• About

Tim Cawkwell

~ currently publishing my poetry and verse. Blog entries on film and painting going back to 2014. My main website is www.timcawkwell.co.uk

Tim Cawkwell

Tag Archives: Pawlikovsky

COLD WAR: battles are fought at the edge of maps

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by Tim Cawkwell in Bresson, cinema of hyperbole, Polish history, War

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cold War, Michael Ondaatje, Pawlikovsky, Warlight

I first heard the precept “Battles are fought at the edge of maps” from a friend of mine whose father had been in the military, but I was unclear exactly what it meant. It did sound intelligent if gnomic.

I then came across it in Robert Bresson’s ‘Notes on the Cinematographer’, his collection of pensées, wise if still gnomic, distilled from his experience of film-making up to 1975 when he had already made eleven features. His formulation was as follows: “What happens in the joins [French jointures]. ‘The great battles,’ Général de M. . .  used to say, ‘are nearly always begun at the points of intersection of the staff maps.’” (The general’s name is coyly withheld – who was this genius? Actually I feel that the idea was just as likely to have been formulated as a throwaway thought by some anonymous officer, an unconsidered trifle which was then picked up and made into something more considered.)

My friend from whom I had first heard the aphorism clarified for me that it came about he thinks in the Second World War when in doing reconnaissance (since “time spent on reconnaissance is rarely wasted”) officers found that the area they wished particularly to study required two maps side by side, or even four maps corner-to-corner, because as sod’s law would have it the particularly interesting terrain, the terrain of particular concern for the battle to come, was right on the edge or at the corner of the map. (The problem is solved now by the maps all being digital so one can choose where to have the centre point.)

I can understand this militarily, but confess some puzzlement as to what Bresson was thinking. My interpretation is that it is in the juxtaposition between shot A and shot B of a film that significant meaning arises: at the point where the shot changes, i.e. the joins, the spectator is pitched into a new development, or the unexpected, or sudden enhanced anticipation of what is going to happen.

The general idea continues to have traction: the gnomic can somehow be mesmerising. Lo and behold it is the epigraph to Michael Ondaatje’s new novel ‘Warlight’ in this form: “Most of the great battles are fought in the creases of topographical maps.” In the acknowledgements this is credited to ‘a remark made by Robert Bresson during a filmed interview’. That brings the two strands together: the idea somehow current in the ether and the name of Robert Bresson. Roll over, Général de M.

Well I remain uncertain as to quite what Bresson meant, and wish he was still alive so that we could ask him. I think it may also relate closely to the precision of his film-making, especially in the reconnaissance stage, but also when he was improvising on set. Does it refer to stripping away everything to leave some essence?

Although Pawel Pawlikovsky’s Cold War could not be described as Bressonian, it does have that sense of precision that you find in Bresson’s films and which can be such an unexpected ingredient of compelling story-telling. I particularly admired the way that the narrative made jumps forcing the spectator to fill in the gaps, without ever at any point making this too difficult. It shares too with Bresson the quality of compression that makes the film much larger than its 88-minute length. In a hyperbolic age, this is extremely valuable.

http://www.timcawkwell.co.uk

Recent Posts

  • RICH MAN, POOR MAN, DEAD MAN – a Covid ode
  • VERSE EPISTLE TO Mr DOMINIC CUMMINGS . . .
  • EMPIRE – WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
  • yearning for the sixties
  • FILM PORTRAITURE 4: Bob Fleischner Dying

Recent Comments

Sarah Cawkwell on FILM PORTRAITS 2: TACITA …
Antonioni: more De C… on Antonioni’s Metaphysical…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Donato Totaro on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…

Archives

  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • May 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014

Categories

  • Antonioni
  • artists' film
  • avant garde
  • Bible on film
  • biopics
  • Brakhage
  • Bresson
  • British cinema
  • cinema and culture
  • cinema of hyperbole
  • costume narratives
  • courtroom dramas
  • Creation
  • crucifixion films
  • crucifixion on film
  • diary films
  • disaster movies
  • documentaries
  • Doubt
  • film noir
  • film portraiture
  • gangster films
  • God
  • Hitchcock
  • humanism
  • Ireland
  • Italian gardens
  • Italy
  • John Ford
  • Kieslowski reflection
  • Kieslowski reflections
  • literature and film
  • metaphysical film
  • monastery films
  • Nativity
  • nuns on film
  • opera and film
  • painting and photography
  • Pascalian cinema
  • Pasolini
  • poetry & verse
  • Polish history
  • predestination
  • redemption
  • resurrection
  • revivalism
  • Rohmer
  • Russian cinema
  • self-publishing
  • sewer films
  • silent cinema
  • spiritual cinema
  • surrealism
  • talkies
  • Tim's poems 2020
  • time puzzles
  • Topaz
  • travel
  • Uncategorized
  • underground film
  • War
  • White Ribbon
  • Zweite Heimat

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • RICH MAN, POOR MAN, DEAD MAN – a Covid ode
  • VERSE EPISTLE TO Mr DOMINIC CUMMINGS . . .
  • EMPIRE – WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
  • yearning for the sixties
  • FILM PORTRAITURE 4: Bob Fleischner Dying

Recent Comments

Sarah Cawkwell on FILM PORTRAITS 2: TACITA …
Antonioni: more De C… on Antonioni’s Metaphysical…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Donato Totaro on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…

Archives

  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • May 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014

Categories

  • Antonioni
  • artists' film
  • avant garde
  • Bible on film
  • biopics
  • Brakhage
  • Bresson
  • British cinema
  • cinema and culture
  • cinema of hyperbole
  • costume narratives
  • courtroom dramas
  • Creation
  • crucifixion films
  • crucifixion on film
  • diary films
  • disaster movies
  • documentaries
  • Doubt
  • film noir
  • film portraiture
  • gangster films
  • God
  • Hitchcock
  • humanism
  • Ireland
  • Italian gardens
  • Italy
  • John Ford
  • Kieslowski reflection
  • Kieslowski reflections
  • literature and film
  • metaphysical film
  • monastery films
  • Nativity
  • nuns on film
  • opera and film
  • painting and photography
  • Pascalian cinema
  • Pasolini
  • poetry & verse
  • Polish history
  • predestination
  • redemption
  • resurrection
  • revivalism
  • Rohmer
  • Russian cinema
  • self-publishing
  • sewer films
  • silent cinema
  • spiritual cinema
  • surrealism
  • talkies
  • Tim's poems 2020
  • time puzzles
  • Topaz
  • travel
  • Uncategorized
  • underground film
  • War
  • White Ribbon
  • Zweite Heimat

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy