BISFF Correspondence 通信计划
This program involves conducting brief email interviews with the directors of the international films featured in the festival, in lieu of the traditional Q&A session that follows the screenings. Through this program, we hope to provide a platform for filmmakers to discuss their work and share their insights with our audience in China.
为了跨越种种障碍，开辟更多交流空间，我们设置了“BISFF Correspondence 通信计划”，对部分国际单元的参展作者进行系列访谈，这些访谈将在作品放映后发布在联展各个媒体平台。
Counter-Reformation｜反宗教改革
Caroline Johnson
2024｜0:14:42｜US｜English｜World Premiere
Director: Caroline Johnson
Interviewer & Translator: Anqi Liu
Coordinator & Editor: Suliko
导演：卡罗琳·约翰逊
采访、翻译：刘安琦
统筹、编辑：苏丽珂
Q1: This short film seems to show different visual styles, transitioning from a traditional archival documentary introduced by the Gothic font title to a more flexible, mixed, and lyrical style. Why was this structural approach chosen?
这部短片似乎选择了两种视觉风格，从哥特字体片名开头引出的比较传统的档案纪录，过渡到更灵活、杂糅和抒情化的影像，为什么会选择这种结构方式呢？
A1: It became clear to me while I was examining Sofonisba Anguissola’s self-portraits that I myself was making a self portrait of my own, and in many ways was interested in her artistic practice as a way to understand how I use and create images in a spiritual manner. So in that sense, I knew the film would start off as a more traditional documentary, and then expand into a bit of a lyrical essay film. But it all started from a place of curiosity, and wanting to learn more about and share information about the fascinating period of the Reformation/Counter-Reformation. So that thematic dialectic then naturally informed how the style of the film itself evolves. I knew I had to interrogate my fascination much deeper and turn the camera on myself, because I believe deeply that everything we’re interested in is a clue to who we really are. The 16th century in Europe was a time of profound religious-political upheaval, and while I could’ve spent the whole film surveying different texts, maps, and works of art from the period, I started to understand that my interest in the period isn’t just because I like history and art history, but it in fact reveals a lot about my own spiritual and artistic practice.
在研究索福尼斯巴·安圭索拉（Sofonisba Anguissola）自画像的过程中，我逐渐意识到自己也在制作关于我本人的自画像，而且我对她艺术实践的兴趣，很大程度上也作为一种方法，令我去理解自己如何以精神方式使用并创造形象。可以说在这个意义上，我认为这部电影应以传统纪录片的形式开启，然后再发展为带有抒情风格的散文电影。不过，一切其实也都始自对“宗教改革/反宗教改革”的好奇心，我会想要了解、分享关于这一迷人时期的更多信息——主题上的辩证结构自然而然地影响了电影的风格演变。我必须更深入地去探究那些我所迷恋的事物，并将镜头对准自己，因为我深信我们感兴趣的一切都是探寻自我的线索。16 世纪的欧洲是一个宗教-政治动荡的时代，我本可以用整部电影来调查那个时期的不同文本、图绘和艺术作品，但我很清楚自己对那个时期的兴趣绝不仅是因为我喜欢历史或艺术史，这个兴趣点其实很大程度地揭示了我自己的精神实践和艺术实践。
Counter-Reformation, Caroline Johnson, 2024
Q2: We're also curious that there's a lot of visual techniques were used, like stop-motion, split-screen, live-action reenactments and so on. Could you tell us roughly how you chose and organized all these different elements?
我们同样很好奇，这部影片使用了丰富的视觉手段，包括定格、分屏、真人搬演等等，请问您大致是以怎样的思路来选择、组织这些不同内容？
A2: The construction of this film was like putting a puzzle together: I had a general sense of the shape of the completed film, but I can admit my process was overall pretty maddening! I started working on the Oxberry Animation stand for a class project at CalArts, and the texts and images I shot on there then informed the live-action shoots I did with my actresses. Then, in the waiting period before getting the film scanned and processed, I’d come up with a whole new thread to go down, which sometimes rendered what I’d shot previously kind of irrelevant! So I’d do another shoot! It all built up to the live-action scene in the studio, but even on that day I wasn’t quite certain about what exactly I wanted from it - the actresses, Alexys Hewitt and Cecily Breaux, were incredibly generous with their time, and patient with my improvised directing style. I constantly “threw out” footage, certain that I wouldn’t use it, but then months later I’d go back and realize that some of the images worked to demonstrate a new line of thinking I had gone down. It all ended up coming together in the edit though, kind of mosaic-like: I tried all of these different strategies and techniques to get close to the spiritual heart of the film. Hopefully, it succeeded!
构造这部电影的就像是在拼图：我对电影最终的样貌有大致感知，但完成过程令人很抓狂！我是在Oxberry动画摄影台上开始这项工作的，当时是为了完成加州艺术学院的一个课程任务，当时的文本和摄制的影像，影响了（我在成片中保留）我与我的女演员们实景拍摄的这一部分。在等待胶片扫描和处理的时候，我产生了全新的思路，虽然这可能会让之前的素材变得有些离题。所以我在工作室里重新拍摄了实景部分！其实一直到拍摄当天，我都还不能肯定自己究竟想要什么——演员 Alexys Hewitt 和 Cecily Breaux 非常慷慨地抽出了时间，对我的即兴导演风格也很有耐心。我经常会“扔掉”一段自己以为肯定不会使用的素材，但几个月后，又发现其中有些画面能很好地表现我的新思路。不过，在剪辑过程中所有内容最终都融合在一起，就像马赛克一样——我尝试使用不同策略和技巧来接近电影的精神核心，希望这种尝试是成功的！
Q3: When non-archival images first appeared, the voiceover mentioned that sacred images may provoke idolatry. Could this topic be understood as one of the film's themes? We also noticed that there were some photos of the first communion, as well as crystal figurines and stone sculpture. Are these images related to your personal religious life? Wondering if the various reflections on sacred images, including the concern over iconolatry and fetish, partly stem from your personal history?
在非档案影像开始出现时，旁白刚好提到神圣图像可能会引发圣像迷恋，能不能把这个话题也理解为影片的主题之一？我们注意到，影片中出现了一些初领圣体的照片，这些画面与您自己的宗教背景有关吗？或者说，对神圣图像的种种思考，包括对圣像迷恋、物恋问题的关注，是否部分来自您的私人史经验？
A3: Yes, absolutely - I see this film as a profoundly personal one. The question of sacred images and whether they are appropriate or idolatrous is one I think about often, and Catholicism’s insistence that images can help lead us to the divine is perhaps my strongest connection to the Church I was raised in. I fully believe that image making is the closest I feel to “divine”, with the materiality of celluloid film particularly bringing to mind how in some translations of Genesis 2:7, God breathed life into earth’s clay to create Man. It saddens me that the Church has sort of abandoned its investment in sacred images, particularly filmmaking as a medium, because the purely visual can stir us in a way no text or written argument really can. As for the major themes of the film, for me it’s less a question of iconography vs. idolatry, although I hope the work encourages viewers to have those debates, but more of a plea to myself, and spiritual leaders in my childhood faith to return to our iconographic roots.
是的，绝对如此——这部电影是非常私人化的。我经常思考神圣图像的问题，包括它们究竟是彼此相称的，还是偶像迷恋式的。天主教坚持认为图像可以引领我们走向神圣，或许正是这一点将我和我所成长起来的教会紧密联系在一起。我完全可以肯定，影像制作是最令我感到接近“神圣”（divine）的事情，尤其是赛璐珞胶片的物质性，会让我想起一些《创世纪》第 2 章第 7 节的译文，比如上帝将生气吹入地上的尘土中创造了人类。现在教会已经放弃了对神圣图像，尤其是媒介化的影像创作的投入，这令我很难过，因为纯粹的视觉体验可以激发我们进入一种任何其他文本或书面论述都无法实现的状态。说回这部电影，它的核心主题并不是图像学或偶像迷恋，尽管也希望能引发观众对此的讨论，但对我毋宁说是恳请自己以及我童年信仰的精神领袖，能够回归到图像学的传统中去。
Counter-Reformation, Caroline Johnson, 2024
Q4: In the later part of the film, before presenting Sofonisba Anguissola's last self-portrait, a segment about Thomas More is introduced. Especially when mentioning his accusation of malicious silence, you present this charge in a format similar to the title "Counter-Reformation", making it appear as another emphasis. After all, the film's connection between Sofonisba Anguissola and several other female painters seems to have established a sufficiently clear and tight context regarding the history of icon, self-control of female image, and female friendship. Why choose to include the story of Thomas More?
影片中后段，在呈现索福尼斯巴·安圭索拉最后一幅自画像之前，插入了关于托马斯·莫尔（Thomas More）的素材，尤其是提到他被控以恶意沉默罪时，你使用了类似片名的形式，将这个罪名单独呈现出来，看起来像是又一个重音。毕竟，影片对索福尼斯巴·安圭索拉和其它几位女性画家的串联，似乎已经建立起关于圣像历史、女性形象的自我控制、女性友谊等议题足够清晰、紧密的脉络了，为什么会选择加入托马斯·莫尔的故事呢？
A4: Oh gosh this is a good question, and one I’m honestly still asking myself! The inclusion of the Thomas More story, to be honest, was a sort of gut-level insistence I felt after randomly stumbling upon the Hans Holbein portrait in a museum last winter, right in the middle of the production process for this film. I’ve had a fascination with Thomas More for a long time: to me, he embodies the exact fulcrum point between England’s Catholic past and Anglican future, and as someone whose heritage is both Irish Catholic and Scottish/English Protestant, Thomas More’s story represents that tension I wrestle with, him being a tragic figure whose story would foreshadow centuries of religious conflict in the British Isles.
Anyways, last winter I happened to be wandering around the Frick museum in NYC, and I turned a corner and saw More’s portrait that I’d seen so many times in textbooks and online, and truthfully, seeing it in person, at that particular moment just stunned me. It seemed like, a divine intervention of sorts, and I knew his story needed to be a part of the film, even if I didn't quite know how it fit in, narratively. More was one of the first victims of the Reformation, and because of that he is considered a martyr. I found this juxtaposition to Sofonisba quite interesting: unlike More, Sofonisba isn’t a well-known figure, and further, she lived a long and full life as a painter because of investments the church made into the arts in the aftermath of events like the execution of Thomas More.
Overall, I can’t really neatly explain my insistence on the inclusion of Thomas More, but seeing his portrait myself during this process reminded me of the sacrifices that laid the groundwork for the art of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and what beauty ended up coming out of the violence and bloodshed of that period. As an artist, I think it’s crucial to examine the life and work of those that came before us, work that is directly responsible for our own. It’s sort of an acknowledgement that my view of the history of art, and history in general, is cyclical: we are always responding to what came before - thesis, antithesis, form, reform, reformation, counter-reformation.
哦天呐这真是一个好问题，坦白讲，这也是我仍然在询问自己的一件事。说实话，加入托马斯·莫尔的故事是去年冬天我偶然在博物馆看到汉斯·荷尔拜因（Hans Holbein）所作的这幅肖像后，内心直觉般的的一种坚持，当时这部电影刚好制作到一半。我对托马斯·莫尔着迷已久：于我而言，在英国天主教历史与英国圣公会之间，他无疑是一个确切支点的具象化。作为一个同时具有爱尔兰天主教血统和苏格兰/英国新教徒血统的人，托马斯·莫尔的故事代表着我要应对的那种张力，他的悲剧也是不列颠群岛几个世纪宗教冲突的前兆。
无论如何，去年冬天我在纽约的弗里克（Frick）博物馆闲逛，转过角落时突然看到了莫尔的肖像，虽然已经在教科书和网上见过这幅画无数次，但说实话，亲眼看到它的那一刻我还是很震惊。某种程度上像是神圣干预事件（divine intervention），即便不太清楚该如何在叙述层面使其融入，我还是很确定，他的故事必须成为电影的一部分。莫尔是宗教改革的第一批受害人，也因此被视为殉道者。我发现并列对照他与索福尼斯巴会很有意思：与莫尔不同，索福尼斯巴并不是一个知名人物，并且在托马斯·莫尔被处决等事件的余波中教会对艺术创作提供投资，才令她作为画师度过了人生中漫长而充实的艺术生涯。
总之，我可能无法很好地解释为何要把托马斯·莫尔纳入影片，但在影片制作的周期里曾亲眼看到过他的肖像让我突然意识到，天主教反宗教改革的艺术是基于众多的牺牲，而那个时期的暴力和流血，最终才带来了美的事物。作为一名艺术家，我认为调研前人的生活和工作至关重要，这也是在直接为我们自己负责。也就是说，在我的观念里，艺术史乃至总体历史都是周期性的：我们总是在回应之前发生的事情——正题、反题、形式、反形式、宗教改革、反宗教改革。
more information: https://www.bisff.co/selection/counter-reformation