Hear the late ,great Ingmar Bergman speak about the early influence of The Phantom Carriage, Victor Sojostrum’s classic supernatural silent film. It’s like Bunuel talking about seeing Fritz Lang’s Destiny and how it launched him on his film career. Bergman used Sojostrom in Wild Strawberries, and supposedly the old man was very difficult to deal with. Still it is a great film, with a magnificent ending.
Here is the trailer from a cool independent film made by Barbara Loden in 1970. An amazing film, sort of a feminist Cassavettes trip. Great acting and an incredibly tense bank robbery made on a shoestring budget. Impressive. At one point Wanda the main character goes to a Spanish language movie theater and there is a poster for a film I love, The Brainiac, a Mexican Horror Film. Also you see billboards for TastyKakes, an East Coast delicacy of my childhood. Watch this film and be prepared to be blown away. Actually this is the whole film with Portuguese subtitles.
Here is the trailer for Jacques Demy’s Model Shop. His only film made in Los Angeles. It captures a disappeared L.A. that I find really beautiful. It’s screening soon at the New Beverly, if you’re in L.A. go see it.
Here’s the trailer for Robert Rossen’s The Hustler, great script, great directing, great acting, great cinematography by Eugene Schufftan and great editing by Dede Allen. Watch the whole movie and dig it!
Here is an amazing film made in an optical printer by the talented Zbignew Rybczyński. I met him in NYC years ago , he had a company called 525. He was an early adopter of Hi Def video. But this was done on film.
Here is a great behind the scenes view of maestro Federico Fellini directing Giuletta Delgi Spiriti, his first color film. Photographed by the amazing Gianni DeVenanzo, a true genius. The thing that gets me is how cheap everything looks in this footage, you see all the tricks that go into making a fim but when you watch the real movie, it all looks so amazinf=g! so beautiful, you can’t believe it’s the same thing. Watch this, then watch the movie and see for yourself the magic of movie making.
Here’s the final version of the scene.
I remember the insanity surrounding the release of The Exorcist. People waited in lines for hours to see any showing, midnight or 10 AM. I heard Warner Brothers had employees, who were heading home for the Holidays, hand carry prints to their local theaters. They were working round the clock to finish the film and make the Christmas Eve release. My pal Bud Smith edited the film, a magnificent job! My other friend, the late, great, Jack Nitzsche recorded special sound effects for the film, that add immensley to the experience. But here is a short documentary on the phenomenon of The Exorcist’s first release.
Here’s a cool TV documentary about Peter Sellers and his work with Stanley Kubrick. Great Strangelove stories and Weegee Speaks!
From Minnie and Mosskowitz
The great actor Seymour Cassel has passed on. I knew him for a long time, we first met when I was editing a film called Mobsters and Seymour played a priest. He was very angry with Chris Penn because Penn had kissed him on the mouth in a scene without telling Seymour he was going to. “You don’t do that to an actor!” I remember him saying. Anyway Seymour was in a lot of films, a whole lot. I was working with Quentin Tarantino and he gave me a copy of a film called Black Oak Conspiracy. Quentin liked this film, I watched it and there was Seymour. Not only is he in it , he’s the hero of the film, he saves the leading man at the end. A while later I was at Trader Vic’s with Seymour and I told him I had seen Black Oak Conspiracy and that he was the hero of the dammed film. He wanted to see it again.I don’t think he had seen it since he acted in it. I looked and looked but couldn’t find the copy of the film. Time passed, I never found it to give to him and I feel bad about that. Now he’s gone but everyone else can see Seymour the hero on YouTube.
Here is a great look at what went on during the making of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. His daughter Vivian had unlimited access and we are lucky that she did. We get to see the master at work. Check it out.