As a prelude to a season of Alain Resnais films that will get under way in earnest next week, Michel Ciment (editor of the French film journal Positif) gave an introduction to Resnais’ fifty year career, followed by a screening of Providence. Ciment’s overview of Resnais’ work and practice was erudite in nailing his unique […]
Cinema
Impact of DVDs on film aesthetics
There’s a very interesting article by Mark Cousins about the implications of the ‘DVD revolution’ on the film industry in the March issue of Prospect. DVDs are apparently the “fastest growing entertainment technology of all time,” and Cousins suggests some reasons why this technology has been embraced when the introduction of CDs took much longer. […]
More Werner Herzog Quotes
I recently read Paul Cronin’s Herzog on Herzog and collected a few choice quotes about filmmaking and the perspectives that inform it. I’ve added these to my page of Herzog quotes — which seems to meet some kind of demand, if the number of Google searches it attracts is anything to go on. The page […]
George Lucas on aesthetics of digital film making
At the end of an extremely hagiographic article about George Lucas, which casts him as the originator of just about every technological innovation in cinema in the last 30 years, and even compares his role to David Bowie’s Thomas Newton character in The Man Who Fell to Earth, there are some very sanguine comments from […]
Digital versus analogue
This article reports how the American Society of Cinematographers is responding to digital cinema (with thanks to the E-cinema Alert for this link). While they seem to be embracing digital cinema, it’s interesting to read the comment that ‘major’ movies are expected to be shot on film for many years yet: “The studios are not, […]
Notes and resources on digital cinema
Here are some extended notes and links on digital cinema (aka D-cinema, aka E-cinema). I’m not an expert in this field, but I dip into it occasionally, and what follows is principally an exercise for my own benefit in collecting my notes and thoughts — if anyone else finds this of interest, so much the […]
Web resources for Theo Angelopoulos films
I’ve added some more web links to the he Showroom Cinema’s web links directory. The BFI tour of Theo Angelopoulos films hits the Showroom with six films at the end of this month and during February. Here are the new links, and here are some more sublime images.
Gloria Grahame’s Eyebrows
Lucy and I went to see A Woman’s Secret yesterday, which was better for its sharply scripted dialogue than its plot. I’ve always liked Gloria Grahame in the past (especially in In a Lonely Place, The Big Heat and Human Desire), but I’ve never seen her use her eyebrows quite so egregiously as she does […]
Digital cinema and changing film aesthetics
Thanks to planning my move of home/office, it’s taken me over a week to collect my thoughts on a debate on the impact of digital technologies on the film industry, which was organised by Cass Creatives. Happily this delay has saved me time, since Interactive KnowHow has now posted a comprehensive eight page report on […]
Korean Cinema and Carl Dreyer Web Resources
I’ve added two more groups of links to the Showroom Cinema’s web links directory, which tie in with their film programme. The new links are for Korean Cinema and the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer, the acclaimed Danish director of early silent masterpieces and a few later ‘talkies.’ The intention behind the web links is […]