timespace coordinates: 2010’s East Los Angeles
Lowriders is a 2016 American drama film directed by Ricardo de Montreuil. and starring Demián Bichir, Gabriel Chavarria, Theo Rossi, Melissa Benoist, Tony Revolori and Eva Longoria. (wiki)
The film was made by Jean-Claude Lubtchansky, a close associate of Madame de Salzmann (who worked with Gurdjieff for nearly 30 years) with the support of the Gurdjieff Institute in France and there is a French version here: (unavailable)
This documentary was posted a few months ago and it is really quite fortunate to have access to it. It follows the life of Gurdjieff much more systematically and in detail than I have been able to do in my review of Meetings with Remarkable Men. It is full of old photos and even recordings of Gurdjieff himself and some scenes with recordings of his movements/dances. It is full of quotes and extracts from his books. If you are interested in finding out more about one of the most interesting, rapscallion philosophers/characters of the 20th century please check out this documentary.
Gurdjieff’s teaching is fully described in the book called “In Search of the Miraculous” which can be read at http://www.gurdjieff.am
(The pantry in Gurdjieff’s Paris apartment. Photo courtesy of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York) As related in the movie such a place was also a place of meetings and counseling. Like a friend said: show your pantry to tell you who you are.
timespace coordinates: 1874. Butcher’s Crossing, a tiny frontier town in Kansas built on the buffalo hide trade / Colorado wilderness
Butcher’s Crossing is a 2022 American Western drama film directed by Gabe Polsky in his narrative feature film debut, based on the 1960 novel of the same name by John Edward Williams. It stars Nicolas Cage, Fred Hechinger, Xander Berkeley, Rachel Keller, Jeremy Bobb, and Paul Raci. (wiki)
spacetime coordinates: 1950s desert town of Asteroid City
Asteroid City is a 2023 American comedy-drama film written, directed, and produced by Wes Anderson, from a story he wrote with Roman Coppola. It features an ensemble cast including Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Steve Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan and Jeff Goldblum.
Its metatextual plot simultaneously depicts the events of a Junior Stargazer convention in a retrofuturistic version of 1955, staged as a play, and the creation of the play. It is Anderson’s homage to popular memory and mythology about extraterrestrials and UFOs witnessed in the Southwestern desert in close proximity to atomic test sites during the postwar period of the American 20th century. (wiki)
spacetime coordinates: New York City slums in the 1880s
an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. The photographs served as a basis for future “muckraking” journalism by exposing the slums to New York City’s upper and middle classes. They inspired many reforms of working-class housing, both immediately after publication as well as making a lasting impact in today’s society.
spacetime coordinates: 1975 – 1977 in West Berlin
Christiane F. (German: Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo) is a 1981 German biographical drama film directed by Uli Edel that portrays the descent of Christiane Felscherinow, a bored 13-year-old growing up in mid-1970s West Berlin, to a 14-year-old heroin addict. Based on the 1978 non-fiction book Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (We Children from Zoo Station), transcribed and edited from tape recordings by Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck, the film immediately acquired cult status and features David Bowie as both composer and as himself. In 2013, Felscherinow published her autobiography Christiane F. – My Second Life.
The film was shot with a low budget in 1980 and released in 1981, but set between 1975 and 1977 in West Berlin. It skips the beginning and the end of the book, and concentrates on the main story, starting when Christiane begins her nightlife in Berlin at around 13 years old, and stops rather abruptly after her suicide attempt by stating that she recovered. In the real story, Christiane F. never fully recovered from her addiction, nor did her troubles end with going to Hamburg to begin withdrawal.
The cast is composed mainly of first-time actors, most of whom were still in school at the time and have mostly not pursued acting careers since. Natja Brunckhorst is the only cast member who continued to act in German films and television. Real life “Stella” (Catherine Schabeck), aged 18 at the time, has a short cameo as the drug dealer that sells the first dose of heroin to Detlev. Most of the extras at the railway station and at SOUND were actual drug users and prostitutes. It would now be illegal to have minors act in the film’s graphic shoot-up, nudity and sex scenes; at the time, however, all the production needed was a written letter of consent from the parents to proceed with filming.
Bowie’s music from his albums made in Berlin during 1976 and 1977 is played throughout the picture, and as he was at the peak of his popularity during the late 1970s and early 1980s, his presence helped boost the film’s commercial success. (wiki)
Can you dream about anything?
Can you really be sure you are not dreaming?
Can you dream -are you dreaming-?
Have you pinched yourself to see that you weren’t dreaming?
spacetime coordinates: 2021 in northern Los Angeles county
Nope is a 2022 American epic neo-Western science fiction horror–thriller film written, directed, and co-produced by Jordan Peele under his Monkeypaw Productions banner. Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, and Brandon Perea, it follows two horse-wrangling siblings who attempt to capture evidence of an unidentified flying object. (wiki)
What’s a bad miracle… they got a word for that?
TimeSpace Warps 