Arquivos da tag:David Lean

Centenário de William Holden

Bom, desnecessário apresentações, uma vez que o Holden abria o seu sorrisão ou dava uma tiradinha irônica, não havia escapatória para o seu charme infinito. Nunca um top me foi tão sofrido, entre outros profissionais de cinema sempre me foi fácil escolher entre um e outro filme, aqui eu realmente não sabia o que ficavaContinuar lendo “Centenário de William Holden”

Richard Attenborough (1923 – 2014)

Top dúzia como ator: 1- Neste Mundo e no Outro (A Matter of Life and Death, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1946) 2- A Noite Toda (All Night Long, Basil Dearden, 1962) 3- O Fantástico Dr. Dolittle (Doctor Dolittle, Richard Fleischer, 1967) 4- Fugindo do Inferno (The Great Escape, John Sturges, 1963) 5- Um BeatleContinuar lendo “Richard Attenborough (1923 – 2014)”

Centenário de Sir Alec Guinness

Top dúzia, então: 1- Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) 2- As Oito Vítimas (Kind Hearts and Coronets, Robert Hamer, 1949) 3- Trilogia Star Wars (Lucas/Kershner/Marquand, 1977/1980/1983) 4- Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965) 5- Quinteto da Morte (The Ladykillers, Alexander Mackendrick, 1955) 6- A Ponte do Rio Kwai (The Bridge on the River Kwai, DavidContinuar lendo “Centenário de Sir Alec Guinness”

Peter O’Toole (1932 – 2013)

O último dos hellraisers… Top-dúzia, então: 1- Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) 2- Ratatouille (Brad Bird/Jan Pinkava, 2007) 3- O Substituto (The Stunt Man, Richard Rush, 1980) 4- Como Roubar Um Milhão de Dólares (How to Steal a Million, William Wyler, 1966) 5- Sangue Sobre a Neve (The Savage Innocents, Nicholas Ray, 1960) 6-Continuar lendo “Peter O’Toole (1932 – 2013)”

Centenário de Carlo Ponti

É humanamente impossível fazer um top dos filmes produzidos por ele, mas dá pra citar alguns dos favoritos num top dúzia.

Lean – Powell

Lean quickly mastered the craft of editing sound movies and continued to assist other directors in cutting talkies. He developed his own approach to assembling the footage for a sound picture, virtually ignoring the sound track, and cutting the film primarily by focusing on the images. Michael Powell, who would one day commission Lean toContinuar lendo “Lean – Powell”

Centenário de Ronald Neame

In a directorial career stretching for over forty years, Ronald Neame proved to be a reliable and versatile commercial film-maker but also one who defies easy categorisation. Efficient and craftsman-like, his films are well made but have lacked the individualism seemingly required to achieve auteur status. Instead he has been the epitome of the mainstream studio director, a model of professionalism whose output has often mirrored the ups and downs of the industry.
He was born in London on 23 April 1911. His father was the noted portrait photographer and film director Elwin Neame and his mother the actress Ivy Close. After his father’s early death in a car accident, he had to leave public school and went to work for an oil company. With his mother’s help, he entered the film industry at the Elstree studios of British International Pictures in 1927 and worked his way up from clapperboy to focus puller and eventually cinematographer. He photographed many quota quickies in the 1930s, along with a number of George Formby vehicles at Ealing. He established a solid reputation, winning his first Oscar nomination for his work on Powell and Pressburger’s One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942). With Major Barbara (1941), he began an association with the film’s editor, David Lean. He worked initially as his director of photography on three Noël Coward projects (he was nominated for a second Oscar for Blithe Spirit in 1945). In 1943 they founded the production company Cineguild with Anthony Havelock-Allen which operated under the Rank umbrella. After a fact-finding trip to Hollywood on behalf of Rank, Neame switched to producing and scriptwriting, making important contributions to Lean’s two Dickens adaptations and to the classic romance Brief Encounter (1945), picking up further Academy Award nominations in these new roles. Unfortunately, his partnership with Lean ended rather acrimoniously when Lean took over the direction of The Passionate Friends (1948) from Neame.
He made his debut as a director for Cineguild with Take My Life (1947), a more than competent Hitchcock-style thriller which showed Neame’s technical skill as a film-maker. Throughout his career his work was uneven, so that the routine action hokum of The Golden Salamander (1949) was followed by the excellent sub-Ealing comedy The Card (1952) featuring Alec Guinness. Based on Arnold Bennett’s novel, it is a sympathetic account of the nefarious rise of a humble clerk as he finds various ways to take advantage of the hierarchies of the British class system. Neame showed a real lightness of touch handling comic subjects, spinning out the thin premise of The Million Pound Note (1953) with some style and again drawing a fine performance from Guinness as an idiosyncratic painter in his pleasing adaptation of Joyce Cary’s novel The Horse’s Mouth (1958). In the 1950s he also made the intriguing wartime espionage tale The Man Who Never Was (1955), as well as having a brief, unsuccessful stint in Hollywood where he was eventually replaced as director on The Seventh Sin (1957).
Neame’s liking for non-conformist characters reaches its height in his most acclaimed film Tunes of Glory (1960), a compelling barrackroom melodrama which also shows his skill in handling actors; here he is rewarded with memorable performances by John Mills and Alec Guinness as the two officers engaged in a violent clash of personalities. Like The Horse’s Mouth, it was made for his own production company Knightsbridge Films. His 1960s output continued to be extremely variable. It included two Swinging London films, the amiable caper movie Gambit (1966) with Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine and the instantly dated risqué comedy Prudence and the Pill (1968), on which he worked uncredited. He directed Judy Garland in her last film, I Could Go on Singing (1963), and had another spell in the States where he completed two unremarkable projects, Escape from Zahrain (1961) and A Man Could Get Killed (1966). The best-received work from this period was The Prime of Miss Jean Brody (1969). This popular adaptation of the stage version of Muriel Spark’s novel provided Maggie Smith with a show-off role which duly won her an Oscar, but the film has considerable difficulty dealing with the essential theatricality of the story and characters.
After the middling musical Scrooge (1970) with Albert Finney in the title role, Neame took up permanent residence in Hollywood, eventually becoming an American citizen. He was responsible for establishing the ‘disaster movie’ genre with the immensely successful The Poseidon Adventure (1972), although he followed it with one of the worst examples of this cycle, Meteor (1979). He also made two enjoyable, lightweight pieces with Walter Matthau, Hopscotch (1980) and First Monday in October (1981). The best of his limited British work in this period is the tautly effective thriller The Odessa File (1974), from Frederick Forsyth’s bestselling novel, with Jon Voight uncovering a Neo-Nazi group. Nothing can forgive the atrocious sex comedy Foreign Body (1986) which looks like a relic from another era. His final film was The Magic Balloon (1990), a children’s adventure designed to show off the new ShowScan widescreen format which consequently only had a limited release.
Throughout his career Neame was always a smoothly professional film-maker, adopting an unostentatious approach which relied greatly on his actors and which frequently left him at the mercy of the script. When these were good he produced highly effective films which often showcased outstanding acting performances. Even on his poorer commercial assignments there is an ability to serve the narrative no matter how inadequate this might be. His achievements, which include his active role in the industry union ACT and with the British Society of Cinematographers, were recognised with a BAFTA Fellowship and the CBE, both awarded in 1996.

Guide of British Film Directors – Robert Shail

Lean & Pressburger

When he finally does so, David suggests that they cut their trip short, go to Benares without Leila and prepare a short synopsis so that Pressburger could be home by Christmas. Which is more or less what happened. Pressburger thinks up a title – WRITTEN IN THE STARS – and he gets some solid workContinuar lendo “Lean & Pressburger”

Nota mental: British Neo-Romanticism

The term neo-romanticism is synonymous with post-Romanticism or late Romanticism. It is a long-lived movement in the arts and literature.
It is considered to be a reaction to naturalism. The naturalist in art stresses external observation, whereas the neo-romanticist adds feeling and internal observation. These artists tend to draw their inspiration from artists of the age of high romanticism, and from the sense of place they perceive in historic rural landscapes; and in this they react in general to the ‘ugly’ modern world of machines, new cities, and profit. Characteristic themes include longing for perfect love, utopian landscapes, nature reclaiming ruins, romantic death, and history-in-landscape. Neo-romanticism is often accused by critics of being too insular, too interested in figurative painting and beauty, too fond of intuition, too distrustful of ideological & theoretical ways of comprehending art, and too in love with the past and the idealised / spiritual / haunted landscape. This was particularly so in the decades after both of the world wars.

Os Filmes Bacanas de Cada Ano que o Cinema Viveu: 1962

Now Hear This (Chuck Jones/Maurice Noble) Nota: Tenho que mencionar o quanto Lawrence da Arábia foi importante no meu desabrochar como cinéfila, assistir aquele filme pela primeira vez foi de tal forma impactante que certamente está entre os três maiores momentos que me fizeram amar o cinema. A comunhão de Maurice Jarre, Freddie Young, PeterContinuar lendo “Os Filmes Bacanas de Cada Ano que o Cinema Viveu: 1962”