Quotes (from his autobiography: ‘Adventures of a Suburban Boy’):
- “I have sought that lost grace in the film-making process, where the material things of the world – money, buildings, sets, plastic, metal, people – disappear into a camera and become nothing but light and shadow flickering on a wall: matter into spirit, the alchemists would say.”
-“David Lean’s words echo in my mind: ’Haven’t we been lucky, John? They let us make movies.’ Directing films is one of the greatest adventures on offer in the modern world. How astonishing that a shy, suburban boy got to do it.”
-“As a member of an audience, I want a film to take me into another world, another universe, and to lose myself in it.”
Biography:
Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey, England, the son of Ivy (née Chapman) and George Boorman.1 He was educated at the Salesian School in Chertsey, Surrey, even though his family was not Roman Catholic.
Boorman first began by working as a drycleaner and journalist in the late 1950s and then he moved into TV documentary filmmaking, eventually becoming the head of the BBC’s Bristol-based Documentary Unit in 1962.
Capturing the interest of producer David Deutsch, he was offered the chance to direct a film aimed at repeating the success of A Hard Day’s Night (directed by Richard Lester in 1964): Catch Us If You Can (1965) is about competing pop group Dave Clark Five. While not as successful commercially as Lester’s film, it smoothed Boorman’s way into the film industry. Boorman was drawn to Hollywood for the opportunity to make larger-scale cinema and in Point Blank (1967), a powerful interpretation of a Richard Stark novel, brought a stranger’s vision to the decaying fortress of Alcatraz and the proto-hippy world of San Francisco. Lee Marvin gave the then-unknown director his full support, telling MGM he deferred all his approvals on the project to Boorman.
After Point Blank, Boorman re-teamed with Lee Marvin and Toshirō Mifune for the robinsonade of Hell in the Pacific (1968), which tells a fable story of two representative soldiers stranded together on an island.
Returning to the UK, he made Leo The Last (US/UK, 1970). This film exhibited the influence of Federico Fellini and even starred Fellini regular Marcello Mastroianni, and won him a Best Director award at Cannes.
Boorman achieved much greater resonance with Deliverance (US, 1972, adapted from a novel by James Dickey), the odyssey of city people played by Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty as they trespass into Appalachian backwoods and discover their inner savagery. This film became Boorman’s first true box office success, earning him several award nominations.
At the beginning of the 1970s, Boorman was planning to film The Lord of the Rings and corresponded about his plans with the author, J. R. R. Tolkien. Ultimately the production proved too costly though some elements and themes can be seen in Excalibur.
A wide variety of films followed: Zardoz (1974), starring Sean Connery, was a post-apocalyptic science fiction piece, set in the 24th century. According to the director’s film commentary, the ‘Zardoz world’ was on a collision course with an “effete” eternal society, which it accomplished, and in the story must reconcile with a more natural human nature.
Boorman was selected as director for Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), but the resultant film was widely ridiculed and regarded by many as a total failure.
Excalibur (UK, 1981), a long held dream project of Boorman’s, is well-remembered as a mythical film and one of the very few “true” retellings of the Arthurian legend and tragedy. Boorman cast actors Nicol Williamson and (now Dame) Helen Mirren against their protests as the two disliked each other intensely, but Boorman felt their mutual antagonism would enhance their characterizations of the characters they were playing. The production was based in the Republic of Ireland where Boorman had relocated. For the film he employed all of his children as actors and crew and several of Boorman’s later films have been ‘family business’ productions.
Hope and Glory (1987, UK) is his most autobiographical movie to date, a retelling of his childhood in London during The Blitz. Produced by Goldcrest Films with Hollywood financing the film proved a Box Office hit in the US, receiving numerous Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. However his 1990 US produced comedy about a dysfunctional family, Where the Heart Is, was a major flop.
Very eco-conscious, Boorman’s The Emerald Forest (1985), a rainforest adventure, casts his actor son Charley Boorman as an eco-warrior, mingling commercially-required elements — action and near-nudity — with anthropological detail and the gorgeous threat of a green inferno (the film was adapted into a book of the same name by award winning author Robert Holdstock). When his friend David Lean died in 1991, Boorman was announced to be taking over direction of Lean’s long planned adaptation of Nostromo, though the production collapsed. Beyond Rangoon (US, 1995) and The Tailor of Panama (US/Ireland, 2000) both explore unique worlds with alien characters stranded and desperate in them.
Boorman won the Best Director Award at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival for The General,2 his black-and-white biopic of Martin Cahill. The film is about the somewhat glamorous, yet mysterious, criminal in Dublin who was killed, apparently by the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
In 2004, Boorman was made a Fellow of BAFTA
Released in 2006, The Tiger’s Tail was a thriller set against the tableau of early 21st century capitalism in Ireland. At the same time, Boorman began work on a long-time pet project of his, a fictional account of the life of Roman Emperor Hadrian (entitled Memoirs of Hadrian), written in the form of a letter from a dying Hadrian to his successor. In the meantime, a re-make/re-interpretation of the classic The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz with Boorman at the helm has been announced in August 20093.
Bibliography:
Boorman, John (2003). Adventures of a Suburban Boy. London: Faber and Faber.
Boorman, John (1985). Money Into Light: The Emerald Forest: A Diary. London: Faber and Faber.
Boorman, John (1992). “Bright Dreams, Hard Knocks: A Journal for 1991”. Projections: A Forum for Film Makers. London: Faber and Faber.
Ciment, Michel (1986). John Boorman. London: Faber and Faber.
Again and again I have the same problem as formulated by Balder Strååt:
after having made my list and clicking the “create” button I get this message:
“1 error prohibited this list from being saved
There were problems with the following fields:
Films is invalid"
This is very frustrating. I’ll have to remove one film from my list, try again, again error, add the removed film, try another film, push create, again error, etc. till I have remove the right movie and he accepts my list. When I edit my list and add the removed film, then there is no problem.
-Rutger Hauer as John Ryder in THE HITCHER (1986)
-Piper Laurie as the mother of CARRIE
-Grace Zabriskie, not only in WILD AT HEART, but also her short but terrifyingly intense performance in INLAND EMPIRE
-Karl Heinz Böhm as Helmut Salomon, the husband of MARTHA
-Charlotte Gainsbourg as “She” in ANTICHRIST
-Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
-Marc Barbé as the serial killer in SOMBRE (Philippe Grandrieux, 1998)
-Philippe Nahon as the butcher in SEUL CONTRE TOUS
-Charlotte Rampling as Alice Pollock in LEMMING
-R. Lee Ermey as the drill instructor in FULL METAL JACKET
-Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin in THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND
-Masato Hagiwara as Mamiya in Kyoshi Kurosawa’s CURE
John Cowper Powys’s masterpiece A GLASTONBURY ROMANCE. In the early sixties John Boorman tried very hard to get a screenplay out of it as he writes in his autobiography: “I began to write in earnest. I struggled to find an architecture for it. It became complex and hard to resolve. I could not control the characters. They would not come to life, yet they had enoug reality to insist on going their own ways. I began feeling helpless among them. (…) I was alarmed at the way the script sprawled. It was rather like the films Robert Altman would later make, with disparate characters connected by an event.”
John Cowper Powys’s amazing masterpiece A GLASTONBURY ROMANCE. In the early sixties John Boorman had the guts to give it a try. After many struggles he produced a screenplay and let it read to the producers. This was their response:
’It’s too, it’ too…’
‘Yes, Nat, it is a little too long.’ David offered hopefully.
‘No. No. No. It’s too…’
‘Short?’
‘No. Too…too…’
‘Intelligent?’
’That’s it. Not enough…’
‘Sex?’
’That’s it. And needs more…’
‘Action?’
‘Yes. And more…’
‘Violence?’
‘Now you’re talking.’
John Boorman writes: “I was impressed by David’s ability to decipher what Nat wanted to say.
’It’s not that difficult,’ he said. Nat’s fairly predictable.”
-SCORSESE’S SUBJECTIVE SLOW MOTION to enter the character’s state of mind. Many examples in Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Casino, Bringing Out the Dead, …
-BRIAN DE PALMA’S VIRTUOSO SLOW MOTION in Carrie, The Fury, Raising Cain, Femme Fatale. He uses it not only to heighten the suspense but most of all because it allows him to juggle with many different point of views and character’s actions at the same time. He is the absolute master of it, loves the complex construction of it and when it all comes together in the editing process he must feel a great satisfaction.
-TARKOVSKY’S POETIC SLOW MOTION in The Mirror. Leaves in the wind, falling drops of rain, a bottle of milk, walking down a corridor,…
-VON TRIER’S HORRIFIC SLOW MOTION as in The Element of Crime, the opening sequence of The Kingdom (the fingers out of the earth, the blood breaking through wood) and Antichrist. He uses it like a Dark Tarkovsky to accentuate the evil nature behind things.
Not really. It is the psychological effect it creates in the mind of the spectator. For example when you see a shot af a jealous Jake Lamotta in Raging Bull looking at something off screen and that shot is followed by a slow motion shot of the persons he is lookin at, the slow motion intensifies the perception of that point of view, it colours it with the jalousy of Jake, and the viewer senses it.
Every auteur is different. He or she has different interests and you can easily see where those interests are by watching how they use cinematic techniques (not only slow motion) to colour the reality in front of the camera.
I know, it’s a Sisyphean task in itself: trying to list every movie that has something in common with the myth of Sisyphus.
- useless struggles
- absurd situations without hope
- eternal return
- no escape possible
- pointless punishments
- an endless task
- a neverending story
This myth has many aspects. The more the movie has in common with the situation of Sisyphus, the higher I will rank it on the list, which you can watch here: http://mubi.com/lists/19451
You, fellow Sisyphean moviewatchers, can help to make this list endless.
I agree immediately with LA JETÉE, A SERIOUS MAN, WOMAN IN THE DUNES, SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (also Andersson’s YOU THE LIVING and others – his universe feels very Sisyphean.). Also THE STRANGER and Antonioni’s THE PASSENGER.
I’ll have to watch, re-watch and think about the others. I have my doubts about Tarkovsky because there’s always a religious undertone. I love his films and those of Sokurov, but the Sisyphean world is one without religious hopes. The Sisyphean hero struggles with his fate which he defies and accepts at the same time.
-Sisyphus – Jankovics Marcell
-The Music Box – James Parrott
-The Hill – Sidney Lumet
-Triangle – Christopher Smith
-La Jetée – Chris Marker
-Fitzcarraldo – Werner Herzog
-Woman in the Dunes – Hiroshi Teshigahara
-Groundhog Day – Harold Ramis
-Copy Shop – Virgil Widrich
-Moon – Duncan Jones
-Metropolis – Fritz Lang
-The Wages of Fear – Henri-Georges Clouzot
-The Swimmer – Frank Perry
-Songs from the Second Floor – Roy Andersson
-You the Living – Roy Andersson
-Man on wire – James Marsh
-Lost Highway – David Lynch
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Michel Gondry
-After Hours – Martin Scorsese
-The Stranger – Luchino Visconti
-The Passenger – Michelangelo Antonioni
-The Castle – Michael Haneke
-The Trial – Orson Welles
-A Serious Man – Coens
-The Roundup – Miklos Jancso
-Werckmeister Harmonies – Béla Tarr
-Synecdoche, New York – Charlie Kaufman
-Mr. Nobody – Jaco van Dormael
-Last Year at Marienbad – Alain Resnais
-Memento – Christopher Nolan
-Taxi Driver – Martin Scorsese
-Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock
-Aaltra – Gustave de Kervern
-The Mission – Roland Joffé
I suddenly remembered RUN LOLA RUN, but I’m too late. M° you seem to read my thoughts.
THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, TWELVE MONKEYS. Great to see all these diverse movies come together here. And the Coyote indeed has a lot in common with Sisyphus. I would never have thought about it.
What about THEY SHOOT HORSES DON’T THEY? and THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY.
I found some inspiration in this list: ABSURDITY IN CINEMA (http://mubi.com/lists/14053) THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE. (never gets what he wants)
-DR. STRANGELOVE… (remember the last images with the song “We’ll meet again…”)
-ERASERHEAD (Beginning and end meet in some way it can start all over again)
-Tati belongs in the Sisyphus-world with for example PLAYTIME
I appreciate your comments LEAVES, but I hope you’ll understand that when your suggestions don’t appear in my list immediately, this doesn’t mean I dismiss them. Who am I to dismiss? Everyone is free to make his own selections.
You’re absolutely right about BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, but I haven’t seen all the films in the world yet so give me some time. Your films will stimulate me to see Safe, On the Silver Globe, Enter the Void, Nobody Knows, Lola and The Baby of Macon. That’s what I like about this site: discovering interesting movies I haven’t seen yet.
You still haven’t convinced me about STALKER and THE FOUNTAIN though and I don’t think I’m silly if I have my doubts about the Sisyphean quality of stories about mystical journeys which suggest some kind of hope beyond the here and now. The fact that in the myth Sisyphus was punished by gods doesn’t alter the godless interpretation of his hopeless situation as the modern human condition of continuing its absurd struggle with life day after day after day knowing death will make a pointless end to it.
A fair comment JERRY JOHNSON. I’ll have to add more films about daily labor like LIBERTAD.
The documentary WORKINGMAN’S DEATH (Michael Glawogger, 2005). Also ROSETTA (Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, 1999), LA VIE RÊVÉE DES ANGES (Erick Zonca, 1998), L’EMPLOI DU TEMPS (Laurent Cantet, 2001) – which can be seen as Sisyphus’ failing attempt to have a time out.
In a Sisyphus interpretation of THE BIG LEBOWSKI the bowling Dude is the rock pushing Sisyphus. The rock rolls down the mountain, the bowling ball rolls back to its starting point.
In BARTON FINK Sisyphus is condemned to push his screenplays in front of producers who’ll keep turning it down.
Then there’s ‘Modern Man’ Ed in THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE, Sisyphus with scissors, condemned to cut human hair that keeps coming back.
Een oproep aan de al te ijverige Nederlandstalige vertalers. Laat de oorspronkelijke titels ongemoeid a.u.b.
Waarom NIGHTMARE ALLEY vertalen naar “De straat der verloren zielen”? Of THE LADY VANISHES: “Een vrouw wist te veel”. Die tijd waarin Engelstalige titels werden vertaald is toch al lang voorbij én ze zijn nu eenmaal beter gekend onder hun oorspronkelijke titel.
I’m reading Russell Hoban’s TURTLE DIARY (which was made into a movie I haven’t seen yet with Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley and is not yet on MUBI) and there’s the following passage:
“Someone got out of a taxi and I got in. Just like a film, I thought. People never have to wait for taxis in films. Old films that is. They never used to get change when they paid for anything either, they just left notes or coins and walked away.”
And another passage:
“It was the sort of situation that would be ever so charming and warmly human in a film with Peter Ustinov and Maggie Smith but that sort of film is only charming because they leave out so many details, and real life is all the details they leave out.”
Which details of life (almost) never reach the screen or which narrative films dó show one of those details?
The first film I can think of is “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles”.
Also the dishwasher scene in “Rachel Getting Married”
Also a lot of slapstick is based upon the difficulties of daily gestures or actions that never survive the dramatic treatment of reality: trying to move a piano upstairs (THE MUSIC BOX), trying to crack a nut (COUNTY HOSPITAL), trying to get undressed in a dressing room that’s too small for two persons (THE CAMERAMAN),…
I once saw a incredibly funny laurel and hardy scene but I can’t find it back anymore. It’s a scene that’s based upon passing eachother things at dinner. “Can you pass me the salt, please?” asks someone and another asks for the milk etc. so that everyone is passing something around and nobody manages to start eating. Can someone help me track down this scene?
“In films people like Paul Newman and Burt Lancaster leap into vehicles they’ve never seen before, cars, lorries, buses, locomotives, anything at all, and away they go at speed. Sometimes they have to fight with someone first, knock him out before they can drive away. Well of course that’s how it is in films. How can reality be so different.”
Wat begon als een klacht tegen het overbodig vertalen van filmtitels groeit hier blijkbaar uit tot een eerbetoon aan de nederlandstalige cultuur. Laat ik dan ook maar mijn favoriete gedicht hier posten:
De Wolken
Ik droeg nog kleine kleeren, en ik lag
Lang-uit met moeder in de warme hei,
De wolken schoven boven ons voorbij
En moeder vroeg wat ’k in de wolken zag
En ik riep: Scandinavië, en: eenden,
Daar gaat een dame, schapen met een herder-
De wond’ren werden woord en dreven verder,
Maar ’k zag dat moeder met een glimlach weende.
Toen kwam de tijd dat ’k niet naar boven keek,
Ofschoon de hemel vol van wolken hing,
Ik greep niet naar de vlucht van ’t vreemde ding
Dat met zijn schaduw langs mijn leven streek.
Nu ligt mijn jongen naast mij in de heide
En wijst me wat hij in de wolken ziet,
Nu schrei ik zelf, en zie in het verschiet
De verre wolken waarom moeder schreide.
MARTINUS NIJHOFF (1894-1953)
The Clouds
I still wore a little child’s clothes, and I lay
Stretched out with my mother in the warm heather,
The clouds floated by above us
And my mother asked me what I saw in them.
I called out: Scandinavia, and: ducks,
There goes a lady, sheep with a herder—
The wonders became words and pushed further,
But I saw how my mother’s smile filled with tears…
Then came the time that I didn’t look up to the sky,
Even though the heavens were full of clouds,
I didn’t reach to the flight of the strange thing
That with my shadow rubbed along side my life.
Now my little boy lies aside me in the heather
And shows me what he sees in the clouds,
Now I cry myself, and see in that which is to come
The distant clouds which caused my mother to cry.
As the title of the topic says, I’m interested in films with characters who feel trapped in their own life and rather drastically change it or try to change it. They are rebels of their own lives, so the typical youth-rebellion against authority or society is not what I’m looking for. Which films can you think of?
-OFFICE SPACE (Mike Judge, 1999): not really the character’s own decision, but helped by a hypnotic therapy gone wrong…
-THE RAIN PEOPLE (Francis Ford Coppola, 1969): housewife panicks after discovering she’s pregnant and escapes husband and home in search for another life…
-REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (Sam Mendes, 2008): the failure of change…
-MARIA LARSSONS EVIGA ÖGONBLICK (Everlasting Moments, Jan Troell 2008)
Film Database Submission August 2010 almost 3 years ago
Absolution – 1978
Dir.: Anthony Page / Scr.: Anthony Shaffer
Go to Comment
Film Database Submission August 2010 almost 3 years ago
Un roi sans divertissement – 1963
Dir: François Leterrier / Scr: Jean Giono
Go to Comment
Film Database Submission August 2010 almost 3 years ago
Crésus (1960)
Dir: Jean Giono
Go to Comment
Film Database Submission August 2010 almost 3 years ago
Triangle (2009)
Dir: Christopher Smith
Go to Comment
Film Database Submission August 2010 almost 3 years ago
Sammy Going South (1963)
Dir: Alexander Mackendrick
Go to Comment
Film Database Submission August 2010 almost 3 years ago
De Storm (2009)
Dir: Ben Sombogaart
Go to Comment
Film Database Submission August 2010 almost 3 years ago
The Red House (1947)
Dir: Delmer Daves
Go to Comment
The Auteurs Film & Cast Member Database almost 3 years ago
Jan Troell, a filmmaker admired by Bergman, Kubrick and Von Trier deserves a picture at Mubi.
Go to Comment
The Auteurs Film & Cast Member Database almost 3 years ago
Profile info for JOHN BOORMAN
Profile picture:
http://img691.imageshack.us/i/johnboorman.jpg/
Quotes (from his autobiography: ‘Adventures of a Suburban Boy’):
- “I have sought that lost grace in the film-making process, where the material things of the world – money, buildings, sets, plastic, metal, people – disappear into a camera and become nothing but light and shadow flickering on a wall: matter into spirit, the alchemists would say.”
-“David Lean’s words echo in my mind: ’Haven’t we been lucky, John? They let us make movies.’ Directing films is one of the greatest adventures on offer in the modern world. How astonishing that a shy, suburban boy got to do it.”
-“As a member of an audience, I want a film to take me into another world, another universe, and to lose myself in it.”
Biography:
Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey, England, the son of Ivy (née Chapman) and George Boorman.1 He was educated at the Salesian School in Chertsey, Surrey, even though his family was not Roman Catholic.
Boorman first began by working as a drycleaner and journalist in the late 1950s and then he moved into TV documentary filmmaking, eventually becoming the head of the BBC’s Bristol-based Documentary Unit in 1962.
Capturing the interest of producer David Deutsch, he was offered the chance to direct a film aimed at repeating the success of A Hard Day’s Night (directed by Richard Lester in 1964): Catch Us If You Can (1965) is about competing pop group Dave Clark Five. While not as successful commercially as Lester’s film, it smoothed Boorman’s way into the film industry. Boorman was drawn to Hollywood for the opportunity to make larger-scale cinema and in Point Blank (1967), a powerful interpretation of a Richard Stark novel, brought a stranger’s vision to the decaying fortress of Alcatraz and the proto-hippy world of San Francisco. Lee Marvin gave the then-unknown director his full support, telling MGM he deferred all his approvals on the project to Boorman.
After Point Blank, Boorman re-teamed with Lee Marvin and Toshirō Mifune for the robinsonade of Hell in the Pacific (1968), which tells a fable story of two representative soldiers stranded together on an island.
Returning to the UK, he made Leo The Last (US/UK, 1970). This film exhibited the influence of Federico Fellini and even starred Fellini regular Marcello Mastroianni, and won him a Best Director award at Cannes.
Boorman achieved much greater resonance with Deliverance (US, 1972, adapted from a novel by James Dickey), the odyssey of city people played by Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty as they trespass into Appalachian backwoods and discover their inner savagery. This film became Boorman’s first true box office success, earning him several award nominations.
At the beginning of the 1970s, Boorman was planning to film The Lord of the Rings and corresponded about his plans with the author, J. R. R. Tolkien. Ultimately the production proved too costly though some elements and themes can be seen in Excalibur.
A wide variety of films followed: Zardoz (1974), starring Sean Connery, was a post-apocalyptic science fiction piece, set in the 24th century. According to the director’s film commentary, the ‘Zardoz world’ was on a collision course with an “effete” eternal society, which it accomplished, and in the story must reconcile with a more natural human nature.
Boorman was selected as director for Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), but the resultant film was widely ridiculed and regarded by many as a total failure.
Excalibur (UK, 1981), a long held dream project of Boorman’s, is well-remembered as a mythical film and one of the very few “true” retellings of the Arthurian legend and tragedy. Boorman cast actors Nicol Williamson and (now Dame) Helen Mirren against their protests as the two disliked each other intensely, but Boorman felt their mutual antagonism would enhance their characterizations of the characters they were playing. The production was based in the Republic of Ireland where Boorman had relocated. For the film he employed all of his children as actors and crew and several of Boorman’s later films have been ‘family business’ productions.
Hope and Glory (1987, UK) is his most autobiographical movie to date, a retelling of his childhood in London during The Blitz. Produced by Goldcrest Films with Hollywood financing the film proved a Box Office hit in the US, receiving numerous Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. However his 1990 US produced comedy about a dysfunctional family, Where the Heart Is, was a major flop.
Very eco-conscious, Boorman’s The Emerald Forest (1985), a rainforest adventure, casts his actor son Charley Boorman as an eco-warrior, mingling commercially-required elements — action and near-nudity — with anthropological detail and the gorgeous threat of a green inferno (the film was adapted into a book of the same name by award winning author Robert Holdstock). When his friend David Lean died in 1991, Boorman was announced to be taking over direction of Lean’s long planned adaptation of Nostromo, though the production collapsed. Beyond Rangoon (US, 1995) and The Tailor of Panama (US/Ireland, 2000) both explore unique worlds with alien characters stranded and desperate in them.
Boorman won the Best Director Award at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival for The General,2 his black-and-white biopic of Martin Cahill. The film is about the somewhat glamorous, yet mysterious, criminal in Dublin who was killed, apparently by the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
In 2004, Boorman was made a Fellow of BAFTA
Released in 2006, The Tiger’s Tail was a thriller set against the tableau of early 21st century capitalism in Ireland. At the same time, Boorman began work on a long-time pet project of his, a fictional account of the life of Roman Emperor Hadrian (entitled Memoirs of Hadrian), written in the form of a letter from a dying Hadrian to his successor. In the meantime, a re-make/re-interpretation of the classic The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz with Boorman at the helm has been announced in August 20093.
Bibliography:
Boorman, John (2003). Adventures of a Suburban Boy. London: Faber and Faber.
Boorman, John (1985). Money Into Light: The Emerald Forest: A Diary. London: Faber and Faber.
Boorman, John (1992). “Bright Dreams, Hard Knocks: A Journal for 1991”. Projections: A Forum for Film Makers. London: Faber and Faber.
Ciment, Michel (1986). John Boorman. London: Faber and Faber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boorman
Go to Comment
Anyone else find it virtually impossible to create a top list? almost 3 years ago
Again and again I have the same problem as formulated by Balder Strååt:
after having made my list and clicking the “create” button I get this message:“1 error prohibited this list from being saved
There were problems with the following fields:
This is very frustrating. I’ll have to remove one film from my list, try again, again error, add the removed film, try another film, push create, again error, etc. till I have remove the right movie and he accepts my list. When I edit my list and add the removed film, then there is no problem.
Go to Comment
Truly Terrifying Performances over 2 years ago
-Rutger Hauer as John Ryder in THE HITCHER (1986)
-Piper Laurie as the mother of CARRIE
-Grace Zabriskie, not only in WILD AT HEART, but also her short but terrifyingly intense performance in INLAND EMPIRE
-Karl Heinz Böhm as Helmut Salomon, the husband of MARTHA
-Charlotte Gainsbourg as “She” in ANTICHRIST
-Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
-Marc Barbé as the serial killer in SOMBRE (Philippe Grandrieux, 1998)
-Philippe Nahon as the butcher in SEUL CONTRE TOUS
-Charlotte Rampling as Alice Pollock in LEMMING
-R. Lee Ermey as the drill instructor in FULL METAL JACKET
-Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin in THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND
-Masato Hagiwara as Mamiya in Kyoshi Kurosawa’s CURE
Go to Comment
What books would you like to see adapted for the screen? over 2 years ago
John Cowper Powys’s masterpiece A GLASTONBURY ROMANCE. In the early sixties John Boorman tried very hard to get a screenplay out of it as he writes in his autobiography: “I began to write in earnest. I struggled to find an architecture for it. It became complex and hard to resolve. I could not control the characters. They would not come to life, yet they had enoug reality to insist on going their own ways. I began feeling helpless among them. (…) I was alarmed at the way the script sprawled. It was rather like the films Robert Altman would later make, with disparate characters connected by an event.”Go to Comment
What books would you like to see adapted for the screen? over 2 years ago
John Cowper Powys’s amazing masterpiece A GLASTONBURY ROMANCE. In the early sixties John Boorman had the guts to give it a try. After many struggles he produced a screenplay and let it read to the producers. This was their response:
’It’s too, it’ too…’
‘Yes, Nat, it is a little too long.’ David offered hopefully.
‘No. No. No. It’s too…’
‘Short?’
‘No. Too…too…’
‘Intelligent?’
’That’s it. Not enough…’
‘Sex?’
’That’s it. And needs more…’
‘Action?’
‘Yes. And more…’
‘Violence?’
‘Now you’re talking.’
John Boorman writes: “I was impressed by David’s ability to decipher what Nat wanted to say.
’It’s not that difficult,’ he said. Nat’s fairly predictable.”
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DIFFERENT AUTEURS, DIFFERENT USE OF SLOW MOTION over 2 years ago
-SCORSESE’S SUBJECTIVE SLOW MOTION to enter the character’s state of mind. Many examples in Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Casino, Bringing Out the Dead, …
-BRIAN DE PALMA’S VIRTUOSO SLOW MOTION in Carrie, The Fury, Raising Cain, Femme Fatale. He uses it not only to heighten the suspense but most of all because it allows him to juggle with many different point of views and character’s actions at the same time. He is the absolute master of it, loves the complex construction of it and when it all comes together in the editing process he must feel a great satisfaction.
-TARKOVSKY’S POETIC SLOW MOTION in The Mirror. Leaves in the wind, falling drops of rain, a bottle of milk, walking down a corridor,…
-VON TRIER’S HORRIFIC SLOW MOTION as in The Element of Crime, the opening sequence of The Kingdom (the fingers out of the earth, the blood breaking through wood) and Antichrist. He uses it like a Dark Tarkovsky to accentuate the evil nature behind things.
-PECKINPAH’S VIOLENT SLOW MOTION
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DIFFERENT AUTEURS, DIFFERENT USE OF SLOW MOTION over 2 years ago
Not really. It is the psychological effect it creates in the mind of the spectator. For example when you see a shot af a jealous Jake Lamotta in Raging Bull looking at something off screen and that shot is followed by a slow motion shot of the persons he is lookin at, the slow motion intensifies the perception of that point of view, it colours it with the jalousy of Jake, and the viewer senses it.
Every auteur is different. He or she has different interests and you can easily see where those interests are by watching how they use cinematic techniques (not only slow motion) to colour the reality in front of the camera.
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SISYPHUS MOVIES over 2 years ago
I know, it’s a Sisyphean task in itself: trying to list every movie that has something in common with the myth of Sisyphus.
- useless struggles
- absurd situations without hope
- eternal return
- no escape possible
- pointless punishments
- an endless task
- a neverending story
This myth has many aspects. The more the movie has in common with the situation of Sisyphus, the higher I will rank it on the list, which you can watch here: http://mubi.com/lists/19451
You, fellow Sisyphean moviewatchers, can help to make this list endless.
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SISYPHUS MOVIES over 2 years ago
The number one on my list! Thanks Matt for putting it here.
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SISYPHUS MOVIES over 2 years ago
All of you thanks for the great suggestions.
I agree immediately with LA JETÉE, A SERIOUS MAN, WOMAN IN THE DUNES, SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (also Andersson’s YOU THE LIVING and others – his universe feels very Sisyphean.). Also THE STRANGER and Antonioni’s THE PASSENGER.
I’ll have to watch, re-watch and think about the others. I have my doubts about Tarkovsky because there’s always a religious undertone. I love his films and those of Sokurov, but the Sisyphean world is one without religious hopes. The Sisyphean hero struggles with his fate which he defies and accepts at the same time.
-Sisyphus – Jankovics Marcell
-The Music Box – James Parrott
-The Hill – Sidney Lumet
-Triangle – Christopher Smith
-La Jetée – Chris Marker
-Fitzcarraldo – Werner Herzog
-Woman in the Dunes – Hiroshi Teshigahara
-Groundhog Day – Harold Ramis
-Copy Shop – Virgil Widrich
-Moon – Duncan Jones
-Metropolis – Fritz Lang
-The Wages of Fear – Henri-Georges Clouzot
-The Swimmer – Frank Perry
-Songs from the Second Floor – Roy Andersson
-You the Living – Roy Andersson
-Man on wire – James Marsh
-Lost Highway – David Lynch
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Michel Gondry
-After Hours – Martin Scorsese
-The Stranger – Luchino Visconti
-The Passenger – Michelangelo Antonioni
-The Castle – Michael Haneke
-The Trial – Orson Welles
-A Serious Man – Coens
-The Roundup – Miklos Jancso
-Werckmeister Harmonies – Béla Tarr
-Synecdoche, New York – Charlie Kaufman
-Mr. Nobody – Jaco van Dormael
-Last Year at Marienbad – Alain Resnais
-Memento – Christopher Nolan
-Taxi Driver – Martin Scorsese
-Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock
-Aaltra – Gustave de Kervern
-The Mission – Roland Joffé
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SISYPHUS MOVIES over 2 years ago
I suddenly remembered RUN LOLA RUN, but I’m too late. M° you seem to read my thoughts.
THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, TWELVE MONKEYS. Great to see all these diverse movies come together here. And the Coyote indeed has a lot in common with Sisyphus. I would never have thought about it.
What about THEY SHOOT HORSES DON’T THEY? and THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY.
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SISYPHUS MOVIES over 2 years ago
I found some inspiration in this list: ABSURDITY IN CINEMA (http://mubi.com/lists/14053)
THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE. (never gets what he wants)it can start all over again)-DR. STRANGELOVE… (remember the last images with the song “We’ll meet again…”)
-ERASERHEAD (Beginning and end meet in some way
-Tati belongs in the Sisyphus-world with for example PLAYTIME
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SISYPHUS MOVIES over 2 years ago
I appreciate your comments LEAVES, but I hope you’ll understand that when your suggestions don’t appear in my list immediately, this doesn’t mean I dismiss them. Who am I to dismiss? Everyone is free to make his own selections.
You’re absolutely right about BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, but I haven’t seen all the films in the world yet so give me some time. Your films will stimulate me to see Safe, On the Silver Globe, Enter the Void, Nobody Knows, Lola and The Baby of Macon. That’s what I like about this site: discovering interesting movies I haven’t seen yet.
You still haven’t convinced me about STALKER and THE FOUNTAIN though and I don’t think I’m silly if I have my doubts about the Sisyphean quality of stories about mystical journeys which suggest some kind of hope beyond the here and now. The fact that in the myth Sisyphus was punished by gods doesn’t alter the godless interpretation of his hopeless situation as the modern human condition of continuing its absurd struggle with life day after day after day knowing death will make a pointless end to it.
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SISYPHUS MOVIES over 2 years ago
A fair comment JERRY JOHNSON. I’ll have to add more films about daily labor like LIBERTAD.
The documentary WORKINGMAN’S DEATH (Michael Glawogger, 2005). Also ROSETTA (Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, 1999), LA VIE RÊVÉE DES ANGES (Erick Zonca, 1998), L’EMPLOI DU TEMPS (Laurent Cantet, 2001) – which can be seen as Sisyphus’ failing attempt to have a time out.
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SISYPHUS MOVIES over 2 years ago
The brilliant short film ATRAKSION (Raoul Servais, 2001).
Watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioONlKCFLkg
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SISYPHUS MOVIES over 2 years ago
The Coen universe is a Sisyphus universe.
In a Sisyphus interpretation of THE BIG LEBOWSKI the bowling Dude is the rock pushing Sisyphus. The rock rolls down the mountain, the bowling ball rolls back to its starting point.
In BARTON FINK Sisyphus is condemned to push his screenplays in front of producers who’ll keep turning it down.
Then there’s ‘Modern Man’ Ed in THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE, Sisyphus with scissors, condemned to cut human hair that keeps coming back.
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TO THE DUTCH TRANSLATOR(S): STOP MET HET VERTALEN VAN TITELS over 1 year ago
Een oproep aan de al te ijverige Nederlandstalige vertalers. Laat de oorspronkelijke titels ongemoeid a.u.b.
Waarom NIGHTMARE ALLEY vertalen naar “De straat der verloren zielen”? Of THE LADY VANISHES: “Een vrouw wist te veel”. Die tijd waarin Engelstalige titels werden vertaald is toch al lang voorbij én ze zijn nu eenmaal beter gekend onder hun oorspronkelijke titel.
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IN FILMS PEOPLE NEVER HAVE TO (WAIT FOR TAXIS,...) over 1 year ago
I’m reading Russell Hoban’s TURTLE DIARY (which was made into a movie I haven’t seen yet
with Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsleyand is not yet on MUBI) and there’s the following passage:“Someone got out of a taxi and I got in. Just like a film, I thought. People never have to wait for taxis in films. Old films that is. They never used to get change when they paid for anything either, they just left notes or coins and walked away.”
And another passage:
“It was the sort of situation that would be ever so charming and warmly human in a film with Peter Ustinov and Maggie Smith but that sort of film is only charming because they leave out so many details, and real life is all the details they leave out.”
Which details of life (almost) never reach the screen or which narrative films dó show one of those details?
The first film I can think of is “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles”.
Also the dishwasher scene in “Rachel Getting Married”
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IN FILMS PEOPLE NEVER HAVE TO (WAIT FOR TAXIS,...) over 1 year ago
Also a lot of slapstick is based upon the difficulties of daily gestures or actions that never survive the dramatic treatment of reality: trying to move a piano upstairs (THE MUSIC BOX), trying to crack a nut (COUNTY HOSPITAL), trying to get undressed in a dressing room that’s too small for two persons (THE CAMERAMAN),…
I once saw a incredibly funny laurel and hardy scene but I can’t find it back anymore. It’s a scene that’s based upon passing eachother things at dinner. “Can you pass me the salt, please?” asks someone and another asks for the milk etc. so that everyone is passing something around and nobody manages to start eating. Can someone help me track down this scene?
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IN FILMS PEOPLE NEVER HAVE TO (WAIT FOR TAXIS,...) over 1 year ago
Another passage in TURTLE DIARY:
“In films people like Paul Newman and Burt Lancaster leap into vehicles they’ve never seen before, cars, lorries, buses, locomotives, anything at all, and away they go at speed. Sometimes they have to fight with someone first, knock him out before they can drive away. Well of course that’s how it is in films. How can reality be so different.”
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TO THE DUTCH TRANSLATOR(S): STOP MET HET VERTALEN VAN TITELS over 1 year ago
Wat begon als een klacht tegen het overbodig vertalen van filmtitels groeit hier blijkbaar uit tot een eerbetoon aan de nederlandstalige cultuur. Laat ik dan ook maar mijn favoriete gedicht hier posten:
De Wolken
Ik droeg nog kleine kleeren, en ik lag
Lang-uit met moeder in de warme hei,
De wolken schoven boven ons voorbij
En moeder vroeg wat ’k in de wolken zag
En ik riep: Scandinavië, en: eenden,
Daar gaat een dame, schapen met een herder-
De wond’ren werden woord en dreven verder,
Maar ’k zag dat moeder met een glimlach weende.
Toen kwam de tijd dat ’k niet naar boven keek,
Ofschoon de hemel vol van wolken hing,
Ik greep niet naar de vlucht van ’t vreemde ding
Dat met zijn schaduw langs mijn leven streek.
Nu ligt mijn jongen naast mij in de heide
En wijst me wat hij in de wolken ziet,
Nu schrei ik zelf, en zie in het verschiet
De verre wolken waarom moeder schreide.
MARTINUS NIJHOFF (1894-1953)
The Clouds
I still wore a little child’s clothes, and I lay
Stretched out with my mother in the warm heather,
The clouds floated by above us
And my mother asked me what I saw in them.
I called out: Scandinavia, and: ducks,
There goes a lady, sheep with a herder—
The wonders became words and pushed further,
But I saw how my mother’s smile filled with tears…
Then came the time that I didn’t look up to the sky,
Even though the heavens were full of clouds,
I didn’t reach to the flight of the strange thing
That with my shadow rubbed along side my life.
Now my little boy lies aside me in the heather
And shows me what he sees in the clouds,
Now I cry myself, and see in that which is to come
The distant clouds which caused my mother to cry.
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Characters who suddenly (want to) change their lives. over 1 year ago
As the title of the topic says, I’m interested in films with characters who feel trapped in their own life and rather drastically change it or try to change it. They are rebels of their own lives, so the typical youth-rebellion against authority or society is not what I’m looking for. Which films can you think of?
-OFFICE SPACE (Mike Judge, 1999): not really the character’s own decision, but helped by a hypnotic therapy gone wrong…
-THE RAIN PEOPLE (Francis Ford Coppola, 1969): housewife panicks after discovering she’s pregnant and escapes husband and home in search for another life…
-REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (Sam Mendes, 2008): the failure of change…
-MARIA LARSSONS EVIGA ÖGONBLICK (Everlasting Moments, Jan Troell 2008)
-FIVE EASY PIECES (Bob Rafelson, 1970)
There must be many many more.
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