| Director Stone says Douglas' health precarious By 2010-10-12T17:11:52ZBERLIN (AP) -- Director Oliver Stone said Tuesday he is worried about the health of actor Michael Douglas, who is battling throat cancer.... hosted.ap.org |
Before Sunrise/Before Sunset: No 3 Richard Linklater, 1995/2004An American man and a French woman in their early 20s meet on a train heading through Europe. They alight in Vienna, amble around for 14 hours and shoot the breeze. Yes, the plot of Before Sunrise could be written on the back of a Eurail ticket, but it's what Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) say and don't say during their Austrian walkabout that makes the film what it is: a gentle but canny Gen-X fusion of My Dinner With Andre and the Judy Garland shore-leave romance, The Clock. As the soon-to-be lovers chat, show off, lark around and kiss, with director Linklater's camera a tender and unobtrusive companion, a sense of yearning bubbles up in the movie: we sense time slipping away, and the dawn approaching. When the morning arrives, and the time comes to part, Celine and Jesse promise to meet again in Vienna in six months' time; in that pre-Facebook era, the arrangement had a heartbreaking fragility.For the 2004 sequel, Before Sunset, we find Jesse, now a writer enjoying success with a novel about a one-night stand, bumping into Celine in Paris. The couple steal away on a stroll around the city, but things have changed. No longer hopeful young things with life spread out before them, Jesse and Celine must now confess to disappointments and resentments. Even the span of their conversation is cramped; they only have 80-or-so minutes (played out in the film in real time) before Jesse must return to his wife and child in the US. Out of this melancholy scenario comes an honest but affectionate portrait of an amorphous romance – not to mention one of the most tantalising and ingenious endings in all cinema.RomanceRichard LinklaterRyan Gilbeyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Citizen Kane: No 5 Orson Welles, 1941So many things about Citizen Kane were outrageous at the time: that this arrogant kid, Orson Welles, in his early 20s had a deal to do what he liked; that he chose to make a thinly disguised lampoon of one of the most powerful men in the country, William Randolph Hearst; that it was a film ultimately about his own flawed glory ("There, but for the grace of God, goes God," people said); that he made the picture look and sound richer, denser and more beautiful than anyone had dared before; that he took the attitude, "Don't expect to understand this on one viewing"; that he cared more about being outrageous than he did about the money.If only a few of those ideas gained ground, Hollywood was in trouble. The secret might get out that film could be art! This astonishing, unAmerican notion took time to get established. The Hearst media did all they could to block the film. Citizen Kane was a hard film for audiences raised on the slick narrative arc of Hollywood pictures to understand, with its scheme of flashbacks. And Welles would prove not only self-destructive, but also his own worst enemy – why let anyone else fill that vital job?Yet it worked in the end. Ordinary film-makers knew that the work with lenses, darkness, sound and structure was unique. The film was full of wonderful new actors. The French critics seized upon it. By the late 50s, Citizen Kane was proverbial: it was cinema itself, a tribute to directors, as well as the power and opportunity of cinema. It breathed the unAmerican gospel: see what one man can do, see how films can be owned and authored not by the factory, but by brilliant minds bent on self-expression. And so a new orthodoxy set in, whereby Kane became the best film ever made, a position it has held for 60 years. That greatness now hangs over the history and the future of the medium. Still, if you have never seen it, prepare for one of the great experiences in your life and notice this – Kane has lasted not for innovation alone, but because it is so emotional and tragic. It's a great man asking himself whether anything matters. In Kane and Welles alike, there was the same rueful mixture of genius and lack of self-belief. DramaOrson WellesDavid Thomsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Soprano Martinez tries out "Butterfly" wings By MIKE SILVERMAN 2010-10-23T16:02:42ZHOUSTON (AP) -- A major new role for a soprano returning to one of her favorite houses. A local debut by one of the world's leading tenors. A spare and elegant production by a famous British director.... hosted.ap.org |
Greg Dyke: 'Our job now is to work with the film industry' BFI governor Greg Dyke says the merging of the UK Film Council with the BFI, and the increase in lottery funding, will be a boost for the British film industryJohn Plunkett guardian.co.uk |