I. Trois Couleurs: Bleu

Krzysztof Kieslowski

For quite a long while, I have been putting off these posts on Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy. Perhaps this is because they are so dear to me that I hesitate to touch them lest their significance be lost in too ponderous and compact a thought.

Regardless, I have made my disclaimer, and so refuse to accept any blame for the comments that follow. They are meant as a guide, or a jump-start, to contemplation of what must be privileged the name of masterworks.

It is held that these films are themed according to the values of the French Revolution: liberté, egalité, fraternité. And while said values are expressed in these films far better and in far purer a manner than was within the capability of those revolutionaries, themes of human sorrow, love, loneliness, regretted revenge, and great joy are also compellingly portrayed in Kieslowski's characters. As Kieslowski himself stated, "The words [liberté, egalité, fraternité] are French because the money is French. If the money had been of a different nationality we would have titled the films differently, or they might have had a different cultural connotation. But the films would probably have been the same." (Wikipedia)

Just as there may be found the themes mentioned above, there may also be found the traditional elements that make a story in film: plot continuity, character development, appropriate setting and costume.

Yes, there is a story in Bleu. It is the potent tragedy of a female musical genius who loses both the husband she made famous and her young, innocent daughter in an automobile accident.

However, just as the capricious human element forces the film to transcend its presumed themes, the dynamics of music and color accentuate those archetypal human compulsions so that the film transcends a particular plot, a particular character -- while yet retaining the indispensable characteristics of particularity. We are conscious, ever, that we are watchers, that even Julie is a watcher, a voyeur, of her own daily life, a tableau of the cosmic fable of which she too is a part -- the giant, the miniscule at times overwhelming each other, but always interpenetrating.

Bleu is a display of this participation. We are meant to understand that the score is composed by Julie herself. And yet the score plays throughout the film, as if pre-existent, ever-present. It is outside and inside. It is also outside and inside of Julie's ownership. There is a man who plays the recorder in the streets of Paris; he plays her music -- or they play a common music. She asks him how he knows it: "I like to play. I make up lots of things."

Moreover, the cosmic purview of the music -- or the great silence to which it gives birth -- enhances the intensity of every particular emotion, every personal encounter, every knock on the door at night. Even Julie seems aware of its rare effect, and appears at once detached and submerged in the flights and plunges of agonized self-isolation, passionate self-destruction. She seems intuitively aware of the spiritual significance of suffering, in a fashion -- at least aware that it is leading onward to something, and this is why she does not complete her attempted suicide.

Onward and onward to the purge of loss, a heart speared and quivering. And strangely finds peace in the knowledge of her husbands affair.

She is not so indebted, not so deeply bound by ties of identity. The relationship between husband and wife is revealed to be less than she had perceived -- and so she is more of the heroic composer of great music than she had created in her husband -- he detached with the lover, he only a face, a name, she the reality.

In the beginning, after her release from the hospital, she seeks out a colleague who keeps the record of her music, and destroys the only known copy, but in a strange foreshadowing, the music continues.

By chance, Julie catches a glimpse of television, where her husband's colleague (Olivier, who is and has been in love with her) is being interviewed concerning his attempt to finish the incomplete composition. (Another copy has been kept -- "one cannot destroy something so beautiful.")

After the interview, photographs are displayed on the screen of her husband (Patrice) and his lover, of whom she had theretofore been ignorant. In this strange moment of ... grace, if you will, both she and her music are freed in some way -- she from a portion of grief, the music from its limbo of spousal ties beyond the grave. The old is not lost, but a new life can begin -- Julie awakens to a frustration with Olivier for presuming to attempt the fulfillment of so great a work of art freighted with such personal memory. She sets out to stop him, but instead hears him out.

She helps him to understand the beauty, the strain. A new thing is formed. What is broken is renewed, and the human story is woven with a new complexity, hence a new beauty.

"I may speak with every tongue that men and angels use; yet, if I lack charity ..."

I simply insist that you hear the soundtrack. You will live ... better. ... I certainly have. The film is part of the ostentatious Criterion Collection, and therefore may be found on hulu. Alternatively,

:)

Enjoy. Tell me about it.

Concerning Music

Part III: Voices of Heaven

The human voice, almost unlimited in its range of application and its potential for communication, is truly a wonderful gift. In its very nature as intrinsic to humanity lies its unique quality of being the only musical instrument created directly by God Himself. In the Incarnation, God became man and took on a human body. Because of this act, there is something of the divine nature in the human voice. In this divine quality rests the capacity to be raised to the level of the sublime, and also lowered to that of the profane.

In song, the words commonly used for communication are given a quality which rises above spoken words. A person must pour all of his musical skill into the words in order to make them resound with the beauty of musical art. Simply put, the singer endows his words with all the beauty he can give them. Because of the spiritual quality of the human voice, the words he chooses to hallow by making them into song become very important. Transform sacred words into song, and they become divine. Adapt depraved and vulgar words or stories into song, and they become a mockery, and in this mockery the singer commits blasphemy against the divine nature of the instrument, against the Giver and Bearer of this instrument Himself.

It is in this mockery that we find hidden and subversive elements of Satan's influence. After all, what can Satan do apart from make a mockery of what is good? It is in the demonic hallowing of depravity under the disguise of music that the fallen angel of light dupes us into overlooking one of his greatest deceptions. We see the evidence of this lie everywhere. Songs whose words celebrate every form of human concupiscence have subtly made their way into the enjoyment of those in even the most pious of social circles. These songs have gained acceptance because they bear the disguise of music, which may be appealing by itself. But in truth, what greater mockery is there than to make a divine instrument sing the praises of sin itself? The hideousness of this great perversion is as frightening in its reality as it is powerful in its infernal practice.

Now a word on the unfortunate phenomenon spearheaded by the growth of mediocrity in music. In the popular music industry, there is a severe lack of appreciation for true vocal talent. The predominant idea, cemented in our minds by such exhibitions as "American Idol", is that that anyone with a flair for performance and who can prolong words into a semi-rhythmic or melodic pattern can make good music. The aid of technology has been a great boon to this mediocre industry. This cheapening and commercialization of music, in particular the human voice, has led to a society with wide-ranging ignorance of the existence of true beauty in vocal music.

In the classical tradition we see a vast deposit of beautiful vocal compositions. Yet the classically trained singer is perhaps one of the most under-appreciated of musical artists. Their talents can be seen most prominently in the great classical operas. In modern times they have become more diversified in their range of musical selections, yet the beauty and purity of the trained human voice remains. But it is in the choral tradition that the human voice achieves its highest musical function. There is little in our world that can contend with the awe-inspiring beauty of many human voices raised in harmonic unison. In secular music it achieves an unparalleled level of beauty. In sacred music it rises to entirely new level. From the majestic and powerful polyphony of the Byzantine tradition to the haunting and ethereal chant of the Gregorian tradition, we see the true perfection of the human voice, of the art of music, and of communal worship. The works of Bach, Handel, Allegri, Palestrina, Vaughan-Williams, Rachmaninov, Tavener, and many others will forever be paradigmatic of this wonderful tradition of choral music.

I hope it is now easy to understand how the human voice in musical art can not only make the art as perfect as humanly possible, but in its sacred capacity, as in worship, it becomes the epitome of artistic beauty while transcending art itself. It is in the great choral compositions, where the words of worship have been transformed into the beauty of music, that we find ourselves wondering if the angelic choirs would sound much different if given human voices. There is such a pure and ethereal quality about such music, that it often seems out of place in our fallen world, and indeed it might be. It has been said that the language of heaven is music. I am convinced that our voices, raised in worship and endowed with all the beauty of music, are but a small taste and foreshadowing of Paradise.