Ladri di Biciclette | Vittorio De Sica, 1948
No more actors, no more story, no more sets, which is to say that in the perfect aesthetic illusion of reality there is no more cinema.
André Bazin | What is Cinema? (1967)
uit het hoofdstuk over Ladri di Biciclette
A Taste of Honey | Tony Richardson, 1961
No film can be too personal. The image speaks. Sound amplifies and comments. Size is irrelevant. Perfection is not an aim. An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude.
Manifesto for Free Cinema, 1956
(Lorenza Mazzetti, Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson)
* Kijk voor een uitstekend overzicht van Free Cinema op BFI’s feature on Free Cinema.
Hannah and her Sisters | Woody Allen, 1986
Jean-Luc Godard on the pleasure of going to the movies:
What gives me the most pleasure is I don’t have to ask my father and mother if I can do it. The act of entering the cinema is a way to liberate yourself from the permission of mommy and daddy. As far as TV is concerned, daddy and mommy at least three quarters of the time are probably in the room, or next door, or in the same city with the same TV set. So it’s very different from going to a theater. The liberty to enter the dark room [...] – it has something to do with the pleasure of movies. There is nothing forbidden with the act of looking at television.
(quoted from: Meetin’ WA | Jean-Luc Godard, 1986)
* the frame depicts Mickey Sachs (Woody Allen) in a film theater, watching 1933’s Duck Soup, after his failed suicide attempt. A quintessential sequence, for it represents Allens re-evaluation of life (within the narrative) and, beyond the context of this film, his principal view on the basic purpose of cinema.
Meetin' WA (aka J.L.G. Meets W.A.) | Jean-Luc Godard, 1986
Woody Allen answers Jean-Luc Godard on his idea that the cultural dominance of television is affecting the artistic expression of filmmakers:
Renata Adler has said that television was an appliance, rather than an art form.
(quoted from: Meetin’ WA | Jean-Luc Godard, 1986)
* It’s a great, idiotic film by the way. Here’s a synopsis from imdb user comments: Godard is babbling on in French making himself totally unintelligible, the interpreter is translating simultaneously, Allen is looking backwards and forwards at each of them with his mouth open in bewilderment and terror. [...] It’s reassuring that the conversation of brilliant people can be so dull and ineffectual, especially when the intention is to create something significant and timeless. This is one of the worst interviews you’ll ever see, but a fascinating 25 minutes.
