Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.
Setsuko Hara, 1920 - 2015
- The great Japanese actress of Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring and Mikio Naruse's Repast passed away in September but the news has only recently been released. An indelible screen presence whose absence from movies has been felt every year since 1966.
My Mother
Top 10s: Cahiers du Cinéma + Sight & Sound
- For us it's still too early to make judgement—we've hardly caught up with all of 2015's great cinema!—but the esteemed magazines of Cahiers du Cinéma and Sight & Sound have made their selections for the best of the year:
Cahiers du Cinéma 1. My Mother (Nanni Moretti) 2. Cemetery of Splendour (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) 3. In the Shadow of Women (Philippe Garrel) 4. The Smell of Us (Larry Clark) 5. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller) 6. Jauja (Lisandor Alonso) 7. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson) 8. Arabian Nights (Miguel Gomes) 9. The Summer of Sangaile (Alante Kavaite) 10. Journey to the Shore (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) Sight & Sound 1. The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien) 2. Carol (Todd Haynes) 3. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller) 4. Arabian Nights (Miguel Gomes) 5. Cemetery of Splendour (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) 6. No Home Movie (Chantal Akerman) 7. 45 Years (Andrew Haigh) 8. Son of Saul (Laszlo Nemes) 9. Amy (Asif Kapadia) & Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson) 11. Anamolisa (Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson) & It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) 12. Phoenix (Christian Petzold) 13. Girlhood (Céline Sciamma), Hard to Be a God (Aleksei German), Inside Out (Pete Docter), Tangerine (Sean Baker) & Taxi (Jafar Panahi) 19. Horse Money (Pedro Costa) & The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer)
Artforum's Best of 2015
- Meanwhile, Artforum has published the Best of 2015 by John Waters ("Yes, you heard me, Cinderella. I fucking love this Disney film") and J. Hoberman, who writes that Chantal Akerman's No Home Movie is "maybe not a movie at all, Akerman’s final statement, a portrait of the artist and her elderly mother, forces a new rereading of this immensely important filmmaker’s entire career." Printed elsewhere are selections for the magazine by Nicole Brenez and James Quandt.
Buñuel Video Essays
- Cristina Álvarez López has made three new video essays, including the above, "Buñuel and Surrealism: Revolt Into Love," for ICA London's Luis Buñuel retrospective. The other two are "International Buñuel: Interruption as Method" and "Buñuel in Mexico: The Logic of Delirium."
New Los Angeles Microcinema
- Critic (and Notebook contributor) Jordan Cronk has started an itinerant microcinema in L.A. called Acropolis. Its program is set to begin in January with Mark Peranson and Raya Martin's La última película.
A poster for Throne of Blood by Eric Bonhomme.
35mm Kurosawa in London
- London's Close-Up Film Centre is now hosting a large 35mm retrospective devoted to Akira Kurosawa. Through December 30.
Rivette on Out 1
- Online magazine Sabzian is hosting a 1973 interview with director Jacques Rivette about his epic—and now restored and re-released—serial adventure, Out 1:
"There was the desire I’d had [...] to make a film which, instead of being predicated on a central character presented as the conscience reflecting everything that happens in the action, would be a film about a collective, about a group, though in what form I didn’t know exactly."
Director Portraits
- Stellavie and Julian Rentzsch have collaborated on a series of film director portraits collaging illustrations of filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese with scenes from their work.
Experiments in Subtitling
- For his graphic design graduation project, Simone Cutri has re-imagined how subtitles can be used, aligning the text with where the viewer's eye is most likely to be.
ON MUBI / OFF
- In case you missed it, last week saw the debut of a new column here on the Notebook by Keith Uhlich. Focusing on a film playing on MUBI in the United States as well as one now playing elsewhere, the inaugural column explores Terminal Island and Spectre.
Manoel de Oliveira