen. Man könnte sagen: die Einfachheit kanalisiert / trichtert zwischen dem Input (Leben -> Künstler) und dem Output (Wirkung des Kunstwerks auf das Leben des Publikums), die beide komplex und vielschichtig sind. Nehmen wir das Trio aus dem 1. Menuett des 1. Streichtrios als Beispiel; es verbindet alles oben Beschriebene (die Stelle kommt ab Minute 18:05):

Eine einfache Melodie, die von Ton zu Ton überhaupt keine Sprünge aufweist (Sprünge gelten normalerweise als besonders ausdrucksstark), alle Töne liegen in nächster Nähe, es scheint als werde keine Mühe aufgewendet, um einen bestimmten Effekt zu erzeugen; doch genau dieses Mühelose mündet in den weitläufig-melancholischen Gestus dieser Musik.

Ford und Beethoven: Dichter, die der geringsten, simpelsten, unbedeutendsten Geste besondere Bedeutung beimessen, die sie transformieren in etwas Transzendentales, beseelt von Anmut. Beethoven benützt äußerst oft Tonleitern, also die einfachste Art, Töne zu verbinden, zur Formung einer Melodie; dass man aus Tonleitern derartige Anmut herauswringen kann ist bei ihm immer wieder aufs Neue erstaunlich. Seine Tonleitern sind Fords Himmel, Steppen und Wälder; die kleinen harmonischen Wechsel sind das Heben eines Blicks oder das Anlehnen des Kopfs an eine Mauer. Etwa der Mittelteil aus dem 2. Satz der 2. Violinsonate (ab Minute 7:17):

oder gleich der Anfang der 13. Klaviersonate:

Diese Stellen sind blutsverwandt mit etwa dem Kopf-Anlehnen des Huw Morgan an einen Holzpfahl in How Green Was My Valley oder dem Blickwechsel zwischen seiner Schwester Angharad mit dem Prediger in der Kirche mit Senken und anschliessendem Heben des Blicks.

Die jähen, die idyllische Ruhe unterbrechenden Akzente und Charakterwechsel Beethovens können wir entdecken in den plötzlichen Attacken von Gauner-Clans oder Indianer; den tänzerisch-noblen Esprit Beethovens finden wir in den zahlreichen Paraden, Feiern, Märschen, Tänzen usw. in den Filmen Fords. Aber auch der derbe, etwas übermütige Witz Fords hat eine Entsprechung: Beethoven übernimmt den ebenso derben, frechen Humor Haydns in vielen schnellen Sätzen, die mit kurzen, kargen, abbrechenden Fragmenten spielen. In beiden Fällen stellt er einen Gegenpol (oder: eine Übersteigerung / Groteskisierung) des beschriebenen noblen-festlichen Charakters dar.

Drums Along the Mowhawk spielt zur Zeit des amerikanischen Unabhängigkeitskrieges, um 1780; also grob zur selben Epoche des frühen Beethovens. Dieser Krieg ist nicht nur das (unsichtbar-drängende) eigentliche Zentrum des obenstehenden Bildes; er dringt wie ein Nebel in jede Pore, Aktion, Geste des Filmes; und bei Ford ist immer etwas spürbar, eine mysteriöse Kraft, die die Charaktere und Landschaften heimsucht, sie gleichzeitig in ihr Umfeld einbettet; der zweifelhafte Fortschritt der Zivilisation, Krieg, Hass und Ausgrenzung mit sich ziehend (am exemplarischsten vielleicht in Fort Apache und The Searchers). Nicht umsonst konfrontiert Ford fast immer seine Figuren mit deren vergangenen Ebenbildern; davon zeugen die zahlreichen einprägsamen Friedhofsszenen (etwa in Judge Priest, Young Mr. Lincoln, My Darling Clementine, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon) oder einfach das Sprechen zu verstorbenen Familienmitgliedern (hier treffen sich wieder optimistische und bittere Komponenten in derselben Geste).

Auch für Beethoven ist dieser doppeldeutige Fortschritt Antrieb seines Werks; nach der französischen Revolution zunächst feuriger Anhänger Napoleons, es folgt Ernüchterung, der Rückzug der Widmung der Eroica an Napoleon. Das Einbrechen des Mystischen in die quirlig-lebhafte Jetztzeit, die Heimsuchung der Vergangenheit, des „Friedhofs“, finden wir bei Beethoven aussergewöhnlich oft als „Intermezzo“, als choralartige, homogen geführte Zwischenspiele in schnellen Sätzen; so etwa in oben erwähntem 1. Streichtrio (gegen Ende der Exposition des 1. Satzes; bei Minute 2:07):

„Ford’s cinema, as all great cinema, is one of reactions“, sagt Tag Gallagher und bringt damit dessen musikalisches Element heraus; und um auf eine zu Beginn gestellte Frage zur Form in der Musik zurückzukommen: Form ist die Art des musikalischen Darstellens einer Kette von Reaktionen.