Frederick Wisman has been making movies since 1967. Now, 55 years later, he’s directed his first narrative fiction film ever shot on location. A Couple stars Nathalie Boutefeu as Sophia Tolstaya, the only actor in the 64-minute film from its 92-year-old director. It’s a methodical piece by Wiseman, shot on the small island of Belle-Île, close to the filmmaker’s home in Paris. He follows Tolstaya around a lush garden and on a deserted beach, focused on the words she’s speaking to Leo Tolstoy and the thoughts coming into her head. It’s ruminative, slight, and washes over its audience—much like Wiseman’s other, non-fiction films.
The director has been prolific in the last five decades, releasing a new film nearly every year, beloved by critics. Wiseman trades preparation for perception, placing his camera in front of his subjects without judgment or interference. This hour-long film is far...
The director has been prolific in the last five decades, releasing a new film nearly every year, beloved by critics. Wiseman trades preparation for perception, placing his camera in front of his subjects without judgment or interference. This hour-long film is far...
- 11/11/2022
- by Michael Frank
- The Film Stage
“Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than to merely keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world's view of us.”—Virginia Woolf, OrlandoLike any article of clothing, a hat is never simply just a hat. Embedded in it brim, woven into its form are codes and symbols, hints and meanings. The size of the hat, the color of its fabric, the shape of its crown can signify wealth, pride, modesty; it radiates belonging to one social group or another, delivering a message of the wearer’s status, class, vocation, country or city of origin. These nuances, embedded in European society at the turn of the 20th century, become more difficult to decipher from the hatless world in which we live in, for its codes were swept away by the destruction that was the Great War.It is on the...
- 9/9/2018
- MUBI
Vienna Before Nightfall (Vienne avant la nuit), the latest documentary from 86-year-old director and author Robert Bober, is a haunting portrait of a place and a people whose greatest years would give way to the horrors of the Second World War.
One such person was the filmmaker’s great-grandfather Wolf Leib Frankel, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who died in Vienna in 1929, a few years before Bober himself was born, and whose memory sends the director on a quest to uncover the city’s tortured yet intellectually vibrant past — a past where writers like Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth found...
One such person was the filmmaker’s great-grandfather Wolf Leib Frankel, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who died in Vienna in 1929, a few years before Bober himself was born, and whose memory sends the director on a quest to uncover the city’s tortured yet intellectually vibrant past — a past where writers like Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth found...
- 12/1/2017
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Director Ermanno Olmi’s The Legend Of The Holy Drinker (1988) Starring Rutger Hauer will be available on Blu-ray from Arrow Academy September 26th
Winner of the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, The Legend Of The Holy DRINKERr is another classic from the great Italian director Ermanno Olmi (Il posto, The Tree of Wooden Clogs).
Adapted from the novella by Joseph Roth, the film tells the story of Andreas Kartack, a homeless man living under the bridges of Paris. Lent 200 francs by an anonymous stranger, he is determined to pay back his debt but circumstances – and his alcoholism – forever intervene.
Working with professional actors for the first time in more than 20 years, Olmi cast Ruger Hauer as Andreas and was rewarded with an astonishing performance of subtlety and depth. Hauer is joined by a superb supporting cast, including Anthony Quayle (Lawrence of Arabia), Sandrine Dumas (The Double Life of Veronique...
Winner of the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, The Legend Of The Holy DRINKERr is another classic from the great Italian director Ermanno Olmi (Il posto, The Tree of Wooden Clogs).
Adapted from the novella by Joseph Roth, the film tells the story of Andreas Kartack, a homeless man living under the bridges of Paris. Lent 200 francs by an anonymous stranger, he is determined to pay back his debt but circumstances – and his alcoholism – forever intervene.
Working with professional actors for the first time in more than 20 years, Olmi cast Ruger Hauer as Andreas and was rewarded with an astonishing performance of subtlety and depth. Hauer is joined by a superb supporting cast, including Anthony Quayle (Lawrence of Arabia), Sandrine Dumas (The Double Life of Veronique...
- 9/6/2017
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Zweig peeled back the veneer of Austro-Hungarian culture to expose sexual repression and the nature of love – no wonder he inspired Anderson's latest film
Why read Stefan Zweig? It is wonderful that Wes Anderson has cited him as an inspiration for his latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, but there have been quite a few people who would rather you didn't. Most famous of these were Hitler and Goebbels, for the very simple reason, at the same time both boring and terrifying, that Zweig was a Jew, on top of being the most translated author writing in German at the time. Being both was an intolerable affront, and if Hitler or his agents never laid hands on him, it was because they didn't have to: not only would burning all copies of Zweig's works have been a time-consuming exercise, he and his wife killed themselves, in exile in Brazil in...
Why read Stefan Zweig? It is wonderful that Wes Anderson has cited him as an inspiration for his latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, but there have been quite a few people who would rather you didn't. Most famous of these were Hitler and Goebbels, for the very simple reason, at the same time both boring and terrifying, that Zweig was a Jew, on top of being the most translated author writing in German at the time. Being both was an intolerable affront, and if Hitler or his agents never laid hands on him, it was because they didn't have to: not only would burning all copies of Zweig's works have been a time-consuming exercise, he and his wife killed themselves, in exile in Brazil in...
- 2/25/2014
- by Nicholas Lezard
- The Guardian - Film News
Plot isn't what matters to Wes Anderson – his movies care more about lush palettes and playfulness. Seitz's collection of essays and interviews with the director reveals a rare film-maker who isn't afraid to take risks
In Wes Anderson's 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums, an insensitive father fails to appreciate his daughter's childhood attempt at writing and staging a play. There's no narrative, he complains, and as for characters, "What characters? It's a bunch of little kids dressed up in animal costumes." You might be tempted to dismiss Anderson's films in similar terms: the stories don't always add up to much, and while we know we're watching grownups (played by major Hollywood actors such as Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston and Ralph Fiennes), they often behave more like children dressed in their parents' clothes.
This quality of Anderson's cinema is captured in Max Dalton's paintings for a lavishly illustrated recent book,...
In Wes Anderson's 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums, an insensitive father fails to appreciate his daughter's childhood attempt at writing and staging a play. There's no narrative, he complains, and as for characters, "What characters? It's a bunch of little kids dressed up in animal costumes." You might be tempted to dismiss Anderson's films in similar terms: the stories don't always add up to much, and while we know we're watching grownups (played by major Hollywood actors such as Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston and Ralph Fiennes), they often behave more like children dressed in their parents' clothes.
This quality of Anderson's cinema is captured in Max Dalton's paintings for a lavishly illustrated recent book,...
- 2/15/2014
- by Jonathan Romney
- The Guardian - Film News
Last night he asked Kim Kardashian to be his wife, and Kanye West certainly shelled out enough cash to prove he wasn’t joking around.
The “Love Lockdown” rapper rented out At&T Park in San Francisco for the occasion, running him a whopping $200,000.
From there, West hired a symphony orchestra to play some romantic background music as he popped the question, at an estimated cost of $50,000- $80,000.
And of course, Kanye couldn’t skimp on the all-important bling. West plunked down at least $1.25 million for the 15-carat engagement ring, designed by Lorraine Schwartz.
Jeweler Joseph Roth told MTV, “That’s a low-end estimate. Given the clarity of the stone and the quality of the cut, I’m pretty sure it’s much more than that.”
Thankfully, the “Pleeease Marry Meee!!!” message on the scoreboard only set Kanye back $175.
The “Love Lockdown” rapper rented out At&T Park in San Francisco for the occasion, running him a whopping $200,000.
From there, West hired a symphony orchestra to play some romantic background music as he popped the question, at an estimated cost of $50,000- $80,000.
And of course, Kanye couldn’t skimp on the all-important bling. West plunked down at least $1.25 million for the 15-carat engagement ring, designed by Lorraine Schwartz.
Jeweler Joseph Roth told MTV, “That’s a low-end estimate. Given the clarity of the stone and the quality of the cut, I’m pretty sure it’s much more than that.”
Thankfully, the “Pleeease Marry Meee!!!” message on the scoreboard only set Kanye back $175.
- 10/22/2013
- GossipCenter
"Why so glum, chum?"
It's the first question I really wanted to ask 67-year-old Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke, whose provocative social dramas are fueled by some of the bleakest, most distressing subject matter in world cinema today. Whether it's the sadomasochistic student-tutor romance in "The Piano Teacher," the relentlessly brutal critique of violence as entertainment in his meta-horror "Funny Games" (and his shot-for-shot U.S. remake, which gave the finger to Hollywood by mocking it with Hollywood financing), or the accusations of bloodlust against his own audience in his allegorical masterpiece "Caché," Haneke's arthouse miserablism certainly doesn't inspire hope in the goodness of mankind. But maybe inspiring thought, self-reflection and debate demands that cinema hurt so good.
The 2009 jury at Cannes certainly believed so. Winner of this year's Palme d'Or (and now nominated for a Golden Globe), "The White Ribbon" finds Haneke returning to his German roots. Staged in a...
It's the first question I really wanted to ask 67-year-old Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke, whose provocative social dramas are fueled by some of the bleakest, most distressing subject matter in world cinema today. Whether it's the sadomasochistic student-tutor romance in "The Piano Teacher," the relentlessly brutal critique of violence as entertainment in his meta-horror "Funny Games" (and his shot-for-shot U.S. remake, which gave the finger to Hollywood by mocking it with Hollywood financing), or the accusations of bloodlust against his own audience in his allegorical masterpiece "Caché," Haneke's arthouse miserablism certainly doesn't inspire hope in the goodness of mankind. But maybe inspiring thought, self-reflection and debate demands that cinema hurt so good.
The 2009 jury at Cannes certainly believed so. Winner of this year's Palme d'Or (and now nominated for a Golden Globe), "The White Ribbon" finds Haneke returning to his German roots. Staged in a...
- 12/31/2009
- by Aaron Hillis
- ifc.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.