#benoit debie

[filmaticbby]

Vortex (2021) dir. Gaspar Noé

[maxinefuckingminx]

Le temps détruit tout

IRRÉVERSIBLE (2002) dir. Gaspar Noé

[jawmidnight]

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

PENSIVE MOODS OVER BIRTHDAY CAKE IN THE SUPER-SEVENTIES.

PIC INFO: Resolution at 2832x4256 -- Spotlight on American actress Dakota Fanning (then age 15-16) as teenage vocalist/frontwoman Cherie Currie of the all-female hard rock band THE RUNAWAYS, from the 2010 quasi-biopic/film of the same name.

DIRECTOR: Floria Sigismondi

SCREENPLAY: Floria Sigismondi

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Benoit Debie

COSTUME DESIGN: Carol Beadle

Source: www.fotogramas.es/peliculas-criticas/a410300/the-runaways.

[monterdespentes]

Irreversible (2002) dir. Gaspar Noé

[capture-s-ii]

Vortex (dir. Gaspar Noé, 2022)

[choquejuergas]

[reflexcine]

Climax (2018)

Dir: Gaspar Noe

PH: Benoît Debie

[cinemavariety]

T R O U B L E in P A R A D I S E

spring breakers x grimes (we appreciate power)

"There was something hyper-impressionistic and wild about the whole idea of it, and I'd never seen it done in an interesting way. Also, just in metaphorical terms, even the phrase 'Spring Break' and what it represents, what it can be, the idea of a destruction of innocence and disappearing into the night. I wanted it to look like it was lit with candy. Like Skittles or Starburst. I wanted the tone to be pushed into a hyper-candy-textural, hyper-stylised reality. It's meant to be a kind of visual mash-up, or an impressionistic reinterpretation of the way youth use media and technology today. I was trying to think of the medium in a different way, or in a way that was at least more inventive. Something that was closer to musical experiences I've had, electronic music, things that were loop-based and repetitive. There's not even a lot of dialogue; things are repeated in a way that a pop song has hooks. We were trying to obliterate the sense of time and go with something that was more like a feeling."

- Harmony Korine on Spring Breakers

[humides]

[filmaticbby]

The Runaways (2010) dir. Floria Sigismondi

[cinema-of-cruelty]

SPRING BREAKERS (2012)—Happiness is a Warm, Neon, Whisky-Coated Handgun

by Cinema of Cruelty • A podcast on Anchor

On this week’s deep dive, The Cultists present Harmony Korine's controversial cult flick Spring Breakers (2012). Booze, bikinis, pissing in the streets, temporal existentialism, Disney-girls-gone-wild, flirtation with French New Wave, Brechtian theater... this movie has a little bit of everything. The one thing this film doesn’t have is an audience consensus on what to do with it. Is this film—once described as a 'a sleaze-fest akin to Michael Mann on mescaline'—good? Bad? A shallow exploitation film? A masterpiece of cultural critique? A tasteless ultra-violent beach noir? Or a deeply emotion-driven love story about the purest kinds of love? The answer, it seems, is, “yes.” 

Episode Safeword: “moderation”

[artfilmfan]

In an alternate universe i would be a cinematographer just like the ones that inspire me - Sven Nykvist, Robbie Ryan, Vittorio Storaro, Benoît Debie, Christopher Doyle, Sławomir Idziak...

[etzidamu]

Love, 2015

dir.   Gaspar Noé DPs:   Benoît Debie Music:  Eric Satie Art Direction:  Virginie Verdeaux

“Living with a woman is like sharing a bed with the CIA. Nothing is secret. This used to be my apartment. It used to be happy here. doesn't feel like my place anymore. always looking over my shoulder now.” “Murphy’s law: If anything can go wrong, it will” “Are you in love?”

[scenesandscreens]

Irréversible (2002)

Director - Gaspar Noé, Cinematography - Benoît Debie & Gaspar Noé

"With a little money, we can help you get revenge. The assailant drew blood. Blood calls for revenge. Vengeance is a human right."

[filmjrnl365]

#130 LOVE (2015)

Director: Gaspar Noe

Cinematography: Benoit Debie

American

Gaspar Noe’s LOVE is really more about obsession. Murphy, a young American film student in Paris, (Karl Glusman) is the film’s central character, and in bouts of volatility, tenderness, jealousy and fantasy, finds his thoughts reeling over the memories of his past lover Electra (Aomi Muyok). The time sequence of the film is a series of flashbacks of pivotal encounters in their physical / emotional relationship.

If you are looking for the more sentimental or tender progression in a film’s love story, this film experience might be a bit too confrontational. The story is not without its sentimentality, however it is all but consumed by the erotically driven carnality of the young couple. Emotionally, we see the arc of their relationship, transitioning from the initial teasing innocence, to mutual sincerity, to the end which has devolved into a co-dependent, psychologically sadistic war between the two. At each step of the relationship’s progression, the couple’s sexual encounters act as the portal to lay bare their inner lives. Either as a prelude to sex, or in its afterglow, the two share their souls to one another.

Story wise, nothing new here; but if a reluctant viewer can avoid being hung up by the blatant factuality of the nudity / sex scenes, the beauty of the film begins to emerge. What Noe has attempted to put on film, in my opinion, is quite difficult. He has at least tackled those moments in our erotic / sexual lives that connects us the most deeply to the other person. These encounters make us vulnerable. Our secrets and desires can put us at risk, they are by nature unpredictable and mostly hidden and at odds with the personas we attempt to carefully maintain. With the exposure of our deepest desires, perversions, fantasies, and sometimes ugly realities of ourselves, we confront a foundation or emotional baseline of our being.  There can be a lot of skeletons in the closet, and all of the baggage is unloaded within the dynamic between Murphy and Electra. Yes, we could call it “love”, but to my mind, love has to endure some of this treachery with time, maturity and understanding. The “love” expressed by Murphy and Electra runs closer to mania. It is impulsive, compulsive, explicit, and at times barters in struggles for control and power.  It’s not so much about caring or companionship, but about exhausting every sexual impulse.

Doing the real story telling in the film is the beautiful camerawork of Belgian cinematographer Benoit Debie. What some viewers might still wrongly insist as pornographic footage, is gorgeously lighted and filmed. But before you dismiss good camera work and artistry as a poor, or convenient excuse to peddle smut, remember this; Debie’s picturesque approach sexuality is about as good as it’s going to get in cinema that purposefully tries to portray content of this volatile nature. Visually, technically, and intentionally, the boundaries between Noe’s / Debie’s approach to visualizing sexuality, versus a standard porno film should be quite clearly discerned. Exploitation and brutalization are easy to spot. Pornography has no interest in spending time and money to sort through the murky terrain of our psycho-sexual dynamics. Its viewers are not watching for that kind of content. Conversely, traditional cinema, especially when dealing with the darker, unhinged aspects of love or eroticism has always had to veer away from the explicit scene. Even if we all agree that sexuality is a large component to what we call love or a relationship, censorship, cultural prudishness, and the law- have all interfered with what could and couldn’t be shown to audiences. Traditionally, we are left to fill in the blanks in the story telling. Hitchcock had to maneuver around how long he was allowed to show Cary Grant and Grace Kelly kissing on To Catch a Thief, and along the way  certain expectations on how mainstream audiences accept eroticism to be portrayed have emerged.

Debie’s gorgeous use of filters and saturated color, do a lot to steer the emotional interpretations of the sex being filmed. Some wonderful scenes of repose with Murphy laying his head against the stomach of Electra come across with the vitality of a Caravaggio painting. Debie languishes on these scenes that beautifully frame the gorgeous rich red of the bed sheets, the chiaroscuro of the skin tones, rich murky shadows pooled on curvy shapes, and dark patches of pubic hair. To simply pause and scrutinizes scenes like this from the film, the visceral reaction one is getting is not of disgust or perversion. These are graphically and emotionally poignant images which elegantly capture both the tender and animalistic sides of lust.

I hate to reduce a film called LOVE to its graphic / photographic elements, but Noe / Debie have come close to really bridging a gap that has eluded cinema from the outset. How does one make a film that truly depicts / conveys eroticism as an integral part of the story, and not just provide it as visual payoff or titilation? The visual richness of this film resonates with atmosphere and color, it does an excellent job of providing an aesthetic context for the emotional / sexual obsessiveness at the core of the narrative.  Other films by Noe certainly explore the boundaries of what we are capable of enduring regrading sex and violence on the screen. For example, Noe’s film, Irreversible is without a doubt a hallmark picture in terms of its depiction of human brutality. It is an unforgettable film, but it is a cinematic experience that lingers in memory more like trauma.

There are passages in LOVE that made me cringe, but it was typically in terms of blunt dialogue and  Murphy’s petulant behavior, rather than some image of scandalous sexuality. So, in the final analysis of cinematic eroticism or, “should films go there?,” in this case I think yes. If you watch this film and all goes right, you’ll walk away from LOVE slightly beaten up, but you will recover. You may even recognize or experience those ugly emotional dynamics within yourself being played out in front of you, and the movie may serve as a point of consideration / reflection. There’s a whole range of possible emotions and responses waiting to apprehend you, if you put reluctance aside and open yourself up to what is attempting to be exposed in this story.

Good luck.

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