Michael Haneke Interview Part 1

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David Lynch's "Inland Empire"

We mourn the passing of two film artists whose body of work is intensely studied, praised, and imitated.

"Ingmar Bergman (July 14, 1918 – July 30, 2007) was a Swedish stage and film director. Ingmar Bergman found bleakness and despair as well as comedy and hope in his indelible explorations of the human condition. He is generally grouped with Akira Kurosawa and Federico Fellini as one of the great artistic masters of modern cinema.

He produced about 60 films, and some of his internationally known favorite actors were Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow. Most of his films were set in the landscape of his native Sweden. The themes were often bleak, dealing with illness and insanity.

The 89 year old director died in his home in Fårö, Sweden on July 29th, 2007." wiki article


I took a date to see "Hour of the Wolf" in 1968. She was a nice girl from the suburbs. I can't remember now how I met her, probably from school. Max Von Sydow plays an artist who sends for a bride (Liv Ullmann) to keep him company in an isolated cabin. The landscape is beautiful, dark and forbidding. Liv starts out happy and normal but descends into the dark madness of her husband by the end of the film. My date hated the film so much that she force me to promise that the next film we saw would be her pick. It was "Camelot" the musical with Richard Harris. It was appropriate punishment for me. Needless to say the relationship didn't go very far.

I have loved Bergman from the first time I saw Wild Strawberries. I actually owned, for a time a 16mm print of The Seventh Seal. I'm not sure if I have seen every Bergman film but at least all the major films and most of those when they came out on the big screen.

The great Sven Nyquist, who died last year, was his personal cinematographer from 1960's through 1984 on the following films:

After the Rehearsal (1984)
Fanny and Alexander (1982
From the Life of the Marionettes (1980)
Autumn Sonata (1978)
Magic Flute (1975)
Scenes from a Marriage (1973)
Cries and Whispers (1972)
The Touch (1970)
Faro Document (1970)
The Passion of Anna (1969)
The Rite (1969)
Shame (1968)
Hour of the Wolf (1968)
Persona (1966)
All These Women (1964)
The Silence (1963)
Winter Light (1962)
Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
The Virgin Spring (1960)
Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)

Only Gunnar Fischer with: "Smiles of a Summer Night"(1955); "The Seventh Seal" (1957) ;"Wild Strawberries" (1957) and "The Devil's Eye" (1960) is less identified as a cinematographer with Bergman. His "The Seventh Seal" and "Wild Strawberries" are essential viewing for any serious cinemaphile.

Erland Josephson, Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson were his principle actors.

ENTRETIEN
by Michelangelo Antonioni
Cahiers du Cinema, October 1960

Michelangelo Antonioni (September 29, 1912 – July 30, 2007)

"Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni redefined the concept of narrative cinema, challenging the accepted notions at the heart of storytelling, realism, drama, and the world at large; his films -- a seminal body of enigmatic and intricate mood pieces -- rejected action in favor of contemplation, championing image and design over character and story. Haunted by a sense of instability and impermanence, his work defined a cinema of possibilities, a shifting landscape of thoughts and ideas devoid of resolution; in Antonioni's world, riddles were not answered, but simply evaporated into other riddles." All Movie Guide

Antonioni, while less prolific than Bergman had a profound infrluence on modern cinema. He is probably best know in the US for "Blow up" (1966) filmed in London with David Hemmings as a professional photographer caught between the image and reality. It is rumored that Antonioni spray painted trees to get the right color in the park. The mimed tennis match at the end of the film is a classic cinema moment.

In addition to "Blow Up" his greatest critically acclaimed films were "L'Adventura" 1960) "L'eclisse" (1962), "La Notte" (1961), "The Red Desert (1964), Zabriskie Point (1970)
and "The Passenger" (1975)

Wim Wenders worked in 1995 with him on Beyond the Clouds.

Many more qualified than I will write about Bergman and Antonioni's effect on cinema but both have shaped how I view film.

Werner gets shot!

Werner Herzog on Henry Rollins' Show.

Great Interview! Check it out.

Strange But True Documentarians

Not exactly mockumentaries but definitely documentaries filmmakers that will have you scratching your brain. Some of these are well known, some were but have faded into the past. I've seen most of them. I'm still behind on my Werner Herzog but working hard to fix that. Check some of these out for some stranger than fiction fun.
Cane Toads by Mark Lewis. A seriously light hearted look at environmental disaster in Australia.
Home Movie by Chris Smith the director of American Movie, and The Yes Men also highly recommended docs
Tong Tana "A Swedish crew trekked into the depths of the endangered Bornean rainforest to film this poetic documentary about the plight of the Penans and their most unusual ally, Bruno Manser - a young Swiss who has rejected 'civilization' to join the tribe and help fight international logging. Written by Dawn M. Barclift,IMDB"
Burden of Dreams Les Blank's masterpiece about the making of Fitzcaraldo. Catch the 20 minute short by Blank called "Werner Herzog Eats his Shoe"
The Young and the Dead Tyler Cassity and Hollywood Memorial Cemetary.
Hearts of Darkness-A Filmmakers Apocalypse "Documents the sensational events surrounding the making of 'Apocalypse Now' and Francis Ford Coppola's struggle with nature, governments, actors, and self-doubt. Includes footage and sound secretly recorded by Elanor Coppola, wife of Francis. Synopsis written on IMDB by Murray Chapman {muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au} "
Dark Days Mark Singer's (Not the actor) amazing award winning documentary about people living in the abandoned train tunnels beneath NYC. A must see.
Jupitor's Wife Michel Negroponte, a documentary filmmaker, meets Maggie one day in Central Park. Maggie claims to be married to the god Jupiter and the daughter of actor Robert Ryan. Michel gets to know Maggie over the next couple of years, and attempts to use her often outlandish stories as clues to reconstruct her past. Written by James Meek {james@oz.net}
Interesting and strangely compassionate.
Hands on a Hard Body

You find truth in the strangest places, 11 April 2000

Author: bongofish from Austin, Texas

I'm sure you've read enough of the other reviews to understand the story, so I won't go back over that. I simply wanted to add that this story is "deep". It is one of the most human and moving and exciting and funny documentaries I have ever seen. The movie in many ways transcends its limited scope and gives us glimpses into human nature that are truly universal. We see friendship, anger, sacrifice, jealousy, hope, pettiness, faith all arise from such a simple contest. The ending is so perfect that it'll bring a tear to your eye. To quote Benny, the sage of the film, "It's a human drama thing." Absolutely. from IMDB reviewer

I couldn't have said it better. I thought it was a joke at first and totally got into it by the end.