Arquivo da categoria: Filmes

Cutter’s Way

(versão em português aqui)

The way to get me interested in anything is to tell me it’s impossible to make. – Ivan Passer

Czech filmmaker Ivan Passer died last thursday.I have written about him here before and there’s few careers that fascinate me more in recent decades.He directed one of the best films of the local New Wave (Intimate Lighting) and co-wrote the first Milos Forman films (Loves of a Blonde, The Fireman’s Ball, Audition), then emigrated to the West post Prague Spring like so many other Eastern European talents and things become much more odd and subterranean.Between 1971 and 2000, Passer directed 13 films, occasionally working with famous stars (Michael Caine, Jeff Bridges, Peter O’Toole, Robert Duvall, Omar Sharif) almost always in their films that no one has seen.Three decades as a kind of ghost of East European absurdism in Hollywood.

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Cutter’s Way

(English version here)

A forma de me deixar interessado em algo é me dizer que é impossível de fazer. – Ivan Passer

Faleceu na última quinta-feira o cineasta checo Ivan Passer. Já escrevi sobre ele aqui antes e tem poucas carreiras que me fascinam mais nas últimas décadas. Ele dirigiu um dos melhores filmes do Cinema Novo local (Iluminação Intima) e co-escreveu os primeiros filmes do Milos Forman (Amores de uma Loira, Baile do Bombeiro, Audition), então emigrou para o ocidente pós Primavera de Praga como tantos outros talentos do leste europeu e as coisas se tornam bem mais peculiares e subterrâneas. Entre 1971 e 2000, Passer dirigiu 13 filmes, ocasionalmente trabalhando com estrelas famosas (Michael Caine, Jeff Bridges, Peter O’Toole, Robert Duvall, Omar Sharif) quase sempre em filmes delas que ninguém viu.  Três décadas como uma espécie de fantasma do absurdismo do leste europeu em Hollywood.

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(versão em português aqui)

Released in 1973 at the peak of Blaxploitation era, The Spook Who Sat by the Door may at first suggest one of the many established genres variations that were popular during the cycle, but it is not a satire of spy movies, even if it openly plays with elements of the genre for subversive purposes.In fact, The Spook Who Sat By the Door’s premise cannot be more delicious: a senator looking for a good electoral theme decides that the CIA has no black agent and the agency is obliged to make an affirmative hiring, the winner. spends five years there as an unremarked ghost, and after leaving the government, he uses his agency skills to begin a Black uprising.

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(English version here)

Como foi lançado em 1973 no pico do Blaxploitation, The Spook Who Sat by the Door pode sugerir a princípio uma das muitas variações de gêneros estabelecidos que foram populares na época, mas não se trata de uma sátira a filmes de espionagem, mesmo que abertamente lance mão de elementos do gênero para fins subversivos.  Na verdade, a premissa de The Spook Who Sat By the Door não pode ser mais saborosa: um senador a procura de um bom tema eleitoral decide que a CIA não tem nenhum agente negro e a agencia é obrigada a fazer uma contratação afirmativa, o vencedor passa cinco anos lá como um fantasma subestimado e quando deixa o governo faz uso dos conhecimentos adquiridos na agência para começar uma insurreição negra.

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(Versão em português aqui)

A few remarks on the first 25 and then the remaining are only listed.

Beggars of Life (William A. Wellman, 1928)
William Wellman had just recent directed the very popular Wings, when he take the opposite direction and made this film about two young lovers on the run in the middle of American train hobos. In some ways, it suggests the social films made during the great depression inclusing Wellman’s own masterpiece Wild Boys of the Road that revisit much of the same territory. Rough, very unsentimental and with beautiful performance from Louise Brooks that is far away from the work she would do for Pabst and Hawks a little later.

Sadie Thompson (Raoul Walsh, 1928)

A dissolution tale with a large variety of registers. A triangle of different worldviews that Walsh allows space to resonate. In the middle of all a illuminated Gloria Swanson. It is also a rare opportunity of seeing Walsh on screen a little before the accident that ended his acting career.

The Last Flight (William Dieterle, 1931)

This was the first American film from William Dieterle and some of its force comes from how it remains suspended between two continents.  The masochist pragmatism in front of the remains of war come from US, but the sense of desperation comes from Europe that serve as stage from the conflict and amplifies everyone’s impotence.

Other Men’s Women (William A. Wellman, 1931)

Wellman filming the romance between American working class men in the middle of train lines that are cinematographic as usual. It remind me of the best Jean Renoir did in his Popular front days.

Safe in Hell (William A. Wellman, 1931)

One of the best things about Wellman’s movies from this era  i show ecletic they are both in subjects and even inside themselves changing registers with great freedom. Safe in Hell is almost exactly reversal of Other Men’s Women from its focus on women to its exotic near abstract setting. Like many of the director’s films, it is a movie about civilization and its frontiers, here filtered through a woman dealing with a place where no pretenses of it arrived. Safe in Hell movies with assurance between the moral dramaand a specificity of gesture in the many negotiations that Dorothy Mackail need to stabilish through its short duration.

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(English version here)

Comentários para os primeiros 25 e depois listando os demais.

Beggars of Life (William A. Wellman, 1928)

William Wellman recém dirigira o imensamente popular Asas, quando tomou a caminho oposto e fez este filme sobre dois jovens em fuga no meio dos vadios de trem Americanos. De certa forma adianta alguns dos filmes sociais feitos durante a grande depressão um pouco antes dela incluindo a obra prima do próprio Wellman Wild Boys of the Road que revisita muito do mesmo território, Duro, pouco sentimental e com uma bela atuação de Louise Brooks muito distante da que faria para Pabst e Hawks logo depois.

Sadie Thompson (Raoul Walsh, 1928)

Um conto de dissolução com uma variedade muito grande de registros. Um triangulo de visões de mundo distantes ao qual Walsh da pleno espaço para ressoar. No centro dele uma Gloria Swanson iluminada. Também uma rara oportunidade de ver Walsh em cena pouco antes do acidente que acabou com sua carreira de ator.

The Last Flight (William Dieterle, 1931)

Este foi o primeiro filme americano de William Dieterle e parte da força dele me parece muito ligada a como ele existe suspenso entre os dois continentes, O pragmatismo masoquista frente aos destroços da guerra vem dos EUA, mas o sentimento de desespero surge da Europa que serviu de palco para o conflito e amplifica a impotência de todos.

Other Men’s Women (William A. Wellman, 1931)

Wellman filmando o romance entre os homens trabalhadores americanos no meio das linhas de trem tão cinematográficas como de costume. Lembra o que de melhor Jean Renoir fez nos seus tempos de frente popular.

Safe in Hell (William A. Wellman, 1931)

Uma das coisas boas dos filmes de Wellman dessa época é o seu ecletismo tanto de temas como mesmo internamente trocando de registros com grande liberdade. Safe in Hell é quase um oposto exato de Other Men’s Women do foco na mulher a sua locação exótica quase abstrata. É como muito dos filmes do diretor, um filme sobre a civilização e suas fronteiras, aqui filtrados pela forma como uma mulher lida com estar num espaço onde nenhuma pretensão dela chegou. Filme que se move com muita segurança entre o drama moral e uma especificidade de gesto nas várias negociações que Dorothy Mackail precisa estabelecer ao longo da sua curta duração.

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Amazing Grace

(versão em português aqui)

The list criteria remain the same as usual: films seen for the first time in 2019 that had their first public screening in the past three years.  The difference is that I scrapped the honorable mentions and did a write-up on everything. The order doesn’t mean very much, a movie at #37 is one I liked more than at #57, but I could’ve had it at over #34 or under #40 in a different day.  Beyond all those, it is worth making to remark over Amazing Grace, Aretha Franklin gospel mass that Sydney Pollack shot in 1972 but was only edited now. I didn’t think it quite belonged in this list, but it is a spectacle far beyond just a concert show. A matter of faith.

Above the Rain

The best new short I saw this year was Ken Jacobs’ Above the Rain do Ken Jacobs followed closer by Jonathan Schwartz’s A Leaf is the Sea is a Theater. Alguns outros destaques:  ________ (Kyle Faulkner), The Fountains of Paris (Stephen Broomer), The Marshall’s Two Executions (Radu Jude), Music from the Edge of the Allegheny Plateau (Kevin Jerome Everson), Shakti (Martin Rejtman), Two Basilicas (Heinz Emigholz), Vever (for Barbara) (Deborah Stratman), X-Manas (Clarissa Ribeiro).  Also,  Toshio Matsumoto’s 1986 Summer which was recente discovered.

100) Second Time Around/Segunda Vez (Dora Garcia)

History (in this case Argentina’s, but it could’ve been American or the third world as a whole) as a series of echoes. Garcia’s editing work is exceptional.

99) The Emperor of Paris/L’Empereur de Paris (Jean-François Richet)

By far the year’s best superhero movie. The best solved among Richet’s industry films and the studio recreation of Napoleon-era Paris is great.

98) In Like Flynn (Russell Mulcahy)

A little after becoming a star Errol Flynn wrote na autobiography of his times as an Australian seafarer with the clear intention of mix life and image and this adaptation from Mulcahy takes his clues from him in a film that seem to come from any cinema decade but this one. Mulcahy remains one of the mainstream’s best stylists.

97) Casa (Leticia Simões)

Intimate, but with a panoramic vision. Starting from her family portrait, Simões manages to trace a history of Brazil from the last decades of slavery until lulism. Her mother is one of the best film characters of current Brazilian film and there’s a strength in the conflicts between the three women that our current fictions rarely achieve.

96) Varda by Agnes/Varda par Agnés (Agnés Varda, Didier Rouget)

Varda leaves the stage. Like much of her late work, it is a film that starts on herself and reaches the world. One starts thinking “but she already did The Beaches of Agnes” and by the final scenes think “but I’m glad she did this one as well”.
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