Nouvelle Vague

No film critic of 1989 could write an assessment of the French-made Gang of Four (originally La Bande des Quatre) without using the phrase "Pirandellian" at one point or another. The story revolves around the hand-picked acting class of a famed director (Bulle Ogier) who works only with women. The four members of the class (Fejria Deliba, Nathalie Richard, Bernadette Giraud and Ines de Medeiros D'Almeida) are assigned to study the text of the Marivaux play Double Infidelities. Now, it just so happens that the four actresses share an apartment… and as they begin allowing the Marivaux play to influence their offstage lives, they share a lot more than room and board….

Big Apple se raconte dans une passionnante fresque en cinq volets nourrie d’archives, de littérature, d’interviews d’historiens et d’urbanistes. Par le réalisateur de Terres Indiennes (et co-réalisateur, avec son frère Ken Burns, des prestigieuses séries The War et Civil War).

Roberto Rossellini is one of the most influential European postwar directors, having lead the charge of Italian Neorealism and provided inspiration to the French Nouvelle Vague. This, of course, doesn't meant that he is a household name, nor does it mean that many of his most important films have been available on DVD in North America. Thankfully, with some forthcoming Criterion discs and this new Lions Gate Roberto Rossellini 2-Disc Collector's Edition, the Rossellini library is starting to get its due, though some of what is coming is not particularly his most well-known efforts.

The diva of the title is a famous black opera singer (Wilhelmina Wiggins-Fernandez) who steadfastly refuses to be recorded. The singer is idolized by young French mail-carrier Jules (Frederic Andrei), who sneaks a tape recorder into the theater and records her performance. This is witnessed by a pair of Taiwanese criminals, who unlike Andrei wish to profit from the bootlegged recording. They begin to pursue the boy, as do a couple of home-grown hooligans who believe that Jules is in possession of some murder evidence. The serpentine plot leads to a warm friendship between Jules and the reclusive diva - and to a brilliantly photographed (by Philipe Rousselot) motorcycle chase through the subway tunnels of Paris. Diva marked the directorial debut of Jean-Jacques Beineix, whose obvious fondness for the more esoteric techniques of the Nouvelle Vague never impedes his willingness to simply entertain his audiences.

Two brothers compete for the amorous favors of a young woman during a seaside summer of gambling, boating, and drinking, in this seminal Sun Tribe (taiyozoku) film from director Kô Nakahira. Adapted from the controversial novel by Shintarô Ishihara, and critically savaged for its lurid portrayal of the postwar sexual revolution among Japan’s young and privileged, Crazed Fruit is an anarchic outcry against tradition and the older generation.

Intensely engaging and uniquely insightful, 13 Tzameti is a thrillingly surreal journey that follows the descent of a young man into a sinister criminal underworld in which men gamble on each other's lives in a shockingly brutal new sport… 22 year-old Sebastien leads an impoverished life constantly struggling to support his immigrant family. While repairing the roof of a neighbours house, he overhears a conversation about a forthcoming package which promises to make the household rich. Sensing the opportunity of a lifetime, Sebastien intercepts the package which contains a series of veiled instructions.

Claude Chabrol s'est éteint le 12 septembre 2010 ; il restera comme l'une des figures centrales de la Nouvelle Vague, fidèle jusqu'au bout à son style inimitable.

Anne, a student in Paris, becomes involved with a group of her brother's arty friends and gets sucked into a mystery involving Philip, an expatriate American escaping McCarthyism; Terry, a self-destructive femme fatale; theatre director Gerard; and Juan, a Spanish activist who apparently committed suicide, but was he murdered? Philip warns Anne that the forces that killed Juan will soon do the same to Gerard, who is struggling to rehearse Shakespeare's Pericles. Anne takes a part in the play in an attempt to help him and also discover why Juan died.

C'est le visage des empotés, des pitres, des enfants, des souffre-douleurs, toujours au mauvais endroit au mauvais moment… Dès les années 1940, Jerry Lewis connaît un succès public fulgurant, notamment grâce à son duo avec Dean Martin. Mais son passage derrière la caméra, début 1960, brouille les pistes et braque les critiques sur sa légitimité à se proclamer "cinéaste", malgré la technicité et l'originalité extraordinaires dont il fait preuve dans sa mise en scène…

Michèle Cotta débute au sein du journal "Combat" où, jeune pigiste, elle obtient la première interview de François Mitterrand depuis l'affaire de l'Observatoire …