"I was visiting Jerome Hill. Jerome loved France, especially Provence. He spent all his summers in Cassis. My window overlooked the sea. I sat in my little room, reading or writing, and looked at the sea. I decided to place my Bolex exactly at the angle of light as what Signac saw from his studio which was just behind where I was staying, and film the view from morning till after sunset, frame by frame. One day of the Cassis port filmed in one shot." -JM
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It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional
This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes
It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
This time-lapse film -chronicling the day in the life of a harbour taken from one vantage point- is characteristic of Jonas Mekas' usual diaristic work. We forget that in his longer, more personal pictures, like REMINISCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA and HE STANDS IN THE DESERT COUNTING THE SECONDS OF HIS LIFE, they evidence a radical cutting technique, in which images pass fleetingly by, as quick as a thought. Thus, CASSIS is less a chance document than a disciplined rendition of that document. Chiefly, ships in the harbour disappear before we see them leave the frame to go out to sea, or before they dock. Thus CASSIS throws its subject matter into a sort of limbo; one is made to think that nothing else in the world exists but this port. Within its scant running time, CASSIS is certainly exciting to watch, as images come and go like thoughts in a stream of consciousness.