With summer time upon us, it is fitting to begin with the most sun-drenched feature of Wes Anderson’s career, followed by a gem from J. Hoberman, an essential biography of James Gandolfini, and plenty more to read while working on your tan.
The Wes Anderson Collection: Asteroid City by Matt Zoller Seitz (Abrams)
The Wes Anderson Collection from Matt Zoller Seitz and the folks at Abrams is, quite simply, an indispensable series for film lovers. In fact, one of the (many) joys of seeing a new Anderson creation is the knowledge that, a few months later, we will have a new Wes Anderson Collection release to break it all down. An Asteroid City deep dive is especially useful, as the 2023 film is one of the director’s most ambitious. As film historian David Bordwell astutely points out in his foreword, Asteroid’s two storylines––a 1955 black-and-white TV program and a widescreen color film––“mark,...
The Wes Anderson Collection: Asteroid City by Matt Zoller Seitz (Abrams)
The Wes Anderson Collection from Matt Zoller Seitz and the folks at Abrams is, quite simply, an indispensable series for film lovers. In fact, one of the (many) joys of seeing a new Anderson creation is the knowledge that, a few months later, we will have a new Wes Anderson Collection release to break it all down. An Asteroid City deep dive is especially useful, as the 2023 film is one of the director’s most ambitious. As film historian David Bordwell astutely points out in his foreword, Asteroid’s two storylines––a 1955 black-and-white TV program and a widescreen color film––“mark,...
- 6/24/2025
- by Christopher Schobert
- The Film Stage
Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte, starring Monica Vitti, Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau screens in Cinecittà and Film at Lincoln Center’s Monica Vitti: La Modernista
Before the Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s 24th edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema luncheon at Leopard at des Artistes, I asked Fabrizio Gifuni, star of the Opening Night film, Francesca Comencini’s The Time It Takes (Il Tempo Che Ci Vuole with Anna Mangiocavallo) and directors Andrea Segre of The Great Ambition (Berlinguer. La Grande Ambizione with Elio Germano as Enrico Berlinguer), Sara Fgaier of Weightless (Sulla Terra Leggeri with Andrea Renzi and Sara Serraiocco), Alissa Jung of Paternal Leave, and Ferzan Özpetek of Diamonds (Diamanti with Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca) to name their favourite Monica Vitti films.
Monica Vitti: La Modernista
Michelangelo Antonioni’s masterpieces L’Avventura (4K Restoration); L’Eclisse opposite Alain Delon, La Notte with Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau,...
Before the Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s 24th edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema luncheon at Leopard at des Artistes, I asked Fabrizio Gifuni, star of the Opening Night film, Francesca Comencini’s The Time It Takes (Il Tempo Che Ci Vuole with Anna Mangiocavallo) and directors Andrea Segre of The Great Ambition (Berlinguer. La Grande Ambizione with Elio Germano as Enrico Berlinguer), Sara Fgaier of Weightless (Sulla Terra Leggeri with Andrea Renzi and Sara Serraiocco), Alissa Jung of Paternal Leave, and Ferzan Özpetek of Diamonds (Diamanti with Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca) to name their favourite Monica Vitti films.
Monica Vitti: La Modernista
Michelangelo Antonioni’s masterpieces L’Avventura (4K Restoration); L’Eclisse opposite Alain Delon, La Notte with Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau,...
- 6/5/2025
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
We are back today with another exciting movie recommendation from auteur creator Guillermo del Toro. Today’s pick is a classic actioner that del Toro previously praised via Twitter (it will absolutely never be X to me). The Crimson Peak director has nothing but love for this one. You can scope a quote from the post in question directly below.
While del Toro is surely an enthusiastic fan of the film, he’s far from the only one. The Train has a stellar Rotten Tomatoes critical approval rating of 94% with 18 reviews tallied. Additionally, the flick sits at a very respectable 89% audience approval score on the site.
Critics praised the film for delivering astute commentary on the evils of war and for serving up breakneck action sequences from start to finish.
If you have yet to experience the picture and find yourself eager to do so, make your way over to...
While del Toro is surely an enthusiastic fan of the film, he’s far from the only one. The Train has a stellar Rotten Tomatoes critical approval rating of 94% with 18 reviews tallied. Additionally, the flick sits at a very respectable 89% audience approval score on the site.
Critics praised the film for delivering astute commentary on the evils of war and for serving up breakneck action sequences from start to finish.
If you have yet to experience the picture and find yourself eager to do so, make your way over to...
- 5/29/2025
- by Tyler Doupe'
- DreadCentral.com
Marcel Ophuls, the renowned, Oscar-winning documentarian whose controversial and epic “The Sorrow and the Pity” was a worldwide success, has died. He was 97.
His death was reported to the New York Times by his grandson, Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert, who provided no details concerning the circumstances of the death.
Ophuls, the son of famed German and Hollywood film director Max Ophuls, often claimed that he was a prisoner of his success in the documentary field when what he really wanted was to make lighthearted musicals and romances. But his exhaustive “The Sorrow and the Pity,” about French complicity with their Nazi occupiers during WWII, elevated the film documentary in the public eye. His further explorations of the war in Northern Ireland (“A Sense of Loss”), the Nuremberg war crime trials (“The Memory of Justice”) and the notorious Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie (“Hotel Terminus”) added immeasurably to the documentary field. Ophuls mixed period footage and incisive,...
His death was reported to the New York Times by his grandson, Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert, who provided no details concerning the circumstances of the death.
Ophuls, the son of famed German and Hollywood film director Max Ophuls, often claimed that he was a prisoner of his success in the documentary field when what he really wanted was to make lighthearted musicals and romances. But his exhaustive “The Sorrow and the Pity,” about French complicity with their Nazi occupiers during WWII, elevated the film documentary in the public eye. His further explorations of the war in Northern Ireland (“A Sense of Loss”), the Nuremberg war crime trials (“The Memory of Justice”) and the notorious Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie (“Hotel Terminus”) added immeasurably to the documentary field. Ophuls mixed period footage and incisive,...
- 5/26/2025
- by Richard Natale
- Variety Film + TV
Famed documentarian Marcel Ophuls has died at age 97. One of the leading filmmakers to capture the political atrocities of the 20th century, Ophuls famously directed “The Sorrow and the Pity” and the Oscar-winning “Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie,” both depicting the rise of the Nazi regime.
Ophuls “died peacefully” on Saturday, May 24, as his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert confirmed to The Guardian on Monday, May 26. Ophuls was born to German filmmakers, director Max Ophuls, and his wife, actress Hildegard Wall. At age 11, the Ophuls family fled France after Germany was invaded by the Nazis; they later settled in Hollywood. Ophuls served in the U.S. army theatrical unit in Japan for WWII in 1946.
Ophuls later returned to France and worked as an assistant to his father and other filmmakers such as Julien Duvivier and Anatole Litvak. He also famously was an Ad on John Huston’s “Moulin Rouge...
Ophuls “died peacefully” on Saturday, May 24, as his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert confirmed to The Guardian on Monday, May 26. Ophuls was born to German filmmakers, director Max Ophuls, and his wife, actress Hildegard Wall. At age 11, the Ophuls family fled France after Germany was invaded by the Nazis; they later settled in Hollywood. Ophuls served in the U.S. army theatrical unit in Japan for WWII in 1946.
Ophuls later returned to France and worked as an assistant to his father and other filmmakers such as Julien Duvivier and Anatole Litvak. He also famously was an Ad on John Huston’s “Moulin Rouge...
- 5/26/2025
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Marcel Ophuls, the director of the seminal 1969 documentary The Sorrow and the Pity that explored the collaboration between the Vichy government and Nazi Germany during World War II, died May 24 of natural causes at his home in in the South of France over the weekend. He was 97.
His death was confirmed to Deadline by his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert.
“He had been feeling unwell about three days before,” Seyfert said. “My father spent the last day with him, and they watched Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be, then he retired to bed. The next day, they were going to watch his favorite Lubitsch, Heaven Can Wait. Unfortunately, it didn’t come to that.” Seyfert said his grandfather passed away in his sleep.
Born on November 1, 1927, in Frankfurt, Germany – his father was film director Max Ophüls and his mother was actress Hildegard Wall, Ophuls was 11 when he and his...
His death was confirmed to Deadline by his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert.
“He had been feeling unwell about three days before,” Seyfert said. “My father spent the last day with him, and they watched Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be, then he retired to bed. The next day, they were going to watch his favorite Lubitsch, Heaven Can Wait. Unfortunately, it didn’t come to that.” Seyfert said his grandfather passed away in his sleep.
Born on November 1, 1927, in Frankfurt, Germany – his father was film director Max Ophüls and his mother was actress Hildegard Wall, Ophuls was 11 when he and his...
- 5/26/2025
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Marcel Ophuls, the Oscar-winning, German-born French filmmaker whose powerfully eloquent documentaries confronted difficult political, moral and philosophical issues, has died. He was 97.
Ophuls “died peacefully” at his home in the south of France, his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert told The Hollywood Reporter.
Ophuls earned his Academy Award — as well as prizes from the Cannes and Berlin film festivals— for Hotel Terminus (1988), a 4-hour, 27-minute documentary that examined the life of the notorious Klaus Barbie, convicted in Bolivia of his Nazi war crimes in 1987.
Ophuls’ best known work, however, came almost two decades earlier with The Sorrow and the Pity (1969), which explored the reality of the Nazi occupation in the small industrial French city of Clermont-Ferrand.
Ophuls spent more than two years compiling the more than 60 hours of footage that was eventually boiled down to that 4-hour, 11-minute film, which delineated France’s compliance with Nazi Germany. (Some in the country supported...
Ophuls “died peacefully” at his home in the south of France, his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert told The Hollywood Reporter.
Ophuls earned his Academy Award — as well as prizes from the Cannes and Berlin film festivals— for Hotel Terminus (1988), a 4-hour, 27-minute documentary that examined the life of the notorious Klaus Barbie, convicted in Bolivia of his Nazi war crimes in 1987.
Ophuls’ best known work, however, came almost two decades earlier with The Sorrow and the Pity (1969), which explored the reality of the Nazi occupation in the small industrial French city of Clermont-Ferrand.
Ophuls spent more than two years compiling the more than 60 hours of footage that was eventually boiled down to that 4-hour, 11-minute film, which delineated France’s compliance with Nazi Germany. (Some in the country supported...
- 5/26/2025
- by Duane Byrge
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Iconic Italian star Monica Vitti is a stateside tribute with the posthumous festival “Monica Vitti: La Modernista,” presented by Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà. The actress, who died in 2022, was immortalized onscreen with her famed collaborations with auteurs Michelangelo Antonioni and Luis Buñuel. Now, the 14-film series at Flc will be the first North American retrospective dedicated to Vitti’s career. The series will feature new restorations of her classic films including “Red Desert” and “La supertestimone.”
“We are pleased to partner with Cinecittà to celebrate one of Italy’s most revered actresses,” Florence Almozini, Vice President of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center, said in a press statement. “It is a privilege to have the opportunity to present decades worth of films from Monica Vitti’s illustrious and prolific career, especially with many restored versions of her legendary work.”
Vitti most famously starred in Antonioni’s “L’avventura,” which...
“We are pleased to partner with Cinecittà to celebrate one of Italy’s most revered actresses,” Florence Almozini, Vice President of Programming at Film at Lincoln Center, said in a press statement. “It is a privilege to have the opportunity to present decades worth of films from Monica Vitti’s illustrious and prolific career, especially with many restored versions of her legendary work.”
Vitti most famously starred in Antonioni’s “L’avventura,” which...
- 5/6/2025
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
A single question whispered in candlelight can blur the line between life and death. Are You There? (2025) marks director Kim Noonan’s entry into psychological supernatural thrillers, with a script by Brian S. Tedeschi and Vicki Vass that probes the edge of personal reality.
At its center is Rosa Gonzalez, a paranormal psychology student who inherits a ritual candle from her late grandmother. Tasked with asking “Are you there?” as the flame bends toward “sí” or “no,” Rosa sets out to reconnect with her abuela. Early on, the ceremony feels like controlled inquiry, but soon the ritual’s response plunges her into a waking nightmare.
Noonan’s film unfolds at an unhurried clip, letting dread simmer rather than erupt. Shadows deepen in every frame, while moments of silence amplify the unexpected creaks and whispers around Rosa. Beneath the supernatural shimmer lies a portrait of grief and unresolved trauma—the real...
At its center is Rosa Gonzalez, a paranormal psychology student who inherits a ritual candle from her late grandmother. Tasked with asking “Are you there?” as the flame bends toward “sí” or “no,” Rosa sets out to reconnect with her abuela. Early on, the ceremony feels like controlled inquiry, but soon the ritual’s response plunges her into a waking nightmare.
Noonan’s film unfolds at an unhurried clip, letting dread simmer rather than erupt. Shadows deepen in every frame, while moments of silence amplify the unexpected creaks and whispers around Rosa. Beneath the supernatural shimmer lies a portrait of grief and unresolved trauma—the real...
- 4/17/2025
- by Caleb Anderson
- Gazettely
Caroline Vignal’s It’s Raining Men follows Iris (Laure Calamy), a Parisian dentist whose stagnant marriage propels her into a whirlwind of app-driven dalliances, blending cheeky humor with poignant introspection.
The film’s premise—middle-aged desire clashing with marital complacency—echoes the French tradition of treating infidelity as a nuanced exploration of human complexity rather than a moral failing. Vignal situates this tale within a cultural landscape where Anglo-American audiences might demand judgment, yet here, the focus remains on Iris’s liberation.
The script nods to classics like Breathless in its breezy defiance of narrative rigidity, though Vignal swaps Godard’s frenetic jump cuts for lush, surreal detours, such as a spontaneous musical sequence set to the titular anthem.
This juxtaposition of grounded realism and whimsical escapism mirrors France’s ambivalence toward tradition and modernity—a tension as relevant in today’s #MeToo era as it was in the heyday of the Nouvelle Vague.
The film’s premise—middle-aged desire clashing with marital complacency—echoes the French tradition of treating infidelity as a nuanced exploration of human complexity rather than a moral failing. Vignal situates this tale within a cultural landscape where Anglo-American audiences might demand judgment, yet here, the focus remains on Iris’s liberation.
The script nods to classics like Breathless in its breezy defiance of narrative rigidity, though Vignal swaps Godard’s frenetic jump cuts for lush, surreal detours, such as a spontaneous musical sequence set to the titular anthem.
This juxtaposition of grounded realism and whimsical escapism mirrors France’s ambivalence toward tradition and modernity—a tension as relevant in today’s #MeToo era as it was in the heyday of the Nouvelle Vague.
- 3/4/2025
- by Caleb Anderson
- Gazettely
French actress Juliette Binoche has been named President of the Jury for the 2025 edition of the Cannes Film Festival in May.
The honor, which was announced on Tuesday morning Paris time, will fall exactly 40 years after the Oscar-winning The English Patient star first touched down at the festival with André Téchiné’s Palme d’Or contender Rendez-vous in 1985.
Binoche follows in the footsteps of U.S. director Greta Gerwig whose jury feted Sean Baker’s Anora with the Palme d’Or last year.
“I’m looking forward to sharing these life experiences with the members of the Jury and the public. In 1985, I walked up the steps for the first time with the enthusiasm and uncertainty of a young actress; I never imagined I’d return 40 years later in the honorary role of President of the Jury. I appreciate the privilege, the responsibility and the absolute need for humility,” said Binoche.
The honor, which was announced on Tuesday morning Paris time, will fall exactly 40 years after the Oscar-winning The English Patient star first touched down at the festival with André Téchiné’s Palme d’Or contender Rendez-vous in 1985.
Binoche follows in the footsteps of U.S. director Greta Gerwig whose jury feted Sean Baker’s Anora with the Palme d’Or last year.
“I’m looking forward to sharing these life experiences with the members of the Jury and the public. In 1985, I walked up the steps for the first time with the enthusiasm and uncertainty of a young actress; I never imagined I’d return 40 years later in the honorary role of President of the Jury. I appreciate the privilege, the responsibility and the absolute need for humility,” said Binoche.
- 2/4/2025
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Juliette Binoche, the Oscar- and César-winning actress who’s a regular at the Cannes Film Festival, will serve as its jury president for the 2025 edition. The festival runs May 13 – 24 on the French Riviera, where Binoche will be responsible for overseeing the main competition jury, comprised of an international crop of actors and filmmakers.
The iconic Binoche has been a Cannes mainstay since André Téchiné’s “Rendez-vous” made her the belle of the festival in 1985. That’s exactly 40 years ago come this year’s Cannes. In other words, Binoche was born at Cannes. She’s taken many projects to the festival, including the films of Michael Haneke and Claire Denis, and she won Best Actress for Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy” in 2010. Last year, she gave Meryl Streep (perhaps the equivalent of an actress of Binoche’s stature here in the United States) the Honorary Palme d’Or. In 2023, filmmaker Anh Hung Tran...
The iconic Binoche has been a Cannes mainstay since André Téchiné’s “Rendez-vous” made her the belle of the festival in 1985. That’s exactly 40 years ago come this year’s Cannes. In other words, Binoche was born at Cannes. She’s taken many projects to the festival, including the films of Michael Haneke and Claire Denis, and she won Best Actress for Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy” in 2010. Last year, she gave Meryl Streep (perhaps the equivalent of an actress of Binoche’s stature here in the United States) the Honorary Palme d’Or. In 2023, filmmaker Anh Hung Tran...
- 2/4/2025
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
As she did with her recently released comedy “Marcello Mio,” Chiara Mastroianni emphasized what it’s like to live in the shadow of her father, Marcello, by highlighting his work while inside the Criterion Closet. Known as one of the most iconic performers of the 20th century, Marcello worked with the likes of Federico Fellini, Sophia Loren, Jeanne Moreau, Robert Altman, and Agnès Varda, starring in classic pieces of cinema such as “8 1/2” and “La Notte.”
During her visit to the Criterion Closet, his daughter Chiara made sure to express her appreciation for a few films he was a part of, including Pietro Germi’s “Divorce Italian Style,” which won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1962.
“It’s really, really funny,” Chiara said. “When I was a kid and I first saw it, to me, it was just a comedy. And then growing up and learning about Italian politics...
During her visit to the Criterion Closet, his daughter Chiara made sure to express her appreciation for a few films he was a part of, including Pietro Germi’s “Divorce Italian Style,” which won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1962.
“It’s really, really funny,” Chiara said. “When I was a kid and I first saw it, to me, it was just a comedy. And then growing up and learning about Italian politics...
- 2/2/2025
- by Harrison Richlin
- Indiewire
Jeanne Balibar Photo: Richard Mowe
Everywhere you go during the Premiers Plans festival of first films in Angers (on the river Maine and the gateway to the Loire valley) you cannot escape the influence of legendary figure of French cinema Jeanne Moreau.
Although she died in July 2017, her links to the Premiers Plans festival continue to make their presence felt. She had an association with the festival for more than ten years, becoming an unofficial 'godmother' to the event, as described by Claude-Eric Poiroux, artistic director and founder of the Festival and also the creator of the cinema and hub Les 400 Cents Coups (after François Truffaut’s classic The 400 Blows) in the heart of the town.
Top prize in Angers: Vers Un Pays Inconnu / To A Land Unknown by Mahdi Felafel, about two Palestinian cousins seeking a better life. Photo: Angers Premiers Plans
Poiroux, who was a close friend of the actress,...
Everywhere you go during the Premiers Plans festival of first films in Angers (on the river Maine and the gateway to the Loire valley) you cannot escape the influence of legendary figure of French cinema Jeanne Moreau.
Although she died in July 2017, her links to the Premiers Plans festival continue to make their presence felt. She had an association with the festival for more than ten years, becoming an unofficial 'godmother' to the event, as described by Claude-Eric Poiroux, artistic director and founder of the Festival and also the creator of the cinema and hub Les 400 Cents Coups (after François Truffaut’s classic The 400 Blows) in the heart of the town.
Top prize in Angers: Vers Un Pays Inconnu / To A Land Unknown by Mahdi Felafel, about two Palestinian cousins seeking a better life. Photo: Angers Premiers Plans
Poiroux, who was a close friend of the actress,...
- 1/26/2025
- by Richard Mowe
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Bertrand Blier … "'an immense, non-conformist filmmaker, a passionate lover of creative freedom' Photo: UniFrance
The controversial and outspoken French film director Bertrand Blier, who gave Gérard Depardieu some of his best roles, has died peacefully in Paris at the age of 85, surrounded by his wife and family.
Bertrand Blier: 'Death is the only really interesting subject' Photo: UniFrance
The son of actor Bernard Blier he directed Depardieu in the 1974 cult hit Les Valseuses. The popular comedy known in English as Going Places established him as one of the most outrageous filmmakers with a trademark line in vulgar humour, no-holds barred sex and nudity.
The film which also starred Jeanne Moreau and Miou-Miou, gave Isabelle Huppert an early role while other actors with whom he collaborated on a regular basis, included Michel Blanc, Josiane Balasko and, of course, Depardieu with whom he went to make another comedy hit in 1978 Get Out Your Handkerchiefs...
The controversial and outspoken French film director Bertrand Blier, who gave Gérard Depardieu some of his best roles, has died peacefully in Paris at the age of 85, surrounded by his wife and family.
Bertrand Blier: 'Death is the only really interesting subject' Photo: UniFrance
The son of actor Bernard Blier he directed Depardieu in the 1974 cult hit Les Valseuses. The popular comedy known in English as Going Places established him as one of the most outrageous filmmakers with a trademark line in vulgar humour, no-holds barred sex and nudity.
The film which also starred Jeanne Moreau and Miou-Miou, gave Isabelle Huppert an early role while other actors with whom he collaborated on a regular basis, included Michel Blanc, Josiane Balasko and, of course, Depardieu with whom he went to make another comedy hit in 1978 Get Out Your Handkerchiefs...
- 1/21/2025
- by Richard Mowe
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
While there are several classic films dedicated to the Halloween and Christmas holidays, those set during Thanksgiving are few and far between. Enter Jordan Weiss’ and Dan Brier’s Sweethearts starring Kiernan Shipka and Nico Hiraga, a hilarious holiday rom com that arrived on Max Nov. 28.
The film follows Jamie (Shipka) and Ben (Hiraga) as they realize, in their first semester of college, that they need to break up with their high school sweethearts Simon (Charlie Hall) and Claire (Ava DeMary) respectively because the relationships are holding them back. Their best friend Palmer (Caleb Hearon) offers to host a small soiré the night before Thanksgiving where they plan to break the news, but chaos ensues as a night of parties, absinthe, drugs and more combine to create a perfect storm of events.
Find the full Sweethearts soundtrack below:
“I Wanna Dance With You” by Royel Otis “To The Letter” by...
The film follows Jamie (Shipka) and Ben (Hiraga) as they realize, in their first semester of college, that they need to break up with their high school sweethearts Simon (Charlie Hall) and Claire (Ava DeMary) respectively because the relationships are holding them back. Their best friend Palmer (Caleb Hearon) offers to host a small soiré the night before Thanksgiving where they plan to break the news, but chaos ensues as a night of parties, absinthe, drugs and more combine to create a perfect storm of events.
Find the full Sweethearts soundtrack below:
“I Wanna Dance With You” by Royel Otis “To The Letter” by...
- 12/2/2024
- by Dessi Gomez
- Deadline Film + TV
The French-Danish actor Niels Arestrup passed away on Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024, according to his wife, the actor and writer Isabelle Le Nouvel. While he may not be well-known by mainstream Western audiences, he holds the record in France for the most César Awards for Best Supporting Actor, and has starred in films by many of Europe's best directors — Alain Resnais, Chantal Akerman, Claude Lelouch, Marco Ferreri, Jacques Audiard, Julian Schnabel, Bertrand Tavernier, Volker Schlöndorff, and Albert Dupontel, not to mention American directors like Steven Spielberg and Angelina Jolie. His wife wrote in an Afp press release:
I am extremely sad to announce the death of my husband, the immense actor Niels Arestrup, after a courageous fight against illness. He passed away surrounded by the love of his family.
Born to working-class parents and spending his youth in public housing projects, Arestrup failed school and took on odd jobs until he found...
I am extremely sad to announce the death of my husband, the immense actor Niels Arestrup, after a courageous fight against illness. He passed away surrounded by the love of his family.
Born to working-class parents and spending his youth in public housing projects, Arestrup failed school and took on odd jobs until he found...
- 12/1/2024
- by Matt Mahler
- MovieWeb
“Sweethearts” does not disappoint in delivering college nostalgia and a party playlist to match.
Jordan Weiss, creator of “Dollface,” made her directorial debut with the Max original rom-com and said that her collaboration with co-writer Dan Brier mirrored the relationship between on-screen best friends, Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) and Ben (Nico Hiraga).
“There’s so many benefits to Dan [Brier], and I’s real life, male-female perspectives,” director and executive producer Jordan Weiss told TheWrap. “I love that our soundtrack had a mix of Tyler, The Creator and Carly Rae [Jepsen]. We both brought our own music tastes, and I think it helps it appeal to a broader audience.”
“The DNA is very mixed,” Dan Brier added.
The film follows two college freshmen, who make a pact to break up with their high school sweethearts over Thanksgiving break. Their breakup plot does not quite go to plan, leading them on a chaotic night...
Jordan Weiss, creator of “Dollface,” made her directorial debut with the Max original rom-com and said that her collaboration with co-writer Dan Brier mirrored the relationship between on-screen best friends, Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) and Ben (Nico Hiraga).
“There’s so many benefits to Dan [Brier], and I’s real life, male-female perspectives,” director and executive producer Jordan Weiss told TheWrap. “I love that our soundtrack had a mix of Tyler, The Creator and Carly Rae [Jepsen]. We both brought our own music tastes, and I think it helps it appeal to a broader audience.”
“The DNA is very mixed,” Dan Brier added.
The film follows two college freshmen, who make a pact to break up with their high school sweethearts over Thanksgiving break. Their breakup plot does not quite go to plan, leading them on a chaotic night...
- 11/28/2024
- by Tess Patton
- The Wrap
Warning: This article includes Major Spoilers for Max's Sweethearts!
Max’s Sweethearts is packed with upbeat songs that help shape the pacing and tone of the movie. While Christmas and New Years Eve-themed rom-coms are abundant, Thanksgiving-themed films aren’t a staple of the genre, setting apart the HBO Max original movie Sweethearts. The show follows Jamie and Ben, a pair of best friends who make a pact to break up with their high school sweethearts on Drunksgiving – the day before Thanksgiving, where all the high schoolers party and drink. However, their plan doesn’t go as smoothly as they hoped, taking the pair all across a rural Ohio city.
The Keirnan Shipka movie might have a divisive ending, with the lead couple not getting together, but it’s still a fantastic movie that keeps the audience's attention. The story includes laugh-out-loud moments and likable moments that are held together with an A+ soundtrack.
Max’s Sweethearts is packed with upbeat songs that help shape the pacing and tone of the movie. While Christmas and New Years Eve-themed rom-coms are abundant, Thanksgiving-themed films aren’t a staple of the genre, setting apart the HBO Max original movie Sweethearts. The show follows Jamie and Ben, a pair of best friends who make a pact to break up with their high school sweethearts on Drunksgiving – the day before Thanksgiving, where all the high schoolers party and drink. However, their plan doesn’t go as smoothly as they hoped, taking the pair all across a rural Ohio city.
The Keirnan Shipka movie might have a divisive ending, with the lead couple not getting together, but it’s still a fantastic movie that keeps the audience's attention. The story includes laugh-out-loud moments and likable moments that are held together with an A+ soundtrack.
- 11/28/2024
- by Dani Kessel Odom
- ScreenRant
To celebrate Luc Besson’s action thriller classic Nikita, for the first time in stunning 4K, in this definitive and strictly limited edition 3-disc SteelBook available from 23rd September, we are giving away a copy to a lucky winner!
Studiocanal and Gaumont announce a superb brand-new restoration, supervised by Luc Besson himself, of the must-see classic thriller about a vicious street punk turned sexy, sophisticated and lethally dangerous assassin. Starring Anne Parillaud (Innocent Blood), Jeanne Moreau (BAFTA-winner for Viva Maria!) and Jean Reno (star of Besson’s Leon), the beautifully designed collectable 4K SteelBook also includes a Blu-ray, as well as a whole disc of new bonus material and interviews.
Written and directed by Besson (The Fifth Element), and produced by Gaumont, the film was a smash hit that spawned an American remake, a TV series, not to mention numerous imitations, and turned Parillaud (who won the César Award for...
Studiocanal and Gaumont announce a superb brand-new restoration, supervised by Luc Besson himself, of the must-see classic thriller about a vicious street punk turned sexy, sophisticated and lethally dangerous assassin. Starring Anne Parillaud (Innocent Blood), Jeanne Moreau (BAFTA-winner for Viva Maria!) and Jean Reno (star of Besson’s Leon), the beautifully designed collectable 4K SteelBook also includes a Blu-ray, as well as a whole disc of new bonus material and interviews.
Written and directed by Besson (The Fifth Element), and produced by Gaumont, the film was a smash hit that spawned an American remake, a TV series, not to mention numerous imitations, and turned Parillaud (who won the César Award for...
- 9/8/2024
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Yoshiyuki Tomino, the acclaimed writer-director of Mobile Suit Gundam and the creator of the anime franchise as a whole, has revealed the movie actresses he's in love with, adding about one French actress, "She turns me on so much!"
In a new interview with Full Frontal, Tomino discussed Gundam, his illustrious career, favorite films and the "scary" process of making the acclaimed science-fiction film Ideon, where, "I went so far in considering humans passions and psychology that I thought Id want to kill myself." This was before he was asked about French films, leading him to reveal his deep love for actress Jeanne Moreau. "I haven't seen a lot of Godard [French director]," he says, "I just absolutely love his first film, Breathless. I recognize Godards special talent, so it would be hard to say I wasnt influenced [by French film] But the fact is that I dont really like the overall direction of the Nouvelle Vague.
In a new interview with Full Frontal, Tomino discussed Gundam, his illustrious career, favorite films and the "scary" process of making the acclaimed science-fiction film Ideon, where, "I went so far in considering humans passions and psychology that I thought Id want to kill myself." This was before he was asked about French films, leading him to reveal his deep love for actress Jeanne Moreau. "I haven't seen a lot of Godard [French director]," he says, "I just absolutely love his first film, Breathless. I recognize Godards special talent, so it would be hard to say I wasnt influenced [by French film] But the fact is that I dont really like the overall direction of the Nouvelle Vague.
- 8/7/2024
- by Chike Nwaenie
- CBR
The horrors, thrills, and acts of bravery seen in World War II have constantly and consistently been a rich source of inspiration for writers and directors since VJ Day. Some of the most unforgettable cinematic images of our time, such as the girl with the red coat in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, Steve McQueen hopping over fences on his bike in The Great Escape, and Brad Pitt telling his subordinates about Jim Bridges and Apaches in Inglourious Basterds, have come from the largest global conflict on record. Some films have been able to seep into the public conscience and set box-office records and gather a host of awards nominations, all of which are justified. Some equally astounding films, however, just never managed to crack the zeitgeist and grip the public's imagination. One such film, one of the most thrilling and intense war films going, is John Frankenheimer's 1964 film The Train starring Burt Lancaster,...
- 7/13/2024
- by Cathal McGuinness
- Collider.com
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s whirlwind career of 40-plus movies made within just over a dozen years kicked off with Love Is Colder Than Death. It ended, all too soon, with a sendoff that may as well have been called Death Is Hotter Than Love. Even if it hadn’t wound up being Fassbinder’s final cinematic will and testament, Querelle, an uber-horny but otherwise unorthodox adaptation of Jean Genet’s 1947 novel Querelle of Brest, would still feel like a film precariously perched between rowdy, profane life and that liminal, insatiable zone that always follows la petite mort.
But because the timeline spanning the film’s completion to its release was bisected by Fassbinder’s death from a drug overdose, it’s nearly impossible to avoid overlaying the gorgeously wrecked glamour of his entire career onto the film, draping the virtue of his carnal vices over a package that’s already prodigiously overstuffed.
But because the timeline spanning the film’s completion to its release was bisected by Fassbinder’s death from a drug overdose, it’s nearly impossible to avoid overlaying the gorgeously wrecked glamour of his entire career onto the film, draping the virtue of his carnal vices over a package that’s already prodigiously overstuffed.
- 6/23/2024
- by Eric Henderson
- Slant Magazine
Roberta Torre with Anne-Katrin Titze on Gitt Magrini, Michelangelo Antonioni’s costume designer for Red Desert and with Bice Brichetto for L'Eclisse: “With Massimo Cantini Parrini we have thought a lot about this before making the film. So he went to all the beautiful costumes for Monica Vitti to see what remains today.”
A little over an hour and a half into Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert, Monica Vitti’s Giuliana visits Richard Harris’s Corrado Zeller at his hotel. “Mi fanno male i capelli” she says, her hair hurts, as do her eyes, her throat and her mouth. Roberta Torre’s Mi Fanno Male I Capelli with a score by Wong Kar Wai’s longtime composer Shigeru Umebayashi takes the sentence as a starting point to investigate time and the mind, memory and the fluidity of identity.
Edoardo (Filippo Timi) with Monica (Alba Rohrwacher) in dress inspired by Monica...
A little over an hour and a half into Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert, Monica Vitti’s Giuliana visits Richard Harris’s Corrado Zeller at his hotel. “Mi fanno male i capelli” she says, her hair hurts, as do her eyes, her throat and her mouth. Roberta Torre’s Mi Fanno Male I Capelli with a score by Wong Kar Wai’s longtime composer Shigeru Umebayashi takes the sentence as a starting point to investigate time and the mind, memory and the fluidity of identity.
Edoardo (Filippo Timi) with Monica (Alba Rohrwacher) in dress inspired by Monica...
- 5/31/2024
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep will be awarded an honorary Palme d’Or at the opening ceremony of the 74th edition of the Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25).
Streep will follow in the footsteps of previous recipients, including Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, Alain Delon, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Jane Fonda, Agnès Varda, Forest Whittaker and Jodie Foster.
The opening ceremony will mark Streep’s first appearance at the festival in over 35 years. She last attended Cannes in 1989, when she won the best actress prize for her role as a mother accused of infanticide in Fred Schepisi’s Evil Angels.
“I am immeasurably...
Streep will follow in the footsteps of previous recipients, including Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, Alain Delon, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Jane Fonda, Agnès Varda, Forest Whittaker and Jodie Foster.
The opening ceremony will mark Streep’s first appearance at the festival in over 35 years. She last attended Cannes in 1989, when she won the best actress prize for her role as a mother accused of infanticide in Fred Schepisi’s Evil Angels.
“I am immeasurably...
- 5/3/2024
- ScreenDaily
Meryl Streep is set to receive an honorary Palme d’Or at the opening ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, organizers said Thursday.
The Hollywood star — who earned the best actress award at Cannes in 1989 for her performance in Fred Schepsi’s Evil Angels — will help kick off the 77th edition at the Grand Theatre Lumiere.
“I am immeasurably honored to receive the news of this prestigious award. To win a prize at Cannes, for the international community of artists, has always represented the highest achievement in the art of filmmaking. To stand in the shadow of those who have previously been honored is humbling and thrilling in equal part. I so look forward to coming to France to thank everyone in person this May!” Streep said in a statement.
She will return to the French festival after a celebrated career in Hollywood over five decades. “We all...
The Hollywood star — who earned the best actress award at Cannes in 1989 for her performance in Fred Schepsi’s Evil Angels — will help kick off the 77th edition at the Grand Theatre Lumiere.
“I am immeasurably honored to receive the news of this prestigious award. To win a prize at Cannes, for the international community of artists, has always represented the highest achievement in the art of filmmaking. To stand in the shadow of those who have previously been honored is humbling and thrilling in equal part. I so look forward to coming to France to thank everyone in person this May!” Streep said in a statement.
She will return to the French festival after a celebrated career in Hollywood over five decades. “We all...
- 5/2/2024
- by Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Meryl Streep will receive the honorary Palme d’Or on the opening night of the 77th edition of Cannes Film Festival, Variety has learned.
Luring the Oscar winner is yet another feat for this Cannes edition, which will bring together a flurry Hollywood legends. Notably, George Lucas will receive the honorary Palme d’Or during the closing ceremony; Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” and Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada” are playing in competition; and George Miller‘s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and Kevin Costner’s Western epic “Horizon, an American Saga” are playing out of competition. Streep will be also in good company at the festival with “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig serving as jury president. The pair worked together on “Little Women.”
The honorary tribute will mark Streep’s long-awaited return to Cannes after decades. It appears that her last trip to the festival dates back to Fred Schepisi...
Luring the Oscar winner is yet another feat for this Cannes edition, which will bring together a flurry Hollywood legends. Notably, George Lucas will receive the honorary Palme d’Or during the closing ceremony; Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” and Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada” are playing in competition; and George Miller‘s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and Kevin Costner’s Western epic “Horizon, an American Saga” are playing out of competition. Streep will be also in good company at the festival with “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig serving as jury president. The pair worked together on “Little Women.”
The honorary tribute will mark Streep’s long-awaited return to Cannes after decades. It appears that her last trip to the festival dates back to Fred Schepisi...
- 5/2/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
From director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) comes the must-see thriller about a vicious street punk turned sexy, sophisticated and lethally dangerous assassin. Starring Anne Parillaud, Jeanne Moreau and Jean Reno, La Femme Nikita is “slick, stylish and tremendously entertaining” (The New York Times)! Rescued from death row by a top-secret agency, Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is slowly transformed from a cop-killing junkie into a cold-blooded bombshell with a license to kill. But when she begins the deadliest mission of her career, only to fall for a man who knows nothing of her true identity, Nikita discovers that in the dark and ruthless ... Read more...
- 3/29/2024
- by Thomas Miller
- Seat42F
Synopsis
From director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) comes the must-see thriller about a vicious street punk turned sexy, sophisticated, and lethally dangerous assassin. Starring Anne Parillaud, Jeanne Moreau, and Jean Reno, La Femme Nikita is “slick, stylish, and tremendously entertaining” (The New York Times)! Rescued from death row by a top-secret agency, Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is slowly transformed from a cop-killing junkie into a cold-blooded bombshell with a license to kill. But when she begins the deadliest mission of her career, only to fall for a man who knows nothing of her true identity, Nikita discovers that in the dark and ruthless world of espionage, the greatest casualty of all…is true love.
Disc Details And Bonus Materials
4K Ultra HD Disc
• Restored from the original camera negative and presented in 4K resolution with Dolby Vision
• French & English 5.1 + French 2-Channel Surround
This 4K Uhd release does not include a...
From director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) comes the must-see thriller about a vicious street punk turned sexy, sophisticated, and lethally dangerous assassin. Starring Anne Parillaud, Jeanne Moreau, and Jean Reno, La Femme Nikita is “slick, stylish, and tremendously entertaining” (The New York Times)! Rescued from death row by a top-secret agency, Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is slowly transformed from a cop-killing junkie into a cold-blooded bombshell with a license to kill. But when she begins the deadliest mission of her career, only to fall for a man who knows nothing of her true identity, Nikita discovers that in the dark and ruthless world of espionage, the greatest casualty of all…is true love.
Disc Details And Bonus Materials
4K Ultra HD Disc
• Restored from the original camera negative and presented in 4K resolution with Dolby Vision
• French & English 5.1 + French 2-Channel Surround
This 4K Uhd release does not include a...
- 3/28/2024
- by ComicMix Staff
- Comicmix.com
4K just got a whole lot sharper, as Sony will release Luc Besson’s 1990 action-thriller La Femme Nikita on the format in June, joining other Besson films like 1994’s The Professional and 1997’s The Fifth Element on the format. This release — which comes in a slick steel book — is restored from the original camera negative, with a 4K image that boasts 2160p Ultra High Definition.
Here is Sony’s official writeup for the movie: “From director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) comes the must-see thriller about a vicious street punk turned sexy, sophisticated and lethally dangerous assassin. Starring Anne Parillaud, Jeanne Moreau and Jean Reno, La Femme Nikita is “slick, stylish and tremendously entertaining” (The New York Times)! Rescued from death row by a top-secret agency, Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is slowly transformed from a cop-killing junkie into a cold-blooded bombshell with a license to kill. But when she begins the deadliest mission of her career,...
Here is Sony’s official writeup for the movie: “From director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) comes the must-see thriller about a vicious street punk turned sexy, sophisticated and lethally dangerous assassin. Starring Anne Parillaud, Jeanne Moreau and Jean Reno, La Femme Nikita is “slick, stylish and tremendously entertaining” (The New York Times)! Rescued from death row by a top-secret agency, Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is slowly transformed from a cop-killing junkie into a cold-blooded bombshell with a license to kill. But when she begins the deadliest mission of her career,...
- 3/26/2024
- by Mathew Plale
- JoBlo.com
Somebody — or something — is speaking from inside a timber crate. “It’s so dark in here… a night so deep and opaque” read the subtitles; the voice is speaking in Fon, the local language of the West African country that was once called Dahomey and is now Benin. As the slats are nailed down, the voice is increasingly muffled; we are outside, but we are inside too, watching the light disappear.
This is the transport that will take a carved statue of Behanzin, king of Dahomey when the French army invaded in 1890, from the Musee Branly in Paris to Porto-Novo, capital of Benin. Around 7,000 works were looted from Benin in the years following the French conquest; in 2020, the French government ratified an earlier promise by President Macron to return 26 of them. Behanzin’s image, with its metal belt and bracelets and one arm raised in a warrior’s challenge, was on its way home.
This is the transport that will take a carved statue of Behanzin, king of Dahomey when the French army invaded in 1890, from the Musee Branly in Paris to Porto-Novo, capital of Benin. Around 7,000 works were looted from Benin in the years following the French conquest; in 2020, the French government ratified an earlier promise by President Macron to return 26 of them. Behanzin’s image, with its metal belt and bracelets and one arm raised in a warrior’s challenge, was on its way home.
- 2/18/2024
- by Stephanie Bunbury
- Deadline Film + TV
If Hollywood truly suffers from a leadership malaise, as some charge, would the return of Monroe Stahr resuscitate the system? Filmmakers respect his judgment, stars his panache and investors his discipline, so Stahr’s return may ignite a new Irving Thalberg-like era.
Whoops — he’s not available.
The manic and manipulative hero of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon ruled MGM in its ‘30s heyday, but Stahr’s fictional reign was short-lived. So was Fitzgerald’s brilliant but never completed 1939 novel, which modeled Stahr after Thalberg.
Having achieved literary stardom with The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s decision to write a Hollywood novel, while simultaneously working as a script doctor, plunged the novelist into alcoholic paralysis. He never managed to finish his book and even his screenplays were unrealized.
The Last Tycoon briefly flickered back to life as a movie thanks to the great Elia Kazan, who cast Robert De Niro,...
Whoops — he’s not available.
The manic and manipulative hero of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon ruled MGM in its ‘30s heyday, but Stahr’s fictional reign was short-lived. So was Fitzgerald’s brilliant but never completed 1939 novel, which modeled Stahr after Thalberg.
Having achieved literary stardom with The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s decision to write a Hollywood novel, while simultaneously working as a script doctor, plunged the novelist into alcoholic paralysis. He never managed to finish his book and even his screenplays were unrealized.
The Last Tycoon briefly flickered back to life as a movie thanks to the great Elia Kazan, who cast Robert De Niro,...
- 1/4/2024
- by Peter Bart
- Deadline Film + TV
What’s the single best thing about the Venice Film Festival?
The relaxed atmosphere of the festival where you can easily combine meetings and watching film. Maybe it has also to do with the end of the summer…or with the wonderful light…and you can go for a swim!
The impact of the Hollywood strikes on Venice will be…
Regrettably fewer Hollywood-stars on the red carpet but maybe more attention for the films themselves and stars from Europe and other continents.
Best place in Venice to avoid the crowds (and the industry) is…
Considering that I’m a born Venetian and dealing with crowds is one of the biggest challenges of the city, I would prefer to keep this secret for myself. But I would suggest: Take a bicycle and explore the Lido.
The one thing I would change about the Venice Film Festival is…
It’s not really...
The relaxed atmosphere of the festival where you can easily combine meetings and watching film. Maybe it has also to do with the end of the summer…or with the wonderful light…and you can go for a swim!
The impact of the Hollywood strikes on Venice will be…
Regrettably fewer Hollywood-stars on the red carpet but maybe more attention for the films themselves and stars from Europe and other continents.
Best place in Venice to avoid the crowds (and the industry) is…
Considering that I’m a born Venetian and dealing with crowds is one of the biggest challenges of the city, I would prefer to keep this secret for myself. But I would suggest: Take a bicycle and explore the Lido.
The one thing I would change about the Venice Film Festival is…
It’s not really...
- 8/31/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Orson Welles is one of the most significant filmmakers in history, known for his landmark movies such as Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil. Welles made a major impact on the film noir genre in the 1940s and 1950s, shaping its overall shape and scope. Welles had a diverse range of talents, including acting, writing, and producing, and his multimedia influence made him a central figure in 20th-century entertainment.
Orson Welles is one of the most prolific and significant filmmakers that has ever lived. He has directed several movies that have acted as landmarks in cinematic history. Other than being known for his remarkable epic Citizen Kane and the film noir masterpiece Touch of Evil, the brilliant abilities of Welles have been put on display in nearly a dozen of other masterworks as a director. Welles significantly made an impact on the shape and scope of the film noir genre in the 1940s and 1950s.
Orson Welles is one of the most prolific and significant filmmakers that has ever lived. He has directed several movies that have acted as landmarks in cinematic history. Other than being known for his remarkable epic Citizen Kane and the film noir masterpiece Touch of Evil, the brilliant abilities of Welles have been put on display in nearly a dozen of other masterworks as a director. Welles significantly made an impact on the shape and scope of the film noir genre in the 1940s and 1950s.
- 8/13/2023
- by Greg MacArthur
- ScreenRant
After of two decades of filmmaking, from “Married Life” to “Love Is Strange,” Ira Sachs has made his tenth feature with the alluring “Passages.” The unrestrained, brazenly sexy love triangle starring an all-start cast of Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, and Adèle Exarchopoulos hit big at both Sundance and Berlin.
Last January, Sachs enjoyed holding court at a Sundance steakhouse as distributors made offers. Although the MPA Ratings Board slapped an Nc-17 on “Passages,” winning suitor Mubi will release the French-produced film unrated on August 4 before making Sachs’ film available online to its 12 million subscribers.
The filmmaker Zoomed with me from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Anne Thompson: Twelve million. That’s a significant number!
Ira Sachs: They understand that there’s a large audience who is interested in personal filmmaking that has been neglected by Hollywood. There’s no interest in...
Last January, Sachs enjoyed holding court at a Sundance steakhouse as distributors made offers. Although the MPA Ratings Board slapped an Nc-17 on “Passages,” winning suitor Mubi will release the French-produced film unrated on August 4 before making Sachs’ film available online to its 12 million subscribers.
The filmmaker Zoomed with me from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Anne Thompson: Twelve million. That’s a significant number!
Ira Sachs: They understand that there’s a large audience who is interested in personal filmmaking that has been neglected by Hollywood. There’s no interest in...
- 8/2/2023
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
It’s February morning in Berlin. “I’m a little out of consciousness,” Christian Petzold explains, a tad frazzled but keen to talk––and Petzold likes to talk. His latest film Afire had premiered the night before and the party had slipped into the wee hours. “There’s Thomas, he was at the party till 6 a.m.,” Petzold explains as his leading man shuffles by, fresh from a round of junkets and looking just a little shellshocked.
That look is one that viewers will soon be familiar with when Afire is released this week. Taking place in a secluded house by the Baltic Sea, it shows Petzold at his most sultry and melodramatic. The drama stars Thomas Schubert as Leon, a writer struggling to follow up on the success of his first novel. He travels with a friend for a summer getaway but becomes infatuated with a woman who shares the house with them.
That look is one that viewers will soon be familiar with when Afire is released this week. Taking place in a secluded house by the Baltic Sea, it shows Petzold at his most sultry and melodramatic. The drama stars Thomas Schubert as Leon, a writer struggling to follow up on the success of his first novel. He travels with a friend for a summer getaway but becomes infatuated with a woman who shares the house with them.
- 7/11/2023
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Yes, there’s a reference made to Britney Spears in Sam Levinson’s new HBO series, The Idol, and Lily-Rose Depp does play a Britney-like character who’s looking to rise from her funk, but as the Euphoria creator said at the Cannes press conference today, “We’re not trying to tell a story about any particular pop star.”
Levinson added, “It’s a lot of pressure — to have to constantly be on, and to be what everyone wishes you to be. It’s a lonely life… We can all pretend that everyone is looking out for someone’s best interest, but I think fame really corrupts; it’s really easy to surround yourself with myth-makers who continue to prop us up.”
Levinson said that when he first saw all the news about the controversy on The Idol set, he knew he had the biggest hit of the summer. A...
Levinson added, “It’s a lot of pressure — to have to constantly be on, and to be what everyone wishes you to be. It’s a lonely life… We can all pretend that everyone is looking out for someone’s best interest, but I think fame really corrupts; it’s really easy to surround yourself with myth-makers who continue to prop us up.”
Levinson said that when he first saw all the news about the controversy on The Idol set, he knew he had the biggest hit of the summer. A...
- 5/23/2023
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
There’s a tender empathy emanating from every frame of Rebecca Zlotowski’s latest feature Other People’s Children. The French director’s latest work stars Virginie Efira in her finest performance to date, playing a woman who forms a special bond with her boyfriend’s daughter as she juggles professional and personal responsibilities. It’s a film of equal charm and quiet heartbreak with Zlotowski expertly weaving in each subplot to form a complete picture of universal quandaries of love in different forms.
When Zlotowski was in town for the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema premiere, I had the opportunity to speak with her about the difficult of capturing everyday feelings, finding magical moments throughout the film, the movies that influenced her, Frederick Wiseman’s cameo, and more. As the film begins its U.S. release, check out the conversation below.
The Film Stage: I love how focused this film is on character,...
When Zlotowski was in town for the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema premiere, I had the opportunity to speak with her about the difficult of capturing everyday feelings, finding magical moments throughout the film, the movies that influenced her, Frederick Wiseman’s cameo, and more. As the film begins its U.S. release, check out the conversation below.
The Film Stage: I love how focused this film is on character,...
- 4/20/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Museum of the Moving Image
Tokyo Story plays on 35mm this Friday and Sunday.
Film Forum
Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity plays in a 4K restoration; Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ’45 and The Conformist continue their runs; a Jeanne Moreau retrospective highlights her three, rarely screened directing efforts as well as her onscreen work; Panahi’s The White Balloon plays on 35mm this Sunday.
Anthology Film Archives
Films by Luis Buñuel screen through the weekend in Essential Cinema.
Film at Lincoln Center
A retrospective of Tod Browning’s dark world brings the likes of Freaks and Dracula, while the newly restored Drylongso continues screening. (Read our interview with director Cauleen Smith here.)
IFC Center
Before Sunrise screens, while Fight Club, Akira, Jaws, Barb Wire, and Poison Ivy have late showings.
Roxy Cinema
Synecdoche, New York and Paul Williams...
Museum of the Moving Image
Tokyo Story plays on 35mm this Friday and Sunday.
Film Forum
Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity plays in a 4K restoration; Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ’45 and The Conformist continue their runs; a Jeanne Moreau retrospective highlights her three, rarely screened directing efforts as well as her onscreen work; Panahi’s The White Balloon plays on 35mm this Sunday.
Anthology Film Archives
Films by Luis Buñuel screen through the weekend in Essential Cinema.
Film at Lincoln Center
A retrospective of Tod Browning’s dark world brings the likes of Freaks and Dracula, while the newly restored Drylongso continues screening. (Read our interview with director Cauleen Smith here.)
IFC Center
Before Sunrise screens, while Fight Club, Akira, Jaws, Barb Wire, and Poison Ivy have late showings.
Roxy Cinema
Synecdoche, New York and Paul Williams...
- 3/24/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Film at Lincoln Center
A retrospective of Tod Browning’s dark world brings the likes of Freaks and Dracula, while the newly restored Drylongso starts screening. (Read our interview with director Cauleen Smith here.)
IFC Center
The Dardenne brothers are subject of a career-spanning retrospective, with L’Enfant, The Kid with a Bike, and Lorna’s Silence showing on 35mm; Fight Club, Akira, Jaws, Times Square, and Poison Ivy have late screenings.
Film Forum
Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ’45 begins a run; a Jeanne Moreau retrospective highlights her three, rarely screened directing efforts; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River continues showing in a 4K restoration, while The Conformist returns; Selena plays this Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
Dressed to Kill, Chabrol’s The Champagne Murders, Minnie and Moskowitz, Belly, and Synecdoche, New York have 35mm showings.
Museum of the Moving Image
With First Look underway,...
Film at Lincoln Center
A retrospective of Tod Browning’s dark world brings the likes of Freaks and Dracula, while the newly restored Drylongso starts screening. (Read our interview with director Cauleen Smith here.)
IFC Center
The Dardenne brothers are subject of a career-spanning retrospective, with L’Enfant, The Kid with a Bike, and Lorna’s Silence showing on 35mm; Fight Club, Akira, Jaws, Times Square, and Poison Ivy have late screenings.
Film Forum
Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ’45 begins a run; a Jeanne Moreau retrospective highlights her three, rarely screened directing efforts; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River continues showing in a 4K restoration, while The Conformist returns; Selena plays this Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
Dressed to Kill, Chabrol’s The Champagne Murders, Minnie and Moskowitz, Belly, and Synecdoche, New York have 35mm showings.
Museum of the Moving Image
With First Look underway,...
- 3/17/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Titles comprise ’Lillian Gish’, ‘Lumiere’ and ’L’Adolescente’.
Three films directed by iconic French actress Jeanne Moreau have been sold to King Records for Japan by Paris-based Carlotta Films.
The titles, packaged under the banner Jeanne Moreau, Filmmaker, comprise Lumière, L’Adolescente and documentary Lillian Gish. The trio is also set to be screened in April’s Hong Kong International Film Festival.
The features’ restoration was initiated and supported by Fond Jeanne Moreau, and spotlights the lesser-known filmmaking talents of the late star of Jules And Jim, Seven Days… Seven Nights, Elevator To The Gallows and La Notte.
Lillian Gish is a...
Three films directed by iconic French actress Jeanne Moreau have been sold to King Records for Japan by Paris-based Carlotta Films.
The titles, packaged under the banner Jeanne Moreau, Filmmaker, comprise Lumière, L’Adolescente and documentary Lillian Gish. The trio is also set to be screened in April’s Hong Kong International Film Festival.
The features’ restoration was initiated and supported by Fond Jeanne Moreau, and spotlights the lesser-known filmmaking talents of the late star of Jules And Jim, Seven Days… Seven Nights, Elevator To The Gallows and La Notte.
Lillian Gish is a...
- 3/14/2023
- by Jean Noh
- ScreenDaily
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Roxy Cinema
Dressed to Kill and Chabrol’s The Champagne Murders have 35mm showings; Mary Bronstein’s Yeast, starring a young Greta Gerwig, screens on Friday.
Film Forum
A Jeanne Moreau retrospective brings films by Antonioni, Fassbinder, Truffaut, Welles and more; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River and Una Vita Difficile continue showing in a 4K restorations while The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T plays this Sunday.
Museum of the Moving Image
A series on snubs brings films by David Lynch, Todd Haynes, the Safdies, and Rebecca Hall.
Film at Lincoln Center
Claire Denis’ masterful first feature Chocolat has been restored in 4K and continues its run.
IFC Center
Fight Club, Cruel Intentions, and Jaws have screenings, while Body of Evidence plays on 35mm.
The post NYC Weekend Watch: Dressed to Kill, La Notte, Safe & More first appeared on The Film Stage.
Roxy Cinema
Dressed to Kill and Chabrol’s The Champagne Murders have 35mm showings; Mary Bronstein’s Yeast, starring a young Greta Gerwig, screens on Friday.
Film Forum
A Jeanne Moreau retrospective brings films by Antonioni, Fassbinder, Truffaut, Welles and more; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River and Una Vita Difficile continue showing in a 4K restorations while The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T plays this Sunday.
Museum of the Moving Image
A series on snubs brings films by David Lynch, Todd Haynes, the Safdies, and Rebecca Hall.
Film at Lincoln Center
Claire Denis’ masterful first feature Chocolat has been restored in 4K and continues its run.
IFC Center
Fight Club, Cruel Intentions, and Jaws have screenings, while Body of Evidence plays on 35mm.
The post NYC Weekend Watch: Dressed to Kill, La Notte, Safe & More first appeared on The Film Stage.
- 3/10/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Film Forum
A Jeanne Moreau retrospective brings films by Antonioni, Malle, Becker and more; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River and Una Vita Difficile continue showing in a 4K restorations while King Kong plays this Sunday.
Museum of the Moving Image
A series on snubs brings films by the Coens, Wes Anderson, Spike Lee, David Lynch, and Todd Haynes.
Film at Lincoln Center
Claire Denis’ masterful first feature Chocolat has been restored in 4K and begins a run.
Roxy Cinema
Minnie and Moskowitz has 35mm showings Saturday and Sunday, the latter day also bringing Polanski’s Frantic; “City Dudes” returns on Saturday.
Anthology Film Archives
Barbarella, Wr: Mysteries of the Organism, and more play in Wilhelm Reich series; Brakhage screens in Essential Cinema.
IFC Center
Fight Club, Cruel Intentions, and Akira have screenings, while Showgirls plays on 35mm.
The post NYC Weekend Watch: Jeanne Moreau,...
Film Forum
A Jeanne Moreau retrospective brings films by Antonioni, Malle, Becker and more; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River and Una Vita Difficile continue showing in a 4K restorations while King Kong plays this Sunday.
Museum of the Moving Image
A series on snubs brings films by the Coens, Wes Anderson, Spike Lee, David Lynch, and Todd Haynes.
Film at Lincoln Center
Claire Denis’ masterful first feature Chocolat has been restored in 4K and begins a run.
Roxy Cinema
Minnie and Moskowitz has 35mm showings Saturday and Sunday, the latter day also bringing Polanski’s Frantic; “City Dudes” returns on Saturday.
Anthology Film Archives
Barbarella, Wr: Mysteries of the Organism, and more play in Wilhelm Reich series; Brakhage screens in Essential Cinema.
IFC Center
Fight Club, Cruel Intentions, and Akira have screenings, while Showgirls plays on 35mm.
The post NYC Weekend Watch: Jeanne Moreau,...
- 3/3/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Rousing action films get your blood pumping and lift your spirits. In some respects, they're even more thrilling when women play the action hero. Though ladies have been kicking butt in movies for decades now, it's still just as exciting when a new woman fights her way to the big screen and into our hearts. If you're a fan of action films -– and hopefully if you're a fan of women –- you've probably seen many of this century's most popular female-led action epics. There are the "Kill Bill" films, of course, Ripley's badassery in "Aliens," and more recent fare like "Atomic Blonde" and "Mad Max: Fury Road."
These are all incredible films that certainly deserve their place in the action pantheon, but others deserve our attention, too. For one thing, there actually were a few female-led action films made before the year 2000, something you might not be aware of...
These are all incredible films that certainly deserve their place in the action pantheon, but others deserve our attention, too. For one thing, there actually were a few female-led action films made before the year 2000, something you might not be aware of...
- 2/26/2023
- by Kira Deshler
- Slash Film
It may feel like throuples are a distinctly modern romantic arrangement – but this couldn’t be further from the case.
In fact, consensual non-monogamy, such as a ménage à trois, goes back centuries. It can even be found in the bible.
Recently, David Haye has been the subject of speculation surrounding his private life, with fans claiming that the ex-boxer is in a three-way relationship with model Sian Osborne and The Saturdays singer Una Healy.
On Valentine’s Day, Haye appeared to confirm the rumours, with Healy also sharing a coy message on Instagram alluding to the relationship.
When it comes to depictions of polyamorous relationships in film and TV, good examples have traditionally been few and far between.
But that’s not to say there haven’t been any – from pre-code classics to modern indie dramas, there are plenty of films and TV series which place the spotlight on...
In fact, consensual non-monogamy, such as a ménage à trois, goes back centuries. It can even be found in the bible.
Recently, David Haye has been the subject of speculation surrounding his private life, with fans claiming that the ex-boxer is in a three-way relationship with model Sian Osborne and The Saturdays singer Una Healy.
On Valentine’s Day, Haye appeared to confirm the rumours, with Healy also sharing a coy message on Instagram alluding to the relationship.
When it comes to depictions of polyamorous relationships in film and TV, good examples have traditionally been few and far between.
But that’s not to say there haven’t been any – from pre-code classics to modern indie dramas, there are plenty of films and TV series which place the spotlight on...
- 2/15/2023
- by Louis Chilton
- The Independent - Film
Claudia Squitieri with her mother Claudia Cardinale on Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo: “it’s one of her most adventurous experiences.” Photo: courtesy of Claudia Squitieri
In the second instalment with Claudia Squitieri we discuss more of the films her mother, Claudia Cardinale, starred in. Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, Mick Jagger, Jason Robards, Thomas Mauch, My Best Fiend, and filming Fitzcarraldo; encountering Fernando Trueba (The Artist And Model) in Deauville and reconnecting with Jean Rochefort; Manoel de Oliveira and an “atmosphere of mysticality” during the making of Gebo and the Shadow with Jeanne Moreau and Michael Lonsdale, shot by Renato Berta; Blake Edwards and The Pink Panther, the problem with sequels and playing Roberto Benigni’s mother in Son Of The Pink Panther all came up in our conversation.
Claudia Squitieri from Paris on Roberto Benigni with Claudia Cardinale: “He was going “Claudia!!!!” Jumping around every time he saw my mother.
In the second instalment with Claudia Squitieri we discuss more of the films her mother, Claudia Cardinale, starred in. Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, Mick Jagger, Jason Robards, Thomas Mauch, My Best Fiend, and filming Fitzcarraldo; encountering Fernando Trueba (The Artist And Model) in Deauville and reconnecting with Jean Rochefort; Manoel de Oliveira and an “atmosphere of mysticality” during the making of Gebo and the Shadow with Jeanne Moreau and Michael Lonsdale, shot by Renato Berta; Blake Edwards and The Pink Panther, the problem with sequels and playing Roberto Benigni’s mother in Son Of The Pink Panther all came up in our conversation.
Claudia Squitieri from Paris on Roberto Benigni with Claudia Cardinale: “He was going “Claudia!!!!” Jumping around every time he saw my mother.
- 2/11/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
François Truffaut’s ode to Hitchcock and Cornell Woolrich is an ice-cold femme revenge tale. Jeanne Moreau exacts retribution from five men who made her a widow on her wedding day. Truffaut winds it as tightly as a mousetrap, leaving Ms. Moreau’s psychology a mystery — feminists can debate whether the film is misogynistic. Raoul Coutard’s color cinematography is deceptively warm and inviting; the film’s biggest boost comes from Bernard Herrmann’s powerful music score.
The Bride Wore Black
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1968 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 107 min. / Street Date February 14, 2023 / La mariée était en noir / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Michel Bouquet, Jean-Claude Brialy, Charles Denner, Claude Rich, Michael Lonsdale, Daniel Boulanger, Alexandra Stewart, Sylvine Delannoy, Luce Fabiole, Michèle Montfort.
Cinematography: Raoul Coutard
Production Designer: Pierre Guffroy
Film Editor: Claudine Bouché
Original Music: Bernard Herrmann
Written by François Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard from the novel by William Irish...
The Bride Wore Black
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1968 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 107 min. / Street Date February 14, 2023 / La mariée était en noir / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Michel Bouquet, Jean-Claude Brialy, Charles Denner, Claude Rich, Michael Lonsdale, Daniel Boulanger, Alexandra Stewart, Sylvine Delannoy, Luce Fabiole, Michèle Montfort.
Cinematography: Raoul Coutard
Production Designer: Pierre Guffroy
Film Editor: Claudine Bouché
Original Music: Bernard Herrmann
Written by François Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard from the novel by William Irish...
- 2/4/2023
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The Films of Theo Angelopoulos: Landscapes of TimeFourteen films will be showing from October 13 to December 18, 2022 at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood with free tickets and free parking thanks to an anonymous donor to the Hammer Museum. Sponsored by UCLA’s Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture, UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies and the Consulate General of Greece in Los Angeles, the kickoff film, ‘Landscapes in the Mist’ played to a full house.
How did all these people know Theodoros Angelopoulos? I thought he was my own private guilty pleasure, my own discovery from the days when I would spend the last day of every film festival where I was working to see a film I wanted to see, knowing I would never be able to convince my company to buy it. It was at the Thessaloniki Film Festival 1991 when I first saw an Angelopoulis film, The Suspended Step of the Stork starring Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau. I had never seen such a film with the story only revealing its impact at the end. I had seen slow films of Antonioni (not knowing his screenwriter was the same who wrote Angelopoulos’s films), but this film was so unlike any film I had ever seen before. I barely understood what was happening until the end when story revealed the inner core of its truth. At that moment, I knew that the film had changed my life and my perceptions. This was the first in Angelopoulos’ Trilogy of Borders.
‘Suspended Step of the Stork’
As of this writing, two films have screened thus far: Landscape in the Mist (European Film Award for Best Film), the last of his Trilogy of Silence. It was followed the next week by Eternity and a Day (Palme d’Or at the 51st edition of the Cannes Film Festival), the last of his Trilogy of Borders. Having seen these two, so many questions arose for me that I knew I needed to find out more about Angelopoulos himself.
Why these trilogies? Does he always work in threes, making trilogies and why?
Why were both Eternity and a Day and Landscape in the Mist about a little boy Alexander who has no parents, and most particularly no father? Is Alexander in all his films?
What’s with the troupe of actors which keeps showing up in Landscape in the Mist and is central to The Traveling Players his Trilogy of History?
Why are there always three yellow jacketed bicycle riders in the two films I have so far seen?
Why is there always a wedding — sometimes happy, sometimes not so?
Critic Andrew Horton calls Angelopoulos’ films, “Cinema of Contemplation” which does give the context within which one derives the full impact of his stories, more through contemplation than through following a plot line which nevertheless exists. Angelopoulos believed cinema was creating a new form of universal communication. He also saw his own life as a continuation of Greek history from the beginning of time, a theme he reiterates in his films. To absorb such a large picture, one must be in a contemplative state of mind. The films provide a framework for meditation. And his end shot is more than once a line of yellow jacketed repair workers climbing telephone poles that extend beyond the horizon or riding bicycles to beyond the frame of what we see. I must see the rest of the films to know what these repairmen are doing to extend travel and communication beyond borders.
Angelopoulos views the world through the eyes of a child named Alexander who in Landscape in the Mist is about five and is traveling across Greece to Germany with his ten year old sister Voula to find the father they have never known. They recognize they are part of a story with no end. The only adult words describing their odyssey are in the bedtime story Voula tells Alexander; in the introduction to a staged play that the friend they find on the road, named Orestes, describes to them; and in the first words spoken by a singing actor as the traveling theater troupe is about to start performing the play. But, as in the bedtime story and in Orestes’ description, the play, seemingly interrupted by other events, never finishes. The story starts, “in the beginning is darkness, then comes light, then the sea and sky, then the plants and trees.” When his sister feels fear for what lies ahead, Alexander comforts her with his promise to continue telling the story that never finishes. Through the mist, they find the tree, so vaguely described by Orestes as he shows them blank frames of a 35mm piece of film he picks up and so materially there in front of them when they cross the last border to Germany. They hug its trunk in relief and renewed trust in the will of some higher order that they have arrived safely.
Landscape in the Mist is the last of the Trilogy of Silence, haunting, incisive, intimate, and deeply moving odysseys that navigate through consciousness, myth, and memory. Landscape in the Mist represents the “silence of God”. The other two parts are the “silence of history” in Voyage to Cythera (1984) and the “silence of love” in The Beekeeper [1986).
In Eternity and a Day, the child in himself, Alexander (Bruno Ganz), has become a great writer and poet who is now facing his final days of a fatal illness. Putting his affairs in order and bidding farewell to family and friends before admitting himself into the hospital where he will await death, he asks “How long is tomorrow?” and is told, it is “eternity and a day.” He finds himself paired on his last day with a child, an Albanian illegal of Greek origin who fears the future with no adult to guide him into an unknown land across the sea. The poet himself lacks to words to finish his own work let alone help the child with his fears and his own journey, but his redemption comes from a literal exchange of words through the child which allows him to transcend his life and his emotional distance.
The three words Alexander receives from the Albanian boy are korfulamu, a delicate word for the heart of a flower, a literal ‘word of comfort’ for his physical suffering. The second is xenitis, the feeling of being a stranger everywhere, including with his own beautiful wife Anna (Isabelle Renauld). and daughter. The third is argathini, meaning ‘very late at night’, a metaphor for the ‘twilight’ of his existence.
The story that never finishes is the human odyssey of migrations and crossing borders, both in lands and in our minds as we face unknown futures in landscapes we do not recognize as our own. Angelopoulos’ reality unfolds through the prism of his memories. And he counts himself lucky to have lived consciously within the context of history. His memories are a continuation of the long history of Greece. He was born in 1935 the year before King George II of Greece returned to Rome with his Prime Minister Metaxas who, with the agreement of the king, suspended the parliament and established the quasi-fascist Metaxas regime. He lived through World War II, the subsequent Civil War, and the military dictatorship of 1967–1974.
He sees his films not as psychological studies of characters but as characters’ personal lives within a historical context, of “finding one’s own history within the history of a place.” He considers his political films quite different from those of Costa Gavras’ whose he calls bourgeois.
Starting with The Iliad, The Odyssey, and later the concluding Aeneid, continuing with the classic tretralogies, cycles of three plays by the great playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, Angelopoulis likewise writes in trilogies, three tragedies intended to be seen in one sitting, but way too long for most of us modern westerners. The trilogies of Angelopoulos would have greater impact if we could see them sequentially, even if not in one sitting. But the programmers did not see it that way and so we must see each film (which stands on its own) interspersed in what seems to be a random order. Even so, the themes intertwine seamlessly creating a textile of modern Greek myth, thought and insight.
Angelopoulos created Days of ’36 in 1972. It is the first film of what would become his self-described Trilogy of History that also includes The Traveling Players (1975) and Alexander the Great (1980) with an epilogue of The Hunters (1977). (The Greek plays also had epilogues.) That he made the first two films in Greece during the dictatorship required an “imposed silence” and indeed, that is the prevalent element in Days of ’36, the story of the country’s ruling leisure class suppressing the fight of leftist labor. The film begins with the assassination of a labor organizer and ends with a mafiosa-type last word of the ruling class which needs stability at any cost.
In The Traveling Players, Senses of Cinema writes:
It is interesting to note that Angelopoulos uses members of an otherwise anonymous cast of marginalized traveling players as conveyers of contemporary Greek history …: Agamemnon (Stratos Pachis) traces his immigration from Asia Minor to Greece (a reminder of the country’s historically borderless, ethnically diverse population that can be traced back to the Ottoman Empire), Electra (Eva Kotamanidou) chronicles the start of the Civil War after the defeat of the Germans in 1944, and Pylades (Kiriakos Katrivanos) provides a personal account of the torture of political prisoners. In essence, by using the testament of people who are literally transient and homeless (and without identity), Angelopoulos creates a powerful analogy for all Greek people as displaced exiles within their own country.
Again, from Senses of Cinema:
Angelopoulos returned to the theme of the nation’s historically organic, cross-cultural migration in The Travelling Players to examine the the refugee’s resigned sentiment, “We’ve crossed the border and we’re still here. How many borders must we cross to reach home?”, carries through to the makeshift, outdoor cinema in Angelopoulos’ next film, Ulysses’ Gaze, as A arrives for an unauthorized screening of his film. Like the adrift Spyros in The Beekeeper, A’s devastating emotional odyssey through his ancestral homeland is also a personal journey to reconnect with his cultural past, striving to recapture the purity of human vision that has been tainted by romantic loss, artistic controversy, familial estrangement, ideological disillusionment, and the ravages of war.
Regarding the written words of the scripts, Angelopoulos consistently worked with the Italian screenwriter Tonino Guerra, who also frequently collaborated with such celebrated directors as Federico Fellini, Michaelangelo Antonioni (he wrote all of his movies’ scripts) and Francesco Rossi. Guerra consulted on The Dust of Time, cowrote The Weeping Meadow, Eternity and a Day, Ulysses’ Gaze, and wrote The Suspended Step of the Stork, Landscape in the Mist, The Beekeeper and Voyage to Cythera.
Angelopoulos also collaborated regularly with the cinematographer Giorgos Arvanitis and the composer Eleni Karaindrou, both of whom are essential to his works’ impact.
One of the recurring themes of his work is immigration, the flight from homeland and the return, as well as the history of 20th century Greece. Angelopoulos was considered by British film critics Derek Malcolm and David Thomson to be one of the world’s greatest directors.
Angelopoulos died late 24 January 2012, several hours after being involved in an crash while shooting the last film of his latest trilogy on modern Greece, The Other Sea in Athens. On that evening, the filmmaker had been with his crew in the area of Drapetsona, near Piraeus when he was hit by a motorcycle ridden by an off-duty police officer. The crash occurred when Angelopoulos, 76, attempted to cross a busy road. The first two films were The Weeping Meadow (2004)) and The Dust of Time (2008).
As his legacy lives on, it reminds those of us who contemplate time and space that our Western Civilization began when Greece’s voice was raised to express our most primal emotions in its tragedies. Angelopouos’ work, along with the oldest epic cycle and the Greek tragedies, all deal with the aftermath of world shaking wars which are the results of revenge and murder, sex and power wielded by those more powerful than even the king despots of the age, but by the gods themselves (whoever she is).
How did all these people know Theodoros Angelopoulos? I thought he was my own private guilty pleasure, my own discovery from the days when I would spend the last day of every film festival where I was working to see a film I wanted to see, knowing I would never be able to convince my company to buy it. It was at the Thessaloniki Film Festival 1991 when I first saw an Angelopoulis film, The Suspended Step of the Stork starring Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau. I had never seen such a film with the story only revealing its impact at the end. I had seen slow films of Antonioni (not knowing his screenwriter was the same who wrote Angelopoulos’s films), but this film was so unlike any film I had ever seen before. I barely understood what was happening until the end when story revealed the inner core of its truth. At that moment, I knew that the film had changed my life and my perceptions. This was the first in Angelopoulos’ Trilogy of Borders.
‘Suspended Step of the Stork’
As of this writing, two films have screened thus far: Landscape in the Mist (European Film Award for Best Film), the last of his Trilogy of Silence. It was followed the next week by Eternity and a Day (Palme d’Or at the 51st edition of the Cannes Film Festival), the last of his Trilogy of Borders. Having seen these two, so many questions arose for me that I knew I needed to find out more about Angelopoulos himself.
Why these trilogies? Does he always work in threes, making trilogies and why?
Why were both Eternity and a Day and Landscape in the Mist about a little boy Alexander who has no parents, and most particularly no father? Is Alexander in all his films?
What’s with the troupe of actors which keeps showing up in Landscape in the Mist and is central to The Traveling Players his Trilogy of History?
Why are there always three yellow jacketed bicycle riders in the two films I have so far seen?
Why is there always a wedding — sometimes happy, sometimes not so?
Critic Andrew Horton calls Angelopoulos’ films, “Cinema of Contemplation” which does give the context within which one derives the full impact of his stories, more through contemplation than through following a plot line which nevertheless exists. Angelopoulos believed cinema was creating a new form of universal communication. He also saw his own life as a continuation of Greek history from the beginning of time, a theme he reiterates in his films. To absorb such a large picture, one must be in a contemplative state of mind. The films provide a framework for meditation. And his end shot is more than once a line of yellow jacketed repair workers climbing telephone poles that extend beyond the horizon or riding bicycles to beyond the frame of what we see. I must see the rest of the films to know what these repairmen are doing to extend travel and communication beyond borders.
Angelopoulos views the world through the eyes of a child named Alexander who in Landscape in the Mist is about five and is traveling across Greece to Germany with his ten year old sister Voula to find the father they have never known. They recognize they are part of a story with no end. The only adult words describing their odyssey are in the bedtime story Voula tells Alexander; in the introduction to a staged play that the friend they find on the road, named Orestes, describes to them; and in the first words spoken by a singing actor as the traveling theater troupe is about to start performing the play. But, as in the bedtime story and in Orestes’ description, the play, seemingly interrupted by other events, never finishes. The story starts, “in the beginning is darkness, then comes light, then the sea and sky, then the plants and trees.” When his sister feels fear for what lies ahead, Alexander comforts her with his promise to continue telling the story that never finishes. Through the mist, they find the tree, so vaguely described by Orestes as he shows them blank frames of a 35mm piece of film he picks up and so materially there in front of them when they cross the last border to Germany. They hug its trunk in relief and renewed trust in the will of some higher order that they have arrived safely.
Landscape in the Mist is the last of the Trilogy of Silence, haunting, incisive, intimate, and deeply moving odysseys that navigate through consciousness, myth, and memory. Landscape in the Mist represents the “silence of God”. The other two parts are the “silence of history” in Voyage to Cythera (1984) and the “silence of love” in The Beekeeper [1986).
In Eternity and a Day, the child in himself, Alexander (Bruno Ganz), has become a great writer and poet who is now facing his final days of a fatal illness. Putting his affairs in order and bidding farewell to family and friends before admitting himself into the hospital where he will await death, he asks “How long is tomorrow?” and is told, it is “eternity and a day.” He finds himself paired on his last day with a child, an Albanian illegal of Greek origin who fears the future with no adult to guide him into an unknown land across the sea. The poet himself lacks to words to finish his own work let alone help the child with his fears and his own journey, but his redemption comes from a literal exchange of words through the child which allows him to transcend his life and his emotional distance.
The three words Alexander receives from the Albanian boy are korfulamu, a delicate word for the heart of a flower, a literal ‘word of comfort’ for his physical suffering. The second is xenitis, the feeling of being a stranger everywhere, including with his own beautiful wife Anna (Isabelle Renauld). and daughter. The third is argathini, meaning ‘very late at night’, a metaphor for the ‘twilight’ of his existence.
The story that never finishes is the human odyssey of migrations and crossing borders, both in lands and in our minds as we face unknown futures in landscapes we do not recognize as our own. Angelopoulos’ reality unfolds through the prism of his memories. And he counts himself lucky to have lived consciously within the context of history. His memories are a continuation of the long history of Greece. He was born in 1935 the year before King George II of Greece returned to Rome with his Prime Minister Metaxas who, with the agreement of the king, suspended the parliament and established the quasi-fascist Metaxas regime. He lived through World War II, the subsequent Civil War, and the military dictatorship of 1967–1974.
He sees his films not as psychological studies of characters but as characters’ personal lives within a historical context, of “finding one’s own history within the history of a place.” He considers his political films quite different from those of Costa Gavras’ whose he calls bourgeois.
Starting with The Iliad, The Odyssey, and later the concluding Aeneid, continuing with the classic tretralogies, cycles of three plays by the great playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, Angelopoulis likewise writes in trilogies, three tragedies intended to be seen in one sitting, but way too long for most of us modern westerners. The trilogies of Angelopoulos would have greater impact if we could see them sequentially, even if not in one sitting. But the programmers did not see it that way and so we must see each film (which stands on its own) interspersed in what seems to be a random order. Even so, the themes intertwine seamlessly creating a textile of modern Greek myth, thought and insight.
Angelopoulos created Days of ’36 in 1972. It is the first film of what would become his self-described Trilogy of History that also includes The Traveling Players (1975) and Alexander the Great (1980) with an epilogue of The Hunters (1977). (The Greek plays also had epilogues.) That he made the first two films in Greece during the dictatorship required an “imposed silence” and indeed, that is the prevalent element in Days of ’36, the story of the country’s ruling leisure class suppressing the fight of leftist labor. The film begins with the assassination of a labor organizer and ends with a mafiosa-type last word of the ruling class which needs stability at any cost.
In The Traveling Players, Senses of Cinema writes:
It is interesting to note that Angelopoulos uses members of an otherwise anonymous cast of marginalized traveling players as conveyers of contemporary Greek history …: Agamemnon (Stratos Pachis) traces his immigration from Asia Minor to Greece (a reminder of the country’s historically borderless, ethnically diverse population that can be traced back to the Ottoman Empire), Electra (Eva Kotamanidou) chronicles the start of the Civil War after the defeat of the Germans in 1944, and Pylades (Kiriakos Katrivanos) provides a personal account of the torture of political prisoners. In essence, by using the testament of people who are literally transient and homeless (and without identity), Angelopoulos creates a powerful analogy for all Greek people as displaced exiles within their own country.
Again, from Senses of Cinema:
Angelopoulos returned to the theme of the nation’s historically organic, cross-cultural migration in The Travelling Players to examine the the refugee’s resigned sentiment, “We’ve crossed the border and we’re still here. How many borders must we cross to reach home?”, carries through to the makeshift, outdoor cinema in Angelopoulos’ next film, Ulysses’ Gaze, as A arrives for an unauthorized screening of his film. Like the adrift Spyros in The Beekeeper, A’s devastating emotional odyssey through his ancestral homeland is also a personal journey to reconnect with his cultural past, striving to recapture the purity of human vision that has been tainted by romantic loss, artistic controversy, familial estrangement, ideological disillusionment, and the ravages of war.
Regarding the written words of the scripts, Angelopoulos consistently worked with the Italian screenwriter Tonino Guerra, who also frequently collaborated with such celebrated directors as Federico Fellini, Michaelangelo Antonioni (he wrote all of his movies’ scripts) and Francesco Rossi. Guerra consulted on The Dust of Time, cowrote The Weeping Meadow, Eternity and a Day, Ulysses’ Gaze, and wrote The Suspended Step of the Stork, Landscape in the Mist, The Beekeeper and Voyage to Cythera.
Angelopoulos also collaborated regularly with the cinematographer Giorgos Arvanitis and the composer Eleni Karaindrou, both of whom are essential to his works’ impact.
One of the recurring themes of his work is immigration, the flight from homeland and the return, as well as the history of 20th century Greece. Angelopoulos was considered by British film critics Derek Malcolm and David Thomson to be one of the world’s greatest directors.
Angelopoulos died late 24 January 2012, several hours after being involved in an crash while shooting the last film of his latest trilogy on modern Greece, The Other Sea in Athens. On that evening, the filmmaker had been with his crew in the area of Drapetsona, near Piraeus when he was hit by a motorcycle ridden by an off-duty police officer. The crash occurred when Angelopoulos, 76, attempted to cross a busy road. The first two films were The Weeping Meadow (2004)) and The Dust of Time (2008).
As his legacy lives on, it reminds those of us who contemplate time and space that our Western Civilization began when Greece’s voice was raised to express our most primal emotions in its tragedies. Angelopouos’ work, along with the oldest epic cycle and the Greek tragedies, all deal with the aftermath of world shaking wars which are the results of revenge and murder, sex and power wielded by those more powerful than even the king despots of the age, but by the gods themselves (whoever she is).
- 12/18/2022
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
To mark the release of the restored 60th anniversary edition of The Trial, out now, we’ve been given a 4K Ultra HD copy to give away to one winner.
Based on the novel by Franz Kafka, The Trial is a masterclass in tension building and avant-garde filmmaking featuring outstanding performances from a stellar cast – Anthony Perkins, Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau and Romy Schneider.
One morning, Josef K. (Perkins) is arrested but has no idea what crime he is accused of. Completely stunned, K. slowly finds himself trapped in a dehumanised nightmare and realizes he is the victim of a grotesque plot. He is accused by everyone, friends and enemies, until, worn down, he ends up doubting his own innocence.
Welles brilliantly captured the oppressive and nightmarish qualities of Kafka’s fictional world. Using the cracked labyrinthine corridors of Paris’ ruined Gare D’Orsay as his set, with icy black...
Based on the novel by Franz Kafka, The Trial is a masterclass in tension building and avant-garde filmmaking featuring outstanding performances from a stellar cast – Anthony Perkins, Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau and Romy Schneider.
One morning, Josef K. (Perkins) is arrested but has no idea what crime he is accused of. Completely stunned, K. slowly finds himself trapped in a dehumanised nightmare and realizes he is the victim of a grotesque plot. He is accused by everyone, friends and enemies, until, worn down, he ends up doubting his own innocence.
Welles brilliantly captured the oppressive and nightmarish qualities of Kafka’s fictional world. Using the cracked labyrinthine corridors of Paris’ ruined Gare D’Orsay as his set, with icy black...
- 11/23/2022
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Hungry for those wet Parisian streets, the city lights, and cadavres en lambeaux in the pale moonlight? Enter three highly atmospheric, star-studded Crime Noirs, one of which is a stealth classic of Gallic Pulp. Stars Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, and Annie Girardot bring the tales of à sang froid malice and mayhem to life. The films featured are Gilles Grangier’s Speaking of Murder (Le rouge est mis) and Édouard Molinaro’s Back to the Wall (Le dos au mur) and Witness in the City (Un Témoin dans la ville). Beware of French husbands when cucklolded — they show no pity. Bonne chance, victimes!
French Noir Collection
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957-59 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / 265 minutes / Street Date November 29, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95
Starring: Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, Annie Girardot, Paul Frankeur,...
French Noir Collection
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957-59 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / 265 minutes / Street Date November 29, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95
Starring: Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, Annie Girardot, Paul Frankeur,...
- 11/19/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
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