Image Gallery: In a Lonely Place

Back in March of this year, the always-worth-a-look Checking on My Sausages put out an invitation for bloggers to submit a single frame in the hope of creating "a gallery of images [chosen by you] to stand for so much of what makes Cinema such a rich and exciting medium." Yesterday, The Dancing Image created a meme "for those who love pictures" intended to develop the original idea, urging fellow bloggers to "pick a theme" and select a collection of images that complement it. Only the Cinema was the first blog to respond, with writer Ed Howard choosing "Five Sensual Shots" assembled loosely around the theme of sensuality and sexuality: images that entice, provoke, and suggest. At the end of his post he offered an open invitation for anyone reading to get involved, and so, with that, here are my selections.

The general theme here complements a list I recently made on TheAuteurs MUBI, bringing together my favourite films that best capture the feelings of loneliness, longing and desperation. In my own words: A list of films that beautifully capture that feeling of an endless drift, towards nothing or oblivion; where journeys are made, both into the world and into oneself in an attempt to escape life and its various responsibilities. Where the loneliness of characters, or their own often restless attempts to make a connection with the people and places that thrive and flourish all around them, leads them into a greater adventure, or alternatively, into harm. These films evoke an overwhelming sense of solitude and isolation, either through the emptiness of a place, the spaces between people or the general desperation of late night ennui. However, they also reveal the more personal truths that are found in quiet contemplation, in the landscape, in memory, or in the thousands of little stories that exist in the spaces between everyday conversations.

At this point, I'm going to deliberately break the final rule of the meme by not selecting any other blogs to tag - simply because most blogs I read will most likely get tagged anyway - but nonetheless, I do hope that the images here suggest some of those particular feelings or immediate emotional responses, even without the benefit of context or clarification.

La notte directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961:


The Passenger directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975:


Kings of the Road directed by Wim Wenders, 1976:


Taxi Driver directed by Martin Scorsese, 1976:


In a Year with 13 Moons directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978:


Radio On directed by Christopher Petit, 1979:


The State of Things directed by Wim Wenders, 1982:


Prénom Carmen directed by Jean-Luc Godard, 1983:


Nostalghia directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983:


Boy Meets Girl directed by Leos Carax, 1984:


Paris, Texas directed by Wim Wenders, 1984:


Shadows in Paradise directed by Aki Kaurismäki, 1986:


September directed by Woody Allen, 1987:


The Match Factory Girl directed by Aki Kaurismäki, 1990:


Still Life directed by Jia Zhangke, 2006:


Colossal Youth directed by Pedro Costa, 2006: