#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 17: someone sets a world record on #GuinnessWorldRecordsDay
#DavidCobham's #Muloorina (1964) tells about a small, arid town in #Australia that one day finds itself on the world's stage. Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, a local salt lake that hasn't seen a drop of rain in nine years, is the perfect spot for a landspeed record attempt by British daredevil #DonaldCampbell and his #Bluebird ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/muloorina-1964
#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 24: holiday shopping on #BlackFriday
A little boy takes in the magic of pre-Christmas, while the adults rush and worry about all that must to be bought in #RolandKlick's Weihnacht (1963) > https://write.underworld.fr/settima/weihnacht-1963
#holidays #Christmas #ShortFilm #documentary #docudrama #capitalism #WestGermany #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film
#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 25: protecting a woman on #WhiteRibbonDay
In #AkiraKurosawa's 隠し砦の三悪人 [The Hidden Fortress] (1958), a couple of greedy peasants escort a man and woman across enemy lines after the man has promised them a share of the gold they're carrying. Unknowingly, the fools not only protect their bounty, but a general and princess trying to escape an enemy clan so they can rebuild their kingdom ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/yin-shizhai-nosan-e-ren-1958
be (Toshirō Mifune) facing us with Princess Yuki (Misa Uehara) seemingly standing high above him on the fortress' wall, facing away. #Bales2023FilmChallenge November 25: protecting a woman on #WhiteRibbonDay Leave it to popular media to create a fashion for helplessness. In the 110 years that have passed since William Rando...
#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 26: a koala for #WorldLewisDay
It's not possible to be in #nature, one can only be absorbed by it. This is Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975).
#film #cinema #CineMastodon @film #PeterWeir #JoanLindsay #BookAdaptation #Australia #koalas #animals #drama #1970s
#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 27: online shopping on #CyberMonday
- What year is it now? I forgot.
In the soul crushing future of 1999, one heroic nuclear family bravely fulfils their gender-specific duties. While Father Mike works in his computer-aided office, Son Jamie fails at computer homeschool and Mother Karen slavishly shops, cooks, and cleans the cyber way. Thankfully, the future turned out to be even bleaker than #LeeMadden could've imagined in his 1999 A.D. (1967).
#Bales2023FilmChallenge November 28: someone is given something special for #GivingTuesday
#JeanCocteau & #RenéClément's La Belle et la Bête (1946)
Just before leaving home, a father asks his three daughters what he can bring them as a return gift. The eldest two ask for silly, extravagant things, but the youngest simply wishes the most beautiful flower. The father finds it in an enchanted garden, guarded by a terrible beast… ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/la-belle-et-la-bete-1946
Peace is at hand.
— Henry #Kissinger,1972
#Bales2023FilmChallenge Nov 30: #warcrime
Over an 11 day period, the 1972 #Christmas bombings resulted in 20000 tons of American shells being dropped on #Hanoi & #Haiphong, killing at least 1624 civilians. During this unmentionable carnage, #HảiNinh directed The Little Girl of Hanoi (1974), which gave the people of North #Vietnam not only a face, but a voice ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/em-be-ha-noi-1974 #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film #warcrimes
#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 1: #Christmas lights for #NationalChristmasLightsDay
It took experimental filmmaker #MarieMenken three years to shoot Lights (1966). From midnight until 1 AM, she filmed New York's window displays during the holiday season, using her camera, motion, colour, and available light sources as her paintbrush ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/lights-1966 #ShortFilm #ExperimentalFilm #ArtFilm #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film @art_film
y of what appear to be red, yellow, green and blue bell-shaped Christmas decorations among silhouetted tree branches. #Bales2023FilmChallenge December 1: Christmas lights for #NationalChristmasLightsDay It took experimental filmmaker Marie Menken three years to shoot Lights (1966). From midnight until 1 AM, she filmed New York's window displays during the holiday season, using her camera, motion, colour, and available light sources as a paintbrush. Filming at night helped to avoid unwanted interruptions of people and cars, but turned out to be problematic...
If you have a #Vimeo account, you can watch #MarieMenken's Lights (1966) on The #Film-Makers' Coop channel here https://vimeo.com/230187590
#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 2: shaving on #SafetyRazorDay
Accompanied by the sweet tunes of I Can't Get Started, a young man shaves. The Big Shave (1967) is short but contains many of the hallmarks of #MartinScorsese's later work. #Scorsese's theme here is the carnage laid upon so many young men sent off to the smouldering battlefields of the East. There'd be another 6 years of that. And meanwhile, some young men came back. And became cabbies ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/the-big-shave-1967
g man (Peter Bernuth) shaving. #Bales2023FilmChallenge December 2: the main character shaves on #SafetyRazorDay Accompanied by the sweet tunes of Bunny Berigan and Ira Gershwin's I Can't Get Started, a young man shaves his face. The Big Shave (1967) [aka The Big Shave… or, Viet '67] is a short commissioned film which contains many of ...
#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 3: hugged on #LetsHugDay
Nanon (#JoanCrawford) is mortally afraid of men. Of their grabbing, grasping, groping hands. She only trust knife thrower Alonzo the Armless (#LonChaney) but he and accomplice (#TufeiFilhela) use the #circus to hide from the long arm of the law. Who'd suspect an armless man? The Unknown (1927) is arguably #TodBrowning and Chaney Sr's pinnacle of silent #precode #horror. 14 minutes are still missing. Check your attic!
#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 4: a letter to Santa on #SantasListDay
3615 code Père Noël (#RenéManzor, 1989)
France's proto-Internet #Minitel used codes, not URLs. Dial 3615ULLA to text with a sexy lady – some telecom employee pretending to be one – and 3615PERENOEL for #Santa Claus. The real one, of course. 9 yr old Thomas is dead set on proving that Santa is real and not some weirdo looking for a gullible kid to play with. A trap is set, and the boy waits ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/3615-code-pere-noel-1989
#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 5: digging in soil on #WorldSoilDay
Mr. Hayashi (Bruce Baillie, 1963)
#BruceBaillie #ArtFilm #documentary #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film @art_film
#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 7: a Judith/Judy for #NationalJudithDay
#BenMaddow, #SidneyMeyers, & #JosephStrick's The Savage Eye (US, 1959/60) follows divorcée Judith X's lonely exploration of a gritty, hopeless LA. Filmed over 4 years by #HaskellWexler, #HelenLevitt, and #JackCouffer in #CinémaVérité style, Eye feels naked and raw, and broke ground for the American New Wave that came crashing in a decade later ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/the-savage-eye-1959
#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 8: a #ChristmasTree for #NationalChristmasTreeDay
Fireworks' (1947) Dreamer, #KennethAnger, is still asleep. The violence is harrowing, filmed with such exquisite eye that it's impossible to look away. Blood finds its way out, pulsating and spurting. Ambiguous glances. A hand, no finger. A young man awakes, is born. The dreamer is still asleep ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/fireworks-1947
The Dreamer holding a sumptuously endowed Christmas tree that covers his naked upper body. The scene prophesies Yvonne Marquis' tinsel dress in Puce Moment (1949). #Bales2023FilmChallenge December 8: a Christmas tree for #NationalChristmasTreeDay In August 1942, a Mexican-American man with a broken finger was found semiconscious near Sleep...
#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 9: something's lost and found on #OfficialLostAndFoundDay
A white #dove, lost over #Prague, is shot down by a boy and found by an artist in #FrantišekVláčil's directed and #JanČuřík's wonderfuly photographed Holubice [The White Dove] (1960).
#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 10: a candle is lit for #WorldwideCandleLightingDay
Candles lit in prayer, longing, and #poetry in #AndreiTarkovsky's Nostalghia [Nostalgia] (1983).
#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 11: mountains travelled on #InternationalMountainDay
In #KeisukeKinoshita's highly stylised 楢山節考 [The Ballad of Narayama] (1958), a starving community has come to the agreement that the elders approaching the age of seventy are to be carried up the mountain Narayama to die. The day prior to the mountain's festival, sixty-nine year old Orin prepares to leave, carried by her son Tatsuhei ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/you-shan-jie-kao-1958
#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 12: bad breath on #National12HourFreshBreathDay
#LesBlank explores the taste, smell, history, and myth of that stinky rose, #garlic in Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980). And manages to sneak in a little workers' rights agitprop along the way. It truly is a wonder spice!
#WernerHerzog #AliceWaters #food #documentary #USA #1980s #film #cinema #CineMastodon @film ★★★½
#Bales2023FilmChallenge December 13: the #NationalGuard shows up for their #USNationalGuardBirthday
American dissidents are given the choice to spend decades in federal prison, or 3 days in the desert, chased by National Guardsmen et al. If they manage capture the American flag, they're free to go. While the washed-out 16mm footage and #Nixon references may tell you otherwise, #PeterWatkins' #PunishmentPark (1971) remains a gut-punching portrait of a timeless America.
#Bales2023FilmChallenge Dec 14: filmed in Alabama on #NationalAlabamaDay
George Wallace, #Alabama governor, refused to allow Black students into the University. In Crisis (1963), #RobertDrew et al followed Pres. Kennedy and AG R.F. Kennedy. They filmed everything; from tense phone calls, private moments (one of #RFK's daughters on the phone with a perplexed Dept. Katzenbach), and many, many shots in which nothing – which is everything – is said ☞ https://write.underworld.fr/settima/crisis-behind-a-presidential-commitment-1963-ljvd
y on the phone, seen from the back. #Bales2023FilmChallenge December 14: filmed in Alabama on #NationalAlabamaDay In what he dubbed “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door”, George Wallace, #Alabama governor, blocked Black students from walking into the University so he could uphold his inaugural promise of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segr...
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