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For his feature debut, Rainer Werner Fassbinder fashioned an acerbic, unorthodox crime drama about a love triangle involving the small-time pimp Franz (Fassbinder), his prostitute girlfriend, Joanna (future Fassbinder mainstay Hanna Schygulla), and his gangster friend Bruno (Ulli Lommel). With its minimalist tableaux and catalog of New Wave and Hollywood references, this is a stylishly nihilistic cinematic statement of intent.Read More »
Paul Newman made his directorial debut and Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, stars as Rachel Cameron, a 35-year-old unmarried schoolteacher who feels as though she’s wasted her life. Rachel’s best friend, Calla Mackie (Estelle Parsons), invites her to attend a religious revival meeting. Here Rachel is swept up in the emotional fervor orchestrated by a young guest preacher (Terry Kiser). This is the first of several cathartic incidents which convince Rachel to kick over the traces and express her own needs and emotions. She has a brief sexual liaison with an old family friend (James Olson), and is delighted at the notion that she might have become pregnant. Rachel ends up alone and childless (her “pregnancy” was nothing more than a benign cyst), but still determined to forge a new life for herself. Based the novel A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence, Rachel, Rachel won New York Film Critics awards for both Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, and an Oscar nomination for Joanne Woodward.Read More »
In search of help, two wounded gangsters on the run find refuge in the secluded castle of a feeble man and his wife; however, under the point of a gun, nothing is what it seems.Read More »
Synopsis:
A ballad of love, hatred, and desire to escape from loneliness. The story of a reclusive potter, who returns, years after being shunned by his village.
The story is a simple one, set in medieval times, in a small village near the Tatra mountain range bordering Slovakia and Poland. Where a potter named Martin Lepiš (Czech actor Radovan Lukavský, perfectly cast here in the role of an outsider), whom the villagers refer to as Dragon, returns, several years after he was wrongfully driven away for crimes he did not commit. He comes back not for revenge or any motive other than to simply live his old life in peace. However his former fiancée Eva (Emília Vášáryová, wonderfully expressive in an almost silent role), is now married, and her new husband Simon (Gustav Valach) and the other villagers, are suspicious of Dragon’s intentions. Is there anything he can do to gain acceptance and respect, or is it a hopeless cause?Read More »
Synopsis:
‘Fernando, with his wife and life-long friend, Antonio, set out on a weekend together. Fernando begins to suspect his wife and Antonio of being in love, and his jealousy grows as he observes them in a situation he, himself, created.’
– BFIRead More »
Synopsis:
In flashback, Domenico (Marcello Mastroianni) recalls his wartime romance with Filumena (Sophia Loren). He is so enamored with her that he finances her escape from the bordello where she lives and sets her up with a good job in the restaurant that he owns, and later finds a place for her on his mother’s domestic staff. He is not, however, enamored enough to make their union legal, and expects Filumena to behave like a servant by day and his mistress by night. Years later, Filumena lies on her deathbed. The contrite Domenico finally consents to marry her. Not only does she make a full recovery, but she brings her three grown sons to live with the nonplused Domenico after the wedding. He tries to weasel out of the arrangement, but is mollified by Filumena’s insistence that all three boys are his sons.Read More »
Synopsis:
A feverishly perverse 1969 film noir oddity starring female impersonator Akihiro Maruyama. When wealthy Kyohei hires singer “Black Rose” to perform in his exclusive men’s club, he gets more than he bargains for when she attracts scores of homicidal past lovers. The film takes a bizarre twist when Kyohei’s son falls victim to the femme fatale’s unique charm.Read More »
A 1966 short film written, shot, edited and directed by David Cronenberg.
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Cronenberg:
Transfer, my first film, was a surreal sketch for two people – a psychiatrist and his patient – at a table set for dinner in the middle of a field covered in snow. The psychiatrist has been followed by his obsessive former patient. The only relationship the patient has had which has meant anything to him has been with the psychiatrist. The patient complains that he has invented things to amuse and occasionally worry the psychiatrist but that he has remained unappreciative of his efforts.Read More »
This violent, gore-filled, effective horror tale by director Robert Gordon is about a totally wacko private zoo keeper, Michael Conrad (Michael Gough) whose literal worship of the animals he tends — especially the cat species — starkly contrasts with his cold-blooded disregard for human life. Conrad has a mute son Carl (Rod Lauren) with a simmering Oedipal hatred, and a wife who should have left him eons ago. Whenever Conrad gets miffed with anyone coming a little too close to his private affairs he simply feeds the hapless victim to the animals. It seems inevitable that if the animals do not get him, then the human species will. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, RoviRead More »