Skip to main content

Short films are underrated - Tomek Baginski

Image
By
In my opinion, short films are underestimated and discriminated against the champion of motion pictures that is the feature film. As far as I know, there is no particularly good reason for that, in the same fashion that there are absolutely no good reasons to rank short stories below novels in the literature domain. Just like the latter case, there is a challenge, and I would say as well a delight, in making (for authors) and assimilating (for readers/viewers) a small-packed message with no more stuff than needed. 

I remember that Poe was a great advocate of short stories; in fact, I think he didn't write novels at all (ok, I checked: just one). Cortázar did write novels, but I would say he was biased towards short stories as well; probably, he better put this preference as a piece of advice to novice writers and using a boxing match metaphor: "A novel is always winning by points, while a short story ought to win by knock-out". I would say that (among other well-known ideological reasons) a considerable issue for not giving Borges the Nobel prize for Literature had to do with only having a narrative corpus of short stories and not a single novel.

Nowadays, people seek for large stuffed messages. As an author, you can even keep the message to yourself, after all, since people is usually convinced that impeccable packing implies sound and relevant messages. It shouldn't be like this, I reject such superficial ideas. Moreover, among accomplished authors, thrives the myth that short-stories/short-films are for beginners and that if you are ought to escalate your career you should aim for "the highest" (i.e., the longer), novels/movies to be precise. This is the class of underestimation and discrimination I am talking about in action.

This is probably too long to defend shortness... So, quick to the point. There are filmmakers that are or were doing tremendous efforts to make an impact in the audience with short films. Tomasz Bagiński (aka, Tomek Baginski) among them. (By the way, I am thankful to my friend Michel Ibarra for introducing me to Baginski's works and so many other short-film makers.) His short films are the quintessence of 'economy of resources', and I am referring to the plot, not to the budget. What needs to be said is said, but nothing more than that.  

Here you have two great examples of Baginski's cinematography. The Cathedral (2002) and Fallen Art (2004) are both short films with no dialogues that convey clear ideas about the architecture of religion, and how frivolous the exercise of power can be, respectively.

Enjoy!                    






More recent Baginski's works that I can recommend are:




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

RSA Animate - Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us - Daniel Pink

By
RSA Animate is a collection of 10 min cartoon-like animations on a whiteboard that partners with a synthesis of a conference given by renown academics in RSA Events . This series is put forward by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), who aim at a 21st century enlightenment .  I first saw some of the short-film series while being in Cuba. I remember I was astonished by the amount of information they could compress in a 10 min talk. Then, I noticed that there was a great deal of post-processing after the 'natural' 30 min or so talk. Nonetheless, it is still amazing how they can manage to do it so smoothly. The animations deserve special attention. They are not only accompanying the talk but they actually supply complementary information, in terms of irony, cultural references, etc., while marking a step-by-step evolution of the speech in a better way than any slide show could do. Here is an RSA Animate example on "Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us", ...
1 comment
Read more

VSauce - How to count past infinity - Michael Stevens

By
VSauce is a youtube channel created by Michael Stevens, graduated from psychology and English literature and turned educator and Internet personality. In my opinion, nothing in Stevens's academic career, other than his insatiable curiosity and his tremendous discipline, could have ever been used to forecast the success of his enterprise of weekly scripting, directing and hosting high level youtube videos concerning a variety of topics, ranging from human to exact sciences. The quality of the videos had been increasing since the beginning of VSauce back in 2010, not only in its visual appeal but also in the script, didactics, and the selection of subjects. Now VSauce is as mature as any TV show or documentary. Furthermore, the episodes (videos?) are incredibly profound and often self-contained. Here you have a recent example. It is very accurate in its mathematical definitions and the proofs for each statement, while conveying the message to any sufficiently interested audience i...
1 comment
Read more

Men of Ideas - Noam Chomsky with Bryan Magee (1978)

By
Men of Ideas (1978) and The Great Philosophers (1987) are two BBC programs put forward and conducted by the philosopher and author, Bryan Magee. Both programs are based on the interview of an intellectual figure addressing a particular issue, either being current works of themselves that have had a great impact in the interviewee's field of competence (Men of Ideas) or History of Philosophy (The Great Philosophers). Needless to say, Bryan Magee within these programs is not just an interviewer, he is often driving the attention to very elusive or darkly explained subjects. Magee partners with the interviewee to engage in very deep philosophical debates while being an accomplice of the audience without any sign of condescendence. I want to share with you a great example of this kind of talks: an interview with Prof. Noam Chomsky on his works that has revolutionized the field of linguistics and that have had a strong impact in psychology. Chomsky is one the fathers of the cognitiv...
Post a Comment
Read more