The House Next Door (Free subscription) | 13/11/2009
By Ed Howard Claude Chabrol has always been especially interested in the dynamics of class power, examining the nature of class with a dry, caustic wit. In La cérémonie , this examination plays out in a remote small town where the isolated lower-class maid Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) is hired by the Lelievre family. They're a typical bourgeois family, aloof and condescending. The father,...
Only The Cinema (Free subscription) | 13/11/2009
Claude Chabrol has always been especially interested in the dynamics of class power, examining the nature of class with a dry, caustic wit. In La cérémonie , this examination plays out in a remote small town where the isolated lower-class maid Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) is hired by the Lelievre family. They're a typical bourgeois family, aloof and condescending. The father, Georges (Jean-Pierre...
Concurring Opinions (Free subscription) | 13/11/2009
A recent article in the Boston Review by Evgeny Morozov laments the influence of Wikipedia. I found this passage a particularly interesting take on the epistemology (and ecology) of the web: Wikipedians . . . are obsessed with popular culture and less equipped to document the high-brow. The 711-word entry on nouvelle vague filmmaker Claude Chabrol, for example, is much less impressive than the 1867-word...
The World Of Kane. (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
"Gainsbourg (Vie Héroïque)" - The Trailer. Veuillez installer Flash Player pour lire la vidéo Featuring Éris Elmosnino (Serge), Lucy Gordon (Jane Birkin), Laetitia Casta (Brigitte Bardot), Anna Mouglalis (Juliette Gréco), Sara Forestier (France Gall), Mylène Jampanoï (Bambou) Orphée Silard (Charlotte Gainsbourg), Lucile Vezier (Kate Barry),...
[CinemaRatty] Lattest Articles (Free subscription) | 10/11/2009
An absolute gift to the sub-genre of dark and poor-taste comedies, Claude Chabrol's 1972 excursion from the thriller tells the story Dr. Simay, a lothario with a proclivity to brown baggers (aka...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 08/11/2009
There's a peculiar fascination about ambitious unfinished works that listeners, viewers and readers are left to complete in their minds. In cinema there are a string of pictures left in tantalisingly fragmentary form due to illnesses, accidents or deaths, among them Eisenstein's Que Viva México! , Renoir's Une Partie de Campagne , Von Sternberg's I, Claudius , Welles's Don Quixote and Munk's...
Flavorpill San Francisco Events (Free subscription) | 29/10/2009
Oct 29 – Nov 4 Daily @ Landmark Clay Theatre The French invented the art of the moving image over a century ago, and they haven't stopped innovating onscreen since. The San Francisco Film Society's French Cinema Now proves as much with its slate of contemporary Gallic films. The mini-fest kicks off on a light note with The French Kissers , Riad Sattouf's sharp take on that very American genre:...
mosses from an old manse (Free subscription) | 22/10/2009
La femme infidele (1969, Claude Chabrol)While Chabrol’s cinematic mirroring of alienation borders on outright satire for the most part (Bouquet’s post-murder housecleaning is priceless), in the last act he pulls a startling about-face. He puts repression back on the mantle as a valid and virtuous mode of social intercourse, presenting a stony embrace between husband and wife as a sublime...
The One-Line Review (Free subscription) | 14/10/2009
France/Italy Feature Film Director: Claude Chabrol Writers: Claude Chabrol, Paul Gégauff Cinematographer: Henri Decaë Composers: Pierre Jansen, Paul Misraki Cast: Bernadette Lafont, Clotilde Joano, Stéphane Audran, Mario David, Lucile Saint-Simon, Pierre Bertin, Jean-Louis Maury, Albert Dinan, Ave Ninchi, Sacha Briquet Chabrol’s misanthropic thriller - populated by repulsive...
Twitch (Free subscription) | 06/10/2009
One year after the smash success of its inaugural French Cinema Now (FCN), the SF Film Society has announced the line-up for its anticipated 2009 follow-up fest . This year's expanded program includes 11 new films and one revival, mostly culled from the Berlin Film Festival and Cannes' Directors Fortnight sidebar. It's an impressive roster--there are seven films I've been jonesing to see, plus four...
SHADOWPLAY (Free subscription) | 28/09/2009
I came to Claude Chabrol’s 1970 drama-thriller LA RUPTURE with little advance knowledge, having seen a pretty sparse smattering of Chabrol movies, and knowing nothing of the plot beyond the words “divorce drama.” Which is quite a good approach if you want to be blown away. I guess this means that people who haven’t seen the [...]
Londonist (Free subscription) | 25/09/2009
Those galas sell out fast, don’t they? But there’s plenty more on view at next month’s London Film Festival , especially for those of you who like your films with a side order of subtitles. The typically strong French selection includes Bluebeard , a dark fairytale by Catherine Breillat, Bellamy, which brings together Claude Chabrol and Gérard Depardieu for the first time,...
"Let's Not Talk About Movies" (Free subscription) | 17/09/2009
" The Butcher " aka "Le Boucher" ( Claude Chabrol , 1969) Life is hardly a banquet if you're a serial killer. Chilly suspense film of a Hitchcock blond ( Stéphane Audran ), a schoolteacher in a small provincial town, who strikes up a friendship with the local butcher and begins to suspect him of a series of brutal knife-slayings in the area . Chabrol, a former film critic,...
Living in Cinema (Free subscription) | 16/09/2009
The first selections for the 23rd AFI Fest in Los Angeles were announced today with a number of films that have been getting lots of buzz at recent festivals. Cannes: Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet, Marco Bellochio’s Vincere, Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric, Corneliu Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective, Bong Joon-ho’s Mother. Berlin: Claude Chabrol’s Bellamy Sundance: Lee Daniels’...
Movie Talk (Free subscription) | 07/09/2009
Dig beneath the surface of veteran French director Claude Chabrol’s droll crime thriller The Girl Cut in Two (La fille coupée en deux) lurks a dark modern-day fairy tale about innocence and corruption, power and illusion. In present-day Lyons, Ludivine Sagnier’s ambitious TV weather girl Gabrielle Deneige, the film’s symbol of youthful purity, finds herself being [...]
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