Great Director

Clint Eastwood's directorial style, simple, precise and old-fashioned, bothers only about the story and the characters that live it. The slight variation is probably the only thing one can call visual style. The performances in his films and his direction of sound and music are essential to the dark, deep and painful moods he attempts to create. He is a great director...

This is the fate of Tapan Sinha, like Uttam Kumar, the central character of his second film Upahar (1955) - none of them got their due from the serious film audience (read the film critics). But as life does such a balance act, Tapan Sinha is loved by the educated, middle-class Bengali more than anyone else, probably second only to the towering Ray. Looking back, as Sinha passed away on the morning of 15th January, I was rather reflective - what his cinema means to me? And I was not very sure. On one side his staggering range and diversity would definitely had made Ray proud as well, and on the other side his debatable, yet unfailing belief in film being a 100% linear narrative medium. His range is so diverse that in the 40+ ...

If Tomas Guiterrez Alea was the most distinguished figure in the older generation of Cuban filmmakers, arguably the most prominent among those who followed the 'old guards' was Humberto Solas, who died of cancer on September 17, 2008 at the age of 66. While Alea chose to work on a variety of themes and subjects, Solas is identified more than anything else with what he called 'historical melodramas'...

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...

Fans of the late Ingmar Bergman will now get a chance to view a selection of seven of the master's works in a Bergman retrospective, titled "Remembering Bergman" spanning 6 cities in India, marking the first anniversary of the renowned director's demise. Bergman is best known for such unforgettable classics like Wild Strawberries, Through a Glass Darkly (which won the best foreign film Oscar in 1961), The Seventh Seal and Fanny and Alexander. All these movies were meditations on life, death and the meaning of our existence. Viewers will be able to experience some of these films in the upcoming festival.

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. writes Tom Elce

To see something original, surprising, intoxicating and truly unique in cinema is becoming all too rare a treat these days, at least outside of film festivals and individual arthouse cineplexes. So when filmmakers as capable and inspired as Joel and Ethan Coen breakout into the mainstream with such success that the baron spell between their Oscar success for 1996's "Fargo" should end with an Academy nod for Best Picture and Best Director, among other awards, with the recent "No Country for Old Men," it is worth celebrating. Indeed, the writer-director siblings have been critics' darlings for the entirety of their careers, their significance in a sometimes too-flashy Hollywood major as their films frequently break down barriers, standing invigoratingly apart as cinematic triumphs in an industry too packed-full of derivative junk. Despite this, they haven't before gained the major trust of Hollywood executives, their films always seeming to come as independent triumphs lacking the financial support of more financially viable mass-market features constantly churned out.

Which is where "No Country for Old Men" comes in. Raw, mighty filmmaking that only further cements Joel and Ethan's respective standing as two of the most promising and consistent filmmakers working today, the film is rich in the neo-noir stylings of their previous work, and also in the philosophical undercurrents of characters fleshed-out regardless of whether they are supporting players or leads. Yet still it is unlike anything the brothers have made before. What else would we expect, though? This is a given, since the Coens have proven themselves perfectly capable of turning out a new work of thematic genius with every next extension to their resume, taking whatever the story into unexpected and unremittingly dark directions that ring shockingly true.

That in itself is the attraction to the Coen Brothers' work, as familiar as their consistent style always appears to be, their films are equally original, each one so much different to the Coens' previous. From 1984's crime-thriller "Blood Simple" to the aforementioned "No Country for Old Men," the duo's filmography is an exemplary one wherein cinephiles will always find a motion picture to satisfy them - they just need take their pick.

Their work is significant in Hollywood as that of independently-minded auteurs who always try to say something with their creations, in stark contrast to the beleaguering number of derivative, meaningless cinematic entries viewers are force-fed from there by other, less artistically driven writers and directors. They make films with a purpose, weaving whatever the core story is while there's always something going on underneath the surface of it all. Dry humor partners up with razor-sharp irony in many of their films, including their recent Best Picture winner, while their characters don't conform to the trend of being mere screenplay constructs, each of them (and this I mean as literally as it can be meant - with even bit-parts having more about them than many a major character ordinarily would) averting two dimensions and appearing to be real-life fleshed-out people who just happen to be appearing on a screen, ahead of the Coen's perfectly placed cameras.

Joel and Ethan always appear to be in sync with each other as they co-direct their frequently top-notch films (actors themselves have previously spoken about their identical answers to their questions, even when asked separately). Their films as a result flow with such smoothness that viewers to their films would never suspect their films are, indeed, the work of two individuals rather than one. Yet still they haven't received the backing from Hollywood executives as other, less accomplished filmmakers have done, and this is a shame despite their regularly overcoming the odds against them. I, for example, have much more fun watching films by the Coens ("Fargo," "The Big Lebowski" and "No Country for Old Men") than watching something by, say, Michael Bay. I'd like to see what Joel and Ethan would do with such big budgets as those afforded to filmmaker like Bay.

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.

In watching the slow burn near-masterpiece earlier this year, I was never bored, always thrilled. In listening to Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff Ed Tom Bell go all philosophical, I didn't identify anything about it that was trite. In watching Josh Brolin's desperate Llewelyn Moss flee Javier Bardem's ruthless Anton Chigurh I was perched on the edge of my seat. That is the power of the Coens' helming, to never allow the tension in their films to dissipate; to always promise that there is more to come; to always deliver that 'more; to devastate and capture one's attention in the most seemingly innocuous of moments. Outsiders in a Hollywood too often jumping on the latest bandwagons to come rolling by (US remakes of J-horror, or just classic US horror), Joel and Ethan stand apart from the crowd and invigoratingly so.

Juggling tone effortlessly - in their films, scenes can be devastatingly horrific and laugh-out-loud funny all in the same scene, so long as that is what the pair want - and barely putting a foot wrong in a career that has thus far spanned twenty-four years, the Coens may finally have gotten the recognition from their peers and prospective partners that may not have necessarily been lacking, but certainly dealth without substance. They move on to pastures new now, and I, like so many others, cannot wait to see what they come up with next.

Discuss World Cinema

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.