Category Archives: cinema

f for orson

Posted on May 6, 2009 | Leave a comment

It’s All True. Street scene in Rio: Welles at work on one of the restaged carnival scenes.

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Posted in cinema, f for orson

bay of angels

Posted on May 3, 2009 | Leave a comment

Jeanne Moreau and Claude Mann in Jacques Demy’s La baie des anges. 1963.

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the long goodbye

Posted on May 1, 2009 | Leave a comment

Elliott Gould in The Long Goodbye. Robert Altman. 1973.

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even more zabriskie point

Posted on April 30, 2009 | Leave a comment

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Posted in advertising, cinema, zabriskie point

gimme shelter

Posted on April 29, 2009 | 2 comments

“Brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters, why are we fighting?”

Gimme Shelter. 1970. David Maysles, Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin.

“Altmont was the culmination of a long series of bad trips in the Rock world and its perhaps perfect matching of the most sinister figures in American and British Pop cultures, The Hell’s Angels and the Rolling Stones is one of those master strokes of history beyond the invention of any fiction writer or film-maker…Bravo, you measly brothers! You’ve captured on film the epic of a self-destructive generation.”
– Albert Goldman, The New York Times

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Posted in cinema, dig the critics, Jagger, music

gish dean

Posted on April 26, 2009 | Leave a comment

Lillian Gish and James Dean share a page. 1956.

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Posted in cinema, context

the sennett days

Posted on April 24, 2009 | 4 comments

Chester Conklin with Mack Sennett Bathing Belles in a 1917 comedy.

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Posted in cinema, context, sennett days

sturges directs

Posted on April 22, 2009 | 1 comment

Preston Sturges on the set of The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek in 1942. The film’s release was held up for two years.

In this unused publicity still, Trudy imagines herself “in the situation.”

Betty Hutton, Bill Demarest (why he didn’t get an Academy Award or at least a nomination for this one–or Conquering Hero–is anyone’s guess) and Diana Lynn.

“Little river needs big dam.” McGinty and The Boss.

Sturges, Betty Hutton, Eddie Bracken

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Posted in cinema, context, Sturges

f for orson

Posted on April 21, 2009 | Leave a comment

Orson as “a politician trying to play it safe” in The Battle on the River Neretva. This photo appeared in the April 1971 issue of Filming and Filming, which also ran this item.

the other side of the windthe other side of the wind 2

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Posted in cinema, context, f for orson

breaking: hulot drops pipe, gains pinwheel

Posted on April 19, 2009 | Leave a comment

hulot pinwheel

Look at this bullshit. The Cinémathèque Française is currently hosting a major Jacques Tati retrospective. Apparently French anti-smoking laws are now extreme to the extent that they have banned all depictions of tobacco use in all outdoor advertising. Solution: stick a pinwheel in Hulot’s mouth. Cinémathèque president Costa Gavras weighs in: “It’s absurd and risible. I think it would have made him [Tati] die of laughter.”

Also, check out the official Tati site. It’s an exemplary site of its type and more English-language friendly than I recall it being the last time I was on it a few years ago. And did someone say replicas of Mon Oncle‘s Arpel house and furniture?

tati catalog

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Posted in advertising, cinema