Sophy Romvari on the Criterion Channel

It gives me great pleasure to share that eight films by my friend and colleague Sophy Romvari have begun streaming for a limited time on the Criterion Channel.

Sophy is a longtime friend and collaborator - we both began our professional careers in the same community of Vancouver independent filmmakers. I had the privilege of working on her debut short film Nine Behind (2016) as a camera operator, and produced her follow-up It’s Him (2017). Both films are included in the selection on the Channel.

To mark the occasion of this recognition of Sophy’s work, I have written an essay reflecting on what her work means to me, particularly as a filmmaker. You can find it at The Vocation of Cinema.

Finally, I highly recommend watching the films in chronological order of making, and then listening to a special commentary miniseries produced by the Film Formally Podcast. You can start with the first commentary here.

Congratulations, Sophy! Onwards and upwards.

Podcast - La Strada (1954)

Once again, I had the pleasure of joining Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast to talk about another film from the 1995 Vatican Film List: Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954) - one of the director’s best-known and most-loved films, as well as one of Pope Francis’s personal favourites.

Myself and hosts Thomas Mirus and James T. Majewski were joined by poet, philosopher, and professor James Matthew Wilson to unpack this luminous and deceptively simple work. One takeaway I had as a first-time viewer: it was something of a revelation to see how much this one film has influenced the last 60 years of filmmaking in Europe and the U.S. Like Journey to Italy (the other 1954 modern arthouse-defining masterwork by a former Italian neo-realist pioneer), this one has left a long wake of inspiration - especially in the films of Martin Scorsese and James Gray.

Watch on Youtube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. I hope you enjoy our conversation!

Podcast - The Awful Truth (1937)

Once more, I had the pleasure of joining Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast to discuss one of my favourite films - The Awful Truth (1937). Our discussion covered topics as diverse as the genre of screwball, the working methods of director Leo McCarey, and the poetic pleasure of great screen comedy. Thanks to co-hosts Thomas and James for having me on - this film, in recent years, has become my official favourite comedy of all time and I was really happy to have an opportunity to enthuse about it.

Watch on Youtube, or listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!

Torch Narrows at Cinema On The Bayou 2022

I’m happy to share that Torch Narrows (dir. Simon Garez) is making its U.S. debut at the Cinema On The Bayou Film Festival in Louisiana this week. It is streaming online with other narrative shorts until Feb. 2. Details here.

Cinema on the Bayou also played my last short, La Cartographe, a couple of years back. Thanks to the programmers and organizers for continuing to bring emerging Canadian cinema to audiences way down south. :)

Torch Narrows (2021)

I’m very happy to share that a short film I’ve been a part of for the last year is finished and has been making its way onto the film festival circuit.

Torch Narrows, written and directed by Simon Garez, is a short drama about two friends (played by Danny Knight and Simon Garez) revisiting the site of a tragic shared memory on the Saskatchewan River. Set in and filmed around Nipawin, Saskatchewan, it’s an evocation of a place and the ways of life that develop in that place.

I had the honour of serving as both cinematographer and editor. Simon and I have collaborated together before - he acted in my film La Cartographe and we’ve been developing some other projects together. I was honoured and nervous when he asked me to DP his first short. We spent a lot of time discussing the feelings he wanted to capture, which were tied to the amazing, huge landscapes and industrial structures of rural Saskatchewan.

A key image for us was that of one of Nipawin’s hydroelectric dams at night. Most of the film takes place in the sight of this structure, and the challenge of using it as a silhouette-casting main source was what hooked me on the project. Most of the film takes place at night, and we did everything we could to lean into the limited light sources of the setting to capture a sense of the loneliness and vastness of the land.

It was an honour to work with Simon, Danny, and our sound recordist/designer/composer Blaze Baerwald. We spent a couple of days (and one long night!) traipsing up and down the Saskatchewan River and surrounding prairie. On the post-production side, I’m very grateful to Blaze, re-recording mixer Daryl Pierce, and colourist Devan Scott for all of their hard work getting sound and image squared away. Most of all, my thanks to Simon for the opportunity to help bring his vision to life.

Upcoming events/screenings:

Saskatchewan Independent Film Awards - Torch Narrows has been nominated in two categories - Best Short and Technical Achievement (Cinematography). The awards ceremony will live streamed on Sat. Nov. 27, at 7PM CST. Tune in at sifa.ca.

Past screenings:

Central Alberta Film Festival - Oct 16, 2021 - Red Deer, AB
Silver Wave Film Festival 2021 [online] - Nov. 4-14, 2021 - Fredericton, NB

Announcement - The Vocation of Cinema

I’m very pleased to announce the launch of my new Substack newsletter The Vocation of Cinema.

The Vocation of Cinema is a deep dive into thinking about the art of cinema with the philosophical and theological resources of the Catholic intellectual tradition.

At its heart lie two questions:

• What is the unique calling of cinema among the arts and in the life of man? 

• How ought mankind respond to this calling in the making and receiving of cinematic works? 

As a filmmaker and as a cinephile, I’ve always yearned to understand what makes cinema such a powerful influence in my life. I am equally held by the joy of making films, and the joy of receiving them. What is the ultimate source of that joy?

Encompassing both the path of the filmmaker and the path of the cinephile, this series will offer a number of reflections on questions of cinema, cinephilia, history, film studies, philosophy, and theology. Key to our inquiry will be an appreciative and critical engagement with the work of philosophers, film theorists, and historians.

My hope is that this series will prove helpful to anyone approaching cinema as an art that is beautiful, meaningful, and life-changing. For filmmakers and artists, it means taking hold of the freedom and the confidence to make and to make beautifully. For cinephiles, critics, and scholars it means integrating one’s quest for cinema into the flourishing of the whole human being.

Check it out over on Substack, subscribe, and please share!

Podcast - Thérèse (1986)

Once again, I had the pleasure of joining Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast, this time to discuss Alain Cavalier’s Thérèse (1986), a fascinating post-New Wave approach to the life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. This is the only Therese film on the Vatican Film List and St. Therese happens to be my own patron saint, so I’m very grateful to hosts Thomas and James for inviting me on to take a swing at discussing saint cinema, St. Therese, and French cinema.

I hope you enjoy the conversation. Watch on Youtube or listen on Apple Podcasts. And if you’d like to chat about the film, connect with me on Twitter.

Reading Bazin Chronologically

Wikimedia Commons | CC-By-SA-4.0

I’m currently embarked on a systematic, chronological read through of Andre Bazin’s writing which is available in English. To that end, I drew up a quick chronological bibliography of the available translated works, which I’d like to share here for anyone else interested in such an endeavour.

Why read Bazin chronologically? I kind of fell into it last month while reading French Cinema of the Occupation and Resistance, which is a chronologically-arranged collection of essays and reviews from 1943 to 1946. Seeing the young Bazin’s ideas and language develop from piece to piece was compelling and much more graspable than the grab bag / greatest hits format of What is Cinema?’s English editions and similar collections. Bazin as a writer and thinker came alive for me in a way he hadn’t before - suddenly I could accompany him as he tried things out, circled back to ideas, and deepened his concepts.

The list isn’t complete - I don’t have a copy of The Cinema of Cruelty at present, so this list is lacking material collected there. Other one-off translations that have appeared in journals over the years may also be missing. I’ll do what I can to update this as I source new material. If I could not find the exact date or month of publication, I included essays at the end of their publication year (unless I could tie them to a French release date for a film being discussed).

I hope this is helpful to fellow Bazinians diving into the ocean of his thought in the year 2021.

Update - May 3, 2023: All essays from Essays on Chaplin (1985) have been added.

A Chronological Bibliography of Bazin in English

Legend:
W1 = What is Cinema 1
W2 = What is Cinema 2
FO = French Cinema of the Occupation and Resistance (1981)
CoC = The Cinema of Cruelty (1982)
CH1 = Cahiers du Cinema Vol. 1 - 1950s (Jim Hillier)
BaW = Bazin at Work (1997)
EoC = Essays on Chaplin (1985)
PH = Posthumous first publication / rearrangement / compilation

1943

• Let’s Rediscover Cinema! (June 26, 1943) - FO

• Pierre Prevert’s Adieu Leonard (Oct. 9, 1943)  FO

• Panorama of the Past Year (Oct 23, 1943)  FO

• For a Realist Esthetic (Nov. 8, 1943)  FO

• Jean Delannoy’s L’Eternel Retour (Nov. 20, 1943)  FO

• Marcel Carne’s Les Visiteurs du Soir / Robert Bresson’s Les Anges du Peche (Dec 1943)  FO

• Pierre Blanchar’s Un Seul Amour (Dec. 4 1943)  FO

• Toward a Cinematic Criticism (Dec. 11, 1943)  FO

1944

• Jean Gremillon’s Le Ciel Est a Vous (Feb. 26, 1944)  FO

• To Create a Public (Mar. 18, 1944)  FO

• On Realism (Apr 15, 1944)  FO

• The Art of Not Seeing Films (May 6, 1944)  FO

• Marcel L’Herbier’s La Nuit Fantastique (May 20, 1944)  FO

• The Cinema and Popular Art (June 25, 1944)  FO

• The Balance Sheet for the 1943-1944 Season (July 8 1944)  FO

• Reflections for a Vigil of Arms (Poesie July-Oct 1944)  FO

• Paris Screens (Sept 10, 1944)  FO

• The Future of French Cinema (Sept 17, 1944)  FO

• Revival of Marcel Carne’s Quai des Brumes (Nov. 19 1944)  FO

1945

• The Ontology of the Photographic Image - Jan 1945 - W1

• Waiting for Hollywood (Feb 1, 1945)  FO

• Marcel Carne’s Les Enfants du Paradis (March 30, 1945)  FO

• Reply by Andre Malraux to Andre Bazin (Mar 8, 1946?)  FO

• On L’Espoir, or Style in the Cinema - Aug 1945 -  FO

• Shadow of a Doubt - Oct 3, 1945 - CoC

• Julien Duvivier’s Untel Pere et Fils (Oct 23 1945)  FO

• Christian-Jacque’s Boule de Suif (Oct 22 1945)  FO

• Pastiche or Postiche, or Nothingness over a Mustache - Nov 1, 1945 - EoC

1946

• Rene Chanas’ Le Jugement Dernier (Jan 1 1946) FO

• Rene Clement’s La Bataille du Rail (Jan 31, 1946) FO

• Henri Calef’s Jericho (March 21, 1946) FO

• Battle of the Rails and Ivan the Terrible - April 1946 - BaW

• The Crisis of French Cinema, or Scarface and the Gangster Film - ~April/May 1946 - BaW

• On Why We Fight: History, Documentation, and the Newsreel - June 1946 - BaW

• Yves Allegret’s Les Demons de l’Aube (May 12, 1946) FO

• Louis Daquin’s Patrie (Oct 25, 1946) FO

• The Cannes Festival of 1946 (Oct-Nov 1946) FO

• Suspicion - Oct 29, 1946 - CoC

• The Myth of Total Cinema - Nov 1946 - W1

• The Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl - Dec 17, 1946 - W2

• The Life and Death of Superimposition - ? 1946 - BaW

1947

• The Technique of Citizen Kane - Feb 1947 - BaW

• Farrebique, or the Paradox of Realism - April 1947 - BaW

• Day of Wrath - Apr 1947 - CoC

• Monsieur Verdoux or Charlot Martyred - Dec 30, 1947 - EoC

1948

• An Aesthetic of Reality: Cinematic Realism and the Italian School of the Liberation - Jan 1948 - W2

• The Myth of Monsieur Verdoux - Jan 1948 - W2

• William Wyler, or the Jansenist of Directing - Feb-March 1948 - BaW

• Notorious - March 16, 1948 - CoC

• Sullivan’s Travels - May 1948 - CoC

• Stroheim Lost and Found (Dance of Death) - June 1948 - CoC

• Adaptation, or the Cinema as Digest - July 1948 - BaW

• The Last Vacation, or The Style is the Man Himself - July 1948 - BaW

• The Outlaw - Aug 1948 - W2

• Charlie Chaplin - ? 1948 - W1

• La Terra Trema - Dec 1948 - W2

1949

• The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek - Feb 1949 - CoC

• Erich von Stroheim: Form, Uniform, and Cruelty - Apr 1949 - CoC

• Germany, Year Zero - May 1949 - BaW

• Hail the Conquering Hero - May 1949 - CoC

• Immortal Charlot! - June 21, 1949 - EoC

• Painting and Cinema - Oct 1949 - W1

• Bicycle Thief - Nov 1949 - W2

1950

• Pan Shot of Hitchcock - Jan 23, 1950 - CoC

• Book - Orson Welles: A Critical View - Jan 1950

• The Myth of Stalin in the Soviet Cinema - Aug 1950 - BaW

• The Destiny of Jean Gabin - Oct 1, 1950 - W2

1951

• Cruelty and Love in Los Olvidados - Jan? 1951 - CoC

• Cinema and Theology - Feb 1951 - BaW

• A Saint Becomes a Saint Only After the Fact (Heaven over the Marshes) - May 1951 - BaW

• Mad Wednesday - May 1951 - CoC

• Le Journal d’un cure de campagne and the Stylistics of Robert Bresson - June 1951 - W1

• The Thirty-Nine Steps - June 17, 1951 - CoC

• Theater and Cinema (Part I) - June 1951 - W1

• Theater and Cinema (Part II) - July-Aug 1951 - W1

• M. Ripois, with or without Nemesis - Aug/Sept 1951 - BaW

• De Sica: Metteur en Scene - 1951 - W2

1952

• In Defense of Mixed Cinema - (book chapter in Cinema, un oeil ouvert sur le monde) - Jan 1952 - W1

• Strangers on a Train - Jan 10, 1952 - CoC

• Must We Believe in Hitchcock? - Jan 17, 1952 - CoC

• The Road to Hope - Feb 1952 - BaW

• The Passion of Joan of Arc - March 1952 - CoC

• The Lady Vanishes - April 10, 1952 - CoC

• Rashomon - April 24, 1952 - CoC

• Forbidden Games - May 1952 - BaW

• Umberto D - June 1952 - CH1

• I Confess - July 2, 1952 - CoC

• Two Cents’ Worth of Hope - July 1952 - BaW

• Subida al Cielo - Aug 1952 - CoC

• Umberto D: A Great Work - Oct 1952 - W2

• Limelight, or the Death of Moliere - Nov 1952 - W2

• If Charlot Hadn’t Died - Nov 1952 - EoC

1953

• The Western, or the American Film par excellence - preface to a book - Jan 1953 - W2

• Susana - Jan 15, 1953 - CoC

• The Grandeur of Limelight - Apr 1953 - W2

• Europe ‘51 - June? 1953 - BaW

• Niagara - Sept 1953 - BaW

• Will CinemaScope Save the Film Industry? - Oct 1953 - BaW

1954

• El - June 10, 1954 - CoC

• The Cybernetics of Andre Cayatte - June 1954 - BaW

• Interview with Luis Buñuel (with Jacques Doniol-Valcroze) - June 1954 - CoC

• Hitchcocks vs. Hitchcock - Oct. 1954 - CoC

• Time Validates Modern Times - Oct 13, 1954 - EoC

1955

• The Style is the Genre (Les Diaboliques) - Jan 1955 - BaW

• Dial M for Murder - Feb. 13, 1955 - CoC

• The Lesson of Japanese Cinema Style - March 1955 - CoC

• Rear Window - April 1955? - CoC

• La Strada - May 1955 - BaW

• Cruel Naples (Gold of Naples) - June 1955 - BaW

• The Festival Viewed as a Religious Order - June 1955 - PDF

• In Defense of Rossellini - Aug 1955 - W2

• The Evolution of the Western - Dec 1955 - W2

• Seven Samurai - Sept 1955 - CoC

• To Catch a Thief - Dec. 29, 1955 - CoC

1956

• Beauty of a Western (The Man from Laramie) - Jan 1956 - CH1

• Ordet - Jan 1956 - CoC

• Senso - Feb 1956 - BaW

• Il Bidone, or the Road to Salvation Reconsidered - March 1956 - BaW

• Cela s’Appelle l’Aurore - May 1956 - CoC

• A Bergsonian Film: The Picasso Mystery - June 1956 - BaW

• Lifeboat - June 14, 1956 - CoC

• Death in This Garden - Sept 1956? - CoC

• The Man Who Knew Too Much - Oct 18, 1956 - CoC

1957

• The Death of Humphrey Bogart - Feb 1957 - CH1

• On Kurosawa’s Ikiru - March 1957 - CH1 / CoC

• On the politique des auteurs - April 1957 - CH1

• Marginal Notes on Eroticism in the Cinema - Apr 1957 - W2

• (Bazin + Round Table) Six Characters in Search of auteurs - May 1957 - CH1

• An Exemplary Western (Seven Men from Now) - Aug-Sept 1957 - CH1

• The Profound Originality of I Vitelloni - Oct 1957 - BaW

• The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz - Oct 1957 - CoC

• A King in New York - Oct 31, 1957 - EoC

• Cabiria: The Voyage to the End of Neorealism - Nov 1957 - W2

1958

• High Infidelity (The Bridge on the River Kwai) - Feb 1958 - BaW

• Hitchcock by Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol - Sept 1958 - CoC

1959 / PH

• Evolution of the Language of Cinema - (composite of 3 x 1950s’ articles) - W1

• The Virtues and Limitations of Montage - (2 x articles from 1953 & 1957) - W1

• Cinema and Exploration - (2 x articles 1953 + 1956) - W1

• The Case of Marcel Pagnol - PH, 1959 - BaW

• Book - Jean Renoir - PH