Akira Kurosawa’s epic Samurai films are among the greatest movies ever made. But it is a quiet, intimate story about a very different sort of hero, a mid-level bureaucrat confronted with the futility of his own life, that may be the director’s masterpiece. Certainly it’s one of his most spiritual films.
Roy Anker has a film book already in print – Catching Light: Looking For God In The Movies. I like it: he’s a lit guy, so he brings substantial insights, treats the films as art not sermon illustrations, and has a pretty good eye for film as well as text. And he writes well. It looks like his new book draws on the earlier volume, but there’s lots new too. . . .
I think there is value in approaching art – including even the movies! – with humility, submitting yourself to the story, suspending your judgments along with your disbelief (the two are related, and neither is honourable) for at least the duration of the film. I think of the chastened Ebenezer Scrooge, his former arrogance dissolved by the sobering vision of his own life offered by the Ghost of Christmas Past, standing before the second of the Ghosts and saying “Tonight, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.” We do well, confronted with such visions, when they say “Touch my robe!”, to obey and hold fast.
from Later: What does procrastination tell us about ourselves? by James Surowiecki The New Yorker, October 11 2010 “The essence of procrastination lies in not doing what you think you should be doing, a mental contortion that surely accounts for the great psychic toll the habit takes on people. This is the perplexing thing about […]
Calle 54 (Fernando Trueba, 2000) is named for the Manhattan recording studio where the director filmed his favourite Latin jazz artists playing signature pieces. There is little to the film apart from the music – which is all to the good. Brief portraits of each musician precede uninterrupted takes of energized, sometimes virtuosic performances by […]
“Get low. I don’t even know what that means. I guess it means to get low for Jesus before it’s time. Keep above the ground before you go below the ground.”
Robert Duvall
Tron? Vertigo? Saul Bass. Goldfinger. French New Wave? Any western in particular? Kurosawa? Donnie Darko? Some cross between King Kong and Godzilla? (Thanks, Mike.)
From Fiddler On The Roof and Schindler’s List to Operation Thunderbolt and The Governess, Jordan Hiller’s perspective on films with particular interest to the Jewish community.
Terrence Malick may be notorious for taking decades to complete a film, but he seems to be becoming more prolific of late. He will reportedly follow The Tree Of Life, due out later this year, with an untitled love story starring Christian Bale, Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams and Olga Kurylenko. Sight and Sound, April 2010