Storyboards by Akira Kurosawa for I Fly, an unfilmed sequence from Dreams.

(Source: strangewood)

criterioncorner:

WHEN KUROSAWA MET KIAROSTAMI

(via swintons)

Akira Kurosawa had written a favorable commentary in the publicity leaflet that accompanies the public screening in Tokyo of Abbas Kiarostami’s Where is the Friend’s Home?, And Life Goes On: 

“I believe the films of Iranian filmmaker Kiarostami are extraordinary. Words cannot relate my feelings. I suggest you his films; and then you will see what I mean. Satyajit Ray passed away and I got very upset. But having watched Kiarostami’s films, I thank god because now we have a good substitute for him. Recently, in the face of the decline of cinema in developed countries, nations with little experience in the area of filmmaking have produced valuable works; and I have to think about this more seriously after seeing Kiarostami’s films.”

An unprecedented comment by Kurosawa who seldom talks about other director’s films. In fact, during the past 43 years he has only written about the works of Andrei Tarkovsky, John Cassavetes, Ray and now Kiarostami.

Late in September 1993, Abbas Kiarostami held a two and a half hour long meeting with Akira Kurosawa in Tokyo.

Kurosawa: I have to say that I honestly enjoyed watching your films. They include appreciation for your working style. How do you work with children, in particular? They do not feel at home in my films and keep watching me in a discreet way.

Kiarostami: Maybe that’s because you are Kurosawa. The children that work for me hardly know me. During the actual filming I try to pretend that I’m not the governor. Usually I ask the crew to judge about their acting. Of course, every needs a special trick, sometimes it is another story.

Kurosawa: This is the cinema that must be supported and taken seriously. My children and grandchildren never see American films. They have their own boycotting system which rules out violent films. I wish this humanistic cinema could stand against all vulgarity.I’m sure good films are being made everywhere. But filmmaking in Europe and the States is going backwards while good films are being made in Asia and finding their way to International film festivals. The global screen is not for the films of only one country. Films make their viewers familiar with the cultural settings of their country of origins. If they are made according to a national culture then they will be welcomed abroad. My grandchildren and I made ourselves familiar with Iran and her people with your films. […]

Both of the filmmakers agree that those who look for flaws in films deprives themselves the joy watching a film.

Kurosawa: My painting teacher used to tell me to look at the world with a half closed eye. We have to see everything altogether, it is only then that we will be able to see the truth [x]

(Source: mizoguchi, via film-dot-com)

Cary Grant dressed up as Charlie Chaplin for LIFE magazine, 1963.

“He has given great pleasure to millions of people, and I hope he returns to Hollywood. Personally, I don’t think he is a Communist, but whatever his political affiliations, they are secondary to the fact that he is a great entertainer. We should not go off the deep end.”

-Cary Grant on Chaplin

On the set of A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

“I could never make an unrealistic type of picture… It would be awfully somber if people made only realistic films. However, that’s the best way I can work and if there’s no market for it then I’ll pack up as it’s the only kind of film I am interested in. If I directed a picture like Return of the Jedi or even worked on one, I would faint - I’d faint and never get up again I’d be so ashamed.”

-John Cassavetes, quoted in Cassavetes on Cassavetes

Marilyn Monroe’s chest x-ray

criterioncorner:

Akira Kurosawa on Kenji Mizoguchi (May 16, 1898 – August 24, 1956)

“His greatness was that he never gave up trying to heighten the reality of each scene. He never made compromises. He never said that something or other ‘would do.’ Instead, he pulled—or pushed—everyone along with him until they had created the feeling which matched his own inner image. An ordinary director is quite incapable of this. And in this lay his true spirit as a director—for he had the temperament of a true creator. He pushed and bullied and he was often criticized for this but he held out, and he created masterpieces. This attitude toward creation is not at all easy, but a director like him is especially necessary in Japan where this kind of pushing is so resisted. […] In the death of Mizoguchi, Japanese film lost its truest creator.”

(VIA strangewood)

(via film-dot-com)

criterioncorner:

THIS IS THE STORY OF HOW ANNA KARINA & JEAN-LUC GODARD FIRST “GOT TOGETHER”

Anna Karina: That happened while we were shooting the picture in Geneva. It was a strange love story from the beginning. I could see Jean-Luc was looking at me all the time, and I was looking at him too, all day long.  We were like animals. One night we were at this dinner in Lausanne. My boyfriend, who was a painter, was there too. And suddenly I felt something under the table – it was Jean-Luc’s hand. He gave me a piece of paper and then left to drive back to Geneva. I went into another room to see what he’d written.  It said, “I love you.  Rendezvous at midnight at the Café de la Prez.” And then my boyfriend came into the room and demanded to see the piece of paper, and he took my arm and grabbed it and read it.  He said, “You’re not going.” And I said, “I am.” And he said, “But you can’t do this to me.”  I said, “But I’m in love too, so I’m going.” But he still didn’t believe me. We drove back to Geneva and I started to pack my tiny suitcase.  He said, “Tell me you’re not going.” And I said, “I’ve been in love with him since I saw him the second time. And I can’t do anything about it.” It was like something electric. I walked there, and I remember my painter was running after me crying. I was, like, hypnotized – it never happened again to me in my life.

So I get to the Cafe de la Prez, and Jean-Luc was sitting there reading a paper, but I don’t think he was really reading it. I just stood there in front of him for what seemed like an hour but I guess was not more than thirty seconds. Suddenly he stopped reading and said,” Here you are. Shall we go?” So we went to his hotel. The next morning when I woke up he wasn’t there. I got very worried. I took a shower, and then he came back about an hour later with the dress I wore in the film - the white dress with flowers. And it was my size, perfect. It was like my wedding dress.

We carried on shooting the film, and, of course, my painter left. When the picture was finished, I went back to Paris with Jean-Luc, Michel Subor, who was the main actor, and Laszlo Szabo, who was also in the film, in Jean-Luc’s American car. We were all wearing dark glasses and we got stopped at the border – I guess they thought we were gangsters. When we arrived in Paris, Jean-Luc dropped the other two off and said to me, “Where are you going?”  I said, “I have to stay with you. You’re the only person I have in the world now.” And he said, “Oh my God.”

Extract taken from an interview with Anna Karina conducted by Graham Fuller in Projections 13: Women Film-makers on Film-making, edited by Isabella Weibrecht, John Boorman and Walter Donohue (Faber & Faber, 2004) 

(via Focus Features)

(Source: film-dot-com)

Marlon Brando taking a break from the shooting of Viva Zapata (1952)

“People ask that a lot. They say, ‘What did you do while you took time out?’, as if the rest of my life is taking time out. But the fact is, making movies is time out for me because the rest, the nearly complete whole, is what’s real for me. I’m not an actor and haven’t been for years. I’m a human being - hopefully a concerned and somewhat intelligent one - who occasionally acts.”

-Marlon Brando

Kenji Mizoguchi with Yasujiro Ozu, 1948

(via cineathome)