three of the best...
Day three of my third visit to Crossing Europe, and a triple dedication: this entry is in memoriam Jean-Pierre Cassel, Boris Yeltsin and Alan Ball, who have all passed away over the last week or so.
Of the trio, Cassel has the most direct connection to cinema. From the great French actor’s long filmography, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie stands out as a topical recommendation: topical, because another masterpiece by the same director, Belle de jour, is showing here in Linz later in the week (as a double bill with its belated sequel, Manoel de Oliveira’s Belle toujours). It’s being screened on Friday and Saturday afternoon – and you could do much worse than attending both screenings.
As for Yeltsin – or rather Jelzin, as his name is transliterated in Germanophone nations – he did actually appear as himself in Michael Caton-Jones’s The Jackal (1997), a fact strangely omitted from the otherwise-exhaustive obits which have appeared since his sad passing.
Alan Ball, however, seems to have eluded the cinematographers’ gaze altogether – the 1966 World Cup winning footballer (not to be confused with his Oscar-winning namesake, scribe of American Beauty) even managing to avoid being roped into John Huston`s 1979 wartime soccer misfire Escape To Victory. Luminaries such as Pele, Ardiles and 1966’s victorious captain Bobby Moore weren’t quite so lucky…
I’m pleased to report that the standard among competition films (I've seen nine of the 12 so far) here at Crossing Europe is Champions League material compared with the low-level fare provided by Huston’s turkey. But as I’m serving on the jury – awarding a prize of no less than 10,000 euros (“tax free, old boy, tax free!”) – I can’t be more specific.
The five of us are observing a professional omerta until the winner is announced on Saturday evening – though anyone who’s kind enough to supply me with a bottle or two of the discreetly charming Krušovice beer at the OK Mediendeck party after midnight may find that glasnost isn’t entirely a thing of the past...
Of the trio, Cassel has the most direct connection to cinema. From the great French actor’s long filmography, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie stands out as a topical recommendation: topical, because another masterpiece by the same director, Belle de jour, is showing here in Linz later in the week (as a double bill with its belated sequel, Manoel de Oliveira’s Belle toujours). It’s being screened on Friday and Saturday afternoon – and you could do much worse than attending both screenings.
As for Yeltsin – or rather Jelzin, as his name is transliterated in Germanophone nations – he did actually appear as himself in Michael Caton-Jones’s The Jackal (1997), a fact strangely omitted from the otherwise-exhaustive obits which have appeared since his sad passing.
Alan Ball, however, seems to have eluded the cinematographers’ gaze altogether – the 1966 World Cup winning footballer (not to be confused with his Oscar-winning namesake, scribe of American Beauty) even managing to avoid being roped into John Huston`s 1979 wartime soccer misfire Escape To Victory. Luminaries such as Pele, Ardiles and 1966’s victorious captain Bobby Moore weren’t quite so lucky…
I’m pleased to report that the standard among competition films (I've seen nine of the 12 so far) here at Crossing Europe is Champions League material compared with the low-level fare provided by Huston’s turkey. But as I’m serving on the jury – awarding a prize of no less than 10,000 euros (“tax free, old boy, tax free!”) – I can’t be more specific.
The five of us are observing a professional omerta until the winner is announced on Saturday evening – though anyone who’s kind enough to supply me with a bottle or two of the discreetly charming Krušovice beer at the OK Mediendeck party after midnight may find that glasnost isn’t entirely a thing of the past...
neil_young - 26. Apr, 14:53
