International Women’s Day

A couple of days ago my wife and I watched La Règle of Jeu(1939). Yesterday was the International Women’s day and I thought two actresses from this memorable classic need to be remembered . The first actress took the role of Genevieve de Marras the mistress of the Marquis of La Coliniere and the second [...]

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I Sat Through This- and I loved it

Monsieur Verdoux-1947 The tale of the Blue Beard is nothing new. Remember the Arabian nights? King Shahryar was one but the Thousands and one Night tales surrounding his heinous crime detract us from it. Days of king of kings behaving badly are gone. In a dog eat dog world of capitalism it is all profits [...]

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A Still from Rules Of The Game-1939

The above still shows Renoir’s style to give spatial depth by which the interaction of characters add to the drama. Free grouping in space ( simultaeneously foreground and background groups or single character in relaton to the others). Such staging allows interaction between foreground and actions on the background. In this scene where Octave brings [...]

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Les Enfants du Paradis-great scenes

By way of preface Marcel Carne’s Les Enfants du Paradis (1946) is about theater. From the first repeated three knocks where the curtain goes up we are given to look into the lives of certain personages who are caught up in the currents where their lives entangle with the rest. Most of these are living [...]

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The Third Man -great scenes

The Third Man-1949 Here I shall give three scenes which stay on mind. The American pulp writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) has come to bombed-out, post-war Vienna on the invitation of his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles) but is told of his death under most mysterious circumstances. One night, Martins becomes aware of a figure [...]

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The Lubitsch Touch

Ernest Lubitsch The primary conflict in his films battle between sexual attraction and the particular state of being of individuals as part of society. An individual has a social position that pulls him in a certain way whereas his sexual attractions might direct him in another. Forbidden Paradise,Cluny Brown, The Love Parade, Merry Widow and [...]

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The Studio Years

The Studio Years by Gerald Mast (notes taken from the essay as titled above.b) The System came up along the slow evolution of cinema as an art. In 1916 Adolph Zukor( Famous Players-Lasky company) assumed control over Paramount distributing company. In 1924 Marcus Loew set up MGM studio with Louis B.Mayer as head of Production. [...]

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Griffith and Eisenstein

Notes made from Griffith to Eisenstein and Back-Peter A. Dart Griffith and Eisenstein stand out in the history of modern motion picture as two giants, both were innovators who advanced the basic form and structure of motion pictures.Both came to films from theatre backgrounds. Griffith’s influence on Eisenstein and V.I Pudovkin, Lev Kuleshov. But how [...]

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Pen Portraits #46

DAVID (WARK) GRIFFITH (American) (1875  -  1948) Film director. A stage actor and aspiring playwright who entered the cinema in 1908, Griffith is generally acknowledged as the father of the cinema, the man who invented everything from cross cutting to the close-up. Though rival claims may be pressed – for Louis Feuillade and Benjamin Christenan, [...]

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Cinebuff, I’m one

For the notice of cinebuffs. Any one interested to read on films given below may go to cinebuff.wordpress.com. The blog is titled A Night at the Movies where I shall cover more films. In this blog exclusively for films I hope to give my appreciation on films that didn’t make in my Movie Lists. Here [...]

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