Following the financial failure of “Dodes’kaden” and the completion of the Soviet-Japanese feature “Dersu Uzala,” Akira Kurosawa would return to the familiar world of jidaigeki. His samurai epic “Kagemusha” would be a successful return to form, wowing audiences with its striking visuals and compelling story. While experimental with the scope as the director’s most ambitious feature at the time was, budget finances were more comfortably assembled than with previous projects. On top of that, the production would also receive additional funds. This other aid was thanks to the help of admirers George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, who worked as co-producers, along with international financial support and distribution by 20th Century Fox. At this point, Kurosawa was getting older, yet he was still motivated to create art. A few years later, he would do just that again and went on to release his grand masterpiece “Ran.
- 1/19/2023
- by Sean Barry
- AsianMoviePulse
Director René Clément brings an entertainingly eccentric David Goodis crime story to the screen in high style. A big score is being prepped by an odd gang, played by a terrific lineup of talent: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari and the elusive Tisa Farrow. Only partly an action thriller, this one is weird but good — lovers of hardboiled crime stories can’t go wrong. Studiocanal has restored the original version, a full forty minutes longer than what was briefly shown here.
And Hope to Die
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1972 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / La course du lièvre à travers les champs / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari, Tisa Farrow, Jean Gaven, André Lawrence, Nadine Nabokov, Jean Coutu, Daniel Breton, Emmanuelle Béart.
Cinematography: Edmond Richard
Film Editor: Roger Dwyre
Original Music: Francis Lai
Written by Sébastien Japrisot from...
And Hope to Die
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1972 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / La course du lièvre à travers les champs / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari, Tisa Farrow, Jean Gaven, André Lawrence, Nadine Nabokov, Jean Coutu, Daniel Breton, Emmanuelle Béart.
Cinematography: Edmond Richard
Film Editor: Roger Dwyre
Original Music: Francis Lai
Written by Sébastien Japrisot from...
- 1/12/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
All hail the cinematic delights of Luis Buñuel, a world-class directing genius whose work ranges from insightfully impish to point-blank outrageous. Driven from Spain by Fascists and from New York by commie hunters, he found a cinematic haven in Mexico, adapting his surreal mindset to popular film forms. These final three French features embrace the surrealist ethos, where a coherent narrative is optional. We definitely recognize our ‘rational’ world; Buñuel’s high art simply tells the truth.
Three Films by Luis Buñuel
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, That Obscure Object of Desire
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 102. 290, 143
1972-1977 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 5, 2021 / 99.95
Cinematography: Edmond Richard
Production Designer: Pierre Guffroy
Film Editor: Hélène Plemiannikov
Written by Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière
Produced by Serge Silberman
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Tracking down the films of Luis Buñuel has been an ongoing effort.
Three Films by Luis Buñuel
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, That Obscure Object of Desire
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 102. 290, 143
1972-1977 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 5, 2021 / 99.95
Cinematography: Edmond Richard
Production Designer: Pierre Guffroy
Film Editor: Hélène Plemiannikov
Written by Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière
Produced by Serge Silberman
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Tracking down the films of Luis Buñuel has been an ongoing effort.
- 1/9/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The Criterion Collection will be heralding in 2021 with a mix of new and old. First up, Bing Liu’s stellar documentary Minding the Gap will be joining the collection, as will another documentary, Martin Scorsese’s playful Rolling Thunder Revue. Also arriving is a three-film Luis Buñuel box set focusing on his late career, featuring The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, and That Obscure Object of Desire. Larisa Shepitko’s final, harrowing feature The Ascent will also be getting a release.
Check out the cover art and special features below, and see more on Criterion’s website.
New high-definition digital master, approved by director Bing Liu, with 5.1 surround DTS-hd Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-rayNew audio commentary featuring Liu and documentary subjects Keire Johnson and Zack MulliganNew follow-up conversation between Liu and documentary subject Nina BowgrenNew programs featuring interviews with professional skateboarder Tony Hawk and with Liu,...
Check out the cover art and special features below, and see more on Criterion’s website.
New high-definition digital master, approved by director Bing Liu, with 5.1 surround DTS-hd Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-rayNew audio commentary featuring Liu and documentary subjects Keire Johnson and Zack MulliganNew follow-up conversation between Liu and documentary subject Nina BowgrenNew programs featuring interviews with professional skateboarder Tony Hawk and with Liu,...
- 10/16/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
By Alex DeleonCharlotte Rampling in the Festival SpotlightThe first film seen at the festival in the homage to Charlotte Rampling retro was somewhat of a disappointment. I had seen this picture when it first came out in Japan and was favorably impressed at the time by its outrageous sense of the absurd, especially as made by a serious A level Japanese director like Nagisa Oshima (died 2013 at age 80). This time around the humor, at least for me, did not hold up and I was rather bored most of the way.
Today it is of little more than passing historical interest
There is, however, an interesting background to this very offbeat Franco-Japanese co-production from the year 1986 by which timeNagisa Ôshima was regarded as a first class Japanese iconoclast. Outside of Japan he was highly regarded in France where his mainstream hardcore porno films In the realm of the Senses (1976) and Empire of Passion...
Today it is of little more than passing historical interest
There is, however, an interesting background to this very offbeat Franco-Japanese co-production from the year 1986 by which timeNagisa Ôshima was regarded as a first class Japanese iconoclast. Outside of Japan he was highly regarded in France where his mainstream hardcore porno films In the realm of the Senses (1976) and Empire of Passion...
- 2/14/2019
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Engaged to direct by a reputable producer, Jesús Franco takes yet another stab at conventional B&W horror. The pulp thrills get a boost through the contributions of talented collaborators: excellent camerawork flatters the idiosyncratic obsessions of a writer-director in search of his own dream-world sensibility. Although it’s not saying much, this might be the best of Franco’s earlier B&W horror output.
The Diabolical Dr. Z
Blu-ray
Redemption / Kino Lorber
1966 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 87 min. / Miss Muerte; Dans les griffes du maniaque / Street Date February 6, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Estella Blain, Mabel Karr, Howard Vernon, Fernando Montes, Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui, Guy Mairesse, Antonio Jiménez Escribano, Lucía Prado, Daniel White, Jesús Franco.
Cinematography: Alejandro Ulloa
Film Editor: Marie-Louise Barberot, Jean Feyte
Original Music: Daniel White
Written by David Kuhne (Jesús Franco), Jean-Claude Carrière
Produced by Serge Silberman, Michel Safra
Directed by Jesús Franco
Am I correct when I remember...
The Diabolical Dr. Z
Blu-ray
Redemption / Kino Lorber
1966 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 87 min. / Miss Muerte; Dans les griffes du maniaque / Street Date February 6, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Estella Blain, Mabel Karr, Howard Vernon, Fernando Montes, Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui, Guy Mairesse, Antonio Jiménez Escribano, Lucía Prado, Daniel White, Jesús Franco.
Cinematography: Alejandro Ulloa
Film Editor: Marie-Louise Barberot, Jean Feyte
Original Music: Daniel White
Written by David Kuhne (Jesús Franco), Jean-Claude Carrière
Produced by Serge Silberman, Michel Safra
Directed by Jesús Franco
Am I correct when I remember...
- 1/27/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Sean Penn: Honorary César goes Hollywood – again (photo: Sean Penn in '21 Grams') Sean Penn, 54, will receive the 2015 Honorary César (César d'Honneur), the French Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Crafts has announced. That means the French Academy's powers-that-be are once again trying to make the Prix César ceremony relevant to the American media. Their tactic is to hand out the career award to a widely known and relatively young – i.e., media friendly – Hollywood celebrity. (Scroll down for more such examples.) In the words of the French Academy, Honorary César 2015 recipient Sean Penn is a "living legend" and "a stand-alone icon in American cinema." It has also hailed the two-time Best Actor Oscar winner as a "mythical actor, a politically active personality and an exceptional director." Penn will be honored at the César Awards ceremony on Feb. 20, 2015. Sean Penn movies Sean Penn movies range from the teen comedy...
- 1/28/2015
- by Steve Montgomery
- Alt Film Guide
That Obscure Object Of Desire screens tonight at Bam as part of their Buñuel retrospective, July 11 - August 14).
Pauline Kael may have dubbed David Lynch “the first popular surrealist,” but the honor is more accurately bestowed upon Spanish maestro Luis Buñuel. Though his Salvador Dalí collaboration, Un chien andalou (1929), is regarded as a touchstone of the movement, it was not until later in his career that Buñuel would exploit the very meaning of the surreal, brashly straying from his contemporaries’ aesthetically driven impulses. With the respectively never-ending and never-beginning dinner parties of his elliptical masterpieces The Exterminating Angel (1962) and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Buñuel’s breed of Surrealism drew itself so close to the upper middle-class quotidian, it became far more subversive than any old melting clock. The conceptual hysteria of his films is in turn grounded by a simplified mise-en-scène; the surroundings are such that any outlandish yarn appears rooted in reality.
Pauline Kael may have dubbed David Lynch “the first popular surrealist,” but the honor is more accurately bestowed upon Spanish maestro Luis Buñuel. Though his Salvador Dalí collaboration, Un chien andalou (1929), is regarded as a touchstone of the movement, it was not until later in his career that Buñuel would exploit the very meaning of the surreal, brashly straying from his contemporaries’ aesthetically driven impulses. With the respectively never-ending and never-beginning dinner parties of his elliptical masterpieces The Exterminating Angel (1962) and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Buñuel’s breed of Surrealism drew itself so close to the upper middle-class quotidian, it became far more subversive than any old melting clock. The conceptual hysteria of his films is in turn grounded by a simplified mise-en-scène; the surroundings are such that any outlandish yarn appears rooted in reality.
- 8/8/2014
- by Sarah Salovaara
- MUBI
Akira Kurosawa Week concludes at Trailers from Hell with director Brian Trenchard-Smith introducing "Ran," Kurosawa's existential epic of chaos with Japanese superstar Tatsuya Nakadai in the King Lear-esque lead role.Like Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa found it difficult to find backing for projects in his later years. Producer Serge Silberman came to the rescue with a Japanese-French coproduction package to enable the director to make this dark spectacle based primarily on the exploits of an actual 16th century warlord, although there are undeniable similarities to King Lear. Kurosawa spent ten years storyboarding the film as paintings, accounting for the stunning visuals throughout.
- 4/12/2013
- by Trailers From Hell
- Thompson on Hollywood
Luis Buñuel’s 1970 masterpiece Tristana (which closed the 8th New York Film Festival) is being re-released in New York today, at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, with little fanfare. But it gives me an excuse not only to show the many varied international posters for the film, but to also to display two fascinating pieces of ephemera.
The first is this photograph, below, which blew my mind when I saw it in the Telegraph magazine in the UK this summer. A slightly different version appears in Buñuel’s autobiography My Last Sigh, where he tells the story behind it (his longtime collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière—“I am the only one from this picture still alive”—gave his own account in the Telegraph). Two years after Tristana, the 72-year-old director was in Los Angeles to present his next film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, at the L.A. Film Festival, and George Cukor,...
The first is this photograph, below, which blew my mind when I saw it in the Telegraph magazine in the UK this summer. A slightly different version appears in Buñuel’s autobiography My Last Sigh, where he tells the story behind it (his longtime collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière—“I am the only one from this picture still alive”—gave his own account in the Telegraph). Two years after Tristana, the 72-year-old director was in Los Angeles to present his next film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, at the L.A. Film Festival, and George Cukor,...
- 10/12/2012
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
While New Yorkers have plenty of opportunity to see classic films on the big screen, you'll be hard pressed to find a lineup as front to back awesome as the Film Society Of Lincoln Center's "15 For 15: Celebrating Rialto Pictures."
The series honors the reknowned arthouse distribution shingle founded in 1997 that has brought some of the best known (and previously unknown) classics of cinema to American audiences. And the selection here by programmers Scott Foundas, Eric Di Bernardo and Adrienne Halpern represents the breadth and scope of the films Rialto has put their stamp on, ranging from the French New Wave ("Breathless") to film noir ("Rififi") to comedy ("Billy Liar") and more. There is something here for everybody and with the series kicking off tonight, we've got a special prize for some lucky readers.
Courtesy of Film Society Of Lincoln Center, we've got a copy of the excellent Rialto DVD...
The series honors the reknowned arthouse distribution shingle founded in 1997 that has brought some of the best known (and previously unknown) classics of cinema to American audiences. And the selection here by programmers Scott Foundas, Eric Di Bernardo and Adrienne Halpern represents the breadth and scope of the films Rialto has put their stamp on, ranging from the French New Wave ("Breathless") to film noir ("Rififi") to comedy ("Billy Liar") and more. There is something here for everybody and with the series kicking off tonight, we've got a special prize for some lucky readers.
Courtesy of Film Society Of Lincoln Center, we've got a copy of the excellent Rialto DVD...
- 3/19/2012
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Beineix.
Jean-jacques Beineix:
Divas and Lions and Moons, Oh My!
By Alex Simon
The Noveulle Vague, or “French New Wave” was launched by a group of film critics and cinefiles who began France’s legendary Cahiers du Cinéma magazine in the 1950s. With Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless in 1959, the movement was launched, emphasizing behavior over aesthetics, content over form, and pastiche of other film genres (particularly those born in the U.S., with a healthy dollop of Italian neorealism) over the more traditional narratives of French films from years past. Francois Truffaut, Jacques Demy, Agnes Varda (see our interview with her below) Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette all fell under the spell of magazine co-founder and theorist Andre Bazin, laying the groundwork for a series of articles, monographs and critiques that formed the so-called “auteur theory,” (or more specifically “"La politique des auteurs" ("The policy of authors,...
Jean-jacques Beineix:
Divas and Lions and Moons, Oh My!
By Alex Simon
The Noveulle Vague, or “French New Wave” was launched by a group of film critics and cinefiles who began France’s legendary Cahiers du Cinéma magazine in the 1950s. With Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless in 1959, the movement was launched, emphasizing behavior over aesthetics, content over form, and pastiche of other film genres (particularly those born in the U.S., with a healthy dollop of Italian neorealism) over the more traditional narratives of French films from years past. Francois Truffaut, Jacques Demy, Agnes Varda (see our interview with her below) Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette all fell under the spell of magazine co-founder and theorist Andre Bazin, laying the groundwork for a series of articles, monographs and critiques that formed the so-called “auteur theory,” (or more specifically “"La politique des auteurs" ("The policy of authors,...
- 7/14/2009
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.