Brief Encounter Directed by David Lean • 1945 • United Kingdom After a chance meeting on a train platform, a married doctor (Trevor Howard) and a suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) begin a muted but passionate, and ultimately doomed, love affair. With its evocatively fog-enshrouded setting, swooning Rachmaninoff score, and pair of remarkable performances (Johnson was nominated for an Oscar), this film, directed by David Lean and based on Noël Coward's play Still Life deftly explores the thrill, pain, and tenderness of an illicit romance, and has influenced many a cinematic brief encounter since its release.
A must see: Langlois Directed by Roberto Guerra and Eila Hershon • 1970 • United States Starring Henri Langlois Henri Langlois, the legendary cofounder of the Cinémathèque Française, changed the course of cinema history with his passionate advocacy for film culture, helping incubate the artistic explosion of the French New Wave. When the French government attempted to close down the Cinémathèque in 1968, Langlois’s movie mecca became a rallying point for the student protest movement that would soon bring France to the brink of revolution—and shut down that year’s Cannes Film Festival. Made two years later, this documentary portrait follows Langlois around the streets of Paris and features interviews with Lilian Gish, Simone Signoret, Catherine Deneuve, Kenneth Anger, Viva, and more.
Miss Julie Directed by Alf Sjöberg • 1951 • Sweden Swedish filmmaker Alf Sjöberg's visually innovative, Cannes Grand Prix-winning adaptation of August Strindberg's renowned 1888 play brings to scalding life the excoriating words of the stage's preeminent surveyor of all things rotten in the state of male-female relations. Miss Julie vividly depicts the battle of the sexes and classes that ensues when a wealthy businessman's daughter (Anita Björk, in a fiercely emotional performance) falls for her father's bitter servant. Celebrated for its unique cinematic style (and censored upon its first release in the United States for its adult content), Sjöberg's film was an important turning point in Scandinavian cinema.
Viridiana Directed by Luis Buñuel • 1961 • Spain Banned in Spain and denounced by the Vatican, Luis Buñuel's irreverent vision of life as a beggar's banquet is regarded by many as his masterpiece. In it, novice nun Viridiana does her utmost to maintain her Catholic principles, but her lecherous uncle and a motley assemblage of paupers force her to confront the limits of her idealism. Winner of the Palme d'or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival, Viridiana is as audacious today as ever.
Is this in HD on The Criterion Channel? I have this as part of the Late Ozu Eclipse series box set, but those sets are all on DVD, so standard definition only. It'd be great to have them bumped up to HD on the channel (and might entice me to sign up).
The Firemen’s Ball Directed by Miloš Forman • 1967 • Czechoslovakia A milestone of the Czech New Wave, Miloš Forman’s first color film THE FIREMEN’S BALL is both a dazzling comedy and a provocative political satire. A hilarious saga of good intentions confounded, the story chronicles a firemen’s ball where nothing goes right, from a beauty pageant whose reluctant participants embarrass the organizers to a lottery from which nearly all the prizes are pilfered. Presumed to be a commentary on the floundering Czech leadership, the film was “banned forever” in Czechoslovakia following the Russian invasion and prompted Forman’s move to America.
Long Day’s Journey into Night Directed by Bi Gan • 2018 • China Starring Tang Wei, Huang Jue, Sylvia Chang Bi Gan’s dazzling sophomore feature is a hallucinatory, noir-tinged stunner about a lost soul (Huang Jue) on a quest to find a missing woman from his past (Tang Wei). Following leads across Guizhou province, he crosses paths with a series of colorful characters, among them a prickly hairdresser played by Taiwanese superstar Sylvia Chang. When the search leads him to a dingy movie theater, the film launches him—and us—into an epic, gravity-defying sequence, an immersive, hour-long odyssey through a labyrinthine dreamscape that ranks as one of the true marvels of modern cinema. China’s biggest art-house hit of all time, LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT confirms Bi as one the most daring and exciting auteurs working today.
Another banned film: WR: Mysteries of the Organism Directed by Dušan Makavejev • 1971 • Yugoslavia Starring Milena Dravić, Ivica Vidović, Jagoda Kaloper What does the energy harnessed through orgasm have to do with the state of communist Yugoslavia circa 1971? Only counterculture filmmaker extraordinaire Dušan Makavejev has the answers (or the questions). His surreal documentary-fiction collision WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM begins as an investigation into the life and work of controversial psychologist and philosopher Wilhelm Reich and then explodes into a free-form narrative of a beautiful young Slavic girl’s sexual liberation. Banned upon its release in the director’s homeland, the art-house smash WR is both whimsical and bold in its blending of politics and sexuality.
A. I always think a mention of the title will refer to American playwright, Eugene O'Neill's masterful play. B. It's one the films on my perrenial must-see list. Thanks.
Street of Crocodiles Directed by Stephen Quay and Timothy Quay • 1986 • United Kingdom The Quays’ masterpiece, STREET OF CROCODILES is adapted from a short story by Polish writer Bruno Schulz, and was their first film shot on 35 mm. A museum keeper spits into the eyepiece of an ancient peep show and sets the musty machine in motion, plunging the viewer into a nightmarish netherworld of bizarre puppet rituals among the dirt and grime.
Last night I watched the silent (1926) version of “Stella Dallas”. To my surprise, it was SILENT. If saving the time and money of commissioning a score means greater access to silent films I’ve never seen I’m all for it!
There are some aspects of Cocteau in this: Judex Directed by Georges Franju • 1963 • France Starring Channing Pollock, Francine Bergé, Edith Scob This effortlessly cool crime caper, directed by Georges Franju, is a marvel of dexterous plotting and visual invention. Conceived as an homage to Louis Feuillade’s 1916 cult silent serial of the same name, JUDEX kicks off with the mysterious kidnapping of a corrupt banker by a shadowy crime fighter (American magician Channing Pollock) and spins out into a thrillingly complex web of deceptions. Combining stylish sixties modernism with silent-cinema touches and even a few unexpected sci-fi accents, JUDEX is a delightful bit of pulp fiction and a testament to the art of illusion.
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion Directed by Elio Petri • 1970 • Italy Starring Gian Maria Volonté, Florinda Bolkan, Gianni Santuccio The provocative Italian filmmaker Elio Petri’s most internationally acclaimed work is this remarkable, visceral, Oscar-winning thriller. Petri maintains a tricky balance between absurdity and realism in telling the Kafkaesque tale of a Roman police inspector (a commanding Gian Maria Volonté) investigating a heinous crime—which he himself committed. Both a compelling character study and a disturbing commentary on the draconian government crackdowns in Italy in the late 1960s and early ’70s, Petri’s kinetic portrait of surreal bureaucracy is a perversely pleasurable rendering of controlled chaos.
La commare secca Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci • 1962 • Italy Starring Marisa Solinas, Allen Midgette, Giancarlo De Rosa The brutalized corpse of a Roman prostitute is found along the banks of the Tiber River. The police round up a handful of possible suspects and interrogate them, one by one, each account bringing them closer to the killer. In this, his stunning debut feature, based on a story by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci utilizes a series of interconnected flashbacks to explore the nature of truth and the reliability of narrative. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the first realization of a legendary talent.
This is a very strong movie: The Big Knife Directed by Robert Aldrich • 1955 • United States Starring Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Rod Steiger Hollywood superstar Charlie Castle (Jack Palance) has it all, except for a way out. When he tries to leave show business, his tyrannical studio boss, Stanley Hoff (Steiger), blackmails him with a lethal, covered-up secret that could land him in jail. A loose-lipped starlet (Shelley Winters) also knows too much, and when she starts talking, Hoff plans murder. Now Charlie is more cornered than ever, on the brink of losing his wealth, his power, and his soul.
What a trip! Seconds Directed by John Frankenheimer • 1966 • United States Starring Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John Randolph Rock Hudson is a revelation in this sinister, science-fiction-inflected dispatch from the fractured 1960s. SECONDS, directed by John Frankenheimer, concerns a middle-aged banker who, dissatisfied with his suburban existence, elects to undergo a strange and elaborate procedure that will grant him a new life. Starting over in America, however, is not as easy as it sounds. This paranoiac symphony of canted camera angles (courtesy of famed cinematographer James Wong Howe), fragmented editing, and layered sound design is a remarkably risk-taking Hollywood film that ranks high on the list of its legendary director’s achievements.
Mauvais sang Directed by Leos Carax • 1986 • France Starring Juliette Binoche, Michel Piccoli, Denis Lavant, Julie Delpy With this giddily romantic, exquisitely stylized sophomore feature, Leos Carax cemented his status as one of the boldest filmmakers of his generation. In a world ravaged by STBO, a sexually transmitted disease only acquired by people having sex without any emotion, a rebellious young man (Denis Lavant) is recruited by a veteran criminal (Michel Piccoli) to steal the antidote. He soon falls dangerously in love with his new associate’s lover (Juliette Binoche)—an infatuation that catapults him out into the street to run to the pounding beat of David Bowie’s “Modern Love” in one of the most exhilarating moments of eighties cinema.
I absolutely love this film, but I don't know why. Cannes ’68: Cinema in Revolt A Report on the Party and Guests Directed by Jan Němec • 1966 • Czechoslovakia In Jan Němec's surreal fable, a picnic is rudely transformed into a lesson in political hierarchy when a handful of mysterious authority figures show up. This allegory about oppression and conformity was banned in its home country but became an international success after it premiered at the New York Film Festival.
The World Directed by Jia Zhangke • 2004 • China Starring Zhao Tao, Cheng Taishen, Jing Jue An at once intimate and expansive exploration of globalization from visionary director Jia Zhangke, THE WORLD takes place in the eponymous theme park on the outskirts of Beijing, where iconic monuments from the Eiffel Tower to the Taj Mahal are reproduced for tourists. It’s there that the park’s employees—including a dancer (Zhao Tao) and a security guard (Cheng Taishen)—drift together and are pulled apart in a cycle of connection and alienation that speaks eloquently to the effects of China’s rapid modernization.
Mesmerizing! Diamonds of the Night Directed by Jan Němec • 1964 • Czechoslovakia Starring Ladislav Janský, Antonín Kumbera With this simultaneously harrowing and lyrical debut feature, Jan Němec established himself as the most uncompromising visionary among the radical filmmakers who made up the Czechoslovak New Wave. Adapted from a novel by Arnošt Lustig, DIAMONDS OF THE NIGHT closely tracks two boys who escape from a concentration-camp transport and flee into the surrounding woods, hostile terrain where the brute realities of survival coexist with dreams, memories, and fragments of visual poetry. Along with visceral camera work by Jaroslav Kučera and Miroslav Ondříček—two of Czechoslovak cinema’s most influential cinematographers—Němec makes inventive use of fractured editing, elliptical storytelling, and flights of surrealism as he strips context away from this bare-bones tale, evoking the panicked delirium of consciousness lost in night and fog.
I've been making my way through the Frances Marion "festival" - 15 features and a documentary. I've seen many of them before, but in some cases not in decades. "The Big House" was one of my favorites when I was a kid, it was a staple of local TV.
This is fantastic! Pearls of the Deep Directed by Jiří Menzel, Věra Chytilová, Jaromil Jireš, Jan Němec, and Evald Schorm • 1966 • Czechoslovakia A manifesto of sorts for the Czech New Wave, this five-part anthology shows off the breadth of expression offered by the movement's versatile directors.