Cineaste articles from June 2009

Cineaste archives from June 2009

Cinema on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.(Editorial)
June 22, 2009... For a national cinema from a nation that has yet to achieve independent statehood, and that presently sustains a devastated civil infrastructure, Palestinian cinema has miraculously survived. One might even say that Palestinian cinema has...

Iron curtain auteurs lost voices from East Germany's DEFA Studios.(Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft)(Viewpoint essay)
June 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Though much critical attention is given to West German films associated with Neue Deutsche Kino, the cinematic achievements of East Germany, or Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), have been far less visible. To...

Acting in the grand manner: an interview with Christopher Plummer.(Interview)
June 22, 2009... Memoirs of actors are one of the least esteemed literary genres. Usually ghostwritten farragoes of gossip and untrammeled self-promotion, they often turn up on remaindered tables mere months after publication. A rare "star" memoir written with...

Reclaiming Palestine, one film at a time.(Report)
June 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In Waiting, the 2005 feature film by Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, the main character, Ahmad, is assigned an important mission: travel to refugee camps in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon to seek out every...

The hazards of occupation: documentaries by and about Palestinians and Israelis in the occupied territories.(Report)
June 22, 2009... The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a classic "hot-potato" issue, on which there are widely divergent, bitterly contested viewpoints, making nonfiction documentation of Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank an ideological...

Exposing the dark secrets of Italian political history: an interview with Paolo Sorrentino.(Interview)
June 22, 2009... Although Il Divo: The Spectacular Life of Giulio Andreotti is the fourth feature film directed by Paolo Sorrentino--following L'uomo in piu (One Man Up, 2001), Le conseguenze dell'amore (The Consequences of Love, 2004), and L'arnico di famiglia...

The business of dinner: an interview with Robert Kenner.(Interview)
June 22, 2009... Robert Kenner's new documentary, Food, Inc., could not appear at a more opportune time. Michelle Obama is planting an organic vegetable garden on the White House grounds and articles about sustainable, local, and pesticide-free food seem to...

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema.(Movie review)
June 22, 2009... The Pervert's Guide to Cinema Produced by Martin Rosenbaum, Georg Misch, Ralph Wieser and Sophie Fiennes; directed by Sophie Fiennes; cinematography (studio) by Remko Schnorr; production design (studio) by Ben Zuydwijk; edited by Ethel...

Examined Life.(Movie review)
June 22, 2009... Examined Life Produced by Ron Mann, Silva Basmajian, Jane Jankovic, Bill Imperial, and Lea Martin; written and directed by Astra Taylor; cinematography by John M. Tran; sound design by John Laing; edited by Robert Kennedy; featuring Kwame...

The Song of Sparrows.(Movie review)
June 22, 2009... The Song of Sparrows Produced and directed by Majid Majidi; screenplay by Majid Majidi and Mehran Kashani; cinematography by Tooraj Mansoouri; production design and costumes by Asghar Nezhad-lmani; edited by Hassan Hassandoost; music by...

Goodbye Solo.(Movie review)
June 22, 2009... Goodbye Solo Produced by Ramin Bahrani and Jason Orans; directed by Ramin Bahrani; screenplay by Ramin Bahrani and Bahareh Azimi; cinematography by Michael Simmonds; production design by Chad Keith; costumes by Victoria Hoke; edited by...

Lorna's Silence.(Movie review)
June 22, 2009... Lorna's Silence Produced by Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne and Denis Freyd; directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne; cinematography by Alain Marcoen; edited by Marie-Helene Dozo; starring Arta Dobroshi, Jeremie Renier, Alban Ukaj,...

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2009... The Spy Who Came in from the Cold Produced and directed by Martin Ritt; adapted by Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper from the novel by John Le Carre; cinematography by Oswald Morris; set design by Tambi Larsen; music by Sol Kaplan; with Richard...

White Dog.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2009... White Dog Directed by Samuel Fuller; produced by Jon Davison; screenplay by Samuel Fuller and Curtis Hanson, based on the novel by Romain Gary; cinematography by Bruce Surtees; edited by Bernard Gribble; music by Ennio Morricone; starring...

The Taking of Power by Louis XIV.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2009... The Taking of Power by Louis XIV Directed by Roberto Rosseilini; written and adapted by Philippe Erlanger and Jean Gruault; cinematography by Georges Leclerc and Jean-Louis Picavet; starring Jean-Marie Patte, Raymond Jourdan, Silvagni and...

The General.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2009... The General Written and directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman; based on The Great Locomotive Chase by William Pittenger, adapted by AI Boasberg and Charles Smith; cinematography by J. Devereaux Jennings and Bert Haines; starring...

Cinematographer Style.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2009... Cinematographer Style Directed and produced by Jon Fauer; edited by Matthew Blute; cinematography by Jeff Laszlo, Jon Fauer, Brian Heller and David Morgan; music by Florian Schlagbauer, Thomas Schlagbauer, and Christian Bischoff. DVD,...

Trafic.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2009... Trafic Written and directed by Jacques Tati; cinematography by Edward Van Den Enden and Marcel Weiss; edited by Maurice Laumain and Sophie Tatischeff; starring Jacques Tati, Marcel Fraval, Honord Bostel and Tony Knepper. Special Edition...

Faces.(Staff Recommendations: Cineaste Editors Tout Their Favorite Recent DVD Releases)(Brief article)(Video recording review)
June 22, 2009... With Faces (1968) the father of American independent film, John Cassavetes, directed one of the most honest and sorrowful American films about the tormented relations between men and women. The film (restored beautifully by Criterion) may have...

Indonesia at the Margins: Political Documentaries and Essay Films (1991-2002).(Staff Recommendations: Cineaste Editors Tout Their Favorite Recent DVD Releases)(Brief article)(Video recording review)
June 22, 2009... The lush musical Opera Jawa (2006), conceived as part of the "New Crowned Hope" project, brought major Indonesian director Garin Nugroho to the attention of many viewers on the international film-festival circuit; he has since made a...

The Lady with the Dog.(Staff Recommendations: Cineaste Editors Tout Their Favorite Recent DVD Releases)(Brief article)(Video recording review)
June 22, 2009... This release of Iosif Heifitz's 1960 film, based on one of Chekhov's--and world literature's--greatest short stories, had me nostalgic. No, I never had a holiday affair with a young married woman in Yalta, but I do remember welcoming the...

El Norte.(Staff Recommendations: Cineaste Editors Tout Their Favorite Recent DVD Releases)(Brief article)(Video recording review)
June 22, 2009... Criterion now brings us, a quarter century after it was produced, a foundational title in the then-emerging American Independent Film Movement--El Norte. Coscreenwriter and director Gregory Nava structured his fictional narrative as an overland...

Ten Years of Rialto Pictures.(Staff Recommendations: Cineaste Editors Tout Their Favorite Recent DVD Releases)(Brief article)(Video recording review)
June 22, 2009... This release celebrates the ten-year anniversary of Bruce Goldstein's Rialto Pictures. The company has gained a reputation for rereleasing old classics and forgotten treasures. The ten discs in the DVD box set reflect the company's focus,...

Edgar G. Ulmer: Detour on Poverty Row.('Detour: BFI Film Classics' by Noah Isenberg)(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Edgar G. Ulmer: Detour on Poverty Row Edited by Gary D. Rhodes. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008. 350 pp, illus. Hardcover: $85.00. Detour (BFI Film Classics) by Noah Isenberg. London: British Film institute (Distributed in the U.S. by St....

The Cinema of Naruse Mikio: Women and Japanese Modernity.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... The Cinema of Naruse Mikio: Women and Japanese Modernity by Catherine Russell, Duke University Press, 2008, 465 pp., illus. Hardcover: $99.95. and Paperback: $27.95 It feels good, finally, not to have to write, as a preliminary to an...

Behind The Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Behind The Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema by Jasper Sharp. Godalming, U.K.: FAB Press, 2009. 416pp., illus. Paperback: $34.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] One of Jasper Sharp's many achievements have written about...

"Un-American" Hollywood: Politics and Films in the Blacklist Era.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... "Un-American" Hollywood: Politics and Films in the Blacklist Era Edited by Frank Krutnik, Steve Neal, Brian Neve, and Peter Stanfield. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007. 207 pp., illus. Hardcover: $75.00 and Paperback: $27.95 ...

Screening Sex.(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Screening Sex by Linda Williams. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008. 412 pp., illus. Hardcover $89.95 and Paperback $24.95. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The conflation--conflagration?--of sex and cinema seems so natural as to be...

Death of a cyclist.(A SECOND LOOK)(Critical essay)
June 22, 2009... Criterion's release of Juan Antonio Bardem's Death of a Cyclist continues the label s ongoing, somewhat furtive project of reviving filmmakers as much as films. If Italian filmmakers, who profoundly affected Bardem and his generation, staked...

A hatchet job on Slumdog Millionaire.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2009... One of the things that I have most come to admire in my nine years as Assistant Editor at Cineaste is the democratic way in which editorial decisions are made. This ethos leads to stimulating and often heated discussions over all manner of...

Getting the facts straight.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2009... Whatever my other responses to Robert Koehler's recent review of Slumdog Millionaire, the credibility of the piece is seriously undermined by the final paragraph's three references to characters "speaking Hindu," "Hindu dialogue," and...

"I'm Spartacus!".(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2009... I am writing to express my appreciation of Tony Pipolo's assessment of Spartacus: Film and History in his article on recent books about Stanley Kubrick ("Stanley Kubrick's History Lessons," Cineaste, Vol. XXXIV, No. 2). Pipolo could, however,...

Auteur or author?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2009... In the Spring 2009 article "Stanley Kubrick's History Lessons," Tony Pipolo writes, "It was Kubrick's genius to disturb us by posing two unacceptable options and make us consider the lesser evil, not to have us cheer at the victory of the...

Parity in Waltz with Bashir?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2009... I was impressed by Jonathan Murray's meticulous review of Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir. One thing that perturbed me slightly, however, was Murray's complaint that the film did not achieve a certain balance, or parity, between Israeli and...

Critical debate over Gance.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2009... Three cheers for Gance... or maybe Two? Charles Drazen for one, plus the Long Internet Dust-Up. Without the Internet would such an exhaustive exchange have been possible for viewers to read... and enjoy? Some of us are inclined to be...

Errors in our last issue.(Correction notice)
June 22, 2009... In the supplement on "The Art and Craft of Film Editing" in our Spring issue (Vol. XXXIV, No. 2), we misspelled several times the name of film editor Christopher Tellefsen. Our apologies to Mr. Tellefsen. In Tony Pipolo's feature article,...

Ballerina.(SHORT TAKES)(Movie review)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Few female icons resonate as powerfully as the classical ballerina, with her contradictory combination of delicate surface and steely technique. Ballerina attempts to capture the reality behind the myth, and much of what Bertrand Normand...

The Betrayal.(SHORT TAKES)(Movie review)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... A young boy stands on the riverbank overlooking his path to freedom, then slides into the water, hoping that he will make it to the other side. These moments, reenacted in Ellen Kuras's directorial debut, The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), are...

Chris and Don: a Love Story.(SHORT TAKES)(Movie review)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... By the time he met the teenaged Don Bachardy on the beach in Santa Monica in the late 1940s, Christopher Isherwood was a famous, middle-aged writer. Guido Santi and Tina Mascara's Chris and Don: A Love Story chronicles their forty-year...

The Garden.(SHORT TAKES)(Movie review)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Scott Hamilton Kennedy's powerful documentary vividly captures the politically complex struggle of a group of poor Hispanic Americans to preserve a lush, vegetable and fruit-laden urban oasis in South Central Los Angeles. South Central Farm,...

Rough Aunties.(SHORT TAKES)(Movie review)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... A counselor exhorts a child who was never taught words for her private parts to narrate her experience of sexual abuse, illustrating each injury with a magic marker on the body of a stuffed bear. Troubling, yes; not for our eyes, maybe; but how...