Latest / Film Moon Stone - Film Reviews and Recomme / S01 - The Architecture of Longing — The Lost Soul of Romantic Cinema

Transcript

S01 - The Architecture of Longing — The Lost Soul of Romantic Cinema · Film Moon Stone - Film Reviews and Recomme

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: A cold, rain-slicked railway platform in the late autumn of 1945.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Steam from a departing locomotive rises into the damp night air,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: swirling around the warm glow of a hanging lantern. A
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: man and a woman stand close together near the door
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of a tea room. They are not kissing. They are
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: not crying out in melodramatic tears. Their gloved hands rest
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: merely two inches apart on a wooden railing. He reaches
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: out and places a hand gently on her shoulder, feeling
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the damp wool of her coat through his fingers. They
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: exchange one single, agonizing glance, a look carrying an entire
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: lifetime of unsaid words, impossible devotion, and permanent farewell. In
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: modern cinema, lovers scream their feelings, negotiate their boundaries like
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: corporate lawyers, and check their phones. In classic cinema, love
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: was never measured by what people said. Love was measured
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: by the unbearable weight of what they could never possess. Tonight,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: on the longest and most personal screening of our season,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: we turn the projector toward the most fragile.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Landscape in all of human art, the human heart.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Why has romance in cinema become so sterile, so cynical,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: and so dry? And what did the great masters of
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: celluloid understand about love that our modern algorithms have made
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: us forget?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: This is Phil Moonstone.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I am Alberto Vanstone. Welcome back into the screening room,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: my friends. Tonight's journey is slightly different. For the past
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: seven episodes, we have examined camera lenses, stop-motion armatures, acoustic
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: foley tricks, and the architecture of shadow. We have lived
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: in the mechanical intellect of cinema. Tonight, I want to
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: take off the armor of the critic and speak to
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: you simply as a human being who has loved, who
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: has had his heart shattered into dust, and who has
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: watched cinema reflect our slow collective retreat from emotional vulnerability.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Before we roll the film tonight, a deeply felt bow
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: to our worldwide community of dreamers.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Over on Instagram, Handel at Autumn in Prague shared a
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: breathtaking black-and-white photograph of two people sharing a heavy umbrella
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: crossing the Charles Bridge in the mist. On YouTube, Julian
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Vance in Edinburgh wrote that watching old romantic cinema today
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: feels like listening to a language spoken by a forgotten civilization.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And on Facebook, Elena in Florence commented that modern love
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: stories feel like transactions, while classic love stories felt like
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: holy ground. Our standout comment this week across all platforms,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: with an extraordinary 14,000 likes on YouTube, came from a
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: listener named Clara, handle at LostInTheRain92.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Clara wrote, Alberto, why do modern romantic movies feel so empty?
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: When I watch new romance films, the actors are gorgeous,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the lighting is expensive, yet it feels like two attractive
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: social media influencers negotiating a prenuptial agreement. Where did the
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: longing go? Where is the danger, the aching silence, and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the terrifying poetry of two souls risking total emotional ruin just.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: To hold hands?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Clara, my dear friend, reading your words over my morning
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: coffee stopped me dead in my tracks. Because what you
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: are describing is not just a decline in screenwriting. It
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: is a spiritual crisis in how modern culture perceives love.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: We have replaced vulnerability with irony, and we have traded
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the sacred ache of longing for the comfortable safety of self-preservation. Tonight, Clara,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: this extended journey is dedicated to you and to every
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: wanderer who still remembers what it feels like to burn.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Today's chapter is called The Architecture of Longing, The Lost
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Soul of Romantic Cinema.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Let us begin by.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Diagnosing the illness of contemporary romantic cinema, the death of yearning.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: If you study classic romantic masterworks, whether in European art cinema,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Asian cinema, or the golden age of world filmmaking, romance
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: was never centered on fulfillment. Romance was built upon the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: concept the German philosophers called Sehnsucht, an untranslatable word describing
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: an intense, deep, melancholic yearning for an elusive, unattainable ideal.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: True passion on screen does not come from two people
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: getting what they want within 20 minutes. Passion is born
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: from the tension of what is forbidden, what is delayed,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and what is risked. In classical romance, love was an
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: existential peril. It was a wild, untamed tempest that threatened
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: your social standing, your reputation, your sanity, and your survival.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: To fall in love was to step off the edge
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: of a cliff without knowing if the water below would
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: catch you. What do we see in modern commercial cinema today?
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: We see characters who are terrified of appearing foolish, Contemporary
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: characters speak fluent therapy terminology.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: They analyze their attachment styles. They guard their independence. They
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: protect their personal boundaries.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: And they treat love as an accessory to an already
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: curated lifestyle.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Nobody is allowed to be desperate. Nobody is allowed to sit.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: In an empty room, staring at a rain-streaked window, paralyzed
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: by grief. Modern screenplays treat passion with a smirking, self-aware cynicism,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: as if caring too deeply about another human being is
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: an embarrassing weakness that must be corrected with a sarcastic joke.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: When characters refuse to be vulnerable, the audience cannot feel wonder,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: because wonder requires risk, and without risk, cinema becomes merely wallpaper.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Look back to the winter of 1945 and David Lean's
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: crowning achievement, Brief Encounter. Consider the story. Two ordinary, decent
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: married people, Laura and Alec, meet by pure chance at
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a suburban railway refreshment room after a piece of coal
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: dust gets blown into her eye. They do not belong
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: to high society. They are not glamorous royalty. Over the
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: course of a few innocent Thursday afternoon meetings, sharing tea
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and attending a matinee cinema screening, they fall irrevocably, desperately
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: in love. Notice what David Lean does with the camera.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: There are no passionate love scenes. There are no grand
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: confessions shouted in the pouring rain. The entire film is
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: an exercise in agonizing moral restraint. Laura and Alec are
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: bound by duty to their families, by social convention, and
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: by their own moral conscience. They know that surrendering to
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: their passion will destroy the lives of.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Innocent people they love.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: In the film's climactic scene, when they sit at that
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: small marble cafe table for the very last time, a foolish,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: gossiping acquaintance sits down between them and chatters endlessly about
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: trivial neighborhood nonsense. Alec must board his train to Africa
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: in three minutes, Because another person is sitting there, they
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: cannot say a single word.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: They cannot embrace. They cannot even weep.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Alex simply stands up, puts on his hat, reaches down,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: and rests his hand on Laura's shoulder for four brief seconds.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: He squeezes the fabric of her coat. He walks out
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: into the steam of the platform. I remember watching that
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: scene for the first time when I was 21 years old,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: sitting in an old repertory cinema in London during a
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: November rainstorm. I walked out of that theater onto the
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: wet pavement, leaned against a brick wall, and I wept
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: like a child.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Why did a four-second touch on a wool coat hurt
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: more than any grand melodramatic death scene?
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Because the restraint magnified the emotion a thousand times. When
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: a story respects the boundaries of life, a single glance
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: carries the gravitational weight of a collapsing star. Silence becomes volcanic.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: A brush of the fingers becomes an earthquake. and then
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: journey 50 years forward to 1995 and Richard Linklater's minimalist
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: miracle before sunrise. Here we have two young strangers, Jesse,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: an American traveler, and Celine, a French student, meeting on
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: a European train heading toward Vienna. They decide on a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: whim to disembark together and spend 14 hours wandering the nocturnal.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Streets until her morning train departs. There is no plot.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: There are no villains. There is no ticking clock other
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: than the rising sun. The entire film consists simply of
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: two young human beings talking, listening, and looking at one another.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Think of that legendary scene inside the vintage vinyl listening
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: booth at Teuchler Records. They stand inside a tiny wooden booth,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: barely three feet wide, listening to a folk record playing
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: on the turntable. Neither of them speaks a single syllable
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: for two long minutes. Linklater keeps the camera completely still.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Jesse looks at Selene. The moment she turns her eyes
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: toward him, he looks away at the ceiling out of
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: nervous shyness. Then she looks at him, studying the curve
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: of his neck and his hair. And the second his
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: eyes return to hers, she quickly looks down at her
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: shoes with a tiny, private smile. That scene captures the terrifying,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: delicate beauty of human attraction better than any million-dollar.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Computer effect ever conceived.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: It works because it mirrors reality, the awkwardness, the fear
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: of being seen, the electric heat of realizing that someone
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: you admire is quietly studying your soul in the dark.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: In our modern world of dating apps and endless swiping,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: that listening booth sequence feels like an impossible dream. We
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: live in a culture that demands instant gratification and continuous distraction.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: We do not wander aimlessly through unfamiliar cities with strangers.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: We do not allow ourselves the luxury of boredom, the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: beauty of silence, or the patience to let a conversation
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: unfold over hours of unhurried walking. Linklater proved that the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: greatest special effect in the history of cinema is simply
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the human face, illuminated by the dawn light, daring to
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: tell another person, I see you, and I am terrified
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: by how much I want you to see me.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: See me.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And what happens when cinema takes that longing and paints
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: it in the language of pure poetic memory? We arrive
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: at the year 2000, and master filmmaker Wong Kar-wai's immortal work,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: In the Mood for Love. Set in the cramped, humid
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: tenement buildings of 1960s Hong Kong, two neighbors, Chow Mo
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Wan and Su Nguyen, discover that their respective spouses are
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: carrying on a secret affair with each other.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Drawn together by shared betrayal and quiet loneliness, they begin
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: meeting in secret. Yet they make a solemn pact. We
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: will not be like them.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Notice how Wong Kar-wai crafts the visual and acoustic world.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: The film is not about what happens. It is about
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: what does not happen. The camera shoots from around door frames,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: through wooden lattice screens, and down cramped mirror-lined stairways, treating
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: the characters with sacred discretion. We hear the haunting, circular
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: cello waltz of composer Shigeru Umabayashi playing over and over
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: like a recurring dream. Every night, Suli-Jen walks down the
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: narrow stone steps to buy hot noodle soup from a
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: street stall, her high-collared dress brushing against the damp walls
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: in slow motion. Chao Mo-Wan passes her on the stairs,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: They nod politely. A wisp of cigarette smoke curls through
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: the yellow streetlamp light. Their bodies never touch. Their lips
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: never meet. The entire movie is a phantom limb. It
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: is the ache of an intimacy so pure, so restrained,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: and so profound that it cannot survive in the harsh,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: gossiping reality of the physical world. At the end of
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the film, Chiamawan travels to the ancient stone ruins of
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Angkor Wat in Cambodia. He finds a small hollow in
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the stone and seals the hole with wet mud and
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: wild moss. That mud-sealed hollow in the ancient stone is
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: the ultimate symbol of romantic cinema. Love as a sacred
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: secret artifact preserved from the corrosive march of time.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Why do we need these films today more than ever?
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Why must we rescue romance from the sterile desert of
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: modern entertainment? Because, my friends, cinema is a teacher of
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: the human spirit. When we only consume stories where characters
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: are safe, ironic, and detached, we slowly train ourselves to
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: become safe, ironic, and detached in our own lives. We
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: build walls around our hearts. We pretend that we do
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: not care if someone calls. We pretend that we are
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: complete islands, self-sufficient and invincible.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: And it is a lie.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Every human being walking this earth carries a deep, primal
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: hunger to be truly known. To love another person is
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: not a practical transaction. It is a terrifying, magnificent surrender.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: It means looking into the eyes of another flawed mortal
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and giving them the power to destroy you while trusting
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: that they will hold you with grace instead. When we
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: watch Laura and Alec on that foggy railway platform, when
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: we watch Jesse and Celine in that listening booth, When
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: we watch Chow Mo Wan whispering his heart into the
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: stones of an ancient temple, cinema takes us by the
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: hand and whispers into our ear, Do not be afraid
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: of the pain. Do not be afraid of the yearning.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Your heart is not an algorithm to be optimized. Your
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: heart is an instrument meant to be played, even if
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: it breaks in the plane. So, Clara, and to every
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: single soul listening in the dark tonight, turn off the
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: noise of this cynical world. Put down your phone. Step
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: into the rain if you must. Tell the person you
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: love what they mean to you, even if your voice
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: trembles and your hands shake.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Because in the final reel of our lives, we will
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: not remember the safe boundaries we defended.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: We will only remember the moments when we were brave
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: enough to let ourselves be consumed by the fire. Thank
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: you for listening to this special chapter of Philmoonstone. Make
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: sure to follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Leave your thoughts in the comments and keep your wonder
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: alive in the dark. I am Alberto Van Stone, and
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I will see you on the silver screen.