Anxiously awaiting La La Land! Read on – MS/PasDeMerde
What would the world be like if everyone, every now and then, just broke into song? Trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic? Climb out of the car, kick up your heels, belt out a tune.
Source: ‘La La Land’ opens Philly film fest with joyous song-and-dance love story
Chanson Du Jour 10/20/2016 “La Valse D’ Amelie” by Yann Tiersen
This is one my favorites from the film Amelie. Composer/performer Yann Tiersen plays piano, accordion, violin as well as melodica, xylophone, toy piano, bicycle wheel and a typewriter in one of the greatest film soundtracks ever made. Tiersen won a 2001 BAFTA Award for Best Film Music for Amelie (should have won the Oscar.)
The “Sanctuary!” scene from the classic 1939 version of Victor Hugo’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” starring Charles Laughton as Quasimodo and Maureen O’Hara as Esmeralda.
“Hunchback” was the only movie screened at the very first Cannes Film Festival, as the remainder of the festival was cancelled when Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939. The bell-ringing scene was Laughton’s response to impending war. The actor later said he rang the bells actually wanting “to arouse the (real) world, to stop that terrible butchery!”
“It is absurd to speak of Laughton’s Quasimodo as a great performance, as if that were some quantifiable assessment. It is acting at its greatest; it is Laughton at his greatest; it is a cornerstone of this century’s dramatic achievement; it is a yardstick for all acting.”
– SIMON CALLOW, NY Times 1988
I remember as a teenager, discovering Carl Dreyer’s seminal “The Passion of Joan of Arc” on a midnight movie tv program – way back when one had to leave a couch to change channels. I didn’t leave the couch, and the image of Maria Falconetti’s Joan, with head shaved and tears streaming down her face, have stayed with me ever since. Those eyes!
An interesting piece on Dreyer from France24, below.
“The Passion of Joan of Arc” was regarded as a miracle of cinema long before its original print resurfaced in a Norwegian mental institution. A new retrospective at the Paris Cinémathèque helps rediscover its revered director.
Source: The Passion of Carl Dreyer: Paris celebrates cinema’s ‘forgotten’ master – France 24
LYON, France — Catherine Deneuve was honored with the Lumière Award Friday evening during an emotional ceremony with Roman Polanski, Quentin Tarantino, Bertrand Tavernier, Lambert Wilson, Vincent Lindon, Thierry Fremaux, and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni on stage. Fremaux, who heads both the Cannes
Source: Lumière Festival: Catherine Deneuve On Truffaut, Trump, And Why She Never Had a Hollywood Career
Long Way North, or Tout en Haut du Monde, is a 2015 French/Danish animated feature film directed by Remi Chaye who was also the assistant director of
Source: [REVIEW] ‘Long Way North’
Pas De Merde 