Ian Johnston introduces a new feature at Not Coming to a Theater Near You, Taking Time: The Cinema of Theodoros Angelopoulos: “His films are made to make their mark on the world, intensely serious ruminations on what has been increasingly for him a world of a loss both in terms of individual psychology and family relations and in terms of society, politics and history. At the same time every one of his films contains stunning passages of the most intense pictorial beauty—a beauty that is so dependent on the slow, sometimes hesitant, sometimes inevitable wide-ranging movements of his camera. You could say that, in the end, his major protagonist is that camera, set down to document, explore, analyze and aestheticize a specific time and space.”
Slant has begun its countdown of the “100 Best Films of the 1990s.”
It’s Todd Solondz Day at DC’s.
The New Inquiry gathers “Encounters With Lindsay.” You know which Lindsay.
The New York Times‘ “Holiday Movies” package is out, with Charles McGrath on Spielberg’s Lincoln, Katrina Onstad‘s profile of Naomi Watts, Terrence Rafferty on various adaptations of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Larry Rohter‘s profile of Michael Haneke, Mekado Murphy on Rise of the Guardians, Dennis Lim on some forthcoming breakout performances—Carloto Cotta and Ana Moreira in Tabu, Mikkel Boe Folsgaard in A Royal Affair, Dree Hemingway in Starlet, Nina Hoss in Barbara, John Magaro in Never Fade Away—Charles Taylor and Stephanie Zacharek‘s preview of some of the major releases of the season on DVD and Blu-ray, and thoughts from Judd Apatow, Sally Potter, Common, and Amy Heckerling on their favorite holiday movies.
The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody argues that, had Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980) been released in the “Internet age,” it would have become “a succès d’estime, not after 32 years but from the start.”
Book. Catherine Grant‘s discovered that Belén Vidal’s Figuring the Past: Period Film and the Mannerist Aesthetic is being distributed as an Open Access ebook.
New York. There are a couple of more days left in Anthology Film Archives’ Edgar G. Ulmer series, and in MUBI’s Notebook, David Phelps writes that “beyond a usual, B-movie insight that the pleasure of noirish tall tales is as much the inexorable fate of the doomed hero as the liberated storyteller free to embellish the path towards it, Ulmer’s movies offer a spectacle of their own production, a series of signs for the viewer to follow if he chooses to believe.”
In other news. The Locarno Film Festival (August 7 through 17) has announced that is 2013 Retrospective will be dedicated to George Cukor. Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian writes that “reviewing his 50-plus films again today reveals… an artist who best conveyed the essence of that form of cinema which, while appearing to dwell on the superficial appearance of things, in fact casts a deeply searching light on the essentials. A great director of actors, both female (Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Fonda) and male (Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Charles Boyer, Anthony Quinn), Cukor often used his actors to cast a critical look at the world of show business, of which he was himself a part. Over the course of his long career, from the early sound era and continuing until the 1980s, Cukor contributed to developing the art of cinema as a tool with which to think about the world as well as an intelligent form of entertainment.”
Awards. “Michael Haneke’s Amour led the nominations of the 25th European Film Awards, taking six including best film, best director and acting nods for both Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant,” reports Indiewire‘s Peter Knegt. “Other major nominees included Steve McQueen’s Shame, Christian Petzold‘s Barbara, Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s Intouchables, Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt and Paolo & Vittorio Taviani’s Caesar Must Die.”
“Dame Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave and Terence Stamp are among the veteran stars leading the nominations at this year’s British Independent Film Awards,” reports the BBC.
Cinema Eye Honors has announced its nominations for its 6th annual nonfiction film awards.
“21 features have been submitted for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category for the 85th Academy Awards®.”
More browsing? See Mike Everleth, the Film Doctor, and Criticwire‘s Steve Greene.
For news and tips throughout the day every day, follow @KeyframeDaily on Twitter and/or the RSS feed. Get Keyframe Daily in your inbox by signing in at fandor.com/daily.
