This Must Be The Place

“You never know how the audience will react. But at a...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:22:45 -0700

“You never know how the audience will react. But at a certain point, you have to dive in; you need to believe in the ability of your imagination to allow you to perform your role. It is a fear, which is very, very close to terror and you wonder, ‘What am I doing here?’ Then a few moments later you feel great pleasure and hopefully you are giving happiness and emotion to the audience.”

Denis Lavant
Born June 17, 1961

That 1963 disappearance was a scandal. She had been the most...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:02:18 -0700

That 1963 disappearance was a scandal. She had been the most beloved of film stars, her handsome face, accepting smile, known to all. And then, suddenly, rudely, without a word of apology, she was going to disappear—to retire.

Here, where the stars hang on, voluntary retirement is unknown, particularly for one the caliber of Setsuko Hara. She had become an ideal: men wanted to marry someone like her; women wanted to be someone like her.

This was because on the screen she reconciled her life as real people cannot. Whatever her role in films—daughter, wife, or mother—she played a woman who at the same time, somehow, was herself. Her social roles did not eclipse that individual self, our Setsuko.

— Donald Richie, Japanese Portraits

Setsuko Hara
Born June 17, 1920

“When I first met Bergman I was 16 or 17, and he was five...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 09:00:13 -0700

“When I first met Bergman I was 16 or 17, and he was five years older. We were boys who wanted to make theatre, and we put on The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I remember it very well. Everything was there already. He was much more hysterical then—shouting, screaming, threatening, sometimes mean, which he still can sometimes be. But the fantasy, the imagination, the fantastic talent for getting close to a text—all of that was already there. In his first films you can see that he is not experienced, but in theatre he was already perfect.”

“I was mainly a stage actor. I found film acting mechanical, because it was so technical—there was so much technique with the lamps and the movements of the camera. But suddenly one day, when we made Cries and Whispers—the cinematographer was Sven Nykvist, as usual—I can remember the moment when I suddenly felt that the camera was a living partner. I suddenly felt this is art, and the camera is a cooperative living person. After that I was extremely happy to act in films! “

Erland Josephson
June 15, 1923 — February 25, 2012

Censorship in Spain was, at the time, notorious for its petty...

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:25:16 -0700

Censorship in Spain was, at the time, notorious for its petty formality, and since Viridiana’s original ending showed her knocking at her cousin’s door, entering, and the door closing slowly behind her, the board of censors rejected it out of hand. I had to invent a new one, which in the end was far more suggestive than the first because of its implications of a ménage à trois. In this second ending, Viridiana joins a card game being played between her cousin and his mistress. “I knew you’d end up playing tute with us,” the cousin smiles.

In any case, the film created a considerable scandal in Spain, much like the one provoked by L’Age d’or; but, happily, the hue and cry absolved me in the eyes of my Republican friends in Mexico. Hostile articles appeared in L’Osservatore Romano, and although the film won the Golden Palm at Cannes, it was outlawed in Spain. The head of the cinema institute in Madrid, who’d gone to Cannes to accept the award, was forced into a premature retirement because of it. Finally, the affair created such a storm that Franco himself asked to see it, and according to what the Spanish producers told me, he found nothing very objectionable about it. After all, given what he’d seen in his lifetime, it must have seemed incredibly innocent to him, but he nonetheless refused to overturn his minister’s decision.

In Italy, the film opened first in Rome, where it was well received, and then in Milan, where the public prosecutor immediately closed the theatre, impounded the reels, and sued me in court, where I was condemned to a year in jail if I so much as set foot in the country.

The whole affair still amazes me. I remember when [Producer Gustavo] Alatriste saw the film for the first time and had nothing to say about it. He saw it again in Paris, then twice in Cannes, and again in Mexico City, after which he rushed up to me, his face wreathed in smiles.

“Luis!” he cried happily. “You’ve done it! It’s wonderful! Now I understand it all!”

I had, and still have, no idea what he was talking about. It all seemed so simple to me—what was there to understand?

On the other hand, when [Vittorio] de Sica saw it in Mexico City, he walked out horrified and depressed. Afterwards, he and my wife, Jeanne, went to have a drink, and he asked her if I was really that monstrous, and if I beat her when we made love.

“When there’s a spider that needs getting rid of,” she replied, laughing, “he comes looking for me.”

— Luis Buñuel | My Last Sigh

Behind the scenes of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Tropical...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 19:41:55 -0700

Behind the scenes of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Tropical Malady.

“Thailand is surrounded by Burma, Laos and Cambodia,...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 19:24:54 -0700

“Thailand is surrounded by Burma, Laos and Cambodia, where the horror tales circulate along the border. Even though I grew up in a small town where the land is flat, there were strange animal sounds in a quiet night not unlike those up on the hills. The tales and the landscapes were imprinted in my mind. I always imagine a parallel world with these elements, one where I did not physically live. When I had a chance to make films, which in itself is to create another world, I always resorted to this jungle. The love and fear of mysterious darkness and jungle became my addiction, along with filmmaking…

“Since I made Tropical Malady during my ‘dark’ period—I was at pain with some losses—the film is like my sorrow box. Some of the scenes, including the style and the structure, contain personal references. It may appear scattered to some, but it was the way I saw my memories at that particular time. The experience of making this film was very naive and direct. When we shot in the jungle, I was more aware of how the movie was going. Somehow I felt like I was back in the past making a silent film where there was no man on earth.” — Apichatpong Weerasethakul

“I let the audience feel and think.”— Rainer Werner...

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 09:01:25 -0700

“I let the audience feel and think.”
— Rainer Werner Fassbinder (May 31, 1945 — June 10, 1982)

“There used to be a great art-house film theatre in Ginza...

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:44:00 -0700

“There used to be a great art-house film theatre in Ginza that I’d go to when I was cutting classes in college. I would just hang out there and see movies. When I went, there’d be a lot of office workers, a lot of salarymen who played hooky from work, some taking naps in the theatre. But most watched a lot of movies. There was one instance—in the spring of my 19th year—when they screened Kurosawa’s Ikiru. At the end of this film, everybody in the theatre stood up and clapped. There were no actors, no directors—nobody was there to be clapped for. I understand that you’d clap at the end of a play or a live show, but for a film, this was a really new experience for me. Everybody there, they really weren’t expecting this. They were just looking for a place to leave their responsibilities. I think they really enjoyed this movie from the bottom of their heart. That was the moment when I realized that film is really powerful, that film is amazing. And I think that experience strongly influenced my decision to not become a novelist, but to make films.”

Hirokazu Kore-eda
Born June 6, 1962

I wrote [Scenes from a Marriage] just for fun and didn’t...

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:07:53 -0700

I wrote [Scenes from a Marriage] just for fun and didn’t know what to do with it. It was like Winnie the Pooh. You know, Christopher Robin was ill and, every evening before sleep, A. A. Milne told him one of those little stories. Then he wrote them down and suddenly the whole world bought Winnie the Pooh. It was the same with Scenes from a Marriage. I wrote it for fun, for myself. I started with the third scene, then I wrote the fourth, then the second. The whole thing took me about four weeks. Remember, it’s called Scenes from a Marriage, not the Marriage. To me, it was very private. Then suddenly it wasn’t private any more, suddenly it became a shared experience for a great number of people. In Denmark, for instance, the divorce statistics went up. That’s got to be good!

A Visit with Ingmar Bergman, New York Times Magazine | 1975

[…] I wanted to make it for television, a more beautiful everyday product, since we had practically no budget. We planned to create six episodes, each to be rehearsed for five days and then filmed during the subsequent five days. About fifty minutes of film would be made in ten days, which meant that the six episodes would be finished in a little more than two months. When we actually shot the film, it went much faster than that. Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann enjoyed their parts as Johan and Marianne and learned them quickly. Suddenly we had a film that had cost practically nothing, which was great since we were broke. (Cries and Whispers had not yet been sold.)

All in all, Scenes from a Marriage was a pure joy to make because we approached it as a television production and made it without feeling the paralyzing pressure of making a feature film.

Images: My Life in Film | Ingmar Bergman

“He never spoke for me, I never spoke for him. And we...

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 12:46:40 -0700

“He never spoke for me, I never spoke for him. And we were very discreet on each other’s shooting. I would (visit the set) once or twice, he would do the same for me. […] I really hoped to grow old with him, that was the plan. When you see a couple growing old together, it’s really something, isn’t it?”
— Agnès Varda

“Meeting Jacques when I was so young was a formative event. It was the mold that shaped me. It meant a lot. Very few directors played that role in my acting career. He was the first real filmmaker that I met.”
— Catherine Deneuve

The central figure in Theorem—the Terrence Stamp...

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 18:59:28 -0700

The central figure in Theorem—the Terrence Stamp character—does his authenticity represent judgment or love?
PASOLINI: This character has come out ambiguous, half-way between the angelic and the demoniac. The visitor is good-looking, and good, but there is something vulgar about him as well (since he, too, is a member of the bourgeoisie). There are no uncultured bourgeois who are not vulgar; only culture can purify. So there is this element of vulgarity in him, which he has accepted so as to descend among these bourgeois people, so he is ambiguous. On the other hand, what is authentic is the love that he arouses, because it is a love without any compromise, a love which provokes scandal, which destroys, which alters the bourgeois’ idea of themselves; what is authentic is this love, and the cause of this love is this ambiguous person.

So there is no relation with St. Matthew’s Christ, your Christ?
PASOLINI: This character cannot be identified with Christ; rather with God, God the Father (or a messenger who represents the Father). It is an Old Testament, not a New Testament visitor.

“I tell myself that someone who goes to the movies pretty...

Fri, 31 May 2013 11:11:56 -0700

“I tell myself that someone who goes to the movies pretty much knows what awaits him. So I can demand more effort of him. Do you understand? And I can also expect him to get more pleasure out of the effort… People really go to the movies in order to have new experiences — and quite consciously to have new experiences. That means I have an audience I can push and challenge to the utmost.”

Rainer Werner Fassbinder
May 31, 1945 — June 10, 1982

“I try to find fluidity in whatever I speak about or...

Thu, 30 May 2013 08:44:47 -0700

“I try to find fluidity in whatever I speak about or show. It should be like I’m taking your hand, taking you through the film. I’m not really telling a story, I’m telling you what cinema is in my life.”

Agnès Varda
Born May 30, 1928

“There have been two periods in my inner life, two idées...

Tue, 28 May 2013 08:24:14 -0700

“There have been two periods in my inner life, two idées fixes. The first period consisted of me working with directors with whom I totally identified, like François, like Jean Eustache. When I was working for François, I was like François. When I worked for Eustache, I was like Eustache. Same with Godard. In the second period, which I am living now, as we speak, I no longer identify with the director but with my character, and I get great pleasure working with someone like Olivier Assayas, who writes so well and is so intelligent. The third period I’m not so sure about—it could arrive any minute now.” — Jean-Pierre Léaud

Palme d’OrBlue Is the Warmest Colour — dir. Abdellatif...

Sun, 26 May 2013 10:47:53 -0700

Palme d’Or
Blue Is the Warmest Colour — dir. Abdellatif Kechiche

Grand Prix
Inside Llewyn Davis — dir. The Coen Brothers

Best Director
Amat Escalante — Heli

Jury Prize
Like Father, Like Son — dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda

Best Screenplay
Jia Zhang-ke — A Touch of Sin

Best Actress
Bérénice Bejo — Le Passé (dir. Asghar Farhadi)

Best Actor
Bruce Dern — Nebraska (dir. Alexander Payne)

Caméra d’Or
Ilo Ilo — dir. Anthony Chen

Short Film Palme d’Or
Safe — dir. Moon Byoung-gon

Prize of Un Certain Regard
The Missing Picture — dir. Rithy Panh

UCR Jury Prize
Omar — dir. Hany Abu-Assad

UCR Directing Prize
Alain Guiraudie — Stranger by the Lake

A Certain Talent Prize
For the ensemble cast of La jaula de oro (dir. Diego Quemada-Diez)

Avenir Prize
Fruitvale Station — dir. Ryan Coogler

“I started out as a ‘program picture’...

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:42:33 -0700

“I started out as a ‘program picture’ director, and program pictures are strictly entertainment. Therefore, the scripts I received from the studio weren’t artistic to begin with. So there was no hope of making an artistic film from the script. The only thing that I could hope to do was to make movies fun and entertaining. The critics say films have to have social commentary or a humanitarian point of view and that is that. But what I was aiming for was how to make a movie entertaining. So I tried a lot of different ideas and styles to accomplish that.”

Seijun Suzuki
Born May 24, 1923

Filmmakers photographed by Xavier Lambours.

Tue, 21 May 2013 18:27:41 -0700

Larissa and Andrei Tarkovsky, Cannes, 1983.

Robert Bresson, Cannes, 1983.

Akira Kurosawa, Paris, 1985.

Wim Wenders, Cannes, 1993.

Krzysztof Kieslowski, Paris, 1988.

Martin Scorsese, Cannes, 1983.

Agnès Varda, Venice, 1983.

Wong Kar-wai, Paris, 1995.

Abbas Kiarostami, Cannes, 2004.

Filmmakers photographed by Xavier Lambours.

Beau Travail // dir. Claire Denis

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:24:39 -0700

Beau Travail // dir. Claire Denis

“Good films aren’t made by conscious deliberation...

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:00:56 -0700

“Good films aren’t made by conscious deliberation but rather by an inner passion.”
– Kenji Mizoguchi ( May 16, 1898 – August 24, 1956 )

The Life of Oharu (dir. Kenji Mizoguchi, 1952) // Spirited Away...

Tue, 14 May 2013 22:00:11 -0700

The Life of Oharu (dir. Kenji Mizoguchi, 1952) // Spirited Away (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)