The Head-Butt Guy and the 24 Hour Psycho Meet the Young Team at the Arthouse
Antville has posted the trailer (right-click or control-click to download) for the Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno film "Zidane. A 21st Century Portrait," a film I read about in the trades when it played at this year's Cannes film Festival.
The trailer isn't all that exciting, but the score by Mogwai and the cinematography by Darius Khondji looks very promising. Hope this comes to a theater in LA. Good thing Zidane is now a controversial soccer icon, otherwise this would have been way under the radar.
From Antville:
"Turner Prize-winning artist and filmmaker Douglas Gordon teams up with French artist Parreno to create a work glorious in its simplicity: training 17 cameras, both HD and super35mm, all under the supervision of acclaimed cinematographer Darius Khondji, solely on footballer Zinedine Zidane, over the course of a single match between Real Madrid and Villareal. We see the legend in action and in repose, follow him around the pitch, sometimes at the centre of action, more often waiting, watching - while, in voice-over, the footballer himself broods over what he can and cannot remember from his matches. Magnificently edited, and accompanied by a majestic score from Scottish rock heroes Mogwai, this is not only the greatest football movie ever made, but one of the finest studies of man in the workplace - an ode to the loneliness of the athlete, the poise and resilience of the human body."
from the site of the edinburgh festival, where the film has its international première (apart from cannes) on 16th august.
More info here.
For those of you unfamiliar with Douglas Gordon's work you can read about him here. Right before I left Washington, DC to come to LA, one of the last cool things I did there was the opening night of "24 Hour Psycho/24 Hour Access" exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum. For 24 hours, the museum opened its doors to the public and screened Grodon's work "24 Hour Psycho" in which he slowed down the Hitchcock classic "Psycho" to 1 frame per second (hence the film would play for 24 hours). I was good friends with one of the curators at the time and she encouraghed me to come to the event which also had local DC bands like (the sounds of) kaleidoscope. She also gave me a bunch of free hoodies and long-sleeves shirts to pass out to friends to promote the event. While my girlfriend at the time and my DC APA friends only watched a few minutes of the film and took in the art and sounds for an hour or two during the night, it was a fucking cool time, a fond memory of my time in the nation's capital.
Speaking of shirts and Zidane, this one time when I was shopping late at night in Bangkok I came across a T-shirt stand that had some pretty cool Bathing Ape knock-offs and Mega Man designs. One shirt had caught my eye - it was basically this sinsiter bald looking guy whose picture had been rendered into computer graphics - and when I asked the vendor who it was he said it was Zidane. I refused to by the shirt at the time because of a self-imposed boycott on all things French soccer after they had defeated Brazilian team in the 98 World Cup. You should be glad to know that the boycott has been lifted after viewing the trailer.
terry on 08.01.06 @ 02:52 PM PDT [link]
My name is Terry and this is my blog. 
