So there's this meme going around that Paolo tagged me with. So why not? The idea is that you list 15 directors, mainly off of the top of your head, that contributed to the way you experience and think about the movies. This is not a list of my all time favorites though half of the list would probably overlap. This is the list I come up with when I think briefly on the formative masterminds and/or the ones that have or had some sort of claim on my soul if you will. Three of them I could definitely live without at this point but I'm trying to be honest about the exercize.
Wise with Wood ~ West Side Story
So here goes in no particular order...
ROBERT WISE(1914-2005)
When I was a kid West Side Story and The Sound of Music were the most Epically ! Epic !!! movies to me. At the time I didn't quite grasp the auteur theory but at some point I became aware that this guy had made both so therefore "He must be the best director of all time!" Later I discovered that he wasn't but I still think he's a stronger talent than he gets credit for being nowadays. first encounters:The Sound of Music and West Side Story (on television)
ALFRED HITCHCOCK(1899-1980)
As I said in my Rope retro, he's training wheels for any young budding film buff who is curious about The Man Behind the Curtain (Hitch or otherwise). first encounter:North By Northwest (I think I saw it here, the place I saw many old movies for the first time. My parents didn't know what a monster they were creating by taking me there regularly.)
WOODY ALLEN(1935-)
For the same reason as Hitchcock really; it's impossible to think you're watching anyone else's film. Woody was the first director I "followed", eagerly anticipating and attending each movie as soon as I could. As a result, he'll always have a place in my heart. first encounters:Broadway Danny Rose (in theaters... my older brother's idea), The Purple Rose of Cairo (in theaters, my idea)
Wyler meeting Charlton Heston's son.
WILLIAM WYLER (1902-1981)
The auteur theory isn't everything. This man understood dramatic storytelling and didn't dumb it down but made accessible all the nuances and fine points. Plus he could wring top notch work from all kinds of actors. His resume is deservedly overstuffed-with-classics. Just last month while watching The Best Years of Our Lives I even dreamed of watching all of his movies chronologically in a row for a blog project. I bet it would be an awesome journey. first encounters:Ben Hur (revival house) and Wuthering Heights (VHS)
STEVEN SPIELBERG(1946-) Because everyone loves him and therefore he was ubiquitous when I was growing up and still is to a degree. There was no question that he was shaping Hollywood and more than one moviegoing generation. I never felt personally attached but he was always present in the movie menu. first encounters:Raiders of the Lost Arc & E.T. (in theaters)... the latter is the only movie I can ever remember seeing with my Grandma *sniffle*
I'm off to a slow start this morning. Sometimes it can't be helped. Enjoy this first photo of Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern while I hook up my coffee IV, finish Oscar page revisions, and write about Inception... all while humming Sondheim's brilliant A Little Night Music score. What a mashup that will be.
BTW, lovedthe Broadway show last night. Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch are theater legends for a reason. Peters was exceptionally moving during "Send in the Clowns" -- I've never heard a Broadway audience go that quiet, basking in every nuance of that spectacular inimitable voice of hers -- and very funny hamming up the comedic portions of the show. There's this line in the second act about watching the summer sky smile, where Elaine Stritch says "That smile was particularly broad tonight." That line reading just killed. It felt like an affectionate elbow to the cast surrounding her that evening. Stritch was so funny that the young actress playing her granddaughter regularly had to wait a few extra beats to be heard above the laughter. Since this 1973 Stephen Sondheim musical is based on Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) and the film version of the musical in 1977 starring Elizabeth Taylor isn't definitive by any measure, I wonder why it doesn't get a second cinematic go? It couldn't be that expensive to mount since it basically only involves a few locations: mostly people's bedrooms and the grounds of a country estate.
"Desiree" via Eva Dahlbeck (55), La Liz (77), CZJ (09) and Bernadette (10)
All you need is a great actress of a certain age with a killer voice and a good comedic supporting cast. Plus beautiful costumes and careful outdoor cinematography. You're good to go. Do justice to the show's humor and the actress-playing-an-actress theatrical pathos and you've got Oscar nominations for Actress, Supporting Actress and a few tech categories at least.
[Trivia Tangent: Because we've been talking about the EGOT and the triple crown lately due to the upcoming Emmy awards, here's how that shakes out. As you know Catherine Zeta-Jones just won the Tony for this role so she only has to win an Emmy to get a triple crown. Bernadette, replacing her, has multiple Grammys -- or does she? -- and Tonys. She's been nominated for Emmys but hasn't won and the Oscar (let alone a nomination) eluded her even at the heighth of her fame in the late 70s / early 80s when she was in the mix at the Golden Globes winning for Pennies From Heaven and nominated for Mel Brooks' Silent Movie. Elaine has a Tony and multiple Emmys. No Grammy or Oscar.]
Switching gears*, to say the least...
I'm still sad there's going to be a Green Lantern movie instead of a Green Lantern Corps cable series. That could have been the next great complex and fascinating sci-fi television series to follow Battlestar Galactica with the right team. Instead I fear it will be a generic superhero movie franchise. It certainly looks generic. We need another great sci-fi series on television way more than we need another superhero movie.
If you had a power ring, what kind of things would you make it do? I mean, besides conjuring up free Broadway tickets.
*I apologize for the schizophrenia of this post. Everyone knows that superheroes and musicalsdon't go together. *
tuesday top ten returns! It's for the list-maker in me and the list-lover in you
The Cannes film festival wrapped this weekend (previous posts) and the most recent Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, The Secret in Their Eyes is still in the midst of a successful US run. That Oscar winning Argentinian film came to us from director Juan Jose Campanella. It's his second film to be honored by the Academy (Son of the Bride was nominated ten years back). The Academy voters obviously like Campanella and in some ways he's a Hollywood guy. When he's not directing Argentinian Oscar hopefuls he spends time making US television with episodes of Law & Order, House and 30 Rock under his belt.
So let's talk foreign-language auteurs. Who does Oscar love most?
[The film titles discussed in this article will link to Netflix pages -- if available -- should you be curious to see the films]
Best Director winners Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) and Milos Forman (Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Please Note: Filmmakers like Ang Lee (Taiwan), Milos Forman (Czech) and Louis Malle (France) have won multiple notices for their foreign language work with the Academy but I'm restricting this list to those directors who worked primarily in their native tongue throughout their careers. The three aforementioned men all had their biggest Oscar successes from English language films.
OSCAR'S TEN FAVORITE FOREIGN AUTEURS
The ranking that follows are somewhat arbitrary since we're dealing with different kinds of attention paid.
Honorable Mention:Ettore Scola (Italy), Bo Widerberg (Sweden), Carlos Saura (Spain) and Zhang Yimou (China) each helmed 3 Foreign Film Nominees over the years... the latter two for submissions from two different countries. Denys Arcand (Canada) and Nikita Mikhalkov (Russia) have each directed 3 Nominees one of which won the prize (The Barbarian Invasions and Burnt By The Sun, respectively). Mikhalkov, who also acts in his pictures, recently completed the sequel to his Oscar winner called Burnt by the Sun 2, but reviews have been brutal so we aren't banking on seeing it in the Oscar lineup next year. Finally, Jose Luis Garci (Spain) directed 4 nominated films, winning once for Volver a Empezar.
let's make this a top dozen
12István Szabó (Hungary)1938 - still working 4 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 5 nominations, 1 win LikeSpain's Garci, the last of the honorable mentions, Szabó directed 4 Foreign Film Nominees, winning once. But in the case of Szabó, it's a more surprising achievement. Unlike Spain, Hungary has rarely won much favor with Oscar. In fact, after Szabó's last nomination, Hungarian films have been completely ignored by the Academy.
In a remarkable hot streak in the Eighties, Szabo had four (!) Best Foreign Film nominations: Bizalom (1980), Mephisto (1981 winner), Colonel Redl (1985) and Hanussen (1988). The latter three all starred Klaus Maria Brandauer who became a fixture in international cinema after the success of Mephisto. It helps to speak several languages and be brilliant -- just ask Christoph Waltz (Yes, there are earlier incarnations of all success stories). Brandauer might have even won the Supporting Actor Oscar for his sterling work in Out of Africa (1985) had voters not been feeling sentimental for that Cocoon fella. Oscar was SO sentimental in the 80s.
But where were we? Ah yes. Szabo moved over to English language cinema (directing Annette Bening to a nomination for Being Julia) but he hasn't yet equalled those early Hungarian successes.
11Mario Monicelli (Italy) 1915 - still living 2 nominations (writing) | 4 Foreign Film Nominees all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 6 nominations, 0 wins
He's best known for kicking off the commedia all'italiana movement in cinema and for the classic Big Deal on Madonna Street but Oscar's love for him stretches over six movies (His two screenplay nominations weren't even from his foreign film nominees). Monicelli turns 95 (!) this summer. He hasn't directed a feature film since 2006 but you may have seen him as an actor in the Diane Lane vehicle Under the Tuscan Sun (2003).
THE TOP TEN
10René Clément(France) 1913-1996 1 Foreign Film Nominee | 2 Honorary Foreign Film Wins (before category existed) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 4 nominations and 2 honorary statues
The Academy gave out 8 special foreign language film Oscars before they decided they needed to give foreign films their own category and René Clément won the prize twice during those years. In those days Oscar only had eyes for France, Italy and Japan. The Walls of Malapaga (1949) was his first win and he won again shortly thereafter for his internationally renowned classic Forbidden Games (1952). Games even won a second Oscar nomination for story two years later once it finally hit American screens (this is before they changed the rules to prevent films from competing in more than one year). That film was in some ways the perfect embodiment of Oscar's foreign type before Oscar even knew it had one: young children as protagonists + World War II.
The Academy created the foreign language film category as we know it in 1956 and Clément's was there again as a shortlister for the Emile Zola adaptation Gervaise (1956).Though that film was his last foreign film nominee, he continued to make movies for another two decades including such well regarded films as Purple Noon (1960) and Paris Brûle-t-il? (1966) which received two Oscar nominations in other categories.
09Luis Buñuel (Spain) 1900-1983 2 nominations (writing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 5 nominations, 1 win
Oscar arrived at the Buñuel party conspicuously late. They even ignored Belle de Jour (1967) one of the best films ever, despite awards attention elsewhere. Sometimes they are well behind the curve. Notice how long it took Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) and Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon) to win attention. In some ways it's surprising that AMPAS got there at all with Buñuel given the director's penchant for sexuality and surrealism. Oscar somewhat prefers the chaste and the literal as you know.
Tristana and the years of critical acclaim preceding it, opened their hearts to his work at the dawn of the '70s. His follow up, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), was a double nominee. Its win in the Foreign Film category has to count as one of the best but most unusual choices in the category's entire history. But then Oscar was at his most adventurous in the early 70s. Oscar and Buñuel had one last fling with That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). It was also Buñuel's last affair with the cinema. The father of cinematic surrealism was in his late 70s at the time and died in 1983.
08 Andrzej Wajda (Poland) 1926 - still working 1 Honorary Oscar | 4 Foreign Film Nominees all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 4 nominations, 0 wins and 1 honorary statue
Poland's most influential filmmaker was most revered by awards bodies in the latter half of the 70s and early 80s. He won 3 Foreign Film Oscar nominations in that period: Promised Land (1975), The Maids of Wilko (1979... retitled The Young Girls of Wilko) and Man of Iron (1981). To prove that it wasn't a temporary love, Oscar handed him an honorary statue for "five decades of extraordinary film direction" in March of 2000. He won a fourth foreign film nomination recently for Katyn (2007). His lauded filmography also includes Ashes and Diamond (1958) and the French biopic Danton (1983) starring Gerard Depardieu which received awards attention elsewhere but strangely no Oscar heat.
07Jan Troell (Sweden) 1931- still working 2 nominations (directing, writing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees | 1 Best Picture Nominee all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 7 nominations, 0 wins
He's often forgotten in discussions of Scandinavian cinema (at least here in the US) since Ingmar Bergman casts such a long shadow. But Oscar was quite fond of him up until recently. His high water mark with the Academy was Utvandrarna (The Emigrants) -- strangely not on DVD --one of only five pictures to ever achieve both Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture nominations. Given Oscar history it's a bit odd that the Academy didn't jump on his latest picture Everlasting Moments (2008) and even with Max von Sydow in the lead role, Hamsun (1996) didn't win attention either.
06Pedro Almodovar (Spain) 1949- still working 2 nominations (directing, writing) | 1 Oscar (writing) | 2 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 5 nominations, 2 wins
Spain's most famous living filmmaker has a fascinating Oscar history. The Academy embraced his international breakthrough Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) but then ignored the next ten years of his career. His Oscar comeback was the mature and wondrous All About My Mother (1999) which took the top prize, despite content that would normally scare them away. Given his global fame and AMPAS's familiarity with his mad melodramedic skill, you'd think he'd have more nominated films to his credit. Part of the problem is that the Spanish Academy, which makes Spain's choice about Foreign Film representation, hasn't always been gaga for Pedro's work. Famously they passed over Talk to Her (2002) in its year so Oscar handed that recent masterpiece a screenplay Oscar and a directing nomination instead. It's no small stretch of the imagination to say that it would've beat the German winner Nowhere in Africa that year to become Pedro's second winner in the category. Volver (2006) was weirdly snubbed in the Foreign category but managed the even more high profile Best Actress nomination and became Pedro's biggest stateside hit if you don't adjust for inflation.
05Francois Truffaut (France) 1932-1984 3 nominations (writing, directing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His films have earned 8 nominations, 1 win
This icon started his career as an obsessive cinephile and provoactive critic at the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. His feature debut, The 400 Blows (1959) kicked off the French New Wave and proved to be one of the most influential and acclaimed films ever made. That film won him the best director prize at the Cannes Film Festival at only 27 years of age. It also netted him his first Oscar nomination and more would follow. His classics include seminal features likeJules et Jim (1962) as well as Oscar-recognized favorites like Stolen Kisses (1968), Day for Night (1973 -winner), The Story of Adele H (1975) and The Last Metro (1980).
Film buffs will note that he also acted, even receiving a BAFTA nomination for appearing in his admirer Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Here's Spielberg talking about working with him.
04Akira Kurosawa (Japan) 1910-1998 1 Honorary Oscar | 1 nomination (directing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) | 1 Honorary Foreign Film Win (before category existed) all Oscar categories: His films have earned 12 nominations, 2 wins and 2 honorary statues
Japan's most famous filmmaker spent over sixty years working in the cinema and his legacy is enormous. The Oscars don't paint a full enough portrait of his cinematic impact. Only two of his films won the Foreign Oscar: the game changing Rashomon (1951) which people have been riffing on ever since, making it one of the true must-sees for cultural literacy, and Dersu Uzala (1975) which actually won the prize for Russia rather than Japan. His other nominated films were Dodes'ka-Den (1970) and Kagemusha (1980). I can't recall the circumstances which led his King Lear style epic Ran (1985) to ineligibility in the foreign film category but the Academy compensated with a well deserved Best Director nomination for that classic.
Still, despite what would be more than plentiful Oscar attention for most filmmakers, this portrait feels incomplete. Major classics like The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961) or The Seven Samurai(1954) had to make due with technical nods or none at all. They sure did owe him that honorary Oscar they gave him in 1990 "For cinematic accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched and entertained worldwide audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world."
**
The Top Three
Oscar's most beloved trinity of foreign language film auteurs (in terms of this list's criteria) had the good golden fortune to be doing incredible work during the decades when US movie culture was most enamored of foreign fare. That is, at least since the silent film era, before sound came crashing into cinema toppling it like the tower of Babel.
03Vittorio de Sica (Italy) 1901-1974 1 nomination (acting) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (2 wins) | 2 Honorary Foreign Film Wins (before there was a category) all Oscar categories: His (directorial) filmography has earned 10 nominations, 3 wins and 2 honorary statues
The Bicycle Thief and The Garden of the Fitzi-Continis... the titles alone sound mythic somehow, having amassed so much cultural heft over the years. Those two Oscar winning classics aren't true bookends of de Sica's acclaimed filmography but since one is from the 40s and one from the 70s they work as such. This Italian neorealist and prolific writer/actor/director was celebrated often and seemingly continuously from Shoe-Shine(1947's honorary winner) through his supporting actor nomination for A Farewell to Arms (1957) and onward until the Fitzi-Continis. His swansong The Voyage (1974) didn't win awards but it was a fitting goodbye, since it allowed him to reteam him with his frequent muse Sophia Loren.
Loren & de Sica. They made beautiful films together.
I was a bit surprised to see his name above Kurosawa's in this listing given their name recognition value these days but he's a truly giant figure from world cinema history, popularizing neorealism in the late 40s and delivering multiple classics. He was also one of the principle authors of Sophia Loren's legend having directed her in both her Oscar winning role in Two Women (1961) and in celebrated films like Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1964's foreign Oscar winner) and Marriage, Italian Style (1964). He also directed American screen giants like Montgomery Clift in Indiscretions of an American Wifeand Shirley Maclaine in Woman Times Seven (she was Golden Globe nominated for that multiple role performance). * 02Ingmar Bergman (Sweden) 1918-2007 9 nominations (directing, writing, producing) | Irving Thalberg Award | 3 Foreign Film Winners | 1 Best Picture Nominee all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 21 nominations, 7 wins and a Thalberg
This legendary Swede's body of work is so deep and impressive (not to mention deeply immersed in the human condition) that listing his numerous Oscar successes wouldn't even acknowledge what some would argue is his greatest achievement (Persona, 1966). That black and white masterwork in which a mute actress (Bergman's muse and lover Liv Ullmann) and her nurse (Bibi Andersson) become pyschologically fused has influenced much work since, including two of the greatest films from other world class auteurs (David Lynch's Mulholland Dr and Robert Altman's Three Women). Woody Allen never did his own Persona riff but he is arguably the most famous of Bergman's many auteur fans.
Bergman's filmography is essentially one treasure after another so we'll have to ignore the bulk of it for brevity's sake and point you to his Oscar films in case you haven't seen them. Program a mini festival at home. All three of his foreign film nominees won: The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Fanny And Alexander (1982). [Trivia Note: Sweden has never won the foreign prize outside of Bergman's work]
Cries and Whispers (5 nominations, 1 win for cinematography)
In addition to his foreign film winners Bergman's other gold successes include Wild Strawberries (1957) Face to Face (1976) and Autumn Sonata (1978). The Academy fell deepest into a hypnotic Bergman trance in the early 70s when they gave him the Thalberg award and then followed up that honor with multiple nominations, including Best Picture, for his great and disturbing female grief drama Cries and Whispers (1972).
01 Federico Fellini(Italy) 1920-1993 12 nominations (directing, writing, producing) | 1 Honorary Oscar | 4 Foreign Film Winners | all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 23 nominations, 7 wins and 1 honorary statue
Last year's adaptation of Nine, itself adapted from a stage musical adapted from Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963) wasn't well received enough to spark a mini-Fellini revival in the media but the media was once quite enamored of all moving parts of Fellini's cinematic circus. That press conference scene in Nine was no exaggeration or joke. In fact, the word "paparazzi" sprung to life because of one of his best loved movies La Dolce Vita (1960) in which a male photographer's name is Paparazzo. Fellini's celebrity was vast and his actors were also sensations. His male muse Marcello Mastroianni never won an Oscar but he holds the record of most nominations for non-English language performances, three in total).
Though their sensibilities are vastly different, Fellini shares with Bergman, his only real rival for Oscar's foreigner crown, a prolific career and one with consistent inspiration and awards pull. Even before he won notices for his directing he was winning screenplay nominations for films he didn't helm.
How familiar are you with the films mentioned? I have a decent grasp of the Fellinis, Bunuels and Kurosawas. I'm nearly a completist with the Almodóvars (duh). But I need to get down to serious business on the Bergman's (small percentage despite my love. What's that about?) and I'm almost completely ignorant on the de Sicas and the Troells. So many I haven't seen.
linkage Arts Beat When Woody Met Ingmar. How have I never heard this story before? Love it Low Resolution hilarious take on the latest Twilight: New Moon trailer i09 an interview with a Dollhouse writer on this last great episode Culture Snob describe your taste in horror in 10 movies. Interesting take on a "best" list In Contention Guy Lodge plays contrarian for Precious Some Came Running gets nostalgic for gauzy Jenny Agutter and mack daddy Michael York in 70s 'classic' Logan's Run
This is the time of year when everyone who really loves movies remembers that not all of the best movies of any given year come out in the last two months of the year and it's so annoying that everyone pretends that they do Man Made Movies the online Sam Rockwell Oscar for Moon campaign Attention Deficit Disorderly great piece on The Hurt Locker and Jeremy Renner's Sgt. James
gay-gay-gay Metro Ang Lee on the Brokeback Mountain kiss Queerty Dustin Lance Black (Milk) banned from a college campus in Michigan. He had too many opinions! (omg, we wouldn't want that a college!) Oh Michigan, home state o' mine. I love you but you embarrass me sometimes
Finally... Would you bite into this dead tauntaun cake? Edible intestines for your own intestines. Ewww but Yum! As much as I'm over Star Wars in my own life, I sometimes have nothing but admiration for its staunch fandom. Here's hoping one day people build whole wedding themes and desserts out of their Moulin Rouge! or I Heart Huckabee fandom! That's just two random examples of newer films worth loving and being creative with all the live long day.
Jose here to commemorate Ingrid Bergman who would've turned 94 today. The Swedish acting goddess starred in dozens of films, won three Academy Awards, two Emmys and the Tony Award for Best Actress in a career that spawned over four decades.
She is best known for her iconic role in Casablanca though she wasn't Oscar nominated for it. Her history with the Academy is rather bizarre. She was nominated seven times and even if she only lost on four of those occasions, it's still fair to say she was a bit underrated by them. Hollywood neglected some of her best work. Even the actress herself thought she was overrated at one point.
When she created chaos after engaging in an extra-marital affair with Italian neorrealist master Roberto Rossellini she also delivered some of her greatest work. Obviously the film industry ignored this and only accused her of immorality. But is it right to judge her on personal matters when she was starring in films like Europa 51 and Voyage to Italy? In these films she showed great vulnerability combined with strength and that certain quality only film stars have.
Out of all the actresses of her time it was Ingrid who could dive into parts without screaming "look at me" or establishing trademarks. She could go from Hollywood fare to Italian neorrealism to theatre and even that other Swedish film god Ingmar Bergman effortlessly.
The Academy of course chose to recognize her for work she could do in her sleep -- when she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1974 she graciously accused herself of award robbery -- but despite the fact that such injustices were committed, her work will live forever. Thinking of all the characters she gave us before the time of her death, any cinema lover would think it's a shame that she didn't live forever as well.
Two years ago today death came for Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni. Robert here, thinking back on the day when my two favorite living directors both died. Two men who had a huge impression on me. It was as a young budding movie lover that Bergman and Antonioni taught me how film could be more than popcorn entertainment... it could be art.
Of course one has to admit that Bergman and Antonioni are eternally entwined with the bad name that "art film" sometimes has... and for pretty good reason. After all, Ingmar Bergman directed an entire trilogy on God's silence. Antonioni directed an entire trilogy about the impossibility of love. What do you mean people think art films are needlessly depressing?
And so the reputation of the art film goes: If you want a good time... watch something else.
The films of Bergman and Antonioni aren't bowls full of laughs but these masters had such a good hold on the medium that I dare any cinema lover to watch them and not feel moments of pure joy. How can you not gasp in amazement when silent actress Liv Ullmann is tricked into stepping on a shard of glass and finally makes a sound in Persona? How can you not be seduced by Monica Vitti slowly putting on a stocking in Red Desert? Are there many shots in cinema as entrancing as the final shot in The Passenger? Are there many moments as joyous as the rescue scene in Fanny and Alexander?
These two men already sit among the giants of cinema history. They don't need me to defend them. But too often they're relegated to just that: history. As with many who directed the "classics" they live inside university and library walls and not beyond. Mark Twain said a classic book is one which everyone wants to have read but no one wants to read. Replace "read" with "watch" and the same rule applies to the movies.
So today, three years later, do yourself a favor... watch some Bergman. Watch some Antonioni. Go ahead. You might even find yourself having a good time.
In 2008 we celebrate the 8th Something of Something. Woot!
I snapped this shot from Ingmar Bergman's Persona(1966) months ago. I'm not even sure it's the 8th thing you see in that famous rapid experimental montage that opens the film. I typed up a list of all the images flashing by, some of them repeated: projector lamp, phallus, cartoon, tarantula, young boy, etcetera but promptly lost the list and buried this photo accidentally in a folder within a folder within a folder. (Ah disorganization!) But as with the film its culled from, the image came back to me like a dream. Persona always comes back and demands that you return to it, too.
That is to say that I think of Persona the film as the mute actress (Liv Ullman) it gazes upon and the audience as her frustrated nurse (Bibi Andersson) who struggles to understand her before succumbing to some sort of symbiosis. Persona may make little narrative sense but its emotional and psychological effects are large. It haunts, compels, questions and demands rescreenings. Simply put: it's indisputably great.
"08th" the series This short-lived blog experiment didn't work out exactly as I planned --too much work and too odd -- but I'm still proud of it. Found some interesting things in interesting movies and what better way to wrap it up and say goodbye than on 08/08/08. Did you miss any of the earlier episodes? Chase the label and view them all.
"FEAR!" in Batman Begins
Line of dialogue in Volver
Costumes in Marie Antoinette
Description of Elizabeth
Close Up of Carrie's hands
Shot of Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain
Kill in No Country For Old Men
Character in Showgirls
Use of Magic in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
In part one of The Film Experience interview with Max von Sydow we discussed The Diving Bell and Butterfly and his early days as an actor on the stage and screen in Sweden. Here's part two...
Nathaniel: Ingmar Bergman's films are still very much alive in public and critical discussion. What do you think is something about him, either as a filmmaker or as a person, that you think people misunderstand?
Max von Sydow: I don't know what people understand or misunderstand. But I presume that most people think that he was an awfully serious and difficult person as a director. Which he was not. On the contrary, he was—he was a man of great charm and great intelligence of course. Great charm with a very kind of fresh, direct sense of humor, creating a lot of fun and enthusiasm around the project whether it was a film production or on stage. He had the ability to really, how should I say this, make people feel that they were very important for his—for his art… and make them give their uttermost to together achieve something extraordinary. He was very inspirational in that respect.
Nathaniel: So in person there was humor there. That's actually one of the critiques people have of his films –not one I share, I think he's brilliant –that… that they're so serious that there is no…
Max von Sydow: Well, some of them are, most of them are. But making them was rarely a serious --of course making the serious scenes that was done with great seriousness and with enormous concentration. But inbetween there was a lot of joking.
Nathaniel: Interesting. Now, we always hear that Woody Allen doesn't communicate much with his actors. But I imagine with you when you did Hannah and Her Sisters… did he barrage you with questions about Bergman?
READ THE REST... for more on Hannah and Her Sisters, the mysterious art of acting, religious characters, how typecasting happens and more...
I had intended for this interview to be in podcast format but had some audio problems in the noisy Pierre Hotel. Have transcribed for your listening reading pleasure.
I have shaken hands with one or two major stars in my time writing for The Film Experience but never before have I shared a banquette with a cinematic legend whose films have already survived the passage of time. If you think of actors as the characters they play --and the great Max Von Sydow suggests that you don't -- then you will note that I survived a chat with Jesus himself, the devil, Emperor Ming, Pelle the Conqueror and many more luminaries this Friday past.
As an icebreaker I greeted Mr. von Sydow and his wife, both of who were fantastically friendly and talkative, in my broken Norwegian and we discussed Sweden a bit. Much to my Nordic pleasure Mr. von Sydow actually said the word "uff" (one of my favorite Scandinavian words) within seconds. I can't possibly think of an intro that would do one of Ingmar Bergman's most important muses justice so let's proceed directly to the interview...
Nathaniel: Well, it's a pleasure to meet you. You're a legendary figure in cinema –I'm sure you've heard that over and over...
Max Von Sydow: Uff.
Nathaniel: I want to talk about Bergman –well, are you tired of talking about Bergman at this point?
Max Von Sydow: Noooo. I'm not tired of --I'm tired about talking about myself! [laughter]
N: All right. Well, let's start with Diving Bell and then we'll go back to some earlier work. First of all with The Diving Bell and Butterfly I wanted to say that I completely loved your performance. I'm not a big cryer in the movies...
MVS: No?
N: ...but you totally got to me. Lately I've been really fascinated with actors who can project backstory with family members –fictional family members-- onscreen. So I was wondering how you prepare for something like that? You only had a couple of scenes with Mathieu Amalric.
MVS: Two scenes.
N: So how do you project father/son?
MVS: Well, it's... it—it just happens to be a very good screenplay. And the scenes –my scene-- is wonderfully written. I get screenplays and I'm rarely happy reading them but this one was... it was a sheer pleasure. I was so excited after having read it, I wrote a letter to Ron Harwood. I've never done that. I met him later in Los Angeles and he told me 'I've never got a letter like this before!' [Laughter]
N: He's a fine writer.
MVS: He's a good writer, yes. What is beautiful with my character -- the things is, although it's a small part, I get a chance to show two things: The relationship between the characters under normal circumstances when he shaves me but then also after the catastrophe and the confusion and bewilderment --this awkward strange situation...
And how do I prepare? It's a matter of finding out: who is this character?
READ THE REST... for more on his acting process, working with Sjöberg and Ingmar Bergman and acting styles in the 50s. Part 2 is now up as well. We go deeper into Bergman, Woody Allen and von Sydow's feelings about why acting is mysterious to the public and how actors get typecast. *
JA here - I'm sure Nat would want to say something on the death of Ingmar Bergman if he were here, or at least give y'all a chance to say what he meant to you in the comments.
Myself, I just started really appreciating Bergman over the past couple years or so (thanks to Netflix and the mini-festivals one can schedule one's self); I haven't even come close to seeing even half of the films by him, but what I have seen so far has been astonishing. Cries and Whispers, Fanny & Alexander, The Virgin Spring, Persona... all films that couldn't have been made by anyone else and that deeply enriched not only my own love of cinema and what it can accomplish, but the very language and possibility of film itself.
Below is a brief clip from Persona, which is my favorite Bergman film so far, probably because Bergman understood that the greatest terrain he could ever point his camera at and study was the face of Liv Ullman:
What's your favorite Bergman film? Or even just a moment - I, being a horror buff, have often thought that the puppetry scene in Fanny & Alexander is one of the scariest moments ever filmed.
A round of applause to another "shortlist" of patrons. We'll go five wide like the Oscars this time. Because... well, it's all about the Oscars. Even when it's not or something. I bow to Mikadzuki, Edward ("etslee" from the comments), Corey in Arizona, Beau in California and Mark in the UK who all donated
Mikadzuki lives in beautiful Sweden and, appropriately enough, mentions Ingmar Bergmanas creating his favorite movie ever, Fanny and Alexander. He writes:
The set designs and Nykvist's cinematography are among the most vibrant and beautiful I have seen, and the film itself manages to capture childlike wonder (sometimes magical, and often creepy) so perfectly it felt as though I was re-experienceing my own childhood. Five hours in the company of Bergman might seem like a daunting task, but believe me - they FLY by (and this is coming from someone who thought the 90 minute Through A Glass Darkly was a total bore). If your Netflix queue is ever empty...
Oh the shame, readers: this brings me to a terrible confession... I still haven't seen this movie and it's been on my DVD player twice! I ended up returning it to Netflix in a frenzy of whatever deadline I had. Back on the queue! Corey loves himself The Hours. Always the hours... He loves it so much it's as if he's loving it in a parallel way in the distant past, recent past and right here and now. He calls it
...an embarrassment of riches. Kidman, Moore, Streep, Collette, Harris, Richardson, Daniels, Janney, Danes, Reiley. Just a splendid cast. It's so refreshing to watch a movie, that doesn't rely on cheap camera cuts, or zooms to convey emotion. it's purely task of the actors to drive the movie forward, and I love that.
Corey also seconds my outrage that Maria Bello didn't get nominated for A History of Violence. Funny how we movie lovers have trouble letting those things go. That snub still drives me to puking in hospital bathrooms and angry rutting on staircases. And speaking of Oscar snubs...
Mark is a longtime reader who gets passionate about one particular Oscar omission. With his donation, he wanted to scream from this blog rooftops that Sigourney Weaver is amazing in practically everything and that she's eternally robbed by the Academy. Those snubs for Death and the Maiden and The Ice Storm and no Oscar ever?!? I'll agree with Mark that Sigourney is "a class act" Beau chooses Before Sunset as a favorite and since he speaks about it so lovingly I'll just show you his words
The film itself is little more than just two people talking, yet it's provided me with a different outlook on life in terms of the way I think, speak, observe and act. Hard to imagine that when I sat down to watch it in November of 2004, only seventeen years old, I'd no idea of the profound impact it would have on me. Hard to define and categorize my love for it, it's one of those wholly unique, singular moments that you yearn for that only get bestowed upon you once in a great moon. To me, it's a treasure. And no woman has ever done what Julie Delpy did in this film. Utterly transcendent.
I love that film too (top ten from 2004) and it ages so well --tremendously well written and incisively performed. To my way of thinking nobody involved has ever gotten enough credit. I listen to "Waltz for a Night", Julie's closing guitar number a lot on my iPod, I do. Edward writing from the Bay Area got especially attached during the Brokeback Mountain phase of this site/blog. Brokeback fever got us all good. When do y'all suppose we'll experience another phenomenon like that one?
What do you think commenters: Will we ever see such a mass appeal gay film again? [sniffle] Will Julie Delpy ever move us as much again? [sob] Will Sigourney Weaver ever win that Oscar? [grrr]
Once a week I'm grilling noteworthy bloggers about their own film experiences. This week's victim interviewee is Francis Strand from "How to Learn Swedish in 1000 Difficult Lessons" And yes, like last week's interview this one is TransAtlantic. I am such the jetsetter.
On his award winning, well-informed blog Francis talks about whatever occurs to him (politics. life abroad. personal life) and ties it up with a Swedish word of the day. It's a clever concept and addictive, too. So please click over to How to Learn Swedish..." and investigate. You can learn the Swedish words for shameless just in case you meet Lasse Halström or hearing impaired if you're introduced to Roxette at a party or popular should you be discussing Garbo or bold, audacious, daring in case you have the great honor of meeting Ingmar Bergman.
10 Questions with Francis
Nathaniel: How often do you go the movies?
Francis: These days, I'm not much of a moviegoer. Maybe once a month, tops. We actually buy movies on DVD much more often than we see them in the theater, since it costs about the same for two tickets as for a DVD, at least here in Stockholm.
Nathaniel: Speaking of "we" and your significant other, ever had a huge disagreement about the quality of a movie...or do you have twinner taste?
Francis: We like similar food, art, furniture, travel, humor, but we have quite different taste in movies, actually. He's more into action movies, thrillers, blockbusters. I tend to like smaller more eclectic movies. I think he first glommed onto this when I made him watch Walkabout, which he thought was dreadful.
But I've managed to sway him a bit, gotten him hooked on films he probably would never have liked until I made him watch them, movies like Velvet Goldmine, Miller's Crossing, The Graduate, Groundhog Day. Of course I've never converted him to some of my other favorites, like Time Bandits, and he's never converted me to all those Planet of the Ape movies (I only like the first one) or Minority Report, which I think is confused and doesn't know what the hell it thinks.
Nathaniel: I hear you on Minority Report (my review). Spielberg has long ago moved into heavier "idea" films but I always feel he hasn't thought them all the way through which is why he has such problems with the endings --or at least that's my theory as to one of the reasons why.
OK as an honorary Swede, how many Bergman have you seen? Be honest.
Francis: Bergman isn't exactly my cup of tea, although I did see an excellent production he directed of Ibsen's Ghosts with Pernilla August, here in Stockholm at the Royal Dramatic Theatre. As for films, I've only seen four and a half, the first three of which I saw more than 20 years ago: Persona, Cries and Whispers and Fanny and Alexander. I've only seen a sizeable chunk of Summer with Monica- I fell asleep - but it was fascinating mostly because it shows what Stockholm looked like as a city in the early 1950s, including some scenes out in the archipelago, with people dancing on a jetty (something they still do at Midsummer). He's just too grim for me.
My favorite is The Magic Flute, which looking back on it, I think was surely filmed at Drottningholm at the little baroque theater there; it's a charming filmed version of what I think must be the favorite opera of Swedes.
Nathaniel: Persona and Cries and Whispers are two of my favorite films. ever. But "grim" is definitely an appropriate word. Since you're an American who has been living abroad forever I'm curious re: your feelings about films with this subject. Have you ever seen a movie that you feels captures this dynamic? Or maybe a character in a film that spoke to this part of you?
Francis: I haven't been living abroad forever... it's only been seven years. But, this is a difficult question. Because being an expatriate has two distinct aspects to it: one's relation to the country one comes from, and one's relation to the country one lives in. Although at the most basic level, it's about how one handles being an outsider.
I haven't seen a film that captures how I feel about Sweden, but I lived for about six months in Spain before I moved here, and a film comes to mind that captures more how I felt about Spain when I lived there - Jim Jarmusch's Stranger than Paradise. Spain was, and still is, a mystery to me, I love it and hate it more than any other place, and I can so relate to the character played by Esther Balint, dependent on people who probably shouldn't be trusted, but smart enough to still manage not to lose herself. I love it in the end when she finally leaves the second time, and says: "This dress bugs me."
Francis: I like Lost in Translation, it's clever and pleasingly melancholy, but it isn't at all about what it's like to be an expatriate. They're simply doing business, or married to someone doing business, in a strange culture, not making a life there.
Thinking about it, my experience in Sweden is much closer to, not a movie, but a British TV series based on a book by Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited: Solidly (upper) middle class Charles Ryder (played by Jeremy Irons in his first big role seen by Americans) falls in love first with Sebastian Flyte, and later his sister Julia, becoming enchanted and hopelessly tangled with their upper class family, their fabulous house, their neuroses, but he's never really a part of them, he's always outside, and he never quite understands them, either.
Nathaniel: This also sounds like the plot of Match Point ... only without the messy murder bits.
Francis: Haven't seen that yet. I've sort of fallen out of love with Woody Allen, I tend to find him irritating these days. I think the last thing I liked was Husbands and Wives, but mostly it was Judy Davis who made that movie.
Nathaniel: OK easier question multiple choice: Heath Ledger or Jake Gyllenhaal?
Francis: Anyway, easier multiple choice...? It isn't. So I'll split that one. Heath Ledger, based on having seen him in one movie, is surely the better actor. But, well, Jake Gyllenhaal is the better sex object.
Nathaniel: Nicole Kidman or Naomi Watts?
Francis: Nicole Kidman.
Nathaniel: Let's talk for a second (indirectly?) about your profession. You are a magazine editor, right? Are you eager to see Meryl Streep's Anna Wintour's skewering in The Devil Wears Prada?
Francis: Now you've caught me out in my total out-of-touch-with-the-fatherland-ness... or else I'm slipping up on my duties as a gay man and could risk losing my membership. But, while I've heard of the book, it's never caught my interest and, well, I had no idea they were making a movie of it. But Meryl Streep is pretty much hot shit no matter what she does, so...
Nathaniel: Cool. OK. We've reached our finale: They make a movie of your life. Who would play you? What's the title? What's the rating?
Francis: John Malkovich. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language - The Movie! (don't forget the exclamation point...) Definitely with an R rating. Thanks, Nathaniel, it's been fun...
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