"SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN" - Dir. Fei Mu (1948)

For those who have been looking to find Fei Mu's film as long as I have, it's been uploaded to archive.org along with subtitles.

Spring in a Small Town is a Chinese film released in 1948 and directed by Fei Mu. The film was based on a short story by Li Tianji, and was produced by the Wenhua Film Company.

Though its reputation suffered after 1949 in the mainland after the Communist revolution, within the last 20 years it had become known as one of the greatest Chinese films ever made.

Archive.org

Golden Horse Announces Top 100 Chinese Films.

A bit late on picking this story up but...

The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (台北金馬影展) has announced the results of its survey of the "100 Greatest Chinese-Language Films".

122 industry professionals took part in the survey, including film scholars, festival programmers, film directors, actors and producers. However the majority of the voters orginate from Taiwan, which likely skewed the results.

01. A City of Sadness (悲情城市); dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), 1989
02. A Brighter Summer Day (牯嶺街少年殺人事件); dir. Edward Yang (楊德昌), 1991
03. A Time to Live and a Time to Die (童年往事); dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), 1985
04. Days of Being Wild (阿飛正傳); dir. Wong Kar-wai (王家衛), 1990
05. Spring in a Small Town (小城之春); dir. Fei Mu (費穆), 1948
06. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍); dir. Ang Lee (李安), 2000
07. Yi Yi: A One and a Two (一一); dir. Edward Yang (楊德昌), 2000
07. Dust in the Wind (戀戀風塵); dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), 1986
09. Dragon Inn (龍門客棧); dir. King Hu (胡金銓), 1967
09. In the Mood for Love (花樣年華); dir. Wong Kar-wai (王家衛), 2000

Full List Here.

Cig # 6 - Kansas City Confidential

Kansas City Confidential (USA, 1952) - Dir. Phil Karlson

Inspiration for both Reservoir Dogs (USA, 1982, Dir. Quentin Taratino) and City of Fire (Lung fu fong wan, Hong Kong, 1987, Dir. Ringo Lam)????

archive.org: DOWNLOAD.

Revisiting an old idea for a film watching blog.
Search tag "100cigs" for more.

"BLACK BREAKFAST" - Dir. Jia Zhang Ke (2008)

Jia Zhang Ke's short for an omnibus compilation, STORIES ON HUMAN RIGHTS (2008).

Bela Tarr Homage in the Simpsons.

The Simpsons (2010/Groening/USA) Season 21, Episode #19

Werckmeister Harmonies (2000/Tarr/Hungary)
(via unspoken cinema.)

"Tango" - Dir. Zbig Rybczynski (1980)

"Thirty-six characters from different stages of life - representations of different times - interact in one room, moving in loops, observed by a static camera. I had to draw and paint about 16.000 cell-mattes, and make several hundred thousand exposures on an optical printer. It took a full seven months, sixteen hours per day, to make the piece. The miracle is that the negative got through the process with only minor damage, and I made less than one hundred mathematical mistakes out of several hundred thousand possibilities. In the final result, there are plenty of flaws; black lines are visible around humans, jitters caused by the instability of film material resulting from film perforation and elasticity of celluloid, changes of colour caused by the fluctuation in colour temperature of the projector bulb and, inevitably, dirt, grain and scratches.”

- Zbig Rybczynski –"Looking to the Future - Imagining the Truth,” in FranÐois Penz, Maureen Thomas, Cinema & Architecture. Mþliús, Mallet-Stevens, Multimedia, BFI, London, 1997.

More Info: http://www.zbigvision.com/Tango.html

"Fiasco" - Albert Serra (2008)

"Chaplin es un putrefacto sentimental" - Albert Serra

Cuatro interpretaciones muy diferentes del cine de Chaplin. ¿Por qué este homenaje?

En mi caso, por amistad con los programadores del ciclo. Nada más. No me interesa Chaplin y mi trabajo es una burla de su cine.

¿Qué queda del cine de Chaplin en las nuevas generaciones?

Curiosamente lo peor de su cine, su narrativa y sus moralejas populistas.

¿Cuál es el hilo conductor de las cuatro historias, además del homenaje al genial cineasta?

No he visto las otras. En mi caso, ya he dicho que yo sigo la vieja divisa surrealista de considerar a Chaplin un putrefacto sentimental. Como un viejo boxeador yo siempre estaré con Keaton, Harry Langdon y Animal Crackers y contra Chaplin. Además, hay algo de sospechoso en provenir del slapstick puro y adaptarse tan bien al cine sonoro.

Usted dirige Fiasco, estructurado en un único capítulo: Los grandes dictadores: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini y Mao Tse-tung. Cuatro personajes ataviados con pelucas y con una pancarta en la que se lee "Fiasco", parodian a los cuatro mandatarios. Simulan palizas, violaciones y masturbaciones, todo ello para dejar claro que ellos son los que ostentan el poder. Hábleme más de este trabajo.

Era una forma de mostrar mi protesta contra el sentimentalismo barato de este gran mistificador y talentoso cómico que sólo supo abrazar las causas más lamentables, entre ellas las de hacer mucho dinero y guardarlo muy bien. Es un filme pesimista que habla del fiasco de la especie humana contra el humanismo rídiculo de Chaplin. Y, al mismo tiempo, es un homenaje a los grandes dictadores y contra El gran dictador, de Chaplin.

Sharunas Bartas- "Children Lose Nothing"

Sharunas Bartas short for the "Visions of Europe" (2004) omnibus.
This made my day.