RIP Michel Ciment

communique du Festival de Cannes:

The great critic and writer Michel Ciment passed away yesterday at the age of 85, leaving cinema bereft of his words.

Michel Ciment was the Chief Editor of Positif magazine, the producer and host of the program Projection privée on France Culture until 2016, a critic for over fifty years on Le Masque et la Plume on France Inter and a lecturer at the University of Paris-VII. Additionally, he authored many reference books on cinema, notably on Stanley Kubrick, Elia Kazan, Joseph Losey, Francesco Rosi and Jane Campion. Michel Ciment had dedicated his life to passing on his knowledge and passion for the seventh art. A free spirit with an insatiable curiosity, he was the embodiment of cinephilia, embracing all types cinemas and never leaving any film aside.

He continued to explore world cinema right up to the end, particularly at the Festival de Cannes, where he never missed an edition, tirelessly going from press screenings to gala screenings, pacing the Bazin, Debussy, Buñuel and Lumière theaters... His opinions, both enlightened and strong, clear-cut and inflexible, meant a great deal and his voice resounded in the corridors of the Palais des Festivals at the end of each screening, amongst his attentive colleagues. Michel set the tone, in France and abroad. His death should remind us all of the importance of his legacy, and the need for ardent and resistant film review.

The Festival de Cannes without Michel Ciment will never be quite the same. We will miss him. And so will cinema.

I read Ciment's book on John Boorman (out in 1986) when I was in Denmark's EFC -1995/96,  (Boorman's tribute here), I met him in Berlin during Tavernier's In the Electric Mist and saw him moderate in Cannes the Quentin Tarantino Lecon du cinema and many other lectures. 

RIP. 

His historic interview/essay book on Stanley Kubrick (1980), was one that opened the doors of the SK myth to the public eye. 

The Killer (2023)

"Execution is Everything".

It can stand for the director's demo & credo and his team on this one. 

The Killer, David Fincher's new endeavor for Netflix  (after Mank and the Mindhunter series) is a longtime project of his, since 2007. Based on the French Graphic Novel (and now there's 13 of 'em), Le Tueur/The Killer, written by Alexis Nolent (Matz), drawed by Luc Jacamon, published by Casterman, starting with 1998. The whole series are available to view here.

But there's not much left from the original source as I could study a bit. The series are very cool, the film by Fincher doesn't honor them, it just takes its cue from it. The script is a deconstruction of the genre, much less elliptic and less experimental than Jarmusch's failure with The Limits of Control.

A bit of existentialism like in the old The Mechanic (1972), by Lewis John Carlino. But here you get instead of Bosch, music by The Smiths. Of course every step of Alain Delon from Le Samourai to Scorpio. The hat is odd, the product placement is odder, the rhythm is the oddest, very much off, of course on purpose. 

And more off: Half of the film is the killer himself, aka Michael Fassbender. With aliases like Felix Under, or George Jefferson, and other comedic alter-egos;), Fassbender is not to be dealt with. Or double-crossed. It's all in his stream-of-consciousness narration. Or is it? 

Brilliant sound design by Ren Klyce (& music which is also sound design, by the Usual Suspects, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross), as The Killer is more a film to listen to than to see. Or to see and don't believe what you see.....

One scene, the fight is very much like in Haywire (2011, Steven Soderbergh), which Fincher admits as an influence, and Fassbender was in it. Dirty and loud and I couldn't wait to end. Obscene, by all means. Then there's Tilda Swinton, like it or not but the scene with her drinking a sea of whiskeys is the very off , like a classic of another genre, the gentlemanish thriller with suave hitmen and femme fatales. The end of the scene ain't pretty though. 

The Beatles-Now and Then (2023!!!!) -SOTD

Incredible but tru "I know it's true...").  Not Song of the day but more like Song of the Year !

Best songs this year by The Stones and The Beatles, and it's 2023 !!!

Released y-day. I guess this will really be the last Beatles song...

the video today. Directed by Peter Jackson, who directed the incredible Beatles doc with footage unseen, Get Back.

Now and Then's eventful journey to fruition took place over five decades and is the product of conversations and collaborations between the four Beatles that go on to this day. The long mythologised John Lennon demo was first worked on in February 1995 by Paul, George and Ringo as part of The Beatles Anthology project but it remained unfinished, partly because of the impossible technological challenges involved in working with the vocal John had recorded on tape in the 1970s. For years it looked like the song could never be completed. But in 2022 there was a stroke of serendipity. A software system developed by Peter Jackson and his team, used throughout the production of the documentary series Get Back, finally opened the way for the uncoupling of John’s vocal from his piano part. As a result, the original recording could be brought to life and worked on anew with contributions from all four Beatles. This remarkable story of musical archaeology reflects The Beatles’ endless creative curiosity and shared fascination with technology. It marks the completion of the last recording that John, Paul and George and Ringo will get to make together and celebrates the legacy of the foremost and most influential band in popular music history.

% the amazing making of -took alamost 50 years to get this done....

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

"They die young"

The Alamo of epic, meaningful and beautiful moviemaking.

Killers of the Flower Moon is an instant American classic.

Would do a great double bill with There will be Blood.

Retribution and revolution, makes a stand for the American natives more than most films I can think of (Little Big Man, Dances with Wolves, Geronimo, etc.)

For me it's the best Scorsese film since Casino (I'd say that film 'cos it's epic and I saw it again this year and it was a blast-getting better with age- and I never liked the way The Departed was edited, never agreed morally with The Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman lost me on the de-aging, loved the esthetics of Shutter Island but Scorsese disowns the film-!-). 

At 206 min. it could've been even longer (again my one hundred and fifty cents;) 

Reminded my of immortal doomed then, now essential films of films like The Godfather, Heaven's Gate, Once Upon a Time in America, those where every frame spent on film makes you wanna yearn for more. As I wrote above, meaningful.

Beware, the real film does not start 'til min 70, it's the longest exposition I've witnessed in a theater maybe ever, ?, 

Based on David Wann's 2017 non-fiction book on the true story of what happened in Osage County in the twenties of the last century. oil, greed, poison, murder, power play, manipulation,  conspiracy, touch of evil, a Macbeth/Shakespearianlike drama of twisted turn to the dark side.

Best of KotFN:

This is a very heavy film made by a man who is soon 81 years old. Kudos. It feels young at heart and justified.

Di Caprio (6th film with Marty, 21 years after Gangs of NY), plays on the edge, De Niro (tenth collaboration, 50 years+), also at his most evil (ex aqueo with Angel Heart & The Untouchables where he was at the opposite, haven't seen him so restrained in a long time)the ensemble cast plus some cameos (musicians Charlie Musselwaite, Jack White, Pete Yorn, and Martin Scorsese himself, in his most heartfelt appearance yet).

Highest point: it's the Last score of Robbie Robertson  (he was part Indian-Six Nations- so he was proud to do this film- and definetly at most his personal and best. "Still Standing" is a grand song and a lawful legacy. 

Magnificent cinematography, again by Rodrigo Pietro, set design by legendary Terry Malick's attachee Jack Fisk (born 1945 -another similitude with There Will Be Blood whose production designer he also was, but this is Fisk's first film with Scorsese though !!!).

Editing by Thelma Schoonmaker (82!!!), Marty's collaborator for all his life & work.

      In memory of Robbie Robertson

TBC