Edited by Adam Cook
News.
- Above: Cinetract 2: Revolution Is in the Eye of the Beholder, a video essay by David Phelps. The video is part of a new issue of one of our very favorite—and one of the best—film magazines in the world, La Furia Umana, which is now out. Each issue is focused on dossiers on particular directors, and this issue includes essential articles on Leo McCarey, Paul Vecchiali, Jean-Claude Rousseau and José Luis Guerín. In the McCarey dossier are pieces by our very own Daniel Kasman—on the Cary Grant & Ginger Rogers vs. the Nazis film, Once Upon a Honeymoon—and Ted Fendt on McCarey's Charley Chase comedy shorts. But don't ignore the depth and variety of articles outside this center, which include searing video pieces by Notebook regulars David Phelps—on Lang, Vertov and protest—and Gina Telaroli on Joan Bennett, Max Ophüls, The Reckless Moment and the reflections of American presidents.
- Issue 51 of Cinema Scope has hit shelves, and features Mark Peranson's annual Cannes takedown, which is one of the pieces you can check out online for free, along with several other articles, including Dennis Lim on Léos Carax' Holy Motors, and Chuck Stephens' column, Exploded View, on Serene Velocity and World on a Wire.
- Experimental filmmaker Stephen Dwoskin has passed away. Head over to Fandor to see David Hudson's roundup.
Finds.
- At Serge Daney in English, this essential site of essential—and rare—translations of one of film's greatest critics and writers has a piece by Daney written in the 1980s on catching ...And God Created Woman and Brigitte Bardot on television:
"The charm was intact. Not the obsolete charm of the past, but the innocent charm of the present. By watching again movies on television, one verifies more and more to which extent there was already a lot of pre-television (management, digestion, edification) in old movies and in numerous “classics” (La beauté du diable being a recent example)."
- Above: John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is now on Blu-ray.
- Above: Audrey Hepburn photographed by Cecil Beaton. Via everyday_i_show, in a collection of Beaton photos including Greta Garbo, Jean Cocteau, Marilyn Monroe and more.
- At The Grid, Adam Nayman has determined why Jaws is the greatest movie ever made. See the foolproof chart below (click to enlarge):
- At Press Play, our own Ignatiy Vishnevetsky describes his unique approach to his entry in this year's Sight & Sound Poll, and discusses three of his selections, all of which happen to be from the year 1981.
- More on the late Andrew Sarris: R. Emmet Sweeney has compiled various favourite excerpts from Sarris' work as chosen by a selection of critics and academics.
- At Il Cinema Ritrovato, Olaf Möller, Christoph Huber and Gabe Klinger discuss the state of cinema. A must watch:
- At Moving Image Source, a transcription of a talk J. Hoberman gave in Berlin on Rainer Werner Fassbinder, in which he chronologically charts the late auteur's history of reception in America.
- RZA, Eli Roth, and Russell Crowe. A weirder trio of collaborators I know not. The trailer for RZA's debut feature The Man with the Iron Fists, co-written with Roth, is below:
From the archives.
- An amalgam of two elements already mentioned in this week's Noteworthy, J. Hoberman's "Don't go near the water - the influence of the film Jaws on US culture - American Myths".