The following interview was originally published in the second issue of Outskirts Film Magazine, an independent print magazine on the past and present of cinema. Issue two is now available from the Outskirts e-shop.At 189 pages, Outskirts Nº2 is made up of original essays, interviews, reviews, translations, and a single large dossier dedicated to Japanese filmmaker and actress Tanaka Kinuyo.Forever a Woman.During the last edition of the Locarno Film Festival, a retrospective dedicated to Douglas Sirk took place, organised by Bernard Eisenschitz and Roberto Turigliatto. Among the many incredible guests invited to introduce Sirk’s films, such as Miguel Marías, Jon Halliday, Olaf Möller, Martina Müller, was Laura Mulvey. In speaking to her several months later, what started out initially as a conversation between myself and Mulvey about Sirk, unexpectedly morphed into a broader investigation that included the work of Tanaka Kinuyo, the subject of our dossier.The...
- 8/8/2023
- MUBI
All That Heaven Allows (1955).“The studio loved the title All That Heaven Allows,” Douglas Sirk remarked of the second Jane Wyman/Rock Hudson vehicle he made for Universal in 1955, a project assigned to him after the box office windfall of Magnificent Obsession (1953). “They thought it meant you could have everything you wanted. I meant it exactly the other way round. As far as I am concerned, heaven is stingy.”1 The irony coursing through Sirk’s films was something that went largely unnoticed during his years in Hollywood, obscured—in the most popular of them—by lavish Technicolor and the soapy narrative trappings of the woman’s weepie. It was not until the late sixties, a decade after the German emigré had ditched California, and filmmaking, for the medicinal climes of Lugano, Switzerland, that the crueller contours of his work started to come into focus.Todd Haynes would forgo any such...
- 10/10/2022
- MUBI
For the tenth time in 11 years, the Locarno Film Festival is hosting 10 international film critics from various stages of development during the 10 days of the A-list Swiss festival.
Coming from places as far from the Swiss resort town as Bangalore, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro and Jakarta, and from an even more varied matrix of backgrounds, disciplines, writing styles, and interests, participants in the anniversary edition of the Critics Academy will have the chance to interact face-to-face with a wealth of major critics, programmers, and filmmakers in attendance at Locarno.
Returning after one aborted edition in the first year of the pandemic and another for which there was no public call for applications, Locarno’s incubator for aspiring professional critics takes place once again in the midst of an extraordinarily trying moment both for the art and commerce of cinema but also, perhaps even more acutely, for writing about it.
While...
Coming from places as far from the Swiss resort town as Bangalore, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro and Jakarta, and from an even more varied matrix of backgrounds, disciplines, writing styles, and interests, participants in the anniversary edition of the Critics Academy will have the chance to interact face-to-face with a wealth of major critics, programmers, and filmmakers in attendance at Locarno.
Returning after one aborted edition in the first year of the pandemic and another for which there was no public call for applications, Locarno’s incubator for aspiring professional critics takes place once again in the midst of an extraordinarily trying moment both for the art and commerce of cinema but also, perhaps even more acutely, for writing about it.
While...
- 8/5/2022
- by Christopher Small
- Variety Film + TV
The Locarno Film Festival recently announced a complete retro dedicated to Douglas Sirk, 35 years after the death of the director best known for melodramas made in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, such as “Magnificent Obsession” and “Written on the Wind,” that aims to provide a fresh critical interpretation of his work.
Sirk, who was born in Denmark and worked in Germany, which he left for Hollywood during Hitler’s rise to power, later returned to Europe and eventually retired in Switzerland.
Among his most prominent fans were late great German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Bernardo Bertolucci.
For the first time, Sirk’s filmography will be reviewed in the light of unpublished documents made available by the director’s family through the Douglas Sirk Foundation and preserved since 2012 at the Cinémathèque Suisse, broadening the perspective on this major auteur.
Variety spoke to Locarno’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro...
Sirk, who was born in Denmark and worked in Germany, which he left for Hollywood during Hitler’s rise to power, later returned to Europe and eventually retired in Switzerland.
Among his most prominent fans were late great German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Bernardo Bertolucci.
For the first time, Sirk’s filmography will be reviewed in the light of unpublished documents made available by the director’s family through the Douglas Sirk Foundation and preserved since 2012 at the Cinémathèque Suisse, broadening the perspective on this major auteur.
Variety spoke to Locarno’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro...
- 2/16/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Cluny Brown
Blu ray
Criterion
1946/ 1.33:1 / 100 min.
Starring Charles Boyer, Jennifer Jones
Cinematography by Joseph Lashelle
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
The last film completed by Ernst Lubitsch before his sudden death in 1947, Cluny Brown is the life-embracing work of a determined romantic – unintimidated by poor health let alone the World War that raged during the movie’s production.
The story of an unvarnished beauty who finds happiness in a leaky faucet, Jennifer Jones plays Cluny, the low-brow but high-spirited plumber’s apprentice and Charles Boyer is her romantically inclined guardian angel, Adam Belinski.
Belinski is a penniless refugee who drops by a posh party in search of cash and is mistaken for the maintenance man – just as Cluny arrives to unclog the pipes and save the day. She celebrates with one too many beverages (“My first sink and my first cocktail… I feel… ‘chirrupy’”) and is banished by her class-conscious...
Blu ray
Criterion
1946/ 1.33:1 / 100 min.
Starring Charles Boyer, Jennifer Jones
Cinematography by Joseph Lashelle
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
The last film completed by Ernst Lubitsch before his sudden death in 1947, Cluny Brown is the life-embracing work of a determined romantic – unintimidated by poor health let alone the World War that raged during the movie’s production.
The story of an unvarnished beauty who finds happiness in a leaky faucet, Jennifer Jones plays Cluny, the low-brow but high-spirited plumber’s apprentice and Charles Boyer is her romantically inclined guardian angel, Adam Belinski.
Belinski is a penniless refugee who drops by a posh party in search of cash and is mistaken for the maintenance man – just as Cluny arrives to unclog the pipes and save the day. She celebrates with one too many beverages (“My first sink and my first cocktail… I feel… ‘chirrupy’”) and is banished by her class-conscious...
- 9/17/2019
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Fifty years ago, Jean-Luc Godard was a cinematic revolutionary. Now, the reclusive 87-year-old legend is on another plane entirely, with his magisterially opaque and maddeningly elusive films as much criticisms and dismantlings of cinema as they are examples of it.
Then again, words like opaque and elusive sell Godard short, because they imply that he’s interested in things like plot and character.
He’s not, except in the vaguest and most poetic sense. “The Image Book,” which premiered in competition in Cannes on Friday, is an essay in sound and image, a poem that uses some of the tools of cinema, maybe even an assault on the idea of a movie.
It’s a trip to Planet Godard, which at this point in time is a planet capable of sustaining and even inspiring human life, but only if they’re the right kind of humans.
Also Read: 'Alita: Battle Angel...
Then again, words like opaque and elusive sell Godard short, because they imply that he’s interested in things like plot and character.
He’s not, except in the vaguest and most poetic sense. “The Image Book,” which premiered in competition in Cannes on Friday, is an essay in sound and image, a poem that uses some of the tools of cinema, maybe even an assault on the idea of a movie.
It’s a trip to Planet Godard, which at this point in time is a planet capable of sustaining and even inspiring human life, but only if they’re the right kind of humans.
Also Read: 'Alita: Battle Angel...
- 2/13/2019
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Nicholas Ray’s CinemaScope detour into outlaw Americana is yet another sincere artistic effort muffled by studio interference. Ray sought to examine a legend in terms of folklore and celebrity. Fox just wanted a cheap remake of its 1939 hit and undermined the director all the way. It’s a potentially great film marred by clumsy reshoots and re-edits.
The True Story of Jesse James
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date November 20, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95
Starring: Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Hope Lange, Agnes Moorehead, Alan Hale Jr., Alan Baxter, John Carradine, Rachel Stephens, Barney Phillips, Biff Elliot, Frank Overton, Barry Atwater, Marian Seldes, Chubby Johnson, Frank Gorshin, Carl Thayler, John Doucette, Ken Clark, Anthony Ray, Gene Roth, Sumner Williams, Carleton Young.
Cinematography: Joe MacDonald
Original Music: Leigh Harline
Written by Walter Newman, based on an earlier screenplay by Nunnally Johnson
Produced by Herbert B. Swope Jr....
The True Story of Jesse James
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date November 20, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95
Starring: Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Hope Lange, Agnes Moorehead, Alan Hale Jr., Alan Baxter, John Carradine, Rachel Stephens, Barney Phillips, Biff Elliot, Frank Overton, Barry Atwater, Marian Seldes, Chubby Johnson, Frank Gorshin, Carl Thayler, John Doucette, Ken Clark, Anthony Ray, Gene Roth, Sumner Williams, Carleton Young.
Cinematography: Joe MacDonald
Original Music: Leigh Harline
Written by Walter Newman, based on an earlier screenplay by Nunnally Johnson
Produced by Herbert B. Swope Jr....
- 12/22/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Recommended VIEWINGWe found Kiyoshi Kurosawa's semi-serious, semi-tongue-in-cheek sci-fi film Before We Vanish one of the best premieres of last year. The trailer for the American release plays it straight, but captures the wry verve of the film. Highly recommended.We adore the output of Poverty Row studio Republic (Driftwood, The Inside Story, I've Always Loved You), but rarely have had the chance to see the movies on celluloid and looking good. So we'll be front row, center for the Museum of Modern Art's "Republic Rediscovered" series, curated by Martin Scorsese. But just as good as any of those 1940s classics is the trailer for the retrospective, cut by filmmaker Gina Telaroli.The first look at Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot, Gus Van Sant's new film, set to premiere at Sundance.
- 1/17/2018
- MUBI
The original Quinn the Eskimo (no kidding) is another life-loving rough portrait from Anthony Quinn, in Nicholas Ray’s rather successful final spin as a writer-director. Despite some technical awkwardness, Ray’s sensitivity to outsider souls finds full expression. Humans don’t get any more ‘outside’ than Inuk, a primitive unequipped to deal with the modern world.
The Savage Innocents
Blu-ray
Olive Films
1960 / Color / 2:35 widescreen (Super Technirama 70) / 110 min. / Street Date June 27, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98
Starring: Anthony Quinn, Yoko Tani, Carlo Giustini, Peter O’Toole, Marie Yang, Marco Guglielmi, Anthony Chinn, Francis De Wolff.
Cinematography: Peter Hennessey, Aldo Tonti
Film Editor: Eraldo Da Roma, Ralph Kemplen
Original Music: Angelo Francesco Lavagnino
Written by Nicholas Ray, adapted by Franco Solinas, Baccio Bandini, Hans Ruesch from his novel
Produced by Maleno Malenotti
Directed by Nicholas Ray
It’s arguable that Nicholas Ray’s career began to fall apart as...
The Savage Innocents
Blu-ray
Olive Films
1960 / Color / 2:35 widescreen (Super Technirama 70) / 110 min. / Street Date June 27, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98
Starring: Anthony Quinn, Yoko Tani, Carlo Giustini, Peter O’Toole, Marie Yang, Marco Guglielmi, Anthony Chinn, Francis De Wolff.
Cinematography: Peter Hennessey, Aldo Tonti
Film Editor: Eraldo Da Roma, Ralph Kemplen
Original Music: Angelo Francesco Lavagnino
Written by Nicholas Ray, adapted by Franco Solinas, Baccio Bandini, Hans Ruesch from his novel
Produced by Maleno Malenotti
Directed by Nicholas Ray
It’s arguable that Nicholas Ray’s career began to fall apart as...
- 6/27/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Don’t look to this noir for hardboiled cynicism – for his first feature Nicholas Ray instead gives us a dose of fatalist romance. Transposed from the previous decade, a pair of fugitives takes what happiness they can find, always aware that a grim fate waits ahead. The show is a career-making triumph and a real classic from Rko — which shelved it for more than a year.
They Live by Night
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 880
1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 13, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Cathy O’Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen, Helen Craig, Will Wright, William Phipps, Ian Wolfe, Harry Harvey, Marie Bryant, Byron Foulger, Erskine Sanford .
Cinematography: George E. Diskant
Film Editor: Sherman Todd
Original Music: Leigh Harline
Written by Charles Schnee, Nicholas Ray from the novel Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson
Produced by John Houseman
Directed by Nicholas Ray...
They Live by Night
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 880
1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 13, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Cathy O’Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen, Helen Craig, Will Wright, William Phipps, Ian Wolfe, Harry Harvey, Marie Bryant, Byron Foulger, Erskine Sanford .
Cinematography: George E. Diskant
Film Editor: Sherman Todd
Original Music: Leigh Harline
Written by Charles Schnee, Nicholas Ray from the novel Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson
Produced by John Houseman
Directed by Nicholas Ray...
- 6/23/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSWe tend not to post much news about films currently in production, but we must admit our desire to share the bare details of Phoenix director Christian Petzold's new feature film, Transit, pictured above.Critic Godfrey Cheshire has launched a crowdfunding campaign for a handsome looking monograph on contemporary Iranian cinema.Recommended VIEWINGWith Twin Peaks: The Return currently unfolding, its profound oddness has sent many of us diving backwards into David Lynch's past work, remembering he is a visual artist first and foremost, one who has worked in serial television, narrative cinema, and, yes, commercial advertisement. This video usefully gathers all ads Lynch has made, from his 1988 add for Calvin Klein to his (brilliant) Dior ad from 2010 starring Marion Cotillard.A '90s cinema throwback! Lars von Trier introducing the Dogme...
- 6/20/2017
- MUBI
We have another busy week of home entertainment releases on the horizon, as there are over two dozen titles making their way to Blu-ray and DVD this Tuesday. For those of you cult film enthusiasts, you have a lot of options when it comes to adding items to your collections, as Alienator is being resurrected by Scream Factory, Arrow Video is unleashing a special edition set for Madhouse, and Mondo Macabre has given Paul Naschy’s Inquisition an HD overhaul as well.
As if that wasn’t enough, we also have new releases for The Hound of Baskervilles, Medusa, and Nicholas Ray’s classic noir They Live By Night to look forward to as well. For you TV lovers out there, the box sets for the final season of both The Vampire Diaries and Grimm are being released Tuesday, and for those who are on the hunt for some new action cinema,...
As if that wasn’t enough, we also have new releases for The Hound of Baskervilles, Medusa, and Nicholas Ray’s classic noir They Live By Night to look forward to as well. For you TV lovers out there, the box sets for the final season of both The Vampire Diaries and Grimm are being released Tuesday, and for those who are on the hunt for some new action cinema,...
- 6/12/2017
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
Strand will focus on the history of Cannes for the festival’s 70th anniversary.
Cannes Film Festival (May 17-28) has unveiled the line-up for this year’s Classic programme, with 24 screenings set to take place alongside five documentaries and one short film.
Documentaries about cinema including Filmworker - which focuses of Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man Leon Vitali, who played a crucial role behind the scenes of the director’s films - as well as Cary Grant doc Becoming Cary Grant, are set to feature.
This year’s selection is also set to focus on the history of the festival itself, with prize-winning films such as Michelangelo Antonioni Grand 1966 Prix winning film Blow-Up and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear) from 1952 screening.
Nagisa Oshima’s 1976 film Ai No Korîda (In The Realm Of The Senses/L’Empire Des Sens), Luis Buñuel’s 1967 classic Belle De Jour (Beauty Of The Day...
Cannes Film Festival (May 17-28) has unveiled the line-up for this year’s Classic programme, with 24 screenings set to take place alongside five documentaries and one short film.
Documentaries about cinema including Filmworker - which focuses of Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man Leon Vitali, who played a crucial role behind the scenes of the director’s films - as well as Cary Grant doc Becoming Cary Grant, are set to feature.
This year’s selection is also set to focus on the history of the festival itself, with prize-winning films such as Michelangelo Antonioni Grand 1966 Prix winning film Blow-Up and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear) from 1952 screening.
Nagisa Oshima’s 1976 film Ai No Korîda (In The Realm Of The Senses/L’Empire Des Sens), Luis Buñuel’s 1967 classic Belle De Jour (Beauty Of The Day...
- 5/3/2017
- ScreenDaily
While Cannes Film Festival premieres some of the best new films of the year, they also have a rich history of highlighting cinema history with their Cannes Classics line-up, many of which are new restorations of films that previously premiered at the festival. This year they are taking that idea further, featuring 16 films that made history at the festival, along with a handful of others, and five new documentaries. So, if you can’t make it to Cannes, to get a sense of restorations that may come to your city (or on Blu-ray) in the coming months/years, check out the line-up below.
From 1946 to 1992, from René Clément to Victor Erice, sixteen history-making films of the Festival de Cannes
1946: La Bataille du Rail (Battle of the Rails) by René Clément (1h25, France): Grand Prix International de la mise en scène and Prix du Jury International.
Presented by Ina.
From 1946 to 1992, from René Clément to Victor Erice, sixteen history-making films of the Festival de Cannes
1946: La Bataille du Rail (Battle of the Rails) by René Clément (1h25, France): Grand Prix International de la mise en scène and Prix du Jury International.
Presented by Ina.
- 5/3/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Warners knocks us out with a beautifully remastered Rko noir. Nicholas Ray's crime tale is like no other, a meditation on human need and loneliness. It's a noir with a cautiously positive, hopeful twist. On Dangerous Ground Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1952 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 82 min. / Street Date October 11, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond, Charles Kemper, Anthony Ross, Ed Begley, Ian Wolfe, Sumner Williams. Cinematography George E. Diskant Art Direction Ralph Berger, Albert S. D'Agostino Film Editor Roland Gross Original Music Bernard Herrmann Written by A.I. Bezzerides, Nicholas Ray from the novel Mad with Much Heart by Gerald Butler Produced by John Houseman, Sid Rogell Directed by Nicholas Ray
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The Warner Archive is known for pleasant surprises, but this one is a real thrill -- one of the very best Rko films noir, reissued in a much-needed beautiful restoration.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The Warner Archive is known for pleasant surprises, but this one is a real thrill -- one of the very best Rko films noir, reissued in a much-needed beautiful restoration.
- 10/8/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The Audubon Society battles plumage poachers in the Everglades, circa 1900. Legendary director Nicholas Ray suffered an on-location meltdown filming this early ecologically sensitive epic, but the finished product is still one of his better pictures. Burl Ives, Christopher Plummer and Chana Eden give top 'Ray' performances. The eccentric supporting cast includes Peter Falk, boxer Two-Ton Tony Galento and none other than the real Gypsy Rose Lee. Wind Across the Everglades DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1958 / Color / 1:85 enhanced widescreen / 93 min. / Street Date October 6 2015, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Burl Ives, Christopher Plummer, Gypsy Rose Lee, George Voskovec, Tony Galento, Howard Smith, Emmett Kelly, Pat Henning, Chana Eden, Curt Conway, Peter Falk, Sammy Renick, Cory Osceola, MacKinlay Kantor, Totch Brown, George Voskovec, Sumner Williams. Cinematography Joseph Brun Film Editor Georges Klotz, Joseph Zigman Art Direction Richard Sylbert Original Music Paul Sawtell & Bert Shefter Written by Budd Schulberg Produced by Stuart Schulberg...
- 1/19/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
With the shimmering waters of Lake Maggiore beckoning mere blocks from Locarno's cinemas and the heat here wilting and cruel, how teasing for Athina Rachel Tsangari to set her much-anticipated third film, Chevalier, entirely on a luxury yacht bobbing in the Aegean. I believe many of us have high hopes for Tsangari, a Greek filmmaker who rose to prominence producing Yorgos Lanthimos's Dogtooth and Alps and directing Attenburg, which was far superior to Lanthimos's Greek films, and similarly in this nouveau Greek cinema style of blending art cinema with conceptual art. I wondered, as many no doubt did, at Chevalier's absence from Cannes (whose competition included Lanthimos's leap to English production, The Lobster) and Venice, which had previously supported this new, provocative Greek cinema. Was the film too daring for these wary red carpet competitions? The answer is no; in fact, Chevalier is a far more approachable film—slyly so—than Attenberg,...
- 8/13/2015
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
This video essay collaboration on Jacques Rivette's Out 1 is the second entry in the Out 1 Video Essay Project commissioned by the Melbourne International Film Festival. The first entry, by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin, can be found here.
The following "messages" were sent to Kevin B. Lee as part of the preparatory work for our video Out 1 Solitaire:
Part of the impact of Out 1 derives from the way it captures several aspects of transatlantic 60s counterculture, but the differences between North America and France during this period are telling. Psychedelic drug culture hadn't yet made many discernible inroads, although things we associate with that culture—especially LSD trips and changing perceptions of duration—seem present in some form, especially in Colin's solipsistic fantasies and preoccupations and some of the "tribal" rituals of the theater group's exercises. Politics were also perceived differently, above all because of the experience of...
The following "messages" were sent to Kevin B. Lee as part of the preparatory work for our video Out 1 Solitaire:
Part of the impact of Out 1 derives from the way it captures several aspects of transatlantic 60s counterculture, but the differences between North America and France during this period are telling. Psychedelic drug culture hadn't yet made many discernible inroads, although things we associate with that culture—especially LSD trips and changing perceptions of duration—seem present in some form, especially in Colin's solipsistic fantasies and preoccupations and some of the "tribal" rituals of the theater group's exercises. Politics were also perceived differently, above all because of the experience of...
- 9/30/2014
- by Jonathan Rosenbaum and Kevin B. Lee
- MUBI
After a new print screened at the 2014 City of Lights City of Angels Festival earlier this spring, Cohen Media Group has released a digitally remastered Blu-ray of Otar Iosseliani’s 1984 classic yet elusive title, Favorites of the Moon. Awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 41st Venice International Film Festival, the film, along with most of the Georgian filmmaker’s titles, have long been unavailable to U.S. audiences, a shame considering his prolific stature and important body of work that subversively undermines frameworks within the dominant culture he’s navigating as an exiled dissident.
Taking its title from Shakespeare’s Henry IV describing thieves, “Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, favorites of the moon,” Iosseliani expounds on the same motif, casting all of humanity in the shade of the moon, a symbol of disorder, chaos and unrest. In essence, the plot is a roundelay, utilizing a set of...
Taking its title from Shakespeare’s Henry IV describing thieves, “Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, favorites of the moon,” Iosseliani expounds on the same motif, casting all of humanity in the shade of the moon, a symbol of disorder, chaos and unrest. In essence, the plot is a roundelay, utilizing a set of...
- 8/12/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The following article accompanies the audiovisual essay Paratheatre - Plays Without Stages (From I to IV) by Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López and commissioned by Chris Luscri for the 2014 Melbourne International Film Festival premiere of Jacques Rivette's 1971 magnum opus Out 1 - Noli me tangere.
In Jacques Rivette’s monumental Out 1 (1971), we see two theatrical works perpetually in progress — until, due to the force of many factors both internal and external, both projects collapse. Yet what we witness are not, in any conventional or normative sense, rehearsals. They are more like what Jerzy Grotwoski called paratheatre: playing without a stage, without an audience ever in mind or in attendance, playing for the sake of playing itself, for the process of working it out and working it through.
Every critical commentary on Out 1 (and its double, Out 1: Spectre from 1974) refers to the prominent place in it of theatre — a prominent place it enjoys,...
In Jacques Rivette’s monumental Out 1 (1971), we see two theatrical works perpetually in progress — until, due to the force of many factors both internal and external, both projects collapse. Yet what we witness are not, in any conventional or normative sense, rehearsals. They are more like what Jerzy Grotwoski called paratheatre: playing without a stage, without an audience ever in mind or in attendance, playing for the sake of playing itself, for the process of working it out and working it through.
Every critical commentary on Out 1 (and its double, Out 1: Spectre from 1974) refers to the prominent place in it of theatre — a prominent place it enjoys,...
- 8/7/2014
- by Cristina Álvarez López & Adrian Martin
- MUBI
People tend to forget that Charlie Chaplin was more than The Tramp, his iconic mute character of physical peculiarity. Seven years after his baffoonic incarnation of Hitler in The Great Dictator, Chaplin bought the rights to a murderously bleak black comedy from Orson Welles and went to work on his most controversial work, Monsieur Verdoux. As a cunning killer of well-to-do middle aged housewives, Henri Verdoux showcased Chaplin’s crisp, flamboyant diction by playing against type. Never before had he played a deceitfully murderous man, slyly articulate and devilishly selfish in his conquest for corpses.
Subtitled ‘A Comedy of Murders’, Chaplin’s outspoken dark horse begins at the end, on Henri Verdoux’s grave stone with him speaking frankly about his late life career as a bluebeard. After 35 years behind the counter as a banker, he lost his job to the depression and found himself in need of a new...
Subtitled ‘A Comedy of Murders’, Chaplin’s outspoken dark horse begins at the end, on Henri Verdoux’s grave stone with him speaking frankly about his late life career as a bluebeard. After 35 years behind the counter as a banker, he lost his job to the depression and found himself in need of a new...
- 4/2/2013
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Above: Remorques (Jean Gremillon, 1941). Artist: Henry Monnici.
When I heard that Film Forum was putting on a show called “The French Old Wave” I was hoping that it was going to be a revisionist look at the films that Truffaut and his compadres in the nouvelle vague famously dismissed as “Le cinéma de papa” or the “le cinéma de qualité.” In his epoch-making 1954 essay “Une certaine tendance du cinéma français”, the essay which gave rise to the phrase “la politique des auteurs” and thus the Auteur Theory, Truffaut asserted that the worst of Jean Renoir’s movies would always be more interesting than the best of the movies of Jean Delannoy.
While Delannoy has two films in the series (L’eternel retour from 1943 and La symphonie pastorale from 1946), Renoir has six, so the series is less of a revisionist look at the films that the New Wave lambasted, and more...
When I heard that Film Forum was putting on a show called “The French Old Wave” I was hoping that it was going to be a revisionist look at the films that Truffaut and his compadres in the nouvelle vague famously dismissed as “Le cinéma de papa” or the “le cinéma de qualité.” In his epoch-making 1954 essay “Une certaine tendance du cinéma français”, the essay which gave rise to the phrase “la politique des auteurs” and thus the Auteur Theory, Truffaut asserted that the worst of Jean Renoir’s movies would always be more interesting than the best of the movies of Jean Delannoy.
While Delannoy has two films in the series (L’eternel retour from 1943 and La symphonie pastorale from 1946), Renoir has six, so the series is less of a revisionist look at the films that the New Wave lambasted, and more...
- 8/20/2012
- MUBI
Introduction
In Laissez-passer [Safe Conduct], the film that the French director Bertrand Tavernier made in 2002, we see the French film industry of the Occupation years as a ruined and almost shut-down institution that is highly dependent on the factor of chance. In his story, Tavernier exculpates one of the key figures of the occupation cinema, Henri-Georges Clouzot, from the accusation of collaborating with the Nazis. He pictures Clouzot as a man whose Jewish wife has been held hostage by the Nazis and, and against all odds, he finishes Le corbeau about the vicious and nasty people of a small town in France, where someone is sending poison pen letters to its "honourable" citizens. Le corbeau became a very popular box-office hit during the Occupation, and, at the same time, the underground press attacked it for showing France as a land of the degenerate and perverted people, a view that, according to accusers,...
In Laissez-passer [Safe Conduct], the film that the French director Bertrand Tavernier made in 2002, we see the French film industry of the Occupation years as a ruined and almost shut-down institution that is highly dependent on the factor of chance. In his story, Tavernier exculpates one of the key figures of the occupation cinema, Henri-Georges Clouzot, from the accusation of collaborating with the Nazis. He pictures Clouzot as a man whose Jewish wife has been held hostage by the Nazis and, and against all odds, he finishes Le corbeau about the vicious and nasty people of a small town in France, where someone is sending poison pen letters to its "honourable" citizens. Le corbeau became a very popular box-office hit during the Occupation, and, at the same time, the underground press attacked it for showing France as a land of the degenerate and perverted people, a view that, according to accusers,...
- 7/16/2012
- MUBI
Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
The 5th Quarter: Special Edition (2010)
Synopsis: In February, 2006, young Luke Abbate accepted a ride home from a fellow student following his high-school team practice. In a severe case of irresponsible and reckless teen-age driving, and over the objections of Luke and the other young passengers, the driver lost control of the car at nearly 90 miles-per-hour, spinning off a narrow road and landing in an embankment some seventy feet below. Luke suffered irreparable brain damage, and died in the hospital two days later – just four days before his sixteenth birthday. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Making-of Featurette.
Bereavement (2010)
Synopsis: The horrific account of 6 year old Martin Bristol, abducted from his backyard swing and forced to witness the brutal crimes of a deranged madman. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
Commentary track with director/writer Stevan Mena Behind the scenes featurette Deleted...
The 5th Quarter: Special Edition (2010)
Synopsis: In February, 2006, young Luke Abbate accepted a ride home from a fellow student following his high-school team practice. In a severe case of irresponsible and reckless teen-age driving, and over the objections of Luke and the other young passengers, the driver lost control of the car at nearly 90 miles-per-hour, spinning off a narrow road and landing in an embankment some seventy feet below. Luke suffered irreparable brain damage, and died in the hospital two days later – just four days before his sixteenth birthday. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Making-of Featurette.
Bereavement (2010)
Synopsis: The horrific account of 6 year old Martin Bristol, abducted from his backyard swing and forced to witness the brutal crimes of a deranged madman. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
Commentary track with director/writer Stevan Mena Behind the scenes featurette Deleted...
- 8/29/2011
- by Travis Keune
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The Criterion Collection will release The Complete Jean Vigo on Blu-ray and DVD on Aug. 30 for the list prices of $39.95 and $29.95, respectively.
A collection of all four films made by the French cinema legend before he died of tuberculosis in 1934, at the way-too-young age of 29, The Complete Jean Vigo marks the first time the filmmaker’s entire canon has been compiled in one collection.
L'Atalante (1934)
Film scholars will tell you that Vigo helped to establish French cinema’s poetic realism movement of the 1930s and 1940s, a swell that yielded such masterpieces as Renoir’s Grand Illusion and Carne’s Children of Paradise. And later on, Vigo’s work was the spark that ignited the artistic explosion that became known as the French New Wave. What I can tell you is that you don’t need a film class to enjoy Vigo’s final movie, 1934’s L’Atalante, a sensual...
A collection of all four films made by the French cinema legend before he died of tuberculosis in 1934, at the way-too-young age of 29, The Complete Jean Vigo marks the first time the filmmaker’s entire canon has been compiled in one collection.
L'Atalante (1934)
Film scholars will tell you that Vigo helped to establish French cinema’s poetic realism movement of the 1930s and 1940s, a swell that yielded such masterpieces as Renoir’s Grand Illusion and Carne’s Children of Paradise. And later on, Vigo’s work was the spark that ignited the artistic explosion that became known as the French New Wave. What I can tell you is that you don’t need a film class to enjoy Vigo’s final movie, 1934’s L’Atalante, a sensual...
- 5/27/2011
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
It’s so strange, writing this so long after the announcement yesterday. In today’s internet world of instant information, and twenty four second news cycles, yesterday’s August 2011 Criterion Collection new releases may as well have happened last week, or last month. I’m sure that the page views for this post will be markedly smaller than the usual, as I have tried consistently to have the new release post up within minutes of the pages going live on Criterion’s website. I know this all sounds like inside baseball stuff, but it’s on my mind, and darn it, this is my website.
I had a whole, several paragraph long, write up of the August titles, but since I’m finding myself writing this at 10pm on Tuesday evening, I think it’s better if I just scrap that whole thing and start over. I was going on...
I had a whole, several paragraph long, write up of the August titles, but since I’m finding myself writing this at 10pm on Tuesday evening, I think it’s better if I just scrap that whole thing and start over. I was going on...
- 5/18/2011
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Above: Zoulikha Bouabdellah's Al Attlal (Ruines), left, and Pierre Léon's À la barbe d'Ivan, right.
Nicole Brenez has curated two programs of new work from the French avant-garde for this year’s Rendezvous with French Cinema 2011 in New York; below she has offered her program notes in French. Program one (on Saturday) concentrates on filmmakers reappropriating images; program two (Sunday) is the new feature by Ange Leccia, Nuit bleue. Below, I’ve translated Brenez’s extended appreciation of Leccia and Nuit bleue; as usual, I’ve tried to stay faithful to the sound and rhythm of the original where possible. Beneath the translated extract you'll find the full article by Ms. Brenez in its original French. —David Phelps
***
…Although Ange Leccia has also practiced re-appropriating images (especially Jean Luc-Godard’s) in his installations and his films, Nuit bleuetakes up a different aesthetic vein, one rich with a long tradition of the French avant-garde.
Nicole Brenez has curated two programs of new work from the French avant-garde for this year’s Rendezvous with French Cinema 2011 in New York; below she has offered her program notes in French. Program one (on Saturday) concentrates on filmmakers reappropriating images; program two (Sunday) is the new feature by Ange Leccia, Nuit bleue. Below, I’ve translated Brenez’s extended appreciation of Leccia and Nuit bleue; as usual, I’ve tried to stay faithful to the sound and rhythm of the original where possible. Beneath the translated extract you'll find the full article by Ms. Brenez in its original French. —David Phelps
***
…Although Ange Leccia has also practiced re-appropriating images (especially Jean Luc-Godard’s) in his installations and his films, Nuit bleuetakes up a different aesthetic vein, one rich with a long tradition of the French avant-garde.
- 3/19/2011
- MUBI
April 13-18
Fifty years after Jean-Luc Godard, Serge Bozon and the .young turks. of Cahiers du cinéma resolved that the best way to criticize movies was to make their own films. The result was the creation of another exciting .new wave. of critic-filmmakers, hailing from the iconoclastic film magazine La lettre du cinéma(1997-2005), boldly storming the gates of the French film establishment.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center brings writer, director, actor and DJ, Serge Bozon to New York to present this first major North American survey of films by the Lettre du cinéma circle as well as to curate and present a series of screenings of rarities (along with Anthology Film Archives) that have influenced his work. Also introducing and discussing their films will be his fellow filmmakers, Jean-Charles Fitoussi and Aurélia Georges. And if that weren.t enough, Bozon will also put his DJ skills on display,...
Fifty years after Jean-Luc Godard, Serge Bozon and the .young turks. of Cahiers du cinéma resolved that the best way to criticize movies was to make their own films. The result was the creation of another exciting .new wave. of critic-filmmakers, hailing from the iconoclastic film magazine La lettre du cinéma(1997-2005), boldly storming the gates of the French film establishment.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center brings writer, director, actor and DJ, Serge Bozon to New York to present this first major North American survey of films by the Lettre du cinéma circle as well as to curate and present a series of screenings of rarities (along with Anthology Film Archives) that have influenced his work. Also introducing and discussing their films will be his fellow filmmakers, Jean-Charles Fitoussi and Aurélia Georges. And if that weren.t enough, Bozon will also put his DJ skills on display,...
- 3/15/2011
- by Melissa Howland
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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