Is there one person in our family who has died sane? – (Tía Lala) María Vaner, The Headless Woman As a “poster girl” for what is wishfully called the New Argentine Cinema, Lucrecia Martel has built a career by lacing her wilfully obscure narratives with symbols that are just too loud and portentous for us [...]
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David Melville
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David Melville lectures on Film and Literature at the University of Edinburgh. He has taught numerous courses on Spanish and Latin American cinema, and has a special interest in Mexican melodrama of the Golden Age.
Articles by David Melville:
“In my day, there were too many symbols.” – Juan Fernandez Soler (Alberto Closas) in Muerte de un ciclista (Death of a Cyclist) Madrid in 1951 was a drab place. The capital of Europe’s last surviving fascist dictatorship, it presided over an impoverished and socially backward nation. Ever since the end of the Civil War [...]
Perhaps the most outrageously beautiful man ever to step in front of a camera, the 1920s and ’30s star Ramon Novarro is remembered today for the ghastly manner of his death – and the rumours (more ghastly still) that have sprung up around it. On 30 October 1968, the ageing matinee idol was tortured and [...]
Pick up the two books and hold one in each hand. Just looking, you can learn a lot. Latin American Melodrama is a slender, grey volume, barely thicker than a child’s school notebook. All About Almodóvar is a hefty tome in garish colours, comparable in girth to a Victorian family Bible. Lift it for any [...]
“You have to change your own desires, not the order of the world.” – Maurice Ronet to Alain Delon, La piscine There are the reasons why we love movies – and then there are the ones that we admit to. Few serious “cinephiles”, perhaps, would confess that they love watching impossibly glamorous people commit acts [...]
“There are few films I have so longed to make”, said Jacques Demy of Une chambre en ville. “Few I have dreamed of as much as this.” (1) So it seems oddly fitting that this film – which is rapturously romantic and darkly tragic at the same time – is one of the screen’s all-time [...]
India Song (1975 France 120 mins) Prod Co: Sunchild/Les Films Armorial (France) Prod: Stéphane Tchalgadjieff Dir, Scr: Marguerite Duras Phot: Bruno Nuytten Ed: Solange Leprince Mus: Carlos D’Alessio, Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Diabelli Variations No. 14” Cast: Delphine Seyrig, Michel Lonsdale, Mathieu Carrière, Claude Mann, Didier Flamand, Vernon Dobtcheff How do you keep from lying? I don’t talk. – Marguerite [...]
Pistol Opera (2001 Japan 112 mins) Prod Co: Victor Company of Japan/Shochiku/Eiseri Gekijo/Television Tokyo Channel 12/Dentsu/Ogura Jimusho Prod: Satoru Ogura, Ikki Katashima Dir: Seijun Suzuki Scr: Kazunori Ito Phot: Yonezo Maeda, Kazuo Yabe Prod Des: Takeo Kimura Ed: Akira Suzuki Mus: Kazufumi Kodama Cast: Makiko Esumi, Sayoko Yamaguchi, Hanae Kan, Masatoski Nagase, Kirin Kiki, Haruko [...]
If…. (1968 UK 107 mins) Prod Co: Memorial Enterprises Prod: Michael Medwin, Lindsay Anderson Dir: Lindsay Anderson Scr: David Sherwin Phot: Miroslav Ondriček Prod Des: Jocelyn Herbert, Brian Eatwell Ed: David Gladwell Mus: Malcolm Williamson, “Sanctus” from Missa Luba Cast: Malcolm McDowell, David Wood, Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, Rupert Webster, Arthur Lowe, Mona Washbourne, Graham [...]
Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent/Two English Girls/Anne and Muriel (1971 France 132 mins) Prod. Co: Les Films du Carosse/Cinétel Prod: Marcel Berbert Dir: François Truffaut Scr: Jean Gruault, François Truffaut, based on the novel by Henri Pierre Roché Phot: Nestor Almendros Prod Des: Michel de Broin, Jean-Pierre Kohut-Svelko Ed: Yann Dedet, Martine Barraqué Mus: [...]
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders/Valerie a tyden divu (1970 Czechoslovakia 77 mins) Prod Co: Filmové Studio Barrandov Prod: Jirí Becka Dir: Jaromil Jires Scr: Ester Krumbachová, Jaromil Jires, based on the novel by Vitezslav Nezval Phot: Jan Curik Ed: Josef Valusiak Prod Des: Ester Krumbachová Mus: Lubos Fiser Cast: Jaroslava Schallerová, Helena Anyzková, Petr [...]
The Old Maid (1939 USA 95 mins) Prod Co: Warner Bros. Dir: Edmund Goulding Scr: Casey Robinson, based on the play by Zoe Akins and the novella by Edith Wharton Phot: Tony Gaudio Art Dir: Robert Haas Ed: George Amy Mus: Max Steiner Cast: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent, Donald Crisp, Jane Bryan, William [...]
b. 28 June, 1922, Pistoia, Italy d. 14 May, 2001, Rome, Italy Filmography Select Bibliography Articles in Senses Web Resources The Melancholy of Sex Love destroys your will. And where there is no will, there can be no guilt. – Giancarlo Giannini, La Grande Bourgeoise* *Unless a film is better known internationally by its English [...]
Heavenly Creatures (1994 New Zealand 108 mins) Source: Prod Co: Wingnut Films/Buena Vista/Fontana/NZFC Prod: Jim Booth Dir: Peter Jackson Scr: Peter Jackson, Frances Walsh Phot: Alun Bollinger Prod Des: Grant Major Ed: Jamie Selkirk Mus: Peter Dasent Cast: Kate Winslet, Melanie Lynskey, Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent, Clive Merrison, Simon O’Connor, Jed Brophy Sanity is only [...]
A quite ridiculously handsome leading man in British films of the 50s and 60s, John Fraser worked at the top of his profession without ever quite becoming a great star. You may recall him as Lord Alfred Douglas, the petulant toyboy in the least awful of the Wilde biopics The Trials of Oscar Wilde (Irving [...]
b. October 6, 1898, Menominee, Michigan, USA d. October 28, 1972, Los Angeles, California, USA Filmography Select Bibliography Articles in Senses Web Resources Notes on an Exploding Star I was the enemy of the ordinary. – Fred MacMurray, Hands Across the Table When Mitchell Leisen died at the Motion Picture Country Home in 1972, both [...]
The Letter/A Carta/La Lettre/La Carta (1999 Portugal/France/Spain 107 mins) Source: Gemini Films Prod Co: Madragoa Filmes (Portugal)/Gemini Films (France)/Wanda Films (Spain) Prod: Paulo Branco Dir: Manoel de Oliveira Scr: Manoel de Oliveira, Jacques Parsi, based on the novel by Madame de La Fayette Phot: Emmanuel Machuel Prod Des: Ana Vaz Da Silva Ed: Valérie Loiseleux [...]
Empress Yang Kwei Fei/Yokihi (1955 Japan 102 mins) Source: ACMI Collections Prod Co: Daiei Prod: Masaichi Nagata, Run Run Shaw Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi Scr: Matsutaro Kawaguchi, Masashige Narusawa, Tao Oin, Yoshikata Yoda Phot: Kohei Sugiyama Mus: Fumio Hayasaka Cast: Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, So Yamamura, Sakae Ozawa, Eitaro Shindo, Haruko Sugimura, Yoko Minamida, Bontaro Miyake, Tatsuya Ishiguro, [...]
