We mentioned in the first part of this series the opportunity that this complicated health situation we found ourselves in gave us to review film classics. (to a few, at least). To do this, we visited the platform's website of the movie, even with many limitations, one of the best online stores of arthouse cinema that we have at our disposal. In this text we will now review some relevant names from the recent history of world cinema. I don't know if they can be called classic yet., but we can say that they are authors who, one way or another, have marked the aesthetics of the best international cinema of recent decades. Not all those who should are there, of course. The selection responds to general interest and the possibility of finding enough titles to put together a small cycle. We start.
Wim Wenders: Definitely, one of the great references since the years 70 y 80 from the last century. We find so many works in fiction, like in documentary. In this case, son 15 parts: Alice in the cities, One wrong move, The American friend, Lightning over water, The man from Chinatown, Room 666, Paris, Texas, The sky over Berlin, So far, so close!, Notebook on cities and clothes, Pina, Everything will be fine, The salt of the earth y The beautiful days of Aranjuez. Some notable titles are missing, but it is a very good sample. For those who are unaware of Wenders' work, offers a more than comfortable approach to many of his fundamental works.
Woody Allen: These are bad times for one of the directors who has most influenced auteur cinema in recent decades.. Freud's outstanding son, to his work we must, definitely, our way of attending to and understanding human relationships in contemporary cosmopolitan societies. Without Allen, Noah Baumbach's cinema would not exist, For example, nor the majority of recent films or television series that have the city and human relationships as their setting. We found, no more no less, what 33 titles, among which is the best of his work, which occupies a good part of the decade of the 70-80, until his last work for the big screen. There goes the list: Tiger Lily, Take the money and run, Bananas, Everything you always wanted to know about sex but were never afraid to ask, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Stardust memories, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, Broadway Danny Rose, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and her sisters, September, shadows and fog, Bullets on Broadway, Everyone says I love you, Powerful Aphrodite, Taking apart Harry, Celebrity, Agreements and disagreements, Middle-aged scoundrels, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Vichy Cristina Barcelona, You will meet the man of your dreams, Midnight in Paris, To Rome with love, Irrational man, Café Society, Wonder Wheel y Rainy day in New York. As extras you can find the documentary Woody Allen: the documentary, directed by Robert Weide, first-person account that covers a good part of his work and life. and a curiosity: Woody & Woody, animated short film made by the Spanish Jaume Carrió in which Allen himself meets with himself to have an interesting talk about the meaning of existence.
Pedro Almodovar: Well of course. Many things can be said about Almodóvar's cinema, but, whether you are his biggest fan or not, What cannot be denied to the man from La Mancha is his ability to have created, over the years, a work with roots that has achieved international projection. From France to Germany, all of Latin America or in the United States, Almodóvar's cinema has traveled around the globe and that is something that few can say. Filmin has 17 titles of his filmography: Labyrinth of passions, between darkness, What have I done to deserve this?, The law of desire, Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Adam!, Far Heels, Reading, The flower of my secret, tremulous flesh, All about my mother, talk to her, bad education, Return, The broken hugs, The skin I live in y pain and glory. If you are more of a Netflix fan, The platform also offers a good selection of titles.
Aki Kaurismaki: And we're going to Finland to visit one of the directors perhaps most revered by critics and most persecuted by new generations., both aesthetically and conceptually. Kaurismaki has been establishing himself in the eyes of the cinephile spectator as a director of sober staging and almost hieratic direction of actors., seemingly cold and distant, a trick that hides, however, a biting sense of humor and an acidic and tender look, at the same time, before life. Filmin offers us 13 titles. Are these: Shadows in it paradise, Hamlet VA Business, Leningrad cowboys go America, I hired a hired killer, Leningrad cowboys meet Moses, Bohemia's life, Passenger clouds, Juha, evening lights, El oats, Historic center y The other side of hope.
Francis Ford Coppola: No introduction needed. Filmin offers eleven titles: Battle in the dark (a curiosity in which he was the editor), Dementia 13, The conversation, Apocalypse now, Hunch, Rebels, The law of the street, Cotton Club Tucker, a man and his dream, The man without mercy y Gloomy. Besides, we can find the documentary Hearts of darkness which narrates the eventful filming of Apocalypse now, his masterpiece. To complete the filmography we go to Netflix where we can find the complete trilogy of The godfather.
Jim Jarmusch: With that white hair that gives him that rock star look, it may not seem like it, but Jarmusch is already on his way to seventy years old. What makes your cinema continue to seem the most contemporary in world cinema?, It is one of those mysteries that many would like to know. But Jarmusch keeps the secret to himself and does not reveal anything.. The platform offers an interesting selection with nine films: Permanent vacation, strangers in paradise, Under the weight of the law, night on earth, Dead man, broken flowers, Only lovers surviven, Paterson and the documentary Gimme Danger, which addresses the influence of the music of The Stooges, Iggy Pop's band.
and a miscellany…
We add here a small list of directors of which not many titles are available, but it is worth mentioning.
David Lynch: Filmin offers eight jobs: The short films of David Lynch, with all his short films, The elephant man, Dune, Blue velvet, Twin Peaks: fire walk with me, lost road, A true story y Inland Empire. Besides, we found the documentary David Lynch: The Art Life, directed by Jon Nguyen and Rick Barnes, a long interview with the very director, but very interesting when it comes to understanding what's going on in this guy's head..
Martin Scorsese: Many are missing, too many, but there it goes: Bertha's Train, the documentary The last waltz, wild bull, The last temptation of Christ, cape fear, Casino (available until 1 of April), George Harrison: living in the material world y Silence. On Netflix you can find bad streets, One of ours, Infiltrators y The Irish.
Zhang Yimou: There is not much, but what there is is very good and, between all this, the works that cemented his well-deserved reputation: red sorghum, Ju Dou (chrysanthemum seed), The red lantern, a woman, a gun and a noodle shop, Love under the hawthorn, The flowers of war y return home.
Abbas Kiarostami: Four movies: The taste of cherry, The wind will take us, Ten y Certified copy. little thing, but…
Krzysztof Kieslowski: FUNDAMENTAL. It's a shame everything isn't there.. We found only two pieces from his television series (Would it be possible for something like this to happen today??) The decalogue. Of the ten films that make up the series, we find you will not kill y you will not love, to which are added Veronica's double life and the trilogy of Azul, Rojo y Blanco.
Theo Angelopoulos: even less, for what this director deserves. two tapes: The suspended step of the stork y Eleni. As a curiosity, you can see the documentary A place in the cinema by Alberto Morais depicting Angelopoulus' journey to the beach of Ostia where Pier Paolo Pasolini was murdered.
