The Imaginary Friend (1994).Unknown to many, Nico D'Alessandria (1941–2003) was one of the most important directors of independent Italian cinema. His stories of outcasts and ghost-like characters create a unique kind of poetic cinema, in which reality becomes a dream and the dream becomes reality. If one could sum up his work and personality in one word, that word would be independence. D’Alessandria’s absolute freedom of thought and action from both mainstream and art-house cinema proved to be too much not only for audiences, but also for producers, distributors and critics, leading to his work being frequently misunderstood if not entirely forgotten. Throughout his career he made only three feature films and his total dedication to his work took him so far as to mortgage his house.D’Alessandria’s films were all shot in the last two decades of the 20th century, but his story as an author and director begins much earlier.
- 1/10/2022
- MUBI
A Straub-Huillet Companion is a series of short essays on the films of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, subject of a Mubi retrospective. Straub-Huillet's Workers, Peasants (2001) is showing on Mubi from September 24 – October 23, 2019.Performer: "...and of every thing came the end, and it was a whole that was living."
J.-M.S.: Thanks—I'll stop you there. It's not bad, but some things should be done a little better. Some are tired. Let's start again from the beginning. First of all, fourth line: "...it lingers among the vineyards and on the seashore." You have to stress the Italian tonic accent on "sea," seeeea. But don't omit the rest of the word. After that, you have four bars to breathe, understand? So you can do it.—Extract from "Jean-Marie Straub to Cesare Pavese" (available here)In the last years of the 20th century, after having produced films in a variety...
J.-M.S.: Thanks—I'll stop you there. It's not bad, but some things should be done a little better. Some are tired. Let's start again from the beginning. First of all, fourth line: "...it lingers among the vineyards and on the seashore." You have to stress the Italian tonic accent on "sea," seeeea. But don't omit the rest of the word. After that, you have four bars to breathe, understand? So you can do it.—Extract from "Jean-Marie Straub to Cesare Pavese" (available here)In the last years of the 20th century, after having produced films in a variety...
- 9/24/2019
- MUBI
Mubi is exclusively showing João Moreira Salles In the Intense Now (2017) from May 3 - June 2, 2018 in the series May '68: When Everything Seemed Possible.João Moreira Salles’ essay film In the Intense Now is playing on Mubi as part of a May ‘68 double-bill alongside Romain Goupil’s Half a Life. Salles’ film explores the implications of well-known revolutionary images; questioning the familiar calling cards of May ‘68’s political upheaval. A meditative film that stands out against the familiar narrative, In the Intense Now focuses not only on the events in France, but on other political events of the same milieu: those occurring in Prague, Beijing and Rio de Janeiro. The film’s necessary pessimism calls the past as we know it into question, reminding viewers that we often experience these events second-hand via a series of provided images and figureheads that might require re-assessment. On the other hand, the...
- 5/10/2018
- MUBI
Jean‑Luc Godard's masterpiece remains a startling example of the French new wave and marked the arrival of one of cinema's most influential directors
Two trailers bookend my half-a-century of writing professionally about the cinema and bracket the career of the man who is arguably the most influential moviemaker of my lifetime. Fifty years ago this month I dropped into an Oslo cinema while waiting for a midnight train and saw an unforgettable trailer for a French picture. It cut abruptly between a handsome, broken-nosed actor I'd never come across before, giant posters of Humphrey Bogart, and the familiar features of Jean Seberg, whom I knew to be an idol of French cinéastes as the protegee of Otto Preminger. Shot in high contrast monochrome, rapidly edited, interspersed with puzzling statements in white-on-black and black-on-white lettering, it was like no other trailer I'd seen, and I was captivated. Not until my...
Two trailers bookend my half-a-century of writing professionally about the cinema and bracket the career of the man who is arguably the most influential moviemaker of my lifetime. Fifty years ago this month I dropped into an Oslo cinema while waiting for a midnight train and saw an unforgettable trailer for a French picture. It cut abruptly between a handsome, broken-nosed actor I'd never come across before, giant posters of Humphrey Bogart, and the familiar features of Jean Seberg, whom I knew to be an idol of French cinéastes as the protegee of Otto Preminger. Shot in high contrast monochrome, rapidly edited, interspersed with puzzling statements in white-on-black and black-on-white lettering, it was like no other trailer I'd seen, and I was captivated. Not until my...
- 6/9/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Updated through 5/19.
Craig Keller has been doing outstanding work in the run-up to the passionately anticipated new film from Jean-Luc Godard, Film Socialism — translating interviews and press materials and keeping the English-speaking world up-to-date at his blog, Cinemasparagus, translating Arthur Mas and Martial Pisani's close reading of the trailers for Independencia, and tweeting some of his other finds. As I read the conversation between Godard and Daniel Cohn-Bendit today, this, from Jlg, leapt forward: "Bachelard says there are two kinds of images: the explicit image, and the implicit image. I try to make an implicit image. It can't be made consciously."...
Craig Keller has been doing outstanding work in the run-up to the passionately anticipated new film from Jean-Luc Godard, Film Socialism — translating interviews and press materials and keeping the English-speaking world up-to-date at his blog, Cinemasparagus, translating Arthur Mas and Martial Pisani's close reading of the trailers for Independencia, and tweeting some of his other finds. As I read the conversation between Godard and Daniel Cohn-Bendit today, this, from Jlg, leapt forward: "Bachelard says there are two kinds of images: the explicit image, and the implicit image. I try to make an implicit image. It can't be made consciously."...
- 5/19/2010
- MUBI
Roman Polanski Arrest Backgrounder No doubt you’ve heard the rumblings and innuendo about acclaimed film director Roman Polanski’s arrest in Zurich Switzerland on Us charges of sex with a 13 year old girl stemming from a incident at Jack Nicholson’s house in the 1970s. It’s a touchy subject to discuss and for those who grew up in more recent times, a bit shocking.
Hollywood in the 1970s As I recall from my youth, the Hollywood of the 1970s were full of what seem like outlandish incidents to our hyper-sensitive reality-tv diluted eyes. Examples include Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Crane’s 1978 unseemly murder and subsequent uncovering of his sexual predilections, Natalie Wood somewhat mysterious accidental drowning while on a boat with Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken in 1981 and the Hollywood connections of the Charles Manson murders including Polanski’s pregnant wife Sharon Tate.
Polanski in France Fast forward...
Hollywood in the 1970s As I recall from my youth, the Hollywood of the 1970s were full of what seem like outlandish incidents to our hyper-sensitive reality-tv diluted eyes. Examples include Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Crane’s 1978 unseemly murder and subsequent uncovering of his sexual predilections, Natalie Wood somewhat mysterious accidental drowning while on a boat with Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken in 1981 and the Hollywood connections of the Charles Manson murders including Polanski’s pregnant wife Sharon Tate.
Polanski in France Fast forward...
- 9/29/2009
- by Dave
- MovieSet.com
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