Based on Albert Camus’ unfinished last work, The First Man is an semi-autobiography, balancing tales of the author’s upbringing in a fatherless home with scenes from 1957 Algeria. The film’s twin timelines succeed in profiling author Jacques Coméry and his time in Algeria during two separate times, the 1920s and the 1950s. Scenes from his childhood and the path that led him to become a writer and make a career for himself are juxtaposed with a recent trip to the country to visit his family and speak on the subject of the independence movement. As Coméry speaks to integral figures …
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
In literature, Holly Golightly is a contradictory: she wants everything but doesn’t treasure anything; she doesn’t know what she has until it is gone. In film, she is more of a dilettante, playing the female lead in the first romantic comedy. The book by Truman Capote and the film starring Audrey Hepburn are certainly opposites although I kind of liked both works. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – chosen as a title because of Holly’s proclivity towards daft comments echoed some of Capote’s friends and illustrated in the film when Hepburn ends an evening by having coffee and a pastry in a …
Kurosawa Retrospective
Since 2010 is the centennial of Akira Kurosawa’s birth both Cinémathèque Ontario and the Bloor Cinema have organized screenings of some of the filmmaker’s most notable works. Watching Kurosawa’s films, especially those from his classic period during the 1950s and 1960s, one can appreciate his contributions as a director and screenwriter. The Seven Samurai: I’ve reviewed this film previously and can reaffirm that the film deserves its exalted place among cinema’s greatest achievements. The film introduces many storytelling techniques to cinema, such as introducing the protagonist via an unrelated caper that showcases their bravery, fighting skill, or sometimes ingenuity and …