Classiq - An online journal that celebrates cinema, culture, style and storytelling.

14 September 2018

Three Classic Films Get New Posters

Autumn is ripe with new beginnings, so on the brim of the new season, I am happy to present you an exclusive Classiq collaboration, with illustrator Irina Perju. And it’s movie posters, no less! Need I say more? I would love to say that one of the aims of this collaboration is to attract a new, young audience for classic films and to make classic cinema more accessible to a wider public. And I sincerely hope it does. But I guess it is first and foremost another way to funnel my lifelong passion for cinema. It truly is a celebration of classic films and storytelling that, paired with Irina’s beautiful artwork and end product, wants to bring a new, tangible appreciation for artistic expression and for the world of film.

You can find all the details about the posters on shop.classiq.me, where they are exclusively sold. What I want to point out here though is that the colours of the poster prints you will receive in the mail are very faithful to the colours you see in the unframed illustrations (with the specification that colours may vary slightly from one screen to another), not in the photos of the framed posters.

The first adaptation after Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, Plein soleil (1960) is a visually beautiful film – Highsmith described it as “very beautiful to the eye and interesting for the intellect” – and its style reminds me of Alfred Hitchcok’s works. Director René Clément was a technician himself, who had trained as an architect and made his debut in cinema as a cameraman. In fact, he was named the French Alfred Hitchcock after he made this film. Of course, part of the film’s dazzlingly beautiful quality is Alain Delon in the role of Tom Ripley. With his arresting good looks and impeccable style, Delon makes a sinister Ripley, of a darting intelligence and of few words, a mixture of ravishing beauty and inhumanity. Henri Decaë’s exquisite cinematography and the sun-drenched mise-en-scène (the picture was shot entirely on location, in Rome, Naples and the vicinity islands) sharply contrasts the themes of envy, deceit and murder. What I have found extremely fascinating about this film is that it is an unusual noir: all is bright and in the open, inviting the viewer in – plein soleil.

Noir merges with romantic drama in George Stevens’ classic A Place in the Sun (1951). George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) travels west from Chicago, chasing a dream and the promise of a new life and self. Pursuing happiness and wealth, in that order, he makes bad choices, which will seal his faith. George finds comfort in a poor girl (Shelley Winters), but he finds love in wealthy Angela (Elizabeth Taylor). And the mastery of this film lies in the way the director uses two contrasting styles to show Clift’s conflicting feelings. When George Eastman is with Angela, Stevens bathes him in light. The scenes with the two of them are sensual and intimate, in soft focus and close-up, it’s like they are the only two people left on the face of the Earth. He is tender and vulnerable and he comes to life around Angela. The sequences with his girlfriend, Alice (Shelley Winters), and later in the courtroom, are marked by a suffocating bleakness, filmed in chiaroscuro lighting, in pure noir style. His expressions are opaque and it’s always dark around the two of them, which suggests the threat to George’s desire for “his place in the sun”.

L’Avventura (1960) was the first film from Michelangelo Antonioni’s trilogy that would go on to include La notte (1961) and L’eclisse (1962). Visually speaking, it’s a hauntingly beautiful picture, thanks to Aldo Scavarda’s cinematography. On any level, it is a groundbreaking film, stark and pure, advancing the language of cinema. Antonioni often turned away close readings of his films, encouraging an instinctual approach to viewing similar to that which he claimed he used while filming. Surpassing any conventional denouement and offering an on-going theme of reflection, L’Avventura, with its acerbic sensibility, expresses a modern alienation that has endured only too well, just like the film. Questions remain unanswered, the characters’ reasonings are left unexplained, the story does not quite resolve itself, the mystery remains – just like life.

Posted by classiq in Film | | 2 Comments

10 September 2018

Interview with Photographer Laura Wilson

Harry Dean Stanton on the set of “The Wendell Baker Story”, Circleville, Texas, 2003 | photo by Laura Wilson

She always carries her camera with her. Be it in the wide-open spaces of the great American West or on a movie set, whether capturing the beauty and fragility of the vast American land, the bleak reality of the Indian reservations, a pioneering cattleman on a Texas ranch, or showcasing an actor in a revealing way on the movie set, Laura Wilson’s photography evokes a sense of earnestness and closeness. It is not easy to get close to the insular and distrusting Hutterite community of Montana or to an actor emerged in his performance, but close she gets every single time.

She goes wherever it is a story worth telling to tell. And she always gets the story right. Laura Wilson is a restless, honest and profound visual storyteller. Each one of her photographs is like a world in itself. Without trying to debunk the myths, but always in search of the truth, Laura has a photojournalistic eye that enables her to seek for authenticity and an instinct for non-invasively penetrating and exploring enclosed, tightly knit societies, true to their traditional ways of life, portraying their uniqueness and independence and thus trying to preserve their identity.

As a film set photographer, Laura Wilson’s work is no less enthralling, always leaving me with a sense of wonder and privileged access to the fascinating universe of cinema. She has collaborated with the likes of Joel and Ethan Coen, Woody Allen and Wes Anderson, and also with her sons, Owen, Luke and Andrew (yes, the film actors). Her photography has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ Magazine, English Vogue, London’s Sunday Times Magazine and The Washington Post Magazine, and she has produced five photographic books, including That Day: Pictures in the American West, Hutterites of Montana and Avedon at Work.

I have talked to Laura about why it is so challenging to be a photographer on a movie set, about a photographer’s responsibility to respond to world issues and about the biggest misconception people have about Hollywood.

“There is not one time something has appeared before me
that I haven’t wanted to photograph it.”

Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody on the set of “The Darjeeling Limited”, Rajasthan, India, 2007 | photo by Laura Wilson

Laura, what does it take to go there, to want to tell a story through your photographs?
Curiosity and energy.

Your book, That Day: Pictures in the American West, depicts the majesty as well as the tragedy of the American West today, like the desolate reality of Indian reservations. As an artist, as a photographer, do you feel a responsibility not only to reveal, but also to respond to world events and issues?
Yes, I feel strongly that a photographer must respond to world events and issues to reveal these circumstances that weigh upon people.

What is the most important lesson your travels across America have taught you?
How splendid and beautiful the nation is and how varied and interesting the people are. And also how generous they are with their stories if you are serious and thoughtfully respond to their lives.

Are you hopeful that their stories will continue to be told and heard?
Most of all, I hope I hear and learn and continue to tell their stories myself.

Hutterite Girl in Wheat Field, Hutterite Colony, Montana, 1994 | photo by Laura Wilson

Hutterite Girls during Haymaking Season, Hutterite Colony, Montana, 1991 | photo by Laura Wilson

Do you always carry a camera with you?
Yes, always.

Are there moments when you simply witness a moment without shooting any picture? Is it true that even photographers keep some of the most special moments they experience to themselves?
Yes, there are times I haven’t photographed, but these moments are unplanned and always leave me wishing I’d been more alert, quicker to seize the moment. There is not one time something has appeared before me that I haven’t wanted to photograph it.

Do you try to get to know someone a little before you do a portrait? How predictable or unpredictable is the encounter between you and your subject when you do a portrait?
Yes, I always try to get to know the person ahead of time by doing research on the person, or speaking to others who might know the person, or looking at photos of the person. If none of this is possible because of limitations or lack of information, I always talk to the person while I am photographing him or her. By talking to the subject during the process, I can also find out things that I might want to reveal or to enhance in what I see before me.

I am interested in people, they generally respond by being generous with information about themselves.

Cowboys Walking, J.R. Greene Land and Cattle Company, Shackelford County, Texas, 1997 | photo by Laura Wilson

Child with Father and Sister, Colonia, Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, 1993 | photo by Laura Wilson

You worked six years as the assistant of Richard Avedon and your book, Avedon at Work, documents the creative process of the photographer during his classic In the American West project. What is one thing that you and Avedon have taught each other?
I wouldn’t presume to say I taught Avedon anything. I learned from him that a good photographer, a great photographer, is not about f-stops and shutter speeds, but about the content of a photograph. This is what gives an image its power. And the more one knows about literature and psychology, mythology and the theater, the better a photographer can respond to what he or she sees before him.

In your book, That Day, there is a photograph of Harry Dean Stanton, on the set of The Wendell Baker Story, Circleville, Texas. I love that photo (and I love Harry Dean Stanton’s films, too) and I keep coming back to it. What’s the story behind that photo? I believe it is one of those photos that prove the importance of the still set photographer. Because a set photographer can not only capture the essence of a film in a shot, their photography can also reveal an actor in a moment of contemplation, in a fleeting moment of vulnerability, showing them with their guard down, just being themselves, not in character, and that’s a very rare and special thing.
I love being on a movie set for the opportunity to photograph people in revealing ways. In this moment, Harry Dean Stanton, oblivious to the heat, waited near a beautiful aluminum Beech 18 for the next scene in The Wendell Baker Story. He sang one of his favorite tunes, “Canción Mixteca”, the story of a man filled with sadness and longing for his home in Oaxaca, Mexico. With almost 200 films over 50 Hollywood years, Harry Dean is known on movie sets to regularly serenade actors and crews with Mexican Ranchera music. He has the same, strong, haunting voice he had nearly a quarter-century ago when he sang “Canción Mixteca” for Wim Wenders in Paris Texas and, before that, the gospel song “A Closer Walk with Thee” for the soundtrack of Cool Hand Luke.

Like Wilson on the set of “The Royal Tenenbaums”, New York, 2001 | photo by Laura Wilson

Anjelica Huston on the set of “The Royal Tenenbaums”, New York, 2001 | photo by Laura Wilson

Many filmmakers are very particular about the set photographers they allow to document their work. Wes Anderson is one of the filmmakers you have worked with and he is well-known for his close and loyal team of collaborators. What is it that gained you his trust? Although I do not believe it is just a matter of trust, one also has to know and respect film.
I’ve known Wes since he was an undergraduate at the University of Texas, and because of his friendship with my sons, Andrew, Owen and Luke, and with us, my husband Bob and I, we have a special bond. I was the first person to photograph Wes when he began in film as the director on Bottle Rocket, and he has remained loyal to me for many years.

A set photographer has to be determined while remaining quiet, gentle, unseen. Have there been moments when you felt you didn’t want to intrude and disturb an actor in the middle of a difficult performance and at the same time that you had to remain driven to be able to get the picture? How difficult is it to get close while keeping your distance?
This question is the main issue when you are a good photographer on a film set. By the very nature of photography, you have to get in close. As Robert Capa said, “if your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” But on a movie set, you are kept at arms length by the director, by the lighting people, by the actors themselves. It’s an extremely challenging job and to do it well is extremely difficult. And nowadays, sets are so controlled by the marketing people, they are often times impenetrable. My relationship with Wes Anderson has been a particularly happy one because I have been given tremendous access because of our long friendship.

The challenges of any set photographer have been my struggle on every movie. The actors are tired of the set photographer and bored by any request to remain longer on set. Jackie Chan and Anjelica Huston, however, were two of the most cooperative actors I have worked with.

Anjelica Huston and Wes Anderson on the set of “The Royal Tenenbaums”, New York, 2001 | photo by Laura Wilson

There is that beautiful photograph of Anjelica Huston and Wes Anderson on the set of The Royal Tenenbaums, of them both sitting down, Anjelica in Wes’ lap with her legs crossed over his. Whose idea was that photo?
That photo was my idea. Wes was sitting on a low wall of the outside entry of the Royal Tenenbaum house, lost in thought, perhaps reviewing scenes that he had shot or was about to shoot when Anjelica came into the doorway. I asked if she would sit next to Wes for a portrait and she, in a lighthearted way, sat in his lap. Wes, who knew Anjelica’s lineage (she is the granddaughter of Walter Huston, and daughter of the great director John Huston), was thrilled. Anjelica is Hollywood royalty.

Speaking of Hollywood royalty, you are working on a book about making movies. Can you tell me a little bit about it, and when will it be published?
I have been working for ten or more years on this book, accumulating pictures of all sorts of people. I now need to work with our designer on the layout of the book and present it to publishers.

What is one misconception people have about Hollywood?
I think the biggest misconception is thinking the behavior of people in Hollywood is isolated to Hollywood when, in fact, people in Hollywood are like everyone else. They have the same ups and downs, talents and shortcomings. They’re just on such a large international stage, we pay more attention.

Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson get the green light, Paramount Studios
Los Angeles, California, 1992 | photo by Laura Wilson

If you could be anywhere in the world right now, preparing to take a shot, where would you want to be?
Along any border with a large number of migrants trying to cross.

Young Woman with Child, border camp, Arizona-Sonora border, June 30, 2000 | photo by Laura Wilson

Website: laurawilsonphotography.com

Laura Wilson’s photography books: That Day: Pictures in the American West /
Avedon at Work / Hutterites of Montana /
Watt Matthews at Lambshead / Grit and Glory

Posted by classiq in Interviews, Photography | | 3 Comments

8 September 2018

Women of Style

As much as I hate seeing summer fading, each September I realise how I revel in the frenetic energy of autumn. I like the back-to-school feeling, I like the organised routine the season brings along, I like the cooler temps in early fall that give you the impulse to seek for and embrace new beginnings. And I like how we reclaim our style in autumn.

It’s been a while since I wrote an article solely about style. I now prefer a more subtle approach. I like to celebrate style quietly, by featuring women and men from all artistic fields and talking about values and work and lifestyle as a whole. Isn’t that what style really is about? I sometimes casually bring up the notion of style in our conversations. So today I wanted to mark the approaching shift of seasons and its sartorial supremacy by gathering some of the most inspiring style quotes from my interviewees along the years. They are all incredible, beautiful, stylish women, but who prefer their work, not their looks, to be in the spotlight. However, in order to avoid a possible repetitive feeling, I chose to feature different women in the photographs. Women who, why not, I would love to interview one day and present them in their element, be it on an Australian shooting location, in the streets of Paris, in their home or in their kitchen. Because everyone is best at being themselves. And they all wear timeless pieces for fall.

“Style comes from a sense of self, of knowing and understanding who you are, what is you and what is not. I cultivate that in myself and I work to bring that forth in my clients. My designs definitely speak for my style, but if I were to choose just one object as a reference, it would probably be horseback riding pants. I love horses, and the way they complement the feminine. I have always associated them with the Amazons. They were not just women warriors, they were free spirits of great charisma. Only in my story, they dismount and put on a wide skirt and host dinner parties.“
Fashion designer Oana Manolescu

“Being yourself and no one else.”
Author and designer India Hicks

“I believe in trying one’s best. And if we all try to make our surroundings pleasant and inviting, that must be better than not doing so. Style to me is how you carry yourself, your posture, your choice of colours and pattern when it comes to clothes, and, most of all, the overall look. As I live in a country with six months of winter, am a mother of three young boys, as well as an illustrator that works in a messy, drippy way, I wear a lot of jeans with second hand tops and blouses and boots.“
Illustrator Stina Persson

“Tapping into the creative brain, self expression, not following the mainstream, but molding the ideas that are out there to create your own thing. You actually have to care enough about style to have any and, in some cases, being courageous in your approach.“
Kara Johnson, founder of Kara Thoms Boutique

“Being yourself. Elegance with a twist that makes us different.”
Johanna Lepeu El Iman, founder of Zoobeetle Paris

“Style is the slow distilling of its culture – art, music, literature, religion –
that over time seep into our being and give us a sense of who we are.”
Patricia Gucci

“Style to me is a way in which someone does something that just exudes their true self, it’s never forced. It’s innate and ultimately I think it’s a way in which someone carries themselves. I think it’s just a way of communicating who you are without speaking.“
Valerie Santillo, Kamperett

“For me, style is about protocol, it is about doing things in a certain way that makes experiences more pleasant for people. That may include taking time to present a meal in an attractive way for a guest, dressing appropriately if you are accepting an invitation, or simply acting courteously.“
Polly Leonard, founder and editor-in-chief of Selvedge magazine

“I like it to be a mix of comfort, playful and personal.
I am not a fashionista, but love beautiful clothes and things.
Style, I think, is an individual take on what’s surrounding you.
Illustrator Cecilia Carlstedt

“Living in Paris, ‘The Fashion Mecca’, is hard to ignore fashion! My style hasn’t changed much over the years. I love timeliess and effortless items of clothing. A classical look, but with personnal details. An elegant fabric, classic colors, beautiful and authentic silver jewelry I brought back from Chile or vintage jewels that have been in my family. I love silver jewelry and bought some fantastic pieces in Santa Fe Indian Market. I like stylish elements. I suppose that my style is as direct and frank as my writing, and in a way, if I like white shirts it’s certainly because it summarizes all that.“
Travel writer Francisca Mattéoli

photos: 1-Kara Rosenlund / 2-Claire Thomson Jonville by Atelier Doré / 3-Juliette Hermant by Atelier Doré / 4-Mimi Thorisson by Oddur Thorisson

Posted by classiq in Style | | Comments Off

5 September 2018

Words of Sound

This late summer has been all about musical biographies and autobiographies.

I wanted to read Tony Visconti’s Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy (forward by Morrissey) mainly because I was interested in David Bowie. Visconti was Bowie’s producer on many albums and together they created some amazing music. He was also personally close to Bowie, all the more reason to feel that you are granted unique access to the backstage, to the extraordinary universe of Bowie, to his first music days, the days when David Bowie invented himself and the decades thereafter when he continued to reinvent himself. If you, like me, are looking to see the view of it all, of Bowie and his music, this is the book to start with.

But there is more to it than that. It was interesting to read about Tony Visconti, the man, the musician, the producer. A hard-working, normal, flawed, honest human, a Brooklyn boy who went to London – the land of The Beatles and George Martin, his standard in music recording – because he wanted to learn the music business. A talented, ground-breaking, visionary music producer, one of the best of all time. The man who helped shape music history.

Tony Visconti’s work with David Bowie and Marc Bolan shaped the landscape of rock in the ’70s and his book takes you back to those glory days of music. And here is something I completely relate to and which I needed to hear (read): “Enjoying a brand new LP record for the first time was a ritual. It involved sliding the black vinyl out of its protective sleeve, carefully placing it on the deck and putting the tone arm down on the large black disc before hurrying back to your favourite piece of furniture. From there you had your own private debut concert of the latest Beatles or Earth Wind and Fire recording. The artwork was large and detailed. The reading of the detailed sleeve notes and sometimes song lyrics were essential parts of the programme. You had to make sure you had something to munch on, a drink, a packet of smokes and maybe a companion or two to share the experience. It was impossible to walk down the road with your new album buzzing in your private headset, this was a concert, it was mandatory to sit there and listen. Your favourite artists knew this too.” I don’t want this kind of experience to be a thing of the past.

Some of the most interesting parts in the book are the insights into creating and recording various albums for Bowie and Bolan and the methods Tony came up with to make the now classic recordings unlike anything that has ever been put to tape. Visconti has also worked with many other important musicians, from Iggy Pop, U2, Paul McCartney and Morrissey and his straight-forward attitude and relaxed and unjudgmental familiarity with all of them is what makes his book so readable, enjoyable and valuable.

“I have finally come to understand that love and friendship are what’s really important and should not be treated lightly – and sobriety is the best high.”

Just as in the case of David Bowie, I had not read any lengthy work about The Beatles before. But unlike in the case of Bowie, I am no Beatles fan. But again, that doesn’t mean I am not interested in the phenomenon, in the cultural shift their music produced, in their music legacy. So, after interminable discussions about music and the role the four boys from Liverpool played in it, at my brother’s suggestion, I reluctantly embarked on the reading of Bob Spitz’s 860-page biography, The Beatles.

As a non-Beatles fan, the first thing that helped and made me appreciate the book was the author’s objective approach. Then, the author clearly has a talent for writing and that shows even in his choice of words for the titles of the main parts of the book – Mercy, Mania, Mastery – and of each chapter. He also paid great attention to every nuance of every scene and moment – the book is richly detailed and researched, Spitz having gathered little known information from all possible sources, which makes up for more than 100 additional pages of footnotes, bibliography, discography and other end matter.

Again, I must mention that I had no other book to compare it with, so I don’t know how much had been left or not unsaid before this book came out. But, for me, it was incredibly interesting to get the whole story: their childhood (one of the most captivating parts); the way each one of them discovered and fell in love with American rock ‘n’ roll; the way they met one another; John’s, Paul’s and George’s first band together; The Beatles; their breakthrough; the Beatlemania; the talent, egos, megalomania, fame, drugs, excesses, struggles, the highs and lows; the humans behind; the Lennon-McCartney teamwork (always) and rivalry (always); the Beatles as in John-Paul-George-Ringo (always) to the very end, in 1969. That’s what I wanted to know. And, yes, this book has helped me better appreciate their music, but, most importantly, music after The Beatles. And, yes, I do share the feeling of complete dissatisfaction with Yoko Ono, more than ever before, that comes through in the book. Does anyone feel differently?

Note: I do pay great attention to a book cover, and I would stick to the first edition cover (as seen in the image below), with the Bob Whitaker photograph.

“Another thing I found strange after living and playing in New York for a little while was that a lot of black musicians didn’t know anything about music theory. […] I would go to the library and borrow scores by all those great composers, like Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Prokofiev. I wanted to see what was going on in all of music. Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery, and I just couldn’t believe someone could be that close to freedom and not take advantage of it. I have never understood why black proper didn’t take advantage of all the shit that they can.”

Miles: The Autobiography, by Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe, is, on the one hand, raw, blunt and compelling, an opinionated, undeterred, in-your-face recounting of Miles Davis’ journey, which is not short of great life lessons. His passion, drive and tireless music innovation shine through. On the other hand, I disliked his constant cursing, his poor choice of words and contemptuous behavior in certain situations and the name dropping. He holds nothing back. But this no-nonsense inability to edit himself was part of who he was. The book is both admirable and enraging. It is also a validation of his musical genius. Maybe that’s all that one needs to know. “Miles Davis is the only musician who has captured the power and essence of Spanish music,” said Pedro Almodóvar in his autobiography, Almódovar on Almódovar. Davis’ Skeches of Spain album is an innovative and adventurous re-working of traditional Spanish folk songs, one of his monumental leaps into improvisations.

photos: Classiq

Related content: Defining Moments in Rock ‘n’ Roll Style / In His Own Words: Morrissey / Listen to All This Jazz

Posted by classiq in Books, Sounds & Tracks | | Comments Off

29 August 2018

The Old, the New and Venice Film Festival

Kirk Douglas at Venice Film Festival, 1953

I like timeless style, not vintage style. I like classic films, not old-fashioned films – incidentally, I regard ’70s films as classics as well (one of the best decades in cinema in my opinion, along with the ’30s and ’40s), and they all must be good films, which not all classic films are anyway. I want to regularly stress out the above-mentioned because I am sometimes told I am nostalgic just because I write about classic cinema. First of all, for me to be nostalgic it would have meant living through that period. I didn’t. Secondly, I don’t like living in the past. It’s not about contemplating the old days and imagining that everything was better back then. But I know for sure what was indeed better: a different values system, respect for privacy, talent and substance presiding over celebrity and fame. When looking good was more about self respect and less about self importance, when being glamorous was more about attitude than looks. When people and actors were individuals, not striving to act and look like they came from the same factory. Before the quality of stardom was absolutely debased. Before celebrity culture, when actors were actors, when actors were true stars by simply being themselves and did not need a posse of stylists and publicists fluttering around them. Before glamour, class and mystery were gone.

I keep thinking of François Truffaut’s tribute words to Gloria Grahame: “The beautiful eyes of Gloria Grahame make you die of love, then wait a little longer, until another movie is released.” That kind of screen magnetism is lost today. Not only that, but the media machine makes it impossible to look forward to a promising film these days without already knowing minute details of the production. There are still good films being made, yes, and I ferociously write about them when I come across one. But films that linger on in your memory for years, performances that impress you in the way a classic actor held the screen, a genuine moment that makes you feel as if something special is created in front of you? That is something much more difficult to attain with new than with old movies.

Warren Beatty, Venice Film Festival, 1956, Archivio Cameraphoto

The world of film today is certainly also a product of our modern-day society, a society governed by advertisers, marketers and the media, all of whom use celebrity culture as a weapon of mass distraction. It is impossible for me not to look around and realise that there has been no other generation which has so diligently recorded itself for accomplishing so little than this generation, Generation Facebook. Not to acknowledge that would mean to give up hope entirely, to surrender to accepting that the Internet and social media are the end of culture. Because the human kind has no future without culture and education. If to be old-fashioned means not being proud of being part of the social media age, then be it, I am old-fashioned. Except that I am not. I don’t have an old-fashioned, old-school set of rules. This is about the golden rules of style and class and culture. And I stick to them.

That said, the history of film is still being written and film festivals have an important role in that. The oldest film festival in the world, at its 75th anniversary, starts today in Venice (it runs until September 8). But I don’t want to talk just about the Film Festival, but also about the Venice Biennale as one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world for over 120 years. Established in 1895, the Biennale has an attendance today of over 500,000 visitors at the Art Exhibition alone. In the 1930s, new festivals were born: Music, Cinema (founded in 1932), and Theatre. In 1980, the first International Architecture Exhibition took place, and Dance made its debut at La Biennale in 1999.

Monica Vitti and Michelangelo Antonioni at Venice Film Festival, 1962, Archivio Cameraphoto

Over the recent editions, the Venice Film Festival has proven to be a fortuitous marker on the road to awards-season glory. The fest’s past five line-ups have yielded premieres of films that went on to be major players at the Oscars (this may indeed not say much by my book, but the fact remains), among  them Gravity, Spotlight, Birdman, La La Land and The Shape of Water. This year, the fest will be presided by Guillermo del Toro, the 2017 winner with The Shape of Water.

There are 21 films in the line-up competing for the Golden Lion, of which these are the ones that have caught my interest: Jacques Audiard’s western The Sisters Brothers, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhall and John C. Reilly; The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, another western directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, with James Franco and Liam Neeson; Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate, a look at Vincent van Gogh’s time in Arles, featuring Willem Dafoe, Rupert Friend, Oscar Isaac and Mads Mikkelsen; Olivier Assayas’ Non-Fiction, with Juliette Binoche and Guillaume Canet; Vox Lux, directed by Brady Corbet, starring Natalie Portman and Jude Law. The Other Side of the Wind, presented outside the competition, is a film made from 10 hours of raw footage shot by Orson Welles across six years in the 1970s, a mockumentary complete with a film-within-a-film that satirises both classic Hollywood and the avant garde era that came next.

Joaquin Phoenix in “The Sisters Brothers” (2018)

Another film that will debut at this landmark Venice edition and which I am particularly looking forward to is Alfonso Cuarón’s highly anticipated ROMA. The director’s first film since Gravity, which opened Venice in 2013, Roma is reportedly another visually groundbreaking spectacle (Cuarón shot the film himself) and visionary work, an autobiographically inspired, black-and-white film set in Mexico City in the 1970s. The director returned to Mexico to make the film, his first in his native language since Y Tu Mamá También (2001). “I always wanted to make a film and be comfortable with it when I finished it,” Cuarón told IndieWire. “With Roma, I was satisfied with it when we finished. I was very happy with it, and that’s because it’s the first film I was fully able to convey what I wanted to convey as a film. It’s a story in many different shapes and hints of emotions that have been present since the moment I wanted to be a director.”

Oscar Isaac and Emmanuelle Seigner in “At Eternity’s Gate” (2018)

Among the 13 documentaries presented out of competition, there is a Peter Bogdonavich-directed film about legendary silent film star Buster Keaton entitled The Great Buster. Venice Classics section features the world premiere screenings of a selection of the finest restorations of classic films carried out over the past year by film libraries, cultural institutions and production companies around the world, committed to the preservation and cultivation of the cinematographic heritage and the rediscovery of neglected or undervalued works of the past. Among this year’s Venice Classics restored films are The Naked City, directed by Jules Dassin, Street of Shame by Kenji Mizoguchi, Last Year at Marienbad by Alain Resnais, The Killers by Robert Siodmak, The Ascent by Larissa Sheptiko, Death in Venice by Luchino Visconti, Some Like It Hot by Billy Wilder. The setting for Visconti’s film adaptation of Thomas Mann’s classic Death in Venice, Hotel des Bains, has reopened this year and will host a photographic exhibition with materials from the historical archive of the festival in honor of its 75th anniversary.

I have a rule of staying away from reviews – and I couldn’t agree more with the Venice fest’s embargo on reviews – until I myself have the chance to watch the movies. But I will keep an eye on the press conferences and, yes, on the actors attending the festival to some extent. But when the film stars will start disembarking on the Hotel Excelsior dock, I just know that my thoughts will fly way back to the true cinema stars. The kind of stars that I remember for every performance and every look in a film. Because the truth is I still rely largely on black and white films to keep my fascination with cinema alive.

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