José Donoso’s The Obscene Bird of Night is a monument of vulgarity and erudition, perfused by an eerie air of alluring, unsettling ambiguity. An intensely oneiric work, it was originally published in 1970 and is now being released in a new unabridged translation by Megan McDowell for New Directions that constitutes a major literary event.
Donoso’s novel attempts to give decisive language to the ineffable. It’s the progeny of Borges, its language as technically adroit and stunning as Gabriel García Márquez’s. But instead of lovely, tragic lyricism, Donoso spins wicked sentences, suggesting a corruption of Marquez’s romanticism.
The Obscene Bird of Night is defined by its unexpected swoops into surrealism and litany of exciting developments and imagery. The ridiculous isn’t rendered believable, as Donoso’s prose is governed by the logic of a realm that exists only in the mind of our ever-ruminating, ever-rambling, and quite unreliable narrator,...
Donoso’s novel attempts to give decisive language to the ineffable. It’s the progeny of Borges, its language as technically adroit and stunning as Gabriel García Márquez’s. But instead of lovely, tragic lyricism, Donoso spins wicked sentences, suggesting a corruption of Marquez’s romanticism.
The Obscene Bird of Night is defined by its unexpected swoops into surrealism and litany of exciting developments and imagery. The ridiculous isn’t rendered believable, as Donoso’s prose is governed by the logic of a realm that exists only in the mind of our ever-ruminating, ever-rambling, and quite unreliable narrator,...
- 4/10/2024
- by Greg Cwik
- Slant Magazine
The Noose.The first scene in Wojciech Has’s filmography belongs to an accordion. The instrument is shown in a contracted state, dangling from the ceiling of an antique shop. Outside the shop, a little boy ogles it through the window; he dreams of playing it. Later in Has’s debut fiction short, Harmonia (1947), he dramatizes that dream. Has’s understanding of cinema as an oneiric canvas is apparent from the very beginning, and his sense that its narratives were meant to trip over themselves through elisions, reversals, and collapses reinforced itself throughout his career. His films are frequently in a state of mutation and his characters always on introspective journeys; objects are the only constant, as their material weight exhibits more solidity than his stories’ whims or his characters’ souls. All the while, Has’s camera acts like an accordion, playing in its own time, starting wide and pushing...
- 3/21/2024
- MUBI
Paris Theater
To mark their return, a frighteningly stacked weekend: Get Out Your Handkerchiefs and Mort Rifkin favorite A Man and a Woman on Friday; Buñuel double Viridiana and Belle de Jour, plus Emmanuelle on Saturday; then Merchant-Ivory’s Maurice and Howards End on Sunday.
Film at Lincoln Center
Wojciech Has’ amazing The Hourglass Sanatorium screens Saturday and Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
Naturally, Persona and Jackass both play this weekend.
Anthology Film Archives
A retrospective of Mark Rappaport is underway.
Museum of the Moving Image
2001 and Spartacus have 70mm showings.
Film Forum
Three films by Wayne Wang are screening while La Piscine continues.
IFC Center
World of Wong Kar-wai and Miyazaki’s debut Lupin the 3rd have kept going.
The post NYC Weekend Watch: Buñuel Double, The Hourglass Sanatorium, Persona & More first appeared on The Film Stage.
To mark their return, a frighteningly stacked weekend: Get Out Your Handkerchiefs and Mort Rifkin favorite A Man and a Woman on Friday; Buñuel double Viridiana and Belle de Jour, plus Emmanuelle on Saturday; then Merchant-Ivory’s Maurice and Howards End on Sunday.
Film at Lincoln Center
Wojciech Has’ amazing The Hourglass Sanatorium screens Saturday and Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
Naturally, Persona and Jackass both play this weekend.
Anthology Film Archives
A retrospective of Mark Rappaport is underway.
Museum of the Moving Image
2001 and Spartacus have 70mm showings.
Film Forum
Three films by Wayne Wang are screening while La Piscine continues.
IFC Center
World of Wong Kar-wai and Miyazaki’s debut Lupin the 3rd have kept going.
The post NYC Weekend Watch: Buñuel Double, The Hourglass Sanatorium, Persona & More first appeared on The Film Stage.
- 8/20/2021
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Witold Sobocinski, a Polish cinematographer who worked with countrymen including Roman Polanski, Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Zanussi and also was a celebrated jazz musician and a teacher at Lodz Film School, has died. He was 89. Lodz announced the news but did not give details.
Sobocinski was one of the first graduates of Lodz’s cinematography department and had taught there since the 1980s. His son, Piotr Sobocinski, also was a celebrated Dp, having scored an Oscar nod for Three Colors: Red and worked on such films as Hearts in Atlantis, Marvin’s Room and Ransom. He died in 2001.
Among the directors he worked with and their films are Polański, Wajda, Zanussi (Życie rodzinne), Jerzy Skolimowski (Ręce do góry), Wojciech Jerzy Has (The Hourglass Sanatorium), Piotr Szulkin and Andrzej Żuławski (The Third Part of the Night).
Among his many career honors,...
Sobocinski was one of the first graduates of Lodz’s cinematography department and had taught there since the 1980s. His son, Piotr Sobocinski, also was a celebrated Dp, having scored an Oscar nod for Three Colors: Red and worked on such films as Hearts in Atlantis, Marvin’s Room and Ransom. He died in 2001.
Among the directors he worked with and their films are Polański, Wajda, Zanussi (Życie rodzinne), Jerzy Skolimowski (Ręce do góry), Wojciech Jerzy Has (The Hourglass Sanatorium), Piotr Szulkin and Andrzej Żuławski (The Third Part of the Night).
Among his many career honors,...
- 11/20/2018
- by Erik Pedersen
- Deadline Film + TV
Shock looks at the Blu-ray release of 1973 Polish surrealist film The Hourglass Sanatorium. Cannes Special Jury Award Winner The Hourglass Sanatorium is a journey within a jaunt perpendicular to a peregrination and overlapped with a transmigration; Wojciech Has’ sumptuous adaptation of the works of Polish writer Bruno Schulz results in a strongly visualized odyssey…
The post Review: Polish Mind-Bender The Hourglass Sanatorium on Blu-ray appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.
The post Review: Polish Mind-Bender The Hourglass Sanatorium on Blu-ray appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.
- 11/27/2015
- by Chris Alexander
- shocktillyoudrop.com
The Waking Dreams of Wojciech Has, a retrospective of 14 films including The Hourglass Sanatorium and The Saragossa Manuscript, opens today at BAMcinématek and runs through October 27. Also in New York, the Japan Society will be screening three new restorations of films by Kon Ichikawa this weekend and, next week, Film Forum presents John Waters's Polyester in glorious Odorama. More goings on: A Jean Grémillon retrospective in Los Angeles, an evening of short films by Curtis Harrington in Nashville and a discussion of John Berger’s life and work in London. » - David Hudson...
- 10/15/2015
- Keyframe
The Waking Dreams of Wojciech Has, a retrospective of 14 films including The Hourglass Sanatorium and The Saragossa Manuscript, opens today at BAMcinématek and runs through October 27. Also in New York, the Japan Society will be screening three new restorations of films by Kon Ichikawa this weekend and, next week, Film Forum presents John Waters's Polyester in glorious Odorama. More goings on: A Jean Grémillon retrospective in Los Angeles, an evening of short films by Curtis Harrington in Nashville and a discussion of John Berger’s life and work in London. » - David Hudson...
- 10/15/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Above: Franciszek Starowieyski’s 1970 poster for Mademoiselle (Tony Richardson, UK/France, 1966).In Christopher Nolan’s new short film about the Quay Brothers (titled—with Nolan’s predilection for mono-nomenclature—simply Quay) he gives us a clue to some of the twin animators’ influences in the film’s opening shots. After drawing back the curtains in their curiosity shop of a studio, Timothy Quay opens a glass cupboard to remove a book. Blink and you’ll miss it, but on the shelves are books on Marcel Duchamp, Spanish sculptor Juan Muñoz, Czech artists Jan Zrzavy, Vlastislav Hofman and Jindrich Heisler, and—most prominently—a book on Polish artist Franciszek Starowieyski.I wrote a few years ago about the Quays’ love of Polish film posters and Franciszek Starowieyski (1930-2009) is one of the indisputable later masters of the Polish school. From the mid 50s until the late 80s he produced some 100 film...
- 8/30/2015
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Two classic films from legendary Polish director Wojciech Has are making their UK debut on Blu-ray next month thanks to Mr Bongo Films. Has’ The Saragossa Manuscript and The Hourglass Sanatorium get the high-def treatment in their fully restored versions… Continue Reading →
The post Mr Bongo Releasing The Saragossa Manuscript and The Hourglass Sanatorium on UK Blu-ray This Fall appeared first on Dread Central.
The post Mr Bongo Releasing The Saragossa Manuscript and The Hourglass Sanatorium on UK Blu-ray This Fall appeared first on Dread Central.
- 8/3/2015
- by Debi Moore
- DreadCentral.com
★★★★★ Wojciech Jerzy Has took great relish in toying with narrative convention in the nestled labyrinthine pages of The Saragossa Manuscript (1965). He dispenses with it entirely in The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973), an oneiric odyssey through the cob-webbed recesses of memory and into the great beyond. Jan Nowicki plays Josef, who is first introduced on a decrepit old train where his Charon-like conductor encourages him to alight and make his way through a cemetery to the titular institution in which his pa resides. Once he gets there, recollections of his childhood and his father are grotesquely contorted into disconcerting fantasy with surreal majesty.
- 4/22/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Scottish author James Hogg's 1824 novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, a kind of religious satire/polemic crossed with a doppelganger tale and a forerunner of the plot twists of both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Fight Club, ends with a curse against anyone tampering with its text.
In 1988, celebrated Scots filmmaker Bill Douglas prepared a screenplay adaptation, but died before he could get it made. I was present when the producer suggested it as a suitable project for Lindsay Anderson to take over, but Anderson himself died not long afterwards. A fresh script has recently been created by crime writer Ian Rankin and James Mavor, but has yet to go before the cameras. Those involved are advised to beware falling objects, shadowy assassins, sudden illnesses.
But in 1985, Polish director Wojciech Has created his own version, Osobisty pamietnik grzesznika przez niego samego spisany, known more...
In 1988, celebrated Scots filmmaker Bill Douglas prepared a screenplay adaptation, but died before he could get it made. I was present when the producer suggested it as a suitable project for Lindsay Anderson to take over, but Anderson himself died not long afterwards. A fresh script has recently been created by crime writer Ian Rankin and James Mavor, but has yet to go before the cameras. Those involved are advised to beware falling objects, shadowy assassins, sudden illnesses.
But in 1985, Polish director Wojciech Has created his own version, Osobisty pamietnik grzesznika przez niego samego spisany, known more...
- 11/13/2013
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
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