America is going to war and nuclear holocaust is an inevitablity. A group of friends retreat to a bomb shelter and try to come to terms with the changes in their lives that will occur after the bombing ceases.
Tag: 1990s
Images from an aerial tram leaving Manhattan are followed by images of a nearly static bird, of bugs fighting, and of light bending as it passes through glass. Near the film’s end the tram lands in Manhattan, as if it had reversed direction; as in all of Julie Murray’s films, the images and the editing can pull several ways at once. There are no absolutes, and even the light by which we see is altered by the material it passes through.
Marcel Duchamp kept a secret for over 20 years: while the art world had wrongly assumed that one of the 20th century’s most important artists had given up creating art, Duchamp was building his final masterpiece, Etant Donnes (“given”). Duchamp didn’t allow the piece to be viewed by the public until after his death in 1968. This left him shielded from the questions that developed after the piece debuted. Simply described, it is a peepshow. Through an old wooden façade, one looks through to see a sculpted open-legged nude lying in a field. The critics were stumped. What did Duchamp leave us with? This BBC documentary from 1997 dissects and examines the pieces of this assemblage.
This documentary respectfully interviews a number of important American directors who have in one way or another bucked the system. It also explores the life and work of earlier American mavericks through the tributes, reflections, and recollections of the first group. Prominent among the living directors interviewed are Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Paul Schrader, and David Lynch. Among the directors who are discussed are Orson Welles, D.W. Griffith and Samuel Fuller. Clips from the films of these men, and interviews with important actors who have worked with them (e.g. Robert DeNiro) are another feature of this documentary, commissioned by Japanese public television corporation NHK.
Two travelers meet on the open prairie, and pass their time together by trading stories with each other. Their tales become a sort of competition, each attempting to relate something which might disturb the other.
CONVERSATIONS WITH A CUPBOARD MAN is a strange yet compelling film about loneliness and isolation, and their effects. Charles is not a particularly fragile boy, but his mother guards him jealously, keeping him away from school and other children. She feeds him, washes him, and is his only companion. For the first 20 of his life, he stays in their small apartment, and spends most of his time in an attic closet. One day, his mother meets a man. Suddenly, Charles becomes an impediment to her new life, and so she sets him free. To Charles, who has never bought anything in a store, taken a bus, or even talked to a stranger, his new-found freedom is bewildering and frightening.
In this coming of age drama, 17-year old Muriel rebels against her French family and leaves for the bright lights of Paris. When she falls for Nora, Muriel enters a journey of heartbreak and discovery.
Pasquale is a policeman who loves to play the trumpet in a little jazz orchestra. One night, he saves the life of Desideria, a transgender prostitute that was almost falling down the Tarpea cliff in Rome. Pasquale and Desideria had been knowing each other since they were kids (Desideria was secretely in love with Pasquale) and after meeting again they start dating. Pasquale is about to marry Nellina, but little by little he realizes that he is in love with Desideria. How to solve this difficult situation?