Welcome to Issue 53 of our journal! the editors December 2009 Editorial The very first edition of Senses of Cinema appeared on line in December 1999, so it is appropriate that our final issue for 2009 appears, if only just, exactly to the month ten years on. By pure coincidence, 20...
2009 World Poll Various January 2010 2009 World Poll, Feature Articles 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.
Correspondence Pip Chodorov December 2009 Feature Articles Letter from Pip Chodorov in response to Pedro Blas Gonzalez's article on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Notes on Some Limits of Technicolor: The Antonioni Case Murray Pomerance December 2009 Feature Articles 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.
Godard’s Comic Strip Mise-en-Scène Drew Morton December 2009 Feature Articles 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.
Chiaroscuro: Caravaggio, Bazin, Storaro Angela Dalle Vacche December 2009 Feature Articles 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.
Orson Welles – Painter Michael C. Riedlinger December 2009 Feature Articles 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.
On Straub-Huillet’s Une Visite au Louvre (1) Sally Shafto December 2009 Feature Articles Sally Shafto’s introduction sets the context for the transcript to the Straub’s film that follows.
Transcript to Straub & Huillet’s A Visit to the Louvre Sally Shafto December 2009 Feature Articles Transcript of the dialogue, and description of visual and sound tracks to Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet’s 2004 film on Cezanne.
Torture, Beauty, and Song: On Pedro Costa’s Ne Change Rien Natasha Subramaniam December 2009 Feature Articles Natasha Subramaniam writes about the poetry and passion of Petro Costa’s recent film on singer and actress Jeanne Balibar.
Antichrist: Chronicles of a Psychosis Foretold Daniel Vilensky December 2009 Feature Articles 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.
Brother Feeney — Francis Ford Tag Gallagher December 2009 Feature Articles 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.
Joris Ivens: Witness to the 20th Century Peter Hourigan December 2009 Feature Articles 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.
You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story: Richard Schickel in Conversation Deborah Allison December 2009 Feature Articles 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.
Time Will Tell: The 13th Annual Views From the Avant-Garde and the Walking Picture Palace Patrick Friel December 2009 Festival Reports The end of the year is always a time of reflection and consideration; the end of a decade even more so. As I’ve been working on a “Best Experimental F...
Five Metaphors for a Film Festival: The 56th Sydney Film Festival Matthew Clayfield December 2009 Festival Reports "Writers who have nothing to say always strain for metaphors to say it in." – Florence King 1. Anorexics, bulimics and the smorgasbord For ever...
Too Big to Fail: The 34th Toronto International Film Festival Dan Sallitt December 2009 Festival Reports Firmly established as the pre-eminent film event in North America, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) seems less compromised than comforta...
The Afterlife of War: The 15th Sarajevo Film Festival Shekhar Deshpande December 2009 Festival Reports In many respects the Sarajevo Film Festival is the antithesis of “glamorous” film festivals such as Cannes or Toronto. In a story that was widely circ...
Corporal Punishment is Better than Nothing: The 3rd Sydney Underground Film Festival Paul Macovaz December 2009 Festival Reports On the edges of Sydney’s inner city, as the terrace housing thins, depots and warehouses begin to mingle with a vast suburban prairie. Here, in the ap...
Selections from an Already Select Few: A Report from the 47th New York Film Festival Nelson Kim December 2009 Festival Reports As always, but this year perhaps more than usual, the unveiling of a new New York Film Festival slate was greeted with accusations that the festival w...
When is a film festival not a festival?: The 6th China Independent Film Festival Chris Berry December 2009 Festival Reports When is a film festival not a film festival? In China the answer is, when it’s an exhibition. The Chinese title of the China Independent Film Festival...
Circles of Confusion: The 53rd London Film Festival Matthew Flanagan December 2009 Festival Reports More so than any other year that I can attest to, the 53rd London Film Festival was characterised by a series of conflicts, contrasts, frustrations an...
Open Your Ears: The Sound of Music, Talking, and Foley at the 3rd Annual Jornada Brasileira de Cinema Silencioso Shari Kizirian December 2009 Festival Reports Before American and European motion pictures took over Brazilian movie screens in 1911, domestic cinema was enjoying a bela época. Dominated by actual...
Look Out: The 13th Canberra International Film Festival Susan Thwaites December 2009 Festival Reports In the vast world of international film festivals, the Canberra International Film Festival is still in its infancy. It began in 1996, running for thr...
Now and Then, Now and Again: The 50th Thessaloniki International Film Festival and the 15th Athens International Film Festival Bill Mousoulis December 2009 Festival Reports Late 1960, Northern Greece: the Thessaloniki Film Festival is launched, and my father, aged 27, emigrates to Australia. Late 2009: the Thessaloniki fe...
Turning X in an XXY World: The 10th Mezipatra Queer Film Festival Cerise Howard December 2009 Festival Reports A Quick Backgrounder, For Those Who Came in Late With its advent smack-bang on the first year of a new millennium, Mezipatra, the Czech Republic's ...
Flying Dreams of a Fledgling Festival: The 3rd Middle East International Film Festival Cerise Howard December 2009 Festival Reports Who'd a thunk it? All of a sudden the Persian Gulf is host to a slew of film festivals brimming with internationalist, top-tier ambition and seemingly...
Celestial Sensations: The 13th Rencontres Internationales, Paris Daniel Fairfax December 2009 Festival Reports So there I was, my dear reader, about to come back to Paris after several peripatetic weeks, ready to settle into my new flat and wondering what I was...
Nollywood: The Video Phenomenon in Nigeria edited by Pierre Barrot translated by Lynn Taylor Wheeler Winston Dixon December 2009 Book Reviews This is an essential book on one of the most explosive film movements in recent memory, rivalling the prodigious output of Iranian films in the 1990s;...
Building Bridges: The Cinema of Jean Rouch edited by Joram ten Brink Saër Maty Bâ December 2009 Book Reviews Joram ten Brink’s interest in French Ethnographer-Cinéaste Jean Rouch’s (1918-2004) work “resurfaced” after the latter’s death in Africa. In October 2...
Loop, Print, Fade + Flicker: David Rimmer’s Moving Images by Mike Hoolboom and Alex MacKenzie William C. Wees December 2009 Book Reviews Published in conjunction with a retrospective of David Rimmer’s films and videos at Vancouver’s Pacific Cinémathèque, Loop, Print, Fade + Flicker: Dav...
A Feminine Cinematics: Luce Irigaray, Women and Film by Caroline Bainbridge Maria Walsh December 2009 Book Reviews I was intrigued when I spotted the flyer for A Feminine Cinematics: Luce Irigaray, Women and Film, as I had just been to a talk by Irigaray at the ICA...
The Mouse Machine: Disney and Technology by J.P. Telotte Chris Pallant December 2009 Book Reviews The name Disney signifies different things to different people. For many, Disney animation would have been a source of wonderment as a child; and for ...
The New Face of Political Cinema: Commitment in French Film Since 1995 by Martin O’Shaughnessy Alex Ling December 2009 Book Reviews The relationship of cinema to politics has a rich and chequered history, effectively dictating the form of many of cinema’s most vibrant configuration...
Hidden Talent: The Emergence of Hollywood Agents by Tom Kemper Eric Hoyt December 2009 Book Reviews Most standard histories of the Hollywood motion picture industry date the rise of powerful talent agencies to the 1950s – the decade when the weakened...
Michael Haneke’s Cinema: The Ethic of the Image by Catherine Wheatley Yun-hua Chen December 2009 Book Reviews Michael Haneke, the Austrian director who has crossed national boundaries to make films in France, the US and now in Germany with Das weisse Band (The...
No Angels: Larisa Shepitko’s Wings (1966) Adam Bingham December 2009 CTEQ Annotations on Film The Ukrainian director Larisa Shepitko completed only five features in her tragically short career (she was killed in a car accident in 1979). But eve...
Andrei Roublev Hamish Ford December 2009 CTEQ Annotations on Film Andrei Tarkovsky’s epic film about Andrei Roublev, Russia’s most famous icon painter, is a remarkable, deeply reflexive examination of the artist’s ro...
The Colour of Pomegranates Rahul Hamid December 2009 CTEQ Annotations on Film 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 ...
The Steamroller and the Violin John A. Riley December 2009 CTEQ Annotations on Film 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...
Commissar John Fidler December 2009 CTEQ Annotations on Film 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 sce...
Asya’s Happiness Greg Dolgopolov December 2009 CTEQ Annotations on Film Istoriya Asi Klyachinoy, kotoraya lyubila, da ne vyshla zamuzh (Asya’s Happiness) is a seminal film, a film that suffered numerous title changes and e...
Adieu, Eric Rohmer Rolando Caputo and Michelle Carey April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers Co-editors’ introduction to this commemorative issue on Eric Rohmer.
When Rohmer Was Making ‘Silent Films’ Jackie Raynal with Berenice Reynaud April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers Like many of his collaborators, filmmaker Jackie Raynal was present at the Cinémathèque Française’s memorial homage to Rohmer earlier this year. Sparked by the occasion, she looks back at her time with Rohmer in this heartfelt reminiscence.
New Interview with Eric Rohmer Pascal Bonitzer, Jean-Louis Comolli, Serge Daney and Jean Narboni April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers A landmark interview originally published in Cahiers du cinéma in 1970. The journal was in the midst of its Marxist/Leninist era, while Rohmer's Bazinian idealism was vindicated by the success of My Night at Maud’s. A fascinating joust between two entirely opposed views of the cinema
Eric Rohmer’s Place de l’Étoile Luc Moullet April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers Fellow critic and filmmaker Luc Moullet gives due consideration to Rohmer’s sketch in Paris vu par… highlighting its fidelity to location.
Secrets and Lies: Three Documentaries About Eric Rohmer Bruce Perkins April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers Rohmer was himself a private and reserved individual who, more often that not, shunned the spotlight. Bruce Perkins examines three documentaries on the filmmaker, and concludes that together they offer as vivid and multi-dimensional a portrait of Rohmer as we can wish for.
Eric Rohmer, Educator Alain Hertay April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers Former pupil and author of a study on Rohmer, Alain Hertay, offers a reflection on the short films Rohmer made for educational television.
Cinema and the Classroom: Education in the Work of Eric Rohmer Darragh O’Donoghue April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers In both content and form, a strong pedagogical endeavour has informed the work of Rohmer throughout his career. Darragh O’Donoghue discusses this inclination, focusing on some of the earlier shorts and made-for-television documentaries.
The Sign of the Map: Cartographic Reading and Le signe du lion Roland-François Lack April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers The topographical tracings of Rohmer’s feature debut reveal a dual motif: the cartographic and the photographic. Roland-François Lack’s insightful essay meticulously traces the unfolding of this dual motif.
La collectionneuse: Dandies on the Côte d’Azur Jacob Leigh April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers Jacob Leigh looks into both the production history and the general cultural influences that inform Rohmer’s first-produced but fourth listed of the feature length ‘Moral Tales’.
Night Moves Around Maud Bruce Jackson April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers Arthur Penn’s 1975 detective thriller contains one of the most noted of references to My Night a Maud’s, but as Bruce Jackson argues, it is more than just a token nod.
Choice and Chance: A Dialectic of Morality and Romance in Eric Rohmer’s My Night at Maud’s Constantine Santas April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers Love, morality, fidelity and chance crystallised around Pascal’s ‘wager’. Taken by many to be the key film of the ‘Six Moral Tales’ series, the fascination of this film has not receded with time. Constantine Santas unravels the film’s thematics.
The Roving ‘I’: Ambiguous Subjectivity in Eric Rohmer’s ‘Six Moral Tales’ Karen Goodman April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers Karen Goodman examines the nature of desire and subjectivity, both male and female, in Rohmer’s first great series of films.
The Tale of Perceval le Gallois and the Young Althusserians Daniel Fairfax April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers Infused with artifice, Rohmer’s remarkable adaptation of Chrétien de Troyes’ 12th-century verse poem marked a temporary radical shift in style for the filmmaker. But why? Daniel Fairfax looks for answers in the light of post-68 French film theory.
Love and Desire in Eric Rohmer’s ‘Comedies and Proverbs’ and ‘Tales of the Four Seasons’ Fiona Handyside April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers Much of Rohmer’s ‘80s and ‘90s work concerns the myriad of amorous choices his modern heroines face. Moreover, Fiona Handyside argues, they form a meta-text on the representation of love through the ages.
Following The Law of One’s Own Being: The Crying Woman in The Green Ray Tony McKibbin April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers A discursive exploration on the philosophic significance of the figure of ‘the crying woman’ in this most radiant of films.
Short Take Tributes on Rohmer Various. April 2010 Eric Rohmer Dossier, Feature Articles, Special Dossiers A selection of individual tributes and short essays by Terry Ballard, Adam Bingham, Conall Cash, John Conomos, David F. Coursen, Adrian Danks, Linda Ehrlich, and Wheeler Winston Dixon.
Reworking Romanticism: Paul Cox’s Man of Flowers Victoria Duckett December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers Let us not say, “If only the texts were richer, the witnesses more loquacious, the confessions more detailed!” Don’t we seem today to have everything ...
Paul Cox: An Appreciation Roger Ebert December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers I believe the first film by Paul Cox I saw was Man of Flowers (1983), at the 1984 Chicago Film Festival. The next year, My First Wife (1984). I heard ...
Ardea Paul Carter December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers Ardea cinerea is the scientific name of the Grey Heron found in Europe. In Human Touch (2004) a heron alights for a moment on a stone basin in the gar...
The Persistent Maverick Maria Stratford December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers “I find living itself quite difficult so you may as well make it more difficult by doing something crazy.” - Paul Cox (1) Paul Cox has been making...
A Collaboration Between Two Artists Asher Bilu December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers My work with Paul Cox as Production Designer has been successful, I believe, because we have much in common. On the surface, our backgrounds are simil...
Idiosyncrasy and Film Alexander Garcia Duttmann December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers 1. If I had to choose a motto for Paul Cox’s films, no motto would seem more appropriate to me than the phrase: “For people who like that sort of thin...
To the point on point Chris Haywood December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers “Paulus Henrikus Benidictus Cox”: the name triggers images of a character from some historical tale by Umberto Eco. From my experiences of collaborati...
On The Beach (Stanley Kramer, 1959, USA) Deane Williams September 2009 Key Moments in Australian Cinema, Special Dossiers
Strike Me Lucky (Ken G. Hall, 1934) Lesley Speed September 2009 Key Moments in Australian Cinema, Special Dossiers
Wolf Creek (Greg Mclean, 2005) William “Bill” Blick September 2009 Key Moments in Australian Cinema, Special Dossiers
On the Home Front: Newsfront (Phillip Noyce, 1978) Adrian Danks September 2009 Key Moments in Australian Cinema, Special Dossiers
Intervention: Katherine, NT (Julie Nimmo, 2008) Dugald Williamson September 2009 Key Moments in Australian Cinema, Special Dossiers
Romper Stomper (Geoffrey Wright, 1992) Lucille Paterson September 2009 Key Moments in Australian Cinema, Special Dossiers
“Take it all off baby, take it all off” – The Australian Kamasutra: Love Serenade (Shirley Barrett, 1996) Catherine Simpson August 2009 Key Moments in Australian Cinema, Special Dossiers
Moving through the Absence: Viviane Vagh’s Ground Zero NY, 2005 Diana Gonzalez July 2009 Special Dossiers, Spotlight on Viviane Vagh From there, faced with these large frescoes, the feeling of the past being wiped away, of its disappearing and the impression of ruins: of traces of...
Notes on Free Women/Femmes libres Grant Wiedenfeld July 2009 Special Dossiers, Spotlight on Viviane Vagh In a field dominated by intellectual showmanship and hermetic eccentricity, Viviane Vagh’s filmmaking speaks with a voice as familiar as it is poe...
Magical Transformations: A Conversation with Viviane Vagh Justine Gaunt July 2009 Special Dossiers, Spotlight on Viviane Vagh “There are lots of different identities in my genes”, says Viviane Vagh. We speak on the ’phone, she in Paris, me in Yorkshire, but either of us c...
Viviane Vagh and the Poetics of Disappearance, Or: A Portrait of Cinema as a Young Girl Gabriela Trujillo July 2009 Special Dossiers, Spotlight on Viviane Vagh A young girl on a sunny day. Gracefully, she comes and goes. Does she know she’s being filmed? Does she know that, as her image multiplies on the ...
Experimental Fusions: Viviane Vagh’s Beachcombers Installations Romy Sutherland July 2009 Special Dossiers, Spotlight on Viviane Vagh Viviane Vagh’s absorbing installation series, “Beachcombers”, is a celebration of fusion. Vagh explores the meeting points of natural elements, su...
Indonesia Calling: Joris Ivens in Australia John Hughes July 2009 MIFF Premiere Fund/Post-Punk Dossier, Special Dossiers The new feature documentary scheduled for release at the Melbourne International Film Festival this year, Indonesia Calling: Joris Ivens in Austra...
Reworking Romanticism: Paul Cox’s Man of Flowers Victoria Duckett December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers Let us not say, “If only the texts were richer, the witnesses more loquacious, the confessions more detailed!” Don’t we seem today to have everything ...
Paul Cox: An Appreciation Roger Ebert December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers I believe the first film by Paul Cox I saw was Man of Flowers (1983), at the 1984 Chicago Film Festival. The next year, My First Wife (1984). I heard ...
Ardea Paul Carter December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers Ardea cinerea is the scientific name of the Grey Heron found in Europe. In Human Touch (2004) a heron alights for a moment on a stone basin in the gar...
The Persistent Maverick Maria Stratford December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers “I find living itself quite difficult so you may as well make it more difficult by doing something crazy.” - Paul Cox (1) Paul Cox has been making...
A Collaboration Between Two Artists Asher Bilu December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers My work with Paul Cox as Production Designer has been successful, I believe, because we have much in common. On the surface, our backgrounds are simil...
Idiosyncrasy and Film Alexander Garcia Duttmann December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers 1. If I had to choose a motto for Paul Cox’s films, no motto would seem more appropriate to me than the phrase: “For people who like that sort of thin...
To the point on point Chris Haywood December 2009 Paul Cox Dossier, Special Dossiers “Paulus Henrikus Benidictus Cox”: the name triggers images of a character from some historical tale by Umberto Eco. From my experiences of collaborati...
2009 World Poll Various January 2010 2009 World Poll, Feature Articles 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.
