Absorbing the breakthroughs of the French New Wave and the burgeoning New Hollywood era and applying them to the artier ends of Bernardo Bertolucci’s native Italian cinema, The Conformist presents a façade of overwhelming cinematic beauty only to reveal the rotten soul beneath its surface. Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography captures Rome and Paris with an Antonioniesque eye for architectural detail, swooning camera movements, and even instances of color timing so extreme that certain shots recall the hand-tinted process of early silent film.
The precision of The Conformist’s images, though, only exacerbates the detached, inhuman alienation of the film’s protagonist, Marcello (Jean-Louis Trintignant). He’s the last scion of a diminished aristocratic line whose exhausted wealth and status are symbolized by an expansive but dilapidated and mildewing family villa occupied by a mother (Milly) who copes with a loss of status with copious amounts of opiates (his father...
The precision of The Conformist’s images, though, only exacerbates the detached, inhuman alienation of the film’s protagonist, Marcello (Jean-Louis Trintignant). He’s the last scion of a diminished aristocratic line whose exhausted wealth and status are symbolized by an expansive but dilapidated and mildewing family villa occupied by a mother (Milly) who copes with a loss of status with copious amounts of opiates (his father...
- 12/11/2023
- by Jake Cole
- Slant Magazine
Kino Lorber has unveiled a brand new 4K restoration trailer for the classic 1970 Italian Fascism film The Conformist, made by iconic director Bernardo Bertolucci. The film originally opened 51 years ago in US theaters, after screening at the New York Film Festival. Set during Mussolini's Italy in the 1930s, the film follows a weak-willed Italian man that becomes a fascist flunky and travels abroad to Paris to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a Leftist political dissident. The film stars Jean-Louis Trintignant, with Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Dominique Sanda, Pierre Clémenti. Restored in 4K by Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Minerva Pictures, entirely overseen by the Fondazione Bernardo Bertolucci, at L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, from the original camera negative. Critics have raved about how it is "a dazzling movie" with "the most striking and baroque images you're ever likely to see," featuring impressive Art Deco production design. As always,...
- 12/9/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
In a decade of numerous masterpieces, one of the towering cinematic feats of the 1970s was Bernardo Bertolucci’s Alberto Moravia adaptation The Conformist. With jaw-dropping cinematography from Vittorio Storaro, stunning production design from Ferdinando Scarfiotti, and an iconic Georges Delerue score, the film will return in a new 4K restoration to kick off 2023. Ahead of a January 6 opening at Film Forum, we’re pleased to share the first look at the restoration––sourced from the original camera negative––with the exclusive trailer premiere, courtesy of Kino Lorber.
In Mussolini’s Italy, repressed Jean-Louis Trintignant, trying to purge memories of a youthful, homosexual episode––and murder––joins the Fascists in a desperate attempt to fit in. As the reluctant Judas motors to his personal Gethsemane (the assassination of his leftist mentor), he flashes back to a dance party for the blind; an insane asylum in a stadium; and wife Stefania Sandrelli...
In Mussolini’s Italy, repressed Jean-Louis Trintignant, trying to purge memories of a youthful, homosexual episode––and murder––joins the Fascists in a desperate attempt to fit in. As the reluctant Judas motors to his personal Gethsemane (the assassination of his leftist mentor), he flashes back to a dance party for the blind; an insane asylum in a stadium; and wife Stefania Sandrelli...
- 12/7/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Gabriele Mainetti’s Freaks Out, co-written with Nicola Guaglianone, starring Franz Rogowski, Aurora Giovinazzo, Pietro Castellitto, Giancarlo Martini, Claudio Santamaria, and Giorgio Tirabassi opens Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s 21st edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema
Giuseppe Bonito’s A Girl Returned; Paolo Taviani’s Leonora Addio (The Demise Of Luigi Pirandello); Laura Bispuri’s The Peacock’s Paradise (Il Paradiso Del Pavone) starring Dominique Sanda, Alba Rohrwacher, Carlo Cerciello, and Maya Sansa; Chiara Bellosi’s Swing Ride (Calcinculo) with Gaia Di Pietro and Andrea Carpenzano; Nanni Moretti’s Three Floors with Margherita Buy, Adriano Giannini, Elena Lietti, Riccardo Scamarcio, Paolo Graziosi, and Rohrwacher, and Gabriele Mainetti’s Freaks Out, co-written with Nicola Guaglianone, starring Franz Rogowski, Aurora Giovinazzo, Pietro Castellitto, Giancarlo Martini, Claudio Santamaria, and Giorgio Tirabassi are six highlights of Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s 21st edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.
Giuseppe Bonito’s A Girl Returned; Paolo Taviani’s Leonora Addio (The Demise Of Luigi Pirandello); Laura Bispuri’s The Peacock’s Paradise (Il Paradiso Del Pavone) starring Dominique Sanda, Alba Rohrwacher, Carlo Cerciello, and Maya Sansa; Chiara Bellosi’s Swing Ride (Calcinculo) with Gaia Di Pietro and Andrea Carpenzano; Nanni Moretti’s Three Floors with Margherita Buy, Adriano Giannini, Elena Lietti, Riccardo Scamarcio, Paolo Graziosi, and Rohrwacher, and Gabriele Mainetti’s Freaks Out, co-written with Nicola Guaglianone, starring Franz Rogowski, Aurora Giovinazzo, Pietro Castellitto, Giancarlo Martini, Claudio Santamaria, and Giorgio Tirabassi are six highlights of Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s 21st edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.
- 6/9/2022
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Full Bloom is a series, written by Patrick Holzapfel and illustrated by Ivana Miloš, that reconsiders plants in cinema. Directors have given certain flowers, trees or herbs special attention for many different reasons. It’s time to give them the credit they deserve and highlight their contributions to cinema, in full bloom.Ivana Miloš, A Gentle Creature (2021), monotype and gouache on paper, 33 x 24 cmDEAD Flowers At The WAYSIDEEvery day there are hundreds of dead flowers, originally torn from the earth in order to display love, rotting at the side of the road. Some of them have just fallen victim to time: They dried out or their colors faded, leaving a sad and ultimately unbearable reminder of a beauty that is no more. Others, however, are thrown away in full bloom. Helpless bouquets cover streets and garbage cans like monuments to frustrated loves. Discarded in moments of anger or passionate refusal,...
- 11/19/2021
- MUBI
Some creatures waste away when they’re domesticated, pining for the freedom of the outdoors. That seems to be the case not only for the immensely improbable, leadenly symbolic peacock at the center of Laura Bispuri’s “The Peacock’s Paradise,” but also for Bispuri’s flair for characterization and absorbingly grounded melodrama, which comes tamely indoors after the vibrant, windblown elementalism of “Sworn Virgin” and “Daughter of Mine,” and vanishes.
In the stultifying environment of a small coastal apartment, “The Peacock’s Paradise” follows a family of unbearably self-involved secret-keepers at a reunion that precipitates an entire telenovela’s worth of soapy revelation in the space of a single afternoon. Long-term same-sex affairs are discovered; dormant passions are reawakened; new lovers are betrayed; a history of institutionalization is dredged up; financial petitions are broached; and a clinically mute character speaks, delivering one single, loaded comment that scriptwriters Bispuri and...
In the stultifying environment of a small coastal apartment, “The Peacock’s Paradise” follows a family of unbearably self-involved secret-keepers at a reunion that precipitates an entire telenovela’s worth of soapy revelation in the space of a single afternoon. Long-term same-sex affairs are discovered; dormant passions are reawakened; new lovers are betrayed; a history of institutionalization is dredged up; financial petitions are broached; and a clinically mute character speaks, delivering one single, loaded comment that scriptwriters Bispuri and...
- 10/29/2021
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
“The Peacock’s Paradise” is one of the worst types of films to watch and review. Ineffectual in its style, but inoffensive in its content and execution, Laura Bispuri’s most recent directorial effort fails to move beyond the rudimentary elements that comprise the average movie.
Read More: Venice Film Festival 2021 Preview: 12 Must-See Films To Watch
The narrative centers on an estranged family gathering to celebrate the birthday of Nena (Dominique Sanda), its matriarch.
Continue reading ‘The Peacock’s Paradise’: Laura Bispuri Crafts A Masterclass In Mediocre Filmmaking [Venice Review] at The Playlist.
Read More: Venice Film Festival 2021 Preview: 12 Must-See Films To Watch
The narrative centers on an estranged family gathering to celebrate the birthday of Nena (Dominique Sanda), its matriarch.
Continue reading ‘The Peacock’s Paradise’: Laura Bispuri Crafts A Masterclass In Mediocre Filmmaking [Venice Review] at The Playlist.
- 9/5/2021
- by Jonathan Christian
- The Playlist
The country’s box office is still sputtering but Italian cinema is instead “in a state of grace,” as Venice chief Alberto Barbera put it recently as he announced the five features from Italy that are competing for the fest’s Golden Lion. It’s the most he’s ever selected from Italy.
And Barbera is adamant that he didn’t allocate almost one-fourth of Venice’s 21 competition slots to Cinema Italiano “to support our colors at a difficult time.”
“Some years he selects very little from Italy,” notes Barbara Salabè, who is the top Warner Bros. exec in Italy. “But this year Alberto told me: ‘the [Italian] films are good.’”
The Italian contingent on the Lido spans a wide range of cinematic styles, from “Il Buco,” an eclectic film with no dialogue or music about a group of speleologists who, in 1961, discover the world’s second-deepest cave — directed by underground helmer Michelangelo Frammartino,...
And Barbera is adamant that he didn’t allocate almost one-fourth of Venice’s 21 competition slots to Cinema Italiano “to support our colors at a difficult time.”
“Some years he selects very little from Italy,” notes Barbara Salabè, who is the top Warner Bros. exec in Italy. “But this year Alberto told me: ‘the [Italian] films are good.’”
The Italian contingent on the Lido spans a wide range of cinematic styles, from “Il Buco,” an eclectic film with no dialogue or music about a group of speleologists who, in 1961, discover the world’s second-deepest cave — directed by underground helmer Michelangelo Frammartino,...
- 9/4/2021
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Despite Italy having been among countries hardest hit by the pandemic, film production almost never stopped. So there is a backlog of new titles ready to hit global festivals and markets starting from Cannes, as well as newer projects.
Below is a compendium of hot Cinema Italiano titles in various stages of production.
“Bones and All”
Luca Guadagnino started shooting this U.S.-set film in May, marking his first collaboration with Timothée Chalamet since “Call Me by Your Name.” Pic is adapted from the eponymous novel by Camille DeAngelis and tells the story of first love between Maren, a young woman learning how to survive on the margins of society, and Lee, a disenfranchised drifter, as they meet and join forces for a road trip through Ronald Reagan’s America.
“La Chimera”
Alice Rohrwacher will soon shoot her fourth feature revolving around the black market of stolen archaeological artifacts.
Below is a compendium of hot Cinema Italiano titles in various stages of production.
“Bones and All”
Luca Guadagnino started shooting this U.S.-set film in May, marking his first collaboration with Timothée Chalamet since “Call Me by Your Name.” Pic is adapted from the eponymous novel by Camille DeAngelis and tells the story of first love between Maren, a young woman learning how to survive on the margins of society, and Lee, a disenfranchised drifter, as they meet and join forces for a road trip through Ronald Reagan’s America.
“La Chimera”
Alice Rohrwacher will soon shoot her fourth feature revolving around the black market of stolen archaeological artifacts.
- 7/9/2021
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Dominique Sanda, Alba Rohrwacher and Maya Sansa star in the director’s new film, the story of an impossible love that will throw into question the feelings of an entire family. Filming on Il paradiso del pavone, the latest film from Laura Bispuri, has just wrapped in Ostia. The film comes three years after Sworn Virgin and Daughter of Mine (selected in competition at the 2018 Berlinale). This story of an impossible love that will throw into question the feelings of an entire family will be told by actors Dominique Sanda (recently seen in Saint Laurent), Alba Rohrwacher (seen last year in The Ties and shortly in Tre piani), Maya Sansa (last year in Lasciami andare), Carlo Cerciello, Fabrizio Ferracane, Leonardo Lidi, Tihana Lazović (the Croatian actress...
Leading arthouse outfit The Match Factory is continuing its successful partnership with Laura Bispuri as it boards sales on her latest film, “The Peacock’s Paradise.” The film stars Cannes best actress winner Dominique Sanda and Venice best actress winner Alba Rohrwacher, Bispuri’s long-time collaborator.
The Match Factory previously represented the director’s “Sworn Virgin,” which played in Berlinale Competition in 2015, and “Daughter of Mine,” which was in Berlinale Competition in 2018.
“The Peacock’s Paradise” follows Nena’s family, who reunite in their house by the sea to celebrate her birthday. Everybody is there: her husband Umberto, their children Vito and Caterina, cousin Isabella, their daughter-in-law Adelina, Caterina’s ex Manfredi with his new girlfriend Joana, their granddaughter Alma, and Lucia, the maid, with her daughter Grazia. Finally, there is Paco, Alma’s peacock, who surprisingly falls in love with a little painted dove: an impossible love that will...
The Match Factory previously represented the director’s “Sworn Virgin,” which played in Berlinale Competition in 2015, and “Daughter of Mine,” which was in Berlinale Competition in 2018.
“The Peacock’s Paradise” follows Nena’s family, who reunite in their house by the sea to celebrate her birthday. Everybody is there: her husband Umberto, their children Vito and Caterina, cousin Isabella, their daughter-in-law Adelina, Caterina’s ex Manfredi with his new girlfriend Joana, their granddaughter Alma, and Lucia, the maid, with her daughter Grazia. Finally, there is Paco, Alma’s peacock, who surprisingly falls in love with a little painted dove: an impossible love that will...
- 3/3/2021
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
As far as sci-fi films go, there is before Star Wars and after; the film forever altered the landscape and the box office with an old fashioned sense of adventure long relegated to Hollywood’s past. But what about during Star Wars? After all, Twentieth Century Fox was pushing their bet towards another property for prosperity: the post-apocalyptic Damnation Alley, an adaptation of the hit 1969 novel by Roger Zelazny. We all know which brought in the Fox funds, and it certainly wasn’t this goofy Stagecoach tribute (as opposed to Sw’s The Hidden Fortress one). But as The Little Fox That Didn’t, Damnation Alley was this kid’s sci-fi horror boogie; seven and alone, just me and The Landmaster military Rv that costars.
There’s no need to call child services; growing up in a small town, I saw many a film solo - that darkened screen was my closest friend.
There’s no need to call child services; growing up in a small town, I saw many a film solo - that darkened screen was my closest friend.
- 2/20/2021
- by Scott Drebit
- DailyDead
Aiming to contrast the dichotomies of Love and Lust, director Bernardo Bertolucci originally hoped to star Jean-Louis Trintignant with either Dominique Sanda or Catherine Deneuve, but when those plans fell apart he went with Marlon Brando and 19 year old unknown Maria Schneider. Its graphic but simulated sex scenes garnered a scandalous X rating in the US, later rescinded to an R without cuts. Bertolucci believed this was Brando’s most revealing performance despite the fact that apart from one memorably improvised soliloquy about his childhood he can be seen reading his entire part from cue cards. At one point he asked if his lines could be written on his co-star’s derriere, which the director refused.
The post Last Tango In Paris appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post Last Tango In Paris appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 11/20/2020
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Profound passion and anguished terror collide in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Vittorio de Sica’s 1970 Oscar-winner. As the film screens at the UK Jewish film festival, we reassess its astonishing power
‘In life, in order to really understand the world, you must die at least once. So it’s better to die young, while there’s time to recover and live again.” The speaker is a middle-aged Italian Jewish businessman of Ferrara, in the early 1940s, attempting to console his heartbroken son, Giorgio – who has been rejected by a young woman, Micòl Finzi-Contini. But these words are to have a terrible ironic significance, because it is Micòl, not Giorgio, who is destined to be taken away by the fascists, along with the rest of her Jewish family, and handed over to Italy’s ally, Nazi Germany, for deportation to the death camps.
Together, poor besotted Giorgio and the exquisitely...
‘In life, in order to really understand the world, you must die at least once. So it’s better to die young, while there’s time to recover and live again.” The speaker is a middle-aged Italian Jewish businessman of Ferrara, in the early 1940s, attempting to console his heartbroken son, Giorgio – who has been rejected by a young woman, Micòl Finzi-Contini. But these words are to have a terrible ironic significance, because it is Micòl, not Giorgio, who is destined to be taken away by the fascists, along with the rest of her Jewish family, and handed over to Italy’s ally, Nazi Germany, for deportation to the death camps.
Together, poor besotted Giorgio and the exquisitely...
- 11/3/2020
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Ennio Morricone, who died Monday at the age of 91, wrote more than 400 original film scores, many of which have entered the classic movie-music pantheon. While trying to narrow them down to the 10 best is an impossible task, here, in chronological order, are an essential 10:
“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966)
This was the most popular of the maestro’s Western scores, for the last of Clint Eastwood’s “Man with No Name” trilogy. With an indelible, coyote-inspired main theme and now-famous “Ecstasy of Gold” cue, a cover version went to No. 2 on the U.S. pop charts.
“Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968)
An off-key harmonica is not only central to the score but also to the plot of Sergio Leone’s operatic masterpiece, about the coming of the railroad to a tiny Western town. It’s especially notable for his use of wordless soprano in the...
“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966)
This was the most popular of the maestro’s Western scores, for the last of Clint Eastwood’s “Man with No Name” trilogy. With an indelible, coyote-inspired main theme and now-famous “Ecstasy of Gold” cue, a cover version went to No. 2 on the U.S. pop charts.
“Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968)
An off-key harmonica is not only central to the score but also to the plot of Sergio Leone’s operatic masterpiece, about the coming of the railroad to a tiny Western town. It’s especially notable for his use of wordless soprano in the...
- 7/6/2020
- by Jon Burlingame
- Variety Film + TV
The French director’s 1969 spectacle about the wife of a pawnbroker who kills herself is still difficult, devastating and captivating 50 years on
Robert Bresson’s Une Femme Douce (A Gentle Woman), is now revived in UK cinemas 50 years after its original release – although this stark, austere, forbidding spectacle could just as well have been made in 1959 or 1949. This was his adaptation of the Dostoevsky short story Krotkaya, or A Gentle Creature (the inspiration for a quite different film of the same name by Sergei Loznitsa in 2017). It was his first colour film, and the colours themselves appear muted and darkened, as if from a neglected church tapestry.
Dominique Sanda plays Elle, the delicate young wife of a pawnbroker (that ominous Dostoevskian trope) who takes her own life by jumping from the balcony of their handsome Paris apartment, leaving no suicide note or explanation. The eerily calm widower Luc (Guy Frangin...
Robert Bresson’s Une Femme Douce (A Gentle Woman), is now revived in UK cinemas 50 years after its original release – although this stark, austere, forbidding spectacle could just as well have been made in 1959 or 1949. This was his adaptation of the Dostoevsky short story Krotkaya, or A Gentle Creature (the inspiration for a quite different film of the same name by Sergei Loznitsa in 2017). It was his first colour film, and the colours themselves appear muted and darkened, as if from a neglected church tapestry.
Dominique Sanda plays Elle, the delicate young wife of a pawnbroker (that ominous Dostoevskian trope) who takes her own life by jumping from the balcony of their handsome Paris apartment, leaving no suicide note or explanation. The eerily calm widower Luc (Guy Frangin...
- 8/2/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Moviegoing Memories is a series of short interviews with filmmakers about going to the movies. Yann Gonzalez's Knife + Heart is Mubi Go's Film of the Week of July 5, 2019.Yann Gonzalez and Vanessa Paradis. Photo by Elle HermeNOTEBOOK: How would you describe your movie in the least amount of words?Yann Gonzalez: As a ghost train in a queer fun fair.Notebook: Where and what is your favorite movie theatre?Gonzalez: It would be a tie between the Castro Theatre in San Francisco and the New Beverly in Los Angeles.Notebook: Why are they your favorites?Gonzalez: I fell in love with the first one ten years ago when I saw the old organ coming down on stage with a musician playing some Nino Rota’s themes before a wonderful 35mm screening of Fellini’s Amarcord. And I cherish the second one for being so faithful to film and screening only 35mm prints.
- 7/15/2019
- MUBI
Film and television producer Robert Bradford, novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford’s husband who shepherded adaptations of many of her books, died early Tuesday morning in New York’s Presbyterian Hospital following a stroke. He was 94.
Badford played a large role in his wife’s work, producing nine of her books as miniseries and movies-of-the-week for NBC and CBS, including “A Woman of Substance” starring Liam Neeson and Jenny Seagrove, and “Voice of the Heart” starring James Brolin and Lindsey Wagner. In addition to his love for film, he also had a significant appreciation for books and was the first person to buy a full-page ad on the back page of the the New York Times Arts section to promote his wife’s book, which he continued to do for many of her novels over the years. The couple celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary last December.
Badford was born in Germany...
Badford played a large role in his wife’s work, producing nine of her books as miniseries and movies-of-the-week for NBC and CBS, including “A Woman of Substance” starring Liam Neeson and Jenny Seagrove, and “Voice of the Heart” starring James Brolin and Lindsey Wagner. In addition to his love for film, he also had a significant appreciation for books and was the first person to buy a full-page ad on the back page of the the New York Times Arts section to promote his wife’s book, which he continued to do for many of her novels over the years. The couple celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary last December.
Badford was born in Germany...
- 7/5/2019
- by Anna Tingley
- Variety Film + TV
Robert E. Bradford, a film and television producer, and the husband of novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, died July 2 in New York’s Weill Cornell Hospital after suffering a stroke at the couple’s Manhattan home the week prior. A spokesperson for the family confirmed his death. Bradford was 92.
The couple celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary this year.
Bradford produced nine of his wife’s books as mini-series and movies of the week for NBC and CBS, including 1989’s Voice of the Heart starring Lindsay Wagner and James Brolin; 1992’s To Be The Best, again with Wagner; and 1993’s Remember starring Donna Mills and Stephen Collins.
According to information provided by the family, the German-born and French-educated Bradford left Europe for New York after World War II, landing a job in public relations. After moving to Hollywood, he met the men who would become his mentors: attorney Louis Blau of Loeb and Loeb,...
The couple celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary this year.
Bradford produced nine of his wife’s books as mini-series and movies of the week for NBC and CBS, including 1989’s Voice of the Heart starring Lindsay Wagner and James Brolin; 1992’s To Be The Best, again with Wagner; and 1993’s Remember starring Donna Mills and Stephen Collins.
According to information provided by the family, the German-born and French-educated Bradford left Europe for New York after World War II, landing a job in public relations. After moving to Hollywood, he met the men who would become his mentors: attorney Louis Blau of Loeb and Loeb,...
- 7/5/2019
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
The Turin Film Festival on Saturday announced it will hold a day of tribute to Bernardo Bertolucci, the Oscar-winning Italian director who died Nov. 26.
The 36th edition of the event will conclude Sunday with a day of screenings dedicated to the master in Turin's Cinema Massimo.
The fest will screen three of Bertolucci’s works, including 1900, the 1976 historical drama starring Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Burt Lancaster and Donald Sutherland); 1970's The Conformist, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda and Gastone Moschin; and 1996's Stealing Beauty, starring Liv Tyler, Jeremy Irons, Sinead Cusack and Rachel ...
The 36th edition of the event will conclude Sunday with a day of screenings dedicated to the master in Turin's Cinema Massimo.
The fest will screen three of Bertolucci’s works, including 1900, the 1976 historical drama starring Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Burt Lancaster and Donald Sutherland); 1970's The Conformist, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda and Gastone Moschin; and 1996's Stealing Beauty, starring Liv Tyler, Jeremy Irons, Sinead Cusack and Rachel ...
- 12/1/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
The Turin Film Festival on Saturday announced it will hold a day of tribute to Bernardo Bertolucci, the Oscar-winning Italian director who died Nov. 26.
The 36th edition of the event will conclude Sunday with a day of screenings dedicated to the master in Turin's Cinema Massimo.
The fest will screen three of Bertolucci’s works, including 1900, the 1976 historical drama starring Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Burt Lancaster and Donald Sutherland); 1970's The Conformist, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda and Gastone Moschin; and 1996's Stealing Beauty, starring Liv Tyler, Jeremy Irons, Sinead Cusack and Rachel ...
The 36th edition of the event will conclude Sunday with a day of screenings dedicated to the master in Turin's Cinema Massimo.
The fest will screen three of Bertolucci’s works, including 1900, the 1976 historical drama starring Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Burt Lancaster and Donald Sutherland); 1970's The Conformist, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda and Gastone Moschin; and 1996's Stealing Beauty, starring Liv Tyler, Jeremy Irons, Sinead Cusack and Rachel ...
- 12/1/2018
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Danièle Delorme and Jean Gabin in 'Deadlier Than the Male.' Danièle Delorme movies (See previous post: “Danièle Delorme: 'Gigi' 1949 Actress Became Rare Woman Director's Muse.”) “Every actor would like to make a movie with Charles Chaplin or René Clair,” Danièle Delorme explains in the filmed interview (ca. 1960) embedded further below, adding that oftentimes it wasn't up to them to decide with whom they would get to work. Yet, although frequently beyond her control, Delorme managed to collaborate with a number of major (mostly French) filmmakers throughout her six-decade movie career. Aside from her Jacqueline Audry films discussed in the previous Danièle Delorme article, below are a few of her most notable efforts – usually playing naive-looking young women of modest means and deceptively inconspicuous sexuality, whose inner character may or may not match their external appearance. Ouvert pour cause d'inventaire (“Open for Inventory Causes,” 1946), an unreleased, no-budget comedy notable...
- 12/18/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Read More: Gaspard Ulliel on Becoming 'Saint Laurent' and Kissing Louis Garrel Iconic French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent has already gotten the biopic treatment courtesy of Jalil Lespert's eponymous drama last summer, but that isn't stopping director Bertrand Bonello from giving audiences his own spin on the wild life of the fashion visionary. Starring Gaspard Ulliel in the titular role, "Saint Laurent" tracks the life and inspirations of the designer who forever changed the world of haute couture. The film was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics soon after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last year. "Saint Laurent" co-stars Lea Seydoux, Louis Garrel, Helmut Berger and Dominique Sanda. Spc will be kicking off their summer slate by releasing the film on May 8. Read More: Sony Pictures Classics Acquires 'Saint Laurent' Biopic at Cannes...
- 3/6/2015
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
The Conformist
Written and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Italy, 1970
When first introduced to the improved quality of Blu-ray technology, there were about a dozen films I couldn’t wait to see in the format. These were movies of extraordinary beauty that I knew would surely benefit from the enhanced visual resolution. Now, with the arrival of Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist on a stunning new Raro Video edition, another one of those titles can be scratched off the list. What makes this an exciting release, however, goes beyond the look of the picture (though that is paramount). This is, in every regard, one of the greatest films ever made.
The Conformist is a complex chronicle of the tormented, ruthless, and devious Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a rising-through-the-ranks Fascist enforcer. The film is a fascinating look at the extent to which one will go to escape the past, fit in with the present,...
Written and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Italy, 1970
When first introduced to the improved quality of Blu-ray technology, there were about a dozen films I couldn’t wait to see in the format. These were movies of extraordinary beauty that I knew would surely benefit from the enhanced visual resolution. Now, with the arrival of Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist on a stunning new Raro Video edition, another one of those titles can be scratched off the list. What makes this an exciting release, however, goes beyond the look of the picture (though that is paramount). This is, in every regard, one of the greatest films ever made.
The Conformist is a complex chronicle of the tormented, ruthless, and devious Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a rising-through-the-ranks Fascist enforcer. The film is a fascinating look at the extent to which one will go to escape the past, fit in with the present,...
- 12/3/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
With the run of classics that American filmmakers churned out in the studio system during the '70s, it's easy to forget that Italian master Bernardo Bertolucci also delivered some of his finest work during the decade. Across those ten years he delivered "The Spider's Stratagem," "Last Tango In Paris," "1900," and, for many of us here around the office, a personal favorite, "The Conformist." Now that it's been freshly restored for home video, we've got a few copies to share with you. Starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda, Gastone Moschin, Pierre Clementi, Enzo Tarascio, and José Quaglio, the film follows a secret police agent, Marcelo Clerici, who is dispatched to assassinate his old professor, Quadri. Clerici uses his honeymoon with his new wife Giulia as the perfect cover under which to carry out his assignment. While on his mission, however, he becomes obsessed with the professor's wife...
- 11/24/2014
- by Edward Davis
- The Playlist
In one of the first big deals at this year's Cannes Film Festival, Variety reports that Sony Pictures Classics has acquired "Saint Laurent,” the biopic of French famed designer Yves Saint Laurent, which is set to premiere in competition at Cannes. Read More: 2014 Indiewire Cannes Bible: Every Review, Interview and News Item Posted During the Festival Directed by Bertrand Bonello, the biopic (no, not the one that premiered at Berlin where it was acquired by The Weinstein Company), was produced by Eric and Nicolas Altmayer at Mandarin and EuropaCorp, which also handles international sales and will distribute in France. The film features last year's Palme D'Or winner "Blue Is the Warmest Color" star Lea Seydoux, along with Gaspard Ulliel, Louis Garrel, Helmut Berger and Dominique Sanda.
- 5/14/2014
- by Paula Bernstein
- Indiewire
Welcome back to Cannes Check, In Contention's annual preview of the films in Competition at next month's Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off on May 14. Taking on different selections every day, we'll be examining what they're about, who's involved and what their chances are of snagging an award from Jane Campion's jury. Next up: the second of four French entries: Bertrand Bonello's "Saint Laurent." The director: Bertrand Bonello (French, 45 years old). Born in Nice and now based in Paris and Montreal, Bonello began his career as a classical musician -- a background that makes sense, given the stately refinement and sensory elevation of his filmmaking. (He still serves as his own composer.) Which is not to say his work is soft, testing as it does formal and erotic boundaries: scholars of contemporary French cinema tend to group him with the likes of Gaspar Noé in the bracket of New French Extremism.
- 4/29/2014
- by Guy Lodge
- Hitfix
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: July 22, 2014
Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $124.95
Studio: Criterion
French director Jacques Demy launched his glorious feature filmmaking career in the Sixties, a decade of astonishing invention in his national cinema. He stood out from the crowd of his fellow New Wavers, however, by filtering his self-conscious formalism through deeply emotional storytelling. Fate and coincidence, doomed love, and storybook romance surface throughout his films, many of which are further united by the intersecting lives of characters who either appear or are referenced across titles.
Six of Demy’s films are collected in The Essential Jacques Demy. Ranging from musical to melodrama to fantasia, all are triumphs of visual and sound design, camera work, and music, and they are galvanized by the great stars of French cinema at their centers, including Anouk Aimée (8 1/2), Catherine Deneuve (Belle de Jour), and Jeanne Moreau (Jules and Jim).
The six works here, made...
Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $124.95
Studio: Criterion
French director Jacques Demy launched his glorious feature filmmaking career in the Sixties, a decade of astonishing invention in his national cinema. He stood out from the crowd of his fellow New Wavers, however, by filtering his self-conscious formalism through deeply emotional storytelling. Fate and coincidence, doomed love, and storybook romance surface throughout his films, many of which are further united by the intersecting lives of characters who either appear or are referenced across titles.
Six of Demy’s films are collected in The Essential Jacques Demy. Ranging from musical to melodrama to fantasia, all are triumphs of visual and sound design, camera work, and music, and they are galvanized by the great stars of French cinema at their centers, including Anouk Aimée (8 1/2), Catherine Deneuve (Belle de Jour), and Jeanne Moreau (Jules and Jim).
The six works here, made...
- 4/24/2014
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Saint Laurent
Director: Bertrand Bonello
Writers: Bertrand Bonello & Thomas Bidegain
Producers: Mandarin Cinéma’s Eric and Nicolas Altmayer
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel, Jérémie Renier, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Jasmine Trinca, Helmut Berger, Dominique Sanda, Amira Casar
Coming off his career high-point in L’Apollonide (Souvenirs de la maison close) aka House of Tolerance (which our Blake Williams placed high above his 2011 Best List (here is our interview with the filmmaker), Bertrand Bonello curiously decided to move towards biopic terrain for his sixth feature film and it just so happens embark on a non-battle of dueling portraits on the fashion guru.
Gist: The film will focus on the period running 1965 to 1976 when Yves Saint Laurent was at the peak of his powers, culminating with the 1976 Russian collection, considered by many as his most influential.
Release Date: An October 1st release date in place in France easily...
Director: Bertrand Bonello
Writers: Bertrand Bonello & Thomas Bidegain
Producers: Mandarin Cinéma’s Eric and Nicolas Altmayer
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Léa Seydoux, Louis Garrel, Jérémie Renier, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Jasmine Trinca, Helmut Berger, Dominique Sanda, Amira Casar
Coming off his career high-point in L’Apollonide (Souvenirs de la maison close) aka House of Tolerance (which our Blake Williams placed high above his 2011 Best List (here is our interview with the filmmaker), Bertrand Bonello curiously decided to move towards biopic terrain for his sixth feature film and it just so happens embark on a non-battle of dueling portraits on the fashion guru.
Gist: The film will focus on the period running 1965 to 1976 when Yves Saint Laurent was at the peak of his powers, culminating with the 1976 Russian collection, considered by many as his most influential.
Release Date: An October 1st release date in place in France easily...
- 3/5/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Maximilian Schell movie director (photo: Maximilian Schell and Maria Schell) (See previous post: “Maximilian Schell Dies: Best Actor Oscar Winner for ‘Judgment at Nuremberg.’”) Maximilian Schell’s first film as a director was the 1970 (dubbed) German-language release First Love / Erste Liebe, adapted from Igor Turgenev’s novella, and starring Englishman John Moulder-Brown, Frenchwoman Dominique Sanda, and Schell in this tale about a doomed love affair in Czarist Russia. Italian Valentina Cortese and British Marius Goring provided support. Directed by a former Best Actor Oscar winner, First Love, a movie that could just as easily have been dubbed into Swedish or Swahili (or English), ended up nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. Three years later, nominated in that same category was Schell’s second feature film as a director, The Pedestrian / Der Fußgänger, in which a car accident forces a German businessman to delve deep into his past.
- 2/2/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Bad Relationships! week concludes at Trailers from Hell with screenwriter Larry Karaszewski introducing one of the most controversial films ever made, Bernardo Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris," starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider.Aiming to contrast the dichotomies of Love and Lust, director Bertolucci originally hoped to star Jean-Louis Trintignant with either Dominique Sanda or Catherine Deneuve, but when those plans fell apart he went with Brando and 19 year old unknown Schneider. Its graphic but simulated sex scenes garnered a scandalous X rating in the Us, later rescinded to an R without cuts. Bertolucci believed this was Brando's most revealing performance despite the fact that apart from one memorably improvised soliloquy about his childhood he can be seen reading his entire part from cue cards. At one point he asked if his lines could be written on his co-star's derriere, which the director refused.
- 8/2/2013
- by Trailers From Hell
- Thompson on Hollywood
Toronto Film Festival 2013 Dates and Movies (photo: Pierce Brosnan, Emma Thompson in ‘The Love Punch’) The Toronto Film Festival 2013 dates are September 5 to 15. The Opening Night Gala film is Bill Condon’s bound-to-be-controversial The Fifth Estate, which is not a belated sequel to Serge Leroy’s The Fourth Power / Le 4ème pouvoir. Instead of the Power of the Press — which seems to have gone the way of the 20th century (unless you consider the Royal Baby an epoch-making event) — The Fifth Estate is about the Power of Technology: the Wikileaks scandal that embarrassed (and infuriated) the U.S. government and military by exposing their dirty dealings. Written by Josh Singer, The Fifth Estate stars Star Trek Into Darkness‘ Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange, in addition to Laura Linney, Daniel Brühl, Anthony Mackie, Moritz Bleibtreu, Peter Capaldi, David Thewlis, Alicia Vikander, Carice van Houten, Stanley Tucci, and Dan Stevens. The Toronto...
- 7/23/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
#63. Nicole Garcia’s He Left On Sunday
Gist: Il est parti dimanche takes place during the weekend of Pentecost, a teacher in the South of France unexpectedly is charged with taking care of a student left behind by a forgetful father. On a beach near Montepellier, a woman named Sandra, who wants to win back her son’s affections due to herself being a forgetful mother, invites the teacher and his student to her home.
Predictions: For her seventh feature as director, we’re predicting an Un Certain Regard slot for He Left on Sunday. Garcia’s played the Main Comp in 2002 and 2006 (The Adversary; Charlie Says), and while she’s certainly among the most notable actress/directors, she may be edged out of the entering the Main Comp this year. However, the film is headlined by Louise Bourgoin (see pic above), whose filmography is fast proving her to be more than a beautiful face,...
Gist: Il est parti dimanche takes place during the weekend of Pentecost, a teacher in the South of France unexpectedly is charged with taking care of a student left behind by a forgetful father. On a beach near Montepellier, a woman named Sandra, who wants to win back her son’s affections due to herself being a forgetful mother, invites the teacher and his student to her home.
Predictions: For her seventh feature as director, we’re predicting an Un Certain Regard slot for He Left on Sunday. Garcia’s played the Main Comp in 2002 and 2006 (The Adversary; Charlie Says), and while she’s certainly among the most notable actress/directors, she may be edged out of the entering the Main Comp this year. However, the film is headlined by Louise Bourgoin (see pic above), whose filmography is fast proving her to be more than a beautiful face,...
- 4/3/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Tags: Best Lesbian Bi Movie EverBest Lesbian Movie EverJamie BabbitAngela RobinsonIlene ChaikenColey SohnShamim SarifIMDb
The voting on our Best Lesbian/Bi Movie Ever poll closes next Tuesday, and if you haven't yet figured out what film deserves your click of approval, then perhaps you'll take some professional opinions into account. We asked some of our favorite out directors, actors and writers to tell us which movie they'd vote for to win the title of Best Lesbian/Bi Movie Ever, and it proved to be an interesting experiment. Most of them had the same problem you do: It's hard to pick just one! You might even get a few new films to watch out of reading their responses.
Photos from Getty
Jamie Babbit, director of But I'm a Cheerleader: Heavenly Creatures is my vote. Kate Winslet in her first role and Melanie Lynsky (she was later in my film But I'm a Cheerleader...
The voting on our Best Lesbian/Bi Movie Ever poll closes next Tuesday, and if you haven't yet figured out what film deserves your click of approval, then perhaps you'll take some professional opinions into account. We asked some of our favorite out directors, actors and writers to tell us which movie they'd vote for to win the title of Best Lesbian/Bi Movie Ever, and it proved to be an interesting experiment. Most of them had the same problem you do: It's hard to pick just one! You might even get a few new films to watch out of reading their responses.
Photos from Getty
Jamie Babbit, director of But I'm a Cheerleader: Heavenly Creatures is my vote. Kate Winslet in her first role and Melanie Lynsky (she was later in my film But I'm a Cheerleader...
- 11/9/2012
- by trishbendix
- AfterEllen.com
“We are still coming to terms with Robert Bresson, and the peculiar power and beauty of his films,” Martin Scorsese said in the 2010 book “A Passion For Film,” describing the often overlooked French filmmaker as “one of the cinema’s greatest artists.”
But while he may be revered by some as the finest French filmmaker bar Jean Renoir, outside hardcore cinephile circles he and his films are virtually unknown (perhaps regarded as too opaque or nebulous). Just consider the fact that almost every definitive book on the elusive director was published during the aughts to feel the full truth of Scorsese's statement about how we're still in the process of appreciating and understanding his life and work. Even Bresson’s actual birthdate is contested, adding further the ambiguities surrounding the director.
“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen,” the meticulous Bresson once famously said, hinting at...
But while he may be revered by some as the finest French filmmaker bar Jean Renoir, outside hardcore cinephile circles he and his films are virtually unknown (perhaps regarded as too opaque or nebulous). Just consider the fact that almost every definitive book on the elusive director was published during the aughts to feel the full truth of Scorsese's statement about how we're still in the process of appreciating and understanding his life and work. Even Bresson’s actual birthdate is contested, adding further the ambiguities surrounding the director.
“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen,” the meticulous Bresson once famously said, hinting at...
- 4/18/2012
- by The Playlist
- The Playlist
Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist and Vittorio De Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis were both released in 1970, both based on novels (by Alberto Moravia and Giorgio Bassani, respectively) and both set during World War II. De Sica’s film covers the beginning of Fascist atrocities, while Bertolucci’s film covers the end. The two films are also complementary in terms of their central characters: while the eponymous conformist joins up as a Fascist hitman, the Finzi-Continis are potential victims of the regime. Perhaps it is for this reason that De Sica’s film so easily carries the director’s gentle and engaging mark, while much of Bertolucci’s feature is as cold and charmless as Fascist architecture.
Fans of De Sica will find in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis both beloved characteristics of the director’s famed neo-realist approach, and stimulating new additions such as warm colour photography,...
Fans of De Sica will find in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis both beloved characteristics of the director’s famed neo-realist approach, and stimulating new additions such as warm colour photography,...
- 3/6/2012
- by Alison Frank
- The Moving Arts Journal
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: April 24, 2012
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Olive Films
Bernardo Bertolucci’s (The Last Emperor) monumental 1977 film 1900 is both an epic history of 20th century Italy and an intimate portrait of two friends, both born on Jan. 1, 1900.
Set in Bertolucci’s ancestral region of Emilia in Northern Italy, 1900 zeroes in on same-day birthday boys Olmo Dalcò (Gerard Depardieu, Potiche), the son a socialist peasant farmer and Alfredo Berlinghieri (Robert De Niro, Stone), the son of the fascist landowner. The two youths grow into men (and ultimately old men!) and pass through the upheavals of the modern world, their personal conflicts becoming an allegory of the political turmoil of their ever-changing country.
1900‘s international cast includes Burt Lancaster (Sweet Smell of Success), Donald Sutherland (The Eagle), Sterling Hayden (The Killing), Dominique Sanda (Damnation Alley), Alida Valli (Senso) and Stefania Sandrelli (The Conformist). It’s superlative production credits include cinematography...
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Olive Films
Bernardo Bertolucci’s (The Last Emperor) monumental 1977 film 1900 is both an epic history of 20th century Italy and an intimate portrait of two friends, both born on Jan. 1, 1900.
Set in Bertolucci’s ancestral region of Emilia in Northern Italy, 1900 zeroes in on same-day birthday boys Olmo Dalcò (Gerard Depardieu, Potiche), the son a socialist peasant farmer and Alfredo Berlinghieri (Robert De Niro, Stone), the son of the fascist landowner. The two youths grow into men (and ultimately old men!) and pass through the upheavals of the modern world, their personal conflicts becoming an allegory of the political turmoil of their ever-changing country.
1900‘s international cast includes Burt Lancaster (Sweet Smell of Success), Donald Sutherland (The Eagle), Sterling Hayden (The Killing), Dominique Sanda (Damnation Alley), Alida Valli (Senso) and Stefania Sandrelli (The Conformist). It’s superlative production credits include cinematography...
- 2/14/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Robert Bresson: The Over-Plenty of Life is a series we've been running in conjunction with the complete retrospective of Bresson's work that'll be touring North America through May. I thought I'd supplement Ignatiy Vishnevetsky's essays, Daniel Kasman's observations and Adrian Curry's collection of posters with a roundup of pointers to pieces on Bresson that have appeared over the past month or two. One of the occasions of the series, as I mentioned in the entry on the initial announcement (with its basic schedule of cities and dates) is the publication of an expanded and illustrated edition of series curator James Quandt's collection, Robert Bresson (Revised), so let's open this go round with notes on another book, Tony Pipolo's Robert Bresson: A Passion for Film. Jonathan Rosenbaum's posted his review for the Summer 2010 issue of Cineaste, in which he calls it…
one of the most careful and...
one of the most careful and...
- 2/7/2012
- MUBI
On viewing Au hasard Balthazar (1966) at the Robert Bresson retrospective here in New York I noticed this interesting edit:
What's going on here? François Lafarge's miscreant teen Gérard, after insolently facing one of the only characters in the film sympathetic to him, his landlady and boss (or wife of his boss), seems almost to pass through her between the space of one shot (her wiping her tears away) and the next (him walking directly away from her).
What's actually going on here is that in the shot of the woman wiping away her tear, Gérard walks across the frame from left to right, but is so close to the camera he simply seems nearly to fill the frame rather than just move across it. Thus the next shot seems like a 180-degree reverse cut, as if the camera's view point is that of the woman. Actually it's more like a 90-degree cut,...
What's going on here? François Lafarge's miscreant teen Gérard, after insolently facing one of the only characters in the film sympathetic to him, his landlady and boss (or wife of his boss), seems almost to pass through her between the space of one shot (her wiping her tears away) and the next (him walking directly away from her).
What's actually going on here is that in the shot of the woman wiping away her tear, Gérard walks across the frame from left to right, but is so close to the camera he simply seems nearly to fill the frame rather than just move across it. Thus the next shot seems like a 180-degree reverse cut, as if the camera's view point is that of the woman. Actually it's more like a 90-degree cut,...
- 1/25/2012
- MUBI
Hitting movie theaters this weekend:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
Winnie the Pooh – Jim Cummings, Craig Ferguson, John Cleese
Movie of the Week
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
The Plot: The final chapter of the Harry Potter franchise. Harry, Ron, and Hermione continue in their quest to find and destroy the Dark Lord’s three remaining Horcruxes
The Buzz: We’ve been following these spell-casters around now for just over a decade, and it’s hard to believe that their journey is coming to a close. It’s been interesting to see Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint grow up on screen. I’ve personally found these films to be more and more palatable as the kids have moved on through the years, and have therefore found each...
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
Winnie the Pooh – Jim Cummings, Craig Ferguson, John Cleese
Movie of the Week
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
The Plot: The final chapter of the Harry Potter franchise. Harry, Ron, and Hermione continue in their quest to find and destroy the Dark Lord’s three remaining Horcruxes
The Buzz: We’ve been following these spell-casters around now for just over a decade, and it’s hard to believe that their journey is coming to a close. It’s been interesting to see Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint grow up on screen. I’ve personally found these films to be more and more palatable as the kids have moved on through the years, and have therefore found each...
- 7/13/2011
- by Aaron Ruffcorn
- The Scorecard Review
Rank the week of July 12th’s Blu-ray and DVD new releases against the best films of all-time: New Releases Arthur
(DVD and Blu-ray | PG13 | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #5711
Times Ranked: 827
Win Percentage: 52%
Top-20 Rankings: 6
Directed By: Jason Winer
Starring: Russell Brand • Helen Mirren • Greta Gerwig • Jennifer Garner • Luis Guzman
Genres: Comedy • Farce
Rank This Movie
The Lincoln Lawyer
(DVD and Blu-ray | R | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #2807
Times Ranked: 1535
Win Percentage: 55%
Top-20 Rankings: 6
Directed By: Brad Furman
Starring: Matthew McConaughey • Marisa Tomei • Ryan Phillippe • William H. Macy • John Leguizamo
Genres: Drama • Psychological Thriller • Thriller
Rank This Movie
Rango
(DVD and Blu-ray | PG | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #595
Times Ranked: 5790
Win Percentage: 38%
Top-20 Rankings: 18
Directed By: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp • Isla Fisher • Abigail Breslin • Ned Beatty • Alfred Molina
Genres: Action • Adventure • Animation • Comedy • Family-Oriented Adventure • Family-Oriented Comedy • Western
Rank This Movie
Insidious
(DVD and Blu-ray | PG13 | 2010)
Flickchart Ranking: #3119
Times Ranked: 1785
Win Percentage: 52%
Top-20 Rankings: 6
Directed By: James Wan...
(DVD and Blu-ray | PG13 | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #5711
Times Ranked: 827
Win Percentage: 52%
Top-20 Rankings: 6
Directed By: Jason Winer
Starring: Russell Brand • Helen Mirren • Greta Gerwig • Jennifer Garner • Luis Guzman
Genres: Comedy • Farce
Rank This Movie
The Lincoln Lawyer
(DVD and Blu-ray | R | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #2807
Times Ranked: 1535
Win Percentage: 55%
Top-20 Rankings: 6
Directed By: Brad Furman
Starring: Matthew McConaughey • Marisa Tomei • Ryan Phillippe • William H. Macy • John Leguizamo
Genres: Drama • Psychological Thriller • Thriller
Rank This Movie
Rango
(DVD and Blu-ray | PG | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #595
Times Ranked: 5790
Win Percentage: 38%
Top-20 Rankings: 18
Directed By: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp • Isla Fisher • Abigail Breslin • Ned Beatty • Alfred Molina
Genres: Action • Adventure • Animation • Comedy • Family-Oriented Adventure • Family-Oriented Comedy • Western
Rank This Movie
Insidious
(DVD and Blu-ray | PG13 | 2010)
Flickchart Ranking: #3119
Times Ranked: 1785
Win Percentage: 52%
Top-20 Rankings: 6
Directed By: James Wan...
- 7/12/2011
- by Jonathan Hardesty
- Flickchart
Shout! Factory will release the 1977 futuristic science fiction adventure movie Damnation Alley on DVD and Blu-Ray for the first time ever on July 12.
Hop onto the Landmaster for post-apocalyptic adventure in Damnation Alley.
A guilty pleasure in its day that has since become a cult favorite, the film is set in the future two years after the Earth has been titled off its axis by the devastation caused by World War III. On a post-apocalyptic landscape saturated by radiation, two Air Force officers (Seventies mainstay Jan-Michael Vincent and George Peppard of TV’s The A-Team) and a pair of other survivors (Watchmen’s Jackie Earle Haley and Euro-starlet Dominique Sanda) set out across the barren, post-apocalyptic planet in a really cool “Landmaster” vehicle, which functions as a tank, a bus and a mobile home.
Directed by Jack Smight (Airport 1975) and filled with such end-of-the-world delights as giant scorpions and...
Hop onto the Landmaster for post-apocalyptic adventure in Damnation Alley.
A guilty pleasure in its day that has since become a cult favorite, the film is set in the future two years after the Earth has been titled off its axis by the devastation caused by World War III. On a post-apocalyptic landscape saturated by radiation, two Air Force officers (Seventies mainstay Jan-Michael Vincent and George Peppard of TV’s The A-Team) and a pair of other survivors (Watchmen’s Jackie Earle Haley and Euro-starlet Dominique Sanda) set out across the barren, post-apocalyptic planet in a really cool “Landmaster” vehicle, which functions as a tank, a bus and a mobile home.
Directed by Jack Smight (Airport 1975) and filled with such end-of-the-world delights as giant scorpions and...
- 4/14/2011
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Rome -- After 54 years, the Taormina Film Festival is reinventing itself.
The august festival, until now held solely in a picturesque village on a cliff near the northeast corner of Sicily, will reach out to become more of an island-wide event with this year's 55th edition.
Among the changes announced Thursday is a name change. The festival will be henceforth known as the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily. Also announced was the decision to hold screenings and programs in other parts of the island, including the cities of Palermo, Syracuse and Argrigento.
Taormina, with its ancient Greek Theatre, stunning cliffside setting and view of the Mt. Etna volcano, will still be the festival's centerpiece. But, according to artistic director Deborah Young, the festival's new reach is an important change.
"By reaching out to the whole of Sicily, we are relaunching Taormina as a unique event that is sure to attract large audiences,...
The august festival, until now held solely in a picturesque village on a cliff near the northeast corner of Sicily, will reach out to become more of an island-wide event with this year's 55th edition.
Among the changes announced Thursday is a name change. The festival will be henceforth known as the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily. Also announced was the decision to hold screenings and programs in other parts of the island, including the cities of Palermo, Syracuse and Argrigento.
Taormina, with its ancient Greek Theatre, stunning cliffside setting and view of the Mt. Etna volcano, will still be the festival's centerpiece. But, according to artistic director Deborah Young, the festival's new reach is an important change.
"By reaching out to the whole of Sicily, we are relaunching Taormina as a unique event that is sure to attract large audiences,...
- 2/26/2009
- by By Eric J. Lyman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Release date: Dec. 5, 2006
One of the great triumphs of stylistic filmmaking, Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Conformist", has been released by Paramount as an Extended Edition (retail $14.99). The presentation runs 111 minutes, restoring a sequence, unseen since the 1970 New York Film Festival, in which a group of blind people is holding a bachelor party of sorts for the hero. The film's running time with the scene restored is understood to be 2 hours, and the time discrepancy is likely a result of transferring the film from a European video master with a different frame-per-second ratio (the LD we reviewed in Sept 1984 ran 108 minutes).
Jean-Louis Trintignant portrays a member of a Fascist organization in '30s Italy who volunteers to assassinate his former philosophy professor while visiting Paris on his honeymoon. Although it is never stated explicitly, he apparently once had an affair with the professor's young wife, and he rekindles the romance when the four meet ostensibly to celebrate old times. Dominique Sanda plays the professor's wife and Stefania Sandrelli is the bride. Throughout the film, characters are blocked in unnaturally formal ways, but Vittorio Storaro's cinematography was and remains an exhilarated unleashing of manipulated light and perspective. Paced by Georges Delerue's playfully intoxicating musical score, the film's images and movement represent a pinnacle in technical conception and execution, and yet are consummately integrated with the narrative and performances, so there is never time to feel that the direction is showy or distracting. The film should not work at all. The story's thematic core is that the hero does bad things to overcompensate for the fear that he is gay, which is contradicted by the lighthearted tone much of the film sustains. The romantic couplings between the hero and the professor's wife have an obnoxious male-fantasy rush to their exposition, and, in fact, every moment Sanda is on the screen is an unnaturally idealized vision of desire. The political symbolism of the narrative is so obvious that a blind Fascist character is named "Italo" and the hero speaks with misty reverence for the professor's lecture on what was clearly a day-one introduction to Plato and his Cave. There are many other moments that can be picked out as absurd or ridiculous -- Sanda also appears in the film, briefly, as two other characters -- but every flaw or every shortcoming the film could possibly have is smoothed over and erased by the film's style, in the same way that paint fills in crevices and cracks to bring conformity to an uneven surface. The Plato lecture becomes a brilliant metaphor for the execution of film; Sanda, counterpointed by Sandrelli, translates the abstract beauty of Storaro's compositions into human terms; the film's lighthearted tone undercuts any heavyhanded metaphorical imperatives; and the story is just ambiguous enough, poking around the hero's psyche but keeping some stones deliberately unturned, that it leaves a viewer pondering its mysteries and possibilities, even after dozens of viewings. Most importantly, the viewer is overwhelmed by the sensuous construction of the film itself, and from there, it does not take much to become lost in Cinema forever. At least, that's what happened to us.
The picture is presented in letterboxed format only, windowboxed with an aspect ratio of about 1.66:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The color transfer is excellent. There are points where the heavy colors in Storaro's lighting could not be entirely accommodated by the film's production budget, but those moments aside, the image is sharp and colors are precise. The monophonic sound has a little background noise but is workable. A joint Italian-French production with Italian and French stars, the movie has no natural language. The Italian track is generally the preferred one, although the French track also works fairly well. The English track is less satisfying, as it just doesn't feel lyrical enough to match the way the film flows. The DVD also has a Spanish track and a Portuguese track, and optional English, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. There is a fairly good 39-minute retrospective interview with Bertolucci and Storaro, but while the contributions of several other artists are discussed, Delerue's work curiously passes unmentioned.
Combining the idealism of a Soviet epic with the sex and violence of the decadent West, Bertolucci's ambitious near-masterpiece, "1900", is also available from Paramount, as a Two-Disc Collector's Edition (retail $19.99), with Part One appearing on the first platter and Part Two on the second. The first half of Part One, in which Burt Lancaster portrays a wealthy Italian landowner and patriarch, and Sterling Hayden is his opposite number, so to speak, among the peasants working his land, is as magnificent and glorious a piece of filmmaking as you will ever see, with Storaro's cinematography evoking Old Master paintings and the depiction of life on the isolated estate being a worthy microcosm for the world's disparity of wealth then, now and always.
The film's brilliance dulls a bit, however, when Robert De Niro and Gerard Depardieu take over the film as the respective grandchildren of the owner and the peasant, as most of the film is then about their struggle with the rise of Fascism in Italy and its subsequent displacement by communist aspirations. The film takes an absolute dive early in the Part Two, when Donald Sutherland, playing the overseer and local Fascist official, swings a young boy around crazily and smashes the boy's head against a wall, four times. Even on subsequent viewings, when the sequence no longer turns the stomach, the whole movie seems to unravel at that point, or crack apart, actually, like the boy's skull.
Paramount has released Bertolucci's first cut of the film, with its graphic nudity intact, running 315 minutes, about an hour longer than the version released previously on home video and presented theatrically in America. It works much better than the shorter version, and Part Two, in particular, is more coherent. Sutherland's overplayed obnoxiousness, however, still disrupts the film's realism and breaks its mood to a certain extent. Depardieu is the most appealing of the three stars, but his character generally just reacts to what is going on around him, with little interior life. De Niro's character is a wet noodle, something he has never been able to play well and is at a particular loss here amidst the polyglot cast. Sanda is also featured, and is very good in some sequences and somewhat over-mannered in others, although visually, she is always transfixing.
The film, again, has no real original language. Whether you listen to the English track, the French track or the Italian track, some of the actors are dubbed, and there are times when the lip movements do not line up perfectly even when a performer is speaking his own language. Hayden and Lancaster are worth hearing in English, and Sanda's accented English matches the foreignness of her character effectively, but the bulk of the movie works best in Italian (it is how you should show it to your friends if they've never seen the film before), even though you lose a mild dimensionality in some passages from Ennio Morricone's score, because only the English track is stereophonic. The dubbing improves De Niro's flat line readings and allows you to concentrate more on his reasonably animated expressions. It also eliminates the weaknesses of Depardieu's bland English dubbing, while Sutherland, on the other hand, is more effectively subdued. There are optional English subtitles.
The picture is presented in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 1.85:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. Some darker sequences are heavily grainy, and the image is usually a Little Soft unless a scene is set in bright sunlight, but for the most part, the transfer is satisfying and does justice to Storaro's outstanding cinematography. Although spread over a half century, the film is structured atmospherically with a Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring motif, which also reflects the emotional lives of the characters. In any cases, each seasonal expression is beautifully executed, from warm summer colors to a de facto black and white in some of the winter scenes.
In addition to Part Two, the second platter contains 27 minutes of nice retrospective interviews with Bertolucci and Storaro. Bertolucci says that he had contemplated making a sequel, but that neither he nor Italy is that politically motivated any more, a feeling you absorb almost instinctively by the drawn out and unstirring nature of the finale.
The complete database of Doug Pratt's DVD-video reviews is available at dvdlaser.com. A sample copy of the DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter can be obtained by calling (516) 594-9304.
One of the great triumphs of stylistic filmmaking, Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Conformist", has been released by Paramount as an Extended Edition (retail $14.99). The presentation runs 111 minutes, restoring a sequence, unseen since the 1970 New York Film Festival, in which a group of blind people is holding a bachelor party of sorts for the hero. The film's running time with the scene restored is understood to be 2 hours, and the time discrepancy is likely a result of transferring the film from a European video master with a different frame-per-second ratio (the LD we reviewed in Sept 1984 ran 108 minutes).
Jean-Louis Trintignant portrays a member of a Fascist organization in '30s Italy who volunteers to assassinate his former philosophy professor while visiting Paris on his honeymoon. Although it is never stated explicitly, he apparently once had an affair with the professor's young wife, and he rekindles the romance when the four meet ostensibly to celebrate old times. Dominique Sanda plays the professor's wife and Stefania Sandrelli is the bride. Throughout the film, characters are blocked in unnaturally formal ways, but Vittorio Storaro's cinematography was and remains an exhilarated unleashing of manipulated light and perspective. Paced by Georges Delerue's playfully intoxicating musical score, the film's images and movement represent a pinnacle in technical conception and execution, and yet are consummately integrated with the narrative and performances, so there is never time to feel that the direction is showy or distracting. The film should not work at all. The story's thematic core is that the hero does bad things to overcompensate for the fear that he is gay, which is contradicted by the lighthearted tone much of the film sustains. The romantic couplings between the hero and the professor's wife have an obnoxious male-fantasy rush to their exposition, and, in fact, every moment Sanda is on the screen is an unnaturally idealized vision of desire. The political symbolism of the narrative is so obvious that a blind Fascist character is named "Italo" and the hero speaks with misty reverence for the professor's lecture on what was clearly a day-one introduction to Plato and his Cave. There are many other moments that can be picked out as absurd or ridiculous -- Sanda also appears in the film, briefly, as two other characters -- but every flaw or every shortcoming the film could possibly have is smoothed over and erased by the film's style, in the same way that paint fills in crevices and cracks to bring conformity to an uneven surface. The Plato lecture becomes a brilliant metaphor for the execution of film; Sanda, counterpointed by Sandrelli, translates the abstract beauty of Storaro's compositions into human terms; the film's lighthearted tone undercuts any heavyhanded metaphorical imperatives; and the story is just ambiguous enough, poking around the hero's psyche but keeping some stones deliberately unturned, that it leaves a viewer pondering its mysteries and possibilities, even after dozens of viewings. Most importantly, the viewer is overwhelmed by the sensuous construction of the film itself, and from there, it does not take much to become lost in Cinema forever. At least, that's what happened to us.
The picture is presented in letterboxed format only, windowboxed with an aspect ratio of about 1.66:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The color transfer is excellent. There are points where the heavy colors in Storaro's lighting could not be entirely accommodated by the film's production budget, but those moments aside, the image is sharp and colors are precise. The monophonic sound has a little background noise but is workable. A joint Italian-French production with Italian and French stars, the movie has no natural language. The Italian track is generally the preferred one, although the French track also works fairly well. The English track is less satisfying, as it just doesn't feel lyrical enough to match the way the film flows. The DVD also has a Spanish track and a Portuguese track, and optional English, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. There is a fairly good 39-minute retrospective interview with Bertolucci and Storaro, but while the contributions of several other artists are discussed, Delerue's work curiously passes unmentioned.
Combining the idealism of a Soviet epic with the sex and violence of the decadent West, Bertolucci's ambitious near-masterpiece, "1900", is also available from Paramount, as a Two-Disc Collector's Edition (retail $19.99), with Part One appearing on the first platter and Part Two on the second. The first half of Part One, in which Burt Lancaster portrays a wealthy Italian landowner and patriarch, and Sterling Hayden is his opposite number, so to speak, among the peasants working his land, is as magnificent and glorious a piece of filmmaking as you will ever see, with Storaro's cinematography evoking Old Master paintings and the depiction of life on the isolated estate being a worthy microcosm for the world's disparity of wealth then, now and always.
The film's brilliance dulls a bit, however, when Robert De Niro and Gerard Depardieu take over the film as the respective grandchildren of the owner and the peasant, as most of the film is then about their struggle with the rise of Fascism in Italy and its subsequent displacement by communist aspirations. The film takes an absolute dive early in the Part Two, when Donald Sutherland, playing the overseer and local Fascist official, swings a young boy around crazily and smashes the boy's head against a wall, four times. Even on subsequent viewings, when the sequence no longer turns the stomach, the whole movie seems to unravel at that point, or crack apart, actually, like the boy's skull.
Paramount has released Bertolucci's first cut of the film, with its graphic nudity intact, running 315 minutes, about an hour longer than the version released previously on home video and presented theatrically in America. It works much better than the shorter version, and Part Two, in particular, is more coherent. Sutherland's overplayed obnoxiousness, however, still disrupts the film's realism and breaks its mood to a certain extent. Depardieu is the most appealing of the three stars, but his character generally just reacts to what is going on around him, with little interior life. De Niro's character is a wet noodle, something he has never been able to play well and is at a particular loss here amidst the polyglot cast. Sanda is also featured, and is very good in some sequences and somewhat over-mannered in others, although visually, she is always transfixing.
The film, again, has no real original language. Whether you listen to the English track, the French track or the Italian track, some of the actors are dubbed, and there are times when the lip movements do not line up perfectly even when a performer is speaking his own language. Hayden and Lancaster are worth hearing in English, and Sanda's accented English matches the foreignness of her character effectively, but the bulk of the movie works best in Italian (it is how you should show it to your friends if they've never seen the film before), even though you lose a mild dimensionality in some passages from Ennio Morricone's score, because only the English track is stereophonic. The dubbing improves De Niro's flat line readings and allows you to concentrate more on his reasonably animated expressions. It also eliminates the weaknesses of Depardieu's bland English dubbing, while Sutherland, on the other hand, is more effectively subdued. There are optional English subtitles.
The picture is presented in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 1.85:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. Some darker sequences are heavily grainy, and the image is usually a Little Soft unless a scene is set in bright sunlight, but for the most part, the transfer is satisfying and does justice to Storaro's outstanding cinematography. Although spread over a half century, the film is structured atmospherically with a Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring motif, which also reflects the emotional lives of the characters. In any cases, each seasonal expression is beautifully executed, from warm summer colors to a de facto black and white in some of the winter scenes.
In addition to Part Two, the second platter contains 27 minutes of nice retrospective interviews with Bertolucci and Storaro. Bertolucci says that he had contemplated making a sequel, but that neither he nor Italy is that politically motivated any more, a feeling you absorb almost instinctively by the drawn out and unstirring nature of the finale.
The complete database of Doug Pratt's DVD-video reviews is available at dvdlaser.com. A sample copy of the DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter can be obtained by calling (516) 594-9304.
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