This collection of documentaries is a true encyclopedia in terms of the scope of the material and the detail of its research. But it is categorically unencyclopedic. It is subjective, based on personal preferences, film attachments, and these films were not created by film critics and film historians at all.
This collection of documentaries is a true encyclopedia in terms of the scope of the material and the detail of its research. But it is categorically unencyclopedic. It is subjective, based on personal preferences, film attachments, and these films were not created by film critics and film historians at all. The history of world cinema is spoken here by those who should speak on behalf of world cinema, who make it themselves and have already become part of its gold reserves.
Here Martin Scorsese makes his Personal Journey Through American Films. Jean-Luc Godard, in 2 x 50 Years of French Cinema, doubts it was worth celebrating the 100th anniversary of French cinema, because a survey of resort hotel employees conducted by him and his friend Michel Piccoli on the frame shows that no one can remember a single historically significant name from French cinema… Equally ironic is the view of our compatriot Sergei Selyanov in his «Russian Idea»: the history of Russian cinema is a variety of attempts to express the Great Russian Utopia that owns our mysterious soul.
But Stephen Frears in the documentary comedy «Typical but British» is even very serious. He creates a breathtaking montage of episodes from British films (from Hitchcock’s «Blackmail» to «Four Weddings and a Funeral»), and thus answers the well-known statement of François Truffaut that, they say, the words «English» and «cinema» do not go well together.
But the kindest position was taken by Nagisa Oshima in his 100 Years of Japanese Cinema. Here he acts as a benshi — a man who, in the days of the great mute, explained to the public what was happening on the screen. Now Oshima explains to us what happened in the past of the cinema of his country, where it comes from contemplation, montage slowness, laconism and simplicity. And why does it suit him so much to be black and white.
More about movies, DVDs and their purchase (both as a collection and separately) can be found on the website of the Other Cinema project: http://shop.drugoe-kino.ru/goods/