Film International nr 2003:5

Editorial

Last year, in Film International’s predecessor Filmhäftet, Robin Wood published a deservedly praised essay on Michael Haneke and his film The Piano Teacher (La Pianiste, 2001). We ran it in issue # 121 (2002:3, May 25th), and shortly afterwards it was also published in issue # 59 of the invaluable Canadian film journal CineAction. The essay was the starting point for his project “12 Close Readings of 12 Directors”, and now I am proud and delighted to announce that Film International will continue to publish all the remaining eleven essays as the project proceeeds. We start, in this issue, with the controversial Gaspar Noé and his succés de scandale in Cannes 2002: Irreversible. Coming up next in the project is an essay on Claire Denys, to be published in issue # 7 (2004:1, January 25th).
Two years after 9/11 much has been discussed about the causes and effects of this tragic event. Aided by intellectuals Susan Sontag, Jean Baudrillard, and Paul Virilio, filmmaker/author Evans Chan reflects on our perception of war, colonialism and terrorism as presented to us by the arts and medias. Screenwriters has for too long been living in the shade due to the still lingering auteurism’s elevation of the director as the creative superstar of cinema. Therefore Film International plan to do a special issue on screenwriters next year. Until then you can read Patrick McGilligan’s interview with one of Hollywood’s veterans: Alvin Sargent.
Star analysis is also a genre all too seldom explored by scholars, which makes this perceptive essay on Fred Astaire in Top Hat – the film that shaped his image – most welcome. And in the review section we have a diptych on Samuel Fuller: an extensive review by Crouse on Fuller’s book A Third Face, followed by a portrait of the man and the artist by Tag Gallagher.
Should all this and an extensive review section fail to satisfy your hunger for reading about film, then you can go to our web site at www.filmint.nu. There is much to read that is not featured in the journal. There you will also find a brand new subscription service with a secure sever for payment by credit card. And remember: Since we do not publish advertisements or are part of a media oligopoly, we have to rely solely on you as a subscriber for our existence.

Michael Tapper
Editor-in-chief


In this issue

3 Editorial

4 Against and for Irreversible
Robin Wood poses some challenging questions about last year’s succés de scandale and hopes for a response from filmmaker Gaspar Noé.

10 War and Images
Evans Chan on 9/11/01, Susan Sontag, Jean Baudrillard, and Paul Virilio.

24 Alvin Sargent: Pursuit and Destination
Patrick McGilligan interviews the screenwriter of, among other titles, Paper Moon, Julia, Ordinary People, and Unfaithful.

32 Letting His Wish Provide the Occasion: Fred Astaire in Top Hat
Jeffrey Crouse analyzes the image of a musical star, who – through his dance steps – best exemplifies the potential of cinema, in the words of David Thomson.

44 Samuel Fuller
Tag Gallagher sketches a portrait of one of the original Kings of the Bs. His text is presented together with a review of the book A Third Face (see below).

42 Book reviews

42 A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking
47 Animals in Film
49 British Cinema of the 1950s: A Celebration + Dracula + The Charge of the Light Brigade + English Heritage, English Cinema: Costume Drama Since 1980
52 The Danish Directors: Dialogues on a Contemporary National Cinema + Purity and Provocation: Dogma ’95 + The Idiots
53 Marguerite Duras
54 Dreams and Dead Ends: The American Gangster Film
55 A Panorama of American Film Noir, 1941-1953


56 DVD reviews

56 I Am Curious – Yellow/Blue
58 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning + The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
60 The Adventures of Antoine Doinel: Five films by François Truffaut
62 Coup de Grâce + The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum

64 Film reviews

64 In This World
65 The Pianist

Filmhäftet

Publicerad: 2003-09-23

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