view
Les Vampires [The Vampires or, The Arch Criminals of Paris] (Louis Feuillade, 1915/1916)
Aug
24
black
Black in food or fashion*
“It is vital to be photogenic from head to foot. After that you are allowed to display some measure of talent.”
– Musidora
Possibly the first, and definitely the most, iconic catsuit in cinema is worn by Musidora as Irma Vep in Les Vampires. Skintight and scandalous, Musidora's screen presence in the serial further cemented the popularity of the vamp and set the scene for many man-eaters to come.
view
Plein soleil [Purple Noon] (René Clément, 1960)
Aug
20
1959
A contract for Marge, a sailboat, dated August 20, 1959. DP: Henri Decaë.
“Marge, my love, my angel.”
view
Le Horla [The Horla] (Jean-Daniel Pollet, 1966)
Aug
19
violet
The narrator enters a violet-blue room via a lavender-purple corridor (via). DP: Jean-Jacques Rochut.
Violet: a building or structure *
“Is it the form of the clouds, or the tints of the sky, or the colours of the surrounding objects which are so changeable, which have troubled my thoughts as they passed before my eyes? Who can tell?”
– Guy de Maupassant, Le Horla, 1887 (via)
Objects and rooms have distinct colours ranging from the deepest blues and violets to a pale lavender, a muted silver and shocks of yellow. The usage of colour in Le Horla is striking throughout and reminds me of how Van Gogh's paintings became increasingly colourful as his madness enveloped him.
view
Procès de Jeanne d'Arc [The Trial of Joan of Arc] (Robert Bresson, 1962)
Aug
17
forgiveness
Jeanne (Florence Delay) bound to the stake. DP: Léonce-Henri Burel.
Holi: someone is forgiven (forgiveness being an important aspect of Holi)*
“Pray for me. I forgive the evil done me.”
– Jeanne d'Arc
Jeanne trusts her delusions to forgive the people who brought her to justice.
view
Le camion [The Lorry] (Marguerite Duras, 1977)
Aug
16
indigo
Indigo: a building or structure*
Him: It’s a film?
Her: It would have been a film.
A truck, both the narrative structure and his (Depardieu's character) material representation. She – the director – and he – the lead actor – do a read-though while discussing her script. A communist truck driver picks up a female hitchhiker. They discuss the landscape, the cosmos, pointlessness, communism of course. All the while, the indigo truck plods on.
view
Trois couleurs: Bleu [Three Colors: Blue] (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993)
Aug
15
cerulean
Julie (Juliette Binoche) in a blue wallpapered room, observes blue beads suspended in front of a window with a cerulean sky and ocean behind it. Throughout the story, her clothing changes from white, to black, to the darkest charcoal blue, to Prussian blue. DP: Slawomir Idziak.
Cerulean, or blue: in food or fashion*
“I'm just fine. I have everything here. I have the TV. You can see the whole world”
– the mother
How could I not pick at least one instalment of Kieślowski's Trois couleurs trilogy. Here's blue, the liberté of the tricolor. Blue occurs as the sky to fall through, the room without life, and the cloth that binds.
view
Le 15/8 (Chantal Akerman + Samy Szlingerbaum, 1975)
Aug
15
Chris Myllykoski. DPs: Chantal Akerman & Samy Szlingerbaum.
view
Lola Montès (Max Ophüls, 1955)
Aug
14
Bavaria
Celebrating Oktoberfest [in September/October] and the Bavarian royals [rip]: a royal character or family*
“The painter takes his time. He doesn't like her dress. He doesn't like her gloves. One day he asks her if she dares pose for him – all in pink. She dares! And the king, enraptured by her pose, offers her a palace!”
– circus master
Maria Dolores Porriz y Montez, Countess von Landsfeld, Lola Montès for short, now a circus attraction, once the mistress to Ludwig I, King of Bavaria. While her fellow circus performers play Lola's former lovers, the ringmaster tells her story.
view
Il fiore delle mille e una notte [Arabian Nights] (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1974)
Aug
13
cerulean
Cerulean, or blue: a building or structure*
“Eh, i sogni a volte insegnano male, Dùnya, perché la verità intera non è mai in un solo sogno, la verità intera è in molti sogni.”
One of the many exotic locations is the مسجد شاه, [Masjed-e Shah, or Shah Mosque] in Iran with its otherworldly blue and blue-adjacent tiles.
view
Der Stand der Dinge [The State of Things] (Wim Wenders, 1982)
Aug
13
1942
Friedrich Munro's (Patrick Bauchau) Hollywood, Ca address and date of birth: August 13, 1942. DPs: Henri Alekan, Fred Murphy & Martin Schäfer.
– You know, I take pictures, photographs, but I never really thought in black and white before I saw our rushes. Do you know what I mean? You can see the shape of things.
– Life is in colour, but black and white is more realistic.