Actualités

Cinematography retrospectives are the way to go—more than a thorough display of talent, it exposes the vast expanse a Dp will travel, like an education in form and business all the same. Accordingly I’m happy to see the Criterion Channel give a 25-film tribute to James Wong Howe, whose career spanned silent cinema to the ’70s, populated with work by Howard Hawks, Michael Curtz, Samuel Fuller, Alexander Mackendrick, Sydney Pollack, John Frankenheimer, and Raoul Walsh.

Further retrospectives are granted to Romy Schneider (recent repertory sensation La piscine among them), Carlos Saura (finally a chance to see Peppermint frappe!), the British New Wave, and groundbreaking distributor Cinema 5, who brought to U.S. shores everything from The Man Who Fell to Earth and Putney Swope to Pumping Iron and Scenes from a Marriage.

September also yields streaming premieres for the recently restored Bronco Bullfrog, Ang Lee’s Pushing Hands,...

An unsung genre masterpiece from Claude Sautet, 1971’s Max and the Junkmen comes to Blu-ray for the first time courtesy of Kino Lorber. Featuring Sautet’s frequent muse Romy Schneider and Michel Piccoli, the latter stars as a detective playing both sides against the middle when he poses as a wealthy banker tempting a group of petty thieves to rob a bank. The only trouble is the gang leader’s prostitute girlfriend, with whom he falls in love. Based on a novel by Claude Neron, the title is eclipsed by Sautet’s own filmography of lauded dramatic pieces, particularly those he was best remembered for at the tail end of his career.…...

Above: French poster for Max and the Junkmen.There is the usual treasure trove of international cinema currently playing on Mubi in the United States, but in among the Ealing Comedies, the second part of an essential Heinz Emigholz retrospective, and the jamboree bag of past Cannes favorites, for me the current standouts are the four films by Claude Sautet that still have over a week left to run. One of the less well-known of the great French filmmakers of the second half of the 20th century, Claude Sautet’s films are hard to see but they are gems that should not be missed. And they also have terrific posters. Here are my favorite French and international posters for the four films that Mubi is currently showing: Max and the Junkmen (1971), César and Rosalie (1972), Vincent, François, Paul and the Others (1974) and A Bad Son (1980).Above: Polish poster for Max and the Junkmen.

Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider in Max Et Les Ferrailleurs - Bertrand Tavernier: "I see Claude Sautet as the son of Jacques Becker."

In the third and final installment of my conversation with Bertrand Tavernier on his Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage À Travers Le Cinéma Français) he discusses his dedication to Jacques Becker (Casque D'Or, Édouard Et Caroline) and Claude Sautet (Max Et Les Ferrailleurs), Mireille Balin's dress in Jean Delannoy's Macao, l'Enfer Du Jeu (Gambling Hell), Jean Gabin, not forgetting Jean-Pierre Melville's Army Of Shadows (L'Armée Des Ombres), Léon Morin, Prêtre or Le Silence De La Mer, Jean Paul Gaultier and Falbalas (Paris Frills), Mila Parély in Coco Chanel, Jean Renoir's A Day In The Country (Partie De Campagne), Joseph Kosma, Sylvia Bataille and Jacques Lacan, Howard Hawks's Red River and Only Angels Have Wings, and not having to see Rio Bravo ever again.

StudioCanal and Radio-Canada have entered into a distribution deal for Canada.

Under the five- year deal, starting January 2014, Radio-Canada will distribute more than 1,400 films in French - comprising 1,200 French films and 200 Italian films - from the StudioCanal library, via DVD, Blu-ray, Est and VOD.

In addition, as national public broadcaster serving French Canada, Radio-Canada will feature many of these films on its own platforms.

The StudioCanal film library includes classics from directors such as Jean Luc Godard (Le Mépris, Pierrot le fou), Renoir (La grande illusion), Claude Sautet (Max et les ferrailleurs, César et Rosalie) and Jean-Pierre Melville (le Cercle Rouge, l’Armée des Ombres).

Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises was king of the hill for three weeks, but this weekend found it at the bottom of an inescapable prison. By “inescapable prison,” I mean in 3rd place with another $19.5m and a cumulative $835m worldwide gross, so no one is eating soup and cabbage at Warners or anything. The Campaign – featuring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis punching babies for votes – took 2nd with an opening draw of $27.4m domestic. The unsurprising winner, however, was The Bourne Legacy which scored $40.2m here in the States and a worldwide total of $48m. That’s a better opening than The Bourne Identity but it’s a bit behind the two other franchise entries. Again, not surprising. In slightly smaller releases, the Meryl Streep/Tommy Lee Jones marriage drama Hope Springs came in 4th place with 1,000 or so fewer theaters, taking $15.6m. Travis Pastrana’s stunt-fueled Nitro Circus: The Movie 3D took $1.1m...

The last time we talked about Kim Ji-Woon's upcoming projects, it was regarding his first venture into Hollywood, a remake of Claude Sautet's 70s caper Max et Les Ferrailleurs. Hoping to cast Clive Owen and possibly Sienna Miller in the leading roles, Kim wanted his Max and the Junkmen to start shooting in January, as winter was the perfect atmosphere for his noir ambiance. Seems like the film has hit a snag - we still don't have much in the way of the details, but it might just be casting issues delaying the first shoot past that all important Q1 2010 deadline, pushing things to late next year - so Kim is now focusing on his next project at home, which is tentatively entitled 아열대의 밤 (lit. Subtropical Night).

The film continues the recent noir thriller trend, with a man chasing the serial killer-cum-psychopath who killed his fiancee, and plenty of brutal action ensuing afterwards.

One of the more commercially-successful directors in his native South Korea, Kim Ji-Woon is getting ready for his first international production, and he already has actors in mind.

In an interview for the site 10Asia, subsequently posted in English by Twitch, Kim said his next film will be Max and the Junkmen, a remake of the 1971 French movie Max et les Ferrailleurs. Considered a heist classic, the original starred Michael Piccoli as a Paris detective who tries to raise his own stature by entrapping a group of petty thieves. It was directed by Claude Sautet.

Kim said he has finished the script, which he hopes to begin shooting in January 2010, with a fall-back date of around September-October 2010. Production would take place in Philadelphia, the weather hopefully lending a dreary look similar to Europe’s oldest cities. (Apparently, Kim had London in mind, since it was his first choice for locations.