10 - Turn, turn, turn You know it's the 60s when you hear the screaming at the start of this clip from the US music show Shindig that sets the theme for this month's top ten. It's a setting of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 by Pete Seeger, the man of peace who had to be restrained from taking an axe to Bob Dylan when he went electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, illustrating peaceniks' curious propensity...
Cage in Season of the Witch is even worse, apparently , than Cage in a remake of the Wicker Man . When two knights (Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman) return from the Crusades, they find their homeland ravaged by the Black Plague. The church blames the plague on sorcery, and orders the knights to escort an accused witch (Claire Foy) to a remote abbey , where monks will perform a ritual that they hope will...
Portrait lithograph of Swedish playwright, writer and painter August Strindberg made by Edvard Munch in 1896, from the estate of Ingmar Bergman . Image found here (very large) but inspired by this post. ---
The 22nd album by Sparks – never ones to do things the easy way – is a biopic in opera form of a legendary Swedish art-house director, with a cast of actor-singers augmenting Russell Mael’s vocals, and a complete orchestra backing Ron’s luxurious pianos. It’s a genre and format to which the brothers, whose work is so often described as “operatic”, are immaculately...
Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974) .. Jacques Rivette Gertrud (1964) .. Carl Theodor Dreyer The Green Ray (1986) .. Eric Rohmer Chimes at Midnight (1965) .. Orson Welles Early Summer (1951) .. Yasujiro Ozu Late Spring (1949) .. Yasujiro Ozu Sans Soleil (1983) .. Chris Marker L'Atalante (1934) .. Jean Vigo The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) .. Victor Erice Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) .. Robert Bresson...
L'Atalante (1934) .. Jean Vigo The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) .. Victor Erice Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) .. Robert Bresson Tokyo Story (1953) .. Yasujiro Ozu Man with a Movie Camera (1929) .. Dziga Vertov La Règle du Jeu (1939) .. Jean Renoir Playtime (1967) .. Jacques Tati L'Avventura (1960) .. Michelangelo Antonioni Sunrise (1927) .. F.W. Murnau The Conformist (1970) .. Bernardo Bertolucci...
They Caught the Ferry (1948) is a short highway safety film – much like the ones we used to watch in Drivers Ed. - produced by the Danish Film Commission, and directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, the legendary auteur of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Vampyr (1932), Day of Wrath (1943), Ordet ( The Word , 1955), and Gertrud (1964). It’s a macabre little story about a young couple on a motorcycle...
Until five year ago I experienced films emotionally, and sometimes the impact lasted for longer than the next thing that engaged my attention, and sometimes I continued to think about aspects of the film for days. I rarely considered how the film was made, or systematically reviewed the acting performances, or would be able to recount all the relevant details of the story. My only preparation was to...
... 150 hours long. You may have thought that Titanic was long with its 3 hour and 14 minute running time, but that's nothing. Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander is an impressive 312 minutes. Cleopatra lounges in a director's cut of 320 minutes. The 1968 Soviet film War and Peace boasts an impressive 484 minutes, and Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz had to be shown in segments on television since...
Does anyone know if the version of "The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman" currently on ITunes is in English? I've read a few reviews which suggest that there is a sweedish version doing the rounds. The info on ITunes isn't very clear. Also, if you've heard it, is it any good?
How knowledgeable are you when it comes to the world of celluloid ? Can you tell the way the different symbols employed by Ingmar Bergman evolved as his career advanced, or are you so clueless that you think “Kill Bill” was the first movie that Quentin Tarantino ever shot? If you can not really answer that question yourself, then visiting this site is the order of the day. In general terms,...
NOTE: I've finally posted reviews of "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Bright Star" . I also saw "An Education" yesterday, but am letting it jell a bit before I write the review. The other night, I saw Cate Blanchett play Blanche DuBois at the Kennedy Center in D.C. She’s the marquee name in a touring production of A Streetcar Named Desire staged by the Sydney Theatre...
I've just spent the past hour listening to the premiere of Sparks' radio musical 'The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman', on BBC 6 music, whilst simultaneously watching a 1950's black and white French art documentary 'Le Mystere Picasso', whilst also trying to draw a cartoon based on the 1922 German vampire movie 'Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens'. Oh- and I'm also cooking a chicken based on a recipe...
STOCKHOLM – A writing desk, film cameras and Golden Globe awards belonging to Swedish film legend Ingmar Bergman are attracting a huge interest from collectors as they go up for auction in Stockholm. Auction house Bukowskis says the 337 Bergman items for sale include the chess pieces most probably used in the director's 1957 film "The Seventh Seal" and a 1960s portrait of Bergman by Irving Penn. Bukowskis...
STOCKHOLM – A writing desk, film cameras and Golden Globe awards belonging to Swedish film legend Ingmar Bergman are attracting a huge interest from collectors as they go up for auction in Stockholm. Auction house Bukowskis says the 337 Bergman items for sale include the chess pieces most probably used in the director's 1957 film "The Seventh Seal" and a 1960s portrait of Bergman by Irving Penn. Bukowskis...
The Synth Show with Mark O'Leary on guitar/sound, Jamie Saft on Synths and Kenny Wollesen on drums has just been released on Leo Records. Recorded in Brooklyn New York, it features synth based improv/synthscapes/synthpop. Harking back to the 70's Synth glory days of Zawinul, Jarre, Wakeman, Tangerine Dream, early Kraftwerk and Hamer. It has all of that and a little vaudeville meets BBC radiophonic...
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