TV

  • Jean-Luc Godard – Faut pas rêver AKA Dream On (1977)

    1971-1980FranceJean-Luc GodardShort FilmTV

    As a model, one can see working the essential virtues of the Godardian question in a relatively unknown work from 1978 [recte 1976]—a two-minute video clip for a popular song by Patrick Juvet, Faut Pas Rêver.

    As is the case with all the brief forms invented by Godard, this little opus is not in the least a minor work. It is made up of two shots: first, a medium fixed shot of a little girl who is eating an apple for her afternoon snack after coming home from school; she is responding to her mother, whom we don’t see (the voice of Anne-Marie Miéville is recognisable) and who asks her about her day, while the little girl watches, distractedly, a television set that is supposedly broadcasting the song of Patrick Juvet (whom we don’t see either) In this everyday dialogue, we find the emergence of a fundamental critical question that, in the mid-1970s, must have been perceived as quite violent (at that time we were right in the middle of the Giscardian regime, and it would take seven more years for the left to come to power).Read More »

  • Vittorio Cottafavi – Antigone (1971)

    1971-1980DramaItalyTVVittorio Cottafavi

    Vittorio Cottafavi’s 1971 adaptation of the Sophocles play (he had adapted it earlier in 1958). Fans of Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub should be most impressed.Read More »

  • Dino Risi – Vita coi figli AKA Life With The Kids (1990)

    1981-1990Dino RisiDramaItalyTV

    Vita coi figli is a 1990 Italian television film directed by Dino Risi. It marks the screen debut of Monica Bellucci.
    The story of one man dealing with an unexpected series of events, discovering his youth once again in the relationship with a much younger woman and finally coming to grips with his age, and the fact that he hasn’t been there for his family like he should have.Read More »

  • Tatyana Lioznova – Semnadtsat mgnoveniy vesny AKA Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973)

    1971-1980Tatyana LioznovaThrillerTVUSSR

    A 1973 Soviet twelve-part television series, directed by Tatyana Lioznova and based on the novel of the same title by Yulian Semyonov. The series portrays the exploits of Maxim Isaev, a Soviet spy operating in Nazi Germany under the name Max Otto von Stierlitz, depicted by Vyacheslav Tikhonov. Stierlitz is tasked with disrupting the negotiations between Karl Wolff and Allen Dulles taking place in Switzerland, aimed at forging a separate peace between Germany and the Western Allies. The series is considered the most successful Soviet espionage thriller ever made, and is one of the most popular television series in Russian history.Read More »

  • Waris Hussein – Callie & Son (1981)

    1981-1990DramaTVUSAWaris Hussein

    Callie was a teenage mother in trouble. Fresh out of the delivery room, her son was taken from her and sold on the black-market. Vowing to find him some day, this is her story.Read More »

  • Hugo Santiago – Un siècle d’écrivains : Maurice Blanchot (1998)

    1991-2000DocumentaryFranceHugo SantiagoTV

    Quote:
    Very rare documentary about writer and philosopher Maurice Blanchot, it’s based on the important book by Christophe Bident “Maurice Blanchot. Partenaire invisible” about the life and work of the author. Bident himself is present in the film as co-writer of the screenplay and as interviewed. Important philosophers and writers talk about Blanchot: Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, Michel Surya, Roger Laporte, Louis-René des Forêts, Marguerite Duras, etc.Read More »

  • Peter Sasdy – The Stone Tape (1972)

    1971-1980HorrorPeter SasdyTVUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    A research team from an electronics company move into an old Victorian house to start work on finding a new recording medium. When team member Jill Greeley witnesses a ghost, team director Peter Brock decides not only to analyse the apparition, which he believes is a psychic impression trapped in a stone wall (dubbed a “stone tape”), but to exorcise it too – with terrifying results…Read More »

  • Zelimir Zilnik – Stara Masina AKA Old Timer (1989)

    1981-1990DramaTVYugoslaviaZelimir Zilnik

    The aged rocker Igor works as a journalist and DJ at the “Radio Student” in Ljubljana. He notices that the janitor Miha works for the police, tapping the walls and observing the journalists who are critical of the regime.

    After a clash with his editor, Igor decides to leave for Greece by his old bike DKW from 1938, via Bosnia and Serbia. Rahela, the girl who left Igor’s son because of his snobbery, joins him on the trip. Traveling through Yugoslavia, Igor becomes involved in unexpected turmoil: in the Bosnian town of Velika Kladusa there is the scandal about Fikret Abdic. At the same time, Milosevic’s “antibureaucratic revolution” starts in Serbia and Vojvodina.Read More »

  • Jonathan Miller – Othello (1981)

    Drama1981-1990BBCJonathan MillerTVUnited KingdomWilliam Shakespeare

    As with most of Miller’s productions, the visual inspiration came from sixteenth-century Mediterranean painters, in this case Tintoretto, El Greco and Velasquez. At 205 minutes, this is one of the longest BBC Shakespeare productions, and the text is duly presented almost complete, with only minor trims to material rendered redundant by small-screen restaging.Read More »

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