The Godfather Trilogy
Adapting Mario Puzo’s best-selling novel, Francis Ford Coppola drew up several themes lying dormant within its pages and augmented them in a uniquely cinematic fashion to create a masterful saga.
Tag Archives: Cannes Film Festival
400. The 400 Blows
In January 1954, Francois Truffaut wrote a landmark essay on film criticism. Five years later, he put his theory into practice and cinema never been the same since.
398. Rome, Open City
Rome Open City began filming as Auschwitz was liberated and Roberto Rossellini’s film marks a crucial step in the creation of art in the wake of the Holocaust.
396. L’Avventura
With this modernist masterpiece, Michelangelo Antonioni told a story that abandoned its initial plot. Booed at Cannes, it paved the way for a new cinematic form.
395. The Conversation
It is said a film is made three times; writing, filming and editing. In which case, editor Walter Murch deserves enormous credit for this masterpiece.
394. Amarcord
Like many Fellini films, Amarcord is a contradiction; an account of his youth yet a complete fabrication, a vivid realisation of the past, but also a dream.
386. Ten
Master auteur, Abbas Kiarostami forged his career by defying conventional film grammar to successfully find new ways of presenting the human condition.
378. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Cristian Mungiu won the Palme d’Or for his unflinching drama about a single day in the lives of two young women.
375. sex, lies, and videotape
With his Palme d’Or winning debut, Steven Soderbergh made a modern classic as well as a how-to manual for film students.
370. Cinema Paradiso
Nostalgia originally had nothing to do with the past but rather a desire to return home. Cinema Paradiso resonates with the feeling that cinema is your home.
356. Hidden
Michael Haneke asks audiences difficult questions yet never provides easy answers. When he calls his film Hidden, can we expect anything different?
348. The Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)
Of the four adaptations of Octave Mirbeau’s controversial novel, Luis Buñuel’s version is by far the most faithful… and radical.
345. Lost in Translation
Sofia Coppola’s off-beat romance deftly explores isolation, miscommunication and the superficiality of modern media.
339. No Country for Old Men
While Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed novel broke genre convention, the Coens’ adaptation is a study in audiovisual chaos.
330. Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Werner Herzog’s hallucinatory telling of a Conquistador’s search for El Dorado etches a landscape of greed on the human face.
323. Saturday Night Fever
While mostly remembered for John Travolta’s dancing, his white suit hides misogyny, racism, homophobia and gang rape.
322. Yi Yi
As the title to Edward Yang’s masterpiece indicates, Yi Yi is a series of doubles; narrative, thematic, visual and aural, that deliver a subtle family portrait.
314. Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion
Elio Petri’s bitterly satirical Oscar winner from 1970 cuts a stark picture of today’s political leaders.
302. Festen
William Shakespeare, Sigmund Freud, Ingmar Bergman and John Cassavetes are just some of the disparate influences on view in Thomas Vinterberg’s masterpiece.
300. The Wages of Fear
Described as the most evil film ever made, Henri George Clouzot’s masterpiece resembles Hemingway, Hitchcock, neo-realism and Casablanca.
288. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
With his Palme d’Or winning masterpiece, Jacques Demy wove more than a musical. He delivered a socially relevant story worthy of tragic opera.
282. The Leopard
All countries have troubled histories they would rather forget. The Leopard is a masterpiece that admits to those troubles as well as the failure to fix them.
281. Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver was written in ten days by first-time screenwriter, Paul Schrader as a means to exorcise his festering, masochistic, narcissistic anger.
274. Day for Night
Francois Truffaut created the auteur theory, and with Day for Night he delivered a tribute to the art form without which he felt his life could not make sense.
