The Ukrainian director Larisa Shepitko completed only five features in her tragically short career (she was killed in a car accident in 1979). But even over the course of such a brief working life she produced a remarkably cohesive oeuvre, and developed a powerful aesthetic and vision that distinguished her from her more famous and [...]
Cinémathèque Annotations on Film
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Andrei Tarkovsky’s epic film about Andrei Roublev, Russia’s most famous icon painter, is a remarkable, deeply reflexive examination of the artist’s role in his particular social-historical reality. It is also concerned with the split that occurs between an artist’s elevated desire to create an art of clear, transcendent beauty and one that is responsive to [...]
Floundering for some way to describe obtuse or complex art, critics often rely on the adjective “poetic”. It can come to mean nearly anything in this context and the word loses any descriptive power. In The Colour of Pomegranates (Sayat Nova), the late Soviet director, Sergei Paradjanov, makes an earnest attempt to fuse poetry and [...]
In his study of Andrei Tarkovsky’s films, Peter Green remarks, “Had it not been made by Tarkovsky, The Steamroller and the Violin would probably be of little consequence in the history of film” (1). While it is true that without Tarkovsky’s international reputation his diploma film would now be languishing, unwatched, in the depths of [...]
The only male soldier in Aleksandr Askoldov’s Commissar who shows up ready for a fight as the Russian Civil War lurches on is a child. The opening scenes of this monumental film are chock-a-block with bedraggled soldiers of a defeated White army, hauling themselves and their rickety cannons from another time through a grey and [...]
Istoriya Asi Klyachinoy, kotoraya lyubila, da ne vyshla zamuzh (Asya’s Happiness) is a seminal film, a film that suffered numerous title changes and edits by edict. It is a rediscovered classic that was shelved for 20 years and now stands as a testament to the paranoid absurdity of Soviet censorship. It is a film that [...]
Cztery noce z Anna/Four Nights with Anna (2008 Poland/France 87 mins)
Prod Co: Alfama Films/Skopia Film Prod: Paulo Branco, Jerzy Skolimowski Dir: Jerzy Skolimowski Scr: Jerzy Skolimowski, Ewa Piaskowska Phot: Adam Sikora Prod Des: Marek Zawlerucha Ed: Cezary Gresiuk Mus: Michal Lorenc
Cast: Kinga Preis, Artur Steranko, Jerzy Fedorowicz, Redbad Klijnstra, Jakub Snochowski
These four nights with Anna have variously been [...]
Viaggio in Italia/Voyage to Italy/Voyage in Italy/Strangers (1954 Italy/France 97 mins)
Prod Co: Sveva/Junior/Italiafilm Prod: Adolfo Fossataro Dir: Roberto Rossellini Scr: Roberto Rossellini, Vitaliano Brancati Phot: Enzo Serafin Ed: Jolanda Benvenuti Mus: Renzo Rossellini
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, George Sanders, Leslie Daniels, Natalia Ray, Marie Mauban, Anna Proclemer
Roberto Rossellini’s Viaggio in Italia/Voyage to Italy was shot from 2 February through 30 [...]
Roma città aperta/Rome, Open City/Open City (1945 Italy 103 mins)
Prod Co: Excelsa Film Dir: Roberto Rossellini Scr: Sergio Amidei, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini Phot: Ubaldo Arata Ed: Erlado Da Roma Prod Des: Rosario Megna Mus: Renzo Rossellini
Cast: Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi, Marcello Pagliero, Maria Michi, Harry Feist, Giovanni Galletti
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
- Samuel Johnson (1)
Bergmann: Italians [...]
Paisà/Paisan (1946 Italy 115 mins)
Prod Co: Organizzazione Film Internazionali/Foreign Film Production, Inc. Prod: Mario Conti, Rod E. Geiger Dir: Roberto Rossellini Scr: Sergio Amidei, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini Phot: Otello Martelli Ed: Eraldo Da Roma Music: Renzo Rossellini
Cast: Carmela Sazio, Robert Van Loon, Dots M. Johnson, Alfonsino, Gar Moore, Maria Michi, Harriet White, Renzo Avanzo, Bill Tubbs, [...]
Moonlighting (1982 Britain 97 mins)
Prod Co: Channel Four Films/Southern Television/ZDF Prod: Jerzy Skolimowski, Mark Shivas, Michael White Dir, Scr: Jerzy Skolimowski Phot: Tony Pierce-Roberts Ed: Barrie Vince Prod Des: Tony Wollard Mus: Stanley Myers, Hans Zimmer
Cast: Jeremy Irons, Eugene Lipinski, Jirí Stanislav, Eugeniusz Haczkiewicz, Edward Arthur, Denis Holmes
Moonlighting was mainly made by the exiled Jerzy Skolimowski in his [...]
La macchina ammazzacattivi/The Machine that Kills Bad People/The Machine to Kill Bad People (1948/1952 Italy 83 mins)
Prod Co: Universalia/Tevere Film Prod: Salvo D’Angelo Dir: Roberto Rossellini Scr: Sergio Amidei, Giancarlo Vigorelli, Franco Brusati, Liana Ferri, Roberto Rossellini Phot: Tino Santoni, Enrico Betti Berutto Ed: Jolanda Benvenuti Mus: Renzo Rossellini
Cast: Gennaro Pisano, Giovanni Amato, Bill Tubbs, Helen Tubbs [...]
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 Duras, The North China Lover [...]
Rece do góry/Hands Up! (1967/1981 Poland)
Prod Co: PRF/Syrena/Zespol Filmowy Dir, Art Dir: Jerzy Skolimowski Scr: Andrzej Kostenko, Jerzy Skolimowski Phot: Andrzej Kostenko, Witold Sobocinski Ed: Grazyna Jasinska Mus: Józef Skrzek
Cast: Jerzy Skolimowski, Joanna Szczerbic, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Adam Hanuszkiewicz, Bogumil Kobiela, Alan Bates, Jane Asher, Fred Zinnemann, Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta
Films, Jean-Luc Godard once said, can be political [...]
Germania anno zero/Germany, Year Zero (1947 Italy/West Germany/France 78 mins)
Prod Co: Tevere Film/Sadfilm Prod: Alfredo Guarani, Roberto Rossellini Dir: Roberto Rossellini Scr: Roberto Rossellini, Carlo Lizzani, Max Kolpet Phot: Robert Juillard Ed: Eraldo Da Roma Mus: Renzo Rossellini
Cast: Edmund Moeschke, Ernst Pittschau, Franz-Otto Krüger, Ingetraud Hintze, Erich Gühne, Barbara Hintz
In an essay from 1963, François Truffaut wrote:
In some of [...]
L’amore (1948 Italy 78 mins)
Prod Co: Tevere Film Prod, Dir: Roberto Rossellini Ed: Eraldo Da Roma Mus: Renzo Rossellini
Una voce umana/A Human Voice
Scr: Roberto Rossellini from the play, La voix humaine, by Jean Cocteau Phot: Robert Juillard
Cast: Anna Magnani
Il miracolo/The Miracle
Scr: Tullio Pinelli, Roberto Rossellini Phot: Aldo Tonti
Cast: Anna Magnani, Federico Fellini
Generally regarded as something of a minor work, L’amore nevertheless emerges from [...]
