"Satyricon" is advanced Fellini, a film seemingly made with little regard for its audience -- going so far as to end mid-sentence to stress its fragmented nature. The idea was to "upset viewers," says one expert on the film. Fellini, of course, succeeds at upending the cinema as few filmmakers could. Difficult and frustrating as "Satyricon" … [Read more...]
Pasolini’s ‘Trilogy of Life’
In retrospect, "Trilogy of Life" seems an odd and ironic title for any work credited to Pier Paolo Pasolini. The director's grisly murder in 1975 still haunts Italians. Pasolini's notorious work "Salò" is a study in death and depravity -- a sick work of art, but an essential work of art nonetheless. His was dubbed "the cinema of despair." In … [Read more...]
‘The Passenger’: Antonioni’s rocky road movie
Jack Nicholson says the making of Michelangelo Antonioni's "The Passenger" was "the biggest adventure in filming I ever had in my life." That's saying plenty and probably explains why the actor did his first solo commentary for the DVD. "It's very hard for me to separate the experience of making the movie from the movie itself," he says. For the … [Read more...]
