Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSConann.The lineup for the 76th Locarno Film Festival is now online, and it includes new films from Radu Jude, Eduardo Williams, Bertrand Mandico (a feature and two shorts), Leonor Teles, Lav Diaz, and Denis Côté, plus many more. The festival runs from August 2 through 12.Following Barbie, which releases later this month, Greta Gerwig will next direct two Chronicles of Narnia adaptations for Netflix. This news comes as a side detail in a wide-reaching New Yorker piece on Mattel Films by Alex Barasch, which details the toy company’s plans to develop more than 45 films using its properties, including a Hot Wheels film by J.J. Abrams and a Daniel Kaluuya-led, "surrealistic" reboot of the children's show Barney.REMEMBERINGThe great comic actor Alan Arkin died last week at age 89. For the New York Times,...
- 7/5/2023
- MUBI
3 December 1930 - 13 September 2022
The cinematographer recalls working with the radical French director, a man who transformed cinema and survived on omelettes and beer
Peter Brook remembered by Richard EyreRead the Observer’s obituaries of 2022 in full
I didn’t grow up in a movie-loving family – we rarely went to the cinema. However, I had this strange habit as a young teenager: I avidly read French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur’s film reviews. Once, I asked my parents for permission to go and see Godard’s Pierrot le Fou. They said: “Absolutely not.” I asked why. “Because it’s violent,” came the reply. I finally watched Pierrot le Fou when I studied at the national film school. The film was not violent in the way they saw it, but it was a shock, nonetheless. Little did I know then that I would spend a few years working side by side with Jean-Luc Godard.
The cinematographer recalls working with the radical French director, a man who transformed cinema and survived on omelettes and beer
Peter Brook remembered by Richard EyreRead the Observer’s obituaries of 2022 in full
I didn’t grow up in a movie-loving family – we rarely went to the cinema. However, I had this strange habit as a young teenager: I avidly read French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur’s film reviews. Once, I asked my parents for permission to go and see Godard’s Pierrot le Fou. They said: “Absolutely not.” I asked why. “Because it’s violent,” came the reply. I finally watched Pierrot le Fou when I studied at the national film school. The film was not violent in the way they saw it, but it was a shock, nonetheless. Little did I know then that I would spend a few years working side by side with Jean-Luc Godard.
- 12/14/2022
- by Guardian Staff
- The Guardian - Film News
The late Jacques Rivette knocks us silly with a breathtaking meditation on what it means to be an artist, and what art demands of those that believe in it. A woman roped into posing nude for a famed but insecure painter, undergoes several intense days of compliant collaboration. Rivette’s unforced style gives the impression of life as it is being lived; his commitment is matched by that of actors Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin and Emmanuelle Béart.
La belle noiseuse
Blu-ray
Cohen Media Group
1991 / Color / 1:37 flat full frame / 238 min. / The Beautiful Troublemaker / Street Date May 8, 2018 / 30.99
Starring: Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, Emmanuelle Béart, Marianne Denicourt, David Bursztein, Gilles Arbona, Marie Belluc.
Cinematography: William Lubtchansky
Film Editor: Nicole Lubtchansky
Paintings by (and ‘as the hands of the painter’): Bernard Dufour
Production design: Emmanuel de Chauvigny
Written by Pascal Bonitzer, Christine Laurent, Jacques Rivette from a story by Balzac
Produced by Martine Marignac,...
La belle noiseuse
Blu-ray
Cohen Media Group
1991 / Color / 1:37 flat full frame / 238 min. / The Beautiful Troublemaker / Street Date May 8, 2018 / 30.99
Starring: Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, Emmanuelle Béart, Marianne Denicourt, David Bursztein, Gilles Arbona, Marie Belluc.
Cinematography: William Lubtchansky
Film Editor: Nicole Lubtchansky
Paintings by (and ‘as the hands of the painter’): Bernard Dufour
Production design: Emmanuel de Chauvigny
Written by Pascal Bonitzer, Christine Laurent, Jacques Rivette from a story by Balzac
Produced by Martine Marignac,...
- 5/12/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The Tenth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series concludes this weekend. — The Classic French Film Festival celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the mid-1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.
There are three more events for the Tenth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival happening this weekend:
Friday, March 23rd at 7:00pm – Le Samourai
In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts. After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trenchcoat can protect him. An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director Jean‑Pierre Melville, “Le samouraï” is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American...
There are three more events for the Tenth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival happening this weekend:
Friday, March 23rd at 7:00pm – Le Samourai
In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts. After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trenchcoat can protect him. An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director Jean‑Pierre Melville, “Le samouraï” is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American...
- 3/19/2018
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
A cinematic puzzle and a filmic detective piece, Serge Bromberg’s examination of a world-class filmmaker’s catastrophic, never-finished production fascinates and dazzles. If the particulars of H.G. Clouzot’s experimental epic of internal torment remain clouded, the astonishing visuals he created are a total knockout. Working with hours of uncut dailies and precise collaborator memories, Bromberg gives us the most interesting filmic autopsy on record. Incredible stuff!
Inferno
(L’enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Blu-ray
Arrow Academy
2009 / Color & B&W / 1:78 widescreen / 100 min. / L’enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot / Street Date February 6, 2018 / Available from Arrow Video 34.95
Starring: Romy Schneider, Serge Reggiani, Bérénice Bejo, Jacques Gamblin, Dany Carrel, Jean-Claude Bercq, Mario David, Catherine Allégret, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Gilbert Amy, Jacques Douy, Jean-Louis Ducarme, Costa-Gavras, William Lubtchansky, Thi Lan Nguyen, Joël Stein, Bernard Stora, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bernard Blier, Inès Clouzot, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Lino Ventura, Burt Lancaster.
Cinematography: Jérôme Krumenacker, Irina Lubtchansky...
Inferno
(L’enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Blu-ray
Arrow Academy
2009 / Color & B&W / 1:78 widescreen / 100 min. / L’enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot / Street Date February 6, 2018 / Available from Arrow Video 34.95
Starring: Romy Schneider, Serge Reggiani, Bérénice Bejo, Jacques Gamblin, Dany Carrel, Jean-Claude Bercq, Mario David, Catherine Allégret, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Gilbert Amy, Jacques Douy, Jean-Louis Ducarme, Costa-Gavras, William Lubtchansky, Thi Lan Nguyen, Joël Stein, Bernard Stora, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bernard Blier, Inès Clouzot, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Lino Ventura, Burt Lancaster.
Cinematography: Jérôme Krumenacker, Irina Lubtchansky...
- 2/20/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Claude Lanzmann is best known for turning the camera on Holocaust criminals and survivors in his landmark documentary Shoah and its feature film offshoots like 2013’s tremendously powerful The Last of the Unjust, but in his new documentary Napalm this master of recording human memory turns the camera on himself.Based a story in the French director’s book The Patagonian Hare, Napalm’s centerpiece is a long recounting to the camera by the 91-year-old Lanzmann of his trip to North Korea as part of an international delegation in 1958. During this long visit, he met a beautiful nurse that didn’t speak his language, yet with whom Lanzmann nevertheless embarked upon an almost unbelievably remarkable day of courtship, political fear, exotic fascination and personal desire. It is no wonder this experience so stuck to his mind. Lanzmann returned to North Korea nearly 50 years later first in 2004 and then in 2015, and...
- 5/25/2017
- MUBI
Babette Mangolte. © Fleur van Muiswinkel If the name Babette Mangolte doesn’t ring with the same familiarity as such storied French cinematographers as Raoul Coutard and William Lubtchansky, it’s not for lack of innovation or accomplishment. Born in Montmorot in 1941, Mangolte moved to New York in 1970 following a number of years as an assistant cinematographer and apprentice to director Marcel Hanoun. There she quickly integrated herself into the city’s burgeoning experimental cinema scene, befriending luminaries such as Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage, and soon after met a 20-year-old Chantal Akerman whom she proceeded to collaborate with on a series of groundbreaking works throughout the mid-70s. Influenced as much by structuralism as the films of the French New Wave, Mangolte and Akerman deftly utilized time and space as cinematic conduits to visually articulate themes of dislocation, alienation, and female autonomy. Their most celebrated work, the landmark feminist dispositif Jeanne Dielman,...
- 3/30/2017
- MUBI
This article accompanies the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s dual retrospective of the films of Jacques Rivette and David Lynch and is part of an ongoing review of Rivette’s films for the Notebook, in light of several major re-releases of his work.Two masterpieces, made three years apart, evincing the power of the close-up in unexpected ways. Rivette, with an uncharacteristically tender emphasis, shows a tear roll down Marie’s cheek and drop onto her wrist at the end of The Story of Marie and Julien. In a movie otherwise consisting of unemphatic, shifting wide shots and the occasional functional insert shot, Rivette glides in gently to frame her face in pensive close-up—his first since Wuthering Heights?—as her expression becomes the unexpected crux of the scene. The tear, running through the bloodless canal dug into her wrist, silently resurrects her, gets her blood literally flowing again,...
- 12/22/2015
- by Christopher Small
- MUBI
Above: Lanzmann and Murmelstein in Rome, 1975.
Claude Lanzmann has created a new film whose heart is the interview footage shot for his monumental Shoah project of Austrian Benjamin Murmelstein, the so-called last (and as of the 1975, the only surviving) of the Jewish Elders, those nominally in charge of the Nazis' Jewish ghettos. Filming Murmelstein in exile in Rome in 1975, Lanzmann pulls from the man some consider a Nazi collaborator and some consider a hero long and anecdotal recollections of his experiences working with Eichmann, the various logistical organizational concerns of his pre-war emigration efforts for Jews in Vienna, and his wartime years first as an administrator in the Czechoslovakian “model ghetto” of Theresienstadt and later as its Jewish leader, or "Elder of the Jews."
This old interview is intercut, in a variation on Shoah's structure, with Lanzmann's visits to the locations featured in Murmelstein's narration and the history surrounding it: the town today,...
Claude Lanzmann has created a new film whose heart is the interview footage shot for his monumental Shoah project of Austrian Benjamin Murmelstein, the so-called last (and as of the 1975, the only surviving) of the Jewish Elders, those nominally in charge of the Nazis' Jewish ghettos. Filming Murmelstein in exile in Rome in 1975, Lanzmann pulls from the man some consider a Nazi collaborator and some consider a hero long and anecdotal recollections of his experiences working with Eichmann, the various logistical organizational concerns of his pre-war emigration efforts for Jews in Vienna, and his wartime years first as an administrator in the Czechoslovakian “model ghetto” of Theresienstadt and later as its Jewish leader, or "Elder of the Jews."
This old interview is intercut, in a variation on Shoah's structure, with Lanzmann's visits to the locations featured in Murmelstein's narration and the history surrounding it: the town today,...
- 2/7/2014
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
This is a talk given by French director of photography Caroline Champetier at the La Roche-sur-Yon International Film Festival in October 2012, originally published in two parts on the festival’s site (www.fif-85.com). This translation is being published with their kind permission. This year's festival will take place from October 16-21, Kelly Reichardt will be the guest of honor. Many thanks to Emmanuel Burdeau, programmer of the festival, Jordan Mintzer and Caroline Champetier.
Caroline Champetier: I’ve always tried to take a step back from what I’m doing. The more I work, however, the less I’m able to deal with this exercise. I just finished production on Claude Lanzmann’s The Last of the Unjust and have barely said goodbye to David Teboul, a young director who I worked with on Cinq avenue Marceau (2002), a film I think very highly of and that’s about Yves Saint Laurent’s last collection.
Caroline Champetier: I’ve always tried to take a step back from what I’m doing. The more I work, however, the less I’m able to deal with this exercise. I just finished production on Claude Lanzmann’s The Last of the Unjust and have barely said goodbye to David Teboul, a young director who I worked with on Cinq avenue Marceau (2002), a film I think very highly of and that’s about Yves Saint Laurent’s last collection.
- 9/20/2013
- by Ted Fendt
- MUBI
The Last Of The Unjust (Claude Lanzmann, France/Austria)
Out Of Competition
Above: Lanzmann and Murmelstein in Rome, 1975.
Claude Lanzmann has brought to Cannes a new film whose heart is the interview footage shot for the Shoah project of Austrian Benjamin Murmelstein, the so-called last (and as of the 1975, the only surviving) of the Jewish Elders, those nominally in charge of the Nazis' Jewish ghettos. Filming Murmelstein in exile in Rome in 1975, Lanzmann pulls from the man some consider a Nazi collaborator and some consider a hero long and anecdotal recollections of his experiences working with Eichmann, the various logistical organizational concerns of his pre-war emigration efforts for Jews in Vienna, and his wartime years first as an administrator in the Czechoslovakian “model ghetto” of Theresienstadt and later as its Jewish leader, or "Elder of the Jews."
This old interview is intercut, in a variation on Shoah's structure, with...
Out Of Competition
Above: Lanzmann and Murmelstein in Rome, 1975.
Claude Lanzmann has brought to Cannes a new film whose heart is the interview footage shot for the Shoah project of Austrian Benjamin Murmelstein, the so-called last (and as of the 1975, the only surviving) of the Jewish Elders, those nominally in charge of the Nazis' Jewish ghettos. Filming Murmelstein in exile in Rome in 1975, Lanzmann pulls from the man some consider a Nazi collaborator and some consider a hero long and anecdotal recollections of his experiences working with Eichmann, the various logistical organizational concerns of his pre-war emigration efforts for Jews in Vienna, and his wartime years first as an administrator in the Czechoslovakian “model ghetto” of Theresienstadt and later as its Jewish leader, or "Elder of the Jews."
This old interview is intercut, in a variation on Shoah's structure, with...
- 5/24/2013
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
It's an exhaustive look at cinema of the old, and the new in Austria's capital. Starting today, and moving into November (3rd), Vienna celebrates almost two weeks' worth of film culture via the Viennale (a.k.a. Vienna International Film Festival). Bookended by Xavier Beauvois's Of Gods and Men, which took home the Grand Prix from this year's Cannes Festival, and Pedro González-Rubio's Alamar, Tiger Awardee in Rotterdam, the non-competitive fest tries to balance fiction, documentaries and short films in its main program. World premieres of this edition stem from German primary rocks like Rudolf Thome (The Red Room) and Klaus Wyborny (Studies for the Decay of the West). Another highlight is the first showing of Houchang Allahyari's fictionalised doc Die Verrueckte Welt der Ute Bock (The Crazy World of Ute Bock), portraying everyday life of a locally famed asylum helper. However, features like Sofia Coppola's...
- 10/21/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
Chicago – What truly defines a master of suspense? Is it the skill of keeping an audience’s attention rapt with slick pacing, elaborately designed set-pieces, and a whopper of a twist ending? Or is it simply the ability to viscerally convey the psychological trap of a character until the audience feels confined within it, and every onscreen gasp, scream and shiver becomes the viewer’s own?
Henri-Georges Clouzot is one of the few filmmakers in cinema history who not only warrants comparison to the legendary Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock, but deserves to be considered his equal (both men were greatly fond of storyboards). Though he only made a quarter as many pictures during his career, which spanned nearly four decades, he made some of the most influential and spellbinding thrillers ever made, including two renowned masterpieces, 1953’s “The Wages of Fear” and 1955’s “Diabolique.” The latter film certainly...
Henri-Georges Clouzot is one of the few filmmakers in cinema history who not only warrants comparison to the legendary Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock, but deserves to be considered his equal (both men were greatly fond of storyboards). Though he only made a quarter as many pictures during his career, which spanned nearly four decades, he made some of the most influential and spellbinding thrillers ever made, including two renowned masterpieces, 1953’s “The Wages of Fear” and 1955’s “Diabolique.” The latter film certainly...
- 9/14/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
The Viennale (October 21 through November 3) has announced its first round of features and documentaries, but more interesting for now are the tributes and special programs. There'll be a tribute, for example, to the late cinematographer William Lubtchansky, who "realized no fewer than fourteen films with Jacques Rivette, eleven with Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub [the image above, by the way, is from Class Relations [Klassenverhältnisse, 1984)], and six with Jean-Luc Godard. In addition he repeatedly worked with Jacques Doillon, Claude Lanzmann, and Agnès Varda. With the presentation of about a dozen films from Lubtchansky's oeuvre, which totals more than a hundred works, the Viennale is paying tribute to one of the most important cameramen as well as an exceptional personality."...
- 8/20/2010
- MUBI
Last Year at Marienbad is often relegated to a peak of the separate-but-not-quite-equal Left Bank branch of the French New Wave, but as revealed in a longform interview with director Alain Resnais by André Labarthe and Jacques Rivette (Cahiers du cinéma, September 1961) Marienbad was major influence on French New Wave filmmaking strategies, particularly on Rivette. In fact, the seeds of a style that we have come to think of as definitively Rivettian are seen germinating in that director's questions, analysis and dubiousness about Resnais's declarations in segments from the interview reprinted below.
The co-authors begin the piece by describing Marienbad as "a 'sealed' work, without detail" and then go on, as their logic follows, to immediately question Resnais about the game played throughout the movie by the two leading men, which is a motif, an obsession and a linchpin.
***
Alain Resnais: It was the game of Nim, of which...
The co-authors begin the piece by describing Marienbad as "a 'sealed' work, without detail" and then go on, as their logic follows, to immediately question Resnais about the game played throughout the movie by the two leading men, which is a motif, an obsession and a linchpin.
***
Alain Resnais: It was the game of Nim, of which...
- 7/30/2010
- MUBI
Cannes 2010 Coverage
David Cairns
The Forgotten: Trigger Happy Punks
The Forgotten: Mood Swings
The Forgotten: Seduced and Abandoned
Adrian Curry
Movie Poster of the Week: "Guns"
Movie Poster of the Week: "Tentacles"
Movie Poster of the Week: "Tropical Malady"
Movie Poster of the Week: "La religieuse"
Daniel Kasman
Image of the Day. Records of Material Objects in the Cinema #1
R.I.P. William Lubtchansky
Images of the Day. Ideal Couples
Cannes 2010. Favorite Moments: Days 1 & 2
Cannes 2010. An Actor-Director and His Women: "Tournée" (Mathieu Amalric, France)
Cannes 2010. 3-Wall Realism: "Tuesday, After Christmas" (Radu Muntean, Romania)
Cannes 2010: Sincere Love: "The Strange Case of Angelica" (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal)
Cannes 2010. Favorite Moments: Day 3
Cannes 2010: A Devil without the Details: "Aurora" (Cristi Puiu, Romania)
Cannes 2010. Love-Hate Relationships: "Au petite bonheur" (Marcel L’Herbier, France, 1946)
Cannes 2010. Playful Protest: "Hands Up" (Romain Goupil, France)
Cannes 2010. Favorite Moments: Day 4
Cannes 2010. Today's Quiet City: "I Wish I Knew" (Jia Zhangke,...
David Cairns
The Forgotten: Trigger Happy Punks
The Forgotten: Mood Swings
The Forgotten: Seduced and Abandoned
Adrian Curry
Movie Poster of the Week: "Guns"
Movie Poster of the Week: "Tentacles"
Movie Poster of the Week: "Tropical Malady"
Movie Poster of the Week: "La religieuse"
Daniel Kasman
Image of the Day. Records of Material Objects in the Cinema #1
R.I.P. William Lubtchansky
Images of the Day. Ideal Couples
Cannes 2010. Favorite Moments: Days 1 & 2
Cannes 2010. An Actor-Director and His Women: "Tournée" (Mathieu Amalric, France)
Cannes 2010. 3-Wall Realism: "Tuesday, After Christmas" (Radu Muntean, Romania)
Cannes 2010: Sincere Love: "The Strange Case of Angelica" (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal)
Cannes 2010. Favorite Moments: Day 3
Cannes 2010: A Devil without the Details: "Aurora" (Cristi Puiu, Romania)
Cannes 2010. Love-Hate Relationships: "Au petite bonheur" (Marcel L’Herbier, France, 1946)
Cannes 2010. Playful Protest: "Hands Up" (Romain Goupil, France)
Cannes 2010. Favorite Moments: Day 4
Cannes 2010. Today's Quiet City: "I Wish I Knew" (Jia Zhangke,...
- 6/2/2010
- MUBI
Avant-garde French cinematographer at the heart of the new wave
For 45 years, the French cinematographer William Lubtchansky, who has died of heart disease aged 72, put his talents at the disposal of the most challenging, intellectually inquiring, uncompromisingly brilliant film directors who emerged with the French new wave. Lubtchansky worked with Jean-Luc Godard (six times), although they fell out, made up and fell out again; the husband and wife team of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet (11 times); and Jacques Rivette (14 times).
Although these directors differed in their approaches and sensibilities, they were united in their irreverent, generally unsentimental treatment of character, their existential attitude to society and to human behaviour, and their experiments with filmic space and time. They questioned cinema itself by drawing attention to the conventions used in film-making and quoting from the other arts. They presented an alternative to Hollywood by consciously breaking its conventions while at the...
For 45 years, the French cinematographer William Lubtchansky, who has died of heart disease aged 72, put his talents at the disposal of the most challenging, intellectually inquiring, uncompromisingly brilliant film directors who emerged with the French new wave. Lubtchansky worked with Jean-Luc Godard (six times), although they fell out, made up and fell out again; the husband and wife team of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet (11 times); and Jacques Rivette (14 times).
Although these directors differed in their approaches and sensibilities, they were united in their irreverent, generally unsentimental treatment of character, their existential attitude to society and to human behaviour, and their experiments with filmic space and time. They questioned cinema itself by drawing attention to the conventions used in film-making and quoting from the other arts. They presented an alternative to Hollywood by consciously breaking its conventions while at the...
- 5/12/2010
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
French cinematographer William Lubtchansky has lost his battle with heart disease, aged 72.
Lubtchansky, who has worked with leading European directors including Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette and Claude Lanzmann, died in Paris on 4 May.
With Rivette he created 14 feature-length films, including last year's 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup, Lubtchansky's final movie.
His other film credits include Elsa la rose in 1966, 1972 documentary Pourquoi Israel?, Lanzmann's 1985 Holocaust film Shoah, and Truffaut's 1981 drama The Woman Next Door.
Lubtchansky is survived by his wife, Nicole, and his daughter, Irina.
Lubtchansky, who has worked with leading European directors including Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette and Claude Lanzmann, died in Paris on 4 May.
With Rivette he created 14 feature-length films, including last year's 36 vues du Pic Saint Loup, Lubtchansky's final movie.
His other film credits include Elsa la rose in 1966, 1972 documentary Pourquoi Israel?, Lanzmann's 1985 Holocaust film Shoah, and Truffaut's 1981 drama The Woman Next Door.
Lubtchansky is survived by his wife, Nicole, and his daughter, Irina.
- 5/11/2010
- WENN
For all his lucid dreams. They will be remembered with Godard, Varda, Lanzmann, Straub & Huillet, Rivette, Truffaut, Garrel, and the rest of cinema, which will not be the same.
Top: From Jacques Rivette's The Story of Marie and Julien (2003); featuring Jerzy Radziwilowicz and Emmanuelle Béart; cinematography by William Lubtchansky.
* * *
"I met him only once, in 2001, when he granted me an interview that turned into a long and amicable talk at his home in Paris (concluding with directions to the nearby Poîlane bakery)." The New Yorker's Richard Brody: "[A]rguably, no cinematographer in the history of cinema has photographed a more significant set of movies.... As a cinematographer, Lubtchansky may not have brought about as manifest a technical revolution as did Gregg Toland and Raoul Coutard, but he played a crucial role in the work of the most historically-informed and classical-minded of modernist filmmakers, by infusing traditional cinematic craftsmanship with a decisively modernist spirit.
Top: From Jacques Rivette's The Story of Marie and Julien (2003); featuring Jerzy Radziwilowicz and Emmanuelle Béart; cinematography by William Lubtchansky.
* * *
"I met him only once, in 2001, when he granted me an interview that turned into a long and amicable talk at his home in Paris (concluding with directions to the nearby Poîlane bakery)." The New Yorker's Richard Brody: "[A]rguably, no cinematographer in the history of cinema has photographed a more significant set of movies.... As a cinematographer, Lubtchansky may not have brought about as manifest a technical revolution as did Gregg Toland and Raoul Coutard, but he played a crucial role in the work of the most historically-informed and classical-minded of modernist filmmakers, by infusing traditional cinematic craftsmanship with a decisively modernist spirit.
- 5/11/2010
- MUBI
Instructables build an Iron Man arc reactor of your own
Sf Gate "Is this the end of Downey Jr's greatness?" interesting peace from Mick Lasalle on taking up residents in franchises.
/Film yet another shortening of the theatrical release to home viewing window. The end is nigh and...
David Poland, always in touch with the business end, responds to this FCC ruling
flick filosopher 'damn those high society film critics!' I love it when MaryAnn gets pissed off at stupid people
Just Jared with new Inception poster and stills
Only the Cinema pays tribute to the just departed cinematographer William Lubtchansky (Rip)
Cinematical Rachel Weisz on the upcoming gender bending body horror film Invisible X
Mnpp gets excited 'bout the new Gregg Araki movie Kaboom
Finally, I don't know how I missed this news in April (but then again that month. argh) but A Star is Born has been reborn again.
Sf Gate "Is this the end of Downey Jr's greatness?" interesting peace from Mick Lasalle on taking up residents in franchises.
/Film yet another shortening of the theatrical release to home viewing window. The end is nigh and...
David Poland, always in touch with the business end, responds to this FCC ruling
flick filosopher 'damn those high society film critics!' I love it when MaryAnn gets pissed off at stupid people
Just Jared with new Inception poster and stills
Only the Cinema pays tribute to the just departed cinematographer William Lubtchansky (Rip)
Cinematical Rachel Weisz on the upcoming gender bending body horror film Invisible X
Mnpp gets excited 'bout the new Gregg Araki movie Kaboom
Finally, I don't know how I missed this news in April (but then again that month. argh) but A Star is Born has been reborn again.
- 5/8/2010
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
BERLIN -- Nearing 80, French new wave director Jacques Rivette continues to display a fine touch with "Don't Touch the Axe," an intimate tale about the games lovers play taken to extremes.
Based on a novella titled The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac, it's the story of a dedicated soldier back from the wars and the socialite lady he loves not wisely but too well.
Handsomely produced and featuring fine performances, the film will travel well to festivals and art houses where audiences respond to classy period pieces with a modern sensibility.
The film begins and ends with encounters taking place several years later than the central events, which are told in flashback. Guillaume Depardieu stars as Napoleonic Gen. Armand de Montriveau who returns to Paris following a time imprisoned by the enemy bearing his wounds and his dignity with equal solemnity. Introduced to the beautiful and mischievous Antoinette de Langeais (Jeanne Balibar) at a fashionable salon, the soldier is instantly captivated.
The lady is also intrigued but such is her taste for coquetry that she makes his seduction a game full of promises and teasing, almost driving him to distraction. Although smitten, de Montriveau comes to the conclusion that he is being played for a fool and determines that turnabout is fair play.
Now it's de Langeais turn to have her emotions toyed with although she continues to give as good as she gets. Rivette takes great care with these scenes, which are filled with subtle by-play and executed with finesse by the two actors.
Cinematographer William Lubtchansky captures beautifully Maira Ramedhan Levy's costumes and Emmanuel de Chauvigny's production design and the rest of the cast serve the story well.
The screenplay by Rivette, Pascal Bonitzer, and Christine Laurent employs several lines taken directly from Balzac, whose wit could be as deft and precise as Oscar Wilde's. The film's title comes from a warning given to de Montriveau at a display of the blade used to execute an English king that serves as a caution about keeping his head. Depardieu and Balibar relish the dialogue and body language of the battling lovers so that their clashes appear to be a tense but rapier-like combination of chess and fencing.
DON'T TOUCH THE AXE (NE TOUCHEZ PAS LA HACHE)
IFC Films
Pierre Grise Prods., Cinemaundici, Arte France Cinema.
Credits:
Director: Jacques Rivette
Writer: Jacques Rivette, Pascal Bonitzer, Christine Laurent
Producers: Martine Marignac, Maurice Tinchant
Director of photography: William Lubtchansky
Production designer: Emmanuel de Chauvigny
Music: Pierre Allio
Costume designer: Maira Ramedhan Levy
Co-producers: Luigi Musini, Roberto Cicutto, Ermanno Olmi
Editor: Nicole Lubtchansky
Cast:
Antoinette de Langeais: Jeanne Balibar
Armand de Montriveau: Guillaume Depardieu
Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry: Bulle Ogier
Vidame de Pamiers: Michel Piccoli
Le Duc de Grandlieu: Barbet Schroeder
Clara de Serizy: Anne Cantineau
Julien: Mathias Jung
Lisette: Julie Judd
Running time -- 137 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Based on a novella titled The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac, it's the story of a dedicated soldier back from the wars and the socialite lady he loves not wisely but too well.
Handsomely produced and featuring fine performances, the film will travel well to festivals and art houses where audiences respond to classy period pieces with a modern sensibility.
The film begins and ends with encounters taking place several years later than the central events, which are told in flashback. Guillaume Depardieu stars as Napoleonic Gen. Armand de Montriveau who returns to Paris following a time imprisoned by the enemy bearing his wounds and his dignity with equal solemnity. Introduced to the beautiful and mischievous Antoinette de Langeais (Jeanne Balibar) at a fashionable salon, the soldier is instantly captivated.
The lady is also intrigued but such is her taste for coquetry that she makes his seduction a game full of promises and teasing, almost driving him to distraction. Although smitten, de Montriveau comes to the conclusion that he is being played for a fool and determines that turnabout is fair play.
Now it's de Langeais turn to have her emotions toyed with although she continues to give as good as she gets. Rivette takes great care with these scenes, which are filled with subtle by-play and executed with finesse by the two actors.
Cinematographer William Lubtchansky captures beautifully Maira Ramedhan Levy's costumes and Emmanuel de Chauvigny's production design and the rest of the cast serve the story well.
The screenplay by Rivette, Pascal Bonitzer, and Christine Laurent employs several lines taken directly from Balzac, whose wit could be as deft and precise as Oscar Wilde's. The film's title comes from a warning given to de Montriveau at a display of the blade used to execute an English king that serves as a caution about keeping his head. Depardieu and Balibar relish the dialogue and body language of the battling lovers so that their clashes appear to be a tense but rapier-like combination of chess and fencing.
DON'T TOUCH THE AXE (NE TOUCHEZ PAS LA HACHE)
IFC Films
Pierre Grise Prods., Cinemaundici, Arte France Cinema.
Credits:
Director: Jacques Rivette
Writer: Jacques Rivette, Pascal Bonitzer, Christine Laurent
Producers: Martine Marignac, Maurice Tinchant
Director of photography: William Lubtchansky
Production designer: Emmanuel de Chauvigny
Music: Pierre Allio
Costume designer: Maira Ramedhan Levy
Co-producers: Luigi Musini, Roberto Cicutto, Ermanno Olmi
Editor: Nicole Lubtchansky
Cast:
Antoinette de Langeais: Jeanne Balibar
Armand de Montriveau: Guillaume Depardieu
Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry: Bulle Ogier
Vidame de Pamiers: Michel Piccoli
Le Duc de Grandlieu: Barbet Schroeder
Clara de Serizy: Anne Cantineau
Julien: Mathias Jung
Lisette: Julie Judd
Running time -- 137 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 2/22/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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