I finally got around to seeing “The Lives of Others” which I enjoyed. First as a kind of mystery and second as a foretelling of what life for us would be like if we continue down our current path. I’d like to think that this country of red white and blue would rally to protect us creative types. Looking for proof.
* October 18 – 21
14th Annual African American Film Marketplace and Short Film Showcase. Hosted by Award-winning Filmmaker Julie Dash. There will be films and filmmakers, workshops, seminars, vendors, and networking opportunities.
For more info:
310.284.3170 – www.bherc.org
Raleigh Studios, Hollywood, CA
Famed director Ingmar Bergman passed away last week, (along with another legendary filmaker, Michelangelo Antonioni). Of course, there is acknowledgment of his talent and what he brought to film, but, frankly, I immediately felt this wave of nostalgia.
I associate Mr. Bergman with a black and white film about a chalk faced man in a black cloak. The movie was “The Seventh Seal”,(1957) with Max von Sydow and rest of Bergman’s stable of actors, Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekero, Nils Poppe and Bibi Andersson. In short, the story is about a knight that returns from the crusades. After being followed home thru the devastation of a war torn and plague infested countryside, he plays a game of chess with “death” to save his life. Lots of stark landscapes, lots of symbolism. Terrific film.
In NYC, back in the day, you gained immediate “cred” if you had seen the “The Seventh Seal”. It established you as a serious person. In fact you were seen as a person with substance – you were not deterred by subtitles. (Yes, it seems silly and pretentious now, but, we saw great stuff! – Fellini, Truffaut, Antonioni, and Rosselini)
Anyway, nostalgia. A great director, and we still have his work. Hugely prolific, below are only some of Ingmar Bergman’s films that were seen here. We should all be grateful for DVD:
1950s: Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries
1960s: The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, Persona
1970s: Cries and Whispers, Scenes from a Marriage , Autumn Sonata
1980s: Fanny and Alexander
Actually, it is a love story, just sort of backwards. Instead of a passion that grows and then atrophies, this story follows a dead relationship on its road to vitality and a wondrous respect.
I wasn’t quite sure why I liked “The Painted Veil”(2006). Did I fall into it so easily because of watching so much of PBS’ Masterpiece Theater “Upstairs, Downstairs”/ “Britain between the Wars” -like offerings?
Nah. I liked it because it did what I want movies to do – tell me a story, take me to time and place and make me care about how it all ends.
Beautifully filmed, this adaptation of a Somerset Maugham story takes place during the 1920s in the middle of a cholera epidemic in a small, beautiful, lush village in China.
The green of the countryside covers the spreading disease just as the British Edwardian façade of manners covers the sham of a marriage.
The English doctor and his wife drop into the middle of the ugliness of sickness and the unease of the rising Chinese nationalist fervor and as they adapt and deal with challenges, they discover and accept one another for who they are – not who they should be, wish to be, hope to be – but the reality of who they are.
And they both turn out to be much bigger than the other thought – both are truly worthy, different, but worthy. Acceptance. Love.
The actors were lovely – Naomi Watts and Edward Norton are wonderful as the husband & wife. Liev Schreiber plays the dashing fly in the ointment – the wife’s former lover. And all were tightly directed by John J. Curran.
“The Painted Veil” – good love story.
Kate Winslet is an actor who delivers. I recently watched “Little Children” and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Ms. Winslet is very consistent, consistently excellent. The first movie I saw her in was Quills, (I am that odd person who has never seen Titanic)
Both of these Motion Pictures indirectly question our belief about who we think we are.
The usual suspects, not the film, but the movies you would expect, made the list of American Film Institute’s “100 films/100 years” – “All About Eve”, “Casablanca”, “Lawrence of Arabia” and the same #1 as 10 years ago when AFI published its 1st poll, Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane”.
(Don’t quite know how accurate this all is, since it is all opinion, but, it is fun.)
Chosen from ballots sent to 1,500 Hollywood filmmakers, actors, writers, critics, etc, a few of the films have moved around – up, down or a complete push out into the ether. And, there were additions: “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (#50), “Saving Private Ryan” (# 71), “Titanic” (#83) and “The Sixth Sense” (#89).
Those that dropped from the 1998 “100” were: “Doctor Zhivago” 1965, “Amadeus” 1984, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” 1977 , “Dances With Wolves” 1990 and “The Jazz Singer” 1927.
How many have you seen/ missed/ want to revisit? See the top 25 below:
1. “Citizen Kane,” 1941.
2. “The Godfather,” 1972.
3. “Casablanca,” 1942.
4. “Raging Bull,” 1980.
5. “Singin’ in the Rain,” 1952.
6. “Gone With the Wind,” 1939.
7. “Lawrence of Arabia,” 1962.
8. “Schindler’s List,” 1993.
9. “Vertigo,” 1958.
10. “The Wizard of Oz,” 1939.
11. “City Lights,” 1931.
12. “The Searchers,” 1956.
13. “Star Wars,” 1977.
14. “Psycho,” 1960.
15. “2001: A Space Odyssey,” 1968.
16. “Sunset Blvd.”, 1950.
17. “The Graduate,” 1967.
18. “The General,” 1927.
19. “On the Waterfront,” 1954.
20. “It’s a Wonderful Life,” 1946.
21. “Chinatown,” 1974.
22. “Some Like It Hot,” 1959.
23. “The Grapes of Wrath,” 1940.
24. “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” 1982.
25. “To Kill a Mockingbird,” 1962.
Some of my favorites: “Westside Story”1959, (# 51) and “Goodfellas” 1990, (#92)
*The complete 100 can be found at the AFI link:
http://www.afi.com/