wings ( russian : крылья , tr . krylya ) is a 1966 soviet black and white drama film directed by ukrainian filmmaker larisa shepitko , her first feature film made after graduating from the all-russian state institute for cinematography .

in 1979 , the little known director , screenwriter and actress died in a car accident , leaving behind only a small artistic output of four films .

wings ( 1966 film )

wings is a 1966 film from the soviet union , directed by larisa shepitko .
maya bulgakova in wings ( 1966 ) , one of two films by larisa shepitko now available on dvd .
a south wing was added in 1966 and a north wing in 1971 . gunnar birkerts designed the wings in a contrasting modernist style .
not to be confused with the 1927 film wings , about world war i fighter pilots .
detail from daisies [ selmikrásky ] ( czechoslovakia , 1966 ) , directed by vera chytilová .
chytilová , “chytilová parmi les marguerites , ” interview with adriane aprà , cahiers du cinema 174 ( 1966 ) : 14 .
wings is a lackluster attempt at something that could have been a wonderful piece of art .
votes for krylya ( 1966 ) : the greatest films of all time 2012 ,
sight & sound . retrieved : 1 february 2014 .
wings is about someone who , as a female ex - fighter pilot and stalinist , feels displaced during peacetime .
and there’s another reason for the jungle book’s totemic status within the disney canon . disney died before the film was completed , in december 1966 . the studio closed for a day – just the one – before production continued apace .
rosenbaum , jonathan .
review : wings .
chicago reader , 1 september 1996 . retrieved : 31 december 2013 .
bingham , adam .
no angels : larisa shepitko ' s wings .
senses of cinema , cinémathèque annotations on film , issue 53 , december 2009 . retrieved : 31 december 2013 .
ultimately , wings of desire is a visionary film about vision : the act of watching , with all its fascinations and limitations . here , then , are some of the visual strategies at play .
the film isn ' t terrible , neither is it bad in any way—the film is rather mediocre . of all the content in the film , there is scarcely anything tying it all together . the true flaw with the film : due to its lack of a cohesive tie , the film ' s messages and emotions result in nothing .
wings was released on dvd by the criterion collection in 2008 through its eclipse series as part of a box set together with the ascent .
academy award - winning filmmaker howard hawks directed only angels have wings , sergeant york , scarface , bringing up baby and gentlemen prefer blondes .
wings is a great effort on part of shepitko but pales in comparison to her masterpiece and final film with the ascent . i do feel with seeing the latter aforementioned film first it impacted my expectations of the previous . while it may have lacked the emotional connection and devastating power of…
sterritt , david . review : krylya aka wings .
tcm : turner classic movies , 1 february 2014 . retrieved : 26 december 2016 .
wings was released on dvd by the criterion collection in 2008 through its eclipse series as part of a box set together with the ascent . [ 2 ]
this is in keeping with chytilová’s statements to a french film critic several years earlier . in a 1966 interview , chytilová described daisies as a “philosophical documentary in the form of a farce , ” a “bizarre comedy with strands of satire and sarcasm with regard to the two heroines , ” whom she defined as
film critic paul schrader , as well as director ben wheatley , chose wings as one of their top 10 favorite criterion releases . critic jonathan rosenbaum has called it a
lovely and nuanced character study ,
an analysis repeated by critic michael koresky ' s description of the film as a
penetrating character study .
wings tells a poetic and subtle tale , not trying to force any major themes or motifs , but rather lets itself play out to the lonely tedium that is life .
future learning and skills – giving everyone the opportunity to build a lifelong relationship with film .
film critic paul schrader , as well as director ben wheatley , chose wings as one of their top 10 favorite criterion releases . [ 3 ] critic jonathan rosenbaum has called it a
lovely and nuanced character study ,
[ 4 ] an analysis repeated by critic michael koresky ' s description of the film as a
penetrating character study .
[ 5 ]
as the film’s english title makes plain , desire is the driving force behind both the film and its angel protagonist damiel’s fervent longing to leave behind immortality and become human . as this wish percolates and he meets marion ( solveig dommartin ) , the wistful circus performer with whom he falls head over wings in love , alekan’s exquisite monochrome gradually gives way to vibrant colour .
the problem with wings is that it mistakes vapidity for subtle poetic gold . the film does not have a lot contained within its runtime , most of it entails various menial excursions of work or brief human interactions , yet the content is heralded as something more than it actually is .
given its central characters , wings of desire is an exceptionally watchful film , both clinical and voyeuristic . wenders’ unseen angels are basically unable to engage human beings directly . and yet , the very act of quietly watching over them , able to hear their innermost thoughts and desires , and occasionally even offer some kind of palliative aid , is one of the film’s most touching aspects .
founded in 1999 , senses of cinema is one of the first online film journals of its kind and has set the standard for professional , high quality film - related content on the internet .
it ' s not an unusual story that soldiers find themselves feeling lost and displaced after war , unsure what their function is . but wings tells this story so well , so subtly . the memory…
feature film debut of shepitko , who had just graduated from soviet film school . one of only four feature films made by shepitko before her tragic death in a car accident at the age of 41 .
this film is not currently playing on mubi but 30 other great films are . see what’s now showing
( this film is perhaps best seen after one of the others , like a “chaser . ” )
michael koresky is the editorial director of the film society of lincoln center in new york ; a cofounder and editor of the online film magazine reverse shot ; and a frequent contributor to film comment and the criterion collection . he is also the author of terence davies ( university of illinois press , 2014 ) .
it’s been voted the second best film of the 1980s , but what makes wim wenders’ fantasy about two angels observing life in berlin still so resonant today ? these five extracts give a clue to the film’s enduring richness .
wings is the story of two men who have gone to war and the girl they both leave behind . director william a . wellman makes one of his most humanistic statements as he explores the devastating results of war .
the first half of wings is lukewarm . you do not get a complete impression of what it is maya bulgakova really achieved and what it meant , and the dialogue often devolves into on - the - nose commentary about the stalinist regime .
by the early 1960s , hawks started to slow down professionally . his earlier work began to receive some critical attention and was featured in a career retrospective at new york city & apos ; s museum of modern art . while others were looking back on his accomplishments , hawks continued to work , making a handful of films , most of which starred wayne . they worked together on the african adventure film hatari ! ( 1962 ) and the western el dorado ( 1966 ) with robert mitchum . for his final film , hawks directed wayne in the western adventure rio lobo ( 1970 ) .
an experimental film poem in celebration of life and visions . techniques include live action , animation , montage and found images .
i begin by sketching the debate between chytilová and the government detractors whose severe disapproval kept this bril - liant , singular director from film production for six years . work - ing within the constraints of state - supervised film production in the czech new wave of the 1960s , chytilová fashioned a “prop - erly revolutionary” critique of the insipid bourgeois existence of the fashion model , a theme that she had pursued in a prior film . despite chytilová’s insistence that the film be seen as a moral alle - gory critical of its heroines , socialist censors took issue with the film’s depiction ( and seeming celebration ) of dissipated youth .
this cannes success and prominence angered the authorities , and the film was pulled from its planned role in the moscow film festival of that year . the film’s commercial paris opening was even put into doubt before its western distributor asserted his commercial rights . andrei roublev ’s success and attention in paris and elsewhere further delayed its domestic release . see johnson and petrie , p . 81 .
bliss ( felicidad ) cua lim is an assistant professor in the film studies program at the university of california , irvine . her work on film has appeared in positions : east asia cultures critique , the velvet light trap , asian cinema , the journal of english studies and comparative literature , philippine critical forum , and the anthology geopolitics of the visible : essays on philippine film cultures . her research interests include film theory and genre studies , fantastic cinema and the philosophy of history , postcolonialism , feminist , and philippine and chinese cinemas .
a speech by deputy pruzinec delivered in the national assembly on may 17 , 1967 concerning the film “daisies” by vera chytilová , urltoken daisies .
these two harsh but hauntingly beautiful fables — “wings , ” released in 1966 , and “the ascent , ” from 1977 — are the best - known films of the soviet - era director larisa shepitko . they have now been released in a boxed set from eclipse , the no - frills label of the criterion collection . these are extraordinary works , rich in moral complexities and spiritual underpinnings , filmed with a blend of brutal realism and a lyricism that at crucial moments passes into pure abstraction . they belong to a period in soviet filmmaking that would come to be forgotten as the empire collapsed : a moment when creative expression was tolerated , and even subsidized , by a totalitarian government .
dvd verdict wrote that the
most astonishing thing about wings is how young shepitko was when she directed it . it feels like the work of an older director , one who would understand what it ' s like to live in the shadow of your younger self
and that much of the film ' s
success leans on the performance of bulgakova , and she does deliver a phenomenal performance . on a whole , the film doesn ' t stand out in terms of its storytelling or cinematography , but as a sensitive human portrait , it truly is remarkable ,
and critic dennis schwartz called it a
brilliantly conceived work of art .
in sight & sound ' s 2012 surveys of the greatest films ever made , two critics ( sergio grmek germani and erica gregor ) and two directors ( carol morley and vlado škafar ) voted for wings .
hamish ford is a lecturer in film , media and cultural studies at the university of newcastle , and a regular contributor to senses of cinema .
linda williams , figures of desire : a theory and analysis of surrealist film ( urbana : university of illinois press , 1981 ) , 11–12 .
in this portrait of a world askew , filmmaker mccabe composes an apocalyptic lullaby , a landscape film meditating on the end of the world and subtly the end of film as a medium . incorporating timelapse cinematography shot at the salton sea , big sur and joshua tree , the film provides a canvas of empty and beautiful spaces with narration about the benefits of radiation with a plea to the viewer to preserve the message for the future .
andrei roublev ’s treatment of art , as first staged in the prologue and gradually , variously moulded throughout the ensuing film , is certainly more heroic than that found in the other more recognisably “modern” films of 1966 , and their treatment of art and authorship ( particularly a film like blowup ) . in many ways , such a comparison is unfair , and makes tarkovsky look like a decidedly religious and conservative proselytiser of pre - modern ideas about artistic worth and cultural purpose . but any simple comparison overlooks important historical , political and cultural contexts . such a view also reinforces a rather self - satisfied , sceptical western attitude that insists that we know how one should think about such matters . but tarkovsky’s mysterious , quintessentially romantic address is at its heart a meditation on what the artist , or “author” , is , and how ( s / ) he reacts and seeks to turn reality into art . idiosyncratically heroic it might be , but the film keeps asking questions familiar to more sceptical ( and post - ) modern minds and films as well ( for example , via much darker treatment in ingmar bergman’s persona , 1966 ) : is art relevant to contemporary life , or is it merely a self - indulgent and ideological deification of the individual subject ?
i quote skvorecky’s views on the film at some length because his illuminating commentary recognizes that daisies’s “mischievous” tone is both constrained and produced by the real - ities of the nationalized czech film industry of the 1960s . he is the only commentator on daisies to engage with two key issues that most others miss : the ironic quality of the film and the overdetermined and possibly strategic nature of chytilová’s pro - fessed intentions regarding daisies . he writes :
against this are juxtaposed nadezhda’s remembrances of things past . shepitko reinforces a sense of fracture by introducing successive acts of the drama through aerial shots soaring through clouds . these majestic flights of remembered freedom contrast markedly with the tight compositions of the myriad drab interiors that nadezhda often finds herself within . ultimately , away from the immediate setting of war , this tension within the protagonist of wings can more aptly be taken as a potent symbol of her nation ( as a figure caught between looking back and moving forward , and who is placed , in 1966 , at the forefront of exaggerated displays of visibility on the world stage that edged the soviet union ever closer to another war ) . this is understated and implicit in shepitko’s deceptively straightforward drama , but it goes some way to conveying the film’s rich layers of meaning , a sense of its own interior life .
the artist in a nationalized film industry wages a constant struggle with his first viewer and producer in one person , the political establishment . . . .
dvd verdict wrote that the
most astonishing thing about wings is how young shepitko was when she directed it . it feels like the work of an older director , one who would understand what it ' s like to live in the shadow of your younger self
and that much of the film ' s
success leans on the performance of bulgakova , and she does deliver a phenomenal performance . on a whole , the film doesn ' t stand out in terms of its storytelling or cinematography , but as a sensitive human portrait , it truly is remarkable ,
[ 9 ] and critic dennis schwartz called it a
brilliantly conceived work of art .
[ 10 ] in sight & sound ' s 2012 surveys of the greatest films ever made , two critics ( sergio grmek germani and erica gregor ) and two directors ( carol morley and vlado škafar ) voted for wings . [ 11 ]
few modern films have made the transition to classic status as quickly as wim wenders’ wings of desire ( 1987 ) . his tale of a guardian angel in a still - wall - divided berlin who falls in love with – and to earth for – a melancholy trapeze artist is a canny merging of cerebral formal experimentalism and unabashed popular romanticism . it swept up highbrow critics alongside a much larger mainstream audience than was typical for ‘challenging’ foreign - language cinema of the day . leading us film magazine premiere’s 1980s wrap - up poll voted it second only to raging bull ( 1980 ) as film of the decade .
while consumption and destruction are the elements of the film most often remarked by film reviewers , in the final por - tion of my discussion i focus instead on daisies’s thematic and for - mal preoccupation with collage and fragmentation in relation to an ironizing of gender performances . chytilová has stated that the film’s theme — an ethical critique of its destructive protago - nists — was inextricable from its form : “the form of the film was really derived from the conceptual basis of the film . because the concept of the film was destruction , the form became destructive as well . ”5 the “destructive form” that daisies employs , with breath - taking results , is collage , a result of cinematographer jaroslav kucera’s experiments with this technique . daisies’s surrealist motifs of montage and collage are epitomized in striking images of the heroines’ bodies splintered and recomposed . these formal strategies suggest an appropriation of surrealist tenets — incon - gruity and surprise , the denial of mimetic representation , and the revelatory power of fragmentation—by a czech feminist film - maker . though collage as a formal strategy was meant to support the film’s cautionary warning against vacuity , it also serves to unmask gender attributes as naturalized masquerade . the for - mal devices of fragmentation ( in sound , image , and spatio - tem - porality ) , as well as the narrative depiction of cutting and dis - memberment , underscore the film’s allegorical presentation of the heroines as transgressive assemblages of gender attributes .
the movie’s back story is itself fascinating : it’s the latest of several remakes of a 1966 film that has long been lost . set in seattle , it stars ms . tang as a prison inmate on a furlough who falls in love with a korean gigolo , played by hyun bin . it was the highest - grossing korean film in china on release in 2012 , and it’s a surprisingly low - key work , with an excellent albeit very quiet performance by ms . tang . i also checked out “so i married an anti - fan” ( 2016 ) , whose boy - meets - girl , hate - love - hate - love plotline will be familiar to hallmark movie fans , but it builds up interest through its peppy depiction of asian fan culture .
wings is the debut feature of director , larisa shepitko , a contemporary of tarkvosky and parajanov but who only produced four films before her untimely death at the age of 42 . the film tells the story of a former fighter pilot , nadezhda petrovna , who now works as a headmistress at a provincial school . yet her life is incomplete , her daughter is leaving to be married , nadezhda herself is in a passionless relationship and she longs for the past she once had .
artists contending with political repression have frequently made use of the artfulness of allegory . the strictures of nationalized filmmaking were also paradoxically productive , inspiring “an oblique , coded film culture” that “could tell quiet , often painful truths , ” qualities that a film industry subjected to the vicissitudes of the marketplace could never have sustained . 25
“wings” begins with a seemingly prosaic sequence in which nadezhda is measured for a conservative new suit that reflects her status as a member of the soviet bureaucracy . by breaking the action into isolated close - ups — an arm , a shoulder — as the tailor dryly recites his measurements , shepitko makes it clear that nadezhda is being fitted with a straitjacket , a garment that will leave her no room to spread the wings that war had given her . repeatedly , nadezhda looks up from her desk to examine a sky covered in milky clouds , a beckoning whiteness that finds its abstract counterpart in the snow - covered fields of “the ascent . ”
howard hawks was born on may 30 , 1896 , in goshen , indiana . his first script , tiger love , was produced in 1924 . he made his directorial debut in 1926 , with the road to glory . hawks directed only angels have wings in 1939 and sergeant york in 1941 . the last film he directed was rio lobo , released in 1970 . four years later , hawks won an honorary academy award . he died on december 26 , 1977 , in palm springs , california .
as director vera chytilová put it , “each of my films has met a cer - tain resistance on the part of authority . ”1 daisies [ sedmikrásky ] ( czechoslovakia , 1966 ) was no exception . denounced by state deputies in czechoslovakia for “hav [ ing ] nothing in common with our republic , socialism , and the ideals of communism , ”2 daisies was initially banned and only eventually allowed public screening , and chytilová herself was barred from filmmaking from 1969 to 1975 .
there has been a lot of conjecture about what it was that the soviet authorities found so objectionable in the film . vita t . johnson and graham petrie suggest that the first official complaints in 1966 singled - out the film’s “excessive violence” , “naturalism” , and “anti - historical and anti - russian , cruel and harmful” qualities ( 8 ) . but once the film was finally released , five years later , any negative reaction was just as likely to concern rather more prosaic issues , equivalent versions of which are familiar in many other national contexts . there were huge expectations upon its eventual release for this historical epic about the country’s most famous icon painter , but in failing to “live up to genre expectation for an audience nurtured on patriotic epics glorifying russia , it questioned such films’ underlying cultural myths of russia’s historical greatness” ( 9 ) but , more broadly , what proved problematic for the film in the brezhnev - era soviet union was also a key factor in tarkovsky’s ultimate ascension – after his death and in post - communist russia – to the status of the greatest post - war soviet film artist . he has been subsequently seen as the filmmaker who mined the deepest , most mystical veins of russian cultural identity , moving beyond the vicissitudes of modern history and politics . in the post - communist period , tarkovsky’s reputation has only expanded and globalised .
requests for even more cuts followed . tarkovsky refused . subsequently , the film was discussed extensively at the highest levels of the soviet film bureaucracy ( at mosfilm and goskino ) and of the communist party itself . the resulting stalemate meant that the film was effectively shelved until it was requested for the screening at the 1969 cannes film festival ( 5 ) . after more stonewalling by the soviet authorities , andrei roublev was eventually screened at cannes out - of - competition ( at 4 am . ) , and was subsequently awarded the international critics’ prize ( 6 ) . the film was not released in the ussr until 1971 , when it became a huge success ( despite tarkovsky’s complaints about the lack of publicity and press coverage ) , partially as a result of being recognised as the most famous shelved film of its era . finally , following tarkovsky’s death , in 1988 the original 205 - minute version was released in the ussr as , once again , the passion according to andrei , receiving a rapturous critical and audience response ( 7 ) .
a masterwork and a great debut . a moving film about nostalgia , changing times / eras , middle age , womanhood , generational and class disputes , and moving from the past . i need to see more of larisa shepitko ' s work . i ' ve only seen one film by her and i can already tell she is a master .
1966 was indeed something of a high - water mark for world cinema : persona ( ingmar bergman , sweden ) , 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle ( two or three things i know about her , jean - luc godard , france ) , blowup ( michelangelo antonioni , britain / italy / usa ) , szegénylegények ( the round - up , miklós jancsó , hungary ) , sedmikrásky ( daisies , vera chytilová , czechoslovakia ) , and even erogotoshi - tachi yori : jinruigaku nyûmon ( the pornographers , shohei imamura , japan ) , all emerged in that year . such films are frequently “self - reflexive” essays / meditations on the vexed issues surrounding the relationship between authorship or art and present - day modernity . in screening modernism : european art cinema , 1950 - 1980 , university of chicago press , chicago , 2007 , pp . 338 - 348 , andrás bálint kovács tellingly devotes a chapter to andrei roublev , persona and blow up as the key films of 1966 .
daisies’s avowed critique of its overindulgent heroines notwithstanding , the film was , for a time , prevented from exhibi - tion due to official outcry over the “wastage of food . ” deputy pruzinec , a member of the national assembly , attacked daisies’s depiction of food orgies “at a time when our farmers with great difficulties are trying to overcome the problems of our agricul - tural production . ”18 many czechs at the time considered this to be an “unbelievable” interpretation of the film . public support for the film finally convinced the government to allow its screening , but the entire debacle gives the point to the postdedication of daisies : “this film is dedicated to all those soured by the sight of trampled down lettuce — only ! ”19
a beautiful prescient film . in a world where the most basic animal material needs are fulfilled the human questions and needs are left wanting in a rigid hierarchical society based on capital accumulation .
this study has pursued several lines of inquiry in relation to daisies . given the strictures of the nationalized czech film indus - try of the 1960s , chytilová claimed that the film worked as a dis - guised denunciation of its heroines , two nonpositive , unethical , and self - absorbed young women who meet with a just , if terrible , end . yet this declared didacticism is not all that meets the eye : daisies affords an alternative view , one that upholds , with great rel - ish , the defiant unruliness of the heroines the film purports to disparage . this ironic undercurrent in the film , whose potential for radical critique so alarmed socialist censors , is precisely the reading i have attempted to elaborate and redeem . i have argued that the doubleness of daisies is owing to its allegorical structure ; crucially , the use of dolls as allegorical ciphers for superficial and rapacious materialism opens the path to another reading of the film in terms of satirical feminist humor . at the heart of the film’s joke on blinkered masculinity are those stratagems whereby the perceived resemblance between women and dolls is exploited to ruthless effect by the two maries .
contemporary western screenings of the film are often accompanied by exclusively feminine laughter . equally , male viewers frequently feel an antipathy toward the film’s “heroines . ” this division no doubt relates partly to the fact that the film is on target and partly to a sense of humor that is sometimes only “seen” by one - half of the audience . also , the girls fail to conform to the stereotypes expected by a male audience . . . . socialism in czechoslovakia tended to institutionalize existing inequalities between the sexes , and daisies certainly constitutes an attack on some identifiable targets . 34
a lovely and nuanced character study of a once famous world war ii fighter pilot named nadezhda petrovna ( maya bulgakova ) who becomes a provincial schoolmistress , raising her adopted daughter as a single mother . larissa shepitko ' s 1966 black - and - white feature is stately and reflective in a way that reminds me of some of the late films of john ford ; its commentary on the pervasive effect of stalinism on postwar russia is multilayered and provocative . written by natalia ryazantseva and valentin yezhov . in russian with subtitles . 90 min .
wenders brought legendary cinematographer henri alekan – responsible for the haunting gothic chiaroscuro in jean cocteau’s 1946 la belle et la bête – out of retirement to shoot wings of desire ( and named the film’s circus in his honour ) . alekan famously used a silk stocking as a filter for his textured , sepia - tinged black - and - white imagery , depicting the angels’ muted vision of the world . ironically , his rich , creamy monochrome might appear too gorgeously tactile for the angels’ non - sensory world , but its silent - cinema feel helps instantly convey their timeless existence .
a eerie parallel between film and reality with its director larisa shepitko is how at age 41 , the protagonist nadezhda comes to terms with the disenchantment of a monotonous life she lives in post - war russia with loss of spirit and being virtually dead on the inside . shepitko died prematurely at age 41 ending a short but superb film career before it had the chance to blossom into supreme greatness .
daisies’s distant and disparaging view of its mannequinlike hero - ines is reminiscent of the narrative of the “reformed fashion model” chytilová pursued in ceiling ( 1961 ) , her graduation film from famu ( filmová a televizní fakulta amu ) , the state film school located in prague . like that earlier film , daisies is a parable about the ills of bourgeois acquisitiveness and materialism ( symbolized by the two maries’ obsessive and ultimately destruc - tive consumption ) . this properly “revolutionary” narrative was present at the level of the screenplay in ceiling , though czech film critic joseph skvorecky notes that even in that early film chytilová’s avant - garde innovations undermined the script’s moralistic core : “although the schematic morality remained , the director blunted it by completely shifting the emphasis to form . ”13 skvorecky found ceiling’s emphasis on “rosseauvian communion” deplorably didactic , exemplifying the “then fash - ionable ‘return to the people for cathartic purposes , ’ ”14 and con - sidered chytilová’s clear allusion to ceiling in daisies to be unmis - takably ironic in tone .
“i’m going to eat in restaurants every day . ” get it , girl . a stitching of numerous poetic moments and phrases on faded significance and identity . that sounds depressing , except this one has fun moments like a russian doll play , a confused meeting of a daughter’s husband to be , and two women twirling each other in an empty bar . in wings , there’s such warmness added to such sadness .
contested intentions , or “a philosophical documentary in the form of a farce” antonin j . liehm describes the predicament of the filmmaker in czechoslovakia’s state - controlled film industry during the period of the czech new wave :
this is a film directed by larisa shepitko - - a woman whose life was cut very short at age 41 . because russian movies are generally pretty tough to come by here in the us and because her career was short , there aren ' t a lot of opportunities to see her films .
wings
is a very slow - moving film . this isn ' t necessarily a criticism - - just a comment on the style . instead of telling the viewer a lot about the lady who is the subject of the film , you slowly begin to learn more about her as she appears to be in the throes of an existential crisis . nadezhda petrovna is a woman in her early 40s , though she appears much older . she is the principal of a high school but seems vaguely dissatisfied with her job and personal life . watching her , she seems rather sexless and emotionally stunted - - and a bit lost . as the film unfolds , you learn through brief flashback scenes that she was a pilot during wwii and apparently since then , she has been in a bit of a fog . and , the only time she smiles or seems at ease is when in an airplane . throughout nearly all of the film , petrovna walks about in a rather tentative and slow - motion manner - - and it may take some getting used to in order to enjoy the film . perhaps ' enjoy ' is not the right word , as this isn ' t meant to be enjoyed but more appreciated for the character study that it is . visually and especially musically , this is a very , very good film - - very evocative but slow and with a rather vague ending that might disappoint many . i give it a 7 , as it is a quality production - - but not one that i ' d heartily endorse . by the way , while this is not a funny film and won ' t elicit a lot of laughs , i did love seeing the school play where a few of the kids were dressed like nesting dolls ( matryoshka dolls ) . this was pretty cute .
hames’s account resembles my personal experience of viewing this film . at the screening where i first encountered daisies , a con - cerned male viewer expressed his objections to the film’s protago - nists , whom he characterized as “annoyingly babyish , infantile girls . ” even then i felt that his understandable reading of the film—as confirming misogynist stereotypes about women as vain , frivolous creatures—merely skimmed the surface of a nuanced text whose objectionable heroines are paradoxically a source of glee for many women . in later screenings and conversa - tions with others about this film , i began to recognize the con - tours of a particular feminist reception of daisies . this reception , only one of many possible feminist readings , is characterized by delight in the diabolical heroines’ capacity to controvert gender expectations even when they appear to uphold them and by a double - tiered , allegorical reading of the film that allows the monstrosity of these unruly girls to come across as powerfully women - positive . it was this first glimpse of daisies’s radical disin - genuousness regarding gender performance that prompted my examination of allegory’s entanglement with feminist reception .
andrei tarkovsky’s epic film about andrei roublev , russia’s most famous icon painter , is a remarkable , deeply reflexive examination of the artist’s role in his particular social - historical reality . it is also concerned with the split that occurs between an artist’s elevated desire to create an art of clear , transcendent beauty and one that is responsive to the immediate world as it is : characterised by violence and suffering . although tarkovsky’s film is suffused with an idiosyncratically heroic vision of the artist , its insistence on an art informed by the world as it is rather than as we might like it to be , informs and problematises its content , immediate context and reception . its titular character , the young monk roublev , renounces his art in the face of its apparent irrelevance to reality , and then wanders through the film / world in often - silent observation . the film itself presented a very different vision of heroism and history than the one desired by soviet film and state authorities of the time . it also confounded the expectations of audiences awaiting an exotic widescreen epic about a famous russian artist from the middle ages .
of all the dazzlingly talented filmmakers to emerge from the soviet union , larisa shepitko has remained one of the least widely known . while many of her film school contemporaries , including andrei tarkovsky , sergei parajanov , and her eventual h…
ana lily amirpour is an iranian - american director , writer , producer , and actor best known for her award - winning debut film , the persian - language vampire western a girl walks home alone at night ( 2014 ) .
a loving film tribute to russian filmmaker larisa shepitko , who died tragically in a car accident in 1979 at the age of 40 . this documentary by her husband , elem klimov , includes excerpts . . . see full summary »
the first time is an abrupt cut as she swings on her trapeze ( wearing , naturally , angel wings ) ; the second , more tender and deliberate shift comes just after she confesses her innermost feelings in damiel’s presence . as damiel departs , the image slowly shifts into colour : foreshadowing the union to come in the real world . for a film so intent on conjuring and then conquering a state of timelessness , this disruption of the image is the ultimate signifier that life and love within time are the only true reality . seeing blood as red . tasting coffee . feeling the cold . for wenders and his characters , the realm of the senses is the one that truly makes sense .
andrei roublev couldn’t have been made anywhere else or at any other time . by the time it was completed its moment had passed . the liberalisation of the cultural sphere in the ussr during the period of nikita khrushchev’s leadership , commonly known as “the thaw” , and which enabled the making and release of tarkovsky’s celebrated first feature , ivanovo detstvo ( ivan’s childhood ) , in 1962 , was the context in which andrei roublev was first approved and budgeted . by 1966 much had changed ( khrushchev himself had been deposed in 1964 ) . and yet following a moscow screening of the film for various critics and “officials” , it was declared a “significant work of art” and provisionally garnered the necessary approval for release . however , tarkovsky’s film was also denied the all - important certificate necessary for a proper release ( 3 ) . soon substantial cuts were requested . desperate to get his film seen by the public , tarkovsky acquiesced , ultimately shortening it to a length of 186 minutes . this version then screened at the prestigious dom kino , garnering both ecstatic responses and further criticism . that this version is the one most commonly seen today is partly a result of tarkovsky’s later claims that it was his preferred cut . although many critics have subsequently treated the second official cut as definitive , tarkovsky’s declaration needs to be seen in its personal and historical context ( 4 ) .
don’t forget that the film’s original title is der himmel über berlin – the sky or heavens over berlin – and that the project began as an investigation into germany’s then - divided city . indeed , its angels were only brought in as an inspired afterthought . perhaps acknowledging the tradition of early ‘city symphony’ silent films like dziga vertov’s man with a movie camera ( 1929 ) or even walter ruttmann’s berlin , symphony of a city ( 1927 ) , wings of desire is also in part a wonderful time capsule of wintry , pre - unification berlin . its roving aerial camerawork and ground - level tracking wide shots highlight the city’s desolate no - man’s - land expanses bound by the ever - present wall .
for her first feature after graduating from the all - russian state institute for cinematography ( vgik ) , larisa shepitko trained her lens on the fascinating russian character actress maya bulgakova , who gives a marvelous performance as a once heroic russian fighter pilot now living a quiet , disappointingly ordinary life as a school principal . subtly portraying one woman’s desperation with elegant , spare camera work and casual , fluid storytelling , shepitko , with wings , announced herself as an important new voice in soviet cinema .
the career of larisa shepitko , an icon of sixties and seventies soviet cinema , was tragically cut short when she was killed in a car crash at age forty , just as she was emerging on the international scene . the body of work she left behind , though small , is masterful , and her genius for visually evoking characters’ interior worlds is never more striking than in her two greatest works : wings , an intimate yet exhilarating portrait of a female fighter pilot turned provincial headmistress , and the ascent , a gripping , tragic wartime parable of betrayal and martyrdom . a true artist who had deftly used the soviet film industry to make statements both personal and universal , shepitko remains one of the greatest unsung filmmakers of all time .
get ready to take notes : the centerpiece of sight & sound’s october issue is an annotated list of 100 overlooked films by women . in an article titled “the female gaze , ” the magazine’s editors write , “we aim to challenge official film hi…
larisa shepitko directed only four features in her short career ( the other two are “heat , ” her 1963 diploma film , and the 1971 “you and i , ” her only color film ) . in 1979 , while searching for locations for a new feature she and four members of her crew were killed in a car accident . the film , based on valentin rasputin’s 1976 novel “farewell to matyora , ” was finished by klimov in 1981 and promptly shelved . its story of a siberian village , drowned by a new dam in the name of progress , its peasant population shipped off to a soulless housing project , ends with a group of figures fading into a white mist . ( eclipse , $ 29 . 95 , not rated )
the film does offer , nevertheless , a kind of thematic heroism , but of a kind unfamiliar to both hollywood and soviet models of the time . this is especially clear in light of brezhnev - era repression and the ussr’s overall attitude ( at least from stalin onwards ) towards artistic freedom . but this heroism is also troubling , at least in retrospect , accounting for a key part of the film’s role and reputation as a misty talisman for the reactionary russian orthodox resurgence of the last two decades .
the final half , though , is all the more effective for its simplicity . maya becomes a fully - realised and very sympathetic character . the film ' s climax is marvellously done , and evokes some unexpected emotions as its themes finally culminate at once .
on the czech new wave and the nationalized film industry in czechoslovakia , see peter hames , the czechoslovak new wave ( berkeley : university of california press , 1985 ) and bjorn ingvoldstad , after the velvet revolution : an industrial survey of the czech and slovak film industries in the cold war era , urltoken , which summarizes the effects of the 1945 nationalization of the czech film industry . the czech new wave refers to “the emergence of a group of talented young filmmakers” during “the political thaw of de - stalinization” in the 1960s . this era came to an end in august 1968 when the “liberal vision of ‘socialism with a human face’ ” espoused by president alexander dubcek was “shattered by direct soviet military intervention . ” some of the directors associated with the czech new wave left for the west ( milos forman and jan nemec ) , but others , like chytilová , remained in czechoslovakia “despite being barred from working in film for several years” ; moreover , “many new wave films were ‘banned forever’ by subsequent government decree” ( ingvoldstad ) .
i am entirely in agreement with skvorecky that daisies must be seen in an ambivalent and tacitly adversarial relation to the dic - tates of state - supervised film production . seen in this light , it becomes possible for him to suggest that daisies’s credit sequence , whose footage of explosions and air strikes links the heroines’ consumption to social destruction , 16 might be a knowing attempt to avert criticism . given the atmosphere of intense censorship surrounding the productions of the czech new wave , skvorecky’s remarks suggest that the film , as well as the discourse of authorial intent surrounding it , are not straight communicative perform - ances . this might help explain why chytilová , on whose vehe - ment feminism film reviewers and scholars constantly remark , repeatedly articulates the philosophical critiques at work in daisies but remains surprisingly silent about the feminist content so often detected in the work . 17 in stressing the overdetermined nature of daisies’s regard for its heroines , it is not even necessary to impute conscious calculation or canniness to the filmmakers , as skvorecky does . the nationalized , state - controlled film indus - try simultaneously provided conditions of possibility and exerted productive constraints upon daisies and its director ; given that the film was censured for seeming to endorse its unruly heroines , maintaining the converse is an understandable and expected line of defense .
the dia ' s historic auditorium , the detroit film theatre , is unlike anywhere else in metro detroit , with state - of - the - art projection , luxurious seats , and original décor from 1927 . the dft is perfect for large meetings and conferences .
originally from philadelphia , kate mccabe now makes her home near joshua tree , california where she founded the art collective kidnap yourself . she is a graduate of the university of the arts and she obtained her mfa in experimental animation from the california institute of the arts under the innovative jules engel . she is an award winning independent filmmaker who has shown films globally since 1995 in both film festivals and galleries . sabbia , her first feature film , a visual album for brant bjork , is distributed internationally . her current work includes paintings , photography , short fiction , and art books , her most recent being a sketch comic book called “mojave weather diaries . ” kate has taught film as a visiting artist at calarts and uc san diego and works as the archivist for filmmaker pat o’neill .
longtime friends , hawks and faulkner worked on a number of films together over the years . their next project was the film noir thriller the big sleep ( 1946 ) with bogart and bacall . based on the raymond chandler novel , the film is considered to be one of the great classics of its genre . two years later , hawks made one of his most famous westerns with john wayne . red river ( 1948 ) starred wayne as a cattleman who must grapple with his difficult relationship with his adopted son played by montgomery clift .
“when i work with film i play with light and time , rhythm and shadow . i started to shoot milk and honey and i knew i had begun to capture moments that could transport the viewer between worlds of light and shadow to a place of tangible nostalgia .
making the leap to sound , hawks directed his first talking picture , the dawn patrol , in 1930 . the wwi drama starred douglas fairbanks jr . and featured many exciting aerial fight scenes . switching genres , he tackled the gangster saga scarface with paul muni , george raft , and boris karloff . the violent tale was caught up in a censorship battle waged by the producer howard hughes against the film industry & apos ; s production code administration . finally released in 1932 , the film was a big hit and paved the way for more such crime dramas .
in the 205 - minute version of the film we see the complete arcs of these sublime shots . in the “short” version we sometimes only see the first and last minute , the unique continuity of these quintessential “time - images” ( to use gilles deleuze’s famous phrase ) is curtailed .
the crux of my argument is this : daisies can be read multi - valently as enabling both a critique of the heroines’ excesses ( cor - responding to the state - approved screenplay and chytilová’s declared intentions ) and a latent feminist delight in the hero - ines’ ability to effect reversals in the patriarchal order . this study espouses a counterreading of daisies that corresponds neither to the director’s account nor to the censors’ ill - considered objec - tions to the film . while my allegorical reading of the film might be at variance with declared authorial intent , it remains apprecia - tive of that strong chord of defiance in daisies that government officials were quick to impugn and chytilová eager to gainsay . my counterreading of the film discerns , beneath daisies’s apparent condemnation of its heroines , a feminist allegory in which the doll metaphor is retooled as a celebration of female recalcitrance .


two timid souls ( french : les deux timides ) is a 1928 french silent film comedy directed by rené clair , and based on the 1860 play les deux timides by eugène labiche .

it was made by the films albatros production company .

the sets were designed by the art director lazare meerson .

two timid souls

there are no featured reviews for les deux timides ( two timid souls ) at this time .
there are no critic reviews yet for les deux timides ( two timid souls ) . keep checking rotten tomatoes for updates !
roosevelt’s passage heralds anyone who “fails while daring greatly , so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat . ”
an overly timid lawyer messes up in court and earns the enmity of a wife beating thug . years later the thug is out and the , still timid , lawyer and he are competing for a girl .
two timid souls is one of rené clair ' s lesser known works , his last silent feature , but it ' s not one that deserves to go unnoticed ! some of the middle part was stretching the shy - guy things a little too much , making one almost scream
just say it . . . !
as this…
if only we had been fearless grasped the clouds in our caress chased the moon and kissed the sun rocked the ocean , became as one seized the moment without regret dared to play russian roulette but when the flashing lightning rolled we heard the warning bells that tolled two timid souls drew apart mouth from mouth and heart from heart to fly like moths to safer shore and with deep regret we are no more .
' the danish girl ' is inspired by the real - life love story of transgender pioneer lili elbe and her wife gerda wegener . a tale of identity and love , the film is also a poignant look at a marriage between two likeminded souls who had to let each other go .
the plot : fremissin ( pierre batcheff ) , a v - e - r - y timid attorney , has trouble confessing his love for a woman ( vera flory ) , and that could lead to trouble ahead as her equally timid father ( maurice de fraudy ) promises her hand in marriage to a pushy suitor ( jim gerald ) that fremissin once defended for spousal abuse .
much has been said about the hollywood infusion in beyond : two souls and , sure , it could be argued that regular voice actors could have done the jobs of page and willem dafoe ( nathan dawkins ) just as easily , but the pin - point delivery of all the primaries makes it hard to imagine anyone else in those roles . the dawkins character is a timid soul and his lines need to be said with such care and precision , and dafoe brings that in spades . in fact , there are very few weak players in what needs to be a strong and diverse cast .
, albatros renewed clair’s two - picture - a - year contract , but proceeded to turn down several of clair’s proposals . strictly for himself , clair shot the short film
garadoux has beaten his wife . his lawyer fremissin is young and very shy , and therefore , not very efficient… two years after , garadoux is trying to seduce cecile , but she prefers fremissin…
beyond : two souls is not a very good video game . but that’s not quite the criticism it might sound as given its bold storytelling ambitions the question of interaction and skill - based gameplay are very far down its list of priorities . many games have called themselves interactive movies over the years and beyond definitely qualifies as that , but rather than a coming of age for the genre it calls into question the validity of the whole concept .
i say “viewer” rather than “player” , simply because there are definitely points in beyond : two souls where you’re a passive participant , which , of course , is a common thread in the studio’s titles . however , when beyond allows you to engage with its world and its characters , just like heavy rain before it , it becomes one of the most engrossing gaming experiences , and may even change opinions on what cage is attempting to achieve .
verdict : it’s quickly becoming the passé thing to say , but as we prepare to retire our current - gen systems to make way for the new crop in a month’s time , developers keep on delivering stellar games that verge on some of the best we’ve seen in years . 2013 has undoubtedly been one of video gaming’s greatest years , and beyond : two souls can stand proudly beside the plethora of exceptional titles released over the last twelve months .
taking place over approximately twenty years , beyond : two souls tells the story of a young girl named jodie holmes who is born with a spirit tethered to her . called aiden and independent of thought , his inexplicable appearance at birth sees jodie going into the care of the department of paranormal activity ( dpa ) , who are researching the apparition’s behaviour . both professor nathan dawkins and cole freeman attempt to figure out the potential of the phantom , whilst acting as surrogate fathers to jodie .
garadoux has beaten his wife . his lawyer fremissin is young and very shy , and therefore , not very efficient . . . two years after , garadoux is trying to seduce cecile , but she prefers fremissin . . .
a romantic drama partially set in amsterdam , the story starts out in a mining area in holland where conditions are about as rough as they get . two of the miners , italians federico ( lino . . . see full summary »
garadoux has beaten his wife . his lawyer fremissin is young and very shy , and therefore , not very efficient . . . two years after , garadoux is trying to seduce cecile , but she prefers . . . see full summary »
garadoux has beaten his wife . his lawyer fremissin is young and very shy , and therefore , not very efficient . . . two years after , garadoux is trying to seduce cecile , but she prefers fremissin . . . ( filmaffinity )
what’s particularly patronising is that it often doesn’t matter what you do during an extended interactive sequence . as an experiment we just put the controller down and didn’t do anything through two of the major fight scenes and we won anyway , just in less glorious fashion .
one of those reluctant pioneers was lili elbe , a painter living in copenhagen in the 1920s who underwent what was then a radical procedure to have her penis removed and a vagina constructed for her . but as the danish girl suggests , lili’s desire had nothing to do with being at the forefront of a movement but , rather , a profound need to finally be herself and nullify the original body given to her . this sensitive , sometimes superb drama suffers from a bit of oscar - bait solemnity , but on the whole it’s a touching tale of identity and love . in the process , the danish girl is also a poignant look at a marriage between two likeminded souls who had to let each other go .
for interweaving fantasy and reality . this criticism drove clair to “prove ( he ) could make a commercial film as bad as everyone else . ” he was nearing the end of a two - picture - a - year deal with the albatros production company and he needed to make another film , when fellow director marcel l’herbier approached him with eugène labiche’s 1851 vaudeville farce
the hokey plot feels like it was ripped from the script of a saturday morning cartoon , and not one of the good ones . at best it might have made an okay - ish episode of the x - files but page’s performance and the incredible visuals hide one - dimensional characters and a plot too timid to properly explore its themes . the attempts at exploring the unanswerable questions of life beyond death come across like an eight–year - old’s first fumbling thoughts in that direction , while at the same time completely ignoring any religious implications .
it’s a joy to see the relationship between the two lead characters unfurl , though . whilst aiden can’t speak , jodie and the attached spirit have an unbreakable bond with one another . aiden does a lot for jodie , but there are occasions where he takes matters into his own hands and disregards her orders . one of the reasons why this is such a powerful twosome , though , is because of the performance of actress ellen page as jodie holmes .
marías & apos ; s challenging and seductive technique reaches its pinnacle in & apos ; & apos ; a heart so white , & apos ; & apos ; but it is at its most accessible in & apos ; & apos ; all souls , & apos ; & apos ; so that & apos ; s probably the best place to start in on his work . that novel is also good background reading for & apos ; & apos ; dark back of time , & apos ; & apos ; whose narrator is called javier marías and whose subject matter is , among other things , the publication of & apos ; & apos ; all souls . & apos ; & apos ; it helps , when reading & apos ; & apos ; dark back of time , & apos ; & apos ; to have some curiosity about the man behind the novels , and in the course of reading marías & apos ; s other work you will have accumulated numerous questions that this book purports to answer . does marías actually have a wife named luisa ? how did he acquire his joint obsessions with the not - yet - born and the too - early - dead ? what accounts for both his sense of dread and his sense of humor ? what is his father & apos ; s real occupation , and what is the family history in relation to the spanish civil war ? which characters in his novels are real or based on real people ?
cinema’s influence on video games has grown exponentially over the course of the past ten years . french developers quantic dream have embraced this ever since their 2005 release fahrenheit , and then went further with the divisive heavy rain . the next logicial step for the developer was to cast two big hollywood stars in the primary roles of its playstation 3 swansong and see out the generation with some science - fiction bombast . but as one of the main proponents for more emotional narrative in video games , writer david cage isn’t just going to serve up explosions and fight scenes , and over - saturate the viewer with violence .
redmayne won his best actor oscar for last year’s the theory of everything , and the two movies share several similarities , not the least of which is that both are based on true stories . more crucially , however , both films are love stories in which the happy couples don’t end up together , the narratives detailing how the lovers come to understand that an individual’s desires must ultimately trump the relationship . in the danish girl , this conceit becomes a useful way to dramatize lili’s growing anguish over wanting to claim her femininity . as the film explains it , this wasn’t just a journey that she went on—her wife shared it .
these are the story lines ( though that may be precisely the wrong word , for they come to us in circular , disconnected form ) of & apos ; & apos ; all souls , & apos ; & apos ; & apos ; & apos ; tomorrow in the battle think on me , & apos ; & apos ; & apos ; & apos ; a heart so white & apos ; & apos ; and & apos ; & apos ; dark back of time , & apos ; & apos ; the four novels by the spanish writer javier marías that are now available in english . if you judged by the summaries alone , you might guess that marías & apos ; s fiction is ludicrously melodramatic or cruelly comic or tediously postmodern . it is none of these . on the contrary , all four novels possess an odd combination of true sadness and deeply satisfying wit that i have yet to find in any of marías & apos ; s english or american contemporaries .
not surprisingly , this is delicate subject matter , and hooper ( working with cinematographer danny cohen , composer alexandre desplat and production designer eve stewart ) drapes the film in a respectful tastefulness , personalizing lili’s quest in order to emphasize its universal themes . not unlike other period films about fights for equality , the danish girl plays on a viewer’s sense of justice and compassion , painting lili as a sympathetic , quietly heroic figure trying to find contentment . and in redmayne , hooper ( who previously directed him in 2012’s les misérables ) has found an actor who’s fragile and beautiful , einar’s gorgeous looks commented on by the film’s other characters . there’s an undeniably feminine quality to redmayne’s eyes and lips , but he doesn’t overdo lili’s mannerisms to sell us on her need to transition , nor does the actor attempt to radically transform himself in the role as he needed to do when portraying stephen hawking in the theory of everything . quite the contrary , during lili’s first scenes in public dressed as a woman , redmayne is a bit timid , showing her vulnerably putting out a tentative first step into a new life .
for the most part , in fact , the narrator of a marías novel is the story . in & apos ; & apos ; a heart so white , & apos ; & apos ; he is an intelligently curious but somewhat timid figure , overshadowed - - in his own mind and , he fears , everyone else & apos ; s - - by his powerful , seductive father , a man named ranz who deals in valuable artworks and has a forger for a best friend . our narrator learns that ranz , before being married to his mother , was briefly married to her older sister , a young woman who killed herself soon after the wedding . it is this death , in other words , that gave rise to the narrator & apos ; s own life . ( this is exactly the kind of thought a marías narrator is always having ; you can see how easily the ghosts slip in . ) to solve the mystery behind this suicide , he must use his wife as bait - - or , rather , he must depend on his wife & apos ; s increasing closeness to her father - in - law to elicit the desired yet finally unwelcome information .
ere plot summary would give you a mistaken impression . a nameless spaniard spends two years teaching at oxford , has an affair with a married woman and buys a lot of rather obscure old english books . a man in madrid is about to have an affair with a married woman when she drops dead in his arms ; he flees the scene and spends the next few months surreptitiously getting to know the surviving members of her family . a simultaneous translator , recently married to another simultaneous translator , uses the growing friendship between his wife and his father to unravel the mystery behind a suicide that took place before he was born . an author reflects on the strange events - - many of them involving eccentric englishmen , others having to do with his own private and public life - - that are connected to the publication of one of his earlier novels .
although this review will concentrate on the two novels that are most recently available , it is difficult , with marías , to segregate any single work from the others . the experience of reading him is cumulative . when you take up a marías novel or even a marías short story , you are at once enclosed in a strange world that becomes increasingly and addictively familiar . names and characters recur : the wives are often called luisa , a slightly suspect friend will be either custardoy or ruibérriz de torres , and there are frequent references to an englishman named john gawsworth and his position as king of redonda . public figures , too , put in an appearance , though franco is not always called franco , and margaret thatcher may simply be identified as a female british leader . the events take place mainly in madrid , but london , oxford , havana , venice and new york are also knowledgeably invoked . time is an active presence , a nearly tangible entity . ghosts flit through ; sometimes ( as in the title story in the collection & apos ; & apos ; when i was mortal & apos ; & apos ; ) they even act as narrators .
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trippy indie madeline ' s madeline is the movie that lakeith stanfield and boots riley from sorry to bother you want to see the most .
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rosita , a peasant singer in seville , captures the attention of the king .
shades of othello loom in this engrossing exploration of class , race , and murder set on an ocean liner . young dainah encounters an engineer on board who mistakes pleasantries for flirtation . . . see full summary »
a society novelist brings a brash young chorus girl home in order to study her for inspiration for his new novel . his family is distraught , but soon her behavior has forever altered their . . . see full summary »
romance and heartbreak walk hand - in - hand when philip chagal accidentally meets helen lawrence in a restaurant where she is a waitress . unhappily married to a woman who suffers from mental . . . see full summary »
lights of old broadway ( 1925 ) is a drama film directed by monta bell , produced by william randolph hearst ' s cosmopolitan productions , and released by metro - goldwyn - mayer . the film stars . . . see full summary »
a middle aged millionaire falls in love with a gorgeous , but stupid blonde gold digger , being guided by her ever - present shrewish friend . they marry but the man soon regrets his rash move . . . see full summary »
an absolute dada movie . somebody gets killed , his coffin gets out of control and after a chase it stops . the person gets out of it and let everybody who followed the coffin dissapear .
by 1915 , a contractor traveling to posadas looking for new staff . among the music and drinks in a bar and shipped to the mill . he is accompanied by a drunken doctor and his daughter . in the mill , injustices and cruelties are accentuated .
charlie is a boot camp private who has a dream of being a hero who goes on a daring mission behind enemy lines .
during a ww2 patrol in the north - african desert , a canadian corporal reminisces about his sweetheart and must lead his platoon when the sergeant gets wounded .
restored in january 2016 through a partnership between the cinematheque francaise and the san francisco silent film festival . the new 4k restoration is based on the rene clair ' s original camera negative which is preserved at the cinematheque francaise .
explore popular sci - fi movies and tv shows available to stream with prime video .
a talented batch of new directors redefined the french film scene in the 1920s . artists like jean gremillon , jean renoir and luis bunuel combined avant - garde and commercial film techniques during the post - war years . in 1924 , a young rené clair stepped behind the camera to become one of the most prolific creators of screen comedy .
. he found his passion in writing poems and stories , but in the early ‘20s a group of friends convinced him to act in movies . although the cinema did not initially appeal to clair , charlie chaplin’s films inspired him to write his own scenarios . in 1920 , he first appeared with loie fuller in
, all of which used double exposures , slow motion , fast motion , unusual camera angles and inventive montage .
in clair’s early critical essays he described a “pure cinema & helip ; free of the restrictions and restraints imposed by narrative fiction . ” according to clair , “the only poetry that exists in the cinema is that created by the image itself…a singularly new poetry whose rules are not determined . motion is the primary basis of cinematic lyricism . ”
in the mid ‘20s , several french directors made both avant - garde and commercial films . a number of critics denounced clair’s 1925
) . clair was intrigued by the challenge of translating labiche’s “verbal wit into visual humor . ”
( 1928 ) demonstrates his ability to accept and transform a strong narrative . rather than a static drawing room comedy centered on the play’s dialogue , the film is a marvel of inventive sight gags as it sends its characters on a wild goose chase across paris in search of the hat that will preserve a married woman’s honor and rescue the bridegroom from certain death . clair credited labiche with creating a new genre of comedy that he called “vaudeville - nightmare , ” in which the protagonist encounters threats and fears that we associate with our most “terrifying dreams . ”
in eight days , and the entire production , from script to premiere , took less than five months . when it came to shooting , clair said , “it wasn’t much of a secret . i shot exactly what i knew i would need ; whereas some directors were shooting everything they could conceivably turn their lens on . if you control the cutting of the film , god knows you control the film . ”
, which would be a documentary - style version of a hollywood police procedural . albatros could not secure the government’s official patronage for the film , so they pulled the plug on it . clair immediately returned to
. able to produce only one feature film that year for albatros , clair then severed his relations with the company .
received harsh criticism , and clair himself dismissed the film , his last of the silent era , by saying , “it was just a game . ” enthusiasts of clair’s work thought the film was delightful , but even they judged it a minor effort . on the other hand , clair’s biographer celia mcgerr has said
directors were not the only ones to experiment with both avant - garde and commercial cinema . pierre batcheff , the shy trial lawyer frémissin in
. sadly , batcheff’s career came to an abrupt end with his drug - related suicide in 1932 .
clair considered giving up filmmaking and returning to a career as a writer when sound came in . to him , the silent screen spoke to the imagination through rhythm and movement . with sound , “they will talk nonsense in our ears and we will be unable to shut it out . ” in 1929 , however , while directing in london , clair watched a few hollywood “talkies” and he became excited by the artistic possibilities for placing sound in opposition to the image , or even using sound to replace image . he achieved worldwide stardom through his sound films
. according to georges charensol , clair had hoped to set up a center for french film production in america , but nothing ever came of it . between the years 1941 and 1946 , clair wrote a second novel and directed five hollywood films , including
clair moved back to paris in 1946 , and he continued to direct films for twenty years before he returned to his first love , writing . in 1960 , rené clair became the first director of motion picture comedies to be elected into the academie française . he followed in the footsteps of eugène labiche , who , despite angry protests , had been the first vaudeville playwright to be elected into the academie française in 1880 .
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the film describes a love triangle between a novice lawyer , his brutal client , and the lovely cécile .
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the nyu chamber orchestra , conducted by gillian b . anderson , performing the world premiere of a new score composed by jaebon hwang , jin kyung lee , jihwan kim , and seon kyong kim . ron sadoff , producer and director , film scoring program at nyu steinhardt .
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this months sight and sound had a column on this , calling it clair ' s silent masterpiece and holding it up as a real lost gem . it ' s fun , you could well imagine it with harold lloyd or buster keaton in the lead and had some really interesting technical choices but i ' m not sure it quite lives up to sight and sound ' s claims .
rené clair directs a harold lloyd comedy ! okay , this doesn ' t feature harold lloyd himself , but a french version taking a lot of inspiration from lloyd ' s shy - guy persona . even looked like him from a distance , except pierre batcheff only wore glasses half the time . batcheff is probable most famous today for his role as the man in luis buñuel ' s un chien andalou ( 1929 ) , who in 1932 killed himself , reaching only the age of 24 .
this list collects every film from the starting list that became they shoot pictures don ' t they ' s 1000 greatest films . this…
films mentioned in andré bazin ' s published writings [ incomplete list ] . source : urltoken
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for those who enjoy a good silent film , you’ll seldom find a more a captivating outlet than the stylish san francisco silent film festival ( held this year between june 2 - 5 ) . it’s an overwhelming aesthetic treat : the fine period wardrobe of the attendees ; the savvy , academic discussions ; a very wide range of film literature ; and the vintage beauty of the near century old castro theater , resplendent with art deco chandeliers , scrafitto wall designs and a mighty wurlitzer organ .
oh , and let’s not forget the films , for cinema buffs are here for the programming and the best of the lot were to be treasured . much as we’d love to go over the entire four - day run of the festival , we simply don’t have that much space on this site for that . like the years before , we prefer to concentrate on the highlights . what were our criteria ? we looked for certain uniqueness in style , a professional sheen in all departments and simply what tickled us . the list below is not an oracle , but a good , surefooted list to stir your interest . take it from there .
varieté ( 1925 ) directed by e . a . dupont ; starring : emil jannings , lya de putti , warwick ward ; musical accompaniment : berklee silent film orchestra
the plot : boss huller ( emil jannings ) , a retired trapeze artist working as a manager for a peepshow of dancing girls , is asked by a friend to become a ward for a young lady , bertha - marie ( lya de putti ) . he puts her to work in his dancing troupe , and as her star grows , so does his obsession with her . after he abandons his family for her , they leave for berlin where she can train as a trapeze artist . discovered by a famed aerialist , artinelli ( warwick ward ) they head to london where the trio perform to packed houses . but when artinelli develops an attraction to bertha , boss’ jealousy becomes too consuming .
in essence : betrayal , revenge , murder… ripe melodrama for sure , but such pulp storylines packed houses in 1925 , and this one was a huge worldwide hit . if your instinct is to feel the tale might be too bombastic for modern empathy , you might be right , but you’d be missing out on some artfully measured delivery here . in dupont’s care , he gives the material a haunting pace and wisely chose master cinematographer karl freund to deliver some fluid , unfettered camera work – especially when he’s employing the subjective view of the acrobats with dizzying lights and spinning long takes . the actors are fine , with the ever robust jannings delivering another performance of fallen dignity and wounded compassion with grace and intensity . a very pleasing piece of germanic fatalism .
the plot : olsen ( sivert braekemo ) , a young sailor , meets ingeborg ( gun holmquist ) , an attractive farm girl , on the road and agrees to help out as a stable hand . conflicts arise when her father ( hjalmar peters ) a skipper and his assistant , ole ( anders henrikson ) , return home . ole has long had an attraction for ingeborg , and as he and olsen join her father’s sealer in the arctic , they must compete as rivals to decide who is the “stronger , ” and thus , win the heart of their sweetheart .
in essence : given that this festival had played more than their fair share of swedish miserablism over the years , i was more than happy to view this one . the structure is simple enough , with the strength of the male leads ( braekemo and henrikson ) being tested against the allegorical backdrop of the arctic as they compete for their girl’s affection , but the performances by them are exceptionally good , building the tense , watchful air the men have with each to a stern climax . also the amazing arctic vistas ( complete with breaking ice flows and stirring chase scenes in the snow ) lift the proceedings with a brooding isolation and naturalism that underscores the excitement . the sparse , somber score performed by the hot club , was cunningly appropriate and unobstrusive .
in essence : i’ve written about this film before and clair is one of my favourite directors . top quality is just that , and master farceur clair delivered one of his most memorable silent films with this one . his gliding , insouciant style makes the material move effortlessly and convey light hearted romanticism that is never ankled by treacle or silliness . his barrage of visual tricks ( split screens , flashbacks , montages and breaking the wall with the audience ) is a blast to behold and in the end , the spirited performances – with the charming batcheff as the befuddled hero and a top comic foil in gerald – make this one an engaging charmer .
the plot : five years since the murder of one actor during a performance , arthur mchugh ( montague love ) is the producer who decides to solve the mystery by again staging the play with the remaining cast . during the repeat performance another murder occurs ! who could be guilty ? the leading players ( laura laplante , roy d’arcy ) ? the stage manager ( bert roach ) ? the short - tempered director ( john boles ) ?
in essence : the lone american silent to make this list , this one harks back to universal’s earliest forays into the chiller genre that they would develop for years to come . directed by one of the great could - have - beens of cinema lore , paul leni , a german immigrant whose limited but stunning output ( waxworks , the cat and the canary , the man who laughs ) displayed a seductive visual style and a knack for making the creakiest of material connect with wry touches of humour and heart . sadly , the last warning would be his last film as he died that year , at the age of 44 , from blood poisoning from an infected tooth . still , this effort was an imaginative one , with double exposures , frantic cross cutting , terse close - ups and the proper feel and timing for well staged spooking . the pacing never flags and leni lets a game cast have some funny , eye - rolling turns and pratfalls . donald sosin’s charming , jaunty piano score gave the movie an off - handed playfulness that dovetailed the presentation perfectly .
michael t . o’toole is a film journalist , screenwriter and filmmaker . he spent ten years writing for the turner classic movies before taking his talents to film international . his short films can be viewed here .
the basic premise of the story involves a troubled young woman named jodie . she has a mysterious poltergeist - like companion who’s been with her since birth and is both fiercely and jealously protective of her . jodie doesn’t know who or what ‘aiden’ is and , it’s implied , neither does aiden . you play both roles though , controlling aiden from a first person view where he can effortlessly float through walls and interact with highlighted objects – but only within a short distance of jodie .
the game’s story is told in flashback , but not in chronological order as jodie tries to piece back her memories after the main events of the game . there are four main time periods : jodie as an eight - year - old girl being looked after by foster parents and a government scientist played by willem dafoe , jodie’s teenage years at the same facility , her inexplicably bizarre recruitment by the cia to work as an astral - projecting assassin , and her time on the run from her former employees .
we shouldn’t spoil the final act but it gets progressively sillier until what at first had seemed like an interactive take on coming - of - age thrillers such as carrie turns into an awkward mix of james bond and ghostbusters . it’s just as absurd as that sounds and yet somehow manages to take itself deadly seriously , despite out - of - the - blue plot elements and changes in character motivation that follow no internal logic .
french developer quantic dream is best known for 2005’s fahrenheit and 2010’s heavy rain , and although there’s no plot connection beyond shares the same style of storytelling and gameplay . however , beyond does reign in many of heavy rain’s cheaper narrative tricks and the dialogue is noticeably better . the script still isn’t great , but writer and producer david cage seems more aware of his limitations this time and there are only a few lines that are actively cringe - worthy .
actually , there may be far more than that but you’ll probably never notice thanks to the impressively committed performance from ellen ‘juno’ page as jodie . it really is an astonishing example of performance capture and elevates the material well beyond its worth . page is helped by the equally phenomenal graphics , which are amongst the best ever seen on a home console – both in terms of the facial animation and the varied backdrops .
as far as the gameplay and controls go very little has changed . your characters are a little less clumsy when moving around but other than that all your interactions with the game world are through pre - determined quick time event sequences . pushing the right analogue stick in a particular direction is the most common activity , with the combat now introducing a slow motion element where you have to move the stick in the direction of an attack to land a blow .
but unless something in the game world is highlighted with a little white dot ( blue for aiden ) it might as well not exist . there are no puzzles as such and for a game that’s meant to be all about the characters very little interactive dialogue . instead you’re dragged through each scene by the nose , forced to pantomime onscreen actions as if you’re controlling a virtual marionette .
there is a simplistic stealth element in some of the levels but you never aim your gun , just press a shoulder button to instantly kill someone when the game tells you you’re in range . if you just sit and watch a boxed set of 24 while randomly wobbling a controller in your lap you’d get much the same experience .
the game makes a big show of saying you can play through the whole thing while using a tablet as a controller , or with another player joining in at the same time , and these are great ideas . we really don’t want to imply we’re being snobbish about the game just because it isn’t a straight action title . that’s fine with us , we applaud it . but if it’s not an action game , if its plot and dialogue are the driving force , then they’ve got to be good enough to justify the experience . and they don’t come anywhere close .
beyond’s problems are essentially the opposite of heavy rain : instead of a good idea bogged down by a weak script and mediocre voice - acting beyond is a thoroughly silly and poorly reasoned concept supported by actors and technology it does not at all deserve .
but that’s not to say that the game cannot be affecting . the most emotionally resonate moment is a sequence where jodie is living rough on the streets , which creates a real empathy not just for the character but the plight of the homeless in general . gaming’s ability to let you walk in someone else’s shoes is rarely applied to this sort of social realism and as brief as the sequence is , and as unfeasibly saintly as jodie’s down - and - out friends are , it’s probably the game’s most laudable achievement .
the wider problem with quantic dream’s whole approach is that none of the stories they’re telling justify the interactive element . there is nothing about beyond that is improved by the fact that it is ( barely ) interactive and apart from the multiple choice ending you have very little direct influence on how things turn out .
as the game went on we began to realise that , particularly with the episodic nature of the storytelling , what it reminded us of was not a movie but a pop - up book . you can play with the small number of interactive elements all you like but the meat of the story is still predetermined and relatively inconsequential compared to the visual novelty of the experience .
in terms of graphics and actors’ performances there’s almost nothing to touch beyond , but in terms of an enjoyable game , or even just an interactive story , it barely even approaches b - movie level .
in short : the visuals are incredible , but for a game obsessed with storytelling at all costs the dopey plot and underwritten characters in no way make up for the lack of gameplay .
pros : incredible graphics , both in terms of the facial animation and backdrops . a superb central performance from ellen page .
cons : silly , tonally inconsistent story and shallow characterisation . very little real gameplay and far more linear than it likes to pretend .
formats : playstation 3 price : £49 . 99 publisher : sony computer entertainment developer : quantic dream release date : 11th october 2013 age rating : 16
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i did not want to know but i have since come to know that one of the girls , when she wasn & apos ; t a girl anymore and hadn & apos ; t long been back from her honeymoon , went into the bathroom , stood in front of the mirror , unbuttoned her blouse , took off her bra and aimed her own father & apos ; s gun at her heart , her father at the time was in the dining room with other members of the family and three guests . when they heard the shot , some five minutes after the gift had left the table , her father didn & apos ; t get up at once , but stayed there for a few seconds , paralysed , his mouth still full of food , not daring to chew or swallow , far less to spit the food out on to his plate ; and when he finally did get up and run to the bathroom , those who followed him noticed that when he discovered the blood - spattered body of his daughter and clutched his head in his hands , he kept passing the mouthful of meat from one cheek to the other , still not knowing what to do with it .
the narrator of & apos ; & apos ; a heart so white & apos ; & apos ; is capable of strong passion - - particularly in regard to his wife - - but we hear from him mainly about the passions of others . he is the kind of man who watches life through a window , either from a room looking down onto the street ( as he does on his honeymoon in havana ) or from street level , generally at night , looking up at a lighted window ( as he does during a trip to new york , when he is waiting to go back to the apartment of his friend berta , who is having a tryst with a man she met through a video introduction service ) . and in this he is typical of all javier marías narrators : they inevitably adopt this peering pose at some point or another . it is a pose that is also a philosophical position - - a reflection on how much or how little people can really know about one another ; a commentary on suspicion and guesswork and , finally , helplessness in the face of events .
but again , i have created the wrong impression if i have made the marías narrator sound like a voyeur . he is intimately involved in the events he describes , and he is also intimately involved with us , his readers . like henry james & apos ; s or marcel proust & apos ; s , his sinuous , flattering , seemingly endless sentences presume - - even insist - - that we are as subtle and intelligent as the author . and their subject matter is proustian or jamesian as well - - marías is interested not so much in the violent death or the adulterous love affair itself as in how we think and feel about such events when we contemplate them beforehand or consider them afterward . ( that this jamesian quality has been preserved in english is a great tribute to marías & apos ; s translators , esther allen and especially margaret jull costa . but it may also be attributable to the fact that marías & apos ; s fiction in some way comes from english : he has done spanish translations of sterne , hardy , stevenson and faulkner , among others . )
you will come away from & apos ; & apos ; dark back of time & apos ; & apos ; with some answers ( there is no wife named luisa , indeed no wife at all ; marías had a 3 - year - old brother who died before he himself was born ; his father , also a writer , was once imprisoned and nearly executed by franco ; john gawsworth is real , but the oxford booksellers called the alabasters derive more from dickens than from their real - life counterparts , the stones ) , but whether these answers are true is one of the questions that are left unanswered . to give but a single small example : & apos ; & apos ; dark back of time & apos ; & apos ; mentions that marías , like john gawsworth before him , has become king of redonda . if you go to the web site of the redonda foundation , at urltoken , you will see that there is actually a dispute involving javier marías & apos ; s sovereignty over this tiny caribbean island . the english - speaking disputant employs the word & apos ; & apos ; impostor , & apos ; & apos ; which happens to be a favorite marías word . has marías himself set up the whole dispute - - perhaps the whole redonda site - - as yet another literary game ? probably not : marías claims in & apos ; & apos ; dark back of time & apos ; & apos ; to be completely computerless , and for some reason i believe him . but the uncertainty is nonetheless tantalizing . it is impossible to know , with anything marías has touched , who is whose fictional creation .
like the work of jorge luis borges , of which it may superficially remind you , & apos ; & apos ; dark back of time & apos ; & apos ; deals repeatedly and amusingly with the relationship between reality and the written word . but where borges is cold , marías is warm : his breath is in our ear , his urban reality is essentially our urban reality , and - - despite his interest in ghosts - - he is very much alive right now . he has seen the same movies we have , danced to the same music , read the same books , gone to the same kinds of restaurants and racetracks and academic meetings . he is even capable , at times , of anticipating our thoughts and memories , as if he were performing a version of a simultaneous translation on us , rendering our hidden suspicions into mutually acknowledged words .
it is a rare gift , to be offered a writer who lives in our own time but speaks with the intensity of the past , who comes with the extra richness lent by a foreign history and nonetheless knows our own culture inside out . yet , strangely , javier marías - - who is famous in spain and garlanded with prizes from the rest of europe - - remains almost unknown in america . what are we waiting for ? all the gifts we are offered in life ( as marías himself is fond of pointing out ) are fleeting ones , easily lost or ignored or undervalued and only regretted when they are no longer available to us . it & apos ; s high time we accepted this one .