Michelangelo Antonioni • Ingmar Bergman • Robert Bresson • Luis Buñuel • John Cassavetes • Charlie Chaplin • Jean Cocteau • Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne • Vittorio De Sica • Jacques Demy • Carl Th. Dreyer • Victor Erice • Rainer Werner Fassbinder • Federico Fellini • John Ford • Louis Feuillade • Samuel Fuller • Howard Hawks • Alfred Hitchcock • Hou Hsiao-hsien • Shohei Imamura • Aki Kaurismäki • Abbas Kiarostami • Krzysztof Kieslowski • Hirokazu Kore-Eda • Shunji Iwai • Stanley Kubrick • Akira Kurosawa • Fritz Lang • David Lean • Ernst Lubitsch • David Lynch • Terrence Malick • Anthony Mann • Jean-Pierre Melville • Kenji Mizoguchi • Lukas Moodyson • F. W. Murnau • Mikio Naruse • Yasujiro Ozu • Sergei Parajanov • Roman Polanski • Otto Preminger • Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger • Satyajit Ray • Jean Renoir • Jacques Rivette • Nicolas Roeg • Eric Rohmer • Roberto Rossellini • Mrinal Sen • Douglas Sirk • Alexander Sokurov • Andrei Tarkovsky • Bela Tarr • Jacques Tati • Hiroshi Teshigahara • Jacques Tourneur • Anh Hung Tran • François Truffaut • Tsai Ming-liang • Edgar Ulmer • Agnès Varda • Luchino Visconti • Erich von Stroheim • Peter Weir • Orson Welles • Wim Wenders • Wong Kar-wai • William Wyler • Zhang Yimou
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Suggested Reading (click cover or title for more info)
Antonioni: The Poet of Images |
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Lukas Moodysson is the only person to have won four Guldbaggar (the Swedish equivalent of the Oscar). This is even more remarkable considering his extremely small body of work. He lives in Malmö and his films are characterized by their stark realism and stringent verite style. Moodysson was a deeply expressive artist even in his youth where he had a collection of his poems published when he was just 17. Many regard him as the future of Scandinavian cinema. He is quoted as saying "I have no conscious plan, so I don't know what happens next. There is a well inside me, but I don't know what is in it. I try to listen out for things - accidents and coincidences and hidden messages. I am a person who always finds photographs on the street and I think they are messages for me." |
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Suggested Reading (click cover or title for more info)
The Films of Ingmar Bergman (Cambridge Film Classics) |
Director - Feature filmography and DVDBeaver links:
Hål i mitt hjärta, Ett aka A Hole in My Heart (2004), Terrorister - en film om dom dömda (2003), Lilja 4-ever (2002), Tillsammans aka 'Together' (2000), Fucking Åmål aka 'Show Me Love' (1998), Bara prata lite (1997) |
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Suggested Reading (click cover or title for more info)
Robert Bresson (Cinematheque Ontario Monographs, No.
2) |
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Mikio Naruse was born in Tokyo in 1905 and is one of the least known of Japan's early master directors, both in the West as well as in his native Japan. He is credited with some of darkest expressions of humanity in early cinema. His relentlessly negative view of human existence has resulted in Naruse consistently being labeled as a nihilist. A common theme of his films dealt with "women who were not favored by the traditional way of life" and like countryman Kenji Mizoguchi showed great sympathy for the plight of these female characters. Many who were struggling to survive on only their pure will of existence. Naruse reached his creative peak in the early '50s, working extensively, like Yasujiro Ozu, in the dramas of domestic life (aka shomen-geki). Today he is recognized for his subtlety in expressing desperate, and often degraded, women striving for a quality of life. |
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Suggested Reading (click cover or title for more info)
A Hundred Years of Japanese Film by Donald Richie |
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Yasujiro Ozu is often journalistically labeled the greatest filmmaker of all time. His films dealt primarily with the dynamics of middle-class Japanese family life and the subtle conflict between generations. Universal themes examining parent/child communication were prevalent in many of his gentle social dramas. Ozu, ironically, had no direct personal exposure to this familial lifestyle remaining a lifelong bachelor. He is most recognized for his meticulous static-camera style which centered almost entirely on detailed composition. He minimized all camera movement giving his characters an unencumbered field of expression which allowed more intimate viewer bonding through his often simplified narratives. With occasional shots of trains, clocks and derricked hydro-electric lines, Ozu subtly broached the conflict of an encroaching modern displacement upon the established traditional lifestyle. Defining the intricacies of Japanese culture Ozu's cinema is credited for infusing the very essence of "mono no aware". |
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Suggested Reading (click cover or title for more info)
by Donald Richie |
Yasujiro Ozu Website
Director - Feature filmography and Review links: An Autumn Afternoon (1962), Early Autumn (1961), Late Autumn (1960), Floating Weeds (1959), Good Morning (1959), Equinox Flower (1958), Tokyo boshoku (1957), Early Spring (1956) , Tokyo Story (1953) , Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952), Early Summer (1951), The Munekata Sisters (1950), Late Spring (1949), The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947), There Was a Father (1942), The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941), A Story of Floating Weeds (1934) |
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Sergei Paradjanov was born in Tblisi, Georgia(former Soviet Union) in 1924. In 1964 he was able to direct 'Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors', a rhapsodic celebration of Ukrainian folk culture and the world discovered a startling and idiosyncratic new talent. He has since been recognized as one of the most innovative and controversial filmmakers the world has ever seen. His films are characterized by stunningly beautiful images in rich color. His work however was considered anti-Soviet by the authorities of his homeland, not conforming to the strict socialist realism that was preferred. In 1974 he was arrested by the KGB for, among other crimes, "homosexuality and illegal trafficking in religious icons". He spent four years in jail until pressure from international authorities led to his release. He died of cancer in 1990, but his legendary films live on and his picture adorns a postage stamp in Armenia. |
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Suggested Reading (click cover or title for more info)
Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema |
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Since his breakthrough film "Knife in the Water", Polanski has been investigating the darker aspect of co-existence: sociopath neurosis. His core themes are centered around an antagonism between the self and the other. His protagonists are often frail, neurotic individuals fighting against a real or perceived threat from their milieu and a fear of impending loss: loss of offspring in "Rosemary's baby", of identity in "The Tenant", of virginity in "Tess", or rationality in "Chinatown" etc. In this struggle, they find themselves isolated, trapped, unable to trust or forge alliances with anyone. Through voyeurism, ambiguous sexuality, Satanism and obsession, Polanski creates a cyclical world where the end is often worse than the beginning, where accepting and being accepted rarely come to completion, where the frustrated self finds its nightmares spring to life. While not horror films per se, Polanski's works often probe the same territory with creativity and precision, leaving behind them a long-lasting, horrifying discomfort. |
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Suggested Reading (click cover or title for more info)
Roman Polanski |
Director - Feature filmography and Review links: The Pianist (2002), The Ninth Gate (1999), Death and the Maiden (1994), Bitter Moon (1992), Frantic (1988), Pirates (1986), Tess (1979), The Tenant (1976), Chinatown (1974), What? (1972), The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971), Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), Cul-de-sac (1966), Repulsion (1965), Knife in the Water (1962) |
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Suggested Reading (click cover or title for more info)
Vittorio De Sica: Director, Actor, Screenwriter |
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Michael Powell - Director - Featured filmography and Review links: Peeping Tom (1960), The Battle of the River Plate (1956), The Tales of Hoffmann (1951), Gone to Earth (1950), The Elusive Pimpernel (1950), The Small Back Room (1949), The Red Shoes (1948), Black Narcissus (1947), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), 'I Know Where I'm Going!' (1945), A Canterbury Tale (1944), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), The Edge of the World (1937) |
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Suggested Reading
Powell and Pressburger: A Cinema of Magic Spaces
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Powell and Pressburger Website The collaborations of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger have left monumental impacts on viewers for decades with their own esoteric romanticism and visionary cinematic expressions. The films range from bearings on a complex relationship to national identity, and pragmatic and structured explorations of war, fantasy, art and escapism. Often described as "pure cinema" by champions like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola the partnership of Powell and Pressburger use extensive imagery to create encompassing and sublime atmospheric design elements. With new found exposure in their works and critical interest worldwide, modern generations of admirers have discovered and observed their aesthetically unique films of organic melodrama and subtle artistic expressionism. |
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Inverting his surnames as his marquee Nicholas Ray exposed himself as a typical perceptive and troubled artistic - quick tempered, financially irresponsible, sexuallycurious and, in his later years, dependent the brief respite of drugs and alcohol. Like Fellini. Ray taught himself filmmaking and is hence his ouvre is encrusted with a personal expression, in Ray's case a constant examination of alternate lifestyles that often violently conflict when confronted. His pragmatic, unromatic vision defines a legacy of a poet constrained by a bludegeoning production system. He leaves us with paradoxical works of instability with often self-destructive or confused protagonists learning to cope in their enviornment. |
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Suggested Reading (click cover or title for more info)
I Was Interrupted: Nicholas Ray on Making Movies |
Director - Feature filmography and Review links: Wet Dreams (1975), 55 Days at Peking (1963), King of Kings (1961), The Savage Innocents (1959), Party Girl (1958), Wind Across the Everglades (1958), Bitter Victory (1957), The True Story of Jesse James (1957) , Bigger Than Life (1956), Hot Blood (1956), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Run for Cover (1955), Johnny Guitar (1954), Androcles and the Lion (1952) (uncredited), The Lusty Men (1952), Macao (1952) (uncredited), On Dangerous Ground (1952), Flying Leathernecks (1951), Born to Be Bad (1950), In a Lonely Place (1950), A Woman's Secret (1949), Knock on Any Door (1949), They Live by Night (1948) |
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Suggested Reading (click cover or title for more info)
Vittorio De Sica: Director, Actor, Screenwriter |
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Suggested Reading (click cover or title for more info)
Jean Renoir |
Director - Feature filmography and Review links: The Elusive Corporal (1962), Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1959), The Doctor's Horrible Experiment (1959), Elena and Her Men (1956), French Cancan (1955), The Golden Coach (1953), The River (1951), The Woman on the Beach (1947), The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946), The Southerner (1945), Salute to France (1944), This Land Is Mine (1943), Swamp Water (1941), The Rules of the Game (1939), La Bête humaine (1938), La Marseillaise (1938), The Grand Illusion (1937), The Lower Depths (1936), Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936), Partie de campagne (1936), Toni (1935), Madame Bovary (1933), Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932), Night at the Crossroads (1932), Chotard and Company (1932), La Chienne (1931), On purge bébé (1931), Le Bled (1929) |
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