Month: April, 2009
Sun 26 Apr 2009
Director: Anthony Asquith
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 1952
BACKGROUND
Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1854. His mother was a successful poet and an Irish Nationalist, and his father was Ireland’s leading ear-and-eye surgeon. Oscar was educated first at Trinity College, Dublin, and later at Magdalen College, Oxford. While at Oxford, he began “wearing his hair long… [...]
Sun 19 Apr 2009
Ikiru
Category: Janus Challenge
5 Comments
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Country: Japan
Year: 1952
“Occasionally, I think of my death… There is, I feel, so much more for me to do. Then I become thoughtful, not sad.”
“Being an artist means not having to avert one’s eyes.”
“So long as my pictures are hits I can afford to be unreasonable. Of course, if they start losing money [...]
Sun 12 Apr 2009
Häxan
Category: Janus Challenge
5 Comments
Director: Benjamin Christensen
Country: Denmark
Year: 1922
BACKGROUND
Benjamin Christensen was born in Denmark (That is what “Danish” means, right? A citizen of Denmark? Couldn’t they come up with a less confusing derivation than that? Denmarkians, perhaps? Denmarkites?) in 1879. His Wikipedia article is only four lines long, so we’re kickin’ it freestyle it this week. In the picture [...]
Sun 5 Apr 2009
Grand Illusion
Category: Janus Challenge
6 Comments
Director: Jean Renoir
Country: France
Year: 1937
“To the question, ‘Is the cinema an art?’ my answer is, ‘what does it matter?’ You can make films or you can cultivate a garden. Both have as much claim to being called an art as a poem by Verlaine or a painting by Delacroix… Art is ‘making’.”
“The saving grace of [...]
