Nowadays everyone repeats after Godard, "film begins with DWGriffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami"... I don't understand the second part of this sentence. Is it hinting at Kiarostami's films' outright stiffness and tediousness, or being sarcastic about his habitually fabricating feature-length films using stories that were supposed to be told in less than 30 minutes? The so-called "minimalism," or "simplicity," of Kiarostami, as opposed to that of Bresson and other truly minimalist directors, originates neither from calm, refined shots and cuts, nor from the preference of clean, subdued actions over a lengthy, explanatory dialogue. These choices that really characterize a film as cinematically simple and beautiful are hardly ever seen in Kiarostami's films. Rather, his supposed "simplicity" can be traced to the fact that he, like a comedian lacking enough jokes to fill up a performance, revisits a simple yet self-deemed clever story idea (be it a line, a beat, an event, a setting, an entire story, etc.) over and over again, exploits it for as much as he could, and puts it there in his film for as long as he can. This approach to simplicity actually did make him a somewhat good poet and short film director due to these art forms' embrace of a single spark of brilliance, but feature film is a whole different story. In this regard, writing poetry is enough for him as an artist. Really can't think of a decent reason as to why his feature films, byproducts of his okay poetry, gained him universal recognition.revisits a simple yet self-deemed clever story idea (be it a line, a beat, an event, a setting, an entire story, etc.) over and over again, exploits it for as much as he could, and puts it there in his film for as long as he can. This approach to simplicity actually did make him a somewhat good poet and short film director due to these art forms' embrace of a single spark of brilliance, but feature film is a whole different story. In this regard, writing poetry is enough for him as an artist. Really can't think of a decent reason as to why his feature films, by products of his okay poetry, gained him universal recognition.revisits a simple yet self-deemed clever story idea (be it a line, a beat, an event, a setting, an entire story, etc.) over and over again, exploits it for as much as he could, and puts it there in his film for as long as he can. This approach to simplicity actually did make him a somewhat good poet and short film director due to these art forms' embrace of a single spark of brilliance, but feature film is a whole different story. In this regard, writing poetry is enough for him as an artist. Really can't think of a decent reason as to why his feature films, by products of his okay poetry, gained him universal recognition.This approach to simplicity actually did make him a somewhat good poet and short film director due to these art forms' embrace of a single spark of brilliance, but feature film is a whole different story. In this regard, writing poetry is enough for him as an artist. Really can't think of a decent reason as to why his feature films, byproducts of his okay poetry, gained him universal recognition.This approach to simplicity actually did make him a somewhat good poet and short film director due to these art forms' embrace of a single spark of brilliance, but feature film is a whole different story. In this regard, writing poetry is enough for him as an artist. Really can't think of a decent reason as to why his feature films, byproducts of his okay poetry, gained him universal recognition.
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