From Christopher Isherwood's 'limbo of mirror-images' to 'the projected film's best-kept secret'
We don't have to think about what we like, but thinking can be part of our pleasure, rather than opposed to it. When I was asked to write Film: A Very Short Introduction – the book became the 300th in a series that covers topics from advertising to witchcraft, anaesthesia to the World Trade Organisation – I jumped at the possibility, because I took it as a chance to think fast and hard about a much-loved topic. Not everybody thought this was a good idea. One of the publisher's readers said the project was distinctly amateurish, and the other said it was impossible. These responses were not unkindly meant, and I found them helpful. I realised I wanted the book to be the work of an amateur – a lover of film – though not amateurish in the sense of inept.
We don't have to think about what we like, but thinking can be part of our pleasure, rather than opposed to it. When I was asked to write Film: A Very Short Introduction – the book became the 300th in a series that covers topics from advertising to witchcraft, anaesthesia to the World Trade Organisation – I jumped at the possibility, because I took it as a chance to think fast and hard about a much-loved topic. Not everybody thought this was a good idea. One of the publisher's readers said the project was distinctly amateurish, and the other said it was impossible. These responses were not unkindly meant, and I found them helpful. I realised I wanted the book to be the work of an amateur – a lover of film – though not amateurish in the sense of inept.
- 5/18/2012
- by Michael Wood
- The Guardian - Film News
On October 30, 1975, three days before he was murdered, Pier Paolo Pasolini was in Stockholm to present what was to be his last film, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, to Swedish critics. A roundtable discussion was recorded with the intent of turning it into a radio broadcast but news of the filmmaker's death oddly resulted in the withholding of the recording rather than, as would surely happen today, an immediate publication. Eventually, the recording was lost, but as Eric Loret and Robert Maggiori tell the story in Libération, Pasolini's Swedish translator, Carl Henrik Svenstedt, a passionate archivist, recently discovered his own private copy. In December, the Italian newsweekly L'espresso posted the audio recording and published an Italian transcript. Here, for the first time, is an English translation. After a couple of informal questions, the roundtable officially opens with "Ladies and gentlemen…"
What do you know about Swedish cinema?
I know Bergman,...
What do you know about Swedish cinema?
I know Bergman,...
- 1/17/2012
- MUBI
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