This year, all the Oscar-contending directors are nominated for original screenplay: the Daniels, Todd Field, Martin McDonagh, Ruben Östlund and Steven Spielberg (writing with Tony Kushner).
This is the first time it’s happened in AMPAS history.
The only year that came close was 2017, when all five helmers had written or co-written their scripts, though they didn’t all get writing noms.
So here’s Film History 101.
In Hollywood lore, Preston Sturges is often credited as the first scribe to become a hyphenate, as writer-director of the 1940 “The Great McGinty.” But as with all Hollywood “facts,” there is only an element of truth here.
In the next few years, he was joined by some heavyweights: Orson Welles (“Citizen Kane”) and John Huston (“The Maltese Falcon”) in 1941; Leo McCarey (co-writer of “Going My Way”); Billy Wilder (writing with Raymond Chandler) for “Double Indemnity” in 1944; and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (“Dragonwyck”), 1946.
However, a writer-director wasn’t an innovation.
This is the first time it’s happened in AMPAS history.
The only year that came close was 2017, when all five helmers had written or co-written their scripts, though they didn’t all get writing noms.
So here’s Film History 101.
In Hollywood lore, Preston Sturges is often credited as the first scribe to become a hyphenate, as writer-director of the 1940 “The Great McGinty.” But as with all Hollywood “facts,” there is only an element of truth here.
In the next few years, he was joined by some heavyweights: Orson Welles (“Citizen Kane”) and John Huston (“The Maltese Falcon”) in 1941; Leo McCarey (co-writer of “Going My Way”); Billy Wilder (writing with Raymond Chandler) for “Double Indemnity” in 1944; and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (“Dragonwyck”), 1946.
However, a writer-director wasn’t an innovation.
- 3/3/2023
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
Here's something for hardcore cineastes: an incredible restoration of Marcel L'Herbier's avant-garde silent feature, which looks unlike any other movie of its time. The weird story is about a Swedish engineer who wins the hand of famous singer by demonstrating a machine that can revive the dead. The film's designs are by score of famous architects and art notables of the Paris art scene circa 1924. L'Inhumaine Blu-ray Flicker Alley 1924 / Color tints / 1:33 Silent Aperture / min. / Street Date March 1, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Georgette Leblanc, Jacque Catelain, Léonid Walter de Malte, Philippe Hériat, Fred Kellerman, Robert Mallet-Stevens. Cinematography Roche, Georges Specht Art Direction, design, costumes, Claude Autant-Lara, Alberto Cavalcanti, Fernand Léger, Paul Poiret, Original Music Darius Milhaud (originally), Aidje Tafial / Alloy Orchestra Written by Pierre MacOrlan, Marcel L'Herbier, Georgette Leblanc Produced and Directed by Marcel L'Herbier
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Followers of art, architecture, literature and French art movies of the early 1920s...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Followers of art, architecture, literature and French art movies of the early 1920s...
- 2/21/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
'L'Inhumaine': Marcel L'Herbier silent classic stars Jaque Catelain and Georgette Leblanc. Marcel L'Herbier silent 'L'Inhumaine': 'Intense sensory integration of sight' For me, the real jewel in the crown of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival's “A Day of Silents,” held on Dec. 5, '15, at the Castro Theatre, was Marcel L'Herbier's The Inhuman Woman / L'Inhumaine (1924). The screening of this mix of desire and seduction with science fiction turned out to be an intense sensory integration of sight and sound. First, the sight. I had not seen any other films directed by L'Herbier (e.g., L'Argent, La Comédie du bonheur), so L'Inhumaine, with its spectacular visuals, came as a big surprise to me. For instance, the film features a stand-out scene of a car racing down a wooded highway from the driver's point of view, while in a party sequence I really liked the effect of the serving staff wearing sardonic face masks,...
- 12/21/2015
- by Danny Fortune
- Alt Film Guide
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents "A Day of Silents" tomorrow featuring The Black Pirate with Douglas Fairbanks, a long lost Harry Houdini film (The Grim Game), Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine, Anna May Wong in Piccadilly and more. Meantime, Ben Rivers will be presenting work in Los Angeles, there's an Antonio Pietrangeli retrospective on in New York, the Notebook reviews an exhibition of installation work by Chantal Akerman in London and, in Gateshead, in the UK, there's an exhibition devoted to Bill Murray. » - David Hudson...
- 12/3/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents "A Day of Silents" tomorrow featuring The Black Pirate with Douglas Fairbanks, a long lost Harry Houdini film (The Grim Game), Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine, Anna May Wong in Piccadilly and more. Meantime, Ben Rivers will be presenting work in Los Angeles, there's an Antonio Pietrangeli retrospective on in New York, the Notebook reviews an exhibition of installation work by Chantal Akerman in London and, in Gateshead, in the UK, there's an exhibition devoted to Bill Murray. » - David Hudson...
- 12/3/2015
- Keyframe
The Telluride Film Festival's announced the lineup for its 42nd edition. Among the highlights: Todd Haynes's Carol, Laurie Anderson's Heart of the Dog, Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs, Scott Cooper's Black Mass, Adam Curtis's Bitter Lake, Andrew Haigh's 45 Years, Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa, Tom McCarthy's Spotlight, Lázló Nemes's Son of Saul, Jafar Panahi's Taxi, Sydney Pollack's Amazing Grace as well as revivals such as Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen and Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine. Guest Director Rachel Kushner's selected, among other titles, two classics by Jean Eustache. » - David Hudson...
- 9/3/2015
- Keyframe
The Telluride Film Festival's announced the lineup for its 42nd edition. Among the highlights: Todd Haynes's Carol, Laurie Anderson's Heart of the Dog, Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs, Scott Cooper's Black Mass, Adam Curtis's Bitter Lake, Andrew Haigh's 45 Years, Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa, Tom McCarthy's Spotlight, Lázló Nemes's Son of Saul, Jafar Panahi's Taxi, Sydney Pollack's Amazing Grace as well as revivals such as Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen and Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine. Guest Director Rachel Kushner's selected, among other titles, two classics by Jean Eustache. » - David Hudson...
- 9/3/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Glenda Jackson: Actress and former Labour MP. Two-time Oscar winner and former Labour MP Glenda Jackson returns to acting Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson set aside her acting career after becoming a Labour Party MP in 1992. Four years ago, Jackson, who represented the Greater London constituency of Hampstead and Highgate, announced that she would stand down the 2015 general election – which, somewhat controversially, was won by right-wing prime minister David Cameron's Conservative party.[1] The silver lining: following a two-decade-plus break, Glenda Jackson is returning to acting. Now, Jackson isn't – for the time being – returning to acting in front of the camera. The 79-year-old is to be featured in the Radio 4 series Emile Zola: Blood, Sex and Money, described on their website as a “mash-up” adaptation of 20 Emile Zola novels collectively known as "Les Rougon-Macquart."[2] Part 1 of the three-part Radio 4 series will be broadcast daily during an...
- 7/2/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine' 1938: Jean Renoir's film noir (photo: Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine') (See previous post: "'Cat People' 1942 Actress Simone Simon Remembered.") In the late 1930s, with her Hollywood career stalled while facing competition at 20th Century-Fox from another French import, Annabella (later Tyrone Power's wife), Simone Simon returned to France. Once there, she reestablished herself as an actress to be reckoned with in Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine. An updated version of Émile Zola's 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine is enveloped in a dark, brooding atmosphere not uncommon in pre-World War II French films. Known for their "poetic realism," examples from that era include Renoir's own The Lower Depths (1936), Julien Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937), and particularly Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939).[11] This thematic and...
- 2/6/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Can another silent, black and white film be a smash hit after the Artist? If it packs a surreal Spanish twist, believes the director who recast Snow White as a matador in Blancanieves
In May 2011 the Spanish writer-director Pablo Berger was busily prepping his second film, Blancanieves. After an eight-year struggle to raise funding, he was finally about to start shooting a film whose uniqueness he was convinced would surprise and delight audiences the world over. After all, this was the sort of mainstream entertainment that hadn't been seen in decades — a black and white, silent movie, complete with lush orchestration.
But then came the Cannes film festival, and The Artist.
"Nobody knew about The Artist until it appeared in Cannes," he recalls, with a reflex ruefulness. "It was completely out of the blue. I was in my office in Madrid, doing the storyboards for my film, when a producer...
In May 2011 the Spanish writer-director Pablo Berger was busily prepping his second film, Blancanieves. After an eight-year struggle to raise funding, he was finally about to start shooting a film whose uniqueness he was convinced would surprise and delight audiences the world over. After all, this was the sort of mainstream entertainment that hadn't been seen in decades — a black and white, silent movie, complete with lush orchestration.
But then came the Cannes film festival, and The Artist.
"Nobody knew about The Artist until it appeared in Cannes," he recalls, with a reflex ruefulness. "It was completely out of the blue. I was in my office in Madrid, doing the storyboards for my film, when a producer...
- 7/11/2013
- by Demetrios Matheou
- The Guardian - Film News
Images Of Black Women Film Festival | London Palestine Film Festival | Marcel L'Herbier: Fabricating Dreams
Images Of Black Women Film Festival, London
This festival has a clear mission: to promote women of African descent, in front of and behind the camera. The result is a spread of films from around the globe that you're unlikely to see anywhere else. Family drama Elza is the first female-directed feature from Guadeloupe; Pariah charts the coming out of a Brooklyn lesbian; and Black is a polished Senegalese action-thriller. There are docs on Nigerian women who protest against oil companies by threatening to strip naked, plus various art and children's events.
Various venues, Sat to 11 May
London Palestine Film Festival
History inevitably weighs heavily on Palestinian culture, but this festival regularly finds fresh perspectives on what feels like an age-old issue, both from the past and the present. Director David Koff revisits his once-controversial...
Images Of Black Women Film Festival, London
This festival has a clear mission: to promote women of African descent, in front of and behind the camera. The result is a spread of films from around the globe that you're unlikely to see anywhere else. Family drama Elza is the first female-directed feature from Guadeloupe; Pariah charts the coming out of a Brooklyn lesbian; and Black is a polished Senegalese action-thriller. There are docs on Nigerian women who protest against oil companies by threatening to strip naked, plus various art and children's events.
Various venues, Sat to 11 May
London Palestine Film Festival
History inevitably weighs heavily on Palestinian culture, but this festival regularly finds fresh perspectives on what feels like an age-old issue, both from the past and the present. Director David Koff revisits his once-controversial...
- 5/4/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
In the House presents viewers with a series of sharp and often dizzying reflections on the meaning of realism and the moral duty of the writer
François Ozon's new film In the House marks the completion of a decade-long enterprise – a study, drawn from three angles at five-year intervals, of that cold-blooded parasite, the novelist. The approach is a broad one, psychoanalytic, anthropological, even literary-critical, with emphasis on where the creative urge comes from – being an only child helps – and how it is indulged, the wellsprings of creativity and its workings, too. When it comes to describing the relationship between life and art, Ozon isn't above drawing parallels and even arrows, though most of the time he aligns himself with a more antic French tradition – previous representatives include Alain Resnais and Jacques Rivette – in which the two are intertwined to the point of blurring.
Swimming Pool (2002), the first of these films,...
François Ozon's new film In the House marks the completion of a decade-long enterprise – a study, drawn from three angles at five-year intervals, of that cold-blooded parasite, the novelist. The approach is a broad one, psychoanalytic, anthropological, even literary-critical, with emphasis on where the creative urge comes from – being an only child helps – and how it is indulged, the wellsprings of creativity and its workings, too. When it comes to describing the relationship between life and art, Ozon isn't above drawing parallels and even arrows, though most of the time he aligns himself with a more antic French tradition – previous representatives include Alain Resnais and Jacques Rivette – in which the two are intertwined to the point of blurring.
Swimming Pool (2002), the first of these films,...
- 3/23/2013
- by Leo Robson
- The Guardian - Film News
Concluding a three-part series on cinema's most flamboyant production designers.
Marcel L'Herbier arguably confused great design with great filmmaking, but he did deliver consistently on the former. And some of the time, influenced by and in rivalry with Abel Gance, he produced the latter.
Years before the moderne/streamline/art deco style conquered Hollywood, L'Herbier was featuring minimalist art nouveau decor and Bauhaus architecture in his French productions. In L'inhumaine (The Inhuman Woman, 1924) he has the services of Alberto Cavalcanti as production designer.
Cavalcanti's career took not only design, but experimental sound editing (Night Mail, 1936), and the production, writing and direction of both documentaries and dramas (Dead of Night, Went the Day Well?) in France, Britain and his native Brazil. And everything he did was touched with genius.
In L'inhumaine, his work is supplemented by the art of Fernand Leger (cubist-tubist-mechanist) and the costumes of future director Claude Autant-Lara.
Marcel L'Herbier arguably confused great design with great filmmaking, but he did deliver consistently on the former. And some of the time, influenced by and in rivalry with Abel Gance, he produced the latter.
Years before the moderne/streamline/art deco style conquered Hollywood, L'Herbier was featuring minimalist art nouveau decor and Bauhaus architecture in his French productions. In L'inhumaine (The Inhuman Woman, 1924) he has the services of Alberto Cavalcanti as production designer.
Cavalcanti's career took not only design, but experimental sound editing (Night Mail, 1936), and the production, writing and direction of both documentaries and dramas (Dead of Night, Went the Day Well?) in France, Britain and his native Brazil. And everything he did was touched with genius.
In L'inhumaine, his work is supplemented by the art of Fernand Leger (cubist-tubist-mechanist) and the costumes of future director Claude Autant-Lara.
- 3/14/2013
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
Le bonheur (1934) may be Marcel L'Herbier's best talkie—even if it is, its existence should be enough to disprove the widely and uncritically accepted assumption that the director went into a steep decline with the coming of sound.
In fact, the bigger problem is that not enough people know his work at all. In the silent era, he quite deliberately competed with Abel Gance in terms of cinematic spectacle, swinging his camera from ropes and wheeling it on a lighting stand, while also pursuing a cinema of elaborate, stylized production design. There's something inscrutable about him: he shuttles from genre trifles to experimental epics, and his true sensibility may be glimpsed as much in the former as the latter. Perhaps his homosexuality, an open secret in the film business, led him to to employ layers of careful coding more than most commercial filmmakers.
L'Herbier's early talkies include the lighter-than-air...
In fact, the bigger problem is that not enough people know his work at all. In the silent era, he quite deliberately competed with Abel Gance in terms of cinematic spectacle, swinging his camera from ropes and wheeling it on a lighting stand, while also pursuing a cinema of elaborate, stylized production design. There's something inscrutable about him: he shuttles from genre trifles to experimental epics, and his true sensibility may be glimpsed as much in the former as the latter. Perhaps his homosexuality, an open secret in the film business, led him to to employ layers of careful coding more than most commercial filmmakers.
L'Herbier's early talkies include the lighter-than-air...
- 10/4/2012
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
Intrigued by The Artist but don't know where to start exploring the silent film archives? Try these five classics, which lead to plenty more…
It doesn't take long for a novelty to be hailed as a trend. Internet film rental service Lovefilm reports that the buzz around The Artist has sparked a boom in curiosity about early cinema, with a 40% rise in the number of people streaming silent films on its site in the week leading up to the Oscars.
The top 10 most-streamed silents include a clutch of Buster Keaton's ingenious comedies, some heady Hollywood melodrama (A Fool There Was, starring Theda Bara, and The Son of the Sheikh, with Rudolph Valentino) and creepy Swedish horror The Phantom Carriage. There are only two films on the list that seem to bear any relation to Michel Hazanavicius's surprise hit: Frank Borzage's mournful romance Seventh Heaven (which inspired the...
It doesn't take long for a novelty to be hailed as a trend. Internet film rental service Lovefilm reports that the buzz around The Artist has sparked a boom in curiosity about early cinema, with a 40% rise in the number of people streaming silent films on its site in the week leading up to the Oscars.
The top 10 most-streamed silents include a clutch of Buster Keaton's ingenious comedies, some heady Hollywood melodrama (A Fool There Was, starring Theda Bara, and The Son of the Sheikh, with Rudolph Valentino) and creepy Swedish horror The Phantom Carriage. There are only two films on the list that seem to bear any relation to Michel Hazanavicius's surprise hit: Frank Borzage's mournful romance Seventh Heaven (which inspired the...
- 3/2/2012
- by Pamela Hutchinson
- The Guardian - Film News
Faces (1968) Direction and screenplay: John Cassavetes Cast: John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Fred Draper, Seymour Cassel, Val Avery Oscar Movies Gena Rowlands, John Marley, Faces After playing Mia Farrow's husband in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968), John Cassavetes reportedly threw the money he made as an actor into the finishing touches on Faces, a personal project he had begun filming in 1966. Cassavetes spent months (some sources say a couple of years) editing the film into a "manageable" six hours, and eventually into its final 130 minutes. Silent-film maverick Erich von Stroheim would have been proud of him — at least in regard to Faces' (initial) length and to Cassavetes' committed auteurship. Now, would the irascible Stroheim have approved of the frequently inaudible dialogue, sloppy editing, poor lighting, careless camera placement, and faux-naturalistic acting? Probably not. Shot in 16mm — that looks like poorly developed Super 8 — black and white, Faces...
- 1/27/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ménilmontant (1926) was written, directed, produced, edited and co-photographed in Paris by Dimitri Kirsanoff. And it is, on any terms, a remarkable piece of writing, direction, production, editing and cinematography.
I'm not sure why Marcel L'Herbier and Jean Epstein seem to be regarded as almost marginal figures in cinema, important, but somehow off the beaten path. I think they're as major as you can get. But Kirsanoff is even more neglected: he barely has a toehold in film history at all. And he seems to me to be in their league, though as yet I've seen only a little of his work. I'd even say that for Ménilmontant alone he should be in the highest ranks of French silent filmmakers. His career includes short, experimental films, as well as low-life melodramas and a German mountain film with Dita Parlo. His last film dates from 1957, the year of his death.
Ménilmontant falls...
I'm not sure why Marcel L'Herbier and Jean Epstein seem to be regarded as almost marginal figures in cinema, important, but somehow off the beaten path. I think they're as major as you can get. But Kirsanoff is even more neglected: he barely has a toehold in film history at all. And he seems to me to be in their league, though as yet I've seen only a little of his work. I'd even say that for Ménilmontant alone he should be in the highest ranks of French silent filmmakers. His career includes short, experimental films, as well as low-life melodramas and a German mountain film with Dita Parlo. His last film dates from 1957, the year of his death.
Ménilmontant falls...
- 1/19/2012
- MUBI
Paulette Dubost, known as the "Dean of French Cinema," and an actress in films directed by Jean Renoir, Marcel L'Herbier, Jacques Tourneur, Julien Duvivier, Max Ophüls, Preston Sturges, François Truffaut, Louis Malle, and Marcel Carné, died of "natural causes" on Sept. 21 in the Parisian suburb of Longjumeau. The Paris-born Dubost had turned 100 years old on October 8, 2010. Dubost's show business career began at the age of seven, performing various duties at the Paris Opera. Following some stage training, her film debut took place in 1931 in Wilhelm Thiele's Le bal, which also marked the film debut of Danielle Darrieux (who's still around and still active). Ultimately, Dubost's film career was to span more than seven decades, during which time she was featured in over 140 movies. She is probably best remembered as the adulterous chambermaid Lisette in Jean Renoir's 1939 comedy-drama La règle du jeu / The Rules of the Game, considered by...
- 9/25/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Claudette Colbert, Alla Nazimova, Marion Davies, Charles Boyer: Cinecon 2011 Thursday September 1 (photo: Alla Nazimova) 7:00 Hollywood Rhythm (1934) 7:10 Welcoming Remarks 7:15 Hollywood Story (1951) 77 min. Richard Conte, Julie Adams, Richard Egan. Dir: William Castle. 8:35 Q & A with Julie Adams 9:10 Blazing Days (1927) 60 min. Fred Humes. Dir: William Wyler. 10:20 In The Sweet Pie And Pie (1941) 18 min 10:40 She Had To Eat (1937) 75 min. Jack Haley, Rochelle Hudson, Eugene Pallette. Friday September 2 9:00 Signing Off (1936) 9:20 Moon Over Her Shoulder (1941) 68 min. Dan Dailey, Lynn Bari, John Sutton, Alan Mowbray. 10:40 The Active Life Of Dolly Of The Dailies (1914) 15 min. Mary Fuller. 10:55 Stronger Than Death (1920) 80 min. Alla Nazimova, Charles Bryant. Dir: Herbert Blaché, Charles Bryant, Robert Z. Leonard. 12:15 Lunch Break 1:45 Open Track (1916) 2:00 On The Night Stage (1915) 60 min. William S. Hart, Rhea Mitchell. Dir: Reginald Barker. 3:15 50 Miles From Broadway (1929) 23 min 3:45 Cinerama Adventure (2002). Dir: David Strohmaier. 5:18 Discussion...
- 9/2/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Director Allan Dwan, actor George O'Brien, cinematographer George Webber, East Side, West Side Are you a movie lover in Los Angeles, unable to travel either to Venice or Telluride? Don't despair. L.A. has its own glamorous film festival this weekend. It's called Cinecon, now in its 47th year. What's more: unlike the vast majority of movies screening at the more highly publicized Venice and Telluride — which will shortly be made available at theaters, DVD stores, or online streaming services — most Cinecon movies are nearly impossible to be seen anywhere else. In other words, it's September 1-5 at the Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at Grauman's Egyptian on Hollywood Boulevard or (quite possibly) never. [Cinecon 2011 Schedule.] This year's Cinecon rarities includes the following: The first Los Angeles area screening in eight decades of Allan Dwan's East Side, West Side (1927), a risque silent drama starring Sunrise's George O'Brien and Virginia Valli, the...
- 9/2/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine screens tonight as part of the film series running in conjunction with Cinema Across Media: The 1920s, the First International Berkeley Conference on Silent Cinema. "L'Inhumaine reflects its moment as much as the next year's Battleship Potemkin (1925)," writes Dennis Harvey in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. "That it was received more like 1923's Salomé — the infamous Rudolph Valentino-funded Art Nouveau version of Oscar Wilde's play, which for reasons both credible and malicious was branded a 'riot' of homosexual aesthetics — laid in the extreme disconnect between cutting-edge techniques and woozily old-hat theatrical content. There's no denying the film is whopping camp, albeit camp curated (as L'Herbier intended) to complement the hugely influential International Exhibition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts opening in Paris in 1925."...
- 2/24/2011
- MUBI
Pigeon-holes are terribly useful things, it seems. Film-makers who can't be shoehorned into one or the other have a way of falling down the cracks. Now, that is a pretty awesomely mixed bunch of metaphors, but let's go with it for now.
Jean Epstein is the phenomenon under analysis, and the problem for the pigeon-holers is immediate and insurmountable. An important strand of his work relates to German Expressionism, another to surrealism (or the kind of surreal-affiliated yet non-surrealist work exemplified by Jean Cocteau or Marcel L'Herbier: what we might call surrealish), and another is pure proto-neo-realism, interweaving drama and documentary. Abel Gance was an influence, stylistically and in terms of his novelistic ambition and realism. Luis Buñuel was a collaborator. Epstein was a theorist as well as a practitioner. He embraced aspects of melodrama, experimented with different styles, adapted Poe (The Fall of the House of Usher, 1928) and Balzac (L'auberge rouge,...
Jean Epstein is the phenomenon under analysis, and the problem for the pigeon-holers is immediate and insurmountable. An important strand of his work relates to German Expressionism, another to surrealism (or the kind of surreal-affiliated yet non-surrealist work exemplified by Jean Cocteau or Marcel L'Herbier: what we might call surrealish), and another is pure proto-neo-realism, interweaving drama and documentary. Abel Gance was an influence, stylistically and in terms of his novelistic ambition and realism. Luis Buñuel was a collaborator. Epstein was a theorist as well as a practitioner. He embraced aspects of melodrama, experimented with different styles, adapted Poe (The Fall of the House of Usher, 1928) and Balzac (L'auberge rouge,...
- 11/11/2010
- MUBI
He was behind the Ealing films and made a handful of the most polished, imaginative and enjoyable movies of the 1940s. It's time the name of Alberto Cavalcanti was better known, argues Kevin Jackson
'Directed by Cavalcanti" runs the last of the black-and-white title credits. Back in the 1940s, the ordinary chap in the Odeon's ninepenny stalls is baffled, even annoyed. Who on earth is this jumped-up foreigner, thinking he's so bloody famous that he doesn't need a first name? (In fact, Cavalcanti was widely seen as one of the most self-effacing, charming men ever to have worked in film.) And why is a bloody Eyetie in charge of a British film – let alone an Ealing film, the most British productions of all? (In fact, Cavalcanti was Brazilian.) But those in the audience who had noticed the unusual credit once or twice before settled deeper into their red plush seats,...
'Directed by Cavalcanti" runs the last of the black-and-white title credits. Back in the 1940s, the ordinary chap in the Odeon's ninepenny stalls is baffled, even annoyed. Who on earth is this jumped-up foreigner, thinking he's so bloody famous that he doesn't need a first name? (In fact, Cavalcanti was widely seen as one of the most self-effacing, charming men ever to have worked in film.) And why is a bloody Eyetie in charge of a British film – let alone an Ealing film, the most British productions of all? (In fact, Cavalcanti was Brazilian.) But those in the audience who had noticed the unusual credit once or twice before settled deeper into their red plush seats,...
- 7/2/2010
- by Kevin Jackson
- The Guardian - Film News
01
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand)
Film Socialisme (Jean Luc Godard, Switzerland)
02
The Strange Case of Angelica (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal)
Hands Up (Romain Goupil, France)
Des hommes et des dieux (Xavier Beauvois, France)
03
Two Girls on the Street (Andre De Toth, Hungary, 1939)
Le quattro volte (Michelangelo Frammartino, Italy)
My Joy (Sergei Loznitsa, Germany/Ukraine)
Outrage (Takeshi Kitano, Japan)
Ha Ha Ha (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
04
Poetry (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea)
On Tour (Mathieu Amalric, France)
La campagne de Cicéron (Jacques Davila, France, 1990)
Tuesday, After Christmas (Radu Muntean, Romania)
Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzman, Chile)
05
Aurora (Cristi Puiu, Romania)
Au petite bonheur (Marcel L'Herbier, France, 1946)
I Wish I Knew (Jia Zhangke, China)
Todos vós sodes capitáns (Oliver Laxe, Spain)
Chantrapas (Otar Iosseliani, France/Georgia)
??
Carlos (Olivier Assayas, France/Germany)
--
The rest...
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand)
Film Socialisme (Jean Luc Godard, Switzerland)
02
The Strange Case of Angelica (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal)
Hands Up (Romain Goupil, France)
Des hommes et des dieux (Xavier Beauvois, France)
03
Two Girls on the Street (Andre De Toth, Hungary, 1939)
Le quattro volte (Michelangelo Frammartino, Italy)
My Joy (Sergei Loznitsa, Germany/Ukraine)
Outrage (Takeshi Kitano, Japan)
Ha Ha Ha (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
04
Poetry (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea)
On Tour (Mathieu Amalric, France)
La campagne de Cicéron (Jacques Davila, France, 1990)
Tuesday, After Christmas (Radu Muntean, Romania)
Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzman, Chile)
05
Aurora (Cristi Puiu, Romania)
Au petite bonheur (Marcel L'Herbier, France, 1946)
I Wish I Knew (Jia Zhangke, China)
Todos vós sodes capitáns (Oliver Laxe, Spain)
Chantrapas (Otar Iosseliani, France/Georgia)
??
Carlos (Olivier Assayas, France/Germany)
--
The rest...
- 5/26/2010
- MUBI
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