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The scenes of “Life as it is” resemble nothing of what has been done so far by the various film producers in the world. They are an attemp at realism carried for the first time to the screen as it was taken before to literature, theater and the arts.Read More »
Judit kills her first child because the father left them. She returns to a previous suitor, Simon. Each year their child dies. The rabbi says this happens because she killed her first child and forbids her to kiss her baby till it gets married.Read More »
A VICTIM OF VENGEANCE
Original lenght: 852 m
Emma Vallona, an oriental dancer, is suffocated by debts due to her expensive life; so she does not hesitate to induce the Minister d’Angy to endorse a bill in her favour. While the Minister is gradually being overwhelmed by this scandal, which contributes to destroy his political career, she carefree moves to Spain under the false name of Madame d’Ambois. There she meets the Prince of Gébraléon, who asks her to marry him. She agrees but, just before the wedding, the Minister d’Angy reappears. Read More »
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The son of a kulak has an affair with a poor girl and an eye within the village council so that his father’s interest could be preserved. But a man reveals how the kulak intend to impoverish more the peasants and workers and get freed from taxes.Read More »
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When Union spies steal an engineer’s beloved locomotive, he pursues it single-handedly and straight through enemy lines.Read More »
In 1918 a simple Mongol herdsman escapes to the hills after brawling with a western capitalist fur trader who cheats him. In 1920 he helps the partisans fight for the Soviets against the occupying army. However he is captured when the army tries to requisition cattle from the herdsmen at the same time as the commandant meets with the reincarnated Grand Lama. After being shot, the army discovers an amulet that suggests he was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. They find him still alive, so the army restores his health and plans to use him as the head of a Mongolian puppet regime.Read More »
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A Superlative War Picture.
An eloquent pictorial epic of the World War was presented last night at the Astor Theatre before a sophisticated gathering that was intermittently stirred to laughter and tears. This powerful photodrama is entitled “The Big Parade,” having been converted to the screen from a story by Laurence Stallings, co-author of “What Price Glory,” and directed by King Vidor. It is a subject so compelling and realistic that one feels impelled to approach a review of it with all the respect it deserves, for as a motion picture it is something beyond the fondest dreams of most people.Read More »
Barbara Wurm, Edition Filmmuseum wrote:
Po zakonu (also know as Dura Lex) was the cheapest film produced in Russia (perhaps even still today); at the same time an absolute masterpiece, the greatness of which stems from its very minimalism. The minimum effort required for the story-development (Kuleshov constantly claimed, he happened upon Jack London’s story “The Unexpected” quite by chance), the minimum number of characters (just three for most of the film), a minimum of inter-titles and lines of dialogue, a minimum of locations; a clearing not far from Moscow (posing as “Alaska”) and a cabin–the perfect setting for a stripped-to-basics chamber play. Even if the juggling of shot composition and length (Kuleshov’s notorious “Americanism”) is not as artistically ambitious as in his previous work, it is still apparent how close-ups dominate inside, whilst outside, in the snowy landscapes and riverscapes, long shots reign, seemingly to the point of halting all movement.Read More »
When a proud noble refuses to kiss the hand of the despotic King James in 1690, he is cruelly executed and his son surgically disfigured into a permanent grin. The son can only make a living as a travelling circus clown – The Laughing Man!Read More »