Ankur Agarwal remembers one of the the greatest actor of all time, Paul Newman, and rediscovers three of his numerous gems: Hud, Sweet Bird of Youth, and The Verdict.
Paul Newman (1925-2008)Paul Newman! What an array of films and great performances, a canvas of life and America, a multitude of emotions, sweat and sultry sang-froid. Cat […]

Guru Dutt, who virtually tortured himself to a self-inflicted death, was a tragic victim of his own heightened vision of romance and drama, of life and creatively, of despair and death, writes Vidyarthy Chatterjee
Guru Dutt in Pyaasa (1957), Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia.comThe lives and lifestyle of the mentor (Uday Shankar) and the protégé (Guru Dutt) were […]

The Dada Saheb Phalke Award for 2006 for cine maestro Tapan Sinha, has come as the crowning glory to a vast and diverse repertoire of films that have won acclaim in India and around the world including 19 National Awards and recognitions in international film festivals in Berlin, Venice, London, Moscow, San Francisco and Locarno among others.
If one were to wonder what makes Tapan Sinha’s films a cut above the rest, it is their sheer simplicity and innocuous manner of storytelling…

As the light gets low, the breezing wind reminds us of an impending storm. Charu and Manda were playing cards in the bedroom. As the storm intensifies they are forced to leave the afternoon siesta. It is at this point in time that Amal enters like a comet. He chants ‘Hare Murare’ from the memorable Bangla novel “Anandamath” by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee.

Soumitra Chatterjee was Amal to me for quite a long time. It wasn’t the first Chatterjee film that I watched, nor, was it his first film. But whenever I get to think of him the couple of images that strike me include the above from Satyajit Ray’s classic “Charulata” (1964). The other being Apu in Ray’s third film of the epic trilogy “Apur Sansar” (1959)….

Bergman was quintessentially a phenomenon by himself. His life, his actions remained unparalleled over the years. Though unbearable at times, the mastermind left a deep impact on human kind, thus, making it practically unimaginable to be ignored. No session of film studies, film criticism, can be completed until he is discussed again and again. Born in July 14th, 1918 to a priest, he started taking interest in theatre as a student of University of Stockholm. He wrote several screenplays including Frenzy for Director Sjoberg in 1944 followed by the “Devil’s Prison” in 1949 …

Few directors have left such a mark on Indian cinema as Bimal Roy. His contemporary, Ritwik Ghatak, himself celebrated as one of the supreme masters of cinema, has written that he worshipped Bimalda (as he was popularly known), and recent works of Hindi cinema, such as the remade version of Devdas (with Shah Rukh Khan) and Lagaan (with Amir Khan) bear testimony to the enduring influence of Bimal Roy’s work. His name is indelibly linked to some of the masterpieces of Indian cinema, including Do Bigha Zameen (1953), Parineeta (1953), Madhumati (1958), Sujata (1959), and Bandini (1963).

When Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage,” I’m sure he didn’t expect a man called Federico Fellini to interpret it four centuries later as “All the world’s a circus”. One of the greatest filmmakers of all times, Fellini pretty much saw the world as a circus, at least in his films. La Dolce Vita reveals the circus of the rich and the paparazzi, 8 ½ explores the circus of filmmaking, E La Nave Va shows the circus of opera, aristocracy and journalism, La Strada depicts the circus behind a circus while Fellini Satyricon is a circus in itself. And honestly, you can’t blame him. Isn’t life a circus full of impromptu performances anyway? Fellini’s greatest fascinations, since childhood, were the circus and vaudeville artists…

Would they lose their individuality with greater funding? Would the quality of their productions deteriorate with a wealth or riches? I doubt it. In fact, one can only hope that their sweep of the recent Oscars ceremony encourages the backers in the film industry to put more faith in artsy filmmakers like these two brothers. […]

Ah, the joy of watching a Rivette film is pure exultation for the senses.

But contrary to what might be construed, most of Rivette’s works have a very raw nature to it - kind of like a strange distant quality, as not in the plot, per se, but more in the mise-en-scene, which makes one initially uncomfortable about Rivette, but, not long, finding delectation for his methods. To qualify the distant aspect with being surrealist (an exception, one might say, being “Céline et Julie vont en bateau”), per se, or Dogma95-ish would be going off the track. Rivette’s films are like reading a novel chaptered into distinct plots intangibly shaping out like an undulating curve - you are “in” the plot but the discreteness is felt.