Micheline Presle, the standout French actress who starred in the controversial Devil in the Flesh before making a foray into Hollywood that included roles opposite John Garfield, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn and Paul Newman, has died. She was 101.
Presle died Wedneday in the Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne, her son-in-law Olivier Bomsel told Le Figaro.
Presle came to international attention when she portrayed a nurse having an affair with a student (Gérard Philipe) in the World War I drama Devil in the Flesh (1947), which the National Board of Review voted as one of the 10 best films of the year.
Because it featured a woman who took a lover while her husband was away at war, it generated a great deal of discussion.
In 1949, Presle met American actor William Marshall, who had been married to another French star, Michèle Morgan, and followed him to America. They would wed that year in Santa Barbara.
Presle died Wedneday in the Paris suburb of Nogent-sur-Marne, her son-in-law Olivier Bomsel told Le Figaro.
Presle came to international attention when she portrayed a nurse having an affair with a student (Gérard Philipe) in the World War I drama Devil in the Flesh (1947), which the National Board of Review voted as one of the 10 best films of the year.
Because it featured a woman who took a lover while her husband was away at war, it generated a great deal of discussion.
In 1949, Presle met American actor William Marshall, who had been married to another French star, Michèle Morgan, and followed him to America. They would wed that year in Santa Barbara.
- 2/22/2024
- by Rhett Bartlett and Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
“Weird Science” for lonely goth chicks who spend all of their free time reading sad poetry in the graveyard behind their evil step-mother’s house, the admirably deranged if frustratingly undead “Lisa Frankenstein” might be one of the more irreverent riffs on Mary Shelley’s immortal horror novel, but there’s also something full circle about bringing that story back around to the kind of teenage girl who wrote it in the first place.
In other words, Zelda Williams’ directorial debut — a bloody rom-com about a grieving outcast who accidentally wishes her favorite Victorian era corpse back to “life,” and then starts killing people in order to replace her Bff’s rotted parts — isn’t just a cute pun in search of an ’80s throwback to go along with it.
The fatal undoing of “Lisa Frankenstein” has nothing to do with the weirdo wish fulfillment behind Diablo Cody’s very Diablo Cody screenplay,...
In other words, Zelda Williams’ directorial debut — a bloody rom-com about a grieving outcast who accidentally wishes her favorite Victorian era corpse back to “life,” and then starts killing people in order to replace her Bff’s rotted parts — isn’t just a cute pun in search of an ’80s throwback to go along with it.
The fatal undoing of “Lisa Frankenstein” has nothing to do with the weirdo wish fulfillment behind Diablo Cody’s very Diablo Cody screenplay,...
- 2/7/2024
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
15 years ago Diablo Cody and Karyn Kusama joined forced to deliver "Jennifer's Body," a genuine cult classic that went from mismarketed box office failure maligned by critics who didn't understand its brilliance, to the reclaimed favorite that became one of the selling points in the marketing for "Lisa Frankenstein." Cody returns to the teen horror comedy space alongside Zelda Williams (in her feature directorial debut) with a zany, heartfelt, and unapologetically odd story about a particularly peculiar high school outcast named Lisa (Kathryn Newton) who goes on a murderous adventure with the reanimated corpse of a young man — whose grave she hangs out at — in search of new limbs, a sense of autonomy, and maybe even love.
Set against the backdrop of the candy-coated neon bubblegum of the 1980s, "Lisa Frankenstein" makes no qualms about being for weirdos, and by weirdos. It's the resulting lovechild of a raucous orgy between "Edward Scissorhands,...
Set against the backdrop of the candy-coated neon bubblegum of the 1980s, "Lisa Frankenstein" makes no qualms about being for weirdos, and by weirdos. It's the resulting lovechild of a raucous orgy between "Edward Scissorhands,...
- 2/7/2024
- by BJ Colangelo
- Slash Film
One of the most expressive, luminous performances in all of silent cinema is that of Louise Brooks in G. W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box. Now, thanks to a new restoration, audiences will have a chance to rediscover the 1929 masterpiece. Ahead of a theatrical release beginning at Film Forum on Valentine’s Day, Janus Films has unveiled the new trailer and poster for the restoration.
Here’s the synopsis: “One of the masters of early German cinema, G. W. Pabst had an innate talent for discovering actresses (including Greta Garbo). And perhaps none of his female stars shone brighter than Kansas native and onetime Ziegfeld girl Louise Brooks, whose legendary persona was defined by Pabst’s lurid, controversial melodrama Pandora’s Box. Sensationally modern, the film follows the downward spiral of the fiery, brash, yet innocent showgirl Lulu, whose sexual vivacity has a devastating effect on everyone she comes in contact with.
Here’s the synopsis: “One of the masters of early German cinema, G. W. Pabst had an innate talent for discovering actresses (including Greta Garbo). And perhaps none of his female stars shone brighter than Kansas native and onetime Ziegfeld girl Louise Brooks, whose legendary persona was defined by Pabst’s lurid, controversial melodrama Pandora’s Box. Sensationally modern, the film follows the downward spiral of the fiery, brash, yet innocent showgirl Lulu, whose sexual vivacity has a devastating effect on everyone she comes in contact with.
- 1/26/2024
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
To celebrate the release of Pandora’s Box coming to Blu-Ray on 30th October we have not 1, not 2 but 3 Blu-Rays to give away!
Eureka Entertainment to release G. W. Pabst’s sordid melodrama Pandora’S Box, one of silent cinema’s great masterworks, starring Louise Brooks. Presented on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK, from a new restoration as part of The Masters of Cinema Series. Available from 30 October 2023, the Limited-edition set (3000 copies only) will feature a Hardbound Slipcase & 60-page Collectors Book.
Adapted from a pair of plays by Frank Wedekind, Pandora’s Box tells the story of prostitute Lulu (Louise Brooks), a free spirit whose open sexuality breeds chaos in its wake. When Lulu’s latest lover, the newspaper editor Dr Ludwig Schon, announces plans to leave her to marry a more respectable woman, Lulu is devastated. Cast in a musical revue written by Schon’s son, Alwa,...
Eureka Entertainment to release G. W. Pabst’s sordid melodrama Pandora’S Box, one of silent cinema’s great masterworks, starring Louise Brooks. Presented on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK, from a new restoration as part of The Masters of Cinema Series. Available from 30 October 2023, the Limited-edition set (3000 copies only) will feature a Hardbound Slipcase & 60-page Collectors Book.
Adapted from a pair of plays by Frank Wedekind, Pandora’s Box tells the story of prostitute Lulu (Louise Brooks), a free spirit whose open sexuality breeds chaos in its wake. When Lulu’s latest lover, the newspaper editor Dr Ludwig Schon, announces plans to leave her to marry a more respectable woman, Lulu is devastated. Cast in a musical revue written by Schon’s son, Alwa,...
- 10/22/2023
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Clockwise from top left: Modern Times (screenshot), Newsies (screenshot), Norma Rae (20th Century Fox), Sorry To Bother You (Annapurna Pictures)Graphic: The A.V. Club
Just in time for Labor Day 2023, The A.V. Club has pulled together a rundown of the best films that celebrate the proletariat. Presented with all working class heroes in mind,...
Just in time for Labor Day 2023, The A.V. Club has pulled together a rundown of the best films that celebrate the proletariat. Presented with all working class heroes in mind,...
- 9/1/2023
- by The A.V. Club
- avclub.com
HQ7 Studios will initially have two fully soundproofed stages.
Construction is underway on a €10m production complex on the outskirts of Vienna that will launch in the first quarter of 2024.
The HQ7 Studios will initially consist of two fully soundproofed stages with an area of 2,000 and 1,000m2 respectively.
There are plans to build another two stages between 2,000 and 2,500m2, while a third phase of construction may also see space later being made available for outside sets at the studio lot.
In addition, HQ7 will have 2,000m2 available as ancillary office and workshop space.
Speaking to Screen, HQ7’s managing director...
Construction is underway on a €10m production complex on the outskirts of Vienna that will launch in the first quarter of 2024.
The HQ7 Studios will initially consist of two fully soundproofed stages with an area of 2,000 and 1,000m2 respectively.
There are plans to build another two stages between 2,000 and 2,500m2, while a third phase of construction may also see space later being made available for outside sets at the studio lot.
In addition, HQ7 will have 2,000m2 available as ancillary office and workshop space.
Speaking to Screen, HQ7’s managing director...
- 8/2/2023
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
The power of an important story told with passion and unflinching clarity always transcends the bonds of time. This explains the durability of Shakespeare’s plays when they land in the right hands, and it explains Edward Berger’s adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s fierce anti-war novel, “All Quite on the Western Front,” which is nominated for the best picture Oscar.
Nearly a century ago, director Lewis Milestone triumphed in one of the first Oscar competitions with his Universal Pictures version of the 1928 tome, filmed, remarkably, completely in and around its Hollywood Studio home.
Today, “Front” is registering with voters who are seeing the horrors of war in Europe live and in color as it sadly unfolds again with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
When Milestone filmed his “Front,” WWI was a decade behind the voters, who had just roared through the 1920s and hadn’t yet confronted the...
Nearly a century ago, director Lewis Milestone triumphed in one of the first Oscar competitions with his Universal Pictures version of the 1928 tome, filmed, remarkably, completely in and around its Hollywood Studio home.
Today, “Front” is registering with voters who are seeing the horrors of war in Europe live and in color as it sadly unfolds again with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
When Milestone filmed his “Front,” WWI was a decade behind the voters, who had just roared through the 1920s and hadn’t yet confronted the...
- 2/28/2023
- by Steven Gaydos
- Variety Film + TV
Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s mine disaster saga is both a stirring social drama and a remarkable feat of technical engineering — the underground cave-ins and gas-fed fires are still frightening in their realism. Criterion’s extras offer critical and historical context for a pacifist statement filmed during a tense political time in France and Germany.
Kameradschaft
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 908
1931 / B&W / 1:19 flat full frame / 88 93 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 30, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Alexander Granach, Fritz Kampers, Daniel Mendaille, Ernst Busch, Elisabeth Wendt.
Cinematography: Fritz Arno Wagner
Film Editor: Jean Oser
Set design: Ernö Metzner, Karl Vollbrecht
Original Music: G. von Regelius
Written by Ladislaus Vajda, Peter Martin Lampel, Herbert Rappaport, Karl Otten, Anna Gmeyner.
Produced by Seymour Nebenzal, Nero-Film Ag
Directed by G. W. Pabst
G.W. Pabst could seemingly do no wrong in the German silent film industry. His string of silent pictures gained classic status, and...
Kameradschaft
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 908
1931 / B&W / 1:19 flat full frame / 88 93 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 30, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: Alexander Granach, Fritz Kampers, Daniel Mendaille, Ernst Busch, Elisabeth Wendt.
Cinematography: Fritz Arno Wagner
Film Editor: Jean Oser
Set design: Ernö Metzner, Karl Vollbrecht
Original Music: G. von Regelius
Written by Ladislaus Vajda, Peter Martin Lampel, Herbert Rappaport, Karl Otten, Anna Gmeyner.
Produced by Seymour Nebenzal, Nero-Film Ag
Directed by G. W. Pabst
G.W. Pabst could seemingly do no wrong in the German silent film industry. His string of silent pictures gained classic status, and...
- 2/6/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
This year’s New York Film Festival has just unveiled a slew of Special Events to round out its already full-to-bursting lineup, and it includes some late-breaking entries to previously announced sections and a selection of brand new events that are very special indeed. Highlights include a trio of documentary premieres, including Susan Lacy’s “Spielberg” (focused on the eponymous director, with both Lacy and her subject set to appear at the festival), along with Jennifer Lebeau’s Bob Dylan concert film “Trouble No More,” and Susan Froemke’s “The Opera House,” a history of the Metropolitan Opera and a love letter to the art form that will (appropriately enough) screen at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center.
Other standouts include four brand-new films from Claude Lanzmann, a sparkling new restoration of G.W. Pabst’s “Pandora’s Box.” Elsewhere, Kate Winslet will be on hand for a career-spanning chat...
Other standouts include four brand-new films from Claude Lanzmann, a sparkling new restoration of G.W. Pabst’s “Pandora’s Box.” Elsewhere, Kate Winslet will be on hand for a career-spanning chat...
- 8/28/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
A happy discovery! This is a major late- silent-era gem on the order of Von Sternberg’s Docks of New York — a special treat that will please fans of director William Wellman — he revisited parts of it in a later talkie. It’s also a key movie in our education/adoration of the maverick actress Louise Brooks, the erotic sensation too hot and too independent for Hollywood.
Beggars of Life
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1928 / B&W / 1:33 Silent Aperture / 81 min. / Street Date August 22, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Wallace Beery, Richard Arlen, Louise Brooks, Blue Washington, Roscoe Karns, Robert Perry, Guinn ‘Bog Boy’ Williams.
Cinematography: Henry Gerrard
Film Editor: Alyson Shaffer
Assistant Director: Charles Barton
Music: The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Written by Jim Tully and Benjamin Glazer from a novel by Jim Tully
Produced by Jesse L. Lasky, Adolph Zukor, William A. Wellman
Directed by William A. Wellman
Director...
Beggars of Life
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1928 / B&W / 1:33 Silent Aperture / 81 min. / Street Date August 22, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Wallace Beery, Richard Arlen, Louise Brooks, Blue Washington, Roscoe Karns, Robert Perry, Guinn ‘Bog Boy’ Williams.
Cinematography: Henry Gerrard
Film Editor: Alyson Shaffer
Assistant Director: Charles Barton
Music: The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Written by Jim Tully and Benjamin Glazer from a novel by Jim Tully
Produced by Jesse L. Lasky, Adolph Zukor, William A. Wellman
Directed by William A. Wellman
Director...
- 8/8/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The silent French film Au Bonheur Des Dames (1930 – aka Ladies’ Paradise) screens Saturday May 6th at 11am at The St. Louis Art Museum (Forest Park, 1 Fine Arts Dr, St. Louis, Mo). The film will be accompanied by Elsie Parker and The Poor People of Paris. Tickets for this event are $15 general admission and $10 for museum members. Tickets can be purchased in advance from Metrotix or by calling 314.534.1111.
Julien Duvivier’s final silent film is a modern retelling of Emile Zola’s panoramic chronicle of mid-19th-century Parisian society, centering on a small fabric shop struggling to survive in the shadow of a luxury department store. With expressionistic shades of Erich von Stroheim and G.W. Pabst, the film captures the rhythms of urban life and creates a stinging portrait of capitalist ruthlessness, class tensions, and sexual competition. Scott Foundas in the Village Voice calls the film “an orgy of pure cinema,...
Julien Duvivier’s final silent film is a modern retelling of Emile Zola’s panoramic chronicle of mid-19th-century Parisian society, centering on a small fabric shop struggling to survive in the shadow of a luxury department store. With expressionistic shades of Erich von Stroheim and G.W. Pabst, the film captures the rhythms of urban life and creates a stinging portrait of capitalist ruthlessness, class tensions, and sexual competition. Scott Foundas in the Village Voice calls the film “an orgy of pure cinema,...
- 4/28/2017
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
What's this? John Ford's last silent western is as exciting and entertaining as his later classics. A trio of horse thieves turn noble when given the responsibility of a young woman lost on the prairie; Ford gives the show comedy, drama and spectacle. 3 Bad Men Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1926 / B&W / 1:33 Silent Ap. / 92 min. / Street Date August 23, 2016 / 29.95 Starring George O'Brien, Olive Borden, Lou Tellegen, Tom Santschi, J. Farrell MacDonald, Frank Campeau, Priscilla Bonner, Otis Harlan, Phyllis Haver, Georgie Harris, Alec Francis, Jay Hunt . Cinematography George Schneiderman Original Music Dana Kaproff (2007) Written by John Stone, Ralph Spence, Malcolm Stuart Boylan from a novel by Herman Whittaker Produced and Directed by John Ford
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
What a great discovery! Last year Kino brought us a good-looking disc of John Ford's Hurricane and now they take the bold step of issuing one of the director's oldest intact features,...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
What a great discovery! Last year Kino brought us a good-looking disc of John Ford's Hurricane and now they take the bold step of issuing one of the director's oldest intact features,...
- 7/17/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
or, Savant picks The Most Impressive Discs of 2015
This is the actual view from Savant Central, looking due North.
What a year! I was able to take one very nice trip back East too see Washington D.C. for the first time, or at least as much as two days' walking in the hot sun and then cool rain would allow. Back home in Los Angeles, we've had a year of extreme drought -- my lawn is looking patriotically ratty -- and we're expecting something called El Niño, that's supposed to be just shy of Old-Testament build-me-an-ark intensity. We withstood heat waves like those in Day the Earth Caught Fire, and now we'll get the storms part. This has been a wild year for DVD Savant, which is still a little unsettled. DVDtalk has been very patient and generous, and so have Stuart Galbraith & Joe Dante; so far everything...
This is the actual view from Savant Central, looking due North.
What a year! I was able to take one very nice trip back East too see Washington D.C. for the first time, or at least as much as two days' walking in the hot sun and then cool rain would allow. Back home in Los Angeles, we've had a year of extreme drought -- my lawn is looking patriotically ratty -- and we're expecting something called El Niño, that's supposed to be just shy of Old-Testament build-me-an-ark intensity. We withstood heat waves like those in Day the Earth Caught Fire, and now we'll get the storms part. This has been a wild year for DVD Savant, which is still a little unsettled. DVDtalk has been very patient and generous, and so have Stuart Galbraith & Joe Dante; so far everything...
- 12/15/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Diary of a Lost Girl
Written by Rudolf Leonhardt
Directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Germany, 1929
In just two collaborations, the German director Georg Wilhelm Pabst and the Kansas-born Louise Brooks created a screen personality that left a permanent mark on the history of film. The iconic Brooks—impeccably dressed, seductively smirking, short, jet-black hair—had been seen in films prior, most notably in Howard Hawks’ A Girl in Every Port (1928), but it was in Pabst’s Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl (both released in 1929) that this embodiment of tumultuous 1920s mores struck a strong and enduring chord.
Brooks in these two Pabst features could not be more dissimilar, however. Lulu, the freewheeling temptress of Pandora’s Box, is miles away from Thymian, the young, naive innocent of Diary of a Lost Girl. As this latter feature begins, Thymian enters the picture all in white, in accordance with her recent confirmation.
Written by Rudolf Leonhardt
Directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Germany, 1929
In just two collaborations, the German director Georg Wilhelm Pabst and the Kansas-born Louise Brooks created a screen personality that left a permanent mark on the history of film. The iconic Brooks—impeccably dressed, seductively smirking, short, jet-black hair—had been seen in films prior, most notably in Howard Hawks’ A Girl in Every Port (1928), but it was in Pabst’s Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl (both released in 1929) that this embodiment of tumultuous 1920s mores struck a strong and enduring chord.
Brooks in these two Pabst features could not be more dissimilar, however. Lulu, the freewheeling temptress of Pandora’s Box, is miles away from Thymian, the young, naive innocent of Diary of a Lost Girl. As this latter feature begins, Thymian enters the picture all in white, in accordance with her recent confirmation.
- 10/27/2015
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
G.W. Pabst's silent German classic is intact, restored and looking great. Louise Brooks is the virginal innocent betrayed on every level of the sexual double standard. Brooks is nothing less than amazing, with a performance that doesn't date, and Pabst only has to show how things are to make a statement about societal hypocrisy. German cinema doesn't get better. Diary of a Lost Girl Blu-ray Kino Lorber Classics 1929 / B&W / 1:33 flat / 112 min. / Tagebuch einer Verlorenen / Street Date October 20, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Louise Brooks, Fritz Rasp, Valeska Gert, Franziska Kinz, Edith Meinhard, Andrews Engelmann, Kurt Gerron, Siegfried Arno, Sybille Schmitz, André Roanne. Cinematography Sepp Allgeier, Fritz Arno Wagner Art Directors Erno Metzner and Emil Hasler Original Music Javier Perez de Azpeitia (Piano) Written by Rudolf Leonhardt from the novel by Margarethe Böhme Produced by Directed by G.W. Pabst
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The universally revered Louise Brooks...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The universally revered Louise Brooks...
- 10/6/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Part I. A Filmmaker’s Apotheosis
April 20th, 1938 marked Adolf Hitler’s 49th birthday. In the past five years, he’d rebuilt Germany from destitute anarchy into a burgeoning war machine, repudiated the Versailles Treaty and, that March, incorporated Austria into his Thousand-Year Reich. In Nazi Germany, fantasy co-mingled with ideology, expressing an obsession with Germany’s mythical past through propaganda and art. Fittingly, Hitler celebrated at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin, Germany’s most prestigious cinema.
There, Nazi officials and foreign diplomats joined dignitaries of German kultur. Present were Wilhelm Furtwangler, conductor of Berlin’s Philharmonic Orchestra; Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and confidante; actor Gustaf Grundgens, transformed from Brechtian Bolshevik to director of Prussia’s State Theater; and movie star Emil Jannings, Oscar-winner of The Lost Command and The Blue Angel, now an Artist of the State. Also Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who nationalized German cinema in...
April 20th, 1938 marked Adolf Hitler’s 49th birthday. In the past five years, he’d rebuilt Germany from destitute anarchy into a burgeoning war machine, repudiated the Versailles Treaty and, that March, incorporated Austria into his Thousand-Year Reich. In Nazi Germany, fantasy co-mingled with ideology, expressing an obsession with Germany’s mythical past through propaganda and art. Fittingly, Hitler celebrated at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin, Germany’s most prestigious cinema.
There, Nazi officials and foreign diplomats joined dignitaries of German kultur. Present were Wilhelm Furtwangler, conductor of Berlin’s Philharmonic Orchestra; Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and confidante; actor Gustaf Grundgens, transformed from Brechtian Bolshevik to director of Prussia’s State Theater; and movie star Emil Jannings, Oscar-winner of The Lost Command and The Blue Angel, now an Artist of the State. Also Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who nationalized German cinema in...
- 7/8/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
This time on the podcast, Scott is joined by David Blakeslee and Ryan Gallagher to discuss G.W. Pabst’s 1931 film The Threepenny Opera.
About the film:
The sly melodies of composer Kurt Weill and the daring of dramatist Bertolt Brecht come together on-screen under the direction of German auteur G. W. Pabst (Pandora’s Box) in this classic adaptation of the Weimar-era theatrical sensation. Set in the impoverished back alleys of Victorian London, The Threepenny Opera follows underworld antihero Mackie Messer (a.k.a. Mack the Knife) as he tries to woo Polly Peachum and elude the authorities. With its palpable evocation of corruption and dread, set to Weill’s irresistible score, The Threepenny Opera remains a benchmark of early sound cinema. It is presented here in both its celebrated German and rare French versions.
Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes
Buy The Film On Amazon:
Watch...
About the film:
The sly melodies of composer Kurt Weill and the daring of dramatist Bertolt Brecht come together on-screen under the direction of German auteur G. W. Pabst (Pandora’s Box) in this classic adaptation of the Weimar-era theatrical sensation. Set in the impoverished back alleys of Victorian London, The Threepenny Opera follows underworld antihero Mackie Messer (a.k.a. Mack the Knife) as he tries to woo Polly Peachum and elude the authorities. With its palpable evocation of corruption and dread, set to Weill’s irresistible score, The Threepenny Opera remains a benchmark of early sound cinema. It is presented here in both its celebrated German and rare French versions.
Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes
Buy The Film On Amazon:
Watch...
- 6/1/2015
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
★★★★☆A new restoration of G.W. Pabst’s 1929 masterpiece Diary of a Lost Girl, demonstrates the luminosity of his iconic star, Louise Brooks, in what was their final of two legendary collaborations, the other being Pandora’s Box in the same year. Having left Paramount studios to work for the celebrated German director in 1928, Brooks had been back in the Us for six months when Pabst called upon her to again take the lead in his latest production. Like Lulu in Pandora’s Box, her character, Thymian Henning in Diary of a Lost Girl was one of questionable morality, occupying, throughout the film, positions in both ‘respectable’ and ‘sleazy’ society.
- 11/24/2014
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
For a while, Lady Gaga was one of the most fascinating music stars that had come in a while, primarily because of her unapologetic bombast. Too often, though, she may have been written off as “weird”, from her odd fashion decisions, her performance art appearances on TV, and, of course, her music videos. Gaga, née Stefani Germanotta, through her strange videos presents a vision, often of powerful women and the subversion of fame, through each of her music videos. Sometimes straddling the line between film and music video, Lady Gaga, though not always the director of these videos, is always the auteur behind them.
Lady Gaga’s early music videos are nothing if not promotional material, with “LoveGame” and “Poker Face” being, for the most part, entirely generic within the context of her career. It was not perhaps until she employed the use of music video director Jonas Åkerlund that...
Lady Gaga’s early music videos are nothing if not promotional material, with “LoveGame” and “Poker Face” being, for the most part, entirely generic within the context of her career. It was not perhaps until she employed the use of music video director Jonas Åkerlund that...
- 7/26/2014
- by Kyle Turner
- SoundOnSight
Rossana Podestà dead at 79: ‘Helen of Troy’ actress later featured in sword-and-sandal spectacles, risqué sex comedies (photo: Jacques Sernas and Rossana Podestà in ‘Helen of Troy’) Rossana Podestà, the sensual star of the 1955 epic Helen of Troy and other sword-and-sandal European productions of the ’50s and ’60s — in addition to a handful of risqué sex comedies of the ’70s — died earlier today, December 10, 2013, in Rome according to several Italian news outlets. Podestà was 79. She was born Carla Dora Podestà on August 20, 1934, in, depending on the source, either Zlitan or Tripoli, in Libya, at the time an Italian colony. According to the IMDb, the renamed Rossana Podestà began her film career in 1950, when she was featured in a small role in Dezsö Ákos Hamza’s Strano appuntamento ("Strange Appointment"). However, according to online reports, she was actually discovered by director Léonide Moguy, who cast her in a small role in...
- 12/10/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
When I first saw this artwork for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis used on the Masters of Cinema 2010 Blu-ray packaging, I was convinced that it was contemporary artwork commissioned especially for that release. As familiar as I was with Heinz Schulz-Neudamm’s famous poster for the film (aka the most sought after and most expensive movie poster of all time), for some reason I had not seen this before. But when I discovered that this poster was not only an original 1927 French release poster but also that it is a four-sheet poster that stands 94 inches tall and 126 inches wide, my mind was blown. (Click on the image to see it in all its glory). Apparently an original exists in the Art Library of the Berlin State Museum (the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) but I would assume no copy has ever come up for auction. As far as I’m concerned this...
- 9/2/2013
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Louise Brooks in Prix de Beauté: 2013 San Francisco Silent Film Festival Louise Brooks will kick off the 2013 San Francisco Silent Film Festival. At 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 17, the Sfsff will screen Augusto Genina’s Prix de Beauté aka Beauty Prize at the Castro Theater. Released in 1930 — when talkies had already become established in much of the moviemaking world — the French-made Prix de Beauté came out in both sound and silent versions, a widely common practice in those days as many theaters had yet to get wired for sound. Needless to say, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival’s Prix de Beauté print is the silent version, recently restored by the Cineteca di Bologna. (Photo: Louise Brooks in Prix de Beauté.) Prix de Beauté, which marked the last time Louise Brooks starred in a feature film, tells the story of a typist who enters a beauty contest — much to her...
- 7/17/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
My, those Cinema St. Louis guys are tres occupé! Hot off the heels of their Q-Fest (the St. Louis Gay and Lesbian Film Festival), the Classic French Film Festival starts up this week at the same location. Discover the French culture! The Classic French Film Festival is sponsored by TV5MONDE USA , the French channel in the Us. I’ve never watched it but I’m sure it’s very French!
A downloadable Pdf of the fest’s program can be found Here
http://www.cinemastlouis.org/sites/default/files/downloads/2013/fffest2013_3lores.pdf
The Cinema St. Louis page about the event is Here
http://www.cinemastlouis.org/classic-french-film-festival
All films will be shown in the Winifred Moore Auditorium, Webster University’s Webster Hall, 470 E. Lockwood Ave.
$12 general admission, $10 for students and Cinema St. Louis members, free for Webster U. students
This is the Fifth Annual Classic French Film Festival,...
A downloadable Pdf of the fest’s program can be found Here
http://www.cinemastlouis.org/sites/default/files/downloads/2013/fffest2013_3lores.pdf
The Cinema St. Louis page about the event is Here
http://www.cinemastlouis.org/classic-french-film-festival
All films will be shown in the Winifred Moore Auditorium, Webster University’s Webster Hall, 470 E. Lockwood Ave.
$12 general admission, $10 for students and Cinema St. Louis members, free for Webster U. students
This is the Fifth Annual Classic French Film Festival,...
- 6/10/2013
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Cinema is the weapon of mass destruction in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. On its surface the film is a war movie about a group of Jewish-American soldiers performing an apache resistance of the Nazis in the later days of World War II. The eponymous group is led by Lt. Aldo Raine (played by Brad Pitt). The goal of he and his men is to kill and scalp every Nazi that comes in their way.
It’s impossible to discuss the film without divulging the ending in which the heads of the Third Reich, including Hitler himself, are gathered together in a movie theatre burned alive, shot to death, and blown to smithereens. Tarantino’s brazen historical revisionism garnered strong controversy and criticism, with the critic Jonathan Rosenbaum going as far as to say that the film “seems morally akin to Holocaust denial…Insofar as [the Holocaust] becomes a movie convention — by...
It’s impossible to discuss the film without divulging the ending in which the heads of the Third Reich, including Hitler himself, are gathered together in a movie theatre burned alive, shot to death, and blown to smithereens. Tarantino’s brazen historical revisionism garnered strong controversy and criticism, with the critic Jonathan Rosenbaum going as far as to say that the film “seems morally akin to Holocaust denial…Insofar as [the Holocaust] becomes a movie convention — by...
- 1/24/2013
- by Cristian Duran
- Obsessed with Film
Northern musicians join colleagues from Iceland in new score for of the tragic story of a beguiling but self-destructive young woman, one of the silent movie classics of Germany's Weimar republic
It sounds rather grandiose to claim that you are "breathing new life into the arts in the North of England". And very un-Northern to style yourself as "England's most exciting opera company". But Opera North can perhaps be forgiven for such hyperbole when its autumn programme includes a new score by an Icelandic post-classical composer for an iconic 1920s silent film.
Although widely-criticised and largely ignored on its release in 1929, Pandora's Box is today regarded as a classic of Weimar Germany's cinema. Its treatment of sexual mores was shocking in its day, not least because it depicted the raw sexuality of a young woman and included one of the first screen portrayals of a lesbian. Even in 2012, this daringly...
It sounds rather grandiose to claim that you are "breathing new life into the arts in the North of England". And very un-Northern to style yourself as "England's most exciting opera company". But Opera North can perhaps be forgiven for such hyperbole when its autumn programme includes a new score by an Icelandic post-classical composer for an iconic 1920s silent film.
Although widely-criticised and largely ignored on its release in 1929, Pandora's Box is today regarded as a classic of Weimar Germany's cinema. Its treatment of sexual mores was shocking in its day, not least because it depicted the raw sexuality of a young woman and included one of the first screen portrayals of a lesbian. Even in 2012, this daringly...
- 10/30/2012
- by Helen Nugent
- The Guardian - Film News
Sometimes it's interesting to just try and figure out why a film is included in the Criterion Collection. While mainstream audiences may be aware of Criterion releases, I think it's safe to say the Collection is still primarily known for bringing us classic works from the likes of Kurosawa, Bergman, Godard, Melville, Malle, Bunuel, etc. rather than the more infrequent inclusions of mainstream works such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Armageddon, The Rock and RoboCop. Even when they do stray into mainstream territory it infrequently is a film most general moviegoers would recognize or have seen, such is the case with Jonathan Demme's Something Wild a little seen 1986 feature that generated a modest $8.3 million back in 1986 and is in fact Ray Liotta's first feature film, but even I had never heard of it before it was announced as part of the Collection.
- 6/7/2011
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Netflix has revolutionized the home movie experience for fans of film with its instant streaming technology. Netflix Nuggets is my way of spreading the word about independent, classic and foreign films made available by Netflix for instant streaming.
Sorry, folks… there are simply too many great films streaming this week to post an image for them all, but that’s a good thing, eh? You’ve got your movie watching work cut out for you, due in great part to Miramax releasing damn near their entire catalog of films on one day!
B. Monkey (1999)
Streaming Available: 05/01/2011
Director: Michael Radford
Synopsis: Good-hearted schoolteacher Alan Furnace (Jared Harris) desperately wants some excitement in his life — and he may just get some. One lonely night at a London bar, Alan spies the raven-haired beauty Beatrice (Asia Argento) arguing with two friends, Paul (Rupert Everett) and Bruno (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers). Beatrice quickly befriends Alan and...
Sorry, folks… there are simply too many great films streaming this week to post an image for them all, but that’s a good thing, eh? You’ve got your movie watching work cut out for you, due in great part to Miramax releasing damn near their entire catalog of films on one day!
B. Monkey (1999)
Streaming Available: 05/01/2011
Director: Michael Radford
Synopsis: Good-hearted schoolteacher Alan Furnace (Jared Harris) desperately wants some excitement in his life — and he may just get some. One lonely night at a London bar, Alan spies the raven-haired beauty Beatrice (Asia Argento) arguing with two friends, Paul (Rupert Everett) and Bruno (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers). Beatrice quickly befriends Alan and...
- 4/29/2011
- by Travis Keune
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Cannes Classics is a recent addition to the festival, and will enjoy its 8th instalment this year. Part of the line-up of this section of the fest is screened at Ceinema de la Plage, that’s right, on the beach. You’ve got to admit that it’s pretty cool – an open-aired screening of a classic film on the French Riviera, away from the exclusivity of the Palais, and able to be enjoyed by Panini-eating passers-by on the Croisette. There should be more of this at the festival, it’s good for the soul.
This year’s line-up of films includes work by Stanley Kubrick, Bernardo Bertolucci, Euzhan Palcy (currently being honored by MoMA in New York) and Jerry Schatzberg, whose photograph of Faye Dunaway is embedded into this year’s festival poster above.
Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal will present a screening of “A Bronx Tale” to celebrate ten...
This year’s line-up of films includes work by Stanley Kubrick, Bernardo Bertolucci, Euzhan Palcy (currently being honored by MoMA in New York) and Jerry Schatzberg, whose photograph of Faye Dunaway is embedded into this year’s festival poster above.
Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal will present a screening of “A Bronx Tale” to celebrate ten...
- 4/26/2011
- by admin
- Moving Pictures Network
Cannes Classics is a recent addition to the festival, and will enjoy its 8th instalment this year. Part of the line-up of this section of the fest is screened at Ceinema de la Plage, that’s right, on the beach. You’ve got to admit that it’s pretty cool – an open-aired screening of a classic film on the French Riviera, away from the exclusivity of the Palais, and able to be enjoyed by Panini-eating passers-by on the Croisette. There should be more of this at the festival, it’s good for the soul.
This year’s line-up of films includes work by Stanley Kubrick, Bernardo Bertolucci, Euzhan Palcy (currently being honored by MoMA in New York) and Jerry Schatzberg, whose photograph of Faye Dunaway is embedded into this year’s festival poster above.
Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal will present a screening of “A Bronx Tale” to celebrate ten...
This year’s line-up of films includes work by Stanley Kubrick, Bernardo Bertolucci, Euzhan Palcy (currently being honored by MoMA in New York) and Jerry Schatzberg, whose photograph of Faye Dunaway is embedded into this year’s festival poster above.
Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal will present a screening of “A Bronx Tale” to celebrate ten...
- 4/26/2011
- by admin
- Moving Pictures Magazine
Why Watch? Because you shouldn’t fear black and white silence. It’s a coincidence that this is going up the same day as a very thoughtful exploration of G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box, but it’s also great to see another initialed, iconic director’s early silent short works. This one, the story of a wheat king looking to monopolize production and crush the poor, was made back in 1909. That’s right. This short film is over 100 years old. Pretty amazing. It features some early advents of the cross-cutting and montage techniques as well as some stunning black and white imagery, and a final shot that’s as poignant as it is bittersweet. What Will It Cost? Just 14 minutes of your time. Does it get better any better than that? Check out A Corner in the Wheat for yourself: A Corner In The Wheat (1909) Directed By: D. W. Griffith...
- 4/20/2011
- by Cole Abaius
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Welcome to the third installment of Guest Author month at Criterion Files: a month devoted to important classic and contemporary bloggers. This week, Catherine Stebbins, writer for CriterionCast and Cinema Enthusiast, takes on G.W. Pabst’s silent classic Pandora’s Box (1929). Tune in every week this month for an analysis of a different title from a new author. The first time I saw G.W Pabst’s Pandora’s Box, I thought I knew what Lulu, the character played by Louise Brooks, would be like. All I knew was that Lulu destroyed the lives of those around her. I expected her to be a typical femme fatale, with perhaps a bit of the vamp in her; sexy, manipulative, cold, calculating, powerful. I expected her to be a scheming woman with a plan for destruction. Lulu is a very complicated character because she is in many ways the direct opposite of the femme fatale despite the amount of...
- 4/20/2011
- by Guest Author
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Netflix has revolutionized the home movie experience for fans of film with its instant streaming technology. Netflix Nuggets is my way of spreading the word about independent, classic and foreign films made available by Netflix for instant streaming.
This Week’s New Instant Releases… Title: Black Heaven (2010)
Streaming Available: 04/12/2011
Cast: Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Louise Bourgoin, Melvil Poupaud, Pauline Etienne, Pierre Niney, Ali Marhyar, Patrick Descamps, Pierre Vittet, Swann Arlaud, Francesco Merenda
Director: Gilles Marchand
Synopsis: While searching for the owner of a missing mobile phone with his girlfriend, Marion (Pauline Etienne), Gaspard (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) falls for the mysterious Sam (Louise Bourgoin), who draws him into a dangerous virtual-reality video game, where she provokes unsuspecting victims into killing themselves. Directed by Gilles Marchand, this intense French drama alternates between real-life events and those within the simulated computer world. Title: Heartless (2009)
Streaming Available: 04/12/2011
Cast: Jim Sturgess, Clémence Poésy , Noel Clarke, Luke Treadaway, Justin Salinger,...
This Week’s New Instant Releases… Title: Black Heaven (2010)
Streaming Available: 04/12/2011
Cast: Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Louise Bourgoin, Melvil Poupaud, Pauline Etienne, Pierre Niney, Ali Marhyar, Patrick Descamps, Pierre Vittet, Swann Arlaud, Francesco Merenda
Director: Gilles Marchand
Synopsis: While searching for the owner of a missing mobile phone with his girlfriend, Marion (Pauline Etienne), Gaspard (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) falls for the mysterious Sam (Louise Bourgoin), who draws him into a dangerous virtual-reality video game, where she provokes unsuspecting victims into killing themselves. Directed by Gilles Marchand, this intense French drama alternates between real-life events and those within the simulated computer world. Title: Heartless (2009)
Streaming Available: 04/12/2011
Cast: Jim Sturgess, Clémence Poésy , Noel Clarke, Luke Treadaway, Justin Salinger,...
- 4/11/2011
- by Travis Keune
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Here’s another wonderful Christmas present from the good people over at the BBC Archive.
Following their captivating James Bond at the BBC online exhibition the BBC Archive have collected recorded interviews with the giants of Hollywood’s past which offer a wonderful and unique retrospective on Hollywood and movie making.
Giants of the silent era are captured in conversation and hearing Chaplin talk about his life in film is truly fascinating. Buster Keaton, Louise Brooks, Bette Davis are all present as are Alfred Hitchock, Orson Welles, Boris Karloff – it’s a goldmine. Some are amazing accounts of movie making from the 50s, others have the actors and directors reflecting on their careers and the changing face of Film.
A particular favourite is the brief interview with Louise Brooks who talks about her film Pandora’s Box, and the direction she received from Georg Wilhelm Pabst, which was simply – “In the afternoon,...
Following their captivating James Bond at the BBC online exhibition the BBC Archive have collected recorded interviews with the giants of Hollywood’s past which offer a wonderful and unique retrospective on Hollywood and movie making.
Giants of the silent era are captured in conversation and hearing Chaplin talk about his life in film is truly fascinating. Buster Keaton, Louise Brooks, Bette Davis are all present as are Alfred Hitchock, Orson Welles, Boris Karloff – it’s a goldmine. Some are amazing accounts of movie making from the 50s, others have the actors and directors reflecting on their careers and the changing face of Film.
A particular favourite is the brief interview with Louise Brooks who talks about her film Pandora’s Box, and the direction she received from Georg Wilhelm Pabst, which was simply – “In the afternoon,...
- 12/22/2010
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Italian movie tycoon whose list of credits featured as many disasters as hits
The Italian-born film producer Dino De Laurentiis, who has died aged 91, will perhaps go down in movie history as the last "transatlantic" tycoon. Over a career spanning more than 60 years, producing films on both sides of the ocean, he had as many flops as hits. But De Laurentiis almost always succeeded in staying afloat.
In Rome, he produced Federico Fellini's Oscar-winning La Strada (1954) and the grandiose spectacular War and Peace (1956), but also made The Bible: In the Beginning (1966) and Waterloo (1970), which never recovered their costs. Relocating to the Us, he enjoyed success with Serpico (1973), Death Wish (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975) and Conan the Barbarian (1982), but had financial disasters including Year of the Dragon (1985) and a failed food emporium, which he opened in New York. De Laurentiis was also a starmaker, both in Italy, where...
The Italian-born film producer Dino De Laurentiis, who has died aged 91, will perhaps go down in movie history as the last "transatlantic" tycoon. Over a career spanning more than 60 years, producing films on both sides of the ocean, he had as many flops as hits. But De Laurentiis almost always succeeded in staying afloat.
In Rome, he produced Federico Fellini's Oscar-winning La Strada (1954) and the grandiose spectacular War and Peace (1956), but also made The Bible: In the Beginning (1966) and Waterloo (1970), which never recovered their costs. Relocating to the Us, he enjoyed success with Serpico (1973), Death Wish (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975) and Conan the Barbarian (1982), but had financial disasters including Year of the Dragon (1985) and a failed food emporium, which he opened in New York. De Laurentiis was also a starmaker, both in Italy, where...
- 11/11/2010
- by John Francis Lane
- The Guardian - Film News
This week we're getting snippy, cutting a swathe through the best film clips that give a nod to the Louise Brooks bob
Georg Wilhelm Pabst's Pandora's Box (1929) owes its iconic status not to its plot – a lurid morality tale – but the subversive sheen of its star. Louise Brooks's screen presence redefined the proverbial fatality of the femmes. Here was no temptress hell-bent on destruction but a girl whose spontaneity and unrepressed sexuality proved too hot to handle for the leering males around her.
The message was much aided by a boyish bob which, in its angular minimalism, posed an affront to cliches of femininity. "The girl in the black helmet", she was called, the gritty hue of her barnet more redolent of the dominatrix's leather boot than the flowing locks of the damsel in distress.
Brooks's haircut was a piece of fashion and, as such, has been sported...
Georg Wilhelm Pabst's Pandora's Box (1929) owes its iconic status not to its plot – a lurid morality tale – but the subversive sheen of its star. Louise Brooks's screen presence redefined the proverbial fatality of the femmes. Here was no temptress hell-bent on destruction but a girl whose spontaneity and unrepressed sexuality proved too hot to handle for the leering males around her.
The message was much aided by a boyish bob which, in its angular minimalism, posed an affront to cliches of femininity. "The girl in the black helmet", she was called, the gritty hue of her barnet more redolent of the dominatrix's leather boot than the flowing locks of the damsel in distress.
Brooks's haircut was a piece of fashion and, as such, has been sported...
- 9/22/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
In this series, we look at movies from all over the cinematic time line and select a shot that particularly resonates with us, be it for aesthetic, thematic or for simple eye candy reasons. Join us! Next Wednesday night, we're looking at David Fincher's Se7en (1995) on it's 15th anniversary.
This week we gaze lustily at...
Pandora's Box
This is not a sex scene but a temper tantrum.
okay okay, it becomes a sex scene.
It's an easy thing to do. I've seen this 1929 silent (the original title is Die Büchse der Pandora) four times now and each time I'm startled anew at its carnality. It's one of the most erotic movies ever made and not just for the provoactive subject matter which follows the gradual undoing of one Lulu (Louise Brooks), a wild thing who marries up before bringing everyone down; director G.W. Pabst and cinematographer Günther Krampf partner...
This week we gaze lustily at...
Pandora's Box
This is not a sex scene but a temper tantrum.
okay okay, it becomes a sex scene.
It's an easy thing to do. I've seen this 1929 silent (the original title is Die Büchse der Pandora) four times now and each time I'm startled anew at its carnality. It's one of the most erotic movies ever made and not just for the provoactive subject matter which follows the gradual undoing of one Lulu (Louise Brooks), a wild thing who marries up before bringing everyone down; director G.W. Pabst and cinematographer Günther Krampf partner...
- 9/20/2010
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
previously: Showgirls, Black Narcissus and Bring it On
For today's episode of this new participatory series, in which we choose our single favorite images from a feature, the topic is Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957). The film was chosen to commemorate the recent passing of Patricia Neal (1926-2010) and to honor the gifted cinematographer Harry Stradling Sr who was born on this very day in 1901. He went on to shoot landmark musicals, numerous classics and win two Oscars.
Andy Griffith's spontaneous verbosity hypnotizes Americans.
Patricia Neal's expressive watchfulness hypnotizes movie buffs.
A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Confession: I never knew what Keith Olbermann was talking about when he referred to Glenn Beck as "Lonesome Rhodes" but now the association is all too clear. I don't pretend to know if Beck ever had pure motives, but when A Face in the Crowd begins, Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith) is not a phony,...
For today's episode of this new participatory series, in which we choose our single favorite images from a feature, the topic is Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957). The film was chosen to commemorate the recent passing of Patricia Neal (1926-2010) and to honor the gifted cinematographer Harry Stradling Sr who was born on this very day in 1901. He went on to shoot landmark musicals, numerous classics and win two Oscars.
Andy Griffith's spontaneous verbosity hypnotizes Americans.
Patricia Neal's expressive watchfulness hypnotizes movie buffs.
A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Confession: I never knew what Keith Olbermann was talking about when he referred to Glenn Beck as "Lonesome Rhodes" but now the association is all too clear. I don't pretend to know if Beck ever had pure motives, but when A Face in the Crowd begins, Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith) is not a phony,...
- 9/3/2010
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
[Our thanks to Michael Hawley for offering his Sfsff lineup preview to the Twitch readership.]
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival (Sfsff) is the biggest and most prestigious event of its kind in the Americas--and it's going to be even bigger for its 15th anniversary edition which begins Thursday. This year the fest expands from three days to four and will feature a massive 18 programs from seven countries. The line-up includes works by well known directors (Fritz Lang, Frank Capra, G.W. Pabst) and stars (Laurel and Hardy, Louise Brooks, Norma Talmadge), as well as rarities like The Flying Ace, a 1926 film that features an all African-American cast. And as a special treat, David Shepard and Serge Bromberg of Lobster Films have curated a selection of shorts by George Méliès (the French fantasist best known for 1902's A Trip to the Moon), which will play throughout the festival.
If you've been to the Sfsff before, you don't need me to tell you what a fabulous, class...
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival (Sfsff) is the biggest and most prestigious event of its kind in the Americas--and it's going to be even bigger for its 15th anniversary edition which begins Thursday. This year the fest expands from three days to four and will feature a massive 18 programs from seven countries. The line-up includes works by well known directors (Fritz Lang, Frank Capra, G.W. Pabst) and stars (Laurel and Hardy, Louise Brooks, Norma Talmadge), as well as rarities like The Flying Ace, a 1926 film that features an all African-American cast. And as a special treat, David Shepard and Serge Bromberg of Lobster Films have curated a selection of shorts by George Méliès (the French fantasist best known for 1902's A Trip to the Moon), which will play throughout the festival.
If you've been to the Sfsff before, you don't need me to tell you what a fabulous, class...
- 7/13/2010
- Screen Anarchy
G.W. Pabst stands alongside Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau as one of the three great directors working in Germany during the silent film era. Pabst, however, has not always gotten the attention paid to his more celebrated colleagues. A month-long film series at Bard College in New York may help turn the tide of critical thinking. "The Best of G.W. Pabst" includes seven films by the Austrian-born director. It features his celebrated and often revived masterpieces Pandora's Box (1929) and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), as well as The Threepenny Opera (1931), which stars Lotte Lenya and is based on the musical theater of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. The festival is as much attention as Pabst has gotten of late, ever since Quentin Tarantino's multiple shout-outs to the director in his 2009 cinephilic rewriting of history, Inglourious Basterds. Though Pabst is...
- 7/13/2010
- by Thomas Gladysz
- Huffington Post
By modern standards, Quentin Tarantino would be considered an auteur; a director whose films reflect that his personal creative vision. But what exactly is that vision, and how is it reflected in his work? One major observation that one can make about Tarantino’s films is that he often incorporates a number of references, many of which refer to cinema, specific films, or pop culture. His films are laced with this intertextuality were the relationship between texts (or films) is constantly being redefined. This method of pastiche is one way that he draws attention to the fact that his film is a constructed piece of fiction, or a “simulation.”
His rational behind this is heavily influenced by French theorist Jean Baudrillard’s notion of “hyperreality.” Hyperreality in this case refers to the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, as the two become blurred into one. Baudrillard argues that...
His rational behind this is heavily influenced by French theorist Jean Baudrillard’s notion of “hyperreality.” Hyperreality in this case refers to the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, as the two become blurred into one. Baudrillard argues that...
- 6/26/2010
- by Kristen Coates
- The Film Stage
M
It is somewhat customary in the review of a classic to point out the age of the opus in question before insisting that it still feels “as fresh as ever.” It’s a lazy shorthand that can be used for Wagner’s Ring cycle, Joyce’s Ulysses and Citizen Kane in the same breath, a write-off that attempts to reassure the reader that hallmarks of art do not have to sit in a museum, not even collecting dust because of protective cases. The statement is usually presented on its own, a Qed “proof” without demonstration, allowing the writer to move on quickly out of fear that he or she has nothing to add on an already thoroughly analyzed work (”What can I say about ____ that hasn’t already been said?” is also a trite shortcut that we have all used at some point no matter how much everyone hates to read the sentence). But,...
It is somewhat customary in the review of a classic to point out the age of the opus in question before insisting that it still feels “as fresh as ever.” It’s a lazy shorthand that can be used for Wagner’s Ring cycle, Joyce’s Ulysses and Citizen Kane in the same breath, a write-off that attempts to reassure the reader that hallmarks of art do not have to sit in a museum, not even collecting dust because of protective cases. The statement is usually presented on its own, a Qed “proof” without demonstration, allowing the writer to move on quickly out of fear that he or she has nothing to add on an already thoroughly analyzed work (”What can I say about ____ that hasn’t already been said?” is also a trite shortcut that we have all used at some point no matter how much everyone hates to read the sentence). But,...
- 5/17/2010
- by Aaron
"Cyrus," directed by brothers Jay and Mark Duplass and starring John C. Reilly, will serve as opening night film at the second annual BAMcinemaFest, running from June 9-20, in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Presented by BAMcinematek, this year’s fest will also host a conversation between director Olivier Assayas and film critic Kent Jones on his influences along with screenings of two of his favorite films.
Other special events include the New York premiere of the new restoration of Ozploitation rediscovery "Wake In Fright" by director Ted Kotchef, and G.W. Pabst's classic silent "Diary of a Lost Girl," starring Louise Brooks with live musical accompaniment by Irish ambient rock group 3epkano, closing the festival.
Presented by BAMcinematek, this year’s fest will also host a conversation between director Olivier Assayas and film critic Kent Jones on his influences along with screenings of two of his favorite films.
Other special events include the New York premiere of the new restoration of Ozploitation rediscovery "Wake In Fright" by director Ted Kotchef, and G.W. Pabst's classic silent "Diary of a Lost Girl," starring Louise Brooks with live musical accompaniment by Irish ambient rock group 3epkano, closing the festival.
- 4/28/2010
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
To fully appreciate "Inglourious Basterds," an extensive knowledge of world cinema helps. Here are some key references:
* Leni Riefenstahl: Often referred to as "Hitler's favorite filmmaker," Riefenstahl directed the propaganda masterpiece "Triumph of the Will." She is discussed outside Shosanna's cinema, which is playing a revival of "The White Hell of Pitz Palu" in which Riefenstahl appears as an actress. Arrested for war crimes, she was acquitted and continued to deny knowledge of the Holocaust until her death in 2003 at age 101.
* G.W. Pabst: The Austrian co-director of "Pitz Palu,...
* Leni Riefenstahl: Often referred to as "Hitler's favorite filmmaker," Riefenstahl directed the propaganda masterpiece "Triumph of the Will." She is discussed outside Shosanna's cinema, which is playing a revival of "The White Hell of Pitz Palu" in which Riefenstahl appears as an actress. Arrested for war crimes, she was acquitted and continued to deny knowledge of the Holocaust until her death in 2003 at age 101.
* G.W. Pabst: The Austrian co-director of "Pitz Palu,...
- 8/20/2009
- by By LOU LUMENICK
- NYPost.com
Last seen playing the famished Bobby Sands in "Hunger," Michael Fassbender is well due for a feast. In the next 12 months, audiences will be able to see the versatile Irish actor in at least four films, including the acclaimed Andrea Arnold drama "Fish Tank" and as a Snidely Whiplash-type villain in the western "Jonah Hex." But for now, he's one of Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," the prim and proper Lt. Archie Hicox, an Oss officer who's traded in his film critic career for a chance to help the Americans bring down the Nazi brain trust. It was a part well-suited to Fassbender -- as Hicox, he's able to draw upon his own German heritage and the vocabulary he picked up as a child for a role calling upon him to pose as a German soldier to infiltrate a propaganda film premiere. Plus, he's long been a fan of the...
- 8/19/2009
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
Attendance was down by 30 percent at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Not surprising, considering the recession still biting and Euro exchange rates keeping prices along the Croisette at ridiculously expensive levels. Yet the number of high-profile genre films in the Official Competition was a bonus for those more used to finding the most controversial entries up for distributor grabs in the Market section. While Park Chan-wook’s Thirst and Gaspar Noe’s Enter The Void certainly had their followers, with Terry Gilliam’s out-of-competition The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus a similar hot ticket, the two biggest stories were Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist.
Cinema saves the world in Tarantino’s disjointed, history-bending homage to war movies, which takes its misspelled name—but very little else—from Enzo Castellari’s 1978 Italian cult exploiter. Divided into chapters, each highlighting a movie style like Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns,...
Cinema saves the world in Tarantino’s disjointed, history-bending homage to war movies, which takes its misspelled name—but very little else—from Enzo Castellari’s 1978 Italian cult exploiter. Divided into chapters, each highlighting a movie style like Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns,...
- 5/29/2009
- by no-reply@fangoria.com (Alan Jones)
- Fangoria
Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films from Criterion
Photo: Criterion Last week in my On DVD Today column I mentioned how the folks at Criterion were clearing off their shelves and offering every item in stock at a 40% discount while supplies lasted. I would assume a majority of the folks that read the article ignored that link since it didn't have any new information on Batman, Iron Man or any other kind of man from a comic book. However, I am hoping this headline brought in the folks that may be interested in such a deal. Of course, the hour is late and the majority of the titles are now gone as the deal ends Monday, November 24, at midnight Est. When I first got the email from Criterion I shuffled over to check out a few titles I had been longing to get and had never wanted to spend the money.
Photo: Criterion Last week in my On DVD Today column I mentioned how the folks at Criterion were clearing off their shelves and offering every item in stock at a 40% discount while supplies lasted. I would assume a majority of the folks that read the article ignored that link since it didn't have any new information on Batman, Iron Man or any other kind of man from a comic book. However, I am hoping this headline brought in the folks that may be interested in such a deal. Of course, the hour is late and the majority of the titles are now gone as the deal ends Monday, November 24, at midnight Est. When I first got the email from Criterion I shuffled over to check out a few titles I had been longing to get and had never wanted to spend the money.
- 11/24/2008
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Cologne, Germany -- The German Film Institute (Dif), a national cinema archive, has acquired the German-language distribution rights to the massive KirchMedia library of about 3,500 titles.
The Dif has selected 110 titles it will distribute itself, including G.W. Pabst's silent film classic "Der Schatz" (1922), John Ford's Western epic "Rio Grande" (1950) and Michael Hoffman's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1999).
The library was one of the few big assets left unsold in the wake of KirchMedia's collapse in 2002. It is a cinematic treasure trove with such classics as "It's a Wonderful Life" (1947), "High Noon" (1952) and Sam Peckinpah's "Cross of Iron" (1976) alongside films from the '80s and '90s, including David Fincher's "Fight Club" (1999) and German comedy "Mr. Bluesman" (1992) from Soenke Wortmann.
"Independent of the commercial value of individual productions, (we felt) it necessary to secure the KirchMedia library to preserve this German and international film heritage and make...
The Dif has selected 110 titles it will distribute itself, including G.W. Pabst's silent film classic "Der Schatz" (1922), John Ford's Western epic "Rio Grande" (1950) and Michael Hoffman's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1999).
The library was one of the few big assets left unsold in the wake of KirchMedia's collapse in 2002. It is a cinematic treasure trove with such classics as "It's a Wonderful Life" (1947), "High Noon" (1952) and Sam Peckinpah's "Cross of Iron" (1976) alongside films from the '80s and '90s, including David Fincher's "Fight Club" (1999) and German comedy "Mr. Bluesman" (1992) from Soenke Wortmann.
"Independent of the commercial value of individual productions, (we felt) it necessary to secure the KirchMedia library to preserve this German and international film heritage and make...
- 11/13/2008
- by By Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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