Paul SchraderRezensionen

Years before Father Lankester Merrin exorcized Pazuzu from Regan MacNeil's soul, he first encounters the King of the Evil Wind Demons in East Africa. (fonte: Imdb)

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Rå, synisk och iskall. Funkar skitbra som substitut för filmen en varm sommardag. Men tror inte den ger speciellt mycket om man inte sett filmen sedan tidigare.

2021 movie #134. 1976. 2 of my favorite actors. Robertson meets a woman in Italy (Bujold) who looks like his long murdered wife (also played by Bujold). There's quite a plot twist at the end. A bit atmospheric perhaps but a good flic.

Popolare presentatore radiofonico, un giorno Bob Crane viene avvicinato dal suo agente che gli propone il ruolo del protagonista per la serie tv 'Gli eroi di Hogan'. Dopo qualche esitazione, Bob accetta e la serie ha un successo enorme. Ma, parallelamente, al successo, aumentano le tensioni fra l'attore e la moglie Anne. Intanto Crane conosce John Carpenter, un cineoperatore, con il quale instaura un forte legame di amicizia. La movimentata vita di Crane termina, di colpo, quando viene assassinato in una stanza di un motel dell'Arizona nel 1978. Un omicidio fino ad oggi ancora irrisolto. (Fonte: ibs)

In the aftermath of WWII, a former circus entertainer spared from the gas chamber becomes ringleader at an asylum for Holocaust survivors. (fonte: Amazon.com)

In un ospedale nel deserto israeliano dove si curano pazienti che hanno subito gravi traumi è ospitato Adam Stein, un sopravvissuto alla Shoah che negli anni venti era un artista di successo.Costretto nel lager, per il sadico gusto del Gauleiter a crudeltà di ogni genere come suonare il violino mentre la moglie e le figlie sono avviate alla camera a gas, deve anche comportarsi come un cane.Nell’ospedale cerca di utilizzare la sua terribile esperienza per aiutare un bambino che cammina a quattro zampe e abbaia. (Fonte: Ucei)

The nineteenth century German opera composer Richard Wagner conceived of his operas as "Gesamtkunstwerk" - a "total work of art", where music, literature, acting, set design and indeed the design of the opera house itself would all contribute to the total experience of the viewer. Yukio Mishima took this concept one step further; over time, he evolved the idea of his entire life as a work of art, with the manner of his death forming an artistically appropriate climax to his life. Those who have come to Mishima's life since his suicide in 1970 seem to have taken this idea on board in presenting their interpretations. Thus Paul Schrader's 1985 film covers Mishima's life as represented in three dramatized excerpts from his novels, carefully chosen to reflect Mishima's life in his art, and set within two framing devices: one, a series of biographical reflections on his life, and the other an account of his final day, 25th November 1970.

On that day, Mishima and four other members of his paramilitary "Shield Society", a group of young ultra-nationalists who saw their duty as restoring first the status and then the position of the Emperor in the life of the nation, but who expressed it in a strange mixture of vaguely homoerotic body fetishism and Ruritanian pomp, drove to a military base in Tokyo, took the base commander hostage, and tried to inspire the soldiers to join them in a military coup against the government, When this failed, Mishima and one of the other conspirators committed seppuku (ritual suicide). Many consider that the coup attempt was merely a pretext for the act of suicide.

Schrader's film presents Mishima's life told in flashback from the initial device of the account of the day of his suicide. The other elements of the film are presented in differing styles; the biographical segments are filmed in monochrome and mainly related in voiceover; the three extracts from "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion", "Kyoko's House" and "Runaway Horses" are all shot in highly polychromatic and colour-keyed scenes using somewhat surreal and inventive sets. These extracts are chosen to further suggest themes from Mishima's life; the perfection of art and its destruction to prevent it falling into decay; the imperfection of the body and the artistic need for masochism; and an ultimate need to put duty before all else and to express a willingness to die for an over-arching ideal. The "Runaway Horses" segment in particular is very much chosen for its foreshadowing of Mishima's own death.

Growing up in post-war Japan, in a society that absorbed influences from the USA in particular, Mishima saw what he thought of as the erosion of traditional Japanese values of duty; this was reflected in the creation of his paramilitary militia. The film suggests that the Japanese military tacitly colluded in this, affording his "Shield Society" access to military material and resources. Again, the "Runaway Horses" segment, depicting a 1930s attempt to stage a military coup to overthrow a civilian Government and re-instate the direct rule of the Emperor foreshadows this, and there were other parallel events in more recent Japanese history. The surrender of Japan in 1945 was itself the subject of plotting by the military to circumvent the surrender process and fight on to the death, even though that course of action could well have led to the complete destruction of Japan through massive civilian suicide (this had been observed during the invasion of outlying Japanese islands in the early part of 1945), invasion by massive tripartite Allied forces and possible further atomic attacks on Japanese cities. The very fact that there were those in the military hierarchy who were prepared to consider this course, little short of seppuku on a national scale, suggests that Mishima's nihilistic outlook was shared by some in positions of authority and was behind the tacit support his militaristic activities received.

Schrader's film does not keep much of this away from the viewer. The central character's wounds in "Kyoko's House", imposed on him by a female gangster in return for cancelling the character's mother's debt, are depicted in stark openness; the act of seppuku at the end of "Runaway Horses" is shown clearly, although the final act - decapitation by a second - is not shown (in part because in Mishima's case, his second was unable to complete that act). The biographical segments show Mishima's homosexuality, his body fetishism and the way that these themes combined to bring him to the conclusion that it would be better and nobler to die at a time and in a manner of one's own choosing than to suffer the indignity of the body's decline into old age, infirmity and eventual dissolution.

The film completes the "Gesamtkunstwerk" concept through the iconic score composed by Philip Glass. This has been used in a number of other situations since and will be well-known to many.

Because of the controversial life and death of Mishima, and the treatment of the film - especially its depiction of Mishima's homosexuality, which angered both his widow and much of the political right wing in Japan - it has never been released in that country, and indeed the Japanese co-production role of Toho Studios has been subsequently denied.

The biographical segments were originally narrated in English by Roy Schneider, whilst the Japanese version was narrated by Ken Ogata, who also depicts Mishima in the film. This new release from Criterion, in its Blu-Ray version, complements the production, especially in the highly chromatic novel dramatizations. The Japanese narration is included as default. It is completed with a good range of supporting documentary material, including the BBC 'Arena' documentary on Mishima created to accompany the film's release. There is a substantial booklet with essays on the film and its subsequent release history in Japan, and the packaging is exquisite though surprisingly flimsy in places.

Although this selection of material was released by Criterion in a Region 1 DVD in 2008, this Blu-Ray release is the film's first commercial release in the UK in a Region 2/B version and fills a gap in the range of available fine art films in the British market that has existed for far too long.

In un manicomio Israeliano nel pieno deserto del Negev, dove sono ricoverati e ben curati alcuni sopravvissuti allo sterminio nazista rimasti affetti da turbe mentali, il non più giovane Adam è ancora terrorizzato dai ricordi di quanto avvenne durante la guerra quando, proprietario di un circo, venne deportato con la sua famiglia in un campo di sterminio dove, riconosciuto dal comandante, venne da questi costretto a diventare il "suo" clown personale.

A NY cabbie is creepy.

Emotionally distant, but fascinating. After having seen it a few times, the fascination is wearing off, though.

Concept: A
Story: B
Characters: A
Dialog: A
Pacing: B
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: A
Acting: B
Music: A

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 3.6/4½

Jesus wants God to leave him alone.

I don't know why I'm so fascinated by this sort of thing. Incidentally, I'm an atheist, and (even though God is unquestionably real in the world of this movie) I see this as having an atheistic perspective. I expect a devout Christian, if they could get past the heaping blasphemy, would see it as just the opposite.

Concept: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Dialog: A
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: A
Music: D

Enjoyment: A plus

GPA: 3.2/4

Bio of Harry Bellaver - http://www.ebay.com/itm/Harry-Bellaver-signed-photo-The-Birds-and-Bees-1955-Nake...

A movie favorite

Richard Gere at his peak, his sexy peak. Great movie.

A mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran works as nighttime taxi driver in a city whose perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out, attempting to save a teenage prostitute in the process.

original theatrical trailer

Few movies I can think of evoke in me the literally jaw-dropping visceral reactions of Taxi Driver. Note I'm not being euphemistic, full of hyperbole, when I say "jaw dropping", for "jaw dropping" is an apropos description of my jaw's musculature's seemingly autonomic movements witnessing cringe-inducing-scene after cringe-inducing-scene throughout this disturbing (though delightfully disturbing, if you're in to being disturbed), dark film.

Wouldn't you cringe watching a handsome twenty-something man (Travis Bickle, played by a boyish, circa 1975 Robert De Niro in one of his most breathtaking performances) take a beautiful twenty-something woman (the gorgeous, Cybil Shepherd) on their first date to a ... to a dirty movie? Porn? On a first date? A triple-X (XXX) feature film? Shouldn't a couple be a couple already before being comfortable enough watching porn together? Maybe it's me. Is this guy, Travis, for real? If he is, his date, by now, has got to be thinking, 'Ewww,' and feeling the creepy-crawlies up and down her limbs.

And wouldn't you cringe even more when he's confronted about his poor choice of venue for a first date by his understandably insulted date: "Bringing me here," she protests, out on the sidewalk, having walked out of the theater in disgust, chased by De Niro, "is about as romantic as saying, 'let's fuck'!," and yet somehow remains mystified (Travis) as to how taking his date to a dirty movie for their first date could be construed as outrageously inappropriate? He doesn't get it. He's clueless, out of touch. And then how hard must it be for Travis, how angry must it make him feel, watching his date, the most beautiful he's ever seen before, get a ride home in somebody else's taxi cab?

"But I see lots of couples go to these movies," he'd vainly (and lamely) countered. Wouldn't your jaw drop seeing that? When you realize that this was no sick joke, but that Travis believed the the way into date's heart, and the best way to impress her on their first date together, was with pornography?

Travis Bickle, porn aficionado, anti-hero and progressively psychologically decompensating narrator of Taxi Driver, perversely personalizes the shattered American Dream of the 1970s broken by, among other things, the Vietnam War, Watergate, Nixon, oil shortages, a dream turned disillusion in desperate need of redemption. We don't know the horrors Travis experienced in Vietnam, but when he interviews for a cab driver position, we know he's unwilling to talk about it. Taxi Driver is as much if not more so concerned, albeit covertly, through the character study of Travis Bickle, with exploring the moral chaos and insanity brought home by Vietnam and Tricky Dick than similarly, though overtly intentioned, Vietnam classics like Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket.

From the lonely shell of his cab's cramped confines, Travis sees his enemies everywhere as if they were indeed camouflaged Viet Cong in the jungle: "Spooks", "gooks", cops, "faggots," hookers, cross-dressers, fuddy-duddy political campaigners (should mention here that Albert Brooks plays one such fuddy-duddy to perfection) as well as pimps, politicians, hustlers, thugs, pickpockets strutting down New York streets. He glares out his cab's windows upon sweltering neon-lit streets of a New York City about to boil over and explode (or so he his raging paranoia perceives) with race riots, flagrant exploitation, and infestations of crime, and he wishes, in an interior monologue that cuts to a montage of gritty street scenes, for "a fucking rain that will come and wash all this scum and shit off these fucking streets."

Multiple shots of steam and exhaust escaping out of manhole-covers, accentuate the NYC-as-Inferno motif. And consider his name, as the screenwriter, Paul Schafer, has pointed out, Travis (from "Traveler"), and Bickle (from "Bicker") -- a "bickering traveler," that probably describes New York cabbys to a T -- who will momentarily go off the deep end when his volatile contempt and violent-streak get sparked by one too many rejections, and he decides to take it out on somebody, a politician named Palatine, though to Bickle he may as well be Pol Pot, in what's left of his now psychotic, post-traumatic-stress-disordered mind.

Enter Bickle's potential redeemer, a prepubescent prostitute played by Jodie Foster. And what the hell, exactly, was Jodie Foster's mother thinking letting her twelve-year old daughter take such a seedy role, surrounded by so much sleaze? I don't know, though thank God she did! Because Jodie steals every scene she's in, be it slow dancing with her creepy hippie-hairdo'd pimp (Harvey Keitel) in his dimly lit, dreary apartment, or breakfasting with Bickle, pouring mounds of sugar on her toast and jam like a jonesing junky.

During several scenes with Jodie's character and Bickle, the cringe factor goes off the charts (i.e., the scene where Bickle fights off the Lolita-ish nymph intent on unbuttoning his trousers, her mouth uncomfortably close to his crotch), though Bickle, to his credit (and to her confused incredulity) isn't interested in exploiting the girl, he just wants to talk -- is particularly hard to watch. Her fingertips plunge determinedly toward the close-up shots of his pant buttons and belt buckle, but he thwarts them away repeatedly, finally convincing her that the time he's bought with her is indeed time bought only for conversation -- a frank dialogue aimed at motivating her to runaway from her abusive pimp. He asks the obvious question, a simple question imbued with compassion and concern, which strangely, despite his own twisted litany of hypocritical depravities already documented in the film, still manages to endear the viewer to him.

"Shouldn't a girl your age be in school?" Bickle chides her. So maybe there's still hope for Bickle after all. Maybe there's a good heart left inside him, barely surviving like a prisoner-of-war.

I won't reveal whether Travis Bickle successfully rescues the pre-teen prostitute. I wouldn't want to spoil the surprising cinematic experience, in case you'd choose against your better judgment and watch this hard-to-watch film. Do know by the movie's bloody conclusion, Travis Bickle's story -- is he savior? pariah? madman? -- has made the local headlines.

Quirky, almost uniformly brilliant thesis by Paul Schrader, delineating something he called "transcendental style" -- a kind of aesthetically rigourous, visually detached series of gestures he traces from Byzantine art through the films of the Danish Carl Theodor Dreyer, French Robert Bresson and Japanese Ozu Yasujiro. His analyses have largely been ignored or deemed outdated (this was originally published in 1966), but I find it still persuasive and insightful.

from the Edward Bunker novel

113 minutos