Early this year, I rekindled my passion for the cinema, which means the serious, contemplative thus boring, unappealing and unbearable to most. I'm quite sure I had it running during that semester when we had a film appreciation elective, but while I was seriously reading supplementary materials and read names like Eisenstein and Buñuel, we kept viewing stuff like X-Men (oh, here I am again, and not to say X-Men is bad, alright?) and recent commercial releases. The closest serious shit was Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Coppola's The Godfather.
And while I was being introduced to great filmmakers in a matter of months, two of the most important directors died in a matter of two weeks. Ingmar Bergman and Michaelangelo Antonioni. And while I must confess that I have only seen Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957) and Antonioni's L'Avventura (1960) this year, I'm quite glad that I caught up with these films before their deaths. And so my memories of them are moot and I'd prolly lose to any discussions on their filmography, so I'm humbly sharing these clips in honor.
The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957). The hooded figure who personifies death still gives me the creeps.
L'Avventura (Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1960). This may be a montage of all the kissing scenes in the film, but that's the closest it can get.
Yeah, I've read about this news of them dying. I've seen both films you mentioned and I also enjoyed them.
ReplyDeleteI'm planning on enrolling to a film appreciation class myself this year. I hope we don't just view recent commercial offerings.
I grief not for their death but for people who never got a chance to see their works.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I read in the Criterion Collection booklet of L'Eclisse na hindi masyadung trip ni Bergman yung mga pelikula ni Antonioni. Ayun.