Resourceful essays on cinema for cinéastes and art enthusiasts
Aronofsky’s Black Swan follows the mental disintegration of the ballet dancer Nina, who gets a part in the production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. She is fragile, innocent, fearful and pure, but lacks the feel for playing the Black Swan, while she is a perfect cast for the White Swan. In the performances of Tchaikovsky’s ballet,… Continue reading Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010) “Dionysiac Union With Art”
In the thirteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, St Paul says: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I also am known”. In these St Paul’s words, practically the whole film Through the Glass… Continue reading Through A Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman, 1961) “Vision of God As A Spider”
For the second part of this list, I chose the title Melancolia II, which is also the title of the second Dürer’s engraving depicting a melancholic angel. This allusion to Dürer is only for stylistic purposes, since I chose another painting to depict a melancholic setting, Pieter Bruegel’s Hunters In the Snow. I chose this… Continue reading 5 Melancholic Films Which Can Inspire You Into Creativity (Melancolia II)
While interpreting Albert Dürer’s engraving Melancolia I, professor of art history Bonnie Noble writes: “Dürer’s intellect, introspection, and unrelenting perfectionism may have driven him to a state of melancholia—what is now known as depression. Dürer’s famed Melencolia I engraving of 1514 has been called the artist’s psychological self-portrait, and indeed the image does convey the terrible struggle… Continue reading 5 Melancholic Films Which Can Inspire You Into Creativity (Melancolia I)
In the final lines of the chapter “The spectacle of the scaffold”, in his book Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault writes about a great shift in the portrayal of criminals in fiction, which took place in the 19th century: “We are far removed indeed from those accounts of the life and misdeeds of the criminal… Continue reading Bronson (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2008) “Confessions of Britain’s Most Violent Criminal”
I believe Ingmar Bergman, Vittorio De Sica, and Federico Fellini are the only three filmmakers in the world who are not just artistic opportunists. By this I mean they don’t just sit and wait for a good story to come along and then make it. They have a point of view which is expressed over… Continue reading In Stanley Kubrick’s Words: “3 Most Consistent and Original Contemporary Directors”
If I was doing a movie that was really bad, I always realized that I had to play my role as good as possible when the camera was on me. The fact that the movie was total shit did not bother me. For example, let's say that there's a hand that is used to playing… Continue reading In Klaus Kinski’s Words… “Great Actor As A Violinist”
[On Hitler: Downfall (2004)] What people need is for Hitler to actually represent evil itself. But what is evil itself? That means nothing to me. I have to perform a living human being (…) We know how to judge Hitler. We don’t need another film that condemns him. We already know where we stand on… Continue reading In Bruno Ganz’s Words… “In Memoriam: An Angel Embodying A Demon”
A film director has to convince a great number of people to follow him and work with him. I often say, although I am certainly not a militarist, that if you compare the production unit to an army, the script is the battle flag and the director is the commander in the front line. From… Continue reading Film Director As A Military Commander: The Case of Lieutenant Herzog
An artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed, his work wouldn’t exist, for the artist does not live in a vacuum. Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn’t look for harmony but would… Continue reading In Andrei Tarkovsky’s Words: “Russia’s Michelangelo and Tyranny of the Spirit”
