Screening on 04th Nov 2007 : Woody Allen's THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO

The Purple Rose of Cairo
- at 84 minutes,it's short but nearly every
one of those minutes is blissful. -New York Times

A film by Woody Allen
Year : 1985
Nominated for Oscar and another 14 wins & 11 nominations
English with English sub titles ; Run Time : 84 Minutes
4th Nov 2007 ; 5.45 pm ; Ashwin Hospital Auditorium, Ganapathy
Konangal – Call : 94430 39630

The Purple Rose of Cairo is not merely one of the best movies about movies ever made. It is still more unusual, because it comes at its subject the hard way, from the front of the house, instead of from behind the scenes. Its subject is not how movies work but how they work on the audience. –Time Magazine

The Purple Rose of Cairo

A delightful tale centered on how cinema can change lives, if only when the lights are down, Woody Allen combines romance with intelligence to great comic effect.

Click here to view clipping from 'Purple Rose Of Cairo'

Jeff Daniels playing the dual roles of Tom, a character in the film-within-the-film, and Gil, the actor who portrays Tom. Tom literally breaks the fourth wall, emerging from the black-and-white into the colorful real world on the other side of the cinema's screen. He is drawn out by Cecilia (played by Mia Farrow), a film buff who goes to the movies to escape her bleak 1930's Great Depression life and loveless marriage to Monk (Danny Aiello). The producer of the film finds out that Tom has left the film, and he and Gil fly cross-country to the New Jersey theater where it happened. This sets up an unusual love triangle involving Tom, Gil and Cecilia.

The Purple Rose of Cairo contains so many wonderful elements that it seems arbitrary to pick out any as special, yet there is one theme which runs strongly throughout the entire film. This is the manner in which common relationships are turned upside-down, most obviously with the transition of Baxter from fiction to reality. Further along this resonates with the abandoned film cast switching from performing to viewing, as they wait to finish their scene, and the flipped relationship of Cecilia and Monk. Perhaps this is Allen's way of indicating that a movie, no matter how frivolous, can have a worthwhile impact on its audience (together with the fact that the real world can never be as perfect as the fictional, that this is a pipe-dream)? If so, it can all be summed up in the expression of Mia Farrow as she sits entranced while Astaire and Rogers dance their hearts out; in a series of subtle graduations her face transforms from a mask of sorrow to radiant joy (even though the world outside remains as horrid as ever). Such is the power of the moving-picture!

It also recalls Mr. Allen's own small classic of a story, ''The Kugelmass Episode,'' about a professor of humanities who becomes so infatuated with Madame Bovary that he finds himself inside the Flaubert novel making mincemeat of the plot line.

Though Mr. Allen does not actually appear in ''The Purple Rose of Cairo,'' his work as the film's writer and director is so strong and sure that one is aware of his presence in every frame of film. It doesn't overwhelm the contributions of the others, but illuminates them, particularly the glowing, funny performance of Miss Farrow. It's as if this wonderful actress, in spite of her English stage credits and all of her earlier films, was finally awakened only when Mr. Allen cast her in ''A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy,'' ''Zelig'' and, most spectacularly, ''Broadway Danny Rose.''

On a side note, the performances and script are both excellent (each bolstering the other). There's a wealth of humour to be found in the story, particularly in the way Baxter tries to apply movie precepts to the real world, although this is leavened by a deep emotional counterbalance (skillfully applied by Allen). If anything, The Purple Rose of Cairo is a touch too manipulative, notwithstanding the terrific finale.

Woody Allen

Woody Allen (born Allen Stewart Königsberg on December 1, 1935) is a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor, jazz musician, comedian, and playwright. His large body of work and cerebral film style, mixing satire, wit and humor, have made him one of the most respected and prolific filmmakers in the modern era.[1] Allen writes and directs his movies and has also acted in the majority of them. For inspiration, Allen draws heavily on literature, philosophy, psychology, Judaism, European cinema and New York City, where he was born and has lived his entire life.

Allen was born and raised in New York City to a Jewish family; his grandparents were Yiddish and German-speaking immigrants. Nicknamed "Red" because of his red hair, he impressed students with his extraordinary talent at card and magic tricks.Though in his films and his comedy persona he has often depicted himself as physically inept and socially unpopular, in fact Woody Allen was a popular student, and an adept baseball and basketball player.

Click here to watch Woody Allen interview - you can continue the interview further with links provided here.

Click here to view Woody Allen's monologue from his film Annie Hall

To raise money he began writing gags for the agent David O. Alber, who sold them to newspaper columnists. At sixteen, he started writing for stars like Sid Caesar and began calling himself Woody Allen, which would remain his moniker (although it's unclear if Allen ever legally adopted the stage name). He was a gifted comedian from an early age. After high school, he went to New York University where he studied communication and film, but, never committed as a student, he was thrown off his course due to lack of punctuality and commitment. He later briefly attended City College of New York.

His first movie production was What's New, Pussycat? in 1965, for which he wrote the initial screenplay. He was hired by Warren Beatty to re-write a script, and to appear in a small part. His first conventional effort was Take the Money and Run (1969), which was followed by Bananas, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), Sleeper, and Love and Death.

In 1972, he also starred in the film version of Play It Again, Sam, which was directed by Herbert Ross. All of Allen's early films were pure comedies that relied heavily on slapstick, inventive sight gags, and non-stop one-liners. Among the many notable influences on these films are Bob Hope, Groucho Marx (as well as, to some extent, Harpo Marx) and Humphrey Bogart.

Annie Hall marked a major turn to more sophisticated humor and thoughtful drama. Allen's 1977 film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture – an unusual feat for a comedy. Allen’s has written and directed 43 movies till dates which includes many greats like Manhattan, Hanna and Her Sisters .

Allen continues to write roles for the neurotic persona he created in the 1960s and 1970s; however, as he gets older, the roles have been assumed by other actors.

Konangal Outreach Programme screening on 28th Oct 2007 : Not One Less

Run time: 109 min / year: 1999 / Chinese with English sub titles / On 21^st Oct 2007 at 6 PM at Aruna Thirumana Mandapam , Opp Spencer Super Market, NSR Road, SB Colony / Contact : Call :4376226 ; 9443039630

Not One Less

Yimou Zhang’s "Not One Less" enlarges the possibilities of filmmaking even as it grounds itself in one of cinema's oldest, most basic principles: the camera's ability to document reality. Despite its deliberate austerity, "Not One Less" is extraordinarily rich. And despite the look and pace of raw documentary film, the movie is a splendid, assured piece of storytelling. Its narrative emerges slowly and organically from a mass of observed detail so that it feels like a series of events the camera has discovered out in the world, rather than like the realization of a scheme the filmmaker has devised beforehand in his mind.

At the center of "Not One Less" is Wei (Wei Minzhi), 13, a primary school graduate who has been pressed into service as a substitute teacher in the Shuiquan Primary School. The teacher leaves one stick of chalk for each day and promises her an extra 10 yuan if there's not one less student when he returns. Wei stands a few inches taller than her charges, and it is hard not to hear more than a trace of irony in their voices when they address her, according to the dictates of courtesy and custom, as "Teacher Wei."

Her main qualifications, other than the fact that no one else wants the job, are an innate, unsmiling bossiness, neat handwriting and her ability to perform, in a tentative, quavering voice, one song about Chairman Mao. Wei Minzhi's performance, if that is the word for it, slowly takes on a heroic cast. Her character is composed of equal parts pigheadedness and cluelessness, which is to say that she's 13 in a way that anyone who knows a real 13-year-old, or has been one, will recognize. When troublemaker Zhang Huike manages to runs away from school, forced to try to find work in the nearby city of Zhangjiakou to support his ailing, debt-ridden mother, Wei has a mission: to get to the city, recover Zhang,.

The neorealist elements of Not One Less contribute to its ability to transcend the sentimental. All of the actors in the film are amateurs. Moreover, most play a version of who they are in real life: the mayor is actually Tian Zhengda, a village mayor; the TV station manager is, in fact, the manager of a local station in Zhangjiakou. The two central children, Wei Mingzhi and Zhang Huike, who play characters of the same name, were found in rural Hebei schools after a long search by the director and his team. This semidocumentary aspect of Not One Less—its use of hidden cameras (during Wei’s interactions with crowds in the city, for example), location shooting, and natural lighting—results in a fascinating uncertainty. There is a sort of ambivalence or play between the different genres of realism, staged documentary, and fiction that is reminiscent of recent masterpieces of Iranian cinema (Makhmalbaf and Kiarostami being the two most prominent exponents) "Not One Less" earns its emotional payoff the hard way. It may be the greatest film ever made about obstinacy, which it reveals to be not only a virtue, but also a species of grace.

This screening is supported by : HOLLYWOOD DVD SHOPEE , NSR Road, Coimbatore ; Ph 4382331 , : 98416 58466

Yimou Zhang

Zhang was born in Xi’an in 1951 to parents of "bad" class background and reportedly sold his own blood to buy his first camera. He grew up in socialist China where class struggle dominated life and literature. Like many young Chinese of the time, he was sent to farms and factories during the Cultural Revolution and so gained grass-roots knowledge of life in China. His portfolio of photographs helped win him admission to the cinematography department of the Beijing Film Academy in 1978, after successfully appealing a decision to bar him on the basis of age..

Zhang's first work, One and Eight (as director of photography), was made in 1984 together with Zhang Junzhao. Zhang's input was telling: he shot from obscure angles, and positioned actors and actresses at the side, rather than center, to heighten dramatic effect, using a “unique and emphatic visual style, based on the asymmetrical and unbalanced composition of the shots and the shooting of color stock as though it were black and white". Like his fellow students, these aesthetics signaled a departure from the tradition interrupted by the Cultural Revolution. Local critics immediately sat up and took notice of this new cohort of daring artistes who were defying conventions of Chinese cinema.

In 1985, in appreciation of his talent, Fourth Generation director Wu Tianming invited Zhang to Xi'an Film Studio for his upcoming project Old Well. Filming of Old Well was completed in 1986, with Zhang as co-acting as cinematographer and actor — a role that won him Best Actor at the Tokyo International Film Festival. In return for his participation in Wu's project, Zhang made Wu promise logistics support for his own first directorial effort, a project that he had envisioned for some time.

In 1987 Zhang embarked on his directorial debut, Red Sorghum, starring Chinese actress Gong Li, handpicked by Zhang, in her first leading role. Released to widespread critical acclaim, Red Sorghum catapulted Zhang into the forefront of the world's art directors, winning him the Golden Bear for Best Picture at the 1988 Berlin Film Festival. He has directed 17 films till date.

Nevertheless, we could say that Zhang Yimou himself is a son of China whose filmmaking gazes at past, present and future through the "son". In this sense, generation and gender are equally important in his films although the visual and often spectacular focus is on his female leads. Gong Li is his most famous star and his pictures with her are his most famous films. His propensity for visual display has been fiercely criticised in China for its exoticism and lack of historical authenticity. However, Zhang does not claim that his films document China or its people; he creates fictional worlds through moving images that often defamiliarise, shock, seduce, and subvert. He documents desire instead, circulating themes that have long haunted the national psyche and using seductive image-ideas that marry reality, dream and nightmare.

Screening on 21st Oct 2007 : BREATHLESS

A film that broke every dictate of

the conventional film making

Jean-Luc Godard’s

BREATHLESS

French with English sub titles
Country : France
Year :1960
Run time : 90 minutes
21st October 2007 - 5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium
Sathy Road ,Ganapathy, Coimbatore
Call :4376226 ; 9443039630

Compared to Hollywood conventions, this film stands out, because it takes conventions aside and speaks in Greek to them. This is a classic due to the conventions it created: it defined French New Wave with its hand-held camera shots and improvised dialogue. Truffaut and Godard stated in Cahiers du Cinema that film should express the soul. A Bout De Souffle is a film relating to the auteur, Godard, in ways films today can only admire.

The film also vibrates with onscreen references to popular culture and the affects of the media in ways that anticipate later theorists of the postmodern. It draws, albeit unconsciously, on Marshall McLuhan's contemporary ideas on the 'Global Village' and Roland Barthes' work on the dominance of culturally produced signs in society. Belmondo's character is literally obsessed with Bogart's poster and screen persona, and constantly checks out his style against cinema posters of 'Bogey' as well as imitating his gestures in numerous mirrors.

Belmondo is excellent, and classically existential (rather like Mersault in Camus' The Outsider) as the feckless young hood who steals a car, kills a motorbike cop, and chases after some money that is owed him for robberies past so he and his casually picked up yank chick (Seberg with a cropped head look that became existential de rigeur for years) can get to Italy.

Other cultural references and film in-jokes swarm throughout Breathless: admired cult stylist, the film director Jean-Pierre Melville, appears as a celebrity novelist being interviewed; Daniel Boulanger appears as the police inspector. Jean-Louis Richard and Philippe de Broca appear, and there are also bit appearances by Godard, as an informer, by Truffaut, and Chabrol (who also acted as supervising producer).

And of course there are many legends about the actual shoot including the use of wheelchairs as camera dollies. Renowned cinematographer Raoul Coutard's legendary ability in hand holding heavy 35mm cameras in long takes also comes to the fore. Coutard's amazing work, predating Garret Brown's invention of Steadicam, can be seen at its best in Jean Rouch's short contribution to the compilation film Paris Vu Par (1965). This begins with a hand-held shot that traverses many rooms, an elevator, and street, and runs for a full 20 minutes!

Click here to view a scene from Breathless

Finally there was the matter of the film stock which was in fact painstakingly hand-joined rolls of a very fast Ilford black and white still camera stock along with short ends of other stocks. This produced the grainy 'naturalistic' effect that Ken Russell – and later just about everyone else – was to borrow for his social 'realist' documentaries. Just about everything that looks different about Breathless became the signifiers of alternative, radical, independent film almost immediately.


Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on December 3, 1930, the second of four children in a bourgeois Franco-Swiss family. His father was a doctor who owned a private clinic, and his mother came from an preeminent family of Swiss bankers. During World War II, Godard became a naturalized citizen of Switzerland, and attended the school in Nyons ( Switzerland ). His parents divorced in 1948, at which time he returned to Paris to attend the Lycée Rohmer. In 1949, he studied at the Sorbonne to prepare for a degree in ethnology. However, it was during this time that he began attending the François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, and Eric Rohmer. In 1950, Godard with Rivette and Rohmer founded a "Gazette du cinéma", which published five issues between May and November. He wrote a number of articles for the journal, often using the pseudonym 'Hans Lucas'. After working on and financing two films by Rivette and Rohmer, Godard's family cut off their financial support in 1951, and he resorted to a Bohemian lifestyle that included stealing food and money when necessary. In January 1952 he began writing film criticism for 'Les cahiers du cinéma'. Later that year he traveled to North and South America with his father, and attempted to make his first film (of which only a tracking shot from a car was ever accomplished). In 1953, he returned to Paris briefly before acquiring a job as a construction worker on a dam project in Switzerland. With the money from the job, he made a short film in 1954 about the building of the dam called _Opération béton (1954)_ (Operation Concrete). Later that year, Godard's mother was killed in a motor scooter accident in Switzerland. In 1956, Godard began writing again for 'Les cahiers du cinéma' as well as for the journal "Arts". In 1957, Godard worked as the press attache for "Artistes Associés", and made his first French film entitled _Tous les garçons s'appellent Patrick (1957) (Charlotte et Véronique). In 1958, he shot Charlotte et son Jules (1960) (Charlotte and Her Boyfriend), his own homage to Jean Cocteau. Later that year, he took unused footage of a flood in Paris shot by Truffaut and edited a film called Une histoire d'eau (1961) (A Story of Water) which was an homage to Mack Sennett. In 1959, he worked with Truffaut on the weekly publication "Temps de Paris". Godard wrote a gossip column for the journal, but also spent much time writing scenarios for films and a body of critical writings which placed him firmly in the forefront of the 'nouvelle vague' aesthetic, precursing the French New Wave. It was also this year that Godard began work on À bout de souffle (1960) (Breathless). In 1960, Godard married Anna Karina in Switzerland. In April and May, he shot Petit soldat, Le (1963) in GenevaParis. However, French censors banned the film due to its references to the Algerian war, and it was not shown until 1963. In March, 1960, À bout de souffle (1960) premiered in Paris. It was hugely successful both with the film critics and at the box office, and became a landmark film in the French New Wave with its references to American cinema, its jagged editing, and overall romantic/cinephilia approach to filmmaking. The film propelled the popularity of the male lead Jean-Paul Belmondo with European audiences. In 1961, and was preparing the film for a fall release in

Goddard's work is phenomenal . From 1954 to 2006 Goddard has directed and given us 90 films and still he is busy . He is currently living in Switzerland. Like Ingmar Bergman, Goddard is one of the most important golden pioneers of Cinema , whose works have raised the art of Cinema to the level of literature and universal respect.