Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 04/30/24

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky, 2000)

Cast: Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla, János Derszi, Doko Rosic, Tomás Wichmann, Ferenc Kállai, Péter Dobai. Screenplay: László Krasznahorkai, Béla Tarr, based on a novel by Krasznahorkai. Cinematography: Patrick de Ranter, Miklós Gurbán, Erwin Lanzenberger, Gábor Medvigy, Emil Novák, Rob Tregenza. Film editing: Ágnes Hranitzky. Music: Mihály Vig.

One Way Street (Hugo Fregonese, 1950)

James Mason, Dan Duryea, and William Conrad in One Way Street

Cast: James Mason, Märta Torén, Dan Duryea, Basil Ruysdael, William Conrad, Rodolfo Acosta, King Donovan. Robert Espinoza, Tito Renaldo, Margarito Luna, Emma Roldán, George J. Lewis. Screenplay: Lawrence Kimble. Cinematography: Maury Gertsman. Bernard Herzburn, Alfred Ybarra. Film editing: Martin Carruth. Music: Frank Skinner.