Category: Janus Challenge
Sun 24 Jan 2010
Janus Challenge Wrap-Up
Category: Janus Challenge, Video
3 Comments
Just joining us? For a list of all the articles in this series, click the Janus link in the header (or on the right).
CLIPS COMPILATION
We put in so many hours watching these films and writing about them (I’m estimating close to 400 hours or so for me alone) that we felt compelled to do [...]
Sun 13 Dec 2009
Three Documentaries
Category: Janus Challenge
1 Comment
BACKGROUND
Incredible as it may seem, the end of this Janus series is fast approaching. We’ve seen films from around the world, directed by the masters of international cinema: Akira Kurosawa, Luis Buñuel, Michelangelo Antonioni, François Truffaut, Ingmar Bergman, Saul J. Turell… wait, what?
Who is this Turell fellow, and what is he doing in my [...]
Sun 6 Dec 2009
Wild Strawberries
Category: Janus Challenge
2 Comments
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Country: Sweden
Year: 1957
BACKGROUND
Okay, seriously, now. This is our (quickly checks Janus set table of contents…) THIRD Bergman film! And only ONE Antonioni film? Only ONE Buñuel film? This might be my favorite of the three Bergmans, but I’m still not going to waste a lot of time writing this BACKGROUND section.
While driving from [...]
Sun 29 Nov 2009
The White Sheik
Category: Janus Challenge
4 Comments
Director: Federico Fellini
Country: Italy
Year: 1952
“I would love to see a festival dedicated to first films. Sometimes they have nothing to do with the work that develops later, and sometimes the work never gets better. But sometimes you can see the hints of what would come later bursting through like an eruption from another film entirely. [...]
Sun 22 Nov 2009
The Wages of Fear
Category: Janus Challenge
2 Comments
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Country: France
Year: 1953
“You think that people are all good or all bad. You think that good means light and bad means night? But where does night end and light begin? Where is the borderline? Do you even know which side you belong on?”Dr Vorzet, Le Corbeau
“Life has never been very kind to me. [...]
Sun 15 Nov 2009
Viridiana
Category: Janus Challenge
4 Comments
Director: Luis Buñuel
Country: Spain
Year: 1961
“The theme is that well-intended charity can often be badly misplaced by innocent, pious people. Therefore, beware of charity. That is the obvious moral that forms in this grim and tumorous tale of a beautiful young religious novice who gets into an unholy mess when she gives up her holy calling [...]
Sun 8 Nov 2009
The Virgin Spring
Category: Janus Challenge
1 Comment
I’ve already written about Bergman when we watched The Seventh Seal. Perhaps more to the point, I’m getting bored. Thus, I thought we’d try something a little different this week. I watched both The Virgin Spring and its unofficial 1972 remake, The Last House on the Left. Quite a double bill. First I’ll tell you [...]
Sun 1 Nov 2009
Umberto D.
Category: Janus Challenge
2 Comments
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Country: Italy
Year: 1952
“I’ve lost all my money on these films. They are not commercial. But I’m glad to lose it this way. To have for a souvenir of my life pictures like Umberto D. and The Bicycle Thief.”Vittorio De Sica
“My films are a struggle against the absence of human solidarity… against the [...]
Sun 25 Oct 2009
Ugetsu
Category: Janus Challenge
2 Comments
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Country: Japan
Year: 1953
“Ugetsu is evocative of the Buddhist universe of Noh drama, where time is a movement of consciousness, memory is as tangible as the present, and the dead return to voice their grief or longing.”Pacific Film Archive
“Ugetsu Monogatari is an exquisitely realized, serenely composed allegorical film on love, greed, and betrayal. Kenji [...]
Sun 18 Oct 2009
The 39 Steps
Category: Janus Challenge
1 Comment
“The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.”Alfred Hitchcock
“Some films are slices of life, mine are slices of cake.”Alfred Hitchcock
“I beg permission to mention by name only four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation, and encouragement, and constant collaboration. The first of the four [...]
