Five decades ago, a fan picked up a set of the director’s meticulous storyboards for just $50 – including the lost Spellbound dream sequence by Salvador Dalí in which Ingrid Bergman turns into ants
It is Los Angeles in the early 1970s and the critic John Russell Taylor is driving around the San Fernando Valley, checking out the goods on offer at various yard sales. It’s usual for locals to put their bric-a-brac out on their lawns, hoping to raise some cash. What’s less usual, however, is the bounty that Taylor spots in one yard: a series of storyboard panels from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1945 film Spellbound, a thriller about a psychoanalyst starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck.
Taylor recognises them straight away. He is a Hitchcock scholar, who will go on to write the director’s authorised biography. On closer inspection, he notices something else: that one of the...
It is Los Angeles in the early 1970s and the critic John Russell Taylor is driving around the San Fernando Valley, checking out the goods on offer at various yard sales. It’s usual for locals to put their bric-a-brac out on their lawns, hoping to raise some cash. What’s less usual, however, is the bounty that Taylor spots in one yard: a series of storyboard panels from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1945 film Spellbound, a thriller about a psychoanalyst starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck.
Taylor recognises them straight away. He is a Hitchcock scholar, who will go on to write the director’s authorised biography. On closer inspection, he notices something else: that one of the...
- 3/26/2024
- by Tim Jonze
- The Guardian - Film News
Mark Allison Jul 11, 2019
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Hitchcock's spy thriller, we look at how the classic actioner set the template for a new kind of movie.
This article comes from Den of Geek UK.
Alfred Hitchcock was never content with mastering a single genre. Having spent the 1950s perfecting the murder mystery (Rear Window), crime drama (To Catch a Thief), and psychological thriller (Vertigo), the master of suspense ended the decade by turning his lens to the world of spies and statecraft.
Now 60 years on from its premiere in Chicago, North by Northwest remains the perfect espionage thriller, providing the template for James Bond, Ethan Hunt, and six decades of imitators.
Eschewing the slow-burn suspense and hushed atmosphere of Hitchcock's earlier spy thrillers like The 39 Steps (1935) and Saboteur (1942), North by Northwest pioneered a new breed of action cinema rooted in larger-than-life adventure and momentous setpieces. Indeed, the...
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Hitchcock's spy thriller, we look at how the classic actioner set the template for a new kind of movie.
This article comes from Den of Geek UK.
Alfred Hitchcock was never content with mastering a single genre. Having spent the 1950s perfecting the murder mystery (Rear Window), crime drama (To Catch a Thief), and psychological thriller (Vertigo), the master of suspense ended the decade by turning his lens to the world of spies and statecraft.
Now 60 years on from its premiere in Chicago, North by Northwest remains the perfect espionage thriller, providing the template for James Bond, Ethan Hunt, and six decades of imitators.
Eschewing the slow-burn suspense and hushed atmosphere of Hitchcock's earlier spy thrillers like The 39 Steps (1935) and Saboteur (1942), North by Northwest pioneered a new breed of action cinema rooted in larger-than-life adventure and momentous setpieces. Indeed, the...
- 7/11/2019
- Den of Geek
Blue Is the Warmest Colour, the award-winning French film, is already notorious for its fisticuffs between stars and director. It's the latest in an unhappy tradition of histrionics and control-freakery. Here are some vintage feuds
Directors and actors being what they are, they like a good argument. On one side are obsessive perfectionists, on the other self-involved exhibitionists – or so the theory goes. It's often proved a combustible mix in the past, with what is euphemistically termed "creative tension" often adding to the dynamic of the final film.
The media, obviously, is the silent third partner in all this; though you, the reader, ought to be equally ashamed, gleefully drinking in all the foul-mouthed resentment and high-decibel score-settling. You don't have to look far: actors Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopolous turned on Blue Is the Warmest Colour director Abdellatif Kechiche, accusing him of traumatising them during the extended periods shooting sex and fight scenes.
Directors and actors being what they are, they like a good argument. On one side are obsessive perfectionists, on the other self-involved exhibitionists – or so the theory goes. It's often proved a combustible mix in the past, with what is euphemistically termed "creative tension" often adding to the dynamic of the final film.
The media, obviously, is the silent third partner in all this; though you, the reader, ought to be equally ashamed, gleefully drinking in all the foul-mouthed resentment and high-decibel score-settling. You don't have to look far: actors Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopolous turned on Blue Is the Warmest Colour director Abdellatif Kechiche, accusing him of traumatising them during the extended periods shooting sex and fight scenes.
- 11/22/2013
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Bergman Meets Bergman
By Raymond Benson
It was the first and only time two famous filmmaking Swedes worked together—the enigmatic, existential, and brilliant director Ingmar Bergman, and the glamorous, international star of Hollywood, Ingrid Bergman (no relation). According to Ingmar in a filmed introduction he made in 2003, he and Ingrid had met and agreed that one day she would act in one of his films. Then, apparently he and Ingrid met again at a film festival in the mid-70s. She reminded him of their promise; he told her about the script he was working on, in which Liv Ullmann would play the daughter, but he hadn’t cast the mother yet. Done deal. But, in a recently-filmed interview, Ullmann relates how the two Bergmans did not get along very well for the longest period. Ingrid wanted to do it one way, Ingmar another—and he had never dealt...
By Raymond Benson
It was the first and only time two famous filmmaking Swedes worked together—the enigmatic, existential, and brilliant director Ingmar Bergman, and the glamorous, international star of Hollywood, Ingrid Bergman (no relation). According to Ingmar in a filmed introduction he made in 2003, he and Ingrid had met and agreed that one day she would act in one of his films. Then, apparently he and Ingrid met again at a film festival in the mid-70s. She reminded him of their promise; he told her about the script he was working on, in which Liv Ullmann would play the daughter, but he hadn’t cast the mother yet. Done deal. But, in a recently-filmed interview, Ullmann relates how the two Bergmans did not get along very well for the longest period. Ingrid wanted to do it one way, Ingmar another—and he had never dealt...
- 9/28/2013
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Chicago – “Autumn Sonata,” Ingrid Bergman’s last film and first collaboration with cinema’s other great Bergman (Ingmar), is a challenging film. Is it pure melodrama or is it raw human emotion? The line is a fine one, enhanced by the theatricality of the film, one that opens with a character breaking the 4th wall. And yet I choose to take “Autumn Sonata” seriously and not as emotional manipulation, a decision enhanced by the enlightening essay in the Criterion edition by Farran Smith Nehme, which reveals how much of both Bergman’s own issues with parenthood may have impacted this caustic commentary on how we don’t really change, even as death is staring us in the face.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
Bad parents are as old as the form of fiction and yet Charlotte (Bergman) is a particularly loathsome one. In “Autumn Sonata,” the famed pianist is coming home to visit her...
Rating: 4.5/5.0
Bad parents are as old as the form of fiction and yet Charlotte (Bergman) is a particularly loathsome one. In “Autumn Sonata,” the famed pianist is coming home to visit her...
- 9/25/2013
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
When I really began digging into classic cinema, one of the films I started with was Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, and it wasn't that long ago. According to Netflix, I returned the disc on January 8, 2008 after returning Bergman's Wild Strawberries about a month earlier (I wrote about them both briefly right here). I'd actually received both discs at the same time, but kept Seventh Seal a little longer because it had so truly captured my imagination. I've written about it a few times since, including a review of the Criterion Blu-ray a little over four years ago. I've found Bergman's work captivating ever since, several as a result of the Criterion Collection including reviewing Smiles of a Summer Night, Summer Interlude and Summer with Monica, Fanny and Alexander and The Magician along with my discovery of Persona two years ago, whose two-shot imagery is repeated in a highly...
- 9/24/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Two of the 20th Century’s best actresses team up – or square off, to be more precise – in Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata from 1978. This simple, austere production peels away every layer of a tortured mother/daughter relationship, revealing decades of toxic damage deep within. The film presents an uncomfortably frank appraisal of one family’s stark dysfunction, and the bonds of codependency that ensure a continuing spiral of guilt. And after the wreckage is thoroughly surveyed and assessed, most viewers will recognize scattered bits of their own lives amid the emotional debris.
Here we meet Eva (Liv Ullmann), a mousey preacher’s wife in the rural south of Norway. She spends her quiet days performing musical selections for her husband’s church and dusting the tidy parsonage they call home. One morning Eva composes a letter to her mother Charlotte, a globetrotting concert pianist, inviting her for a visit.
Here we meet Eva (Liv Ullmann), a mousey preacher’s wife in the rural south of Norway. She spends her quiet days performing musical selections for her husband’s church and dusting the tidy parsonage they call home. One morning Eva composes a letter to her mother Charlotte, a globetrotting concert pianist, inviting her for a visit.
- 9/17/2013
- by David Anderson
- IONCINEMA.com
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Sept. 17, 2013
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Ingrid Bergman (r.) and Liv Ullmann are mother and daughter in Autumn Sonata.
The 1978 Swedish film drama Autumn Sonata was the only collaboration between cinema’s two great Bergmans—Ingmar, the iconic director of Wild Strawberries, and Ingrid, the monumental star of Casablanca.
Ms. Bergman, portraying an icy concert pianist, is matched beat for beat in ferocity by the filmmaker’s recurring lead Liv Ullmann (Face to Face) as her eldest daughter. Over the course of a long, painful night that the two spend together after an extended separation, they finally confront the bitter discord of their relationship.
Evocatively shot in burnished harvest colors by the great Sven Nykvist (Fanny and Alexander), Autumn Sonata ranks among one of Ingmar Bergman’s greatest later dramatic works.
Presented in Swedish with English subtitles, the Criterion DVD and Blu-ray editions of the film...
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Ingrid Bergman (r.) and Liv Ullmann are mother and daughter in Autumn Sonata.
The 1978 Swedish film drama Autumn Sonata was the only collaboration between cinema’s two great Bergmans—Ingmar, the iconic director of Wild Strawberries, and Ingrid, the monumental star of Casablanca.
Ms. Bergman, portraying an icy concert pianist, is matched beat for beat in ferocity by the filmmaker’s recurring lead Liv Ullmann (Face to Face) as her eldest daughter. Over the course of a long, painful night that the two spend together after an extended separation, they finally confront the bitter discord of their relationship.
Evocatively shot in burnished harvest colors by the great Sven Nykvist (Fanny and Alexander), Autumn Sonata ranks among one of Ingmar Bergman’s greatest later dramatic works.
Presented in Swedish with English subtitles, the Criterion DVD and Blu-ray editions of the film...
- 6/20/2013
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Click here for complete coverage of the Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff 2012)
France, Germany, Hungary, Canada, Israel And The United States
Take Home The Gold
The 48th Chicago International Festival announces the winners of its competitions
news release
Chicago (October 19, 2012) – Michael Kutza, Founder and Artistic Director, Mimi Plauché, Programming Director, and Programmers Alex Kopecky and Penny Bartlett proudly announce the winners of the 48th Chicago International Film Festival Competitions.
French filmmaker Leos Carax’s exuberant and euphoric Holy Motors leads this extraordinary group of films with three awards. Carax’s first film, Boy Meets Girl, premiered in Chicago in 1984 as part of the 20th Chicago International Film Festival’s International Competition.
Many of the winners will be showcased during the Festival’s Best of the Fest program, Wednesday, October 24 at the AMC River East 21 (322 E. Illinois St.). The Festival runs until Thursday October 25 when Closing Night film Flight (our review...
France, Germany, Hungary, Canada, Israel And The United States
Take Home The Gold
The 48th Chicago International Festival announces the winners of its competitions
news release
Chicago (October 19, 2012) – Michael Kutza, Founder and Artistic Director, Mimi Plauché, Programming Director, and Programmers Alex Kopecky and Penny Bartlett proudly announce the winners of the 48th Chicago International Film Festival Competitions.
French filmmaker Leos Carax’s exuberant and euphoric Holy Motors leads this extraordinary group of films with three awards. Carax’s first film, Boy Meets Girl, premiered in Chicago in 1984 as part of the 20th Chicago International Film Festival’s International Competition.
Many of the winners will be showcased during the Festival’s Best of the Fest program, Wednesday, October 24 at the AMC River East 21 (322 E. Illinois St.). The Festival runs until Thursday October 25 when Closing Night film Flight (our review...
- 10/22/2012
- by Nick Allen
- The Scorecard Review
Best Actress award winner Liana Liberato
The 46th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff 2010) Award Winners Announced
Click Here for complete coverage of the Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff 2010)
Russia, Mexico, Norway, Germany and USA win top awards in Chicago …
Chicago, October 16, 2010 – Michael Kutza, Founder and Artistic Director of the
Chicago International Film Festival, Mimi Plauché, Head of Programming, and Associate
Programmers Joel Hoglund and Penny Bartlett proudly announce the winners of the 46th
Chicago International Film Festival competitions. The Festival’s highest honor is the
Gold Hugo, named after the mythological God of Discovery.
International Feature Film Competition
Gold Hugo for Best Film to How I Ended The Summer (Russia) for the brilliantly
acted and dynamically staged exploration of human nature under pressure. Director:
Aleksei Popogrebsky
Special Jury Prize shared by:
Silver Hugo Special Jury Prize to A Somewhat Gentle Man (Norway) for a
hilarious and deeply serious adventure into crime and,...
The 46th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff 2010) Award Winners Announced
Click Here for complete coverage of the Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff 2010)
Russia, Mexico, Norway, Germany and USA win top awards in Chicago …
Chicago, October 16, 2010 – Michael Kutza, Founder and Artistic Director of the
Chicago International Film Festival, Mimi Plauché, Head of Programming, and Associate
Programmers Joel Hoglund and Penny Bartlett proudly announce the winners of the 46th
Chicago International Film Festival competitions. The Festival’s highest honor is the
Gold Hugo, named after the mythological God of Discovery.
International Feature Film Competition
Gold Hugo for Best Film to How I Ended The Summer (Russia) for the brilliantly
acted and dynamically staged exploration of human nature under pressure. Director:
Aleksei Popogrebsky
Special Jury Prize shared by:
Silver Hugo Special Jury Prize to A Somewhat Gentle Man (Norway) for a
hilarious and deeply serious adventure into crime and,...
- 10/17/2010
- by Jeff Bayer
- The Scorecard Review
Tina Mabry's "Mississippi Damned," an independent American production, won the Gold Hugo as the best film in the 2009 Chicago International Film Festival, and added Gold Plaques for best supporting actress (Jossie Thacker) and best screenplay (Mabry). It tells the harrowing story of three black children growing up in rural Mississippi in circumstances of violence and addiction. The film's trailer and an interview with Mabry are linked at the bottom.
Kylee Russell in "Mississippi Damned"
The win came over a crowed field of competitors from all over the world, many of them with much larger budgets. The other big winner at the Pump Room of the Ambassador East awards ceremony Saturday evening was by veteran master Marco Bellocchio of Italy, who won the Silver Hugo as best director for "Vincere," the story of Mussolini's younger brother. Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Filippo Timi won Silver Hugos as best actress and actor,...
Kylee Russell in "Mississippi Damned"
The win came over a crowed field of competitors from all over the world, many of them with much larger budgets. The other big winner at the Pump Room of the Ambassador East awards ceremony Saturday evening was by veteran master Marco Bellocchio of Italy, who won the Silver Hugo as best director for "Vincere," the story of Mussolini's younger brother. Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Filippo Timi won Silver Hugos as best actress and actor,...
- 10/23/2009
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
The winners are here for the 2009 45th Chicago International Film Festival.
It only seems like there are too many to count.
There were 145 films from 45 countries this year.
Competitions were held in the International Feature Film, New Directors, Documentary and Short Film categories, along with a special Chicago Award for a local filmmaker. The Festival’s highest honor is the Gold Hugo, named after the mythological God of Discovery.
Award Winners:
International Feature Film Competition
Gold Hugo for Best Film to Mississippi Damned (Us) for its powerful and uncompromising portrait of the compounding frailties and difficulties of a struggling black community.
Silver Hugo for Special Jury Award to Fish Tank (UK) for its aesthetic boldness in taking us into a grim public-housing environment and showing us the transcendent spirit of a young girl that struggles to overcome the adult lies that engulf her.
Silver Hugo for Best Director to Marco Bellocchio (Vincere,...
It only seems like there are too many to count.
There were 145 films from 45 countries this year.
Competitions were held in the International Feature Film, New Directors, Documentary and Short Film categories, along with a special Chicago Award for a local filmmaker. The Festival’s highest honor is the Gold Hugo, named after the mythological God of Discovery.
Award Winners:
International Feature Film Competition
Gold Hugo for Best Film to Mississippi Damned (Us) for its powerful and uncompromising portrait of the compounding frailties and difficulties of a struggling black community.
Silver Hugo for Special Jury Award to Fish Tank (UK) for its aesthetic boldness in taking us into a grim public-housing environment and showing us the transcendent spirit of a young girl that struggles to overcome the adult lies that engulf her.
Silver Hugo for Best Director to Marco Bellocchio (Vincere,...
- 10/19/2009
- by Jeff Bayer
- The Scorecard Review
Chicago – The second week of The 45th Chicago Film Festival kicks off tonight (or tomorrow depending on how you look at the fest that runs from the 8th to the 22nd) and the upcoming weekend features just as much and arguably more interesting films unspooling at the AMC River East than the first. Highlights include one of the best animated films of the year, a bittersweet romance starring two living legends, a remastered classic, and works from a few of the best voices in international cinema today.
We’ve worked our way through dozens of films this year, but even we couldn’t get to all of them and a few weren’t even shown in the screening room in time for our deadline. So this week’s Ciff preview works a little differently. The first page features the best of what we’ve seen. Take our word. These are worth your time.
We’ve worked our way through dozens of films this year, but even we couldn’t get to all of them and a few weren’t even shown in the screening room in time for our deadline. So this week’s Ciff preview works a little differently. The first page features the best of what we’ve seen. Take our word. These are worth your time.
- 10/14/2009
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.