For my birthday, which was this last Monday, my friend Jessy gave me a bag full of Ray Brabury paperbacks. I love Ray Bradbury, so this was a lovely gift. I also found myself really loving the cover art for the books...
There's just something so unique and creative about vintage cover art. I wonder if it may have something to do with how, before the digital age of entertainment, books had a very prominent role in our popular culture. That isn't to say that they don't now, but it can be denied that, outside of phenomenon like Harry Potter and that godawful Twilight craze, interest isn't at the levels that it probably was back then.
Anyway, here are a couple of my favorites from recent searches:
I can't remember whether it was 2046 or In The Mood For Love that I saw first. I do know that, whatever the order, I came away with a sincere love and appreciation for director Wong Kar-Wai's style and stories. It's nearly impossible to not find yourself caught up in the emotion that seems to fill every frame of his films. It's not really less-is-more when it comes to his visual style, but more of an all-the-right-ingredients feeling. They are films about love that don't beat you over the head with their themes or with heavy-handed narrative that is more often than not employed in American rom-coms. Well, there was My Blueberry Nights, but we'll just say that something was severely lost in the translation there...
Out of all of his films that I have seen, In The Mood For Love has always been my favorite. Every time I watch it, I am hard pressed to single out any aspect of the film that doesn't work for me. Christopher Doyle's cinematography is beautiful with it's subtle flourishes of color, while the simultaneously vulnerable and intense nuances of both Maggie Chueng and Tony Leung Chiu Wai's performances keep you captivated and invested until the end.
Whether or not I was in the mood for love before watching it, there's no question as to where I stand when the credits begin to roll.
Jan Lenica (1928-2001) was primarily a Polish poster designer who wrote numerous books and essays on poster art. During the 50's, through a creative relationship with director Walerian Borowczyk, he also dabbled in the world of of experimental cinema, primarily stop animation. The result of that would become a large influence on the works of Jan Švankmajer and Terry Gilliam.
A brilliant, misanthropic narrative from one of the greatest minds of american cinema, or nothing more than the derivative product inspired by the work of Frederico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman? I have seen 8 1/2 as well as my fair share of Bergman films, and while I can definitely see how comparisons can be drawn, I have more faith in Woody Allen than that. I don't doubt the influence, but I do doubt the notion that he didn't know what he was doing when he made Stardust Memories. It is right up there with Shadows and Fog in terms of my favorite Allen films.
