In 1978, Ruiz was commissioned to make a television documentary about the French elections from the viewpoint of a Chilean exile in the 11th arrondissement. But, contrary to the producers’ expectation, the Left lost. Ruiz seized on this anti-climax to make a documentary about nothing except itself – a film whose central subject is forever lost in digression and ‘dispersal’, harking back to his Chilean experiments of the ’60s. It is the best, and certainly the funniest, of self-reflexive deconstructions of the documentary form. Ruiz drolly exaggerates every hare-brained convention of TV reportage, from shot/reverse shot ‘suture’ and talking-head experts to establishing shots and vox pops (narrator’s note to himself: “Include street interviews ad absurdum”.)
Tag: 1970s
The story of how jazz great Louis Armstrong got his start playing in Chicago clubs, how he was framed on a drug charge, and his travels throughout Europe, where he first gained worldwide fame.
A young girl who is looking for the birth parents who gave her up hooks up with a young man who has also been adopted and is looking for his real parents.
A chance meeting reunites Lise and Antoine, ex-lovers who had a brief fling 20 years before. Humbled by Antoine’s lofty position as a university professor, Lise is reluctant to admit that she’s a lowly police inspector. But, when a high-profile case involving a potential serial killer of politicians is assigned to Lise, she’s forced to admit what she does for a living. Together, the old flames race against the clock to stop the murderer.
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, two friends in a Mississippi River town, have one adventure after another – including attending their own funeral and being pursued by a murderer.
William Saroyan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play revolves around the denizens of a San Francisco bar in 1939. Lonely, lovelorn, weary or cynical, the characters drift in and out of the bar and each other’s lives, giving voice to Saroyan’s philosophies as they randomly comment about the impending world war, the beauty of art, and traditional notions of good and evil. At least one of the relationships stands a chance of enduring: a brawny innocent named Tom is falling in love with a vulnerable young prostitute named Kitty. Saroyan himself is heard reciting the play’s prologue.
After receiving word about a mysterious skeleton unearthed in the Arizona desert, a father and his daughter visit the man who has it and grab the skull as they escape a shack the gargoyles have attacked. Once they do so, they, as well as the town, are besieged by a colony of gargoyles living in some nearby caverns.
An historical document made up of footage and stills shot by the Nazis. A compilation of testimony from witnesses who appeared at the Eichmann trial provides a telling narrative. The film’s title refers to the story of a Jewish boy in one of the ghettos, who was struck with 80 blows. He survived and immigrated to Israel, where he found that no one believed his story – which for him was the 81st blow!