Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSWe’re thrilled to introduce Notebook’s email newsletter, the Weekly Edit: a mix of our latest essays, interviews, and festival coverage, with a few archival gems to boot. Learn more and sign up here.REMEMBERINGThe Cow.This weekend brought devastating news that Dariush Mehrjui, the landmark Iranian filmmaker, and his wife and screenwriting partner Vahideh Mohammadifar were found murdered in their home. A lifelong enemy of state censorship, Mehrjui helped kick off the Iranian New Wave with his second feature, The Cow (1969), which was denied an export permit when it was originally completed. “Despite the fact that the film was funded by the Ministry of Culture and Arts, the Pahlavi regime preferred not to have the film’s portrayal of rural Iranian village life color the nation’s desired image of modernity on the world stage,...
- 10/18/2023
- MUBI
Katharine Hepburn’s film career endured an extraordinary six decades. A strong-willed feminist, she was a role model for generations of women and fashion icon who eschewed dresses for stylish wide-legged pants. She is still the only performer to receive four best actress Oscars. She stuck to her guns and never attended the Oscars when was nominated only showing up to give the Thalberg award to a producer with whom she worked with at MGM. Hepburn also made nine films with the great Spencer Tracy, though, their off-screen love affair may not have been exactly what it seemed.
It was the 20th anniversary of her death on June 29 at the age of 96. And over the years when I was on staff at the Los Angeles Times, I talked to several actors and directors who worked with her.
Such as Anthony Quinn with whom I chatted in 1994 when he starred with...
It was the 20th anniversary of her death on June 29 at the age of 96. And over the years when I was on staff at the Los Angeles Times, I talked to several actors and directors who worked with her.
Such as Anthony Quinn with whom I chatted in 1994 when he starred with...
- 6/29/2023
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” captures 1920s Hollywood in all its decadence, debauchery and excess. Filming on dusty backlots and in sumptuous mansions, Chazelle creates a fever dream of vintage filmmaking through a contemporary lens. But before looking at history through his own lens, Chazelle started out by doing months of intensive research, finding inspiration in real-life Hollywood stars, powerbrokers and events. And in many cases, the early days of moviemaking were pretty scandalous.
“The reality is that these people were operating in a no-holds-barred kind of world where an entire industry and city were being built from the ground up, and that takes a certain kind of madness,” Chazelle has said.
The 1920s in particular were a freer time, says “Tinseltown” author William J. Mann. “There was an incredible freedom before the production code was established, and so people had a much freer sense of how they could live their lives.
“The reality is that these people were operating in a no-holds-barred kind of world where an entire industry and city were being built from the ground up, and that takes a certain kind of madness,” Chazelle has said.
The 1920s in particular were a freer time, says “Tinseltown” author William J. Mann. “There was an incredible freedom before the production code was established, and so people had a much freer sense of how they could live their lives.
- 12/23/2022
- by Pat Saperstein
- Variety Film + TV
Fifty years ago–on May 25, 1969, to be exact—United Artists walked into one of the all-time great film rating messes when it released John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy with the Motion Picture Association of America’s dreaded “X–Persons under 17 not admitted.”
When Variety reviewed it on May 14, the movie, about a forlorn hustler and his dying companion on the streets of New York, had been rated R. But Variety seemed to hint that a stronger prohibition was in order. “Can depravity be offered as farce?” the review wondered. By the time Film and Television Daily caught up with it, on May 20, Midnight Cowboy was re-rated X.
Conventional wisdom says the movie was restricted because of homosexual content. But William J. Mann, in his 2005 authorized biography Edge Of Midnight: The Life Of John Schlesinger, says the rating was aimed at multiple offenses: “nudity, homosexuality and four-letter words.” In any case,...
When Variety reviewed it on May 14, the movie, about a forlorn hustler and his dying companion on the streets of New York, had been rated R. But Variety seemed to hint that a stronger prohibition was in order. “Can depravity be offered as farce?” the review wondered. By the time Film and Television Daily caught up with it, on May 20, Midnight Cowboy was re-rated X.
Conventional wisdom says the movie was restricted because of homosexual content. But William J. Mann, in his 2005 authorized biography Edge Of Midnight: The Life Of John Schlesinger, says the rating was aimed at multiple offenses: “nudity, homosexuality and four-letter words.” In any case,...
- 6/2/2019
- by Michael Cieply
- Deadline Film + TV
Turner Classic Movies' 2017 Gay Pride film series comes to a close this evening and tomorrow morning, Thursday–Friday, June 29–30, with the presentation of seven movies, hosted by TV interviewer Dave Karger and author William J. Mann, whose books include Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines and Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969. Among tonight's movies' Lgbt connections: Edward Albee, Tony Richardson, Evelyn Waugh, Tab Hunter, John Gielgud, Roddy McDowall, Linda Hunt, Harvey Fierstein, Rudolf Nureyev, Christopher Isherwood, Joel Grey, and Tommy Kirk. Update: Coincidentally, TCM's final 2017 Gay Pride celebration turned out to be held the evening before a couple of international events – and one non-event – demonstrated that despite noticeable progress in the last three decades, gay rights, even in the so-called “West,” still have a long way to go. In Texas, the state's – all-Republican – Supreme Court decided that married gays should be treated as separate and unequal. In...
- 6/30/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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