FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE THE BEST MOVIES IN OUR VIDEO STORE PT.15 Un Homme Qui Dort (engl. subt.) 

A nice job, video store in the film art bar Fitzcarraldo! A customer asked me about Un Homme Qui Dort. A film that we don't have yet. Finally I found it on youtube in good quality. - Here comes a man with a very ordinary face. He's neither unusually handsome nor particularly ugly. You see him, you forget him. He's not particularly memorable. It's like his life when he pours himself a cup of Nescafe every day. With a drop of condensed milk. He usually wears T-shirts and has a corduroy jacket on his bedroom door. His hair is a little tousled. He stays at home, doesn't want to see anyone, doesn't want to talk or think. It's almost like the whole world is slipping away from him... existential depression, alienation, nihilism. A young student from Paris, isolated, lonely. This is the theme of Bernard Queysanne's 1974 drama, based on the novel by Georges Perec. It seems as if a diary has been transferred to the screen here. As slow and sluggish as this student's thoughts may be. Cold and distant, the work, like the world of the protagonist, forces Queysanne's perspective on us. His name is Jacques Spiesser. A beautiful, inconspicuous man. We accompany him as he strolls aimlessly through the streets of Paris. Paris in exquisite black and white images - the beauty of the film corresponds to that of the protagonist. Spiesser slowly escapes his "normal" life and he estranges from the world, falls into a hole of deep isolation. Pretentious? But no, it is a radical attempt to adapt the film's aesthetics to its subject. A depressing challenge and cinematic voyage of discovery! Un Homme Qui was considered one of the best films of all time. I would call it a forgotten masterpiece! (Unfortunately the DVD is currently out of print. There is a nice release, which also runs with German and English sound. Will be purchased immediately, when available again!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE THE BEST MOVIES IN OUR VIDEO STORE PT.14 John Ford - My Darling Clementine 

I think Wyatt Earp is seriously shocked: "What Kind of town is this?"; he asks as he enters Tombstone. The answer is: "A town where you get your head shot off when you're shaving. Earp (Henry Fonda) and his brother are driving cattle east (ironically, in the opposite direction to the usual western). Earp, Virgil, and Morgan leave the herd to little brother to have a drink and a shave in Tombstone. From a distance, Tombstone looks almost romantic under the sinking evening sky - but then you hear the shots in the saloon and quickly realize that this town is one big graveyard. My Darling Clementine deals with the central moral question of every western: Wyatt Earp will be the new marshal in Tombstone. Then it comes the showdown between law and anarchy. In the end, right wins. We even see a little schoolgirl symbolizing the beginning of the new civilization. But in John Ford's western, the showdown is not the main event. He observes the little things of everyday life: haircuts, poker, romance and friendship. Earp represents a modern Westerner. One who stands up as soon as a woman enters the room. By the way, the herd they leave to their little brother is found dead, which is why Earp accepts the Marshall Stern. Main suspect: Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan), who shows his teeth like a wild animal. But Earp won't shoot Clanton and his men. He wants to arrest them as marshals. A legal form of revenge. As such, Earp's natural enemy in Tombstone is Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), the local gambler. However, when Holliday dies of TB, a silent, unspoken relationship has developed between the men. Perhaps Earp senses how sad Holliday is deep inside? At one point, Holliday was a doctor. Then he hung his doctor case on the wall of his shabby little room. He started drinking. To his mistress, a whore, he promised to go to Mexico. But by that time he was coughing up blood. When Holiday Earp first meets Earp in the saloon, he challenges him to a duel. Not knowing that the guns of Earp's companions are already pointed at him. There is no duel, instead they drink together. Twice Holliday orders men out of town and each time Earp reminds him that this is the marshal's business. The greatest scene with Holliday is the one where he recites from Hamlet. Does he talk about himself when he articulates his longing for an undiscovered country? And then the beautiful scenes between Earp and Clementine (Cathy Downs), who comes from the East and is looking for a certain "Doc Holliday". Isn't it romantic how Earp shyly and awkwardly asks Clemetine to come to church with him? Aaaaach yes... When they both dance down by the river, it marks the turning point. The Old West is dead. Civilization has arrived. My father has a big book about John Ford, written by Joe Hembus. I think I've known it by heart since I was a kid. I know exactly how John Ford made his westerns. Out in the field, preferably in his beloved Monument Valley. Together with his crew he also slept outside, just as if the film production was a settler's train. Ford made dozens of silent movies until he ushered in the classic period of the American western in the late 1930s. Ford even met the real Wyatt Earp! Normally John-Wayne played the leading role in Ford's Western, but in My Darling Clementine he played Henry Fonda. Fonda was probably better able to embody the new West, while John-Wayne was better able to embody the old West in his person. For all those who don't like Westerns: My Darling Clementine is the warmest, the kindest, the sweetest Western of all! It's not about gunfighting or Wyatt Earp. It's about Clementine. One time, she's standing next to Earp at the barber shop. Clementine says she likes the smell of desert flowers. "That's me," says Earp. "Barber." 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE THE BEST MOVIES IN OUR VIDEO STORE PT13 Blake Edwards - 10 

The longing in its absolute final stage. This is what Blake Edwards 10 is about. 10 is about the desire of a man who is no longer young for a woman he cannot have. This woman is so desirable that she gets a smooth 11 on a scale of 1-10. Is it helpful that the man himself is small, already 42 years old and full of unsolved problems? Wait; George Webber (Dudley Moore) actually has everything a man could wish for: He is a successful composer, he drives a Rolls, lives in a beautiful house in the mountains. And his wife is Julie Andrews (= Samantha Taylor). He even has cable TV! But when George drives with his Rolls Royce to Santa Monica... At the red light in the car next door, he sees a supernaturally beautiful woman who turns to him for a moment. But only very briefly. The woman is wearing a wedding dress. George is helplessly in love. He follows her into the church for the wedding ceremony, is stung in the nose by a bee. Then he visits her father, a famous dentist. George gets six fillings. He numbs himself with painkillers and brandy, finds himself aboard an airplane to Mexico. In the same department as his dream woman. There she spends her honeymoon with a guy who looks like Barbie's friend Ken. Summarized: George Webber has to endure inhuman physical torments. The humor of 10 works by triggering longings that we all know well. I would say; released for men over 35. The central question: Can George ever get this girl? 10 is much more than just a comedy. It's a study of the craziness of human life. The girl who gets the eleven points is embodied by Bo Derek. We remember 10 founded her ten minutes of fame in Hollywood, especially through an accidental sex scene to Ravel's Bolero. 10 was a turning point for Blake Edwards. It was the first wistful sex comedy for adults after the exuberant 60s.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE FINNISH INDEPENDENCE DAY MIka Kaurismäki - L.A. Without A Map 

Mika Kaurismäki, the Finn in exile. Obviously he produces his films where it is sunny and no longer in the far north. But L.A. Without A Map has also become a bit Finnish. Richard (David Tennant) is a funeral director (but above all a writer!) and has lived his whole life in the same place in Scotland. One day he meets her, Barbara (Vinessa Shaw), an actress from L.A.. She is the love of his life. After a day together, he travels to America after her. But Barbara reacts as any woman would if the Scottish funeral director suddenly appeared in her cafe. Of course, Barbara is a waitress for now. The nasty producer Patterson (Cameron Bancroft) is supposed to judge her acting career. Mika Kaurismäki's romantic comedy, however, is particularly appealing because of the details and they begin with the cast: we see Vincent Gallo as Richard's best friend, the Leningrad cowboys as energetic support, Julie Delpy as Barbara's girlfriend, Johnny Depp, Joe Dallesandro, Monte Hellman, Jerzy Skolimowski or Amanda Plummer. Meanwhile Richard mutates into an "American" until he learns that he just has to be Richard (nobody less than Johnny Depp teaches him that)! Hollywood from the perspective of a European. Mika Kurismäki collects clichés to decorate his love story. The fact that Barbara is a rather uncharming bitch hardly matters any more... In the end not everything was right in Kaurismäki's film and yet I liked him. I even watched it again!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE THE BEST MOVIES IN OUR VIDEO STORE PT.12 Vittorio de Sica - Bicycle Thieves (engl. subt.) 

Vittorio de Sica's Bicyle Thieves is such a venerable masterpiece, praised in every encyclopaedia, that I was truly amazed at how vivid and fresh the film still is today! Sure, in 1949 the film was awarded an Oscar and since then, in pure routine, it has been counted among the greatest films of all time. But actually it is a simple film about a man who is looking for work. The director Vittorio de Sica was firmly convinced of one fact: That each of us can really play ONE role - himself! Bicycle Thieves was written by Cesare Zavattini, who is considered the father of Italian Neorealism. He wrote a famous essay about how he and de Sica searched for characters in real life. It was the time after the Second World War and Italy was paralyzed by poverty. The story is quickly told. Lamberto Maggiorani, a non-actor, embodies Ricci, a man who every morning makes the hopeless attempt to find work. But one day he succeeds: a job is offered to a man who owns a bicycle. And Ricci owns a bike! But he had to pawn it. Only with great effort Ricci and his wife manage to cash in the bicycle and Ricci is able to work as a postman. One day he carelessly parks his bicycle without plugging it in. We expect it to be stolen - but the bike is still in its place when Ricci returns. But then it is actually stolen - no doubt by another man looking for a job. Ricci, together with his little son Bruno (Enzo Staiola), tries to catch the thief. But HOW in the winding streets of Rome? And of course the police are no help. Ricci finally gives up and teaches his son that life means nothing but suffering. You live and you suffer. To hell with life! - and that's why Ricci and his son are eating a pizza. To be able to afford it, you'd have to earn a million lira a month, Ricci told Bruno. But a moment later, Ricci discovers the bicycle thief and follows him to a brothel. An ugly crowd is waiting there. A policeman approaches, but he can't help, because there are no witnesses except Ricci himself. What should Ricci do? Finally he himself is tempted to steal a bike in this cycle of poverty and theft. Bicycle Thieves is told so directly that it resembles more a parable than a drama. Sometimes it might be a little bit disappointing that Ricci's character basically only seems to be really alive in the pizzeria scene. But this might be because of the character of the parable. Nevertheless, Ricci is a timeless character. A man who does everything to protect his family. Who could not identify with him? And seriously; who doesn't have to cry after Bicycle Thieves - what does this man feel anyway? Neorealism as a term can mean a lot. But above all I understand it to mean films from everyday social life, born in the poverty after the war. In Bicycle Thieves, de Sica introduces the neo-realist world in a very pointed way, at the moment when Ricci is looking for his bicycle in front of a big "Rita Hayworth" poster. Here the neo-realist world, there Hollywood. The key message is that in a better society, prosperity would be more fairly distributed.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE THE BEST MOVIES IN OUR VIDEO STORE PT.11! Vittorio De Sica - Shoeshine (engl. subt.) 

What to do? Like every evening at home, you sit in front of the TV with lots of sweets. The task: Find a stream on amazon. But: No result. All just cheap junk. The night is over until you find something in this programme, which would have made every village's video store proud in 1982. And netflix? Their own feature films still seem so strangely unfinished. Produced by copy & paste, but without the great art of staging, for which one would actually have spent money at the box office. And series? No, today it should simply be a good film. So here is our alternative: A great film that will touch you, move you to tears and even more, change your whole life a little bit.

Vittorio de Sica's films deal with the tragedy of everyday life. About pain - but also about the beauty of life! If you know de Sica as an actor, you will be surprised how this attractive man, who loves to be the cavalier in sentimental love comedies, could become one of the greatest tragic filmmakers ever? One thing, however, you will notice when you see de Sica's neo-realist films twice: just like his light comedies, his social dramas are great audience films! Basically, de Sica adopted a lot of what he had learned as an actor in his directing work. There is this famous statement of de Sica that EVERYONE is able to play at least one role: Yourself. That's why de Sica instructed amateur actors. Later he was to shoot with real stars, but de Sica's early films with non-actors touch me most. His extraordinary films of the 1940s and early 1950s - the phase they called neorealism. I translate Neorealism primarily as showing social injustice. Of course there are more principles, but that would become "scientific" at this point... The recourse to amateur actors is surely born out of necessity. In Italy after the war there was no money for such social dramas, just like today. But it also results from a simple equation: If there are only about 50 film stars who are cast again and again - how could they be able to portray the lives of so many? When we once screened de Sica in our small cinema, the audience was really excited. Completely thrilled! Sure, because de Sica doesn't present the misery of this world in a documentary way, but rather in the form of a poetic poem. Shoeshine is at heart - like de Sica's other neo-realist films - a masterpiece about how communication fails. Everything begins with an illusion. Then two boys, two friends, are placed in different cells in prison. They are separated. In this way each loses trust in the other. The language fails, they no longer understand each other. Man achieves nothing with words! Everyone stands alone and isolated from the others in the world. Does this remind you of our present Corona time today? It reminds me a lot! Everyone, caught in his loneliness, asks for donations and loans or support. But no help comes. Winning or persuading others fails. No charity, no sympathy. Characters like the boys in Shoeshine exist all around us. But they are ignored by us. They are invisible. The lack of what would be a small amount of money for us drives them to despair. Through the art of de Sica, such people are made visible for the duration of a film! And what happens to de Sica's heroes? They are often forced to make moral compromises. That means they become exactly what they condemn. In Shoeshine they develop into murderers and traitors. They simply suffer too much to become heroes or even saints. P.S. The sadness in Shoeshine is not inevitable. It is a consequence of the social structure.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE THE BEST MOVIES IN OUR VIDEO STORE PT.10 Stanley Donen - Charade 

Here the last sparks of classic Hollywood glow! Shortly before the audience should finally turn away from stars like Cary Grant, we experience a perfect old-school thriller here. A perfect Hitch_cock movie Hitch_cock never made! In 1963, just a few weeks after the Kennedy assassination, Charade was released in cinemas. During the dark days of America. On the screen: Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn - perhaps the two most attractive stars ever to perform together? In addition a score by Henry Mancini and in the background the glamour of Paris. If the world outside had gone crazy, Hollywood remained true to itself in Charade! Venerable Pauline Kael wrote at the time: "I couldn't persuade friends to go to see Charade, which although no more than a charming confectionery trifle was, I think, probably the best American film of last year." For her, Charade had to be everything she loved and hated about Hollywood: Charade is wonderfully frivolous and vulgar at the same time! When the sexual revolution began, Hollywood was on its last legs back in 1963. Several deaths were caused by television or the new wave in Europe. Last but not least, the guards of the old stars retired. Grant and Hepburn took sooo long to finally play together - and never did it again (once you read it, a remake of "Notorious" was planned, which was never realized). Grant, with his legendary irony, seems to be himself here - although we sometimes have the feeling that he is standing beside himself and delivering a self-persiflage). Besides Hepburn with her own seriousness - paired with her gift as a comedian! how often does seriousness turn to silliness here? Director Stanley Donen actually delivered a suspense screwball comedy. Humour and violence alternate. Sometimes Charade seems as light as Hitch_cock in his best days, then again very gloomy. Charade offers a plot with numerous side plots and a Cary Grant that constantly changes its identity. Four times in total! Sometimes the killer Grant (who remembers early Hitch_cock roles) looks over the charmer's shoulder. But what is the basis of truth? Love! Especially in a world full of thieves and scammers! A world you can't trust! Both stars, Grant and Hepburn, live off their naturalness. Charade asks us: How can we even know if someone is lying to us? Can we trust Grant's character? Hepburn, on the other hand, always played the child with the funny face that turns into a beautiful woman, only the right light falls on her. Throughout her career she was given the right to "remake" her role from "Sabrina". But something is new in Charade, because for the first time you see her ageing and the big age discrepancy between Hepburn and her older co-star doesn't seem so significant anymore. Cary Grant retired from the screen in 1966, Audrey Hepburn played successfully throughout the 60s. In all their roles, one may ask oneself whether the world was not a better one with the artificial studio films brand "classic Hollywood"? This celluloid world, that's Charade! 113 minutes of adventure and true love! Charade is obsessed with beauty. Grant and Hepburn, two Europeans in Paris, make an essential Hollywood movie! While we see him, we remember with some sadness the greatness of old Hollywood, the faded miracle of American beauty...