Brief Encounter.The Sight & Sound critics' poll of the greatest films of all time has for decades stood as one of the more controversial and arguably the most influential measures of cinematic excellence. Originally published in 1952, the list and its formation has been updated every ten years, with new titles added, others vanishing, and additional modifications along the way. According to an excerpt from the autumn 1952 issue, the ranking was a “sequel” to the Brussels Referendum, which had been featured in a previous edition of the publication. In that poll, 100 directors were asked to vote for their ten best films ever made. As a follow-up, Sight & Sound turned to the critics, 85 of them from ten different countries; 63 responded. Since then, the sample size has obviously increased as more films were released; new contributors took part (846 critics in 2012); and historical, social, and aesthetic perspectives shifted the ultimate evaluation of what merits final inclusion.
- 11/30/2022
- MUBI
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Jean Cocteau's The Blood of a Poet (1932) is playing July 5 - August 4, 2017 on Mubi in the United States as part of the series Cocteau's Poets.“…images born of cinema with the cosmogony of a poet.”—Henri Langlois on The Blood of a PoetThe films of Jean Cocteau have distinguished themselves among early twentieth-century cinema at large. This is due, arguably, to Cocteau’s works existing best as experiences rather than as proper films, and to their openness to interpretation. This is especially true of Cocteau’s The Blood of a Poet, made in 1930 but not shown publicly until 1932, and one which has inspired as many critical interpretations since the filmmaker’s death in 1963 as Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, or Bergman’s Persona. Like those works, The Blood of a Poet...
- 7/6/2017
- MUBI
This past weekend, the American Society of Cinematographers awarded Greig Fraser for his contribution to Lion as last year’s greatest accomplishment in the field. Of course, his achievement was just a small sampling of the fantastic work from directors of photography, but it did give us a stronger hint at what may be the winner on Oscar night. Ahead of the ceremony, we have a new video compilation that honors all the past winners in the category at the Academy Awards
Created by Burger Fiction, it spans the stunning silent landmark Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans all the way up to the end of Emmanuel Lubezki‘s three-peat win for The Revenant. Aside from the advancements in color and aspect ration, it’s a thrill to see some of cinema’s most iconic shots side-by-side. However, the best way to experience the evolution of the craft is by...
Created by Burger Fiction, it spans the stunning silent landmark Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans all the way up to the end of Emmanuel Lubezki‘s three-peat win for The Revenant. Aside from the advancements in color and aspect ration, it’s a thrill to see some of cinema’s most iconic shots side-by-side. However, the best way to experience the evolution of the craft is by...
- 2/6/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
No Highway in the Sky
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1951 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 99 min. / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring : James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Glynis Johns, Jack Hawkins, Janette Scott, Niall MacGinnis, Kenneth More, Ronald Squire, Elizabeth Allan, Jill Clifford, Felix Aylmer, Dora Bryan, Maurice Denham, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Bessie Love, Karel Stepanek.
Cinematography: Georges Périnal
Film Editor: Manuel del Campo
Original Music: Malcolm Arnold
Written by: R.C. Sherriff, Oscar Millard, Alec Coppel from the novel by Nevil Shute
Produced by: Louis D. Lighton
Directed by Henry Koster
A few years back, whenever a desired title came up on list for a Fox, Columbia or Warners’ Mod (made-on-demand) DVD, my first reaction was disappointment: we really want to see our favorites released in the better disc format, Blu-ray. But things have changed. As Mod announcements thin out, we have seen an explosion of library titles remastered in HD.
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1951 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 99 min. / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring : James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Glynis Johns, Jack Hawkins, Janette Scott, Niall MacGinnis, Kenneth More, Ronald Squire, Elizabeth Allan, Jill Clifford, Felix Aylmer, Dora Bryan, Maurice Denham, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Bessie Love, Karel Stepanek.
Cinematography: Georges Périnal
Film Editor: Manuel del Campo
Original Music: Malcolm Arnold
Written by: R.C. Sherriff, Oscar Millard, Alec Coppel from the novel by Nevil Shute
Produced by: Louis D. Lighton
Directed by Henry Koster
A few years back, whenever a desired title came up on list for a Fox, Columbia or Warners’ Mod (made-on-demand) DVD, my first reaction was disappointment: we really want to see our favorites released in the better disc format, Blu-ray. But things have changed. As Mod announcements thin out, we have seen an explosion of library titles remastered in HD.
- 1/21/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then there will never be a definitive list of the greatest cinematography, but for our money, one of the finest polls has been recently conducted on the matter. Our friend Scout Tafoya polled over 60 critics on Fandor, including some of us here, and the results can be found in a fantastic video essay below. Rather than the various wordless supercuts that crowd Vimeo, Tafoya wrestles with his thoughts on cinematography as we see the beautiful images overlaid from the top 12 choices.
“I’ve been thinking of the world cinematographically since high school,” Scout says. “Sometime around tenth grade I started looking out windows, at crowds of my peers, at the girls I had crushes on, and imagining the best way to film them. Lowlight, mini-dv or 35mm? Curious and washed out like the way Emmanuel Lubezki shot Y Tu Mamá También,...
“I’ve been thinking of the world cinematographically since high school,” Scout says. “Sometime around tenth grade I started looking out windows, at crowds of my peers, at the girls I had crushes on, and imagining the best way to film them. Lowlight, mini-dv or 35mm? Curious and washed out like the way Emmanuel Lubezki shot Y Tu Mamá También,...
- 4/28/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Translators introduction: This article by Mireille Latil Le Dantec, the first of two parts, was originally published in issue 40 of Cinématographe, September 1978. The previous issue of the magazine had included a dossier on "La qualité française" and a book of a never-shot script by Jean Grémillon (Le Printemps de la Liberté or The Spring of Freedom) had recently been published. The time was ripe for a re-evaluation of Grémillon's films and a resuscitation of his undervalued career. As this re-evaluation appears to still be happening nearly 40 years later—Grémillon's films have only recently seen DVD releases and a 35mm retrospective begins this week at Museum of the Moving Image in Queens—this article and its follow-up gives us an important view of a French perspective on Grémillon's work by a very perceptive critic doing the initial heavy-lifting in bringing the proper attention to the filmmaker's work.
Filmmaker maudit?...
Filmmaker maudit?...
- 11/30/2014
- by Ted Fendt
- MUBI
Cinematography festival to present retrospective on the innovative British film-making duo, attended by Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker.
Camerimage (Nov 15-22) is to host a special retrospective around the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
The film festival that celebrates cinematography, held in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz, will be attended by Powell’s wife and three-time Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker as well as film scholars and Powell-Pressburger experts Erich Sargeant and Ian Christie.
Films of the due set to be screened at Camerimage include:
The Edge Of The World; 1937; cin. Monty Berman, Skeets Kelly, Ernest Palmer
One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing; 1942; cin. Ronald Neame
The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp; 1943; cin. Georges Périnal
A Canterbury Tale; 1944; cin. Erwin Hillier
‘I Know Where I’m Going!’; 1945; cin. Erwin Hillier
A Matter Of Life And Death; 1946; cin. Jack Cardiff
Black Narcissus; 1947; cin. Jack Cardiff
The Red Shoes; 1948; cin. Jack Cardiff
[link...
Camerimage (Nov 15-22) is to host a special retrospective around the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
The film festival that celebrates cinematography, held in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz, will be attended by Powell’s wife and three-time Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker as well as film scholars and Powell-Pressburger experts Erich Sargeant and Ian Christie.
Films of the due set to be screened at Camerimage include:
The Edge Of The World; 1937; cin. Monty Berman, Skeets Kelly, Ernest Palmer
One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing; 1942; cin. Ronald Neame
The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp; 1943; cin. Georges Périnal
A Canterbury Tale; 1944; cin. Erwin Hillier
‘I Know Where I’m Going!’; 1945; cin. Erwin Hillier
A Matter Of Life And Death; 1946; cin. Jack Cardiff
Black Narcissus; 1947; cin. Jack Cardiff
The Red Shoes; 1948; cin. Jack Cardiff
[link...
- 10/3/2014
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
In his final column for the Observer, our film critic welcomes the re-release of two influential classics from the late 1950s
What goes around comes around. Or "This is where we came in!", the words we'd whisper back in the days of continuous movie performances, before heading for the exit when we reached the point at which we'd entered the cinema. Appropriately in the week I write my final film column, two classic movies, Bonjour Tristesse (1958) and Plein Soleil (aka Purple Noon, 1959), are re-released from that period at the end of the 1950s when I was embarking on a career as a professional writer. Both appear in beautiful new prints that do full justice to the Mediterranean sun which dictates their mood of dangerous eroticism, and both are closely associated with what was popularly known as the French Nouvelle Vague. In the first of them an English-speaking cast play French...
What goes around comes around. Or "This is where we came in!", the words we'd whisper back in the days of continuous movie performances, before heading for the exit when we reached the point at which we'd entered the cinema. Appropriately in the week I write my final film column, two classic movies, Bonjour Tristesse (1958) and Plein Soleil (aka Purple Noon, 1959), are re-released from that period at the end of the 1950s when I was embarking on a career as a professional writer. Both appear in beautiful new prints that do full justice to the Mediterranean sun which dictates their mood of dangerous eroticism, and both are closely associated with what was popularly known as the French Nouvelle Vague. In the first of them an English-speaking cast play French...
- 8/31/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Still drifting with the time machine of Il Cinema Ritrovato, I can profoundly feel the endlessness of the medium. Though this is supposedly a journey through the past, as Henri Langlois points out, it also indicates our very future. In this regard, at least to me, Raoul Walsh is the future and cinephilia is nothing but shaping our future by returning to the rich heritage of the moving images.
***
Raoul Walsh’s anti-vengeance Distant Drums (1951), starring Gary Cooper and set in Florida in 1840, is about a journey of professional soldiers and ordinary people through the dangerous Everglades, only to discover at the end that the promised land they are searching for is burnt down to the ground. As one can expect from a Walsh film, they stay on the land and fight, man-to-man. There is no room for self-pity or sentimentalism, and the journey itself becomes a metaphor for self-discovery...
***
Raoul Walsh’s anti-vengeance Distant Drums (1951), starring Gary Cooper and set in Florida in 1840, is about a journey of professional soldiers and ordinary people through the dangerous Everglades, only to discover at the end that the promised land they are searching for is burnt down to the ground. As one can expect from a Walsh film, they stay on the land and fight, man-to-man. There is no room for self-pity or sentimentalism, and the journey itself becomes a metaphor for self-discovery...
- 7/2/2012
- MUBI
Creative cinematographer and a key member of the Powell-Pressburger movie production team
Although the cinematographer Christopher Challis, who has died aged 93, was an essential member of the Archers production company of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, he joined them as director of photography at the time of their decline. However, he worked on more of the great British writing-directing team's films than any other cinematographer. These eccentric, extravagant, intelligent and witty fantasies went against the British realist tradition, allowing more scope for a creative cinematographer such as Challis. The sensuous use of Technicolor and flamboyant sets and designs made them closer to the MGM world of Vincente Minnelli and of Stanley Donen, who used Challis on six of his films.
Perhaps Challis's finest achievement was on Powell and Pressburger's The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) which, as he explained, had "no optical effects or tricks. It was all edited in...
Although the cinematographer Christopher Challis, who has died aged 93, was an essential member of the Archers production company of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, he joined them as director of photography at the time of their decline. However, he worked on more of the great British writing-directing team's films than any other cinematographer. These eccentric, extravagant, intelligent and witty fantasies went against the British realist tradition, allowing more scope for a creative cinematographer such as Challis. The sensuous use of Technicolor and flamboyant sets and designs made them closer to the MGM world of Vincente Minnelli and of Stanley Donen, who used Challis on six of his films.
Perhaps Challis's finest achievement was on Powell and Pressburger's The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) which, as he explained, had "no optical effects or tricks. It was all edited in...
- 6/10/2012
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
DVD Playhouse—November 2011
By Allen Gardner
Tree Of Life (20th Century Fox) Terrence Malick’s latest effort is both the best film of 2011 and the finest work of his (arguably) mixed, but often masterly canon. A series of vignettes, mostly set in 1950s Texas, capture the memory of a man (Sean Penn) in present-day New York who looks back on his life, and his parents’ (Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain) troubled marriage, when word of his younger brother’s suicide reaches him. Almost indescribable beyond that, except to say no other film in history so perfectly evokes the magic and mystery of the human memory, which both crystalizes (and sometimes idealizes) the past. Like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, this is a challenging, polarizing work that you must let wash over you. If you go along for the ride, you’re in for a unique, rewarding cinematic experience. Also available on Blu-ray disc.
By Allen Gardner
Tree Of Life (20th Century Fox) Terrence Malick’s latest effort is both the best film of 2011 and the finest work of his (arguably) mixed, but often masterly canon. A series of vignettes, mostly set in 1950s Texas, capture the memory of a man (Sean Penn) in present-day New York who looks back on his life, and his parents’ (Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain) troubled marriage, when word of his younger brother’s suicide reaches him. Almost indescribable beyond that, except to say no other film in history so perfectly evokes the magic and mystery of the human memory, which both crystalizes (and sometimes idealizes) the past. Like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, this is a challenging, polarizing work that you must let wash over you. If you go along for the ride, you’re in for a unique, rewarding cinematic experience. Also available on Blu-ray disc.
- 11/25/2011
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Conrad Veidt is Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" performer of the day. An international star since the 1920s, Veidt worked in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Hollywood — twice. [Conrad Veidt Movie Schedule.] In the late '20s, Veidt was the star of unusual Hollywood fare such as Paul Leni's The Man Who Laughs (1928), in the title role as a man with a grin-like scar where his mouth should be, and Paul Fejos' The Last Performance (1929), as a magician in love with pretty Mary Philbin — a Universal star who also happened to be Veidt's leading lady in The Man Who Laughs. With the arrival of talking pictures, Veidt returned to Germany, but with the ascent of the Nazis he fled first to England and later to the United States. In the Hollywood of the early '40s, Veidt became everybody's favorite Nazi in movies such as Nazi Agent, Escape, and Casablanca.
- 8/24/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Release Date: Oct. 11, 2011
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
The spectacular 1939 Technicolor epic The Four Feathers, directed by Zoltán Korda (Jungle Book), is considered the finest of the many adaptations of A.E.W. Mason’s classic 1902 adventure novel about the British Empire’s exploits in Africa.
Set at the end of the 19th century, the adventure film follows the travails of a young officer (John Clements, Rembrandt) accused of cowardice after he resigns his post on the eve of a major deployment to Khartoum. Ultimately, he must fight to redeem himself in the eyes of his fellow officers and fiancée (June Duprez, The Thief of Bagdad).
Featuring music by Miklós Rózsa (The Killers) and Oscar-nominated cinematography by Georges Périnal (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp), The Four Feathers remains a timeless, thunderous movie epic.
The film was remade by Shekhar Kapur in 2002. Not nearly as invigorating as the Korda version, the...
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
The spectacular 1939 Technicolor epic The Four Feathers, directed by Zoltán Korda (Jungle Book), is considered the finest of the many adaptations of A.E.W. Mason’s classic 1902 adventure novel about the British Empire’s exploits in Africa.
Set at the end of the 19th century, the adventure film follows the travails of a young officer (John Clements, Rembrandt) accused of cowardice after he resigns his post on the eve of a major deployment to Khartoum. Ultimately, he must fight to redeem himself in the eyes of his fellow officers and fiancée (June Duprez, The Thief of Bagdad).
Featuring music by Miklós Rózsa (The Killers) and Oscar-nominated cinematography by Georges Périnal (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp), The Four Feathers remains a timeless, thunderous movie epic.
The film was remade by Shekhar Kapur in 2002. Not nearly as invigorating as the Korda version, the...
- 8/8/2011
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Lawrence of Arabia Turner Classic Movies' "Race and Hollywood: Arab Images on Film" continues this evening with four movies about European powers and their difficult relationship with "the Arab races": Lawrence of Arabia, Lion of the Desert, The Four Feathers, and Young Winston. In David Lean's sprawling Lawrence of Arabia, Peter O'Toole is a much taller version of T. E. Lawrence, the Englishman who fought alongside Arabs at the time of World War I. Lawrence of Arabia won a total of seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director; it's also considered by many one of the greatest movies ever made. Personally, I find Lawrence of Arabia great-looking but much too long: 227 minutes. Also, at times I couldn't quite figure out what Lean's and screenwriter Robert Bolt's political take was; I'm not sure if their vision is just too muddled and wishy-washy, or...
- 7/13/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
This coming Friday, July 15, marks the birthday of the greatest of all Dutch painters, Rembrandt van Rijn. Born 505 years ago, I figured now was as suitable an occasion as I’d ever have to review Rembrandt, this fine biopic from 1936 starring Charles Laughton, part of Eclipse Series 16: Alexander Korda’s Private Lives.
Korda is one of the most influential and dynamic figures in the history of UK cinema, founder of London Films and the first man ever granted knighthood for his work in the English film industry. Along with his brothers Zoltan and Vincent, he played a major part in creating some of the most fondly remembered British films of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, including The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Four Feathers, That Hamilton Woman, The Thief of Bagdad, The Third Man and Laurence Olivier’s version of Richard III.
As anyone who’s paid even the slightest attention...
Korda is one of the most influential and dynamic figures in the history of UK cinema, founder of London Films and the first man ever granted knighthood for his work in the English film industry. Along with his brothers Zoltan and Vincent, he played a major part in creating some of the most fondly remembered British films of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, including The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Four Feathers, That Hamilton Woman, The Thief of Bagdad, The Third Man and Laurence Olivier’s version of Richard III.
As anyone who’s paid even the slightest attention...
- 7/11/2011
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Ralph Richardson in Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol The Fallen Idol Review: Part I Things are cleared up before the end, after a number of plot contrivances — not the least of which is the mediocre depiction of a police investigation. Compounding matters, The Fallen Idol offers subpar acting (Bobby Henrey and Michèle Morgan phone in their performances), stereotyped characters (e.g., the cops and a Cockney prostitute), and some poor cinematography by Georges Périnal. Again, it's not that Périnal's images are themselves bad; it's just that they are inaptly applied to the situations in which the characters find themselves. For instance, angles are skewed in an attempt to add tension to banal scenes, an approach made worse by William Alwyn's melodramatic musical score, which stands in stark contrast to the restrained zither sounds of The Third Man. The scenes of Phillipe running about London in his pajamas...
- 3/21/2011
- by Dan Schneider
- Alt Film Guide
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