Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Michelangelo Antonioni 1912-2007


Yesterday, after hearing about Bergman's death, I said to my wife, "Antonioni's about the only old master left." How odd that he died the same day. I forgot about a few people when I said that. The French New Wave filmmakers are mostly still kicking and (mostly) still making good films, e.g. Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Alain Resnais. However, they are nearly a generation younger than Bergman and Antonioni. Portugal's Manoel de Oliveira is 99 years old and still making an average of two films a year. He's the only director living and, more impressively, working today who started in the silent-film era. However, though critically regarded as a master, his films haven't been distributed well, and only a handful are available on DVD in this country. So Antonioni may have been the last of a dying breed, namely, classic directors beginning their careers in the 1940s.




"Scientific man is already on the moon, and yet we are still living with the moral concepts of Homer."

"Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing."
--Michelangelo Antonioni

Monday, July 30, 2007

Ingmar Bergman, 1918-2007







"I hope I never get so old I get religious."
--Ingmar Bergman





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Sunday, July 29, 2007

Bathroom Break Series #1


















From now on, whenever we pause a DVD for a bathroom or get-another-beer break at the Dr. Mystery/Spacebeer household, we will take a picture of the paused screen and post the photo on Film-Watching Robot. Here is the first photo, from Guillermo Del Toro's Cronos.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Monday, July 02, 2007

Edward Yang, 1947-2007



On my 30th birthday, I suddenly said to myself, 'Damn, I'm getting old!' I realized that I had to change my life. I needed to start doing something that I could enjoy and through which I could feel fulfilled.
-- Edward Yang, on quitting his computer engineering job to make films

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