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September 03, 2006
Jeremy Thomas on Kiarostami: He's completely free
"There is a single shot in 10 on Ten, a cinematic masterclass by the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, which [producer] Jeremy Thomas calls a "touchstone" for everything he tries to do in his own work," writes Sheila Johnston in the Telegraph. "In the film, Kiarostami mounts the camera in his car, sits next to it. and drives around Teheran talking to us about cinema... 
At the end of this journey, we're in the mountains looking down on to the city when he says, 'I'm just going to have a pee.' He leaves the camera in the car, you hear him getting out and you realise that he's been shooting the film completely alone. Then he suddenly says, 'I've seen something so fascinating that I've got to show you.' He takes the camera out of the car and zooms into an ant going down a hole carrying something three times bigger than itself. I found it so moving: the simplicity and power of nature and the brilliance of an artist observing it for us, in a shot which costs nothing but signifies everything. That one image of an ant has stayed with me. It's more incredible than everything you see in Titanic... [T]his is a wonderful example of what can be done with DV. You just need a camera, an idea and the virtuosity of a master... I love road movies... But Kiarostami's are different because they're so very sparse, and about a country which we know nothing about... Kiarostami works without the need to conform to a commercial role model. He's not a victim of money or of anybody else's ideas – he's completely free. He has no need for a producer like me. But if he ever did, I'd welcome him with open arms." [More at the link.]
Posted by Ray Pride at September 3, 2006 10:19 PM
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