Bertrand Bonello's Sarah Winchester, Phantom Opera (2016) is showing on Mubi from April 7 - May 7 and Antoine Barraud's Rouge (2015) is showing on Mubi from April 21 - May - 21, 2017 as part of our Special Discovery series. Self-portrait in front of a mirror (1908), Léon Spilliaert. MuZee, Ostend. Photo: © Sabam Belgium 2016I would not paint — a picture —I'd rather be the OneIt's bright impossibility—Emily DickinsonWhen asked about his first short film, a beautiful portrait of the amazing Portuguese poet Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, filmmaker João César Monteiro declared, rather dissatisfied, "Well, this film is proof to all those who say that you can not film a poem." The same statement has often been made about any other art that dared be approached by cinema. A strange suspicion arises once a film tackles art. It seems to be deeply grounded in an idea of cinema as the art of the little man,...
- 4/18/2017
- MUBI
Craig Keller and Uncas Blythe continue our series of film dialogues. Isiah Medina's 88:88 is having its exclusive online premiere at Mubi, playing through April 17, 2016.Craig Keller: We're going to talk about Isiah Medina's 66-minute film from 2015, 88:88. It's a challenging movie: polyphonic, polypictorial, but not confrontational, in fact pretty chilled-out; if it were featured on Top Gear the hosts might praise its speed, dynamic facility, and stability of suspension. 88:88 presents Medina himself and a group of friends or characters from university in and around the neighborhoods of Winnipeg.Now I'll refrain from synopsizing any more. I had a hard time with the film, but like any complicated work revisitations in whole and in part yield stronger comprehension; accordingly, new insights rise to the surface. Going back through it again the other day I started by watching only the first ten minutes, which provide an overture,...
- 4/5/2016
- by Craig Keller
- MUBI
Director Andrew Haigh (left) and actor Tom Courtenay of 45 Years.In his reflection on love and politics Alain Badiou argues that rarely in the cinema has there been a filmmaker who tried to discuss love and its complexity within the family structure. Cinema has always been more interested in reflecting upon this question in the hazardous encounter of two young adults. However, as Badiou argues, love is not only the emotion that happens after a hazardous encounter; it is also the emotion that we feel when we live together for a long period of time. Andrew Haigh’s drama 45 Years, which premiered in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, where both its lead actors, takes on Badiou’s implicit challenge by reflecting upon love in the form of a couple (played by Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay, who each one won Best Acting awards at Berlin) that have lived together for 45 years.
- 12/23/2015
- by Amir Ganjavie
- MUBI
“The only place I feel comfortable is the skatepark and the library.”
What has set cinema back — both from the perspective of those who make, and those who write about it — are the binaries chosen to be created and propagated, be it taste, modes of production, or genre, essentially what forms “correct” cinema, in terms either classical or experimental. So there’s more and more hope that a film can come along that hopefully defies the tradition of quality, that makes us rethink a medium only feeling more and more trivial with every passing day, even if it’s more accessible than ever.
Amongst the many things that make 88:88 — the first feature from Isiah Medina, the 24-year-old Canadian filmmaker behind the shorts Semi-Auto Colors and Time is the Sun — so radical is its attempt to obliterate the binaries. Cutting and layering images overtop each other at the kind of...
What has set cinema back — both from the perspective of those who make, and those who write about it — are the binaries chosen to be created and propagated, be it taste, modes of production, or genre, essentially what forms “correct” cinema, in terms either classical or experimental. So there’s more and more hope that a film can come along that hopefully defies the tradition of quality, that makes us rethink a medium only feeling more and more trivial with every passing day, even if it’s more accessible than ever.
Amongst the many things that make 88:88 — the first feature from Isiah Medina, the 24-year-old Canadian filmmaker behind the shorts Semi-Auto Colors and Time is the Sun — so radical is its attempt to obliterate the binaries. Cutting and layering images overtop each other at the kind of...
- 9/20/2015
- by Ethan Vestby
- The Film Stage
Can we savor, for a moment, Hong Sang-soo's often exquisite taste in English-language film titles? On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate, Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Woman Is the Future of Man, The Day He Arrives, Hill of Freedom, and now in Locarno, Right Now, Wrong Then. Between the fittingly tossed-off nature of most Hong titles (Tale of Cinema, Night and Day, Hahaha), he sometimes interjects something really beautiful, at once conceptual and mysterious. This, of course, is the nature of the films by this great South Korean director, whose always admirable modesty of form is used—radically, it must be said—to approach stories with intricate undercurrents.Right Now, Wrong Then actually begins mistakenly: the title is given as "Right Then, Wrong Now," a reversal of time and ethics, Hong's two guiding motifs in filmmaking. It is the story of a famous art movie director accidentally...
- 8/14/2015
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
The following is an extract generously provided by Verso Books from their new release, "St. Paul," the first English translation of Pier Paolo Pasolini's screenplay about the apostle Paul.
It is well known that the Christian reference played a role of primary importance in the formation of Pasolini’s thought, despite (or because of) the sexual and transgressive violence that inspired his personal life and bestowed a particular coloration on his communist political choices. In a certain sense, it was a sacrifice bordering on the sacred – the mysterious death of his brother, an Italian partisan, probably killed by the Yugoslav resistance at the moment of Liberation – that led both to his view of the judgement one can make on History, and to the severity he displayed, from the late 1950s on, towards the Italian Communist Party. Basically, the Pci was guilty in his eyes of having allowed the young...
It is well known that the Christian reference played a role of primary importance in the formation of Pasolini’s thought, despite (or because of) the sexual and transgressive violence that inspired his personal life and bestowed a particular coloration on his communist political choices. In a certain sense, it was a sacrifice bordering on the sacred – the mysterious death of his brother, an Italian partisan, probably killed by the Yugoslav resistance at the moment of Liberation – that led both to his view of the judgement one can make on History, and to the severity he displayed, from the late 1950s on, towards the Italian Communist Party. Basically, the Pci was guilty in his eyes of having allowed the young...
- 7/15/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Editor's Note: We're kicking 2014 off with a bit of a format change in this here column. We'll be consistently posting separate, self-contained news posts in the Notebook, so we're taking out the news section here (not that some things won't be somewhat newsy) and making this more of a freewheeling zone of new/old bits of film criticism, images, videos, and whatever else we feel is "noteworthy" on any given week (which, to be honest, is in the spirit of the initial concept). Oh, and Happy New Year, everyone!
Above: the official poster of the 64th Berlinale.
After scrupulously rounding up every notable end-of-year list (and surely there is more yet to come!), David Hudson has published his personal list of 2013's ten best films. Of course, a myriad other lists keep pouring in: Boris Nelepo's Top 25 Ben Sachs' Top 10 La Furia Umana's Top 10 (to go along with their new issue,...
Above: the official poster of the 64th Berlinale.
After scrupulously rounding up every notable end-of-year list (and surely there is more yet to come!), David Hudson has published his personal list of 2013's ten best films. Of course, a myriad other lists keep pouring in: Boris Nelepo's Top 25 Ben Sachs' Top 10 La Furia Umana's Top 10 (to go along with their new issue,...
- 1/1/2014
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
Chicago – The notoriously confounding new film from Jean-Luc Godard baffled many critics during its 2010 premiere at Cannes. The legendary director was conspicuously absent from the festival, leading some to believe that his refusal to give interviews was reflected in the film’s final title card, “No Comment.” Yet after a careful analysis of “Film Socialisme,” it’s clear that Godard has plenty to say.
This is the sort of picture that functions more as a two-hour museum projection than a feature film. It’s bound to transfix some onlookers, while quickly repelling others into the next room. As a call for unity in the Mediterranean, Godard runs the risk of alienating the very people he intends to reach with his message. Only film buffs and Godard experts will be able to piece together this fragmented collage after an initial viewing. Everyone else will have to do their homework, but I...
This is the sort of picture that functions more as a two-hour museum projection than a feature film. It’s bound to transfix some onlookers, while quickly repelling others into the next room. As a call for unity in the Mediterranean, Godard runs the risk of alienating the very people he intends to reach with his message. Only film buffs and Godard experts will be able to piece together this fragmented collage after an initial viewing. Everyone else will have to do their homework, but I...
- 2/6/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Reviewed by Jay Antani
(June 2011)
Directed/Written by: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Catherine Tanvier, Christian Sinniger, Jean-Marc Stehlé, Patti Smith, Robert Maloubier, Alain Badiou, Nadège Beausson-Diagne and Élisabeth Vitali
Jean-Luc Godard’s “Film Socialisme” is likely to be an unbearable experience for anyone other than Godard himself and his most hardcore adherents. The veteran filmmaker has pieced together a prohibitively obscure free-association polemic on his pet theme of politics (the politics of nations, races, religion, relationships, communication, gender — essentially the entire fabric of postcolonial civilization) and how it’s processed through the meat grinder of postmodern pop culture.
The first half of “Film Socialisme” takes place on a Mediterranean cruise ship, the second in and around what is presumably a family-run gas station. The visual texture of the first half ranges from the clean, crisp high-def views of sea, sky, the ship’s decks and cabins to the degraded surveillance-camera images found,...
(June 2011)
Directed/Written by: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Catherine Tanvier, Christian Sinniger, Jean-Marc Stehlé, Patti Smith, Robert Maloubier, Alain Badiou, Nadège Beausson-Diagne and Élisabeth Vitali
Jean-Luc Godard’s “Film Socialisme” is likely to be an unbearable experience for anyone other than Godard himself and his most hardcore adherents. The veteran filmmaker has pieced together a prohibitively obscure free-association polemic on his pet theme of politics (the politics of nations, races, religion, relationships, communication, gender — essentially the entire fabric of postcolonial civilization) and how it’s processed through the meat grinder of postmodern pop culture.
The first half of “Film Socialisme” takes place on a Mediterranean cruise ship, the second in and around what is presumably a family-run gas station. The visual texture of the first half ranges from the clean, crisp high-def views of sea, sky, the ship’s decks and cabins to the degraded surveillance-camera images found,...
- 6/2/2011
- by admin
- Moving Pictures Magazine
Reviewed by Jay Antani
(June 2011)
Directed/Written by: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Catherine Tanvier, Christian Sinniger, Jean-Marc Stehlé, Patti Smith, Robert Maloubier, Alain Badiou, Nadège Beausson-Diagne and Élisabeth Vitali
Jean-Luc Godard’s “Film Socialisme” is likely to be an unbearable experience for anyone other than Godard himself and his most hardcore adherents. The veteran filmmaker has pieced together a prohibitively obscure free-association polemic on his pet theme of politics (the politics of nations, races, religion, relationships, communication, gender — essentially the entire fabric of postcolonial civilization) and how it’s processed through the meat grinder of postmodern pop culture.
The first half of “Film Socialisme” takes place on a Mediterranean cruise ship, the second in and around what is presumably a family-run gas station. The visual texture of the first half ranges from the clean, crisp high-def views of sea, sky, the ship’s decks and cabins to the degraded surveillance-camera images found,...
(June 2011)
Directed/Written by: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Catherine Tanvier, Christian Sinniger, Jean-Marc Stehlé, Patti Smith, Robert Maloubier, Alain Badiou, Nadège Beausson-Diagne and Élisabeth Vitali
Jean-Luc Godard’s “Film Socialisme” is likely to be an unbearable experience for anyone other than Godard himself and his most hardcore adherents. The veteran filmmaker has pieced together a prohibitively obscure free-association polemic on his pet theme of politics (the politics of nations, races, religion, relationships, communication, gender — essentially the entire fabric of postcolonial civilization) and how it’s processed through the meat grinder of postmodern pop culture.
The first half of “Film Socialisme” takes place on a Mediterranean cruise ship, the second in and around what is presumably a family-run gas station. The visual texture of the first half ranges from the clean, crisp high-def views of sea, sky, the ship’s decks and cabins to the degraded surveillance-camera images found,...
- 6/2/2011
- by admin
- Moving Pictures Network
Kino Lorber has picked up U.S. rights to Jean-Luc Godard's "Film Socialisme," which had its world premiere at the Festival de Cannes last year. Kino-Lorber confirmed to iW its acquisition and said it is tentatively planning a mid-May theatrical release. No other details were immediately available. With a cast that includes Patti Smith, Elisabeth Vitali, Alain Badiou, Christian Sinniger, Louma Sanbar, Maurice Sarfati, the film is described by a Unifrance ...
- 2/15/2011
- Indiewire
Just when you thought Jean-Luc Godard couldn’t get any cooler.
First off, let me say, I, or anyone here at the CriterionCast do not condone illegally downloading media such as music nor video. That said, with the current way those who are caught downloading said media are dealt with, with those who set up outlets such as Limewire or Frostwire let off pretty much free, you do have to feel a bit sorry for them.
Well, at least Godard does.
According to BoingBoing, the auteur recently donated a thousand euros towards the legal defense costs of James Climent, a man who was recently fined 20,000 euros for downloading a massive 13,788 MP3s.
Boing Boing reader Paul R. offers this translation of an important Godard quote in the linked news story:
I am against Hadopi [the French internet-copyright law, or its attendant agency], of course. There is no such thing as intellectual property. I’m against the inheritance [of works], for example.
First off, let me say, I, or anyone here at the CriterionCast do not condone illegally downloading media such as music nor video. That said, with the current way those who are caught downloading said media are dealt with, with those who set up outlets such as Limewire or Frostwire let off pretty much free, you do have to feel a bit sorry for them.
Well, at least Godard does.
According to BoingBoing, the auteur recently donated a thousand euros towards the legal defense costs of James Climent, a man who was recently fined 20,000 euros for downloading a massive 13,788 MP3s.
Boing Boing reader Paul R. offers this translation of an important Godard quote in the linked news story:
I am against Hadopi [the French internet-copyright law, or its attendant agency], of course. There is no such thing as intellectual property. I’m against the inheritance [of works], for example.
- 9/19/2010
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
Jean-Luc Godard is a filmmaker that fascinates me. I fell instantly in love with his highly influential film Breathless and along with watching several of the rest of the films in his oeuvre have found similar joy in Vivre sa vie, Band of Outsiders and Contempt. He's been making films since 1954 and the fact I will be able to catch his latest effort as it debuts at Cannes is certain to be one of the highlights of the festival for me no matter what I ultimately think of the film and now.
However, we don't have to wait any longer to catch a glimpse of the film as Godard has uploaded six separate trailers ranging in length from 1:31 - 4:29 of his Cannes Film Festival submission Socialisme onto YouTube. Socialisme will be featured in the "Un Certain Regard" category at Cannes, but here we get an early look at...
However, we don't have to wait any longer to catch a glimpse of the film as Godard has uploaded six separate trailers ranging in length from 1:31 - 4:29 of his Cannes Film Festival submission Socialisme onto YouTube. Socialisme will be featured in the "Un Certain Regard" category at Cannes, but here we get an early look at...
- 4/27/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.