Tag: Guy Maddin

Riefenstahl meets Maddin

by

Of all the real-life German film personalities referred to in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, the most notorious – apart from Goebbels himself – is Leni Riefenstahl. Most viewers know Riefenstahl, if they know her at all, as the director of the infamous Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will, or the classic sports documentary, Olympia. [...]

The Eye Like a Strange Balloon (Guy Maddin 1995)

by

Canadian Guy Maddin is virtually unique among contemporary filmmakers in that despite having made nine features – including The Saddest Music in the World, Brand Upon the Brain, and My Winnipeg – he continues to churn out film shorts. Dozens of them. As he notes in this great interview, “I put all my shorts on [...]

The Gorey Factor

by

Some still dispute whether Edward Gorey (1925-2000) was fundamentally an artist who wrote, or a writer who drew. Gorey was, in fact, both an accomplished writer and an accomplished artist who – like many of the greatest filmmakers – combined word and image to create a recognizable world of his own. Gorey’s influence on the [...]

Kane’s Rubber Octopus

by

Years ago – when I was a teenage film buff, so to speak – I remember reading someone’s description of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane as “a perfect film.” “Perfect?” I asked myself, “What about that rubber octopus? I’ve never seen anything so phony looking in my life!” I was thinking, of course, of the rubber [...]

The Return of Ann Savage – Brand Upon the Brain!

by

Noir, as a genre, tends toward fatalism and bleakness, and probably the bleakest and most fatalistic of all film noirs is Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour (1945). Among the most memorable aspects of this uncompromising low-budget masterpiece is the performance of its female lead, Ann Savage (pictured above with co-lead, Tom Neal). In stark contrast to [...]

100 Years Old

by

Time to get this blog rolling. “Let loose the Kraken!” as Larry Olivier would say. (Clash of the Titans – 1981.) On June 18, 2006, a Father’s Day, Isabella Rossellini’s short film, My Dad is 100 Years Old, made its American television premiere on the Sundance Channel. The film is about Isabella’s father, Roberto Rossellini, [...]