Tuesday, February 14, 2012

THE LIBRARY LOVER: MUBI ON RUIZ

Confirming that the Rouge annotated filmography is by no means exhaustive, MUBI has endeavored its fair share of commentary on Raúl Ruiz through its own team of writers who have maximized the tools and techniques that are becoming increasingly commonplace for online cineastes. First off, they offer a filmography that introduces the body of Ruiz's work through IMDb's bio plus individual pages for nearly every film in Ruiz's prodigious output. At this writing, however, only Three Lives and Only One Death (Trois Vies & Une Seule Mort, 1996) is available through their streaming services. Otherwise, they offer informational pages on the following films in the Pacific Film Archive's "Library Lover" series: Time Regained (1999); The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (L'hypothèse du tableau volé, 1979); Tres Tristes Tigres (Three Sad Tigers, 1968); The Suspended Vocation (La vocation suspendue, 1977); Mysteries of Lisbon (Mistérios de Lisboa, 2010); The Penal Colony (La colonia penal, 1970); and A TV Dante (1990). On each page are hyperlinks to expanded coverage to be found in MUBI's archives that will be incorporated into later discussion here at The Evening Class.

When word began circulating on Friday, August 19, 2011, that Ruiz had passed, David Hudson began rounding up the response, which he periodically updated through early September. Then
MUBI launched a retrospective series "Blind Man's Bluff" unfurling a series of tributes to Ruiz, along with some previously published articles. "Blind Man's Bluff" proceeded through the decades: the '60s-'70s; the '80s; the '90s; the '00s. Filmmaker and critic Luc Moullet contributed his piece, written for a 2003 retrospective, on Ruiz's 1987 short, Brise-Glace. Several of these contributions were published in English for the first time, but MUBI made sure to include the original language versions as well.

Danny Kasman then compensated for what
MUBI itself was not able to provide in streaming by gathering up YouTube playlists for The Hypothesis for the Stolen Painting (1979), On Top of the Whale (1982), Three Crowns Of A Sailor (1983), Love Torn In A Dream (2000), Exiles (1988): Jill Evans' Documentary on Ruiz, and, finally, a YouTube playlist for Jorge Arriagada's music for Ruiz's films.

Last but not least, Adrian Curry discusses the poster for
Lines of Wellington (Linhas de Torres, 2012).