Customer Reviews

All the Vermeers in New York [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The film begins with a static shot of the tops of buildings, turrets and spires, an unnamed city that looks old and European but eventually turns out to be Manhattan. Three young, pretty female roommates in a big apartment, one an aspiring actress, another a singer, the third involved in the art world. There's some cutesy, inconsequential dialogue; we are struck right away with the director's command of image, sound (particularly off-screen) and his exquisitely put together sets. Soon we move to an art gallery setting, a young man in a leather jacket arguing angrily with a dealer who is trying to sell his work -- will he be the protagonist? The film in its first couple of reels doesn't give us any answers here; the man leaves with a wealthy patron and potential buyer, but we don't follow them and move on instead to another a brief scene set in the financial world, as a broker or buyer of some kind (Stephen Lack) alternates between shouting about business and some kind of personal issues on the phone. Close on the heels of this scene, we enter another segment of the art world, as one of the roommates - aspiring French actress and student Anna (Emmanuelle Chaulet) is seen perusing the old masters - chiefly Rembrandt and Vermeer - at what turns out to be the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and is in turn perused by our stockbroker, who hands her a note at which point she leaves.

This is the scene that introduces the spectacular and fairly indescribable avant-jazz/classical score by Jon English, one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard, and it also seems to introduce the rest of the film as we will now focus on these characters, and on the difficult lives they lead while being surrounded by and comforted by all the great art - photography, painting, music and architecture - that suffuses the film. An awkward scene in which Anna pretends to not speak English and is accompanied by her roommate Felicity (Grace Philips) as pretend-translator meets Mark (Lack) at a restaurant seems distancing and off-putting, and it seems very uncertain as to whether these two can -or should- meet again. There's also a very subtle and only briefly stated minor theme here about "home" and what it means; Mark is clearly Canadian and Anna French, and neither seems to really be comfortable - in Mark's case, with his profession and his inner life, in Anna's with America and perhaps her career.

Is Mark some kind of creepy stalker? Is Anna a naive innocent, or is she planning on using the wealthy stockbroker for his money? The film never really answers these questions thoroughly, never really gets at what makes Mark so unhappy, why he even more than any of the characters actually working in the arts seems so attracted to beauty and culture; instead it peers obliquely in a few long scenes at the intersections, contemplating and watching, never telling. There is a gorgeous lengthy, probing tracking shot that traces an irregular path through the columns in the portico of the Met that seems to exist just to remind us of how beautiful, how stately and granitic art in the form of architecture can be, while the human beings are utterly frail and often incapable of ever reaching the transcendence in their own lives that they can in fact reach on canvas, in strings and percussion, in marble.

I don't want to spoil the rather surprising ending, but I will add that what blew my mind even more than the finish of the film itself was learning that the entire film was improvised - on camera. Completely improvised; Jost says that he didn't have a story at all, really except that it had to involve art (a prerequisite of his funding), and he had the last shot in his head from the beginning. I found that out courtesy of his own website, where you can learn much more about this great but completely unknown American independent filmmaker, and buy some of his otherwise inaccessible films.

I'd only seen one Jost film before, FRAMEUP (1993) which had both the single most irritating character I've ever seen in a film and one of the most powerful and devastating endings I've experienced. On the basis of my memory of that film and this masterpiece, I definitely must see more. ALL THE VERMEERS had the widest release of any of Jost's films and is actually readily available, and for its aesthetic pleasures alone - the beauty of the score which verges from neo-baroque to post-Ornette Coleman atonal free jazz, the beauty of the female cast and Chaulet in particular, the sumptuous art and sets, and the striking photography (in 35MM, as far as I know Jost's first in the format) I recommend this to anyone even remotely adventurous. It is certainly "slow" by most people's standards, but if your taste runs to European or Asian cinema, or "arthouse" fare in general, you'll be more prepared for what you're getting into I think.

This DVD is a pretty big improvement over the VHS, picture-wise, though it doesn't offer a lot in the way of extras; I haven't listened to the concert suite arranged from the wonderful music yet.

This is not the disaster some of the other reviews suggest. It is slow, and it is quite pretentious, but if you get into the rhythm of it, it is a worthwhile movie. Jost is no Eric Rohmer (even if the actress here played the lead role in "Boyfriends and Girlfriends"), but this film, set in Manhattan amidst both the art and high finance world (and with a Vermeer painting appearing predominantly, for no apparent reason), ends up being a quietly beautiful effort.

This film appears ponderous, with its intermittent shots of marble floors & columns. The characters' references to art & literature seem forced. However these devices amount to the frame around their lives. Inside the frame they are very much alive-& trapped.The French girl,full of charm & intellect, is a self centered user of people - may she wander forever! Her girl buddy is relatively unsophisticated but actually a good person. And the lonely stockbroker so trapped by his life! Very real people that I liked - poignantly framed in a moment of time

The first I ever heard of Jon Jost was in my sophomore year of college. There was an announcement that he was going to teach a one-week seminar on independent filmmaking. If only I'd had a week free, I think I'd have gone to it. But I had no idea who Jost was. As far as I knew, he was just some hack from somewhere. It bothers me now to think that he isn't better known, at least for this perplexing little film.
To date I have seen only one other of his films, ANGEL CITY. None of the others look at all interesting. This one holds a special place in my heart, though. It's on a very short list of movies (including ALL THAT JAZZ, WITHNAIL & I, and KLUTE) that I consider my wellsprings of theatrical ambition. I find the acting here very heartening to watch.
Stylistically, I think ALL THE VERMEERS deserves a lot of points for dropping most of the Godardian pretensions that you get in a film like ANGEL CITY (which is nevertheless engaging). If only he'd had the budget for one of those "intimate epics" instead of this chamber piece - I think it could've been a real scorcher.
At the very least, the VHS edition is underrated in that it doesn't have any annoying trailers and stuff, and is automatically in widescreen.

Jon Jost's "Professional" film-- at only 250,000 dollars. A lot to me, but a pittance to the film industry. At once it is more elegant than Last Chants For A Slow Dance, but in an equal amount of other ways, less so. It has a warmth and an emotional maturity that Last Chants lacks. However, it lacks a certain intensity, the bare-bones minimalistic beauty, and the strange intimacy of roughness. It is still a beautiful musing on missed connections and art and money and people and lives. There's something that is heartwrenching, yet quiet and stately. It's been described as a comedy of manners and in a very loose and freeform way it is; for all the culture-critic edge it has, it is extremely funny, and extremely warmly funny. Everyone is a person. Many reviews seem to say that the characters are shallow, but I didn't get that impression, they are just given to the audience in a very gentle and nuanced way. The film doesn't take your hand and lead the way; it doesn't even just hold your hand and take a stroll; it is a brief, fleeting, heartfelt caress. Something about it, like John Campbell's Pictures For Sad Children, makes me feel sort of like exactly what I wanted to say has been said infinitely better than I ever could. I respect Jost. The music, too, was sublimely beautiful and makes weird traveling from baroque to free jazz and postmodern classical; sort of like the classical-beauty-in-the-modern-world thing with "all the Vermeers in New York". I didn't get teary at the film or the ending or anything in it, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like I am gonna cry. I want to hug Jon Jost.

The presence of Vermeer in the art has always been powerful and many times neglected. His works seem to have a weird enchantment in all the viewers inside and outside the painting craft. The delicate equilibrium in the form and the sumptuous employment of the light and shadow seduce inmediatly the soul, the eye and the spirit. Salvador Dali, for instance, stated in a conference that Vermeer was his favorite painter. And it's interesting to remark how film makers so distant in styles as Greenaway (A zed an two noughts) and Riddley Scott (Blade runner), have shown Vermeers's paintings as admirable narrative devices in their respective scripts, as clever clues.
The premise made by this talented independent director -Jon Jost-is setting in New York (Metropolitan Musseum) a young artist Frenchwoman and a stockbroker who meet in front of a Vermeer painting as a smart raising relationship.
The european style (Wenders, Altman, Losey, Antonioni and Rohmer among the closest authors)developed by Jost, allows explore several issues, such as the mercenary underworld in art dealing, the hipocrisy beneath the surface, and above all the perceptions contrasts about how the art is considered as just another more market object.
Francis Coppola told in 1981 in an interview, this bitter thought: "Ïf anybody thought that the art was just a wrench of market, then you could buy a Picasso, to cut it in two parts and sell both parts as if those of them were two Picassos".
This is a very unusual movie, carefully filmed and cleverly directed.
If you are a Vermeer admirer (as I do) and even you don't , you should not miss this movie. I recommend to read a remarkable essay about Vermeer written by Marcel Brion.

Jon Jost shoots a little New York film, and bores the heck out of America.

The central story centers around French actress Anna (Emmanuelle Chaulet) falling for Wall Street money man Mark (Stephen Lack). Their courtship begins in the Vermeer room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Mark passes Anna a note. She meets him later with her roommate Felicity, who pretends to translate for Anna. Mark pursues her until she decides to go back to France, with Felicity, and Mark finally confesses his love in a tragic phone call.

Yawn.

This slow moving film is so boring I took three days to watch the eighty-seven minute thing. The central story takes forever. There are subplots that are brought up and dropped worse than any other film I have ever see. Gordon, the poor artist trying to borrow money from a gallery owner? Dropped. Felicity's dad using her name to make possibly illegal stock transactions? Dropped. Felicity and Anna's constantly rehearsing roommate? Dropped.

The best scenes in the film involve Stephen Lack as Mark. All of his scenes just crackle, and he does some excellent ad-libs. His scene on one of the World Trade Center towers, as he talks about death while a jet plane can be heard over head (this was shot in the early 1990's) is creepy and fascinating. He held back too much in "Scanners," but here he is the only reason to sit through this muck.

"All the Vermeers in New York" is like Woody Allen on his worst day. I wish Jost could have given us more, not bore.

I was extremely disappointed with "All the Vermeers in New York", a mid-80's film from French director/writer Jon Jost which was produced by American Playhouse (in case anyone was wondering, the film IS in English). First of, let me say that I am a big fan of movies dealing with the world of art, and there have been some great ones in recent years; "Pollock", "Maze", "I Shot Andy Warhol", "Sweet Thing", "Vincent & Theo", etc. I am also a big fan of arthouse/independent cinema, and even of films that most viewers would consider to be "slow moving". All that said, I STILL cannot find much to recommend in regards to "Vermeers"! Filmmaker Jon Jost has a photogpaher's eye for visuals and details, and there are plenty of lengthy static shots in this film that indeed look very artistic and "pretty",...but that is part of the problem. The film often seems more like a still-life slide show than a "motion picture", and Jost misses many opportunities to add some needed visual "life" to the film. As a writer and storyteller, I'm afraid Jost leaves a LOT to be desired! While there are three or four central characters, none of them are really devoloped or fleshed-out into people that we care about,...or even understand! Who are these people? What are their motive's? What drives their lives? Why should we spend 90 minutes of OUR lives watching them??? Unfortunately for his viewers, Jost's idea of "character devolopment" seems to be lengthy close-ups of the actor's expressionless faces not saying a word - and as a viewer, I desire a LOT more from a story than this! There is, I believe, a RIGHT way to make a slow-moving film. Take for instance Atom Egoyan's "Exotica"; a film where the story and characters slowly-unravel before your eyes as the writer/director peels back layers of information, and in the end, leaves the audience with a complete picture. The problem with "Vermeers" is that, unlike Egoyan's film, there is no "unvieling" of the story, no suspence, no building up of the characters, and nothing-in-particular driving the plot to an intesting conclusion. I have given the film 2 stars for Jost's considerable visual talents, but it dosen't even get a blip on the screen for it's shoddy storytelling!