1895
Directred by Louis Lumière
Showing posts with label Classic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Classic. Show all posts
Medea
Directed by Lars von Trier
1988
Starring: Henning Jensen, Udo Kier, Baard Owe
Cinematic genius Lars von Tier explores the dark passions of a woman scorned in this shocking and powerful film adapted from a screenplay by the great Carl-Theodore Dreyer.
The drama unfolds in shimmering marshlands and gloomy subterranean passageways. Medea is a foreign sorceress, abandoned by Jason, her lover. In a fit of mad, jealous rage, she plots a vicious revenge and murders her own children.
Medea is a revelation - the discovery of a rarely-seen, legendary film from the director of Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves, and Dogville.
Arghh! I wanted to hate it but loved it anyway! For a family man like me, you will surely hate writer and director Lars von Trier for having a movie like this. But, ok.. for the sake of art, go ahead! watch this, people!
The Golem
1920The Golem: How He Came Into the World (original German title: Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam) is a 1920 silent horror film by Paul Wegener. It was directed by Carl Boese and Wegener, written by Wegener and Henrik Galeen, and starred Wegener as the golem. The film was the third of three films that Wegener made featuring the golem, the other two being The Golem (1915) and the short comedy The Golem and the Dancing Girl (1917), in which Wegener dons the Golem make-up in order to frighten a young lady he is infatuated with. It is a prequel to The Golem and is today the most widely known of the series.
This is a classic silent movie and a must-see for any serious student of film (or casual, for that matter). A rabbi in the oppressed Jewish community uses black magic to create a strong-man creature to defend his people. Romance, jealousy and betrayal also play a part in this movie
A German Expressionist masterpiece.
Scandal
Directed by Akira KurosawaStarring: Toshirō Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Noriko Sengoku and Shirley Yamaguchi
1950
Akira Kurosawa's Scandal - as relevant now as it was made - is a pointed attackon the rising power of the press and their practices in the newly Americanized postwar Japan of 1950. Kurosawa was outraged by the actions of the gutter press, where "personal privacy is never respected", and at the encouragement of this disrespect by the public's voyeuristic tendency to delve even deeper into the lives of celebrities. Stirred to broaden his film's scope, kurosawa made the film a study of personal honour, one which highlights the need for ordinary individuals to speak out against injustice and corruption.
Scandal, 醜聞 (Shubun), aka スキャンダル (Sukyandaru) stars many great Japanese actors of the period.including Noriko Sengoku (Drunken Angel, Seven Samurai) and Takashi Shimura (Ikiru, Seven Samurai), who delivers one of his finest performances as the emotionally torn defence lawyer. Kurosawa's film stands as his own one-man blast against press intrussion.
The Birth of a Nation
1915Directed by D.W. Griffith
Starring Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper, Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish
A pivotal moment in Film history. Birth of a Nation was the first important feature length film. After Birth, nothing was the same: not the way the audiences watched movies, not the ways filmmakers created them.
The film tackled the sensitive issues towards black slaves. This was ciriticized by modern audiences and was picketed. Despite protests, Birth sold more tickets than any other movie, a record that stood for decades, and President W. Wilson famously compared it to "history written in lighting". That judgment has lasted.
It remains to this day one of the most shown most controversial films ever made. None-the-less it also remains a visionary film that still merits examination. And Griffith remains one of the cinemas greatest directors.
Ben-Hur
Directed by William Wyler1959
Cast Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Stephen Boyd, Haya Harareet, Hugh Griffith, Martha Scott
Ben-Hur (1959) is MGM's three and a half hour, wide-screen epic Technicolor blockbuster - a Biblical tale, subtitled A Tale of the Christ.
Director William Wyler's film was a remake of the spectacular silent film of the same name (director Fred Niblo's and MGM's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)). Wyler had been an 'extras' director on the set of DeMille's original film in the silent era. MGM's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), featuring a cast of 125,000, cost about $4 million to make after shooting began on location in Italy, in 1923, and starred silent screen idols Ramon Novarro and Francis X. Bushman. This figure is equivalent to $33 million today - it was the most expensive silent film ever made. Both films were adapted from the novel (first published in 1880) by former Civil War General Lew Wallace.
This remake was inspired by the fact that three years earlier, Cecil B. DeMille and Paramount had remade the 1925 version of his film as a successful 50's epoch Biblical tale titled The Ten Commandments (1956). The heroic figure of Charlton Heston (an iconic and righteous Moses figure) would again be commissioned to play the lead role in this film of a Jewish nobleman (the Prince of Judea) - after the role was turned down by Burt Lancaster, Rock Hudson and Paul Newman. In the plot, prince Judah Ben-Hur was enslaved by a Roman tribunal friend (with a homosexual subtext provided by co-writer Gore Vidal), but then returned years later to seek revenge in the film's centerpiece, a chariot race. Ultimately, he would find redemption and forgiveness in the inspiring and enlightening finale.
The colorful 1959 version was the most expensive film ever made up to its time, and the most expensive film of the 50s decade. At $15 million and shot on a grand scale, it was a tremendous make-or-break risk for MGM Studios - and ultimately saved the studio from bankruptcy. [It was a big dual win for MGM, since they had won the Best Picture race the previous year for Gigi (1958).] It took six years to prepare for the film shoot, and over a half year of on-location work in Italy, with thousands of extras. It featured more crew and extras than any other film before it - 15,000 extras alone for the chariot race sequence.
Ben-Hur proved to be an intelligent, exciting, and dramatic piece of film-making unlike so many other vulgar Biblical pageants with Hollywood actors and actresses. Its depiction of the Jesus Christ figure was also extremely subtle and solely as a cameo - it never showed Christ's face but only the reactions of other characters to him.
It was one of the most honored, award-winning films of all time. It was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, Best Picture, Best Actor (Charlton Heston - his sole career Oscar), Best Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffith), Best Director (William Wyler), Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Sound, Best Score, Best Film Editing, Best Color Costume Design, Best Special Effects, and Best Screenplay (sole-credited Karl Tunberg). It was the first film to win eleven Oscars - it lost only in the Screenplay category due to a dispute over screenwriting credits (Maxwell Anderson, Christopher Fry, and Gore Vidal were all uncredited). Titanic (1997) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) are the only films to tie this phenomenal record, although unlike this film, they came away without any acting Oscars. Many felt that Heston's performance was inferior to other nominees in the Best Actor category: Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot or Laurence Harvey in Room at the Top, and James Stewart in Anatomy of a Murder.
The chariot race sequence in the Roman Circus (an amazing replica) is one of the most thrilling and famous in film history. [Homage was paid to it with George Lucas' pod-race in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999).] The site of the race, the Circus Maximus, was constructed on over 18 acres of backlot space at Cinecitta Studios outside Rome, and the filming of the sequence took over three weeks. Except for two of the most spectacular stunts, both Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd did all their own chariot driving in the carefully-choreographed sequence. There are contradictory reports about the fatality of a stuntman during the dangerous scene in the film, yet no published discussions of the film mention the accident, and Charlton Heston's 1995 autobiography In the Arena specifically stated that no one was seriously injured (beyond a cut on the chin) during the filming of the scene.
Awards:
Academy Awards
Best Motion Picture,
Best Leading Actor for Charlton Heston,
Best Supporting Actor for Hugh Griffith,
Best Director,
Best Set Decoration, Color — Edward C. Carfagno, W. A. Horning, and Hugh Hunt,
Best Cinematography, Color,
Best Costume Design, Color,
Best Special Effects,
Best Film Editing — John D. Dunning and Ralph E. Winters,
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture and
Best Sound
Golden Globe Awards:
Best Motion Picture, Drama,
Best Motion Picture Director,
Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for Stephen Boyd,
Special Award to Andrew Marton for directing the chariot race sequence.
BAFTA Award for Best Film,
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Picture
DGA award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Motion Picture
In 1998, the film ranked #72 on the American Film Institute list of the Best American Movies of All Time, and #56 at AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers. In 2001 the film ranked #49 on the American Film Institute list of the Most Thrilling American Movies. In 2004, Ben-Hur was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2005, the music score of the film ranked #21 on the American Film Institute list of the Best Score of American Films. In 2007, AFI listed Ben-Hur at #100 for AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition).
Ivan's Childhood
Directed by Andrei TarkovskyCast: Kolya Burlyaev, I Tarkoskaya, Valentin zubkov, Y. Zharikov,
1962
The debut feature from the great Andrei Tarkovsky, Ivan’s Childhood is an evocative, poetic journey through the shadows and shards of one boy’s war-torn youth. Moving back and forth between the traumatic realities of WWII and the serene moments of family life before the conflict began, Tarkovsky’s film remains one of the most jarring and unforgettable depictions of the impact of violence on children in wartime.
When I discovered the first films of Tarkovsky, it was a miracle. I suddenly found myself before a door to which I had never had the key.a room which I had always wished to penetrate and wherein he felt perfectly at ease. Someone was able to express what I had always wished to say without knowing how. For me Tarkovsky is the greatest filmmaker (Ingmar Bergman).
This is a DVD to own. "Ivan's Childhood" is Tarkovsky's first and arguably his most famous film. Based on Vladimir Bogomolov's early novella, "Ivan" (that is, "John") (1957), the film achieved wide acclaim outside Russia. It was produced at the risky time when Premier Khrushchev's era was ending and fundamentalist Marxists were ascendant again, restricting freedom in the arts; it is, as one observer wrote, "one of the harshest, morally complex versions of the war in Soviet film." It won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival. With this debut film, Tarkovsky established an international reputation that has influenced many other filmmakers.
Awards:
1962 Venice Film Festval
- Best Actor
- Best Picture
- Best Director
The Circus
Directed by Charles ChaplinStarring: Charles Chaplin, Allan Garcia, Merna Kennedy
1928
The Little Tramp brings his slapstick hijinks to the big top. Charlie Chaplin's film The Circus begins in a fading circus, where the equestrienne (Merna Kennedy) can't jump the hoops and the clowns can't make the audience laugh. Outside on the midway, The Little Tramp falls into a series of wonderful comic routines that end when, pursued by a cop, he bursts into the tent's center ring and wows the audience. The circus owner/ringmaster (Allan Garcia) auditions The Little Tramp as a clown but discovers he is only funny when he isn't trying. He tricks The Little Tramp into joining the circus as a prop man who wreaks havoc with whatever he does and who unknowingly becomes the star of the show.
The Circus is one of the best silent films I've ever seen. Charlie Chaplin is hilarious and will keep you in smiling and laughing throughout the film.
This is comedy without a net!
Award:
1927-28 Oscars' Honorary Award For acting, writing, directing and producing
Charles Chaplin
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