A Ken Russell Interlude

by Kimberly Lindbergs | March 20, 2009

Categories | News, Directors, British Cinema

Just taking a brief break from putting the final touches on the last half of my Favorite DVDs of 2008 list and wanted to point out a few Ken Russell related reading and viewing suggestions.

As I’ve mentioned before, Ken Russell is one of my favorite directors and with the recent unfortunate death of actress Natasha Richardson I’ve had his 1986 film Gothic on my mind a lot. In the film Natasha Richardson does an incredible job of bringing Frankenstein author Mary Shelley to life. Marilyn Ferdinand has just written a nice piece about this often under-appreciated Russell movie that you can find on her blog, which I highly recommend reading: Gothic (1986)

I also thought it was a good time to mention that I’ve recently watched some great interviews with Ken Russell that are available online. The BBC Film Network site has a interesting and lengthy video interview with the director on their website right now that you can view here: Ken Russell: Interview. And on Youtube I highly recommend the Media Funhouse video interviews with Russell, which you can find here and here.

And last but not least, in 2008 Ken Russell updated his autobiography and the paperback version of the book will be published in April. It’s a great read if you’re a fan of the director or just want to know more about one of British cinema’s most original artists. You can find more information about the book at Amazon: A British Picture: An Autobiography by Ken Russell.

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Ishiro Honda Online!

by Kimberly Lindbergs | November 10, 2008

Categories | News, Directors, Japanese Cinema, Science Fiction, Ishiro Honda

Last week the English language version of Ishiro Honda’s official website debuted online with very little fanfare, but I highly recommend stopping by the site to see the wonderful collection of materials on display there!

Ishiro Honda (1911-1993) is one of Japan’s most important filmmakers and his body of work includes Godzilla (1954), Rodan (1955), The Mysterians (1957), Mothra (1961), Matango (1963), Destroy All Monsters (1968) and Latitude Zero (1969). His acclaimed science fiction and fantasy films have influenced and informed popular culture around the world, but he also worked with his dear friend Akira Kurosawa on some of the director’s greatest films such as Stray Dog (1949) and Ran (1985).

At the new website you’ll find a filmography for Ishiro Honda illustrated with many wonderful photos and colorful movie poster reproductions, as well as a biography and interesting essays written by people who worked with Honda. You’ll also be able to read personal messages from the director’s wife and son Ryuji, who is busy making plans for a world-wide celebration to honor the 100th Anniversary of his father’s birth in 2011.

“If one gets upset due to some anger, it only makes things that much more painful. What lives must die, what has shape will eventually crumble. Fatigue is only felt when one gets bored of what he is now doing. My husband has left me with lots and lots of great words, which I often recall. Although he is no longer with us, his presence is still very strong in our hearts.”
- Kimi Honda (the director’s wife)

According to the news blurb on the site more updates are planned, including the translation and publication of informative essays written by Ishiro Honda himself, so check back often!

- The Official Ishiro Honda Website

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Filmmaking & Politics in 1968

by Kimberly Lindbergs | September 26, 2008

Categories | Directors, French Cinema, Documentaries, Jean-Luc Godard, 1968

The following four videos make up a fascinating 40 min. film by D.A. Pennebaker called Two American Audiences: La Chinoise - A Film in the Making. It chronicles a meeting that took place in 1968 between director Jean-Luc Godard and NYU film students who discuss Godard’s film La Chinoise, filmmaking and politics.

Godard’s La Chinoise (1967) was released by Koch Lorber on DVD earlier this year.

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Nikkatsu Action

by Kimberly Lindbergs | April 14, 2008

Categories | Books, Directors, Japanese Cinema, Joe Shishido, Seijun Suzuki, Yasuharu Hasebe, Toshio Masuda, Nikkatsu

Tetsuya Watari and Joe Shishido

Last week the Nikkatsu Action Film Series made its way to San Francisco and the nice guys over at the Outcast Cinema site who manage the event were kind enough to remind me with a friendly email. Unfortunately due to my current work schedule, ongoing apartment maintenance and various family obligations, which are leaving me with very little free time lately, I wasn’t able to see any of the films scheduled to play. I rarely make it into the city for film events anymore due to the high cost of gas, bridge fares, parking fees and ticket prices. A night out at the movies with my guy in the Bay Area can easily cost us $50, but I had really hoped to see two of the Toshio Masuda films that were scheduled to show at the Nikkatsu Action series (Gangster V.I.P. and Red Handkerchief) since they were two films I’d never seen before and I’ve become fascinated with the director’s work over the last couple of years.

Last year I picked up a copy of a wonderful Japanese book called Toshio Masuda - Films - Complete Guide which contains over 500 pages covering the director’s long career and accomplishments. It’s an amazing looking book obviously packed with many details about the director’s 80+ films and it also includes lots of lovely still shots from various productions. Naturally it’s written in Japanese and since I can barely read a word of Japanese myself and often have to rely on family and friends for minimal translations, I haven’t been able to fully appreciate the book. I highly doubt that there will ever be an English translation of the entire text made available, but the book has still managed to widen my understanding of Toshio Masuda ’s amazing directorial career and I’ve been making an attempt to try and see as many of his films as possible lately, which is why I was so disappointed that I missed the Toshio Masuda films shown during the Nikkatsu Action series.

Here’s a brief blurb about Toshio Masuda from the only English text featured on the cover of Toshio Masuda - Films - Complete Guide. It’s written in broken English so don’t be surprised if you find it a little hard to follow:

“Action, Romance, Comedy, Animation, The War. A Giant in the field of Japanese program pictures. Toshio Masuda was born in Kobe City, October 5th 1927. There was a year his 16 films have reached the TOP 10 in the yearly charts. It is the second highest record in the history of Japanese movies. He also has been in the chart from the 1950’s through until 1990’s, for about 5 decades. This is a miracle and a marvelous thing. His films themes are not only about action but comedy, romance, animation and the war. And every theme relates to the bloom of youth.”

It’s really astonishing and extremely sad that the work of such an important Japanese director like Toshio Masuda is almost completely unavailable to western audiences and has often been totally overlooked by western critics and film scholars. Thankfully due to the hard work of some people such as the fine folks at Outcast Cinema that is slowly changing and I’m extremely grateful for all their efforts.

Since I’m on the topic of Nikkatsu Action cinema, I also wanted to mention that I recently finished reading Mark Schilling’s latest book No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema, which is a quick read and well worth picking up if you’re interested in Japanese cinema. I’ve enjoyed many of Mark Schilling’s books over the years such as The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture and The Yakuza Movie Book so I was looking forward to reading his latest effort and I think it’s probably his best book yet because it limits its focus to one topic and provides readers with some interesting tidbits about the genre. No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema is somewhat light on content but it easily makes up for that with lots of fascinating interviews with important directors and stars, as well as beautiful still shots and incredible poster art reproductions. I don’t always agree with Schilling’s interpretations of Nikkatsu Action cinema that he puts forward in the book or his opinions regarding particular films and directors. And occasionally while reading the interviews he conducted with directors I desperately wished I could have jumped in with my own questions, but I’m very grateful that Schilling is making a much needed effort to research the work and careers of talented filmmakers like Toshio Masuda who is featured in his book along with Seijun Suzuki, Yasuharu Hasebe and Koreyoshi Kurahara. Since so little English language information is available about Nikkatsu’s Action cinema Mark Schilling’s book is a very welcome addition to the slowly growing body of Japanese film criticism and history that’s trying to forge ahead and follow uncharted paths that were often neglected by other well-known Japanese film critics and scholars in the past.

Here’s a few brief paragraphs from Mark Schilling’s Forward to No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema:

“The label said it all: Nikkatsu Akushon. Nikkatsu was a studio that had been around since the silent days and Akushon was “Action,” written in the katakana syllabary for foreign words. During their peak, from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, Nikkatsu Action films evoked a cinematic world neither foreign nor Japanese, but a mix of the two, where Japanese tough guys had the swagger, moves and long legs of Hollywood movie heroes. Where Tokyo streets, Yokohama docks and Hokkaido plains took on an exciting, exotic aura, as though they were stand-ins for Manhattan, Marseilles or the American West.

. . .

“Foreign critics long ignored Nikkatsu Action. Donald Richie and Joseph Anderson’s seminal 1959 history The Japanese Film: Art and Industry passed over the entire genre in silence, as did its 1982 revised edition. Joan Mellen’s 1976 study The Waves at Genji’s Door: Japan Through Its Cinema does not mention Nikkatsu or its films and stars even once. The rise of Seijun Suzuki to cult fame in the West in the 1980s brought the genre more attention abroad, but often in a negative way, with critics hailing Suzuki as an overlooked and discarded master, while dismissing the films of his colleagues as studio hack work (despite having seen few of them.)”

Mark Schilling’s book No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema retails for $15.95 and it’s currently available at Amazon for only $10.85. The Japanese book Toshio Masuda - Films - Complete Guide was published last year by Hotwax in association with Shinko Music Entertainment Co. LTD and it should be available at better Japanese book stores such as Kinokuniya. You can also purchase the book online at places such as YesAsia.com, but it costs a lot more there. The original retail price is about $37 and YesAsia is selling it for $50 plus shipping and handling costs so potential buyers should be aware of the considerable price hikes by some retailers.

The Nikkatsu Action film series is still going strong and many films will be shown across the country in various U.S. locations throughout April and May. For more information about the event please visit the Outcast Cinema Blog for locations and showtimes.

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Alain Robbe-Grillet 1922 - 2008

by Kimberly Lindbergs | February 18, 2008

Categories | News, Directors, French Cinema

Alain Robbe-Grillet 1922-2008

There is sad news today of the death of Alain Robbe-Grillet who has left this world at the ripe old age of 85. GreenCine Daily has collected some links to news stories and various articles about this talented writer and director. I also recommend Robert Monell’s brief piece The Films of Alain Robbe-Grillet and the Alain Robbe-Grillet Bibliography.

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The Painter of Agonies

by Kimberly Lindbergs | October 16, 2007

Categories | Movie Reviews, Directors, Horror, Giallo, Italian Cinema, Pupi Avati

Above: Pupi Avati

At this time of the year it seems like every film critic suddenly becomes an expert on horror films and starts publishing their quickly put together “Top 10 Scary Movie Moments” or “Best Films to Watch on Halloween.” These lists are often compiled by people who’ve seen a limited amount of films and their horror selections are often tired and stale. Does anyone really still need to be told that a Criterion DVD release like Carnival of Souls is worth watching? Or horror classics like Hitchcock’s Psycho and Romero’s Night of the Living Dead are “must see” movies? With that complaint out of the way, I’d like to bring your attention to the name of one director who really deserves a lot more attention, and that is Pupi Avati.

Unfortunately the name Pupi Avati tends to elicit chuckles instead of respect, which is a shame. Avati created some of the most fascinating and chilling horror films to ever come out of Italy during the seventies and eighties, and he’s worked with many well-known Italian filmmakers such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Lucio Fulci and Lamberto Bava.

As a director Avati has never stuck to one film genre. Besides horror films he’s made musicals, comedies and romances. I’m sure that’s one reason why his films are often overlooked by horror fans, who tend to favor directors that work almost exclusively in the horror genre. Another reason Avati is probably not as well-known or respected as other Italian genre directors is due to the fact that so many of his films are impossible to find and most of them have never been released in America until recently.

The director has made at least 3 or 4 horror or fantasy films that I’m aware of, and I’ve only been able to see two of them myself (The House with Laughing Windows and Zeder) since they were released as part of the Image Euroshock DVD collection in the U.S. Even though I’ve only seen a few of his films, I find Avati to be one of the most fascinating filmmakers I’ve ever come across. His horror films are deliberately paced and extremely thoughtful. They explore esoteric themes and interesting concepts about life and death, but unlike many of his contemporaries, his films lack gore and effects. They also tend to lack nudity and sex which some critics find bothersome, since his perceived prudishness could be seen as conflicting with the sexual themes in his films.

The absence of excessive gore and nudity in Avati’s films is probably the final and most obvious reason why his movies have so often been overlooked by horror fans who tend to be male and often prefer their horror films with plenty of violence and bare breasts. That’s not to say that The House with Laughing Windows (1976) and Zeder (1983) don’t contain any violence or nudity, but compared to most Italian directors from the same period such as Lamberto Bava, Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, Avati’s films could be seen as much less visceral. They tend to generate their scares and evocative mood more from what the audience doesn’t see, instead of what’s put before them on screen. I personally find Avati’s style of filmmaking extremely smart and sophisticated. He seems to mix the best aspects of classic gothic Italian horror films with the most interesting aspects of modern Italian horror films, and this gives his work a very personal look and feel that is all his own.

The House with Laughing Windows is the earliest Avati film that I’ve seen and it’s easily one of the best Italian thrillers made in the ’70s. According to the video interview with the director and his crew that accompanies the DVD, the script was written five or six years before the film was made, but it was re-written right before filming began. I suspect that the changes might have been somewhat inspired by Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, which was made in 1973 since both films share a few similarities, but that’s impossible to confirm since The House with Laughing Windows was supposedly written years earlier. Fans of the 1973 horror film The Wicker Man might also see some similarities between Avati’s movie and that British thriller. One thing seems certain; the script clearly has some references to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo (1975) in it. Avati contributed to Pier Pasolini’s original script for Salo right before making The House with Laughing Windows and it’s easy to make a connection between the two movies since they both explore ideas about torture and sadism.

The House with Laughing Windows opens with a brutal scene involving a mysterious man being tortured and stabbed. It’s creatively shot with muted tones and quick cuts that take away a bit of the shock it elicits, but some viewers will immediately be reminded of Pasolini’s Salo. Avati has said that his Catholic upbringing deeply effects his filmmaking and that becames apparent while watching the opening minutes of The House with Laughing Windows. Throughout the course of the film, Avati will evoke Catholic imagery and iconography over and over again in some subtle and very unsubtle ways.

After the film’s somewhat graphic opening minutes, we’re introduced to the movie’s main protagonist, a man named Stephano (Lino Capolicchio) who has come to a small and beautiful Italian village to restore a decaying fresco painting on the wall of an old church that vividly depicts the slaughter of St. Sebastian. We’re immediately made aware that this small town is a bit odd simply due to its unusual inhabitants which include dwarves, ghost-like women, depraved altar boys and raving drunks, among others.

Stephano finds the fresco in the church extremely lifelike and as the film progresses we follow him on a quest to learn more about the mysterious artist who created it known as “The Painter of Agonies.” Along the way Stephano is plagued by threatening phone calls and he receives unusual clues from the town’s odd inhabitants, which often lead to murder. As the bodies start to pile up, questions surrounding the fresco’s artist become more and more complex, and Stephano realizes he’s uncovering clues to a disturbing mystery that no one in the town wants solved. The House with Laughing Windows isn’t a typical giallo film and I hesitate to use the term here, but it does have plenty of giallo-style flourishes that should appeal to fans of the genre.

Avati manages to create an unsettling mood and sustain it throughout the entire duration of the film until it’s unforgettable climax. The director makes full use of shadows and the lovely local scenery. Avati also takes every opportunity available to him to shoot his characters out of windows and doors, or looking through and at windows and doorways. Windows and doors are impressively used as a visual motif over and over again throughout the film, which helps to beautifully highlight the movie’s primary themes.

Avati made The House with Laughing Windows with a crew of 12 and a budget that wouldn’t pay for the catering bill of most Hollywood productions. The movie is an excellent example of the creativity and ingenuity of European directors making genre films during the seventies, and I really can’t recommend it enough. Once you see The House with Laughing Windows it’s impossible to forget it.

Avati’s 1983 thriller Zeder is just as good, if not better than The House with the Laughing Windows, and it’s also well worth seeking out if you’re interested in seeing more of the directors work, or just want to watch a incredibly effective horror film.

As I mentioned above, The House with Laughing Windows is available on DVD from Image as part of their terrific Euroshock Collection and it was originally released in 2002. The film is presented in widescreen with English subtitles and the print is excellent. The DVD also comes with a really nice documentary about the making of the film, which features Pupi Avati, as well as many cast and crew members. Other extras include a Lobby Card Gallery and a Theatrical Trailer.

Avati is currently 69 years old and working on a new thriller called The Hideout, which should be completed this year. His latest film was shot in America and it features an international cast that includes Burt Young, Treat Williams, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Yvonne Sciò, Laura Morante and Michael Cornelison. I have no idea of Avati’s latest film will be released in the America, but since it’s an international production I hope it gets a wide release.

If you’d like to see more images from Pupi Avati’s film, please see my House with Laughing Windows Flick Gallery.

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Seven Nights of Hitchcock

by Kimberly Lindbergs | September 18, 2007

Categories | News, Rants & Raves, Directors, Alfred Hitchcock, Thrillers

Alfred Hitchcock on the set of Frenzy, 1971

I only have access to what we call “Standard Basic Cable” TV in the San Francisco Bay Area so I don’t watch a lot of television because there isn’t a lot to watch. The only semi-24-movie channel I get is AMC and this week they’re offering viewers a spectacular Seven Nights of Hitchcock. Since Hitch is one of my favorite directors I couldn’t be happier. I’ve decided to try and spend my evenings this week getting re-acquainted with a lot of his films since many of my favorites are included in the great line-up AMC has scheduled.

Last night I watched The Birds and Rope again. I’ve seen both films countless times but I never get tired of them. The suspense Hitchcock conjures up in Rope is just unbearable at times and the script has an incredible rhythm that I always find really mesmerizing. It’s the perfect example of “less can be more” when it comes to great filmmaking. John Dall, Farley Granger and James Stewart are all really terrific and together they seem to make up some kind of perfect unholy trinity that always astonishes me. Rope also has one of my all-time favorite Hitchcock film endings. I always get chills when Stewart turns his back to the camera and red lights flicker and fill up the small apartment as sirens are heard in the distance.

As for The Birds, I love the ambiguous story and the way it plays out. Tippi Hedren is terrific in it and I’ve always thought she was an underrated actress. Like most of Hitchcock’s films, Rope and The Birds are both loaded with sexual innuendos and an uneasy eroticism that really appeals to me.

Publicity shots from The Birds (1963) and Psycho (1960)

Hopefully I’ll find the time to write-up a few more thoughts on some of his films in the future, but in the meantime here’s a list of my personal Top 15 Favorite Hitchcock Films. I was only going to post a Top 5, but Hitch deserved better than a measly Top 5 so I’m sharing my Top 15 Hitchcock Films instead (the numerical order isn’t significant).

1. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
2. Rope (1948)
3. Psycho (1960)
4. Spellbound (1945)
5. The Birds (1963)
6. Vertigo (1958)
7. Rebecca (1940)
8. Marnie (1964)
9. North by Northwest (1959)
10. Strangers on a Train (1951)
11. Dial M for Murder (1954)
12. Frenzy (1972)
13. Foreign Correspondent (1940)
14. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
15. The Trouble with Harry (1955)

Honorable Mention (aka - bonus title!): Rear Window (1954)

Is anyone else enjoying AMC’s Seven Nights of Hitchcock as much as I am? Feel free to share your own list of Top 5 or Top 15 Favorite Hitchcock films below if you’re so inclined.

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