goback3spaces (October 8, 2008 at 6:14 am)

What about Ingmar Bergman? I first saw PERSONA in 1982, age 15, and I feel that this experience changed my life more than any other single film viewing.

Boudosaved (September 16, 2008 at 3:53 am)

Mizoguchi, Ozu, Kurosawa and several others are excellent. Sansho the Bailiff is one of my favorites but so is Ugetsu by Mizoguchi.

DonFarshido (September 15, 2008 at 11:51 pm)

and btw, when we're talking about the greatest directors of all time (this is of course subjective and our knowledge differs, so this can go on and on), and you mentioned Teshigahara (who afaik was also a favourite of Tarkovsky's), what about the great japanese directors in general? If one would ask me about the greatest, I would tend to say Mizoguchi, and if I would have to pick the one film which I believe is able to turn the world upside down, it would be "Sansho Dayu".

DonFarshido (September 15, 2008 at 11:44 pm)

I tend to agree as well. But I would also say that cinematic poetry is not something which is necessarily achieved by cinematic extravaganza - Chaplin and Keaton are great poets and offer us a deep understanding of the world through a language which is distinctly their own and a world created by it which as well is distinctly their own. Avantgarde-filmmaker Jean-Marie Straub called Chaplin the greatest editor of all time (!), and Bresson himself felt more close to him than to anybody else.

flowersforcaligula (September 10, 2008 at 6:43 am)

Is there anywhere I can get the transcript of this scene in French? Thanks.

laoula (September 7, 2008 at 5:08 am)

It is a pirate bay full of sharks and people like to copy everthing overthere from the finest perfumes to the repertoire movies. There is a Taipan who rules everything overthere. You could maybe read James Clavell's trilogy about this place. Very page turning books.I thought it was the place you mentioned where I could find a copy of Alphaville - that I could find nowhere else...

cuddlyable3 (September 6, 2008 at 8:49 am)

Where on earth is Taipanville?

laoula (September 6, 2008 at 1:15 am)

I don't know how to order to Taipanville, that's the problem.

cuddlyable3 (September 1, 2008 at 7:25 pm)

This beautiful IMO cameo is being variously applauded and/or analyzed here, but it was never meant to be detached from its context. The whole film is about human alienation and contemporary viewers would have recognised Eddie Constantine parodying his stereotype private eye character, and Goddard's blatant borrowing from Orwell's 1984.

cuddlyable3 (September 1, 2008 at 6:59 pm)

It's available as a torrent via - ahem - a bay of pirates.