The world has lost a great director with Eric Rohmer’s passing at the age of 89. One of the leading lights of the Nouvelle Vague, he made restrained, unassuming films, often about young people looking for love or somehow sorting out their lives through talking and wandering. They also were as much about what didn’t happen as what happened. They shouldn’t really have worked but they did in an effortless way, and were usually a pleasure to watch.

Here are some examples:

Pauline à la plage

Pardon the American voice-over, it’s not what he says -- it’s how he says it. Astonishing how it manages to replace delicacy with vulgarity, but don’t worry, the film is full of charm.

Conte d-été -- A Summer’s Tale

Lovely lovely…

The Romance of Astrea and Celadon

His last film. I haven’t seen it -- yet.

And finally:

Barbet Schroeder interviews Rohmer about his films.

Check out Harold Ramis’ take on the issue at FORA TV: (Length 3:57 min.)

Via Film in Focus:

Click to enlarge.

The poster for the upcoming Mr. Bjarnfredarson (see ICN story here) is that rare thing; an Icelandic movie poster that not only really works, but goes beyond that and into the realm of the excellent. Capturing beautifully the essence of the film’s story – a man having to face the monster he’s become – it manages both to get across the tragedy and the comedy of the whole saga. It’s a perfect pitch for the Icelandic market, where the series – and especially the character of Georg Bjarnfredarson – have become a cultural landmark. Expect a monster hit.

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Yes, I know it’s kinda old (last spring) but anyways.

They’re calling it a “Motion Poster” and its spelling the doom of traditional print advertising. What do you think? (via Posterwire).

The great man on the town; checking out that old Powell/Pressburger flick yet again. That other guy is familiar, presumably a fellow cinephile...

Quoting an Indiewire post:

“This film is music,” Martin Scorsese said on Tuesday night at the DGA theater in New York, introducing a screening of the film, “It’s cinema as music.”

“I don’t mean a musical—musical is a genre that I love,” Scorsese said of “The Red Shoes,” “[But] this is a film that I love. Every aspect of it [the design, the color], the way the film’s edited, the movement within the frame and the movement of the frame, the dialogue, the milieu.”

“It isn’t as simple as music intercut with images,” he gushed, excitedly, in that fast-paced way that he speaks, “It has something else that makes it a piece of music, in a way. That you can run the film through your head and through your mind and your soul like music—images come to mind and perceptions of dialogue.”

This is the umpteenth time I see the maestro gushing about The Red Shoes. I’ve still got to see it. Maybe that’s a good thing. This film remains for me one of the mysteries of cinema, yet to be unravelled.

I’m about to dive into Louis Malle a little. Here’s a teaser:

Did anyone say Iceland Meltdown?

Revisited that 007 movie Die Another Day recently. By some reason it has got a rather bad rap. Beats me why, it’s solid Bond stuff. Brosnan is super-cool, Halle Berry is just fine and dandy, the fencing scene is fantastic and John Cleese is a hoot as Q. The baddie is a bit of a letdown as usual, but what else is new?

Couldn't resist...

Saw it originally in a Dublin cinema back in 2002. Had a lot of fun watching those scenes set at the infamous Glacier Lagoon, where the mad entrepreneur test-drove his latest world-domination gadget Icarus to great effect. Little did I know that we already had guys like that by then, preparing a similar scenario and subsequently failing even more spectacularly…

That scene. (Couldn’t resist).

As any filmmaker worth his salt knows, titles are everything. Here’s an excellent site on this very important subject.

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