Month: March, 2009

Sun 29 Mar 2009

The 400 Blows

Category: Janus Challenge
3 Comments

Director: François Truffaut
Country: France
Year: 1959
BACKGROUND

François Truffaut was born in 1932. He never met his biological father, and was shuttled around between his grandmother and various nannies for the first years of his life. His grandmother, seemingly the only welcoming adult in his world, instilled in François a profound love of books and music. When François [...]

Sun 22 Mar 2009

Forbidden Games

Category: Janus Challenge
4 Comments

Director: René Clément
Country: France
Year: 1952
BACKGROUND

René Clément was born in 1913, in Bordeaux, France. He first studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and eventually gravitated to film-making. In 1936, he directed his first film, a 20-minute Jacques Tati short (we’ll be watching Tati’s M. Hulot’s Holiday later in this series). Apart from this initial foray [...]

Sun 15 Mar 2009

Floating Weeds

Category: Janus Challenge
2 Comments

Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Country: Japan
Year: 1959
BACKGROUND
I’m going away for the weekend, and thus trying to write a shorter article, but I keep getting sidetracked with peripheral stuff I want to include, like this cool series of 80’s-metal-themed director’s t-shirts offered by MondoTees. They make a nice Ozzy/Ozu shirt that you might want to purchase after watching [...]

Sun 8 Mar 2009

Fists in the Pocket

Category: Janus Challenge
7 Comments

Director: Marco Bellocchio
Country: Italy
Year: 1965
BACKGROUND
Marco Bellocchio was born in 1939, studied philosophy in Milan, and studied film at the Centro sperimentale di cinematografia (I’m betting that translates roughly as “Center for Experimental Filmmaking”). After graduating, Bellocchio rang up Michelangelo Antonioni, and asked for a job as an assistant director. Antonioni refused. Borrowing money from his [...]

Sun 1 Mar 2009

Fires on the Plain

Category: Janus Challenge
2 Comments

Director: Kon Ichikawa
Country: Japan
Year: 1959
“Ichikawa surely stands alongside Akira Kurosawa and Keisuke Miyashita as one of Japan’s great directors. He made not just art films, but also melodramas, documentaries, mysteries and others… and he brought to all of them a technique and craft that showed he took the works seriously, no matter the subject. Even [...]