I'm back!

You may have noticed (well, I hope you did anyway) that I haven't been active for the past ten days or so, this lapse is entirely due to the fact that the area I live in lost access to the internet for that whole period of time :(

Well, now I'm back online and I see I've got a lot to catch up with, I really can't wait to read all of the excellent reviews and other such things you guys have written, and I assure you that I'll be writing some soon.

I'm glad to be back, for I missed the intelligent discussion you guys provide and your interesting reviews.

My next review will be of Werner Herzog's debut film, Signs Of Life.

Peeping Tom - 1960

Introduction:
Director Michael Powell and his frequent collaborator Emeric Pressburger (known as The Archers, they co-directed, co-produced and even co-wrote many films) are in my opinion some of the best British directors, with such amazing films as Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes to their names.
Powell was always more associated with the direction of the films, and  Pressburger with the scripts, and while that is generally how they worked they did pretty much everything as a duo.
After many years of working together and having raised their names alongside other great British directors such as David Lean and Carol Reed, they parted ways to explore different projects, Emeric Pressburger continued writing scripts for many years and Michael Powell directed Peeping Tom, one of the most infamous films of it's time. This film effectively ended his career as it was almost universally panned and labelled as pornographic, which is absurd.
Although Powell did direct about five other films, they were mainly failures due to the bad reputation caused by this film and his career was entirely finished by the early 1970's.

 

Luis Bunuel

 Introduction:
Luis Bunuel is a  well known director, well not for the average audiences, but if you take an interest in Cinema then you would have heard of him, and after a while you'll probably get around to some of his films.Well, that's what happened to me anyway...
Seeing as I only recently became interested in Bunuel's work, I have yet too see many of his films as he was quite a prolific director.
But here are my thoughts on the few I have seen, and I hope that if you aren't familiar with his work you'll be interested in it after reading my thoughts on a handful of his films.

Napoleon (1927)

Introduction:
Finally after much searching I have found a version of Abel Gance's 1927 masterpiece, Napoleon.
I was expecting a lot, as I had heard many great things about this film and was anxious to see it, I felt that my education in film would be incomplete if I didn't.

All I can say is that this film greatly impressed me, as a film buff and as an admirer of Napoleon.

So here are my thoughts on this magnificent film as well as the many reasons you should see it. 

The Dead (1987)

John Huston has always seemed to me to be very much an "American director", that is one of the reasons I haven't seen much of his work as I generally dislike those old American "Classics"; although I will admit that The Maltese Falcon was a good film.

Yet this film, his final film, is very different from what you might expect if you're familiar with his other more famous films such as The African Queen and Treasure of The Sierra Madre.

Aaah! The French and their obsession with changing the titles of films, I'll never comprehend it!

Stalker (1979)

After seeing Solaris and being rather disappointed, I didn't look into Tarkovsky's filmography much until recently when I decided to watch Stalker.

I was very impressed...

 

Henri Georges Clouzot

Recently I thought to myself, you really should see more French films seeing as you live in France and speak the language...

So I did some research and came across Clouzot, he is a Director who is known for his quality films and has often been called a "French Hitchcock" due the enormous amounts of suspense contained in his films and their excellent scripts.

The White Diamond (2004)

Over the past couple of  decades Herzog has been gradually departing from film, and veering more towards Documentaries, with some spectacular results.

His most successful was probably Grizzly Man, which received numerous awards and is in my opinion a fascinating and a moving work. Other great docmunetaries he made over the past years include The Wheel Of Time, Encounters At The End Of The World, Lessons Of Darkness, My Best Fiend.......
Grizzly Man might be Herzogs most acclaimed documentary but in my mind it still doesn't surpass the brilliance that is The White Diamond, it does come close too surpassing it though...

The White Diamond is sadly not very well known, it was quite hard for me to find and I noticed that not many people were familiar with it.
Yet it is definitely worth discovering as it is a work of such beauty, majesty and humaneness, that it would be a crime not to see it.

Gosford Park

Gosford Park

Introduction:

Robert Altman is, in my opinion, a second rate director, the only one of his films that impressed me was The Player. Others such as MASH, The Long Goodbye and Gosford Park were all disappointments.

Gosford Park was Altman’s most successful film, yet I was unimpressed, now I will attempt to explain why.

Stanley Kubrick A Life In Pictures

Stanley Kubrick a Life in Pictures

This is my first review for a documentary so I’m not exactly sure how to go about it, but I’ll try my best.

This documentary shows us the life of the great director Stanley Kubrick through a collection of photographs taken by his family and friends from his early years in Brooklyn until his death at his house in England. The documentary looks at each of the directors films in detail and much is learnt about how Kubrick worked but also how he was as a person. 

So, as can be expected, the documentary is largely complementary of Kubrick and devotes a considerable (but not overwhelming) amount of time to the often forgotten or unseen side of the man, that of a loving family man and a highly capable colleague. It features interviews of his wife and children, his long time colleagues such as his executive producer (who also directed this documentary) Jan Harlan, actors, writers and composers he worked with over the years, and of course his admirers such as Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese.

All these interviews are perfectly placed throughout the film, never focusing too long on one single person. In fact the whole doc is extremely well put together, the unseen before photos are scattered throughout with great timing, the use of music and the change of moods in the doc are very well done. This is a documentary done with massive amounts of love and admiration for the man and if by the end you don’t feel inspired and full of admiration for a great director you probably shouldn’t have started watching this in the first place.

The way I viewed Kubrick has been changed forever after seeing this documentary, and I think that was one of the main goals of the creators, to dispel certain myths and legends that have accumulated over the years due to Kubrick’s reclusive nature. I think Kubrick’s reclusive nature caused him to become one of the most misunderstood directors ever, he is often labelled a perfectionist, a control freak or even tyrannical on set as well as being called reclusive, misogynistic, even insane… This documentary spends time showing how all most of these terms were greatly exaggerated or even entirely false and how pained Kubrick was at being so misunderstood.

Actors who worked with him say he allowed them considerable freedom of improvisation over the scenes even if he did many, many takes. His family and friends claim he never raised his voice. Basically he was much loved by all those he worked with and by his family and certainly wasn’t the sort of director the press made him out to be, he tried hard to make his films enjoyable to watch and was saddened when they weren’t successful (like Barry Lyndon), he didn’t make those films for himself but for the public whom he loved and who continue to love him.

Overall this is a very well made documentary that contains many interesting, amusing and fascinating facts about the visionary director, but also holds up very well as a work of it’s own.

Highly recommended to all fans of Stanley Kubrick, this is the definite documentary on that great director and should be seen by all of his fans as it presents the man in a very different light than what we are used too.

I’ve tried to keep this review short and have purposely not revealed many of the interesting tales told in this documentary, but you really should all watch it as it’s incredibly informative yet very well made…

Rating:::::: 100% (one of the best docs I've seen)