Browsing: Other Arts

Tucked away complacently in his Parisian home where, under the pseudonym “Eric Rohmer,” he is noted for spending years without a phone, a car, or even a taxi ride from time to time, but with family, faith, and a firm devotion to nature, cinema, and its related arts, Eric Rohmer might not mind that I muse over the paradoxes his life presents — to start, that he is by default one of the most enduring auteurs of the French New Wave despite his proclaimed distaste for the very auteurism that put the nouvelle vague on the map. His outpour of…

Read More

How I wish we all had teachers like Aamir khan to shape our lives. Taare Zameen Par is a movie about a young boy battling not only with a condition, but against certain principles and dichotomy of the society. I guess, all of us, who have grown up in such milieu understand the problems and moments tied together in the film. The sheer burden of competition, the inevitable comparison with your sibling are few things which does ring true to how the society generally functions on the large, especially, the middle and the upper middle class belt of our society;…

Read More

Since the turn of the new millennium South Korean Cinema has been on the rise. The Korean Wave (or “Hallyu”) has swept through Asia, and is slowly washing upon the shores here in the west. The Korean film industry has previously been overshadowed by the neighboring Cinema’s of Hong Kong and Japan, but the industry is now ranked ninth in the world in terms of gross revenue. Korean directors have found international success in almost every genre of film. From action-thrillers such as Chan Wook-Park’s Oldboy, to horror blockbusters like Kim Ji-Woon’s A Tale of Two Sisters, and art house…

Read More

I sat across the street and observed a man in his early 60s standing outside the main entrance of the Osian Film Festival – perhaps lost in his thought; but somewhat, oblivious to the cacophony around him. People of all generations walked past; sometimes someone from the older lot smiled and nodded their head in reverence, but for most, he stood, just like any other man, no different from others. If, and only if, I could use even the basic layer of dissolves and freeze from his film that I saw the night before, then only, most of us, could…

Read More

Jean Luc Godard the French cineaste abandoned commercial filmmaking, in pure Godardian terms to become an active participant in formulating a direct passage between the essence of art and its reactionary functions- to create a base for political cinema. In the span of few years Godard’s activism dried up. This raises an important question of, the role of art in our loves today. A question which we all should ask ourselves; especially for cinema which is ubiquitous as a commercial form of art, but has the power to touch the masses unlike any other form of art. Hence the possibility…

Read More

Gulabi is no pin-up model, yet her smile still lingers in my memory even after the movie and the Osian film festival long ended. She seemed so rooted in the ethos of her culture that almost all her gestures in the film are universal in their portrayal and reflection on life. The way she ate, the way she talked, the way she walked and the way she behaved formed a ritual play of gestures and expression unlike any other. The foundation on which the film explores the duality of human behavior- setting a story of an individual against a large…

Read More

We often went to the movies. The screen lit up and we trembled…But more often than not Madeleine and I were disappointed. The pictures were dated, they flickered. And Marilyn Monroe had aged terribly. It made us sad. This wasn’t the film we’d dreamed of. This wasn’t the total film that each of us had carried within himself…the film we wanted to make, or, more secretly, no doubt, that we wanted to live. Paul, in Jean-Luc Godard’s Masculin fémininJaane Tu Ya Jaane Na is a film of the 21st century, born under the eyes of the producers, marketed viciously under…

Read More

Ram Gopal Verma had a fascination for the bullies of his class; their ideology to terrorize, control (by use of force and power) and have an arsenal of followers- has remained an important part of his oeuvre. The way his character behave, the way they are presented, and the “position” they hold in the world of Ram Gopal Verma film’s reflects his childhood enchantment with people who crossed the law or who considered themselves above the law. He belongs to the special group of “Video Generation filmmakers” the likes of whom include luminaries such as Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson.…

Read More

From time to time Cinema Without Borders has dealt with the music side of the film industry. Composer and visual artist Gary Miraz regularly contributes articles, which deal not only with his wealth of knowledge on film matters but with music technology as well. Not too long ago an idea came to me; why not establish a blog of Mr. Miraz’s experiences in the studio. When approached, he suggested seeing if readers cared to share their opinions in addition to reading a record of his experiences as a whole. Gary has worked throughout the music industry; as a graphic designer,…

Read More

Laura Soloff has more than 25 years of experience in career-focused education and human resources management. She earned her Bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is actively involved in educational and community initiatives and serves on the Board of Directors of the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce and formerly served as past President of the California Academic Decathlon Board of Directors. Laura currently presides as President of The Art Institute of California—Los Angeles, one of The Art Institutes, a system of over 40 education institutions located throughout North America, since February 2003. She served as…

Read More