1960s

Quote:
Piero Bargellini was born in Arezzo in 1940. An agronomist, film lover and amateur filmmaker, he joined the “Cinema Indipendente” Cooperative in 1968 and became one of the most important figures of Italian underground cinema. His films are intensely poetic and reflect artisanal wisdom, based on his scientific knowledge of optics and chemistry. He made films like Morte all’orecchio di Van Gogh, Fractions of Temporary Periods, Trasferimento di modulazione, Gasoline, Stricnina, between 1966 and 1973, in a total identity of art and life. These works tell “the history, in its own way exemplary, of one of the secret protagonists, and of the famous victims, of the revolution of 1968.” Ideally conceived as a dialectic interface between the Italian Competition and Detours, this tribute (curated by Fulvio Baglivi with the help of Adriano Aprà) is also the way we have chosen to remember Marco Melani on the tenth anniversary of his death. Marco, who was a friend and collaborator of Bargellini’s, and who continues to be our inspiration and a “hidden” prompter, organized for the first festival in Torino (1982) a commemoration of his friend, who had recently passed away. His intent was to remove the label of “experimental”: “his cinema was cinema tout court, like that of Rossellini, Hawks, Bertolucci, Schifano, Brakhage and all the other filmmakers he loved.”Read More »

Un metteur en ordre: Robert Bresson (62 min.) is from a 1966 French television broadcast of Pour le plaisir, a cultural television program. This episode concentrates on Au Hasard Balthazar and includes interviews with Robert Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, Louis Malle, Marguerite Duras and members of the film’s cast. Bresson explains the origin of the film’s title, while his contemporaries describe their reactions to the film. Several extensive clips from the film are presented, after which Bresson and his cast members offer their opinions of the meaning or consequences of those scenes.Read More »

The documentary details the life and work of the celebrated Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 “because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West.” Rabindranath Tagore was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, born in Calcutta. He was educated at home. At seventeen he was sent to England for formal schooling, which he did not complete. Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honor as a protest against British policies in India.Read More »

Straub-Huillet’s adaptation of Heinrich Böll’s biting satire Bonn Diary presents the reflections of a reactivated officer who is summoned to the West German capital by the Ministry of Defense to establish an Academy for Military Memories. Straub considered his film to be an intervention against German rearmament in the Adenauer era: “Machorka-Muff is the story of a rape, the rape of a country on which an army has been imposed, a country which would have been happier without one.”Read More »

Quote:
Woody Allen’s 1969 crime comedy is a mockumentary telling the story of Virgil Starkwell, possibly the world’s worst criminal.

Narrated by Jackson Beck, we find Virgil started out life with petty crime, and never really became successful after that. He meets a pretty girl, Janet Margolin, and falls in love, but the call of easy money keeps drawing him into failed schemes to rob banks. As we see his plans go awry time after time, we also hear from psychiatrists and authority figures, all of whom think they know what is really wrong with Virgil. His parents, ashamed of their son, don disguises to hide their identities- Groucho Marx noses and glasses.Read More »

BACKGROUND
Yaadein (“Memories”) is a 1964 B&W Hindi film directed and produced by Sunil Dutt also starring himself. The only other actor in the film is Nargis Dutt, that too as a silhouette in the final scene.

This film is the first of its kind as it features only a single actor and hence has found an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of “Fewest actors in a narrative film”.

Film narrative progresses through dialogues and background music composed by Vasant Desai, who also gave the song, Dekha hai sapna koi.. (sung by Lata Mangeshkar.)

SYNOPSIS
The film is soliloquy of a man who comes home to find that his wife and son are not at home, he assumes that they have left him and reminiscences his life with them, and scared of his life without them, he regrets his past indiscretions. The suspense is only revealed in the end.Read More »

Quote:
Woody Allen bought a Japanese spy movie, removed the voice track, and replaced it with one of his own. He doesn’t seem to have bothered with the original script at all. Typical Joke: “Back off! My secret spy camera has taken pictures of you all through your clothes. Unless you release me, your naked photos will be sold in every school yard in Tokyo within the hour. Unless you are totally comfortable with your body, you must release me.” Very funny, but also very unusual.Read More »

This is a rare little gem from Turkey. The quality (and production values) leave a bit to be desired, but it more than makes up for it in entertainment! I have NEVER seen a movie quite like this, and in fact, at times I’m not quite sure if it’s meant to be taken serious or tongue in cheek.

Presumably, in a previous film/episode (that from what I’ve been able to determine, doesn’t even exist!), Kilink was killed by his former partner, a doctor, once they discovered some mysterious formula to make the most powerful bombs ever. Now Kilink wants revenge, and to then take over the world!Read More »

Plot:
Renowned director Andre De Toth (House of Wax) actually got permission to go into East Berlin and Moscow to film much of this pulse-pounding Cold War thriller, based on actual events. Academy Award®-winner Ernest Borgnine (1955, Best Actor, Marty) gives one of his finest performances as a Russian-born movie producer (inspired by composer Boris Morros) whose background makes him an ideal counterspy for the “CBI.” He agrees to the deception, and, aided by agent Avery (Kerwin Mathews, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad), he pretends to defect — but how long can he keep up the charade? The crackerjack cast also includes Colleen Dewhurst, Alexander Scourby, Glenn Corbett and in bit parts, Ted Knight (in his film debut) and Seymour Cassel. Newly remastered. From Warner Brothers Website!Read More »