Some notable filmmakers
Film Appreciation with K S Sivakumaran
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Clean |
Related to Film Appreciation is knowledge of film history,
personalities, their works and the like. In ensuing weeks we shall
confine to observations gathered in attending to two international film
festivals held in India from late November to mid-December. One was the
IFFI (International Film Festival of India) hosted by the central
government in New Delhi at the new permanent venue, Panaji, in Goa. The
other was the Kerala State hosted IFFK (International Film Festival of
Kerala). The venue was Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum).
I saw nearly 50 films at both these festivals. Information gathered
on some outstanding international filmmakers would be useful as most
Lankans might not have heard of some of them.
Take for instance a director Olivier Assayas. He was a film critic
writing to the famous French academically oriented film journal Cahiers
Du Cinema in the 1980s. Like other French maestros such as Francois
Truffaut for instance he too became a filmmaker later. I assume he is of
Turk origin.
He is now considered as one of the masters of contemporary cinema
like his contemporaries in France-Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol,
Jean-Luc Goddard, Jacques Rivette and Eric Rohmer.
Some of his films were Irma Vep, Clean and Boarding Gate. A
retrospection of his films was shown at the IFFK. Maria Novaro from
Mexico (Mehico) is yet another big name in contemporary cinema. This
female director is classed as an expressionist filmmaker. Her film
Danzon made in 1991 came to be noticed by many when it was shown in
Cannes. Her films are supposed to be studies of women in Mehico. Some of
her films were shown at the same venue.
Another female director to emerge in the 1970s was Lina Wertmuller.
Her name sounds German but she is supposed to have mirrored the Italian
society. One of her famous films was All Screwed Up released in 1973.
A journalist, Maya Venugopal, informs that ‘Wertmuller’s films are
politically committed with protagonists being dedicated anarchists,
communists, or feminists’.
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Werner
Herzog |
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Lina
Wertmoller |
I had been an admirer of German filmmakers Fassbinder and Herzog even
from the 1970s. And yet I liked most Fassbibnder’s films rather than the
incomprehensible Herzog’s films.
The legendary Werner Herzog was there in Thiruvananthapuram for us to
see him in person and meet him. He was the Chief Guest at the opening
ceremony of the IFFK on December 10, last year.
Let me quote his characteristic statement on the occasion:
“My insanity is a direct result of your imagination, without which I
would be perfectly sane (yet somewhat more illusionary). I know I have
the ability to articulate images that sit deeply inside us, that I can
make them visible”
Five films were shown at the festival. They were: Aguirre- The Wrath
of God, Heart of Glass, Ecstasy of Woodcutter Steiner, Fitzcarraldo, and
My Best Friend.
Critic Cheri Jacob K put the essence of Herzog’s films brilliantly in
these words:
“Through the eye of Herzog’s lens the world is transfixed, rendered
hopelessly, exquisitely weightless, ultimately diffusing beyond grasp
the solid structures within which tragedy or satire can take root.”
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