Venezia 70 - maestro shorts

In celebration of the 70th Venice International Film Festival the Biennale di Venezia created a special project, Venezia 70 – Future Reloaded.

70 movie directors from all over the world were invited to make a short film lasting between 60 and 90 seconds, in total creative freedom. The invitation was accepted by great maestros, well-known directors, and young filmmakers of recognized talent.

Future Reloaded is both a collective movie tribute to the Festival (the world’s first film festival to celebrate its 70th edition) and a reflection on the future of cinema, as filtered through the personal artistic insight of each of the participating directors.

They are a mixed bag for sure.
Here are a few I found interesting.

Bernardo Bertolucci
Catherine Breillat
Atom Egoyan
Kim Ki-duk
Yorgos Lanthimos
Edgar Reitz
Walter Salles
Hong Sang-soo
Paul Schrader
Krzysztof Zanussi

Letters from directors

Kubrick wanted it 1.1:66 and Lynch wanted the sound 3db louder than usual and a director of animation says watch those eye lines!

Two Waving

Think about this for a moment; Way back in 1961 "L'année dernière à Marienbad" by Alain Resnais and "Paris nous appartient" by Jacques Rivette were released. The Nouvelle Vague had just leapt onto the world stage and Hollywood was beginning to wane a bit as many filmmakers and movements were about to burst forth in what would be the most creative decade in world cinema since the 1930's.

But for the sake of this post consider the fact that there is little doubt that no one was thinking that almost 50 years later in 2009-2010 both Resnais and Rivette would still be making films and giving cinephiles everywhere something to delight in for a couple of hours.

The world of cinema is a very different one than it was in 1961 - but it's reassuring to know that Resnais and Rivette still make the films they want to make with little or no interference from producers, studios or the marketplace. They have pretty much set their own pace and the world has had to conform around them.

So what about the new films?

Les herbes folles [Wild Grass] by Resnais is a rather dramatic and surreal tale about the power and mystery of love and 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup [Around a Small Mountain] by Rivette is a tale about a woman's reluctant entrance back into the world of the circus with the help of a man she doesn't know. Both are not what I would call masterworks but they have elements that only masters could really attain. Rivette's pacing is tremendously sure and Resnais has a way of turning a film from drama to comedy to surreality in the matter of one agile scene.


Rivette, as he usually does, plays with the conventions of a fictional proscenium as an allegory to the real world ultimately leaving us satisfied and reflective while Resnais plays with narrative structure never really defining the story or the character motivations and leaving us even more puzzled [but exhilarated] by the end.

Both films are unconventional love stories featuring older [40 and up] characters who are trying to reconcile their past so they can get on with their lives. Both deal with men who show up in a confused woman's life but then the tables reverse as the women, though independent, find they need the men in their lives at this particular point. And the men then find they need to make some sort of commitment in order to free the women.

Stylistically the films are very different. Resnais eschews his recent theatrical staged films for a lot of swooping camera movement [by DP Eric Gautier] and color while Rivette keeps it more laid back and simple with scenes that frame their characters outdoors [with a mountain in the background] or in dark tent of the circus.

Both films are recommended and welcome.

Cinema One Books

A year ago there was a film book meme going around the blogs. [Here, here and here and to link a few]. I intended to do a post of some of my favorites but never got around to it. So figured I would just do one on the Cinema One series, which originated out of England in the late 1960's.

Most of the Cinema One books I have were published in the US by Indiana University Press in association with Sight and Sound and the Education Department of the British Film Institute. Some were also published by Viking Press and just a few I have were actually published in England.

What was cool about the series - other than the well written film analysis - was its uniformity. Each of the little books have a number on the spine: Number 1 was about Godard, Number 2 was Losey, Number 3 was Visconti, and on and on. The idea being that all the major filmmakers of the day [and some of the past] would get one volume dedicated to their work by a renowned film critic in the UK. [Obviously the Auteur theory was in full swing by then]. Each book was paper bound, had around 175 to 195 pages and all had black & white photos to accompany the text. I am not sure how many there ended up being in the series. The highest number I have is 20 and on the back it tells me there was a number 22 on Val Lewton.

With the exception of the Peter Wollen book; 'Signs and Meaning in the Cinema' and the 'Horizon's West' by Jim Kitses [which has been republished] - these are relatively rare books. I've found all of mine at used book stores through the years although I found one on Abe Books last week. And, best of all, I've been able to find most for under $10.00. The exception is the Number 16 'Melville on Melville' by Rui Nogueira, which often goes for $100.00.

Currently, the BFI does do a film book series where by they have one critic write about one film. And each of those books is also a slim volume with good insights. But I really like a more fleshed-out analysis of individual filmmakers and their films like Cinema One did. [True BFI also has done a more recent series of film director books]. But with the poor state of publishing I don't think we'll ever see another series quite like this one. It's worth collecting if you can find them.

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Update
The final tally is here.

Best directors?

Paste Magazine has a list of the 50 Best living directors.
It's not a bad list but, as with any lists, they are missing a few good directors - while including a few dubious ones.

Here are twenty missing from the list:

Olivier Assayas
Marco Bellochio
Kathryn Bigelow
Claude Chabrol
Jonathan Demme
Atom Egoyan
Todd Haynes
Aki Kaurismäki
Patrice Leconte
Mike Leigh
Sidney Lumet
Tsai Ming-liang
Roger Mitchell
Manuel de Oliveira
Roman Polanski
Hong Sang-soo
Paul Schrader
Alexander Sukorov
Andrzej Wajda
Frederick Wiseman
Zhang Yimou