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New French Extremity
New French Extremity describes a range of French films made at the turn of the 21st century that were considered extreme or transgressive. Films of the New French Extremity are characterized by graphic depictions of violence, especially sexual violence, and explicit sexual imagery. Terminology The term 'new French extremity' was first coined by critic James Quandt in 2004 in a deeply critical piece complaining about the violent turn that French filmmaking appeared to have take in the late 1990s and early 2000s. While few people have taken Quandt's pronouncements about new extreme films seriously, his article has become the first reference for talking about these films: " Bava as much as Bataille, ''Salò'' no less than Sade seem the determinants of a cinema suddenly determined to break every taboo, to wade in rivers of viscera and spumes of sperm, to fill each frame with flesh, nubile or gnarled, and subject it to all manner of penetration, mutilation, and defilement." Today, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Quandt
James Quandt is a Canadian film historian and festival programmer, best known as the longtime head programmer of the TIFF Cinematheque program of film retrospectives.Geoff Pevere, "The ghosts of cinema Cinematheque summer series Cinematheque's summer program: James Quandt looks back on 20 years of bringing the world of art house home". ''Toronto Star'', June 3, 2010. Originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Quandt first moved to Toronto in the mid-1980s to work as curator of film screening series at the Harbourfront Centre. In 1990, when the Toronto International Film Festival took over management and operations of Gerald Pratley's Ontario Film Institute, Quandt was named Pratley's successor as head of the program, which was renamed Cinematheque later the same year. Exhibitions and retrospectives he has created for TIFF also frequently toured internationally. He has also been a regular contributor of film criticism and analysis to ''Artforum'' magazine and The Criterion Collection, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tim Palmer (film Historian)
Tim Palmer, born in Nottingham, England, is a British film historian currently based at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in the film studies department. He holds a bachelor's degree (with honors) in film and literature from the University of Warwick, a master's degree in film and television studies from the University of Warwick, and a PhD in communication arts (film track) from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His primary research areas include contemporary French cinema and women in the French film industry. His first monograph, ''Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema'' (Wesleyan University Press, 2011), introduced the idea of the contemporary French film industry as an ecosystem, considering how it intersects with ''le jeune cinéma français'', first-time directors, ''cinéma du corps'' (a more materials-based interrogation of the New French Extremity), pop-art cinema, female authorship, cinephilia, and La Fémis. His second monograph, ''I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
71 Fragments Of A Chronology Of Chance
''71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance'' () is a 1994 drama film written and directed by Michael Haneke. It has a fragmented storyline as the title suggests, and chronicles several seemingly unrelated stories in parallel, but these separate narrative lines intersect in an incident at the end of the film. The film is set in Vienna from October to December 1993. Haneke refers to ''71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance'' as the last part of his "glaciation trilogy", the other parts of which are his preceding two films '' The Seventh Continent'' and ''Benny's Video''. Plot The film opens with intertitles which introduce the mass killing in detail. It then chronicles in flashbacks the previous few months of several people in Vienna. A young Romanian boy sneaks across the border at night, wading through a swamp and hiding in the back of a truck. In Vienna he lives on the streets as a beggar. A security worker makes pickups at a bank. At home he argues with his wife and says prayers a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Seventh Continent (1989 Film)
''The Seventh Continent'' () is a 1989 Austrian psychological horror film directed by Michael Haneke. It is Haneke's debut feature film. The film chronicles three years in the life of an Austrian family, which consists of Georg, an engineer; his wife Anna, an optometrist; and their young daughter, Eva. They lead a seemingly routine urban middle-class life, but are actually planning something sinister. The film was selected as the Austrian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 62nd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Plot The film is divided into three parts. The first two, 1987 and 1988, each depict a day in the family's life, showing their daily activities in detail. It conveys their discomfort with the sterile routines of modern society. These sequences are often largely wordless. Toward the beginning of each part, there is a voice over of the wife reading a letter to the husband's parents informing them of his success at work. Many of the activities i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flaming Creatures
''Flaming Creatures'' is a 1963 American experimental film directed by Jack Smith. The film follows an ensemble of drag performers through several disconnected vignettes, including a lipstick commercial, an orgy, and an earthquake. It was shot on a rooftop on the Lower East Side on a very low budget of only $300, with a soundtrack from Smith's roommate Tony Conrad. It premiered April 29, 1963, at the Bleecker Street Cinema in Greenwich Village. Because of the film's sexual content, some venues refused to show ''Flaming Creatures'', and in March 1964, police interrupted a screening and seized a print of the film. The screening's organizers (Jonas Mekas, Ken Jacobs, and Florence Karpf) were prosecuted, and the film was ruled to be in violation of New York's obscenity laws. Mekas and critic Susan Sontag mounted a critical defense of ''Flaming Creatures'', and it became a ''cause célèbre'' for the New American Cinema movement. Judge Abe Fortas, who had spoken in favor of reversin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas On Earth
''Christmas on Earth'' is a 1963 American experimental short film directed by Barbara Rubin. Description Originally titled ''Cocks and Cunts'', ''Christmas on Earth'' features several painted and masked performers (some in black and whiteface) engaging in a variety of gay and straight sexual acts. The film's two separate black-and-white reels are projected simultaneously, one inside the other, with color filters placed on the projector lens, and, originally, an ad hoc soundtrack of contemporary rock radio. Performers included, among others, the underground star Gerard Malanga.According to Ara Osterweil, Naomi Levine was one of the performers, but Gerard Malanga wrote (in an email dated September 19, 2014) that he didn't remember Levine being there, but rather "a girl nameBarbara Gladstone(not to be confused with the gallerist) who was studying modern dance with the Martha Graham School of Dance." She later moved to London and made a film with another expatriate New Yorker, Stephe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Window Water Baby Moving
''Window Water Baby Moving'' is an experimental short film by Stan Brakhage, filmed in November 1958 and released in 1959. The film documents the birth of the director's first child, his daughter Myrrena, by his then-wife Jane Brakhage, later known as Jane Wodening. Production Stan Brakhage's wife, Jane, had insisted that Brakhage be present at the birth of their daughter; however, Brakhage felt he would faint if he weren't focused on filming the event.MacDonald, Scott (2005) ''A critical cinema: interviews with independent filmmakers,'' p64-66 The hospital initially gave permission for filming, but this was later reneged. Instead, Brakhage transferred the birth to their home, hiring a nurse and some expensive emergency equipment. Jane was originally "very, very shy" about being filmed, but eventually relented after Brakhage made "a big dramatic scene and said 'All right, let's forget it!'" Most of the film was photographed by Brakhage himself, but Jane occasionally took the ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
À Nos Amours
À, à ( a-grave) is a letter of the Catalan, Emilian-Romagnol, French, Italian, Maltese, Occitan, Portuguese, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, and Welsh languages consisting of the letter A of the ISO basic Latin alphabet and a grave accent. À is also used in Pinyin transliteration. In most languages, it represents the vowel ''a''. This letter is also a letter in Taos to indicate a mid tone. In accounting or invoices, ''à'' abbreviates "at a rate of": "5 apples à $1" (one dollar each). That usage is based upon the French preposition ''à'' and has evolved into the at sign (@). Sometimes, it is part of a surname: Thomas à Kempis, Mary Anne à Beckett. Usage in various languages Emilian-Romagnol À is used in Emilian to represent short stressed e.g. Bolognese dialect ''sacàtt'' aˈkatː"sack". French The grave accent is used in the French language to differentiate homophones, e.g. and . Portuguese À is used in Portuguese to represent a contr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Possession (1981 Film)
''Possession'' is a 1981 psychological horror drama film directed by Andrzej Żuławski and written by Żuławski and Frederic Tuten. The plot obliquely follows the relationship between an international spy (Sam Neill) and his wife (Isabelle Adjani), who begins exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking for a divorce. ''Possession'', an international co-production between France and West Germany, was filmed in West Berlin in 1980. Żuławski's only English-language film, it premiered at the 34th Cannes Film Festival, where Adjani won the Best Actress award for her performance. The screenplay was written during the painful divorce of Żuławski from actress Malgorzata Braunek. While not commercially successful either in Europe or in the United States, with the latter only receiving a heavily edited cut on its initial release, the film eventually acquired cult status and has been more positively appraised in later years. Plot Mark is a spy who returns home to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cannibal Holocaust
''Cannibal Holocaust'' is a 1980 Italian cannibal film directed by Ruggero Deodato and written by Gianfranco Clerici. It stars Robert Kerman as Harold Monroe, an anthropologist who leads a rescue team into the Amazon rainforest to locate a crew of filmmakers that have gone missing while filming a documentary on local cannibal tribes. Produced as part of the contemporary cannibal trend of Italian exploitation cinema, ''Cannibal Holocaust'' was inspired by Italian media coverage of Red Brigades terrorism. Deodato believed the news reports to be staged, an idea that became an integral aspect of the film's story. Additional story elements were also influenced by the Mondo documentaries of Gualtiero Jacopetti, particularly the presentation of the documentary crew's lost footage, which constitutes approximately half of the film. The treatment of this footage, which is noted for its visual realism, innovated the found footage style of filmmaking that was later popularized i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mother And The Whore
''The Mother and the Whore'' () is a 1973 French film directed by Jean Eustache and starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Bernadette Lafont and Françoise Lebrun. An examination of the relationships between three characters in a love triangle, it was Eustache's first feature film and is considered his masterpiece. Eustache wrote the screenplay drawing inspiration from his own relationships, and shot the film from May to July 1972. The film screened at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix. With some divided initial critical reaction, it has been championed by later critics and filmmakers. Plot Alexandre is an unemployed young intellectual, possibly a journalist, living a rudderless life in Paris. Subtly but entirely self-absorbed, Alexandre spends most of his days lecturing his companions on political and philosophical topics, including his opinions on contemporary films, such as '' The Working Class Goes to Heaven'', and his memories of the May '68 protests. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Straw Dogs (1971 Film)
''Straw Dogs'' is a 1971 psychological thriller film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. The screenplay, by Peckinpah and David Zelag Goodman, is based on Gordon M. Williams's 1969 novel, '' The Siege of Trencher's Farm''. The film's title is derived from a discussion in the ''Tao Te Ching'' that likens people to the ancient Chinese ceremonial straw dog, being of ceremonial worth, but afterwards discarded with indifference. The film is noted for its violent concluding sequences and two complicated rape scenes, which were censored by numerous film rating boards. Released theatrically the same year as '' A Clockwork Orange'', '' The French Connection'' and ''Dirty Harry'', the film sparked heated controversy over a perceived increase of violence in films generally. The film premiered in the U.K. in November 1971. Although controversial at the time, ''Straw Dogs'' is considered by some critics to be one of Peckinpah's greatest films, and was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
