News and Commentary – Completing Angelopoulos

Last night the entire staff here at Mid Century Cinema assembled in the screening room to watch Theo Angelopoulos’ The Weeping Meadow—and with that, we have seen them all. But we were not there simply on account of our completist fetish. Rather, in previous discussions we have described what we want from the movies—something to say, authenticity, beauty, filminess, and voice, and the attributes that we associate with our favorite directors—a singular, distinct, identifiable voice, and a coherent body of work, large enough to be imagined as an oeuvre. And with his thirteen feature films, Angelopoulos easily checks those boxes. His is one of the distinct styles in the history of cinema: long shots, long takes, brilliant, indelible compositions, and the manipulation of time (years can pass within the setting of a single shot). And so if you ever see onscreen an endless line of figures, beautifully shot, meticulously arranged, walking slowing towards the camera, probably with water nearby—well, you get the idea. Angelopoulus films are also steeped in history, typically of his native Greece, which has both plenty of history, and perhaps even more tragedy. And with the Balkans positioned at the crossroads of overlapping nations and fragile polities, his films often, without a hint of lecture, feature transient, stateless protagonists on journeys of uncertain destination.

David Thomson, who places Angelopoulos in the pantheon of the all-time-greats, offered this summary in his New Biographical Dictionary of Film: “When Angelopoulos moves, he is sailing in time as well as in space, and the shifts, the progress, the traveling make a metaphor for history and understanding.” On the other hand, and we can’t stress this enough, his films are very much an acquired taste, and for many – possibly even most – it is a taste that may never be acquired. That is not a film-snob put down. Angelopoulos withholds narrative signposts—which is especially tricky when one leaps from city to city and decade to decade (I am often confused). His films are usually quite long. They are always slow. You’ve got to be in the mood for an Angelopoulos movie—though I doubt I will ever be in the mood to see Alexander the Great again, 210 agonizing minutes of surely-something-has-to-happen-in-this-damn-movie frustration. There are some great shots, of course, but not enough to make up for the price of admission. (Whereas Ulysses’ Gaze, also too long and not one of our favorites, has three stunning sequences that are as indelible as anything we’ve ever seen; similarly, last night’s Weeping Meadow, better still – it had us locked in for two hours before taking a deep dive into uncharacteristically gratuitous, bitter-taste nihilism – features a half-dozen visual constructions we’ll not soon forget.)

Angelopoulos’ most celebrated film is The Traveling Players, which follows the experiences of a threadbare theatrical troupe as they struggle through the tumultuous years between 1939 and 1952. Legendary for its “eighty shots in four hours” structure, Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian described it as “a moving film of dazzling sweep and substance,” and “a monumental work of cinema.” The British Film Institute hailed it as positing “a new form of storytelling.” That said, it is not in our top five. Our favorite remains The Hunters, which is both astonishing and representative, shot in the house style, with layered flashbacks, riveting sequences, effortless command of color, and, as always, is a meditation on how the weight of history bears on the present. We’re also especially fond The Suspended Step of the Stork (with Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau) and Eternity and a Day (which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes)—our complete User’s Guide follows after the vid-caps below.