By: Philip French
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk
Category: Film School Online
There hung over the cinema this past year a sense of loss, of things being eroded, slipping away, disappearing. It could be seen all around us in the closing of shops selling and renting DVDs, the replacement of traditional film by digital technology, the old-fashioned projectionists going the way of saddlers, the demise of the UK Film Council. Prize-winning documentaries on the continuing world economic crisis, the threatened extinction of our planet, the costly futile wars we're engaged in – all provided a factual underpinning to feature breflecting a widespread anticipation of impending apocalypse.
To name just three examples of the latter: in David Mackenzie's Perfect Sense, the world adjusts painfully to the gradual loss of our sense of taste, smell, hearing, sight; Lars von Trier's Melancholia centres on a collision between a wandering planet and our own; Jeff Nichols's Take Shelter draws us into the mind of a working-class American convinced that an imminent storm will engulf mankind. The year's most sprightly movies, the elegiac comedies Hugo and The Artist (which opens in the UK on 30 December) both revisit what we lost for ever 80 years ago, when the silent cinema gave way to the talkies.
On a more cheerful note, 2011 saw the appearance of Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, his fifth film since making his debut in 1973 and his first in six years; Terence Davies's The Deep Blue Sea, his first feature since The House of Mirth in 2000; and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, a marvellous return to form after a decade flirting with disaster. There have been the odd good films from various parts of the world. But especially encouraging has been the performance of the British cinema: thoughtful adaptations of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre; social dramas as distinctive in style and setting as Tyrannosaur and Archipelago; the low-budget horror flicks Attack the Block and Kill List that take a fresh look at the underside of contemporary Britain; polished traditional fare such as The King's Speech and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy that brought back older audiences. The year's outstanding performances have been by British actors: Colin Firth in The King's Speech, Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin.
So I will draw a veil over the uninspired remakes, the tired sequels, the franchises overstaying their welcome, and that dispiriting experience that occurs most weeks now of putting on 3D glasses as the lights go down. The new year looms and with it The Iron Lady. Its producers pulled off the most impressive publicity coup of 2011 by inviting a party of influential female columnists to a meal cooked in London by the film's star, Meryl Streep. We once had a defiant, socially critical genre called "the cinema of Thatcher's Britain".
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/dec/11/best-films-2011-philip-french?newsfeed=true
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk
Category: Film School Online
There hung over the cinema this past year a sense of loss, of things being eroded, slipping away, disappearing. It could be seen all around us in the closing of shops selling and renting DVDs, the replacement of traditional film by digital technology, the old-fashioned projectionists going the way of saddlers, the demise of the UK Film Council. Prize-winning documentaries on the continuing world economic crisis, the threatened extinction of our planet, the costly futile wars we're engaged in – all provided a factual underpinning to feature breflecting a widespread anticipation of impending apocalypse.
To name just three examples of the latter: in David Mackenzie's Perfect Sense, the world adjusts painfully to the gradual loss of our sense of taste, smell, hearing, sight; Lars von Trier's Melancholia centres on a collision between a wandering planet and our own; Jeff Nichols's Take Shelter draws us into the mind of a working-class American convinced that an imminent storm will engulf mankind. The year's most sprightly movies, the elegiac comedies Hugo and The Artist (which opens in the UK on 30 December) both revisit what we lost for ever 80 years ago, when the silent cinema gave way to the talkies.
On a more cheerful note, 2011 saw the appearance of Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, his fifth film since making his debut in 1973 and his first in six years; Terence Davies's The Deep Blue Sea, his first feature since The House of Mirth in 2000; and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, a marvellous return to form after a decade flirting with disaster. There have been the odd good films from various parts of the world. But especially encouraging has been the performance of the British cinema: thoughtful adaptations of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre; social dramas as distinctive in style and setting as Tyrannosaur and Archipelago; the low-budget horror flicks Attack the Block and Kill List that take a fresh look at the underside of contemporary Britain; polished traditional fare such as The King's Speech and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy that brought back older audiences. The year's outstanding performances have been by British actors: Colin Firth in The King's Speech, Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin.
So I will draw a veil over the uninspired remakes, the tired sequels, the franchises overstaying their welcome, and that dispiriting experience that occurs most weeks now of putting on 3D glasses as the lights go down. The new year looms and with it The Iron Lady. Its producers pulled off the most impressive publicity coup of 2011 by inviting a party of influential female columnists to a meal cooked in London by the film's star, Meryl Streep. We once had a defiant, socially critical genre called "the cinema of Thatcher's Britain".
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/dec/11/best-films-2011-philip-french?newsfeed=true
