Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 01/19/25

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

Sunday, January 19, 2025

Ichi the Killer (Takashi Miike, 2001)

Cast: Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori, Shin'ya Tsukamoto, Paulyn Sun, Susumu Terajima, Shun Sugata. Toru Tezuka, Yoshiki Arizono, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Satoshi Niizuma, Suzuki Matsuo, Jun Kunimura, Sabu. Screenplay: Sakishi Sato, based on a manga by Hideo Yamamoto. Cinematography: Hideo Yamamoto. Production design: Takashi Sasaki. Film editing: Yasushi Shimamura. Music: Karera Musication, Saiichi Yamamoto.

Nocturnal Uproar (Catherine Breillat, 1979)

Cast: Dominique Laffin, Bertrand Bonvoisin, Marie-Hélène Breillat, Joe Dallesandro, Daniel Langlet, Dominique Basquin, Gérard Lanvin, Hubert Drac, Bruno Devoldère, Maud Rayer. Screenplay: Catherine Breillat. Cinematography: Jacques Boumendil. Production design: Dominique Antony. Film editing: Annie Charrier. Music: Serge Gainsbourg.