CineAction articles from June 2007

CineAction archives from June 2007

Mini-cinema: a digital diary for iPod.
June 22, 2007... Midi Onodera's "movie-a-day" project is a series of 365 short videos, each less than a minute long and many less than 40 seconds. Like a diary, the entries are intimate and they feature a first-person-singular enunciation along with personal...

New media resistance: machinima and the avant-garde.
June 22, 2007... "Somewhere between the video game and the CD-ROM there could be another way of making films...." --Jean-Luc Godard (1) It was Jean Cocteau who suggested that the cinema as a pluralistic and egalitarian medium could never come into...

The reality of dreams: a presentation of L'Ange et la femme (1977).
June 22, 2007... On Saturday February 10, 2007, Montreal's La Presse published a survey of the 50 best quebecois films of all time. Compiled from shorter lists prepared by local film personnel, both filmmakers and commentators, this project offered few...

The imagined city: toward a theory of urbanity in Canadian cinema.
June 22, 2007... Canadian cinema, like most national cinemas, has a strong sense of place. Place often carries geographic connotations--oceans, grasslands, tundra, boreal forests and mountains and the flora and fauna associated with them. Geography in turn...

I'm just a simple filmmaker: an interview with Michel Brault.(Interview)
June 22, 2007... In close-up, his head is tilted towards her. Hers is slightly tilted, too. He is looking at her. She is looking down. This frame, extracted from the rest of the twenty-three that make up a cinematic instance, is on the cover of a book in my...

From big snow to big sadness: the repatriation of Canadian cultural identity in the films of Guy Maddin.
June 22, 2007... Much has been made of the dwarfing of Canadian cultural heritage and identity by the neighbouring behemoth that is the United States. This anxiety proves especially true when one considers the canon of Canadian cinema, where early...

Being at Home with Roy Dupuis and Pascale Bussieres: or, star-gazing in and out of Quebec.
June 22, 2007... Let me state at the outset that I see this essay participating, very modestly, in a (queer) film studies tradition that takes seriously fan culture and the notion that star images circulate among and are productively engaged with by audiences...

Michael Haneke: beyond compromise.
June 22, 2007... Prior to his masterpiece, Code Inconnu, Michael Haneke made five films as writer/director, one adaptation, and wrote one screenplay realized by another filmmaker. The Castle, though a thoroughly accomplished film in its own right, is the least...

Voice and body: ahead of the Curve and Scouts Are Cancelled.
June 22, 2007... Over images of the rehearsal of a modern dance performance, acclaimed choreographer Christopher House says: "There is a physical suit of armor that men are forced to wear. There's a kind of anti-sensual physicality, so that men don't want to...

And Along Come Tourists; The Counterfeiters.(2007 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL)
June 22, 2007... Two intelligent films screened at TIFF 2007 approach history through the conventions of narrative film. One, a German production directed by Robert Thalheim And Along Come Tourists, poses the problem of remembering history through a...

Les bons films: A Girl Cut in Two and Angel.(2007 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL)
June 22, 2007... Seeing Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two and Francois Ozon's Angel at the 2007 TIFF was a reminder that there are few strong and intelligent films about women in the contemporary cinema. Arguably, despite the fact that feminism wasn't a...

Random thoughts on and around the Toronto film festival.(2007 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL)
June 22, 2007... I have decided that the festival itself is 'no country for old men'. The constant rush and pressure, the lineups in which one waits for an hour to get a seat, the rush from theatre to theatre scattered over the city. I have learnt one lesson:...

My Kid Could Paint That: is there anything there? Marla painting, Pollock painting, and abstract art in the 21st century.(2007 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL)
June 22, 2007... Art on Film I: Pollock Painting Probably the most famous example of an artist filmed in the process of painting an artwork is the brief colour footage of Jackson Pollock shot by Hans Namuth at Pollock's studio (and home) in Springs, Long...