With The Dark Knight Rises coming out next weekend I thought it appropriate to finally check out and post this short. In just three minutes you get a pre-cursor a glimpse of the brilliance of Chris Nolan. Its seemingly minimalist in story and set, but as per usual, his story is much bigger than its trappings. That’s about as much as I care to say, lest I come too close to giving something away.
Enjoy!
This past Sunday I detailed some films both that I had seen and not yet seen based on what their location was in honor of Canada Day. In that post I also detailed my difficulty in locating films for certain localities, most notably the Yukon. Well, sure enough one of my wonderful contributors @poced thought one up and linked me to a video shortly after the post went up.
City of Gold is not only an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary, Short Subject it has also been cited as an influence on the works of Ken Burns. How this is so should be fairly evident early on as this film is date 1957 and Burns was trying to convince people his techniques would work on a film about the Brooklyn Bridge in the late 70s and Early 80s.
Aside from the importance the film claims in the progression of documentary aesthetics, it is a great story about Dawson City, Yukon that is wonderfully executed. The script, which has to be strong for a film like this to work, is captivating; and the conjoining of archival photography and contemporary motion picture footage is compelling, and some of the images are magical.
OK, I will readily admit that this one is a cheat as it is not a short film per se but rather a trailer. However, oh what a trailer it is and on the heels of yesterday’s post regarding the general terribleness of the form I felt this was an appropriate antidote.
For below you will witness in about two-and-a-half minutes much of the tone, the concept behind Marcell Jankovics’ The Tragedy of Man and a lot of the story. However, what you don’t get in its entirety is the epic sweep of the 2 hour and 40 minute tale, the precise allusions and comparisons only intimations of what they are.
Here’s the article on Cartoon Brew that made me aware of it:
One of the most unique voices in animation, Marcell Jankovics, the Hungarian director of features like Fehérlófia and shorts like Sisyphus, has completed a new feature. And this is not any film, but a two-hour, forty-minute epic that was in production for nearly 25 years!
The film, Az ember tragédiája (The Tragedy of Man) was released in Hungary last December. It’s adapted from a famous Hungarian play of the same name written by Imre Madách. A film review by Vassilis Kroustallis suggests that it’s relentlessly bleak and somewhat repetitive, yet worth seeing:
Lucifer, the co-creator of the world (according to his statement) tests Adam and puts him to sleep to see his destiny through the ages. The trip is interesting, visually stimulating (but never pretty), and relentlessly repeating. Not a single note of happiness or laughter enters The Tragedy of Man, which proceeds from the Garden of Eden to Egypt and then to classical Greece, Rome, Christianity and beyond…The choice of the stories to tell is varied and remarkable. Along with the usual historical suspects (Danton and the French Revolution, Hitler and Stalin), the Miltiades story from Greece (a general who becomes a traitor), and the Tancred and Crusades segment—along with the battles on the Filioque—are a treat to watch in this context.
Jankovics’ work is always a unique visual experience, and one expects this to be no different. Aeon Flux creator Peter Chung described Jankovics’ style best when he wrote that Jankovics can “make the movement a primary aspect of the design. Every element—character & setting, foreground & background, color & shape, is integrated into a total composition in motion. It approaches the idea of animation as a visual equivalent to music, with analogs to melody, rhythm and harmony working in a non-literal evocation of ideas and feelings.
”
At last the trailer:
I know after having seen this I am going crazy with anticipation to get a chance to see this film. That’s just based on the trailer alone. You combine that with the fact that this is film is based on a play that spawned one of my favorite films, The Annunciation, and it’s a must-see in my book anyway.
Now, to make up for the above cheat, here’s an actual short of his entitled Sisyphus.
Wes Anderson’s film Moonrise Kingdom, which will be reviewed here shortly (Hint: I liked it), features six fictitious books that are Suzy’s (Kara Hayward) favorites and she reads from constantly. Aside from having a heroine who is an avid reader, thus encouraging reading in general, the film is also very creative in making these tales. Not only does Suzy read aloud from these imagined tomes but different artists were commissioned to create the covers and also animate this short film, which is not only entertaining, but gives you a glimpse into the world of this film without spoiling it.
Enjoy!
Helena Bonham Carter and Ben Kingsley in A Therapy (Prada)
At the time of his arrest I wrote an editorial on Roman Polanski. It’s not really topical unless there’s a new development with regards to his status so I don’t foresee reporting it any time soon. I will merely state that I watch films and the works of filmmakers. I do not confuse the artist and the man, nor do I allow my perception of creative persona to color what my thoughts are on a person and vice versa. After all, Woody Allen still releases a film a year on average and his scandalous divorce from Mia Farrow is barely mentioned anymore.
Having said all that, here are some interesting things to note about this very short film Polanski has made for Prada. First, it’s a short film commissioned by a corporation, which is back en vogue since BMW started making a few for web consumption. The second thing is the film is completely about the performance of Ben Kingsley and is a great example of a flashback not taken. You can see in his face there’s a reverie, a remembrance but we see it only in his face and not in actuality. It’s great stuff.
As is the case with many of the shorts I’ve been posting I found this one on twitter. One way or another most of them surface from there.
This one was posted by Patrick Gibson, a young actor most recently seen on SyFy’s mini-series Neverland, who posted here his first role.
Here is the information provided with the YouTube upload:
Directed by Adrienne Michel-Long. Featuring Kathy Downes, Pauge Behan and Patrick Gibson.
Rita’s relationship with husband Michael is in difficulty: she is tired of looking after her two small children and just wants to get back to work. An au pair seems like the solution to all her problems….or is it?
Adrienne Michel-Long works as a film director and writer. She has directed two short films. Her first was an RTÉ and Irish Film Board Short Cuts International award winning short film, which was called Bye Bye Inkhead (2001). Luka her second award winning short film, which she also wrote, was also an Irish Film Board funded “Short Short” (2004).
Cast and Crew: http://imdb.to/Inkhead
It’s a humorous string of situations, which while it doesn’t follow a rule of three it does complete its tale and rather visually also. It also differentiates itself in as much as its not a classic nanny tale, wherein the perfect nanny is found but best not to say more than that. Enjoy!
Previously I had heard from one of my professors that few student films he ever saw were good in and of themselves. Meaning that no student caveat was needed. I believe he cited Scorsese as one of the few exceptions.
Now, I’ve finally viewed some examples:
First, a New Wave-inspired tale…
Next, his first mob tale…
Here’s one by Jim Henson and I swear that even if I hadn’t told you that you’d likely have guessed. This is pre-Muppets and Sesame Street but his author’s voice is the same. This film was commissioned so there’s some background which needs to be given. I have quoted the information that accompanies the video on YouTube, which frames it very well:
Jim Henson made this film in 1963 for The Bell System. Specifically, it was made for an elite seminar given for business owners, on the then-brand-new topic — Data Communications. The seminar itself involved a lot of films and multimedia presentations, and took place in Chicago. A lengthy description of the planning of the Bell Data Communications Seminar — sans a mention of the Henson involvement — is on the blog of Inpro co-founder Jack Byrne. It later was renamed the Bell Business Communications Seminar.
The organizers of the seminar, Inpro, actually set the tone for the film in a three-page memo from one of Inpro’s principals, Ted Mills to Henson. Mills outlined the nascent, but growing relationship between man and machine: a relationship not without tension and resentment: “He [the robot] is sure that All Men Basically Want to Play Golf, and not run businesses — if he can do it better.” (Mills also later designed the ride for the Bell System at the 1964 World’s Fair.) Henson’s execution is not only true to Mills’ vision, but he also puts his own unique, irreverent spin on the material.
The robot narrator used in this film had previously starred in a skit for a food fair in Germany (video is silent), in 1961. It also may be the same robot that appeared on the Mike Douglas Show in 1966. Henson created a different — but similar — robot for the SKF Industries pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair.
This film was found in the AT&T Archives. Thanks go to Karen Falk of the Henson Archives for providing help and supporting documentation to prove that it was, indeed, a Henson production..
Footage courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ
For more from the AT&T Archives, visit http://techchannel.att.com/archives
This is a film that was referred to me by a Twitter friend of mine, @rurugby who also suggested the See the Movie then Read the Book post to me.
This is a very short but also very funny film wherein you get probably the funniest and least annoying in screening reaction you’ve witnessed. Provided by Mel Brooks. This film was suggested to me by way of a link and here’s the story’s inspiration as they tell it:
One day in early 1962, Mel Brooks was sitting in a New York City theater watching an avant-garde film by the Scottish-born Canadian animator Norman McLaren when he heard someone in the audience expressing bewilderment. “Three rows behind me,” Brooks told Kenneth Tynan for a 1978 New Yorker profile, “there was an old immigrant man mumbling to himself. He was very unhappy because he was waiting for a story line and he wasn’t getting one.”
Brooks enlisted Ernest Pintoff, who produced an Academy Award-nominated short called The Violinist, to help him make the film. Pintoff hired the artist Bob Heath to do the animation, Brooks ad-libbed the voiceover, and voilà: an Oscar-winning movie that today works perfectly on YouTube. Enjoy.
As soon as I saw the opening image of Ghild I thought to myself “Wow, that looks great, I really hope there’s a live action component to this film.” Seeing as how it easily coud’ve been stop-motion or some other animated form based on the opening image, I thought that was nothing more than a pipe-dream, well sure enough it live action.
It’s some of the most creative production design I’ve seen since The Hole.
It’s also a hilarious concept, overall not just in narrative but also in conception and execution.
You may also recognize Jimmy Bennett as the father and Harland Williams in a cameo.
It’s the most I’ve laughed out loud in a while.
Enjoy!
