France

Filmmaker Anatole Litvak was still one year away from his “breakthrough” picture Mayerling when he co-wrote and directed L’Equipage (The Crew). Charles Vanel and Annabella star respectively as a daring WW I aviator and his loving but neglected wife. Ostracized by the other pilots because of his recklessness and standoffishness, Vanel nonetheless befriends a young flyboy (Jean-Pierre Aumont). It is therefore a great source of consternation for Aumont when he discovers that the woman with whom he’s fallen in love is none other than Vanel’s wife Annabella.Read More »

Jacque’s new secretary, Caroline, is at first cool and distant, but he soon changes her attitude. This is one of the best films from Alpha France.Read More »

In 1880, a colonel and his French wife live in a fort in the Patagonian desert. The colonel takes an Amerindian as captive, with the intent to civilize her. A “southern” movie (in opposition to “western”, as it was shot in the deep Argentinean south

Quote:
Dos caras de una misma moneda. Uno viene de lo salvaje hacia la civilización; la otra, desde la civilización hacia la barbarie. Se realiza un cambio de identidad. El guerrero queda impresionado con la civilización romana, y siente que pertenece a aquella. La abuela de Borges quiere rescatar a la india, pero ella la rechaza. Se espanta, no puede creerlo; pero cuando su marido muere, ella se siente identificada. Cuando la india toma la sangre caliente del caballo que acababa de degollar, es cuando termina de demostrar que nunca dejará de ser india, más allá de su lugar de nacimiento.Read More »

IMDb:
This isn’t really a Jean Renoir-originated film. It was commissioned by a historical society to commemorate 500 years of history in whichever French city it was that this was made. Portions of the film are apparently lost, and what I saw was a three-reel reconstruction made much later, probably by the BBC. It runs about 30 minutes. It kind of tells a complete story.Read More »

Re-Voir VHS transfer includes several found-footage movies from the famed lettrist:

L’Amour réinventé, 1979, 15 min.
Des scènes d’amour très réalistes avec force détails et gros plans, 1978, 15 min 30.
L’Amour, qu’est-ce ?, 1976-1989, 24 min.
Chantal D., Star, 1968, 26 min.Read More »

OUR STARS & THE LITTLE GOD

Maurice Lemaître is amongst one of the most important and creative artists of the second half of the 20th century. His cinematic work has led to a fundamental questioning of the relationship between film and spectator, image and sound, art and criticism, cinema and other types of images. His art is characterized by its inventiveness, it’s joy of creating, and a radical and loud critique allowing for Lettrism to flourish as an avant-garde movement.Read More »

In 1974, Marker made La solitude du chanteur de fond, which follows Yves Montand as he
prepares a benefit concert for Chilean refugees. That Montand had not performed live in many
years made his participation in this concert all the more significant. The portrait of Montand
is intercut with footage from films in which he starred, including Costa Gavras’s Z (1969) and
L’Aveu (1970), both filmed in Chile with the support of Allende. Montand reflects on the role
of politics in culture and on the nature of political films, themes of considerable interest
to Marker. In addition, the film includes footage smuggled out of Chile that tracks the final
days of the democratically elected government of Allende before the coup of September 11, 1973.
Chris Marker, Nora M. Alter, 2006Read More »

IMDB:

A black and white silent short which tells the tragic story of a young girl named Lili.Read More »

IMDb review:

Sandwiched between “Boudu Sauvé des Eaux” and “Madame Bovary” ,”Chotard et Cie” is necessarily a let-down .Adapted from a stage play,it’s a badly constructed movie.Roughly there are three parts and the connection between them is very thin.

ACT ONE: Chotard (Charpin) is in the grocery business.After a ball,his daughter marries a poet ,much to her father’s annoyance.The son-in-law is no good at anything,not even weighing ham, and giving sweets for free to the children in the neighborhood.Read More »