Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
100th Anniversary of Bernard Herrmann birth
An Academy Award-winner (for The Devil and Daniel Webster, 1941), Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo. He also composed notable scores for many other movies, including Citizen Kane, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Cape Fear, and Taxi Driver. He worked extensively in radio drama (most notably for Orson Welles), composed the scores for several fantasy films by Ray Harryhausen, and many TV programs including most notably Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone and Have Gun–Will Travel.
Bernard Herrmann's music is typified by frequent use of ostinati (short repeating patterns), novel orchestration and, in his film scores, an ability to portray character traits not altogether obvious from other elements of the film.
Early in his life, Herrmann committed himself to a creed of personal integrity at the price of unpopularity: the quintessential artist. His philosophy is summarized by a favorite Tolstoy quote: ‘Eagles fly alone and sparrows fly in flocks.' Thus, Herrmann would only compose music for films when he was allowed the artistic liberty to compose what he wished without the director getting in the way. Most famously, after over a decade of composing for all of Hitchcock’s films, Hitchcock requested a more “pop” score from Herrmann. Herrmann’s score was not what Hitchcock had requested, and since both Herrmann was so committed to having artistic liberty and would not compromise his values, the two went their separate ways, never to collaborate again. This shows Herrmann’s infamous persistence in being able to compose as he saw fit to represent the film.
His philosophy of orchestrating film was based on the assumption that the musicians were selected and hired for the recording session—that this music was not constrained to the musical forces of the concert hall. For example, his use of ten harps in Beneath the 12 Mile Reef created an extraordinary underwater-like sonic landscape; his use of four bass flutes in Citizen Kane contributed to the creepy opening, only matched by the use of 12 flutes in his unused Torn Curtain score.
Herrmann said in an interview: "To orchestrate is like a thumbprint. I can't understand having someone else do it. It would be like someone putting color to your paintings.".
Herrmann subscribed to the belief since held by many that the best film music should be able to stand on its own legs when detached from the film for which it was originally written. To this end, he made several well-known recordings for Decca of arrangements of his own film music as well as music of other prominent composers.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Powers of ten (1968)
Powers of Ten is a 1968 American documentary short film written and directed by Ray Eames and her husband, Charles Eames, rereleased in 1977.
The film depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten.
The film depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten.
It is an adaptation of the 1957 book Cosmic View by Kees Boeke, and more recently is the basis of a new book version. Both adaptations, film and book, follow the form of the Boeke original, adding color and photography to the black and white drawings employed by Boeke in his seminal work.
In 1998, "Powers of Ten" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Friday, June 10, 2011
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Bond 23 Release Dates Confirmed
MGM and Sony Pictures Entertainment are delighted to announce the UK release date for the eagerly anticipated 23rd James Bond adventure will be Friday, 26th October, 2012 opening at the Odeon Leicester Square and in cinemas across the UK and Ireland.
The film will open in the United States on November 9, 2012.
Bond 23 will see Daniel Craig continue his role as James Bond in the iconic movie franchise, with British director Sam Mendes at the helm of the as-yet untitled 23rd James Bond adventure. The film will be produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
The film is currently is Pre-production with the filming expected to commence in November 2011 - 12 months prior to its release.
In addition, 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the EON Productions series of James Bond films.
Now that Daniel Craig's involvement is confirmed, it will be the longest gap between Bond movies without a change in the lead role.
Now that Daniel Craig's involvement is confirmed, it will be the longest gap between Bond movies without a change in the lead role.
Ai Weiwei glasses
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Friday, June 03, 2011
The Genius of Buster Keaton
More than fifty years have passed since critics rediscovered Buster Keaton and pronounced him the most “modern” silent film clown, a title he hasn’t shaken since. In his own day he was certainly famous but never commanded the wealth or popularity of Charlie Chaplin or Harold Lloyd, and he suffered most when talkies arrived.
It may be that later stars like Cary Grant and Paul Newman and Harrison Ford have made us more susceptible to Keaton’s model of offhand stoicism than his own audiences were. Seeking for his ghost is a fruitless business, though; for one thing, film comedy today has swung back toward the sappy, blatant slapstick that Keaton disdained. There’s some “irony” in what Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler do, but it’s irony that clamors to win the identification of the supposedly browbeaten everyman in every audience. Keaton took your average everyman and showed how majestically alone he was.
The story of his life seems in its twists and dives borrowed from his movies, survival demanding a pure lack of sentiment. There were twenty years of child stardom in vaudeville and nearly a decade making popular silent movies, followed by alcoholism, a nasty divorce, a nastier second marriage, twenty years producing a few dreadful blockbusters for MGM followed by a long series of low-budget flops, and a third lasting marriage, until his silent work was unearthed and brought him renewed recognition. “What you have to do is create a character,” he once said.
“Then the character just does his best, and there’s your comedy. No begging.” He embodied this attitude so entirely in his silent films that you can’t watch him without feeling won over, a partisan of the nonpartisan side.
The logic in his first pictures, the two-reel shorts, resembles the logic of dreams. It was an alternate reality that freed him from narrative obligations—one thing simply followed another—and allowed him to pack a staggering quantity of life’s particulars into each twenty-minute film. Five of his nineteen shorts end with or hinge on “Buster” (he gave the hero his first name in some of the two-reelers, and it stuck) being shaken awake from the contents of the movie we’ve been watching.
As opposed to the occasional dream sequence in a Chaplin film, which usually dangles like an ornament from the main storyline, Keaton’s dreams and dreamlike camera effects seem to compound the stillness and inwardness of his deadpan character. They are not a break from reality but a truer form of it.
In maybe his saddest line in Sweeney’s collection of interviews, Keaton confesses how the advent of sound ruined his appetite for playing in front of the camera: “The minute you’re not flexible that way,” i.e., not free to shoot unscripted sequences owing to rigid bosses, expensive sets, and waiting extras, “the desire to originate and ad-lib, as they call it, is gone. You’ve lost that.” The coming of sound spelled the end for Harold Lloyd, too, and a serious slowing down (and stylistic seizing up) for Chaplin, but for Keaton the arrival of the talkies has always seemed tragic, perhaps because of what it revealed about his own judgment.
Keaton wanted stories of a certain kind of innocence, and aspiration, and even mulish indifference to what might make people laugh (a hilarious film about the Civil War, for instance). His humor wasn’t a blank face that could be transferred willy-nilly to any kind of satire that might prove timely. This meant temporarily ignoring what the audience expected, and having the freedom to keep on inventing. “Anesthesia of the heart,” as Henri Bergson called it. That, after all, is the real soul of deadpan: such deep absorption in a task, or a way of being, that the audience thinks it alone can see that the whole thing’s going to hell.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Vanessa Redgrave & Franco Nero
On the 28th May 2011 Vanessa Redgrave CBE and Franco Nero were both awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from Brunel University in recognition of their outstanding services to the arts. The event was held at the Italian Cultural Institute in London and was attended by friends, family, fans and colleagues, including the controversial Italian director Ruggero Deodato, with whom Nero has worked several times.
Redgrave was once called "the greatest actress of our time" by Tennessee Williams, and has been nominated and won many awards for both her film and theatre work since she began her career in the 1950s, where she co-starred with her father Sir Michael Redgrave in the play A Touch of the Sun.
The Italian Franco Nero is probably best known for one of his first films, the vastly entertaining and influential Spaghetti Western Django in 1966. He has appeared in over 150 films and is also involved in numerous charitable and humanitarian projects. Quentin Tarantino cites Nero as a big influence, and has recently announced that his next film will be a western, titled Django Unchained. Nero was unable to confirm or deny rumours that he has been cast in this film.
Redgrave and Nero were married in 2006, despite first meeting on the set of Camelot in 1967. They were together for a short while then, and have one son Carlo, but it took almost forty years for them to finally get back together. This story was played out recently in the film Letters to Juliet, in which they played a couple reunited after many years. They were both clearly touched to be awarded in this way by the university and gave moving words of thanks. The ceremony was followed by an onstage interview, in which they discussed the beginnings of their relationship whilst making Camelot in London. According to Nero Vanessa Redgrave asked him to give a friend a lift to the airport. Whilst they were there, she then suggested they jump on the next plane anywhere. Several hours later they found themselves driving a hired car around the streets of San Francisco! The evening was rounded off with a packed rare screening of the Italian film A Quiet Place in the Country from 1969, in which they both starred.
(from CinemaRetro)
(from CinemaRetro)
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