Jacques Tati followed one of the normal paths towards feature film directing: through short films. He wrote, starred in, and eventually directed a handful of shorts, culminating in his directorial debut of "School for Postmen" with Tati playing a smalltown French postman named Francois who rapidly moves through his small town to deliver the mail… Continue reading Jour de Fete
Category: 1940s
Le Silence de la Mer
#8 in my ranking of Jean-Pierre Melville's filmography. Jean-Pierre Melville was born Jean-Pierre Grumbach and took the nom-de-guerre Melville during his time with the French Occupation against Nazi rule during World War II. With the war ended, he struck out to become a filmmaker, being rejected by the actual French studios, and went independent, adapting… Continue reading Le Silence de la Mer
Stray Dog
#9 in my ranking of Akira Kurosawa's filmography. One of the earliest buddy cop movies, pairing up a young police officer with a more seasoned one, essentially Lethal Weapon but postwar Japanese, Straw Dogs is basically a police procedural about the search of a lost police pistol. What makes it really work is twofold: the… Continue reading Stray Dog
The Quiet Duel
#12 in my ranking of Akira Kurosawa’s filmography. One of those lesser known films from a great director that gets largely ignored and dismissed, The Quiet Duel is the story of suppressed emotions in an extremely Japanese context that I found wonderfully affecting. I've seen the film dismissed as melodrama, a word I often feel gets… Continue reading The Quiet Duel
Drunken Angel
#21 in my ranking of Akira Kurosawa’s filmography. And so was born one of the most famous director and actor combinations in movie history. Helped in no small part by a 51-day strike that they did not participate in, Akira Kurosawa cast Toshiro Mifune as the gangster to Takashi Shimura's doctor, supposedly with the original plan… Continue reading Drunken Angel