So, what to make of this Le Livre d’Image? Hmm. Speaking at the Ism in Berlin recently, Brian Eno (that granddaddy of sonic soups) pondered why we sometimes get a little frustrated when abstract painting doesn’t offer us immediate gratification in a way that we usually don’t with abstract music. One is just a bunch of sounds that maybe makes you feel something, he argues, but the other is just a bunch of colors and shapes that maybe do the same. We might extend that theory to Jean-Luc Godard’s latest video essay / stream of consciousness, a feature-length screen collage of footage that jumps from — amongst many other things — cinema of the 1950s, footage of Isis, hands, trains, and, later on, the director’s thoughts on the Gulf nations. Sometimes cinema is also just a load of stuff that maybe makes you feel something.
Split into five...
Split into five...
- 5/12/2018
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
It’s a given that their Main Slate — the fresh, the recently buzzed-about, the mysterious, the anticipated — will be the New York Film Festival’s primary point of attraction for both media coverage and ticket sales. But while a rather fine lineup is, to these eyes, deserving of such treatment, the festival’s latest Revivals section — i.e. “important works from renowned filmmakers that have been digitally remastered, restored, and preserved with the assistance of generous partners,” per their press release — is in a whole other class, one titanic name after another granted a representation that these particular works have so long lacked.
The list speaks for itself, even (or especially) if you’re more likely to recognize a director than title. Included therein are films by Andrei Tarkovsky (The Sacrifice), Hou Hsiao-hsien (Daughter of the Nile, a personal favorite), Pedro Costa (Casa de Lava; trailer here), Jean-Luc Godard (the rarely seen,...
The list speaks for itself, even (or especially) if you’re more likely to recognize a director than title. Included therein are films by Andrei Tarkovsky (The Sacrifice), Hou Hsiao-hsien (Daughter of the Nile, a personal favorite), Pedro Costa (Casa de Lava; trailer here), Jean-Luc Godard (the rarely seen,...
- 8/21/2017
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Grand Illusion (1937) is showing July 27 - August 26, 2017 in the United States as part of the retrospective Jean Renoir.Considering Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion today in no small part involves an awareness of status and stature, the most prominent (or maybe just the most intimidating) aspect of which surely being the cherished status the film continues to enjoy in the canon of film history. To this day, it remains a singular achievement, not only as one of Renoir's foundational masterpieces, but also as a film of its time whose contents have remained timeless. Released in 1937 to great acclaim, it bid farewell to one era of European history and warfare as another, far darker one was about to begin; thus, more than the grimly comical The Rules of the Game (made and released two years closer to the brink...
- 7/27/2017
- MUBI
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
Marc Allégret: From André Gide lover to Simone Simon mentor (photo: Marc Allégret) (See previous post: "Simone Simon Remembered: Sex Kitten and Femme Fatale.") Simone Simon became a film star following the international critical and financial success of the 1934 romantic drama Lac aux Dames, directed by her self-appointed mentor – and alleged lover – Marc Allégret.[1] The son of an evangelical missionary, Marc Allégret (born on December 22, 1900, in Basel, Switzerland) was to have become a lawyer. At age 16, his life took a different path as a result of his romantic involvement – and elopement to London – with his mentor and later "adoptive uncle" André Gide (1947 Nobel Prize winner in Literature), more than 30 years his senior and married to Madeleine Rondeaux for more than two decades. In various forms – including a threesome with painter Théo Van Rysselberghe's daughter Elisabeth – the Allégret-Gide relationship remained steady until the late '20s and their trip to...
- 2/28/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
10. Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)
Directed by: Max Ophuls
To be honest, the relationship at the center of “Letter from an Unknown Woman” barely even exists. It’s more of a longing from one side than the other. But the ways Ophuls structures the film qualifies it for this list. For the run of the story, we hear a voiceover, explaining the moments in these two characters’ lives. Lisa (Joan Fontaine) is a teenager who becomes obsessed with a pianist who lives in her building named Stefan (Louis Jordan). She only meets him once, but maintains her love for him. After her mother announces they will be moving, Lisa runs away, but sees Stefan with another woman. Lisa becomes a respectable woman and is proposed to by a young, family-focused military officer, whom she turns down, still in love with Stefan, a man she has barely met. Years later, she...
Directed by: Max Ophuls
To be honest, the relationship at the center of “Letter from an Unknown Woman” barely even exists. It’s more of a longing from one side than the other. But the ways Ophuls structures the film qualifies it for this list. For the run of the story, we hear a voiceover, explaining the moments in these two characters’ lives. Lisa (Joan Fontaine) is a teenager who becomes obsessed with a pianist who lives in her building named Stefan (Louis Jordan). She only meets him once, but maintains her love for him. After her mother announces they will be moving, Lisa runs away, but sees Stefan with another woman. Lisa becomes a respectable woman and is proposed to by a young, family-focused military officer, whom she turns down, still in love with Stefan, a man she has barely met. Years later, she...
- 12/2/2014
- by Joshua Gaul
- SoundOnSight
Every Halloween party needs a playlist, and yours better be the gayest. To ensure that your guests are treated to spooky queerness, put these 20 tracks in your iTunes and legally marry the night.
1. Sharon Needles, “Every Day Is Halloween”
Sharon’s cover of the Ministry jam is sinister, cool, and effing evil, just the way she intended. Have you checked out her list of favorite horror movies yet? Just as terrfiying.
2. Janet Jackson, “Black Cat”
Janet’s rock anthem from Rhythm Nation 1814 warns partygoers to watch their step because, y’know, the kitty is coming out.
3. Madonna, “Supernatural”
Madonna’s spookiest jam is this Like a Prayer b-side that appeared in a fun house mix on the Red Hot + Dance LP. This is the only time Madonna has ever communicated with ghosts on record, as we’ve never been given access to her conversations with Frida Kahlo and Dita Parlo.
1. Sharon Needles, “Every Day Is Halloween”
Sharon’s cover of the Ministry jam is sinister, cool, and effing evil, just the way she intended. Have you checked out her list of favorite horror movies yet? Just as terrfiying.
2. Janet Jackson, “Black Cat”
Janet’s rock anthem from Rhythm Nation 1814 warns partygoers to watch their step because, y’know, the kitty is coming out.
3. Madonna, “Supernatural”
Madonna’s spookiest jam is this Like a Prayer b-side that appeared in a fun house mix on the Red Hot + Dance LP. This is the only time Madonna has ever communicated with ghosts on record, as we’ve never been given access to her conversations with Frida Kahlo and Dita Parlo.
- 10/31/2013
- by Louis Virtel
- The Backlot
Elitist and pretentious, or an endangered species? Whatever your feelings, there's no doubt that arthouse movies are among the finest ever made. Here the Guardian and Observer critics pick the 10 best
• Top 10 romantic movies
• Top 10 action movies
• Top 10 comedy movies
• Top 10 horror movies
• Top 10 sci-fi movies
• Top 10 crime movies
Peter Bradshaw on art movies
This is a red rag to a number of different bulls. Lovers of what are called arthouse movies resent the label for being derisive and philistine. And those who detest it bristle at the implication that there is no artistry or intelligence in mainstream entertainment.
For many, the stereotypical arthouse film is Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin was a classic art film from the 1920s and Luis Buñuel investigated cinema's potential for surreality like no one before or since. The Italian neorealists applied the severity of art to a representation...
• Top 10 romantic movies
• Top 10 action movies
• Top 10 comedy movies
• Top 10 horror movies
• Top 10 sci-fi movies
• Top 10 crime movies
Peter Bradshaw on art movies
This is a red rag to a number of different bulls. Lovers of what are called arthouse movies resent the label for being derisive and philistine. And those who detest it bristle at the implication that there is no artistry or intelligence in mainstream entertainment.
For many, the stereotypical arthouse film is Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin was a classic art film from the 1920s and Luis Buñuel investigated cinema's potential for surreality like no one before or since. The Italian neorealists applied the severity of art to a representation...
- 10/21/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
Burlesque star Dita Von Teese landed her stage name by accident when Playboy bosses insisted on a surname for her Dita - and then misspelled her chosen moniker.
The sexy star, real name Heather Sweet, adopted the name Dita - inspired by 1920s movie star Dita Parlo - when she started work at a strip club in Orange County, California, but when she posed for Playboy in the mid 1990s, editors insisted on a second name.
She tells Hustler magazine, "They told me I had to have a last name. I fought them... I thought 'Von' was really aristocratic and cool. I pulled out the Orange County phone book and saw 'Von Treese' and thought, 'That sounds cool'. So I called Playboy and said, 'I'm going to be Dita Von Treese'.
"Then the magazine comes out... I run to the liquor store and open it up, and there was 'Dita Von Teese'! And it stuck. It's one of those names that seems so perfect, but it was an accident."
And now everyone, but her close friends, family members and boyfriends call her Dita - even ex-husband Marilyn Manson insisted on using her stage name: "He would never call me by my real name because he didn't want to be called by his real name - not even by his family."...
The sexy star, real name Heather Sweet, adopted the name Dita - inspired by 1920s movie star Dita Parlo - when she started work at a strip club in Orange County, California, but when she posed for Playboy in the mid 1990s, editors insisted on a second name.
She tells Hustler magazine, "They told me I had to have a last name. I fought them... I thought 'Von' was really aristocratic and cool. I pulled out the Orange County phone book and saw 'Von Treese' and thought, 'That sounds cool'. So I called Playboy and said, 'I'm going to be Dita Von Treese'.
"Then the magazine comes out... I run to the liquor store and open it up, and there was 'Dita Von Teese'! And it stuck. It's one of those names that seems so perfect, but it was an accident."
And now everyone, but her close friends, family members and boyfriends call her Dita - even ex-husband Marilyn Manson insisted on using her stage name: "He would never call me by my real name because he didn't want to be called by his real name - not even by his family."...
- 6/12/2012
- WENN
(Jean Vigo, 1930-34, PG, Artificial Eye)
One of France's most revered film-makers, his father an anarchist murdered in jail during the first world war, Vigo died of leukaemia in 1934 at the age of 29. He left behind an oddly attractive short featuring the French swimming champion Jean Taris and three masterpieces: the silent, satirical portrait of life on the Côte d'Azur À propos de Nice (1930); Zéro de conduite (1933), a surreal comedy about a revolt in a horrendous boarding school; and above all L'Atalante (1934), which he didn't live to see in its complete version.
L'Atalante is a beguiling, truthful love story about the ups and downs of the marriage between a young man and the country girl (the beautiful Dita Parlo) he brings to live with him on the barge he plies on the Seine with a cranky old seafarer (the great Michel Simon). Inventive, poetic, funny and deeply moving, it's magnificently...
One of France's most revered film-makers, his father an anarchist murdered in jail during the first world war, Vigo died of leukaemia in 1934 at the age of 29. He left behind an oddly attractive short featuring the French swimming champion Jean Taris and three masterpieces: the silent, satirical portrait of life on the Côte d'Azur À propos de Nice (1930); Zéro de conduite (1933), a surreal comedy about a revolt in a horrendous boarding school; and above all L'Atalante (1934), which he didn't live to see in its complete version.
L'Atalante is a beguiling, truthful love story about the ups and downs of the marriage between a young man and the country girl (the beautiful Dita Parlo) he brings to live with him on the barge he plies on the Seine with a cranky old seafarer (the great Michel Simon). Inventive, poetic, funny and deeply moving, it's magnificently...
- 5/14/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Headhunters (15)
(Morten Tyldum, 2011, Nor/Ger) Aksel Hennie, Synnøve Macody Lund, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Eivind Sander. 100 mins
It's a Scandinavian crime thriller, but for once, this isn't like The Killing or The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It's closer to the Coen brothers, with enough unpredictable plot turns, eccentric touches and morbid laughs to banish the Nordic darkness. There's something of Steve Buscemi about its hero, too: Hennie plays a slimy corporate headhunter/secret art thief who meets his match, loses his grip and literally ends up in the toilet as a result.
Le Havre (PG)
(Aki Kaurismäki, 2011, Fin/Fra/Ger) André Wilms, Kati Outinen, Jean-Pierre Darroussin. 93 mins
Applying his gentle, silent-comical approach to the tale of an illegal immigrant and his French protectors reaps rewards for Kaurismäki in a movie that's whimsical on the surface but built on firm foundations.
This Must Be The Place (15)
(Paolo Sorrentino, 2011, Us) Sean Penn, Frances McDormand,...
(Morten Tyldum, 2011, Nor/Ger) Aksel Hennie, Synnøve Macody Lund, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Eivind Sander. 100 mins
It's a Scandinavian crime thriller, but for once, this isn't like The Killing or The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It's closer to the Coen brothers, with enough unpredictable plot turns, eccentric touches and morbid laughs to banish the Nordic darkness. There's something of Steve Buscemi about its hero, too: Hennie plays a slimy corporate headhunter/secret art thief who meets his match, loses his grip and literally ends up in the toilet as a result.
Le Havre (PG)
(Aki Kaurismäki, 2011, Fin/Fra/Ger) André Wilms, Kati Outinen, Jean-Pierre Darroussin. 93 mins
Applying his gentle, silent-comical approach to the tale of an illegal immigrant and his French protectors reaps rewards for Kaurismäki in a movie that's whimsical on the surface but built on firm foundations.
This Must Be The Place (15)
(Paolo Sorrentino, 2011, Us) Sean Penn, Frances McDormand,...
- 4/6/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
The premiere of Madonna's video for "Give Me All Your Luvin,'" the first single off her new album M.D.N.A., is today, children. It's bound to be a little over-the-top and nutty, like the deranged song itself, and I assume it's not going to live up to the greatest stuff in Madonna's catalog. Then I remember: What does live up to the best stuff in Madonna's catalog? Turns out, not much. Madonna's repertoire is a varied and thundering collection of self-empowering pop ditties, soulful ballads, and kooky little anomalies. And they're mostly all irreplaceable. In the tradition of Rolling Stone, who listed their 100 Greatest Beatles Songs a couple years ago, let's reinspect Madonna's complete history and name her definitive 100 jams. Ready? Start disagreeing Now.
100. "Dance 2Night" from Hard Candy
Hard Candy’s most euphoric groove (and best dancefloor-filler) makes the stilted duo...
100. "Dance 2Night" from Hard Candy
Hard Candy’s most euphoric groove (and best dancefloor-filler) makes the stilted duo...
- 2/3/2012
- by virtel
- The Backlot
Jean Vigo's sole feature-length film is a masterpiece of sophistication, technique and human feeling
Jean Vigo achieved a mature masterpiece with this movie, his only full-length feature film, made in 1934 just before his death at the age of 29, now in a restored version. Combining simplicity and delicacy with enormous sophistication and technique, it is an urban pastoral that to an extraordinary degree inspires love – both love for the film and love generally. Dita Parlo is Juliette, who marries Jean (Jean Dasté), a barge captain. For their honeymoon, they will go on a journey on his craft, L'Atalante. The boat is somehow both cramped and yet as unexpectedly capacious as a haunted house. They are joined by the eccentric seadog Père Jules (Michel Simon). Juliette and Jean's relationship almost founders entirely, and yet this expedition cannot quite be reduced to a metaphor for love's pilgrimage. It is too playful, anarchic,...
Jean Vigo achieved a mature masterpiece with this movie, his only full-length feature film, made in 1934 just before his death at the age of 29, now in a restored version. Combining simplicity and delicacy with enormous sophistication and technique, it is an urban pastoral that to an extraordinary degree inspires love – both love for the film and love generally. Dita Parlo is Juliette, who marries Jean (Jean Dasté), a barge captain. For their honeymoon, they will go on a journey on his craft, L'Atalante. The boat is somehow both cramped and yet as unexpectedly capacious as a haunted house. They are joined by the eccentric seadog Père Jules (Michel Simon). Juliette and Jean's relationship almost founders entirely, and yet this expedition cannot quite be reduced to a metaphor for love's pilgrimage. It is too playful, anarchic,...
- 1/20/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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
Jean Vigo’s first and only feature-length film, L’Atalante can often be found snuggled amongst critics’ best-of-all-time lists. A quiet, subtle, and brilliantly simple story of a loved-up but immature young couple, L’Atalante is a Breton-striped dream-like journey through love and loss on the canals of France.
After a heavy-handed editing process that mutilated the 1934 version, it might have faded into obscurity had it not been picked up, embraced and echoed by the directors of the French New Wave. 2012 sees the release of L’Atalante’s full 89-minute version in selected cinemas across the country.
It’s hard to separate this haunting little film from the tragic story of its director. By the time filming of L’Atalante had begun, Jean Vigo had fallen seriously ill and had to direct much of it from a stretcher. He left for the mountains soon after shooting ended, hoping to regain...
After a heavy-handed editing process that mutilated the 1934 version, it might have faded into obscurity had it not been picked up, embraced and echoed by the directors of the French New Wave. 2012 sees the release of L’Atalante’s full 89-minute version in selected cinemas across the country.
It’s hard to separate this haunting little film from the tragic story of its director. By the time filming of L’Atalante had begun, Jean Vigo had fallen seriously ill and had to direct much of it from a stretcher. He left for the mountains soon after shooting ended, hoping to regain...
- 12/13/2011
- by Guest
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
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
Jean Vigo, 1934
At the age of 29, Jean Vigo died from rheumatic septicaemia, just a few days after the opening of his only feature film, L'Atalante. Those bare facts are a landmark not just in French cinema, but in the larger history of artistic film-making, and of the absolute commitment of film-makers. Moreover, the poetic lyricism of L'Atalante, far from dating, has been more appreciated over the years. L'Atalante is 75 years old, yet its beauty and its harshness are still hauntingly alive.
Three men work a barge (it is named L'Atalante) on the waterways of northern France: Jean, the skipper is young and hopeful (Jean Dasté); le père Jules, a tattooed veteran of the world's oceans (Michel Simon) and a cabin boy. They stop at a small town. Jean meets a girl, Juliette (Dita Parlo), and they are married, while hardly knowing each other. So the barge moves on. It is...
At the age of 29, Jean Vigo died from rheumatic septicaemia, just a few days after the opening of his only feature film, L'Atalante. Those bare facts are a landmark not just in French cinema, but in the larger history of artistic film-making, and of the absolute commitment of film-makers. Moreover, the poetic lyricism of L'Atalante, far from dating, has been more appreciated over the years. L'Atalante is 75 years old, yet its beauty and its harshness are still hauntingly alive.
Three men work a barge (it is named L'Atalante) on the waterways of northern France: Jean, the skipper is young and hopeful (Jean Dasté); le père Jules, a tattooed veteran of the world's oceans (Michel Simon) and a cabin boy. They stop at a small town. Jean meets a girl, Juliette (Dita Parlo), and they are married, while hardly knowing each other. So the barge moves on. It is...
- 10/20/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
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.