The Auteurs Film & Cast Member Database
Thanks again, Greg. Is there any rules about changing the stills? For example, if someone submits a better still, will it most likely get changed eventually?
No, there really isn’t a set of rules exactly, but not all the films will have their stills changed if it is a question of preference rather than quality. Some of the films on here will likely keep their stills due to a certain iconic quality to them, while others may be changed. I wouldn’t bother submitting new stills for the films you first see when you click on the Films link, like 2001 or Citizen Kane and the like or for Criterion films since those are pretty set and would likely only be changed for better quality versions of the same image or if the still in question just flat out doesn’t fit the 448 × 252 ratio we have.
For all the rest of the films on here, definitely show us what you have, particularly for the films that currently represented by simple close ups or two shots, or by low quality images, we’ll be happy to switch out stills like that for something more dynamic and interesting.
Ideally, I personally think it would be great to have unique stills for most of the films on here, images captured from the films themselves by the users rather than hunted down from elsewhere, and those stills would fit the criteria of being interesting in themselves while also capturing a key or iconic moment from the film, something that provides a clear feel and look for the film represented by the still. I’m sure we’re heading down that path and the images here will only get better and better which is what I’ve been seeing in the posts in this thread.
I’m sure the process will become more refined as we go along and more and more films have high quality stills added to them, but since we’re in the early stages of adding things to the database things are more open.
~ Profile info for Majid Majidi
http://www.cinemajidi.com/pictures/majid_jan2005_rounded.jpg
~ Quote
“The government has a monopoly on film stock and equipment. So every filmmaker has to go to them to rent these items. The government issues screening permits for the films, which means they can ban a film or demand changes in it. They also rate them on artistic and cultural merits. They reward A-grade films with rights to advertise on the government controlled media and screenings at the best theaters. While C-grade filmmakers can be kept from making films for a year.”
~ Biography
Majid Majidi (Persian: مجید مجیدی , born 17 April 1959 in Tehran) is an internationally and critically acclaimed Iranian film director, film producer, and screenwriter. Majidi’s films have touched on many themes and genres and he has won many international awards.
Born in an Iranian middle class family, he grew up in Tehran and at the age of 14 he started acting in amateur theater groups. He then studied at the Institute of Dramatic Arts in Tehran.
After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, his interest in cinema brought him to act in various films, most notably Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Boycott in 1985.
As of 2004[update], Majidi was the only Iranian director who has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film with the film Children of Heaven in 1998. He lost the award to the Italian film Life Is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni.
Majidi has directed three other feature films since Children of Heaven: The Color of Paradise (2000), Baran (2001), and The Willow Tree (2005; alternate English title One Life More). He also recently directed a feature-length documentary titled Barefoot to Herat which chronicles life in refugee camps and the city of Herat during and after the anti-Taliban offensive of 2001.
His acclaimed film The Song of Sparrows will be the opening film of the Visakhapatnam International Film Festival in India . Majid Majidi was one of five international film directors invited by the Beijing government to create a documentary short film to introduce the city of Beijing, in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics which was held in the Chinese capital; the project was titled “Vision Beijing”.
Majid Majidi has received numerous awards up to now. Here are a few:
- Oecumenical Special Award, 25th Montreal Film Festival, 2001.
- Grand Prix Des Ameriques, 25th Montreal Film Festival, 2001.
- Nominated for Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film, 1998.
- Grand Prix of Americas Best Film, 21st Montreal Festival for World Films, 1999.
( wiki )
Alright, thanks for the info about the stills.
Something strange, though, is that the stills Criterion has on their site are sometimes, well, not actually stills but black and white promos for color films (Burden of Dreams for example), or odd close ups themselves. I submitted a bunch already, I guess I’ll just wait for them to get updated. Thanks!
i hope my Olia Lazaridou photo and biography will be filled in.
color stills for The Travelling Players
A better still for The Last Remake Of Beau Geste; http://www.theauteurs.com/films/15436
beaugestey
Richard Williams needs to be added to
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as Director (he did the animation)
By the way, I posted his bio and whatnot earlier…
Dmitris, is this Olia Lazaridou?
already sent another one here, but i guess they’re delaying a bit like with the films, haha. i just wanted to make sure because i learned a tad late how to link films, pictures and such :P
Yeah, I saw the other one in the thread, but it wasn’t the best quality. If this is her I think it will work better. Or if you can dig up even a better picture than this that would be great too! I’d hate to have you suffer with less than a perfect picture of one of your faves, even if she isn’t quite Meg Ryan quality ;)
Also, there doesn’t seem to be a page at all for Rudolph Valentino….
Missing screencap for All Dogs Go To Heaven
Missing still for The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
A missing still for Tunneling the English Channel
Current still for Duelist (2005) is incorrect. Here is a correct one:
Current still for A City of Violence (2006) is blurry. Here is an image of higher quality:
I realised that there are two entries for Wladyslaw Starewicz:
Wladyslaw Starewicz (the correct one)
Wladislaw Starewicz
The Insect’s Christmas should be added to Wladyslaw Starewicz
Profile information for Moira Shearer
“If I am dubious about films and film people, the film industry has only itself to blame.”
Moira Shearer, Lady Kennedy (17 January 1926 – 31 January 2006), was an internationally famous Scottish ballet dancer and actress.
She was born Moira Shearer King in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, the daughter of actor Harold V. King. In 1931 her family relocated to Ndola, Northern Rhodesia, where she received her first dancing training under a former pupil of Enrico Cecchetti. She returned to the United Kingdom in 1936 and trained with Flora Fairbairn in London for a few months before she was accepted as a pupil by the Russian teacher Nicholas Legat. After three years with Legat, she joined the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School. However, after the outbreak of the World War II, her parents took her to live in Scotland. She made her debut with the International Ballet in 1941 before moving on to Sadler’s Wells in 1942.
She came to international attention for her first film role as Victoria Page in the Powell & Pressburger ballet-themed film The Red Shoes, (1948). Even her hair matched the titular footwear, and the role and film were so powerful that although she went on to star in other films and worked as a dancer for many decades, she is primarily known for playing “Vicky.”
Shearer retired from ballet in 1953, but she continued to act, appearing as Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the 1954 Edinburgh Festival. She worked again for Powell on the controversial film Peeping Tom (1960), which damaged Powell’s own career.
In 1972, she was chosen by the BBC to present the Eurovision Song Contest when it was staged at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. According to author and historian John Kennedy O’Connor’s The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History, Shearer accepted the role of hostess because her children wanted something to tease her with in the future. She also wrote for The Daily Telegraph newspaper and gave talks on ballet worldwide.
The choreographer Gillian Lynne persuaded her to return to ballet in 1987 to play L. S. Lowry’s mother in A Simple Man for the BBC.—Wikipedia.
Profile information for Gilles Carle
“Don’t go thinking that censorship is less of an issue when it ceases to be abusive. In itself, censorship is an abuse.”
Gilles Carle (July 31, 1928 – November 28, 2009) was a French Canadian director, screenwriter and painter.
Carle was born in Maniwaki, Québec. His film 50 ans, celebrating the 50 years of the National Film Board of Canada, won the Short Film Palme d’Or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.
He joined the NFB in 1960, where his credits included La Vie heureuse de Léopold Z. But after the NFB rejected several of his projects, he began working independently.
In 1990, he was awarded the Government of Québec’s Prix Albert-Tessier. In 1998, he was made an Officer of the Ordre du Canada. In 2007, he was made a Grand Officer of the Ordre National du Québec.
Carle died aged 81 on November 28, 2009 of complications from Parkinson’s disease at an hospital in Granby, Québec. He is survived by his son and three daughters as well as his companion of 27 years, Chloé Sainte-Marie. Québec Prime Minister Jean Charest described him, at his death, as one of Québec’s most influential filmmakers.—Wikipedia.
Shirley MacLaine and Jerry Mathers should be added to the cast of The Trouble with Harry.
~ Profile Info for Agnieszka Holland
~ Profile Picture
http://www.paiz.gov.pl/img/pictures/5624.jpg
~ Quote
“His penis saved his soul. Otherwise, he might have become a total Nazi.” (on Europa Europa protagonist Solomon Perel, a circumcised Jew who posed as an “Aryan” German during World War II to escape persecution)
~ Biography
Agnieszka Holland (born November 28, 1948) is a Polish film and TV director and screenwriter. Best recognized for her highly political contributions to Polish cinema, Holland is one of Poland’s most prominent filmmakers. She was born in Warsaw, Poland, the daughter of journalists Irena (née Rybczynska) and Henryk Holland. Her Jewish father’s parents were killed in the ghetto, and her mother was a Catholic who fought in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and was a member of the Polish Underground. Holland was raised without religion. Holland’s mother later re-married to journalist Stanislaw Brodzki. Holland is the mother of Kasia Adamik, another Polish film director.
Holland graduated from the Prague Film and TV Academy (FAMU) in 1971. She began her career as an assistant director for the Polish film directors Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda, including Zanussi’s 1973 film Illuminacja and Wajda’s 1982 film Danton. Holland’s first major film was Provincial Actors (Aktorzy Prowincjonalni, 1978), a chronicle of the tense backstage relations within a small town theater company that served as a metaphor for Poland’s contemporary political situation. The film won the International Critics Prize at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.
Holland only directed two more major films in Poland, Fever (Gorączka, 1980) and A Lonely Woman (Kobieta samotna, 1981), before emigrating to France, just before martial law was declared in Poland in December 1981. Holland received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film for her 1985 film Angry Harvest, a German production about a Jewish woman on the run in World War II.
Perhaps Holland’s best-known and well-regarded film is Europa Europa (1991), based on the biography of Solomon Perel, a Jewish teenager who fled Germany for Poland following Kristallnacht in 1938. Upon the outbreak of World War II and the German invasion of Poland, Perel fled to the Soviet-occupied section of Poland. Later captured during the German invasion of Russia in 1941, Soloman convinced a German officer that he was German and found himself enrolled in the Hitler Youth. The film received a lukewarm reception in Germany and the German Oscar selection committee did not include the film as a submission for the 1991 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. However, it became one of the most successful German films released in the US, winning a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
A friend of the noted Polish writer and director, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Holland collaborated on the screenplay for his film, Three Colors: Blue. Like Kieślowski, Holland frequently examines issues of faith in her work.
In a 1988 interview, she said that although women were important in her films, feminism was not the central theme of her work. Rather she suggested that when she was making films in Poland under the communist regime, there was an atmosphere of cross-gender solidarity against censorship, which was seen as the main political issue.
Holland’s later films include Olivier, Olivier (1992), The Secret Garden (1993), Total Eclipse (1995), Washington Square (1997), the HBO production Shot in the Heart (2001), Julia Walking Home (2001) and The Healer (2004). Her most recent film is Copying Beethoven (2006).
In 2004 she directed “Moral Midgetry” the eighth episode of the third season of HBO drama series The Wire. She returned in 2006 to direct the eighth episode of the fourth season “Corner Boys”. Both episodes were written by acclaimed novelist Richard Price. Show runner David Simon credits producer Nina K. Noble for attracting Holland to the show through their association working on HBO movie Shot In The Heart. Simon said that Holland was “wonderful behind the camera” and did an excellent job of staging the fight between Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell in “Moral Midgetry”.
In 2007 she directed together with her sister Magdalena Łazarkiewicz and daughter Katarzyna Adamik the Polish political drama series Ekipa. She is currently on the faculty as filmmaker-in-residence at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.
On 5 February 2009 Krakow Post reported Holland will direct a biopic about Krystyna Skarbek entitled Christine: War My Love.
( wiki )
Two entries for W.C. Fields:
W.C. Fields (correct one)
W. C. Fields
The former should have David Copperfield added.
Profile information for Candy Darling
“I’ve had small parts in big pictures and big parts in small pictures.”
greg x
No, not really since that would likely increase the chance of a duplicate. Most of the time we are able to dig up stills for films that either don’t have them or have ones that don’t quite work so it isn’t a huge problem, it just takes a little extra time. We definitely do appreciate stills and info that doesn’t need much in the way of correction since that makes publishing the films easier, but for films already submitted don’t sweat it. Providing the information you have is great in and of itself.
However, if you do come across a better still for a film already published, posting it in this thread can also be a help. A lot of films have their stills changed due to what’s been posted here!