Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven (Russian: Табор уходит в небо, romanized: Tabor ukhodit v nebo, lit.
"The Gypsy camp goes to heaven"; also known as Queen of the Gypsies)
is a 1975 Soviet romantic drama film by Emil Loteanu
Probablemente sea una lectura errónea, pero no deja de resultar sorprendente que en la (injustamente) denostada Raising Cain (1992) Brian De Palma ruede en una larguísima toma sin cortes (de pract 5 min.) un diálogo que gira íntegramente sobre las personalidades múltiples 1/2
Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven (Russian: Табор уходит в небо, romanized: Tabor ukhodit v nebo, lit.
"The Gypsy camp goes to heaven"; also known as Queen of the Gypsies)
is a 1975 Soviet romantic drama film by Emil Loteanu
Kiyoshi Kurosawa on how Cure (1997) breaks from American detective films:
"Cure is indeed a psycho thriller and a detective story and I borrowed these genre styles from the American conventions. And indeed the first half probably fits very much into that framework. However, with the American genre of films along these lines of detective stories, it seems that the protagonist, the detective, does not change throughout the film. There is a problem, a mystery that needs to be solved and that solution doesn't involve him as a character changing at all. I think that's one convention about the American detective genre [that I tried to avoid]. But when I make films, and perhaps this is because I am Japanese, but my characters have to change. I believe that individuals change when something around them changes and if it's a drastic change then the character, appropriately, changes drastically, as well. That, at least, is the sense I get from my own experiences. My characters do have to change and that's probably where my films become different from American films. In borrowing from the detective genre, what I really wanted to convey was the relationship the protagonist has to his wife, to his daily life, to the society that surrounds him and the world that surrounds him. That, essentially, is the theme that I was most interested in. In Cure the conflict between the protagonist and the society that surrounds him, what essentially happens at the conclusion is that he finds complete freedom by cutting himself off from the society. That is the main conclusion that I try to posit."
— Kiyoshi Kurosawa, interviewed by Spence D., IGN Filmforce (May 20, 2012)
In 1977, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a member of the jury at the Berlin Film Festival. He threatened to walk out with British critic Derek Malcolm unless their support for Bresson’s 'The Devil, Probably' (1977) for the top prize was made public. The movie ended up sharing the second prize, the Silver Bear, with two other films.
Fassbinder's thoughts on the film:
"Fassbinder: Robert Bresson's 'The Devil, Probably' (1977), which is the most shattering film I've seen in this Berlin Festival. I think it's a major film; but then people say - but what if you show a film like this to the man in the street and he doesn't understand it? First of all, I think that's wrong. But even if it's true, doesn't it mean that in the future - and this world will probably last for another few thousand years - this film will be more important than all the rubbish which is now considered important but which never really goes deep enough? The questions Bresson asks will never be unimportant.
Interviewer: What about the problems raised in Bresson's film - are they rejecting all existing political forms?
Fassbinder: Yes, rejecting every commitment. Because commitment for the film's young characters - whom he seems to understand so well - is mainly an escape into an 'occupation' which keeps that commitment alive. An escape from the awareness that everything goes on regardless of you and your commitment."
("Robert Bresson", Edited by James Quandt, 1998)
P.S: On this day, 49 years ago, 'The Devil, Probably' (1977) was released in France.
"Es posible suponer que hoy el cine ni siquiera tiene un lenguaje completamente formado. No existe un alfabeto propio. Quizás sólo se nombran letras individuales, pero obviamente no todas".
Madre e hijo (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1997)
THE IPCRESS FILE (1965) is a masterclass in “frame within the frame” cinematography.
Director Sidney J. Furie and cinematographer Otto Heller turned doors, windows, lamps, shelves, file cabinets, walls, and foreground objects into visual architecture.
The result is not just “cool framing.” It changes how we watch the film.
Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer is constantly boxed in, observed, obstructed, and trapped inside layers of bureaucracy and espionage. The compositions make the audience feel like we are spying on the spy.
Every frame has tension. Composition is story.
The World Documentary Repository: F is for Frederick Wiseman.
American documentarian, renowned for pioneering an observational style that rejected conventional techniques like voiceover narration, formal interviews, and explanatory text, as illustrated by Titicut Follies (1967).
Federico Fellini, "Films are written in light":
"Light is the very substance of a film. In film—I have said this before—light is ideology, feeling, color, tone, profundity, atmosphere, storytelling. Light is what adds, cancels out, reduces, exalts, enriches, creates nuances, underlines, alludes to; it makes the fantastic and the dream believable and acceptable or, on the other hand, makes reality fantasy and turns everyday drabness into mirage; it adds transparency, suggests tensions and vibrations. Light excavates a face or smooths it out, creates expression where none exists, endows dullness with intelligence, makes the insipid seductive. Light outlines the elegance of a body, glorifies a countryside which may be nothing by itself, gives a background magic. Light is the premier special effect, a kind of makeup, a sleight of hand, an enchantment, an alchemist’s shop, a mechanism for marvels. Light is the hallucinatory salt which, burning, unleashes visions. Whatever lives on film lives by means of light. The most elementary or crudely made set design can by means of light reveal unexpected perspectives or steep the story in a hushed, brooding atmosphere. Or merely by replacing a powerful light source with shadows, change of light can dissolve a sense of agony and turn everything serene, familiar, reassuring. Films are written in light, their style expressed by means of light."
— Federico Fellini: Comments on Film, edited by Giovanni Grazzini, translated by Joseph Henry (1988)