For the past two decades, Raphael Benoliel has been Hollywood’s man in France. With more than 40 projects under his belt, the Nice-born Benoliel has turned his Firstep production banner into a kind of one-stop-shop for international shoots, amassing line producer credits on projects as varied as “Les Miserables,” “Stillwater” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
And if last year might have been Firstep’s busiest year to date following back-to-back shoots of “Emily in Paris,” “John Wick: Chapter 4” and David Fincher’s “The Killer,” this year shows no signs of letting up, which makes the circumstances of Firstep’s founding all the more ironic.
“[Firstep co-founder] Dimitri Veret and I started the company with other goals in mind,” Benoliel tells Variety. “I was receiving [employment insurance] and didn’t necessarily need the money to get by, so we launched Firstep, using the benefits to finance our shorts.”
Opportunity knocked when Benoliel – who was...
And if last year might have been Firstep’s busiest year to date following back-to-back shoots of “Emily in Paris,” “John Wick: Chapter 4” and David Fincher’s “The Killer,” this year shows no signs of letting up, which makes the circumstances of Firstep’s founding all the more ironic.
“[Firstep co-founder] Dimitri Veret and I started the company with other goals in mind,” Benoliel tells Variety. “I was receiving [employment insurance] and didn’t necessarily need the money to get by, so we launched Firstep, using the benefits to finance our shorts.”
Opportunity knocked when Benoliel – who was...
- 1/24/2022
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
As a critic committed to maintaining a certain professional distance with those whose work I might review, I don’t often play the fan in the presence of filmmakers. But with French director Bertrand Tavernier — who passed away at the age of 79 on Thursday — I made an exception.
Knowing that Tavernier would be attending the Cannes Film Festival, as always, I once stuffed my suitcase with his “50 Years of American Cinema” — a two-volume, 1,247-page encyclopedia of classic film history — then lugged it to his hotel so that this éminence grise might sign it. The book, like Tavernier’s even heavier but more personable “Amis Américains”, serves as proof that, apart from Martin Scorsese perhaps, the great authority on American cinema is in fact a Frenchman.
Like Scorsese, Tavernier’s “day job” was as a director. He worked for decades, but the best among them are arguably “Coup de Torchon” (1981), about...
Knowing that Tavernier would be attending the Cannes Film Festival, as always, I once stuffed my suitcase with his “50 Years of American Cinema” — a two-volume, 1,247-page encyclopedia of classic film history — then lugged it to his hotel so that this éminence grise might sign it. The book, like Tavernier’s even heavier but more personable “Amis Américains”, serves as proof that, apart from Martin Scorsese perhaps, the great authority on American cinema is in fact a Frenchman.
Like Scorsese, Tavernier’s “day job” was as a director. He worked for decades, but the best among them are arguably “Coup de Torchon” (1981), about...
- 3/28/2021
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
‘The Truth’ was the most-viewed title on Curzon Home Cinema from March 20-22.
Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s English and French-language drama The Truth was the most-streamed title on Curzon Home Cinema (Chc) last weekend (March 20-22) according to a top 10 of the most-viewed titles revealed by by the UK platform.
The Truth was set for theatrical release on March 20 via Curzon’s distribution arm but pivoted to an early digital release in the wake of cinema closures. Its release beat the previous best three-day figure on the platform by 66%. No further details of the numbers involved were given.
Celine Sciamma’s...
Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s English and French-language drama The Truth was the most-streamed title on Curzon Home Cinema (Chc) last weekend (March 20-22) according to a top 10 of the most-viewed titles revealed by by the UK platform.
The Truth was set for theatrical release on March 20 via Curzon’s distribution arm but pivoted to an early digital release in the wake of cinema closures. Its release beat the previous best three-day figure on the platform by 66%. No further details of the numbers involved were given.
Celine Sciamma’s...
- 3/24/2020
- by 1100453¦Michael Rosser¦9¦
- ScreenDaily
Jean-Pierre Melville’s tale of an emotionless killer is distilled to a narrative minimum. Alain Delon stars as Jef Costello, an imperturbable, ultra- slick hit man who follows a strict personal code. When a contract goes bad, he’s caught between irreconcilable compulsions. Following this Zen-like assassin through the mean streets of Paris never seems to get old.
Le samouraï
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 306
1967 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 105 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date November 14, 2017 / 39.95
Starring Alain Delon, Francois Périer, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier, Jacques Leroy.
Cinematography Henri Decaë
Production Designer Francois de Lamothe
Film Editor Monique Bonnot, Yo Maurette
Original Music Francois de Roubaix
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville, Georges Pellegrin from a novel by Joan McLeod
Produced by Raymond Borderie, Eugène Lépicier
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Le samouraï has survived the Quentin Tarantino years Looking better than ever, and with its reputation intact, which is not a minor...
Le samouraï
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 306
1967 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 105 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date November 14, 2017 / 39.95
Starring Alain Delon, Francois Périer, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier, Jacques Leroy.
Cinematography Henri Decaë
Production Designer Francois de Lamothe
Film Editor Monique Bonnot, Yo Maurette
Original Music Francois de Roubaix
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville, Georges Pellegrin from a novel by Joan McLeod
Produced by Raymond Borderie, Eugène Lépicier
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Le samouraï has survived the Quentin Tarantino years Looking better than ever, and with its reputation intact, which is not a minor...
- 11/11/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Selections from Andrei Tarkovsky, Agnes Varda, Hou Hsiao-hsien.
The Film Society Of Lincoln Centre has announced the line-up for the Revivals section of the New York Film Festival showcasing digitally remastered, restored, and preserved works by celebrated filmmakers.
Two filmmakers from the festival’s Main Slate line-up will also have works in the Revivals section. Agnes Varda, whose Faces Places will screen in this year’s main selection, gets a slot with her feminist musical One Sings, the Other Doesn’t that opened the 15th festival in 1977.
Philippe Garrel’s Lover For A Day will appear in the festival’s Main Slate and he has two films in Revivals: Le Revelateur from 1968 and L’Enfant Secret from 1979.
Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Daughter Of The Nile screened at the 26th New York Film Festival 30 years ago and returns in Revivals, alongside Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice (NYFF24, pictured) and Adolfas Mekas’ Hallelujah the Hills from the first...
The Film Society Of Lincoln Centre has announced the line-up for the Revivals section of the New York Film Festival showcasing digitally remastered, restored, and preserved works by celebrated filmmakers.
Two filmmakers from the festival’s Main Slate line-up will also have works in the Revivals section. Agnes Varda, whose Faces Places will screen in this year’s main selection, gets a slot with her feminist musical One Sings, the Other Doesn’t that opened the 15th festival in 1977.
Philippe Garrel’s Lover For A Day will appear in the festival’s Main Slate and he has two films in Revivals: Le Revelateur from 1968 and L’Enfant Secret from 1979.
Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Daughter Of The Nile screened at the 26th New York Film Festival 30 years ago and returns in Revivals, alongside Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice (NYFF24, pictured) and Adolfas Mekas’ Hallelujah the Hills from the first...
- 8/21/2017
- ScreenDaily
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
Born 1917, as Jean-Pierre Grumbach, son of Alsatian Jews, Jean-Pierre adopted the name Melville as his nom de guerre in 1940 when France fell to the German Nazis and he joined the French Resistance. He kept it as his stage name when he returned to France and began making films.
Melville at 100 at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood is showcasing eight of his films made from 1949 to to 1972 to honor the 100th year since his birth.
Americn Cinemtheque’s historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood
The American Cinematheque has grown tremendously sophisticated since its early days creating the 1960 dream of “The Two Garys” (for those who remember). Still staffed by stalwarts Barbara Smith, Gwen Deglise, Margot Gerber and Tom Harris, and with a Board of Directors of Hollywood heavy hitters, it has also been renovated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association which has spent more than $500,000 restoring its infrastructure and repainting its famous murals.
Melville at 100 at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood is showcasing eight of his films made from 1949 to to 1972 to honor the 100th year since his birth.
Americn Cinemtheque’s historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood
The American Cinematheque has grown tremendously sophisticated since its early days creating the 1960 dream of “The Two Garys” (for those who remember). Still staffed by stalwarts Barbara Smith, Gwen Deglise, Margot Gerber and Tom Harris, and with a Board of Directors of Hollywood heavy hitters, it has also been renovated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association which has spent more than $500,000 restoring its infrastructure and repainting its famous murals.
- 8/7/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
“Isn’t it like France here?”
By the late 1940’s, the cityscape of New York seemed to be solidified as a well-trodden noir trope in and of itself, if solely due to the fact that being the supposed ultimate symbol of the post-war Free World made it ripe for subversion; criminal networks and the misdeeds of average citizens crawling under the surface of the booming metropolis. The city’s cinematic presence came even greater by this period’s emergent trend of noir films shooting on-location as opposed to embracing the artifice of a Los Angeles soundstage simulacra of the Big Apple; realism imparted on Hollywood as if a way of making the escapist medium of the movies taken more seriously as an art form.
Yet even the burden of verisimilitude could be flipped on its head by an outsider looking in, as by the end of the 1950s, the metropolis...
By the late 1940’s, the cityscape of New York seemed to be solidified as a well-trodden noir trope in and of itself, if solely due to the fact that being the supposed ultimate symbol of the post-war Free World made it ripe for subversion; criminal networks and the misdeeds of average citizens crawling under the surface of the booming metropolis. The city’s cinematic presence came even greater by this period’s emergent trend of noir films shooting on-location as opposed to embracing the artifice of a Los Angeles soundstage simulacra of the Big Apple; realism imparted on Hollywood as if a way of making the escapist medium of the movies taken more seriously as an art form.
Yet even the burden of verisimilitude could be flipped on its head by an outsider looking in, as by the end of the 1950s, the metropolis...
- 7/8/2017
- by Ethan Vestby
- The Film Stage
Every so often, usually while walking around Toronto on a busy day, I'll be struck by the vividness and accuracy of Agnès Varda's singular portrayal of a day in the life (barely two hours, really, making it even more remarkable) spent in the various layers and spaces of the urban environment. I speak, of course, of Cléo from 5 to 7, Varda's 1962 classic and the first film of hers I fell in love with. In those instances, I'll find myself returning to the moments I've cherry-picked as my favorites over the years, skipping across the linear sequence of events that follow the titular singer (Corinne Marchand) across Paris as she waits for the results from a medical examination within the film's designated timeframe (minus half an hour, as the film famously ends at the ninety minute mark). More than for any other film, engaging in these mental replays feels very much like replaying the events of a day I had once experienced myself long ago—albeit one that I’ve been able to revisit and come to know nearly by heart, complete with all of my favorite moments and details waiting in their proper places, so often have I gone back to that June 21st in Paris, 1961.Varda has even made it relatively easy for anyone who wishes to explore and investigate to their heart's content the events of that fateful first day of summer from so long ago now, not only by making such a crisp cinematic itinerary of the various locations visited in the film itself, but also by helpfully providing a map in her book Varda par Agnès complete with a color-coded legend indicating the locations of key scenes from the film, practically inviting the reader to recreate Cléo’s journey for themselves on the streets of present-day Paris. At once attentive and relaxed in its tour of the city (mainly focused in the Left Bank), Cléo is ably conducted in a number of different registers: as an uncommonly lovely essay-poem on the ebb and flow of urban life, an at-times somber meditation on the precarious balance between life and death, and a revealing and honest study of female identity and the ways it is scrutinized and distorted in the public’s relentless gaze. In a feat of remarkable economy and resourcefulness, the film was shot in chronological order across a five-week period, beginning on the date of the story’s events, synchronized as closely as possible to the times in the day Cléo experiences them, in keeping with narrative fidelity and proper quality of light for each scene. Neatly arranged into thirteen chapters, each with its duration clearly stated so we can easily keep track in real time, Cléo’s lucid odyssey through the various public and private spaces that make up her day is observational cinema at its most fertile, free, and magically attuned to its subjects, partly the result of Varda and her team’s carefully planned and executed shoot, partly that of simply being in the right places at the right times.Together, the films of the French New Wave make up one of the most valuable and immersive audiovisual documents of a specific time and place in history—namely France in the late 1950s and early 1960s—that we have. This is especially true of the Paris-situated films, which create the alluring image of an interconnected network of overlapping stories concentrated in a single city. The sharing of certain actors, cinematographers, writers, composers, and other key artists and technicians across different films by different directors especially helped make the impression of one Paris holding an eclectic anthology of New Wave tales. This perception was further reinforced by the cheeky self-referential winks and nods that so many of the New Wave directors—Jean-Luc Godard in particular—lovingly included in their films as gestures of solidarity and support with their nouvelle vague comrades. This is why the eponymous hero of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob le flambeur, noted by many as a crucial New Wave precursor, gets name-checked by Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard’s Breathless, why Truffaut muses Marie Dubois and Jeanne Moreau both pop up in A Woman Is a Woman, with Moreau getting asked by Belmondo how Jules and Jim is coming along, and why Anna Karina’s Nana glimpses a giant poster for the same Truffaut film as she is being driven to her fate in the final moments of Vivre sa vie.Varda got in on the fun herself in Cléo from 5 to 7 not only by casting Michel Legrand, who provided the film with its robust score, as Cléo’s musical partner Bob (a part that gives the legendary composer a substantial amount of screen time and amply shows off his incandescent charm), but also by extending the invitation to Godard, Karina, Sami Frey, Eddie Constantine, Jean-Claude Brialy, producer Georges de Beauregard, and Alan Scott, who had appeared in Jacques Demy’s Lola. They all show up in Les fiancés du pont Macdonald, the silent comedy short-within-the-film that serves triple duty as a welcome diversion for our stressed heroine, a loving cinephilic tribute to the legacy of Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd, and an irresistible, bite-sized New Wave party. And yet I find Cléo to be perhaps the most enchanting of all the New Wave films not for the aesthetic commonalities and cleverly devised linkages that bind it to The 400 Blows, Breathless, Paris Belongs to Us, and its other cinematic brethren, but rather for the tapestry of curious details that root it in its specific time and place and entice on the power of their inherent uniqueness and beauty. “Here,” Varda seems to say as she follows Cléo across the city, “let’s have a look at these interesting people and places on this first day of summer here in Paris, and see what we can see after watching them for a while.” The film’s opening scene continues to extend this invitation as it draws us in closer. It shows us, through the sepia-hued Eastmancolor that deviates from the rest of the film’s silvery monochrome and the “God’s eye” overhead shots (long before Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson adopted the technique as their own), the cryptic spectacle of Tarot cards being shuffled, placed down, and turned over to reveal the story of Cléo’s potential fate before we’ve even gotten a chance to properly meet Cléo herself. The slightly macabre illustrations to which Varda and cinematographer Jean Rabier dedicate their tight close-ups and the elderly card reader’s accompanying explanations of their meanings lend an air of prophecy to the events to come while also fueling Cléo’s anxiety surrounding her fate (when pressed for a clearer forecast of the future through a palm reading, the reader’s evasive response is less than inspiring). This introduction effectively locks us into Cléo’s perspective, preparing us for the next hour and a half that we will spend quietly observing as, following her distraught exit from the reader’s apartment, she grapples with her fears and insecurities, contemplates and revises her appearance and the identity behind it (tellingly, we discover late in the film that Cléo's real name is Florence), and comes to terms with the ultimately fragile nature of her own mortality. In our allotted chunk of time with her, we see the pouty girl-child subtly shift and adjust her attitude, inching a little closer towards a place of earned maturity, grace, and acceptance regarding her fate, wherever it may take her.Along the way, the film seems to expand to take in as much of the people and places around Cléo as it can. Scene by scene, her Paris makes itself felt and known through key peripheral details: a pair of lovers having an argument in a café near where Cléo sits, listening in; the procession of uniformed officers on horseback heard clip-clopping through the street on the soundtrack and seen reflected in the array of mirrors placed throughout a hat shop; a spider web of shattered mirror and a cloth pressed against a bloody wound, indicating some incident that occurred just before Cléo happened along the scene of the confused aftermath. Other stimuli fill a dazzling program of serendipitous entertainments for us to take in one by one: whirlwind rides in two taxis and a bus, an intimate musical rehearsal in Cléo’s chic, kitten-filled apartment (with Legrand, no less, clearly having a great time, his nimble fingers releasing ecstatic bursts of notes and melodies from Cléo’s piano as if they were exotic birds), the aforementioned silent short, a sculpting studio (the space alive with the indescribably pleasant sound of chisels being tapped at different tempos through soft stone), a frog swallower, a burly street performer who wiggles an iron spike through his arm, and the soothing sights and sounds of the Parc de Montsouris, among a hundred other subtle and overt pleasures scattered throughout this gently orchestrated city symphony, a heap of specificities found and sorted into a chorus of universal experience.Very much in her own way, across a body of work informed by a boundless spirit of generosity, Agnès Varda has gone about carefully collecting and preserving a marvelously varied assortment of subjects throughout her busy life, shedding fresh light on some of the most unlikely (and overlooked) people and places in the world. She refers to her self-made approach to filmmaking as ciné-criture (her own version of Alexandre Astruc's caméra-stylo), which, as we’ve come to know it through Varda’s intensely personal works, is a little like cinema, a little like writing, and uses aspects of both media to make a compassionate, genuine, and wholly original film language. Just as Antoine (Antoine Bourseiller), the dreamy young man whom Cléo encounters in the Parc de Montsouris, translates the world around them into a stream of fanciful observations and flowery speech, so too does Varda, in allegiance with poetry, ditch any semblance of objectivity, going instead for presenting the world simply as she sees it, investing it with her own unmistakable blend of charm, warmth, eloquence, and empathy, all somehow executed with nary a shred of ego or preachiness.“All these stories we simply can’t understand!” randomly exclaims a café patron to her young companion at one point late in Cléo’s journey, perhaps suddenly becoming aware, as we gradually have, of the unfathomable multitude of trajectories that trace themselves across every city every day in a dense tangle of narrative strands. In picking up Cléo’s and diligently following it with her camera for an hour and a half, Varda draws our attention to all those other strands that make up the lives of other people, leading off into their own directions, fated to become entangled with others still. Wisely, deftly, one discovered strand at a time, she helps us better appreciate, again and again, the humble miracle of so many lives coursing and thriving alongside each other, each one special and strange, each rooted in its own distinct flavor of being-ness. Cléo from 5 to 7 in turn roots us in another person’s life for its short time span and ends up giving us a whole universe, casually overflowing with meaning, life, lives, and the myriad details that shape and define them. No, we can’t understand all the stories we come across in a day. But then again, sometimes we don’t really need to understand so much as simply see. See, and accept, and appreciate what is...and then move along to whatever’s next.
- 6/20/2017
- MUBI
Mubi's series Jacques Becker's Companies is showing June 16 - July 18, 2017 in the United States.Le trouA striking thing about Jacques Becker, one of the last great classicists in French cinema, is the range of genres with which he was apparently at total ease. Astonishingly, the great critic and filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier recently said that Becker was maybe greater than Howard Hawks in this respect—a startling admission given that Hawks is an even more sacrosanct name for cinephiles of Tavernier’s age and predilection than his more obscure French contemporary. Becker, Tavernier said, had “an enormous range, and always [made films] with the same deeply organic quality.” Both Hawks and Becker are fascinated by genre, by the way that they can seemingly countermand inbuilt expectations by cultivating an atmosphere of life-like behavior that at least appears to undercut the revolving gears of plot. Both directors have come to be known as the makers of plotless movies,...
- 6/19/2017
- MUBI
Above: French poster for Le silence de la mer (Jean-Pierre Melville, France, 1949). Design by Raymond Gid.Many great filmmakers never got the posters their films deserved. Some of my favorite filmmakers—I'm thinking Yasujiro Ozu, Jacques Rivette, Mike Leigh, and Jean-Marie Straub, to name just a few—for one reason or another, whether it be the vagaries of distribution, the particulars of time and the place, or just the fact that what is so extraordinary about their filmmaking doesn’t translate to still images, have very few posters worthy of their reputation. Jean-Pierre Melville is not one of those. Undoubtedly, the archetype of Melville’s cinema—the trench-coat and fedora sporting, pistol touting tough guy—lends himself beautifully to graphic invention. But Melville made other kinds of films too, and somehow the posters for his entire 13-film oeuvre are an embarrassment of riches. It didn’t hurt that the great French poster artist,...
- 5/6/2017
- MUBI
Jean-Pierre Melville in his own film, Two Men in Manhattan“A man isn't tiny or giant enough to defeat anything”—Yukio MishimaA voracious cinephile in his early youth, Jean-Pierre Grumbach's daily intake of films was interrupted by the Second World War when he enlisted in the Ffl (Forces Français Libres) and adopted the nom de guerre by which he's still known to these days: Jean-Pierre Melville. A tribute to his literary hero, Hermann Melville, and his novel Pierre: or the Ambiguities, the director would have his name officially changed after the war. The latter was to shape and inform many of his films and arguably all of his world-view, characterized by a sort of ethical cynicism where anti-fascism is understood as a moral duty rather than an act of heroic courage. Profoundly anti-rhetoric and filled with a terse dignity, his films about the Resistance, Army of Shadows (1969) above all,...
- 5/1/2017
- MUBI
The sound of an electric pencil sharpener masks the crack of a shot that initiates what might have been the perfect murder in Louis Malle’s debut film, Elevator to the Gallows (1958), now touring theaters in a gorgeous 4K digital restoration courtesy of Rialto Pictures. Malle’s movie, distinct from the more naturalistic comedies and dramas that characterized his primary directorial focus, and certainly also from his later documentary work, is a fatalistic French film noir that exists tremulously in the space between a more classical, American-derived style and the first, faint signals of the French New Wave, which it seems to foreshadow with longing and a swoon of sustained anticipation.
The movie indicates the unusual silvery and shadowy visual pleasures of its brilliant cinematographer Henri Decae (Bob Le Flambeur, The 400 Blows, Purple Noon, Le Circle Rouge) right from the start: a masked close-up of the eyes of Florence...
The movie indicates the unusual silvery and shadowy visual pleasures of its brilliant cinematographer Henri Decae (Bob Le Flambeur, The 400 Blows, Purple Noon, Le Circle Rouge) right from the start: a masked close-up of the eyes of Florence...
- 8/14/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
Read More: 9 Must-See Dramas Set Against the Border "Bob le Flambeur" (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1956) Before "Ocean’s Eleven" came "Bob le Flambeur" from the French master of noir, Jean-Pierre Melville. Roger Duchesne plays the eponymous high roller, a middle-aged gambler and ex-con whose elegance is so apparent that he has even won the respect of the town’s cops. For Bob, gambling is not a mere addiction but an essential state of existence. When it is revealed that the Deauville casino will hold 800 million francs on a given night, Bob, who's on a bad streak of luck, assembles a crack team of cons to carry out the heist. While the film yields chance encounters and unintended consequences fit for any gambling movie, the heist itself is perhaps less important than the setup, which is drawn out to maximum effect in the seedy underbelly of Montmartre’s chilly nighttime streets. A calm...
- 9/24/2015
- by Indiewire
- Indiewire
Jim Jarmusch, progenitor of quiet, low-key, talky indies you almost never see today (except from him), shares his ten favorite movies (hat tip: Open Culture). The iconic American indie still makes movies in black-and-white, which is reflected in his love of Ozu, Bresson, Griffith and most everybody on this list, a near-perfect menagerie of genres and styles, Euro art movies and American classics. 1. "L’Atalante" (1934, Jean Vigo) 2. "Tokyo Story" (1953, Yasujiro Ozu) 3. "They Live by Night" (1949, Nicholas Ray) 4. "Bob le Flambeur" (1955, Jean-Pierre Melville) 5. "Sunrise" (1927, F.W. Murnau) 6. "The Cameraman" (1928, Buster Keaton/Edward Sedgwick) 7. "Mouchette" (1967, Robert Bresson) 8. "Seven Samurai" (1954, Akira Kurosawa) 9. "Broken Blossoms" (1919, D.W. Griffith) 10. "Rome, Open City" (1945, Roberto Rossellini) Read More: Toh! Ranks the Films of Jim Jarmusch...
- 6/10/2015
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
Qui aime les films français ?
If you do and you live in St. Louis, you’re in luck! The Seventh Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series begins March 13th. The Classic French Film Festival celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1930s through the early 1990s, offering a comprehensive overview of French cinema. The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations.
This year features recent restorations of eight works, including an extended director’s cut of Patrice Chéreau’s historical epic Queen Margot a New York-set film noir (Two Men In Manhattan) by crime-film maestro Jean-Pierre Melville, who also co-stars; a short feature (“A Day in the Country”) by Jean Renoir, on a double bill with the 2006 restoration of his masterpiece, The Rules Of The Game, and the...
If you do and you live in St. Louis, you’re in luck! The Seventh Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series begins March 13th. The Classic French Film Festival celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1930s through the early 1990s, offering a comprehensive overview of French cinema. The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations.
This year features recent restorations of eight works, including an extended director’s cut of Patrice Chéreau’s historical epic Queen Margot a New York-set film noir (Two Men In Manhattan) by crime-film maestro Jean-Pierre Melville, who also co-stars; a short feature (“A Day in the Country”) by Jean Renoir, on a double bill with the 2006 restoration of his masterpiece, The Rules Of The Game, and the...
- 3/4/2015
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The Criterion Collection has morality and crime on the mind for their April releases. It's a month that may be short on show-stopping titles, but for anyone looking to dig deeper into the some of the most legendary filmmakers the form has ever seen, this will be a good time to drop some dollars. We'll start over on the Eclipse line, where Yasujiro Ozu has three of his crime flicks collected: "Walk Cheerfully," "That Night's Wife," and "Dragnet Girl." In addition to being a different flavor from his more well known works like "Tokyo Story" and "Late Spring," they are also silent, giving these dramas a different edge. One to seek out if you're feeling adventurous. Meanwhile, Jean-Pierre Melville, the master behind "Le Samourai," "Le Cercle Rouge," and "Bob Le Flambeur," will see his "Le Silence De La Mer" enter the Collection. It will come packaged with interviews and an essay,...
- 1/15/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Review by Sam Moffitt
I was as shocked and saddened as anyone at hearing of the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Not that long ago I wrote a review of Jack Goes Boating for We Are Movie Geeks, directed by Hoffman and starring him in an amazing performance. I’m glad I did that as I had no way of knowing Hoffman wouldn’t be with us much longer. I cannot comment on the problems he had with addictions. I had my own substance issues for years. I never lost a job or stole anything to support any habit and I never had to go into rehab, I simply quit using anything. Two cups of coffee is about as wild as I get these days.
Of course the Hollywood haters came out on the internet and in newspaper letter columns slamming Hoffman and the entire Hollywood lifestyle. Again, I can...
I was as shocked and saddened as anyone at hearing of the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Not that long ago I wrote a review of Jack Goes Boating for We Are Movie Geeks, directed by Hoffman and starring him in an amazing performance. I’m glad I did that as I had no way of knowing Hoffman wouldn’t be with us much longer. I cannot comment on the problems he had with addictions. I had my own substance issues for years. I never lost a job or stole anything to support any habit and I never had to go into rehab, I simply quit using anything. Two cups of coffee is about as wild as I get these days.
Of course the Hollywood haters came out on the internet and in newspaper letter columns slamming Hoffman and the entire Hollywood lifestyle. Again, I can...
- 2/13/2014
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Louis Malle's classic contains many of the innovations that would become associated with the New Wave and demonstrates a kinship with Claude Chabrol
Is there any movie that's more perfectly French, more perfectly Parisian, and more perfectly 1950s than Louis Malle's debut Lift To The Scaffold? Melville's Bob Le Flambeur, perhaps, or Cocteau's Orphée, but there is also in Malle's movie a strong indication of the new directions French cinema would soon take. Although Malle was never officially a part of La Nouvelle Vague, Lift To The Scaffold contains many of the innovations that would later become more closely associated with the Cahiers du Cinéma generation.
This movie made Jeanne Moreau, whose iconic beauty was newly revealed here after Malle got her to ditch the makeup she'd hitherto relied on. She went on to become one of the banner faces of the New Wave, most famously for Truffaut in Jules Et Jim,...
Is there any movie that's more perfectly French, more perfectly Parisian, and more perfectly 1950s than Louis Malle's debut Lift To The Scaffold? Melville's Bob Le Flambeur, perhaps, or Cocteau's Orphée, but there is also in Malle's movie a strong indication of the new directions French cinema would soon take. Although Malle was never officially a part of La Nouvelle Vague, Lift To The Scaffold contains many of the innovations that would later become more closely associated with the Cahiers du Cinéma generation.
This movie made Jeanne Moreau, whose iconic beauty was newly revealed here after Malle got her to ditch the makeup she'd hitherto relied on. She went on to become one of the banner faces of the New Wave, most famously for Truffaut in Jules Et Jim,...
- 2/3/2014
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
A little bit of a slower week for me as it was my first major screening week of the new year with Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Ride Along and as a result, at home, I only watched one movie, Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le Flambeur. I wrote the following about Bob le Flambeur on my Letterboxd.com list for the year: A film where I could imagine a remake starring Burt Lancaster in Roger Duchesne's title role and now the earliest Melville film I've seen. Has some rough patches in the second act, but the third act plays out unlike what I expected. Goes to show why the New Wave is looked upon so favorably. Although this is considered something of a precursor to the New Wave movement, it features a lot of the cinematic details associated with some of my all-time favorite films. Other than that, I...
- 1/19/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 12 Dec 2013 - 05:49
The year of Baggins, Potter and Spider-Man also had a wealth of lesser-known movies. Here’s our pick of 2002's underappreciated films...
At the top of the box office tree, 2002 was dominated by fantasy and special effects. Peter Jackson's The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers made almost a billion dollars all by itself, with Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets taking second place and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man not too far behind.
In many ways, 2002 set the tempo for the Hollywood blockbuster landscape, which has changed relatively little in the decade since. A quick look at 2013‘s top 10, for example, reveals a markedly similar mix of superhero movies, with Iron Man 3 still ruling the roost at the time of writing, followed by effects-heavy action flicks and family-friendly animated features.
As usual in these lists, we're looking...
The year of Baggins, Potter and Spider-Man also had a wealth of lesser-known movies. Here’s our pick of 2002's underappreciated films...
At the top of the box office tree, 2002 was dominated by fantasy and special effects. Peter Jackson's The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers made almost a billion dollars all by itself, with Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets taking second place and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man not too far behind.
In many ways, 2002 set the tempo for the Hollywood blockbuster landscape, which has changed relatively little in the decade since. A quick look at 2013‘s top 10, for example, reveals a markedly similar mix of superhero movies, with Iron Man 3 still ruling the roost at the time of writing, followed by effects-heavy action flicks and family-friendly animated features.
As usual in these lists, we're looking...
- 12/11/2013
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
The Notebook is proud to present this video essay in coordination with Transit magazine, where you can find the Spanish version of the piece.
Lucky 13
13 variations for 13 films, accompanied by the musical theme composed by François de Roubaix for Le samouraï (1967): the cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville condensed into a series of motifs that travel from movie to movie, reiterating and transforming, finding their full meaning only when they are put into relation. A non-exhaustive collection1, but filled with recognisable images that clearly obsess this filmmaker.
1. Jef Costello’s second murder in Le samouraï, Maite’s devastating death at the end of Army of Shadows (1969), the shooting of Mattei and Vogel in Le cercle rouge (1970) or—the most paradigmatic example of all—of Maurice, Silien and Kern in Le doulos (1962). It is the matter of a rule with few exceptions, a pattern that is rarely broken: whenever Melville’s...
Lucky 13
13 variations for 13 films, accompanied by the musical theme composed by François de Roubaix for Le samouraï (1967): the cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville condensed into a series of motifs that travel from movie to movie, reiterating and transforming, finding their full meaning only when they are put into relation. A non-exhaustive collection1, but filled with recognisable images that clearly obsess this filmmaker.
1. Jef Costello’s second murder in Le samouraï, Maite’s devastating death at the end of Army of Shadows (1969), the shooting of Mattei and Vogel in Le cercle rouge (1970) or—the most paradigmatic example of all—of Maurice, Silien and Kern in Le doulos (1962). It is the matter of a rule with few exceptions, a pattern that is rarely broken: whenever Melville’s...
- 9/19/2013
- by Cristina Álvarez López & Adrian Martin
- MUBI
A movie heist is pretty much the same as a real-life one: you're only as good as your crew. And writer/director Jonathan Sobol managed to put together an expert one for the follow-up to his acclaimed debut "A Beginner's Guide to Endings."
For "The Art of the Steal," a border-hopping crime comedy full of double-crosses and high stakes heists, Sobol convinced big names like Kurt Russell, Terence Stamp, Matt Dillon and Jay Baruchel to come along for the ride. And for his part, Baruchel said the decision to join up was an easy one. He liked the script and cast, and he and the Canadian writer/director shared a mutual affinity for making movies at home, as well as knowing when to pepper the tightly-scripted heist plot with bits of improvised humour.
Moviefone Canada sat down with Baruchel and Sobol during the Toronto International Film Festival, where we heard about Sobol's heist movie inspirations,...
For "The Art of the Steal," a border-hopping crime comedy full of double-crosses and high stakes heists, Sobol convinced big names like Kurt Russell, Terence Stamp, Matt Dillon and Jay Baruchel to come along for the ride. And for his part, Baruchel said the decision to join up was an easy one. He liked the script and cast, and he and the Canadian writer/director shared a mutual affinity for making movies at home, as well as knowing when to pepper the tightly-scripted heist plot with bits of improvised humour.
Moviefone Canada sat down with Baruchel and Sobol during the Toronto International Film Festival, where we heard about Sobol's heist movie inspirations,...
- 9/18/2013
- by Rick Mele
- Moviefone
Un Flic: Jean-Pierre Melville’s ‘late noir classic’ (photo: Alain Delon in Un Flic) Jean-Pierre Melville’s last film, Un Flic / A Cop (1972), is a late noir classic that features all the central trappings of the genre along with — what was then — a modern sensibility about the nature of who, ostensibly, are supposed to be the good guys. Perhaps it goes without saying they’re not much different than the bad guys; even so, as is the case in many Melville films, good guys and bad guys are mirrors of each other, the same yet different. Add to that several daring high-stakes criminal enterprises and, of course, a femme fatale (played beautifully by the beautiful Catherine Deneuve), and you’ve got a film that, while not the masterpiece of Melville’s canon, would have been so for most other filmmakers. Despite its title, Un Flic is as much about a very cool criminal,...
- 6/30/2013
- by Tim Cogshell
- Alt Film Guide
Jean-Pierre Melville (October 20, 1917 – August 2, 1973), was a French film director often looked upon as the ‘king crime-noir films’. His body of work and mise-en-scene style heavily influenced Scorsese, John Woo and Tarantino to name but a few. Under-stated and minimalist, he managed the difficult process of making an artistic film also commercially viable. Melville would control everything from set design, writing the script, and running the camera, mixing obsessive gangster pastiches with restrained, precise and sensitive symbolism.
Described as the ‘Poet of the underworld’ and the ‘garlic gangster’, he was considered to be the “father of the nouvelle vague”, a major influence on the French New Wave movement. But it was the American gangster films of the ’30s and ’40s starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart that really caught his imagination. Melville recreated the genre for a new wave audience using weapons, trench coats and fedora hats, to shape a characteristic look in his movies.
Described as the ‘Poet of the underworld’ and the ‘garlic gangster’, he was considered to be the “father of the nouvelle vague”, a major influence on the French New Wave movement. But it was the American gangster films of the ’30s and ’40s starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart that really caught his imagination. Melville recreated the genre for a new wave audience using weapons, trench coats and fedora hats, to shape a characteristic look in his movies.
- 3/13/2012
- by Matthew Gunn
- Obsessed with Film
Below you will find a list of movie that Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright has never seen. Not long ago Wright went out and asked his friends and fans to recommend some movies they thought he may have missed over the last thirty years of his life. He got recommendations from Quentin Tarantino, Daniel Waters, Bill Hader, John Landis, Guillermo Del Toro, Joe Dante, Judd Apatow, Joss Whedon, Greg Mottola, Schwartzman, Doug Benson, Rian Johnson, Larry Karaszeski, Josh Olson, Harry Knowles and hundreds of fans on this blog.
From these recommendations, Wright created a master list of recommended films that were frequently mentioned. The director now wants the fans to choose which of the films on the list he should watch on the big screen.
Wright is holding a film event at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles called Films Edgar Has Never Seen.
From these recommendations, Wright created a master list of recommended films that were frequently mentioned. The director now wants the fans to choose which of the films on the list he should watch on the big screen.
Wright is holding a film event at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles called Films Edgar Has Never Seen.
- 10/18/2011
- by Venkman
- GeekTyrant
Edgar Wright's latest epic project [1] has him partnering with Quentin Tarantino, Judd Apatow, Joss Whedon, Bill Hader, Guillermo Del Toro, Joe Dante, Greg Mottola, Harry Knowles, Rian Johnson and, probably, several of you. Like all of us, Wright has a bunch of classic and cult films he's never seen. Unlike all of us, he has the means to see them for the first time on the big screen and will do just that in December [2] at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles during Films Edgar Has Never Seen. The director of Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World asked both his famous friends (some of which are listed above) and fans to send in their personal must see lists and, from those titles, Wright came up with one mega list from which he'll pick a few movies to watch December 9-16. After the jump check...
- 10/18/2011
- by Germain Lussier
- Slash Film
Here's one of several casting breaks to come your way in the next few hours, and this one is pretty damned good. Why? Because after the break you'll find info on the following: Nick Nolte takes a role in hard-boiled crime thriller Parker. Jesse Eisenberg plays dopplegangers in The Double. And Mark Ruffalo and Amanda Seyfried join the increasingly promising FBI vs magicians thriller Now You See Me. Parker is the latest film to bring Donald E. Westlake's famed thief to the screen. It can now boast another great name as Nick Nolte has been revealed as part of the cast. So we've got Jason Statham holding down the broad audience appeal playing Parker (star of more than 20 novels Westlake wrote as Richard Stark), and Jennifer Lopez, Clifton Collins, Jr., Michael Chiklis and Wendell Pierce all in other roles. No word on who Nick Nolte plays, but I'll take...
- 8/5/2011
- by Russ Fischer
- Slash Film
It's amazing how your perspective on movies changes the more you see and the more you open your mind to different kinds of films. In June 2009 I bought Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai as a blind buy. I loved it, and it remains my favorite Melville film to date. Since then I have seen Le Doulos, Army of Shadows and, of course, Le Cercle Rouge. All are films that change your perspective on filmmaking, and strangely, while Melville was obsessed with American films during his day, his films would turn an audience off today as quickly as they captured audiences attention over 60 years ago.
Case in point, Anton Corbijn's The American, a film improperly sold to audiences as a thriller in the same vein as the Bourne franchise, but instead finds more of a relation to Melville's cold and calculated features. In my review I referenced Le Samourai,...
Case in point, Anton Corbijn's The American, a film improperly sold to audiences as a thriller in the same vein as the Bourne franchise, but instead finds more of a relation to Melville's cold and calculated features. In my review I referenced Le Samourai,...
- 6/10/2011
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
One more reason to be super jealous of our friends in Austin, the announcement of the Paramount’s Summer Classic Film Series 2011 would make any classic film lover think they had died and gone to heaven. Celebrating 36 years and going strong, the place to be during the summer is Austin (as usual). And of course, when there’s classic films being announced at a repertory theater, there’s always a few Criterion connections.
Peter Bogdanovich, who recently entered the Criterion collection himself with his magnificent film The Last Picture Show (which will be screening July 27th – 28th, hosted by Sam Beam of Iron & Wine), will be there at the kick off, on May 20th, where he will be discussing Hollywood history which then is followed by a screening of Casablanca and a film of his choosing. That alone is worth your anticipation, because if anyone has great stories about film,...
Peter Bogdanovich, who recently entered the Criterion collection himself with his magnificent film The Last Picture Show (which will be screening July 27th – 28th, hosted by Sam Beam of Iron & Wine), will be there at the kick off, on May 20th, where he will be discussing Hollywood history which then is followed by a screening of Casablanca and a film of his choosing. That alone is worth your anticipation, because if anyone has great stories about film,...
- 5/13/2011
- by James McCormick
- CriterionCast
Filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier.
Bertrand Tavernier: Taking Rabbits Out Of Hats
By Alex Simon
Bertrand Tavernier was bitten by the cinema bug at a tender age, falling in love with a diverse slate of films and filmmakers like Jean Renoir, Fritz Lang and Buster Keaton. Born in Lyon in 1941, Tavernier abandoned his law studies to write for the now-legendary French cinema magazine Cahiers du Cinema, which also launched auteurs like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Making his directing debut with The Clockmaker of Saint-Paul in 1974, Tavernier’s career has been a prolific one, with 35 films to his credit, and dozens of awards, including the Best Director prize at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival for A Sunday in the Country.
Tavernier’s latest film is the sweeping epic The Princess of Montpensier, an adaptation of a 1662 novel which was published anonymously, but later credited to French noblewoman Madame de La Fayette. Set...
Bertrand Tavernier: Taking Rabbits Out Of Hats
By Alex Simon
Bertrand Tavernier was bitten by the cinema bug at a tender age, falling in love with a diverse slate of films and filmmakers like Jean Renoir, Fritz Lang and Buster Keaton. Born in Lyon in 1941, Tavernier abandoned his law studies to write for the now-legendary French cinema magazine Cahiers du Cinema, which also launched auteurs like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Making his directing debut with The Clockmaker of Saint-Paul in 1974, Tavernier’s career has been a prolific one, with 35 films to his credit, and dozens of awards, including the Best Director prize at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival for A Sunday in the Country.
Tavernier’s latest film is the sweeping epic The Princess of Montpensier, an adaptation of a 1662 novel which was published anonymously, but later credited to French noblewoman Madame de La Fayette. Set...
- 4/14/2011
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
If you haven't seen the key films by Jean-Pierre Melville, now is a great time to change that. Movies like Bob le Flambeur, Le Samourai, Army of Shadows and Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle) have inspired many notable filmmakers and are, simply, magnificent cinematic experiences. Remarkably, most of his major films have escaped being remade, though John Woo (a major Melville fan) has talked about remaking both Le Samourai and Le Cercle Rouge. The latter passed from his hands into those of Johnnie To, who had actors attached, then it went briefly to John Hillcoat. Now the Le Cercle Rouge remake is in entirely the wrong hands: those of Unknown director Jaume Collet-Serra. Deadline [1] says that the Steve Knight script that was the backbone of the Johnnie To version is still in play at Working Title, and that the reins have been handed to Jaume Collet-Serra based on the...
- 2/18/2011
- by Russ Fischer
- Slash Film
Welcome to “Not In The English Language”, a new weekly column from HeyUGuys.
Each week a different film not in the English language will come under scrutiny. First up is Louis Malle’s 1958 French crime drama, Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud (Elevator To The Gallows), one of the key influences behind the Nouvelle Vague.
If the work of Jean-Pierre Melville laid the foundations of the Nouvelle Vague, then it might be fair to say that with Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud Louis Malle concludes with the empty building that would house the movement being fully erected. That Malle would never fully return to the stylistic tone that he helped create is proof, if proof were needed, of the versatile nature of the anti-auteur’s oeuvre.
Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud holds a fairly basic premise, yet this simple set up is contradicted by all manner of narrative flourishes throughout. What begins as the...
Each week a different film not in the English language will come under scrutiny. First up is Louis Malle’s 1958 French crime drama, Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud (Elevator To The Gallows), one of the key influences behind the Nouvelle Vague.
If the work of Jean-Pierre Melville laid the foundations of the Nouvelle Vague, then it might be fair to say that with Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud Louis Malle concludes with the empty building that would house the movement being fully erected. That Malle would never fully return to the stylistic tone that he helped create is proof, if proof were needed, of the versatile nature of the anti-auteur’s oeuvre.
Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud holds a fairly basic premise, yet this simple set up is contradicted by all manner of narrative flourishes throughout. What begins as the...
- 12/15/2010
- by Adam Batty
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Both versions of Ocean’s 11 came at a cultural moment’s high water mark, each of them an encapsulating snapshot of an optimistic aesthetic on its way out. Steven Sodebergh’s hit theaters December of 2001, and is one of the last blockbusters reflecting a confident, happy (pre-9/11, if you must) America. Its fun, joyous excess has none of the dark, brooding sentiment so visible, or so visibly hidden, in the big movies of the last seven or eight years. In the original Ocean’s 11, released in 1960, tough guys still wore suits and sang accompanied by xylophones, derided emotional depth and cracked wise at even their lowest moments. And both films have an undercurrent of melancholy and nostalgia that gives them a historical poignancy often lacking in Hollywood fare.
Lewis Milestone’s Ocean’s 11 was the Rat Pack’s biggest hit, and it cemented Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and...
Lewis Milestone’s Ocean’s 11 was the Rat Pack’s biggest hit, and it cemented Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and...
- 11/12/2010
- by Willie Osterweil
- JustPressPlay.net
The new wave 40 years early. The soft side of Jean-Pierre Melville. Nicole Kidman makes the unmakeable. Somewhere out there is an alternative history of film – David Thomson unearths 10 lost works of genius
Erotikon (1920)
Forget 1920, this is an absolutely modern comedy about romance and sex, directed in Sweden by Mauritz Stiller. We should remember that when MGM brought Greta Garbo from Sweden in the mid-20s, she was almost baggage in the deal that hired Stiller, one of the sharpest and most sophisticated of silent directors, but a man who would be crushed by Hollywood. Stiller needs to be recovered (like his contemporary, Victor Sjöström), and Erotikon has an instinct for attraction and infidelity that simply couldn't be permitted in American films of the same period. It's also marvellous to see that, nearly 100 years ago, Swedish cinema was in love with its country's cool light and with actresses as warm but ambiguous as Tora Teje,...
Erotikon (1920)
Forget 1920, this is an absolutely modern comedy about romance and sex, directed in Sweden by Mauritz Stiller. We should remember that when MGM brought Greta Garbo from Sweden in the mid-20s, she was almost baggage in the deal that hired Stiller, one of the sharpest and most sophisticated of silent directors, but a man who would be crushed by Hollywood. Stiller needs to be recovered (like his contemporary, Victor Sjöström), and Erotikon has an instinct for attraction and infidelity that simply couldn't be permitted in American films of the same period. It's also marvellous to see that, nearly 100 years ago, Swedish cinema was in love with its country's cool light and with actresses as warm but ambiguous as Tora Teje,...
- 8/19/2010
- by David Thomson
- The Guardian - Film News
First off, to those of you expecting a review of Chinatown (1974) as promised in the hint that was contained in the Blue Velvet (1986) piece, I apologize. Chinatown will be the next film covered in the retrospective. I simply got sidetracked in the wake of Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010) by the auteur completest in me, demanding that I actually sit down and watch Following (1998). While it didn't reach the heights of Memento (2000) or Insomnia (2002), the latter of which is perhaps Nolan's most overlooked and underestimated film due to its remake status, I very much enjoyed his rough and ragged debut (which is allegedly up for both the Criterion treatment and a theatrical re-release thanks to his most recent success---in the meantime you can catch it on Netflix Watch Instantly).
The film is bare, cut and dry almost to the point of The Limey (1999), beginning with a young struggling writer (Jeremy Theobald...
The film is bare, cut and dry almost to the point of The Limey (1999), beginning with a young struggling writer (Jeremy Theobald...
- 7/22/2010
- by Drew Morton
One of my favorite parts of this news reporting facet of our podcast, is discussing the new releases. Every month, around the 15th, we get several new titles to look forward to, knowing that this collection of films continues to grow, and that our passion for important films has not passed into the night. Easily the worst, most disappointing part of the news reporting has to be when the titles go out of print. This is something we all have come to expect, as titles have gone out of print since Criterion has been licensing films on Laserdisc.
Over the past few months, we’ve seen the incredible Blu-ray and DVD edition of the Third Man go out of print, along with a slew of releases that Studio Canal had originally licensed to Criterion, and then moved over to Lionsgate. Two of the Studio Canal titles, Ran and Contempt, have...
Over the past few months, we’ve seen the incredible Blu-ray and DVD edition of the Third Man go out of print, along with a slew of releases that Studio Canal had originally licensed to Criterion, and then moved over to Lionsgate. Two of the Studio Canal titles, Ran and Contempt, have...
- 6/11/2010
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Filmmaker Curtis Harrington: 1926-2007.
Our Friend Curtis Harrington
by Jon Zelazny
Curtis Harrington was born in Los Angeles in 1926. He made short films as a teenager, graduated from USC, and began his Hollywood career in the 1950’s. By the end of the decade, he was directing: independent films, studio pictures, made-for-tv movies, and episodic TV. He completed his last short film in 2002, and died in 2007 at the age of 80.
I knew Curtis well in his final years, as did writer-producer Dennis Bartok, the former head programmer of L.A.’s famed American Cinematheque.
Dennis Bartok: I think the most interesting aspect of Curtis’s career is that he was really the only filmmaker to successfully transition from the avant-garde scene of the late 1940’s to directing Hollywood feature films. And when you see how distinctive his movies are, you wish he could’ve made more… but when you...
Our Friend Curtis Harrington
by Jon Zelazny
Curtis Harrington was born in Los Angeles in 1926. He made short films as a teenager, graduated from USC, and began his Hollywood career in the 1950’s. By the end of the decade, he was directing: independent films, studio pictures, made-for-tv movies, and episodic TV. He completed his last short film in 2002, and died in 2007 at the age of 80.
I knew Curtis well in his final years, as did writer-producer Dennis Bartok, the former head programmer of L.A.’s famed American Cinematheque.
Dennis Bartok: I think the most interesting aspect of Curtis’s career is that he was really the only filmmaker to successfully transition from the avant-garde scene of the late 1940’s to directing Hollywood feature films. And when you see how distinctive his movies are, you wish he could’ve made more… but when you...
- 4/1/2010
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
There's a social gulf between the Paris of French movies about the chattering classes and the city's bleaker outlying suburbs
As if to atone for the absurdly warm-hued, nostalgic vision of Montmartre he gave us in Amélie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet has set Micmacs, his latest film, in parts of the Parisian banlieue I try to avoid after dark. A friend lives there, and he double-locks not just his front door, but his garden gate, which is about 10ft tall, with spikes on it.
But fear not; though Jeunet wrangles corporate amorality and society's rejects into a semi-silent version of Mission: Impossible, he still manages to make the suburbs of Paris, where much of the 2005 rioting took place, look, yes, absurdly warm-hued and nostalgic. Gee, you think, maybe I'll buy a nice little pad there after all.
Jeunet, however, makes Luc Besson look like Ken Loach. Besson, godfather of new French action cinema,...
As if to atone for the absurdly warm-hued, nostalgic vision of Montmartre he gave us in Amélie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet has set Micmacs, his latest film, in parts of the Parisian banlieue I try to avoid after dark. A friend lives there, and he double-locks not just his front door, but his garden gate, which is about 10ft tall, with spikes on it.
But fear not; though Jeunet wrangles corporate amorality and society's rejects into a semi-silent version of Mission: Impossible, he still manages to make the suburbs of Paris, where much of the 2005 rioting took place, look, yes, absurdly warm-hued and nostalgic. Gee, you think, maybe I'll buy a nice little pad there after all.
Jeunet, however, makes Luc Besson look like Ken Loach. Besson, godfather of new French action cinema,...
- 2/25/2010
- by Anne Billson
- The Guardian - Film News
Jacques Audiard's new prison thriller is the most stylish film to come out of Europe for years, following up on the promise of his previous movies Read My Lips and The Beat that My Heart Skipped and confirming his place among the greats of French cinema. Jason Solomons talks to a director who wants his audience to fly with him
Jacques Audiard wears a hat. It's a trilby that, the 57-year-old director says, keeps him warm in the winter and cool in the summer. He was wearing it in the heat of Cannes last May when I first met him, on a blazing roof terrace; and he's wearing it again today, in London, on an autumnal Monday when I catch him smoking his pipe outside the hotel where we're due to meet.
With horn-rimmed glasses, smart jacket and a cravat, he looks a bit like an English gentleman, a...
Jacques Audiard wears a hat. It's a trilby that, the 57-year-old director says, keeps him warm in the winter and cool in the summer. He was wearing it in the heat of Cannes last May when I first met him, on a blazing roof terrace; and he's wearing it again today, in London, on an autumnal Monday when I catch him smoking his pipe outside the hotel where we're due to meet.
With horn-rimmed glasses, smart jacket and a cravat, he looks a bit like an English gentleman, a...
- 12/6/2009
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
I fear that asking the average person these days what the phrase “French New Wave” means to them, I would regrettably receive one of two responses… “What?” or, the slightly less distressing response of “Wasn’t that a punk music movement in the 80’s?” The answer to both responses is “No!”
Jean-Luc Godard didn’t just create an artistic and entertaining film with Breathless (A bout de souffle) but, he also helped create a whole new style of filmmaking. What’s even more fascinating is that this is his first feature film, a film in which he took significant experiemental risks, and yet it became such an influential work. This is primarily a cops and robber story. Godard pokes fun on occasion at the scenes of the police doing their invetigative work, but the scenes still drive the story forward.
The story follows a small-time criminal named Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo...
Jean-Luc Godard didn’t just create an artistic and entertaining film with Breathless (A bout de souffle) but, he also helped create a whole new style of filmmaking. What’s even more fascinating is that this is his first feature film, a film in which he took significant experiemental risks, and yet it became such an influential work. This is primarily a cops and robber story. Godard pokes fun on occasion at the scenes of the police doing their invetigative work, but the scenes still drive the story forward.
The story follows a small-time criminal named Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo...
- 8/13/2009
- by Travis
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The Museum of Modern Art is presenting "Rialto Pictures: Reviving Classic Cinema," a 17-film series celebrating the 10th anniversary of the art house revival distributor. Films by Robert Bresson ("Mouchette"), Carol Reed ("The Third Man"), Luis Bunuel ("Diary of a Chambermaid"), Federico Fellini ("Nights of Cabiria"), Jean-Luc Godard ("Masculin feminine") and Jean-Pierre Melville ("Bob le Flambeur") will be screened. The selection chosen by MOMA Department of Film senior curator Laurence Kardish will be screened from July 25 to Aug. 10 in New York.
- 6/27/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
As heist movies go, if Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven and Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le Flambeur represent the A team, then After the Sunset at best qualifies for the C team. The heist itself is almost dull, and the characters aren't half as colorful or interesting as they need to be. The movie comes off more like a watered-down film version of an Elmore Leonard crime novel set in tropical climes, only without his gritty edge or sagacious take on the human condition.
Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek have their moments as a larcenous couple, but the Caribbean locations pretty much steal the show from them. Meanwhile, Woody Harrelson plays a renegade FBI agent whose character is too vague for the actor to really shine. And Ocean's Eleven refugee Don Cheadle must have been doing director Brett Ratner a favor by stepping into a thankless bad-guy role. After the Sunset may enjoy modest boxoffice success but will probably do better in the video market.
The film opens with an outlandish heist of an impossibly valuable diamond, which our intrepid anti-heroes, Max (Brosnan), the "king of alibis," and luscious Lola (Hayek), pull off despite its being protected an army of cops and guards along with FBI agent Stan Lloyd (Harrelson). The duo then whisks off to Paradise Island in the Bahamas, leaving Stan, a man whom they have bedeviled for seven years, to pick up the pieces of a shattered career in law enforcement.
Several months later, Lola is still enjoying long walks on the beach and brilliant sunsets from their beachfront cabana. Ah, but Max is bored to death and no closer to completing his marriage vows than when they arrived. Suddenly, Stan shows up, making plain his belief that these two selected this particular island outpost because a touring cruise ship with a Napoleon diamond aboard is dropping anchor for a lengthy stay. The couple seems only dimly aware of this coincidence, but temptation and the blandishments of a local gangster (Cheadle), who wants to partner with Max in its theft, set the plot in motion.
The beautiful people quotient is quite high as Brosnan, usually in a scruffy beard, and the clean-shaven Harrelson are often shirtless, Hayek rarely dresses in more than swim wear and Naomie Harris plays a local cop with hot island sass. But the characters are tissue thin and writers Paul Zbyszewski and Craig Rosenberg never bring them to life in compelling ways. The twists and turns feel overly schematic and fail to highlight any essential elements to the characters' personalities.
Stan is particularly a puzzle. Why his FBI superiors hold him responsible when Max and Lola outwit an entire team of guards is incomprehensible. His presence on the island is also poorly motivated. Does he seriously expect to catch the couple red-handed as they snatch the diamond? Or does he want in on the action? By hanging out with the couple, almost as if he, too, were on vacation, he virtually guarantees failure at either enterprise.
Ratner directs competently and his crew does a professional job, but the unimaginative material pretty much reduces them to ogling glorious sunsets, picturesque tourist traps and knockout island girls.
AFTER THE SUNSET
New Line Cinema
A Firm Films/Contrafilm/Rat Entertainment production
Credits:
Director: Brett Ratner
Screenwriters: Paul Zbyszewski, Craig Rosenberg
Story by: Paul Zbyszewski
Producers: Beau Flynn, Tripp Vinson, Jay Stern
Executive producers: Patrick Palmer, Toby Emmerich, Kent Alterman
Director of photography: Daniel Spinotti
Production designer: Geoffrey Kirkland
Music: Lalo Schifrin
Costumes: Rita Ryack
Editor: Mark Helfrich
Cast:
Max Burdett: Pierce Brosnan
Lola Cirillo: Salma Hayek
Stan Lloyd: Woody Harrelson
Henri Moore: Dan Cheadle
Sophie: Naomi Harris
Luc: Troy Garity
Rowdy Fan: Chris Penn
Jean-Paul: Russell Hornsby
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 108 minutes...
Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek have their moments as a larcenous couple, but the Caribbean locations pretty much steal the show from them. Meanwhile, Woody Harrelson plays a renegade FBI agent whose character is too vague for the actor to really shine. And Ocean's Eleven refugee Don Cheadle must have been doing director Brett Ratner a favor by stepping into a thankless bad-guy role. After the Sunset may enjoy modest boxoffice success but will probably do better in the video market.
The film opens with an outlandish heist of an impossibly valuable diamond, which our intrepid anti-heroes, Max (Brosnan), the "king of alibis," and luscious Lola (Hayek), pull off despite its being protected an army of cops and guards along with FBI agent Stan Lloyd (Harrelson). The duo then whisks off to Paradise Island in the Bahamas, leaving Stan, a man whom they have bedeviled for seven years, to pick up the pieces of a shattered career in law enforcement.
Several months later, Lola is still enjoying long walks on the beach and brilliant sunsets from their beachfront cabana. Ah, but Max is bored to death and no closer to completing his marriage vows than when they arrived. Suddenly, Stan shows up, making plain his belief that these two selected this particular island outpost because a touring cruise ship with a Napoleon diamond aboard is dropping anchor for a lengthy stay. The couple seems only dimly aware of this coincidence, but temptation and the blandishments of a local gangster (Cheadle), who wants to partner with Max in its theft, set the plot in motion.
The beautiful people quotient is quite high as Brosnan, usually in a scruffy beard, and the clean-shaven Harrelson are often shirtless, Hayek rarely dresses in more than swim wear and Naomie Harris plays a local cop with hot island sass. But the characters are tissue thin and writers Paul Zbyszewski and Craig Rosenberg never bring them to life in compelling ways. The twists and turns feel overly schematic and fail to highlight any essential elements to the characters' personalities.
Stan is particularly a puzzle. Why his FBI superiors hold him responsible when Max and Lola outwit an entire team of guards is incomprehensible. His presence on the island is also poorly motivated. Does he seriously expect to catch the couple red-handed as they snatch the diamond? Or does he want in on the action? By hanging out with the couple, almost as if he, too, were on vacation, he virtually guarantees failure at either enterprise.
Ratner directs competently and his crew does a professional job, but the unimaginative material pretty much reduces them to ogling glorious sunsets, picturesque tourist traps and knockout island girls.
AFTER THE SUNSET
New Line Cinema
A Firm Films/Contrafilm/Rat Entertainment production
Credits:
Director: Brett Ratner
Screenwriters: Paul Zbyszewski, Craig Rosenberg
Story by: Paul Zbyszewski
Producers: Beau Flynn, Tripp Vinson, Jay Stern
Executive producers: Patrick Palmer, Toby Emmerich, Kent Alterman
Director of photography: Daniel Spinotti
Production designer: Geoffrey Kirkland
Music: Lalo Schifrin
Costumes: Rita Ryack
Editor: Mark Helfrich
Cast:
Max Burdett: Pierce Brosnan
Lola Cirillo: Salma Hayek
Stan Lloyd: Woody Harrelson
Henri Moore: Dan Cheadle
Sophie: Naomi Harris
Luc: Troy Garity
Rowdy Fan: Chris Penn
Jean-Paul: Russell Hornsby
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time -- 108 minutes...
- 12/2/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Award-winning Irish director Neil Jordan is taking a gamble on his new movie - and Nick Nolte's going to help him out. Jordan is to team up with Hollywood veteran Nolte to make a film about the gambling world. Jordan will write, direct and produce a remake of Bob le flambeur (1955) (a.k.a. Bob the Gambler), the story of an ageing gangster who tries to pull off the ultimate casino robbery. The original movie was a low budget French film made in black and white way back in 1955. Jordan is due to begin shooting the new version in France this March (01). Busy Jordan is also planning to film the story of Ned Kelly Australia's most famous outlaw. He recently bought the rights to Peter Carey's novel The True History of the Kelly Gang. Jordan will write the script himself while his business partner Stephen Woolley will produce. It will be shot in the Australian outback early next year.
- 1/30/2001
- WENN
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