post 9

Belly of an Architect is easily one of the most "out there" films screened in our class thus far. The director creates a main character whose art leads to his madness. As Stourley Kracklite begins to work on his life long dream of exhibiting his favorite artist Boullee in Rome, we the audience start to look at him as a man losing his mind.

The artistic creation of this film mainly directs the audience to focus on the relationship between Kracklite and his new exhibit in honor of Boullee. Boullee is pretty much immediately introduced in the second scene of the movie, explaining that Stourley loves his creative, yet classic style and through Stourley's description, we can understand this deceased architect would be Kracklite's idol. However, Kracklite looks at this new exhibit as his own personal child. He planned the construction of the entire presentation and had, prior to arriving in Italy, spent many years planning what would be done.

As the film progresses, Kracklite becomes more of a defensive artist with very little open minded opinions as any suggestions or changes made seem to result in Stourley's anger and constant aggression. At this point in the film, I was expecting his love life to unfold and move to Caspasian. Anyway, suggestions concerning the lighting were made and Stourley quickly jumped to his angry side. We, the audience begin to look at the reality of how one reacts when his/her personal life long exhibit is being changed. Of course he will react badly, but at times, he begins to be such a target in the movie that the film is simply staged with a lack of realism in terms of what really goes on with these exhibit. A shot in the film show's a few relatives of Caspasian and Stourley in the same room. Shot from a long angle, the camera stays on the same place and the camera begins to move away as we listen to Caspasian's relatives call Stourley out for gradually losing his wife. Immediately, Kracklite punches the relative on the right. This predictable reaction following the blatant instigations of Caspasian's family turn this movie into nothing more than a written film with a predictable plot involving a man losing his wife in a gloomy, outsider world where the victim (Kracklite) can do nothing to stand up for himself besides demonstrating physical aggression. His artistic creation is what he thrives on and these character's taking away his genius right in front of him would bring out the anger in not only Stourley, but any architect for that matter. This could be a reason I did not enjoy the film because it seemed too predictable for Hollywood/Italian cinema.

Creation according to gender is no mystery in this film. Obviously everyone on this blog site will mention Mrs. Kracklite's unfaithful ways and how her baby gradually becomes Caspasian's baby. The movie moves along with more bad news for Stourley as he has no choice in terms of what will be the result of his child's future. He even tries to take Mrs. Kracklite (cheating piece of crap) to America in order for the baby to not be born outside of his home country. As Stourley realizes his baby will not really be his, he falls into even more depression and continues to write sad post cards to a man (Boullee his idol) who has been dead for 200 years. However, a serious issue came to my notice. Stourley is so concentrated on his exhibit that not only does he never notice the first four months of her pregnancy, but he doesn't seem to talk about his future son for more than a few lines. The plot leans the audience's attention on Caspasian's ruthless antics and how Stourley will react.

In terms of what the past does to this man is rather weird and obscure to say the least. He writes letters to the exhibit's based legend Boullee. Not only does he write letters, he gets into detail and writes as if he is really having a conversation with a deceased artist. He is losing his mind attempting to live in the past and seems to neglect his own future family. This movie just seemed to be a little bit off and doesn't really resemble a film that can be looked upon as a director's choice. There are some good long shots and key lighting, featuring unique camera work from in front of the Panteon in which the director has the camera follow Stourley around, yet still leaving the legendary dome building in the background for us to see. We are supposed to acknowledge Stourley looks up to people who create these buildings and that such artistic genius of others inspired a crazy architect who finishes the film with his own suicide.