The fourteenth chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films.
(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)
Runaway Cinema
A trio of friends racing across a bridge. A boy running cross-country and reflecting on his unhappy life. A woman fleeing terrible news through the city that has broken her heart. As the hero of one of our selections says, "All I know is you've got to run." Running toward, running away, running nowhere in particular. This sense of restless movement was in the air at the time these movies came out, and they all captured a spirit that was equal parts freewheeling and frustrated. Sometimes this run even turned to flight, yet with a nagging rope still tied around the floating freebird.
Even if the heroes of these films, and the filmmakers who crafted them, thought that they were merely running away from a world that disappointed them, or running for the sake of feeling alive, they actually did go somewhere, a horizon difficult to describe but impossible not to feel. These seven "sixties" chapters are a voyage into uncharted waters, and already by the end of this chapter you can sense an unmoored, heady, dizzying sense of discovery. This is also "runaway cinema" in the sense of a "runaway train", gone off the tracks and plowing through the wilderness, exploring new landscapes of the mind, senses, and imagination.
I have covered today's films here, here, and here.
Visit the Video Gallery for a complete list of the chapters so far.
Tomorrow: Tuning In
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Yesterday: Sixties Rising
Visit the Video Gallery for a complete list of the chapters so far.
2 comments:
Great to see you current compilation comprising of so many European arthouse classics, as was your last compilation.
Unfortunately I've watched just 3 of them, though I have a couple of others like Passolini's Mamma Roma & Godard's Contempt lying with me.
1. Jules & Jim - I reasonably liked it, but I'm not as fond of it as I'm fond of some of other Truffaut films.
2. Winter Light - brilliant film. In fact, can't seem to decide as to which one among Winter Light & Through A Glass Darkly I'd like to rate highest among Bergman's Faith Trilogy
3. 8 1/2 - what a unique and strange movie this was!!! And to think of it, apparently Fellini was actually suffering from director's block before he made this movie.
Mamma Roma is great, and really underrated I think. One of the most emotionally overpowering movies I've ever seen.
Like you I'm not nuts about J&J. I go back & forth on it, I always find the first third charming but end up finding Catherine's extremely frustrating flakiness tedious at times.
Winter Light I like but probably less than the other 2 in the trilogy. Through a Glass Darkly is by far my favorite.
I think every director gets an "8 1/2" rule - can't think of a movie? Make one about not being able to make a movie! Unfortunately I used up my rule when I was 18, haha...
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