Numerous contributors from across the globe offer their selections and thoughts on their movie-going experiences in 2009. Readers should find it a fascinating overview of cinema from a multitude of countries and cultures.
IN THIS ISSUE:
Letter from Pip Chodorov in response to Pedro Blas Gonzalez’s article on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Whilst looking at the long and illustrious history of Technicolor films, Murray Pomerance uncovers the remarkable uses Michelangelo Antonioni put the Technicolor process through in his 1964 Red Desert and beyond.
Taking the three films Made in USA, La Chinoise and Tout va bien as a focus, Drew Morton looks at how Jean-Luc Godard (and Jean-Pierre Gorin in the latter case) engaged with the art of the comic strip.
André Bazin and Vittorio Storaro may make for strange bedfellows, but by bringing the fabled theorist and the equally fabled cinematographer into ‘dialogue’ with one another, Angela Dalle Vacche helps clarify their respective philosophies regarding the ontology of the image.
Citizen Kane, rightly so, owes much of its fame to its deep-focus effects, but Orson Welles’ staging of shots also points to a whole host of pictorial references. Michael Riedlinger’s analysis uncovers Welles’ ‘painterly’ eye for composition.
Sally Shafto’s introduction sets the context for the transcript to the Straub’s film that follows.
Transcript of the dialogue, and description of visual and sound tracks to Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet’s 2004 film on Cezanne.
Natasha Subramaniam writes about the poetry and passion of Petro Costa’s recent film on singer and actress Jeanne Balibar.
Not surprisingly, Lars von Trier’s film has divided opinion. Nor is there much consensus on how best to interpret this tale of grief, pain, and despair. Daniel Vilensky comes at this most enigmatic of films from a range of critical angles.
Elder brother to John Ford, Francis Ford had a long and distinguished career – as actor, director, writer, producer – in his own right. His influence on the younger, and more famous, Ford was far more complex than first imagined.
With the recent release of the European Foundation Joris Ivens’ 5 disc-DVD set, Peter Hourigan takes the opportunity to look back at the career and work of one of the most famous of documentary filmmakers.
Film historian and filmmaker, Richard Schickel, talks at length about his documentary on the history of Warner Bros. studio from its early beginnings to the present. It makes for a fascinating and possibly unique tale in the context of the Hollywood studio system.
