René Clair, from the Avant-Garde to Realism
René Clair was born in Paris in 1898. Worldwide he is considered one of the most important directors of French cinema, of which he interprets and summarizes the highest part of history, a role later assumed by François Truffaut. Who is René Clair? René Clair is well known in Anglo-Saxon countries and in Italy. In […]
Jean Epstein and Impressionist Cinema
Born in Warsaw in 1897, Jean Epstein was one of the most famous directors of French cinema. Lost his father and moved with his mother and sister, also a future director and screenwriter, to Switzerland. Then they moved to France, to Lyon, where Jean Epstein studied medicine and met August Lumière. Jean Epstein was a […]
Franco Piavoli
Who is Franco Piavoli Franco Piavoli is one of the best directors of all time in the independent film and documentary industry. He was born in Pozzolengo in the province of Brescia, in 1933. He attended classical high school and graduated in law in Pavia in 1956. He completed his training dedicating himself to the […]
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Who was Michael Powell Michael Powell, born on 30 September 1905, was an English director, famous for his collaboration with Emeric Pressburger. Through their production company The Archers, together they have created a collection of classic British films, most notably The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where […]
Satyajit Ray: Life and Movies to See
Satyajit Ray was born on May 2nd 1921. He is one of the most famous Indian movies directors. Ray was an eclectic artist: film writer, documentary director, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, calligrapher, songwriter and also illustrator. Ray is widely considered to be among the best directors of all time. He is famous for works […]
Francois Truffaut, Films as a Mirror of Life
Introduction Francois Truffaut was born in Paris on February 6, 1932. He was one of the most influential directors of French cinema. In addition to his activity as a director, he joined that of film critic, in the editorial office of the Cahier du Cinema. He has also often been the screenwriter, producer and actor […]
Ernst Lubitsch: Life and Movies to Watch
Introduction Ernst Lubitsch was one of the fundamental directors in the history of cinema. He was born in Berlin on January 28, 1892. He was one of the first directors to become a real star in Hollywood and to have a large audience without necessarily relying on the participation of stars in your films. His […]
Chantal Akerman, the Cinema of Interiority
Born in Brussels in 1950, Chantal Akerman is one of the best female directors of all time. She was born to Jewish parents who emigrated from Poland. His maternal grandparents and his mother were deported to Auschwitz. She decides to devote herself to cinema after being struck by the film The Bandit at 11 by […]
Fernand Leger and Cubism
Born in 1881 Fernand Leger began as a draftsman for an architect’s studio in Paris in 1903. He was a very eclectic artist, creator of tapestry and stained glass cartoons, decorator, ceramist, sculptor, draftsman, illustrator, costume designer, set designer. Son of a Norman breeder he manages to move to Paris where he is admitted to […]
Mario Monicelli
Mario Monicelli was born in Rome on May 16, 1915. Italian writer, director and screenwriter, Monicelli was among the most famous Italian directors. Together with Dino Risi and Luigi Comencini, one of the main directors of the Italian comedy, which helped to make itself known abroad with films such as Cops and Robbers, Big Deal […]
Roman Polanski: Art is Salvation
There is little to say: Roman Polanski’s biography is probably the most tormented, unfortunate and tragic of all famous directors of the history of cinema. But Roman remained impervious to all these sad tides thanks to art and cinema. A passion that began as a child and never subsided again. Polanski seems to have understood […]
Martin Scorsese: Gangsters, Spirituality and Rock
Martin Scorsese is one of the best directors in the history of cinema. He was born on November 17th, 1942 in the Flushing area of the borough of Queens in New York City. His family moved to Little Italy in Manhattan before school started. Both Scorsese’s mom and dad, Charles Scorsese and Catherine Scorsese, worked […]
John Ford and Western
Introduction John Ford was one of the most famous directors, among the few filmmakers to win 4 Oscars for directing. A director since the era of silent cinema, John Ford is one of the greatest most important directors in the history of films, recognized as a master by colleagues such as Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, […]
Georges Méliès and Fantastic Cinema
Georges Méliès was among the most important directors of all time and perhaps the most extraordinary and mythical character of the origins of cinema.It was he who invented the first tricks of the cinema such as the disappearances, the fades and the coloring of the film. From a certain point of view it could be […]
Luis Bunuel
Luis Bunuel was undoubtedly one of the most influential directors of all time and the most important Spanish director. He was born in Calendar, a small town in Aragon, Spain on February 22, 1900. He was sent to study in a Jesuit college. In all likelihood, this experience made up of rigid rules and monotonous […]
Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang had guessed it: cinema is a complex art that has enormous unexpressed potential. In just a century of life, what man was able to do with it was to reduce it to a freak commercial phenomenon. A circus animal locked in the cage to be released only when the paying audience has to […]
Kenji Mizoguchi: Films not to Be Missed
Kenji Mizoguchi, one of the most important directors of all time, was born in 1898 in Tokyo. The father is a modest craftsman who has many financial difficulties and sells raincoats to soldiers during the war against Russia. To survive he moves to the Asakusa community, a place full of popular theaters and very poor […]
Samuel Fuller
Who was Samuel Fuller? Samuel Fuller was an American director, screenwriter, and novelist. He has been called “the last great Hollywood author” and has directed 30 films in his career. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts on August 12, 1912 to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants from Kiev; Samuel studied journalism / communications at the University of Illinois before […]
Dziga Vertov and the Kine-Eye
Born in Poland in 1896, Dziga Vertov, born David Abelevič Kaufman, moved to Russia where he first studied medicine and then poetry and fiction. In Moscow he begins to take an interest in cinema thanks to surrealism from which he takes inspiration also for his nickname with which he becomes known, Dziga Vertov. After the […]
Jean Vigo: a Story of Anarchy and Cinema
In the 1930s, France was the world capital of cinema, the place where cinema was born and where the cinematographic and artistic avant-gardes that influenced the whole world were most developed. After René Clair, Antonin Artaud and Jacques Feyder. France was forced to confront war and the misery of the human condition. In cinema, a […]