Michelangelo Antonioni, July 30, 2007 Ingmar Bergman, July 30, 2007 Edward Yang, June 29, 2007 http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0945981/
...what a year. I was actually just sitting here thinking about picking up some copies of BLOW and Profession on my way through the comic shop, and then I see the news about the great Michelangelo...
"Professional: Reporter" by Michelangelo Antonioni—man, when I first sat down to watch this about five or six months ago, I honestly thought it was just cold, pretentious, and incredibly stiff.
But looking back on it today and playing the whole thing over in my head, all I can think about are those absolutely brilliant directorial choices. That filmmaker is just deviously clever sometimes; some of those shots are pure genius. I’m seriously going to have to hunt down an original print to own... god, I actually got chills just remembering that one sequence where David (Jack Nicholson) and his girl (Al Schneider) are sitting in some cafe lobby sipping on whatever mystery drink they've got there. The camera captures them from inside the cafe—I think there might even be some window grates involved—while cars are just tearing down the street outside. The lens follows one car passing to the left, then catches another heading off in the opposite direction, all while keeping this duo framed at their table, with nothing but the muffled, off-screen sound of their conversation drifting through. 🙏 👍
lonelynx16 said:Maybe I’ve finally lost my mind thinking about the late Andrew...
...but I’m pretty sure it’s crystal clear where that opening shot came from. It’s that scene from the film "The Mirror" (1974)—you know, the one where the mother is sitting on a wooden fence, looking out over those endless wheat fields and distant woods while you hear the faint whistle of a locomotive in the background? Then the poetry starts being recited... she’s young, Natalie has her hair pulled up in a bun... just freeze that frame right there and you’ve got a fine art photograph on your hands... or maybe even something hyper-realistic... and then the camera just glides right past her...
Douglas Robinson12 said:Uh oh... I'm running a bit short on time here, but honestly, a good chunk of what you're saying just doesn't really hold water.
Look, I’m just laying out my own perspective and how I experienced things, you know? But if you actually do find a spare moment, I’d really love for you to point out exactly where you think I'm missing the mark... and maybe share your side of the story too.
goldenhound32 said:Couldn't non-professionals deliver those kinds of cold performances?
Honestly, no. To me, there’s this fascinating contradiction in his work: he had these meticulously crafted, almost overly polished mise-en-scènes, even though directing wasn't actually his primary trade—he didn't formally study it or anything. By leaning heavily on non-actors and insisting on those stripped-back, "cold" performances, he essentially opened up this massive new playground for cinematic expression, yet he never really pushed past that specific boundary.
Take van Sant's "Elephant," for instance. It works brilliantly because it shares that same minimalist DNA, perfectly scaled to the subject matter. The camera wanders and drifts while the actual plot stays still... and unlike Bresson, the coldness of his non-actors doesn't feel theatrical or staged.
goldenhound32 said:Pure genius. I’ve recently sat through Mouchette, Pickpocket, and Diary of a Country Priest. Everything was simply masterful.
As someone else pointed out earlier, a man of few words often says the most. With his work, there isn't a single scene that could be stripped away without losing the essence (at least looking at these three films).
Personally, I think Mouchette and Pickpocket are his absolute best, right up there with A Condemned Man Escaped or The Wind. In those first two, that brilliant minimalism and sheer simplicity just work perfectly... Mouchette has this almost obscenely erotic undertone, though if you look past that initial impression, there are these incredibly heavy layers of emotional impact underneath. It's funny, even though he wasn't some academic filmmaker, Bresson's approach feels almost like a craftsman's work to me. There's this strange contradiction where he uses non-professional actors but demands such cold, precise performances, yet I just can't shake that feeling.
bluebison8 said:I was actually planning on tenting this year, but then I checked the official website and saw they require you to buy a specific pass just to sleep in the camp $167 (LOL 😠 ), so I decided against it. I have zero interest in dealing with the headache of illegal camping!
Meanwhile, I read somewhere that the pass is $33, and then you still have to pay $1.75 per day just for the stay...
This is my first time heading out this year and I’m completely lost when it comes to lodging. Honestly, I'm a bit worried because I'm going with a group of drinkers who are probably going to be absolutely hammered and will likely end up setting an eco-toilet on fire while I'm just trying to watch movies... though let's be real, I'll probably end up drinking right along with them, because there's no way I can handle the fact that out of my seven friends, every single one of them is a total movie-phobe—basically a complete film-hater who's just here for the 😎 vibes.
I’ll keep this brief: visually, this movie is absolutely breathtaking—just stunning. As for the directing? Well, you can clearly see the sheer level of talent on display. The way Tarkovsky (that's his Americanized nickname, 😳) pulls off these stylistic choices just leaves you completely floored...
That driving sequence is easily one of the most hypnotic scenes I've ever witnessed in cinema; it’s almost meditative, serving as this slow, deliberate way to bleed into the repressed, painful memories that threaten to slip away at any moment—which is exactly what happens to Chris Kelvin on that planet... There’s also this really striking shot of a swarm of cars glinting in the night, all bunched up on a highway winding through the heart of some metropolitan area (the whole thing was actually filmed in Japan) that perfectly captures that friction between nature and technological sprawl... Between those sepia tones and those deep blue-black hues, man, I seriously need to rewatch this later this week.
I find myself constantly coming back to this specific paraphrase by Mihovil Pansini, which really builds on Peter Bichsel’s take on what literature should actually be about:
"If film criticism can hold any actual value at all, then its true purpose is to act as a public conversationalist for those lonely viewers—to be a companion in the experience. It’s such a shame that so many critics aren't willing to view their job through that lens. Because, let’s face it, even when you're absolutely floored by a movie, it can still feel like a pretty solitary experience..."
One of the most exhausted, totally played-out tropes in movies and TV shows is when they finally corner some suspect—who, let's be honest, we already know is guilty because the plot demands it—and start laying out all the evidence against them, whether it’s a murder or some other heinous crime. It’s always the same predictable routine: instead of actually defending themselves or even acting surprised, they just stare blankly and hit you with that classic, "I don't know what you're talking about." It’s like there's some unwritten rule in Hollywood that if you're a criminal being confronted with actual proof, your only possible response is this one specific line of dialogue. 😠
Robert Bresson once described his creative process as this cycle of "Two Deaths and Three Births"; "My film is first born in my head, then dies on paper; it is resurrected through the living people and real objects I use—which are effectively killed on the film strip, yet when arranged in a specific order and projected onto the screen, they come back to life like flowers floating in water." I just finished watching Pickpocket and A Condemned Man Escaped. It’s probably a bit too early to give any real impressions since I’m still working my way through the marathon, but I'm diving straight into the rest of his filmography next...
Here’s a little bit of trivia for you: back in the day, producer Dino De Laurentiis actually had this wild ambition to film The Bible. His grand vision was to have a different legendary director helm each individual episode. When it came down to the heavy hitters—the Great Flood, Noah's Ark, and that final cosmic salvation of humanity—they decided to tap Robert Bresson, who was basically at the absolute peak of his fame at the time. Bresson was actually pretty hooked on the concept, and he even came up with a killer way to approach it: instead of obsessing over living creatures, he wanted to focus on their traces—the lingering imprints and marks left behind by beings that would eventually extend life into the universe. 👍
As for the producer's reaction... well, let's just say it's pretty easy to imagine how that went down.
Over a span of forty years, he managed to churn out "only" thirteen feature films, which honestly feels like a deliberate choice—a testament to his whole "less is more" philosophy. He became legendary for this ultra-minimalist approach; he preferred using non-professional actors, relied on incredibly precise framing, kept the musical score almost non-existent, and let silence and sparse dialogue do most of the heavy lifting...
Even Andrei Tarkovsky used to point to Robert Bresson as his absolute favorite director, citing Diary of a Country Priest as his personal standout...
As I sit here eagerly anticipating his work (I should be getting 12 out of those 13 films by the end of the week) I’d love for you guys to dive into this singular, eccentric visionary. Let's talk about his body of work and what kind of impact these films actually leave on you...
Just imagine a horror flick directed by David Lynch—the absolute master of atmosphere!! 😈
I swear, modern horror movies drown everything in music just to try and force a sense of dread, when it should be the exact opposite. You don't need a swelling orchestra; you need silence punctuated by unsettling, raw sounds...
It’s honestly fascinating to me... I thought the movie was absolutely brilliant. It captures that descent into madness so vividly—you really feel those > of an addict's life through such intense, granular detail. I honestly don't get why people are complaining about it being "boring." How can you not stay glued to the screen when it's presented like this? (Mind you, that's just my two cents, I'm not trying to tell anyone how to feel.)
My absolute favorite moment has to be that one shot where the protagonist (I can't for the life of me remember his name in the film) is just sitting there playing his guitar... and then the camera slowly starts zooming out, pulling back until you see the full, devastating scope of the mess he's actually stuck in.
Einstein! Talk about prejudice!! Honestly, I was hesitant to even head to the theater for "Volver" because ever since "Incredible Shrinking Man," I felt like Almodovar had lost that certain "spark." But "Volver"? It definitely has it—at least in my humble opinion. It’s a fantastic film... Peter has truly found his way back.
Where do I even start? Maybe with the film's aesthetics, which are somewhat obscured by the DVD cover art (I'm looking at you)—Penelope seems to have a surgically enhanced backside that pops up in almost every shot (wide or medium), but hey, whatever... the whole restaurant setting could have easily fallen into cliché territory, but it didn't... The movie leans away from those typical modern storytelling tropes, yet Peter manages to pull it off beautifully... Solitude (Lola Dueñas) is just incredibly charming, as always... and Chus Lampreave is that perfect, constant "granny" figure we all love.
Almodovar presents this little piece of work following the philosophy of Jean Epstein, who famously said, "There are no stories. There never were. There are only situations, without beginning, middle, or end"... and that is exactly what this film is.
It feels like a more commercialized version of "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown"... Raimundin's secret is pretty predictable, but that ending? Absolutely brilliant... it elevates the entire thing... That scene with the mother hiding under the bed is heartbreakingly sweet and bitter.
Peter Almodovar has an enviable body of work; if he were in the Arab World, they'd be calling him Bedr ali Mutufar. He’s essentially a killer of "Machismo" in a country that has culturally embraced it.
Anyway, that's about it... it's been a day since I watched it, but I'm still reeling from the experience. 👍
I was wondering if anyone here actually knows how to go about selling a screenplay—like, who am I supposed to reach out to, and what does the whole process even look like? Also, just curious, what kind of money are screenwriters actually making in the States these days? Like, what's the realistic income for people in that field?
👍
There’s this book by Tudor Eliad called "How to Write and Sell a Screenplay," so you might want to give that a read...
Maybe I’ve finally lost my mind thinking about the late Andrew...
...but I’m pretty sure it’s crystal clear where that opening shot came from. It’s that scene from the film "The Mirror" (1974)—you know, the one where the mother is sitting on a wooden fence, looking out over those endless wheat fields and distant woods while you hear the faint whistle of a locomotive in the background? Then the poetry starts being recited... she’s young, Natalie has her hair pulled up in a bun... just freeze that frame right there and you’ve got a fine art photograph on your hands... or maybe even something hyper-realistic... and then the camera just glides right past her...
