Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

Recently watched the classic 1960 À bout de souffle (Breathless), which I hadn’t viewed since a History of Cinema college screening 30 years ago. Filmed in Paris, Breathless is Jean Luc Godard’s first feature, based on a story by Francois Truffaut. Heralded as a cornerstone of the French New Wave Cinema, it is shot in an edgy, spontaneous style of the beatnick jazz poetry of the times. The main character is a shiftless chain smoking car thief played by Jean Paul Belmondo. The film is often heralded as a turning point in filmmaking.

Naked, 1993 directed by Mike Leigh and filmed in locations around gritty parts of London. The protagonist Johnny, calls himself a cheeky monkey and is a similar chain-smoking, woman chasing, bad guy hero on the run cast from the same mold as Belmondo’s character.

My previous review of Kurosowa’s Drunken Angel covers the similar harrowing decline of a self destructive modern tough guy. Better him than me, eh Chuck-o?
So now that DV cameras are cheap, where are the new new wave of guerrilla cinematographers and little guys up against the odds of big established society? Perhaps they are with GNN: The Guerrilla News Network or Channel 101. We will know it when we see it: raw, jagged, real and maybe a little bit romantic.

I love this classic animation from the early formative years. Here is an archived 1937 cartoon by Paul Terry and his Terrytoons studio. It appears that a crucial shot early in the cartoon, where the little goat drinks alcohol is absent.

Fortunately, The International Animated Film Society: ASIFA-Hollywood has embarked on an ambitious project to create an animation archive, museum, and library for the benefit of the animation community, students and general public. The first phase of this project involves the creation of a virtual archive which will house images, movie clips and sound files pertaining to the art of animation. Their blog is loaded with art and information of interest to animation fans.