Month: July, 2009


Director: Julien Duvivier Country: France Year: 1937 BACKGROUND The French film director Julien Duvivier was born in 1896. His career in show business began when he joined the Théâtre de l’Odéon at the age of 20, as an actor. Within two years, he secured a job at the venerable Gaumont studio, working as a writer [...]


Director: G. W. Pabst Country: Germany Year: 1929 “Search fearlessly for every sin, for out of sin comes joy.”Frank Wedekind, author of Pandora’s Box “He knows how to create a strange world, whose elements are borrowed from daily life. Beyond this precious gift, he knows how, better than anyone else, to direct actors. His characters [...]


Director: Alf Sjöberg Country: Sweden Year: 1951 BACKGROUND August Strindberg was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1849. While his father Carl was a successful shipping agent, his mother Nora was a domestic servant. This fact was referenced in the title of Strindberg’s autobiographical novel, Son of a Servant, and is a key to contextualizing his [...]


Director: Jacques Tati Country: France Year: 1953 “This is what interests Tati. Everything and nothing. Blades of grass, a kite, children, a little old man, anything, everything which is at once real, bizarre, and charming.”Jean-Luc Godard “Tati is sparse, eccentric, quick. It is not until afterward—with the sweet nostalgic music lingering—that these misadventures take on [...]