Kirjahaku

Critical study of Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) with a scene-by-scene analysis of all of his films

GOTO: ISLAND OF LOVEWALERIAN BOROWCZYK POCKET MOVIE GUIDEBY JEREMY MARK ROBINSONWalerian Borowczyk (1923-2006) is one of cinema's great talents. Quite simply, there is no filmmaker quite like 'Boro'. Borowczyk's films have an astonishing, magical quality. They reach a place very rare in contemporary cinema, and are quite unlike the films of any other auteur. Borowczyk's films create their own space, with imagery, sounds and music of a really exceptional power. The great Walerian Borowczyk masterpiece is Goto: Island of Love. It made a big impression on audiences and critics, winning a number of prizes. Goto can rank alongside the great films in the history of cinema. Immoral Tales could be placed in the masterpiece class too. The other Borowczyk films are often as fascinating, often more grotesque - certainly more sexually explicit - but probably not as wholly satisfying as Goto: Island of Love, from a conventional critical standpoint. But The Beast, Blanche, Behind Convent Walls, and Love Rites would count as extraordinary films by most standards. They may not be quite up there with Persona (Ingmar Bergman) or 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini), but taken together they form a group of works that mark Borowczyk out as a maverick original. Similarly, Borowczyk isn't a filmmaker celebrated by critics or filmmakers, like Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Orson Welles, Jean Renoir or Sergei Eisenstein, and his films don't make critics' top ten lists. For detractors, Borowczyk's films were better when they concerned ideas rather than the senses - philosophy not sex. You probably won't know many other people who've even heard of Walerian Borowczyk, let alone seen one of his films. His reputation as a producer of European arty porny films (art-as-porn films or porn-as-art films) is probably all that many people will have heard of him (movies with sex and nudity do seem to travel well, crossing borders). Needless to say, Borowczyk's films are not shown regularly on television, even by channels which boast of their open-mindedness and international film broadcasts. Similarly, you won't see Borowczyk's films at the cinema nowadays, even rep, arthouse and independent cinemas rarely screen his films. It's mainly home video releases (and, later, home DVD releases) that's enabled Borowczyk's films to reach a contemporary audience (the porny and arty elements make them perfect for niche marketing to the cognoscenti). And you'll have to hunt to find them all. You won't find The Beast next to Back To the Future and Bad Boys on the 'B' shelf in your local video store. Contains illustrations from Goto, Borowczyk at work, and his favourite artists. Bibliography, filmographies and notes. Illustrated. 232pp. www.crmoon.com

HELLSINGKOHTA HIRANOTHE MANGA AND THE ANIMEA Critical StudyBy Jeremy Mark RobinsonThis is a study of the manga and anime of Kohta Hirano, best-known for the Hellsing series. Kohta Hirano was born in Adachi, Tokyo on July 14, 1973. He worked as a manga assistant. His resum of comics is rather thin - it's mainly short works, and his major opus, Hellsing, is only ten volumes long. The Hellsing manga (a.k.a. Hellsing: The Legend of a Vampire Hunter) was written and drawn by Kohta Hirano. It was published in Young King Ours magazine, owned by Shonen Gahosha), between 1997 and 2008. The format is a b/w manga, with a regular layout of typically 3, 4 or 5 panels per page (and most of the action's contained within the panels). The chapters range from a regular length (19 pages) to 35 or more pages (so the 89 chapters of Hellsing form a longer manga in all - 95 chapters if you include Hellsing: Dawn). The chapters have pop culture titles such as Sword Dancer, Dead Zone, Elevator Action, Age of Empire, Final Fantasy and Soldier of Fortune. Like Bleach, Blade of the Immortal and Naruto, Hellsing is not a talky manga - instead, the emphasis is on style, design, atmosphere, and, of course, action. (And in those areas, of design and style, of mood and texture, and of action, Hellsing is hugely successful. Without question, the second Hellsing anime series is a remarkable piece of sustained insanity and ultra-violence in animation (even by the standards of Japanese anim ). It corrected most of the flaws with the first Hellsing series, and went all-out in rendering the second half of Kohta Hirano's manga, including the Nazi invasion of Great Britain. So Hirano-sensei has been very lucky in having not one but two great animated series adapted from his work: Hellsing 2 and Drifters, and one entertaining TV season. (Lucky, because some adaptations of manga are poor). Fully illustrated, with images from the Kohta Hirano's manga and anime. With filmography, bibliography and notes. 212 pages. www.crmoon.com

TSUI HARKTHE DRAGON MASTER OF CHINESE CINEMAVOLUME 1: TO 2000By Jeremy Mark RobinsonTsui Hark is the dragon master of Chinese cinema (Stephen Teo calls Tsui a 'lion dancer among film directors'). Yes - a master, a lion dancer, a sifu, a wizard, a dragon. Tsui Hark is a one-man film industry - as a glance as his list of credits will show, along with setting up his own film company in 1983, Film Workshop. Tsui Hark directs movies like a force of nature. The energy coming off the screen is stupendous. He is a fearless filmmaker, willing to try anything to get a good shot. That feeling of fearlessness, and wildness, coupled with imagination and technical brilliance makes Tsui an incredibly formidable filmmaker. There are very few filmmakers on the scene today with those qualities in such abundance. When you come back to a Tsui Hark picture after looking at other movies for a while, you realize that this guy is so passionate about cinema, so willing to try anything, to experiment, to push the boundaries of what cinema can do, of what cinema can be. This man is on fire. Tsui Hark was born on January 2, 1951 (or February 15; some sources say 1950), in French Cochin China (Saigon, Vietnam). His name was originally Tsui Man-kong (he also been known as Mark Yu). In Cantonese, his name is Chui Hak; in Mandarin, it's Xu Ke. He had sixteen siblings (from three marriages). His father was a pharmacist. Tsui changed his name from 'Tsui Man-kong' to 'Tsui Hark' because he thought it was too soft, and for his 'King Kong' nickname. Tsui grew up in Saigon until the family moved to Hong Kong in 1966 (Tsui said he migrated around the age of 13, which make it 1964; others say he was 14).As a producer, Tsui Hark has been responsible for masterpieces including: the Better Tomorrow series, the Chinese Ghost Story series, the Swordsman series, New Dragon Gate Inn and The Killer, plus a host of hugely enjoyable films, such as: Once Upon a Time in China 4, Once Upon a Time In China 6, Vampire Hunters and Black Mask. Directors often work in contrasts - if they've just done a comedy, they might fancy a drama next. Tsui wanted to do something silly after his first three movies, which were 'very serious and very depressing'. Hence All the Wrong Clues, which was his first commercial hit (in 1981). And since then, Tsui had rarely let a year pass without releasing a movie as a director or producer (sometimes two Sometimes three ). By 2014, Tsui had directed around 43 feature films. They include the Once Upon a Time In China series, the Detective Dee series, Blade, We're Going To Eat You, The Master, Zu: Warriors From the Magic Mountain, A Better Tomorrow 3, Green Snake, The Lovers, Seven Swords, Journey To the West, Shanghai Blues and Peking Opera Blues. Fully illustrated, with images from the films of Tsui Hark and other Chinese and Hong Kong productions. With filmography, bibliography and notes. www.crmoon.com

JEAN-LUC GODARD There's no one else quite like Jean-Luc Godard. You could take a few frames from one of his films and know they were by the maestro and nobody else. Where the flood of movies globally now runs into many thousands, Godard's works stand out as original, acerbic, romantic, ironic, humorous and explorative. EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 2: "GODARD BIOGRAPHY" With Bout du Souffle, Godard produced one of the first, great French New Wave movies, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, and written by, among others, Fran ois Truffaut. Bout du Souffle, with its cool Parisian milieu, its filmic and film noir allusions, handheld camera, direct sound, startling editing and stylish, self-conscious performances from Belmondo and Seberg, established Godard as one of the major voices of postwar cinema, a reputation which Godard built on in subsequent early films such as Le Petit Soldat (1960), Une Femme Est Une Femme (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le M pris (1963), Bande Part (1964), and Une Femme Mari e (1964). In these films of the early to mid-1960s, Godard established a radical, polemical series of films as film-essays which confronted issues such as late consumer capitalism, prostitution, labour, politics, ideology, gender, marriage, music, popular culture, Hollywood and not forgetting cinema itself. In the mid-1960s, Godard's films became increasingly political - the sci-fi film Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), Made in U.S.A (1966), Masculine/ F minin (1966), 2 ou 3 Choses Que Je Sais (1966) - until, by 1967-68, the Marxist and Maoist influences permeated Godard's films: Weekend (1967), La Chinoise (1967), La Gai Savoir (1968), and One Plus One (Sympathy For the Devil, 1968). His concern was 'not to make political films, but to make films politically' (my emphasis). In the 1970s, Godard moved into video and television territory, and worked with Anne-Marie Mi ville on many projects: Ici Et Ailleurs (1974), Num ro Deux (1975), Comment a Va (1976), Six Fois Deux/ Sur Et Sous La Communication (1976), and France/ Tour/ D tour/ Deux/ Enfants (1977-78). In the late 1970s, Godard made a 'return' to feature filmmaking, with the 'sublime trilogy', Sauve Qui Peut (a.k.a. Every Man For Himself and Slow Motion, 1979), Passion (1982), and Pr nom: Carmen (1983). Easily his most controversial film, Je Vous Salue Marie (Hail Mary), appeared in 1985; it was followed by D tective (1985), made to help finance the completion of Hail Mary, King Lear (1987), which starred Peter Sellars, Burgess Meredith, Molly Ringwald, Norman Mailer and Woody Allen, Nouvelle Vague (1990), H las Pour Moi (1993), For Ever Mozart (1997), loge de l'Amour (In Praise of Love, 2000) and Notre Musique (2005). Fully illustrated. Bibliography and notes.

KURT JACKSON A new book about the British landscape painter Kurt Jackson (b. 1961). This new hardback edition includes many new illustrations. including photographs taken for this new edition. The text has been completely updated. EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 4: One of Kurt Jackson's appealing concepts is that the ocean is one of the last true wildernesses left on the planet. It's an idea that I found very interesting when he explained it to me when we first met in St Just. I took it that he meant a spiritual as well as an ecological or natural wilderness. Jackson's art can thus be seen as an art that is the border region between humanity and nature, between culture and nature, as well as literally tackling that area - the coast - which is neither land nor sea. Note that Kurt Jackson is always facing outwards from the land, and looking towards the ocean, not painting with his back to the sea, and looking towards the land (and notice that the many boats and ships and helicopters and such in this area are left out of the paintings, too). So Jackson's Porth series, about Priest Cove, and all of his sea paintings, are very important in his art in articulating this idea of the ocean as the last wilderness. 'Have you ever wondered what's out there' is a question that Kurt Jackson asks (it's the title of one of his major paintings, too - the centrepiece of the Porth series). Jackson has repeated the question over a number of related works: the title of two 2004 pieces is The Last Wilderness In Western Europe? This was painted on Jura (in Scotland), and both pictures are consciously emptied of human marks - just empty moorland and a delicate blue sky. An earlier picture, part of the Cape series, was entitled Do You Ever Wonder What's Out There? (1999) - an unusual composition in the Jackson oeuvre which puts the horizon very high, and focusses on the dark blue ocean flecked with white spray. Kurt Jackson isn't that interested in many of the connotations of the ocean - the moon, time, goddesses, rebirth (though moons do appear in his art from time to time). He's not really interested in religious or pagan or magical symbols in that way. And he's not that interested in shipping, fishing, and all things maritime, like J.M.W. Turner was. But when Jackson asks a question like 'have you ever wondered what's out there', and considers the sea as one of the last wildernesses, that alters the interpretation of his sea paintings. It doesn't apply to all of them, though: in plenty of paintings (and not only the smaller or more modest ones), Jackson is not thinking in terms of big themes. But when he titles a painting Have You Ever Wondered What's Out There? (and writes the title in big letters across the painting), it's clearly intended to resonate in the viewer at a deeper level.

JACKIE COLLINSQUEEN OF THE BLOCKBUSTER NOVELBy Jeremy Mark RobinsonRomance - sex - glamour - glitter - Hollywood - fame - fashion - crime - murder - sleaze thrills - and lots of money. A survey of the fiction of Jackie Collins, the undisputed Queen of Hollywood and the blockbuster novel. Jackie Collins is a master storyteller. Collins can tell a story brilliantly, and she possesses that magical element that readers appreciate and publishers seek high and low for: the page-turner. It's the Holy Grail of books and literature - and of stories in any media: creating the desire to know what happens next. Jackie Collins is known as the Queen of Trash, the Duchess of Dirty Books. The critics call Collins the 'Proust of nips and tucks' and 'unarguably the Victor Hugo of our time'. By the time of her death in 2015, Jackie Collins had published 32 novels, her first novel being The World Is Full of Married Men (1968), when she was 31. Collins' other novels include The Stud, The Bitch, Sinners, The World Is Full of Divorced Women, Rock Star, Thrill , the Hollywood series: Hollywood Wives (her biggest seller, with 15 million copies), Hollywood Husbands, Hollywood Kids, Hollywood Divorces and Hollywood Wives: The New Generation, the Madison Castelli series, and the series of novels centred around Lucky Santangelo, the daughter of a mob boss: Chances, Lucky, Lady Boss, Vendetta, Dangerous Kiss, Goddess of Vengeance, etc. The book looks at every novel by Jackie Collins in detail, and includes the television and movie adaptations of her stories. The study also explores the contemporary blockbuster novel, looking at issues such as style, language, morality, sexuality, politics, celebrity culture, and work. Blockbuster novel authors include: Judith Krantz, Dean Koontz, Frederick Forsyth, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Virginia Andrews, Shirley Conran, Harold Robbins and Dan Brown. Includes illustrations, bibliography and notes. 424pp. Hardcover, with a colour laminate cover. www.crmoon.com

JEAN-LUC GODARD: THE PASSION OF CINEMAVOLUME 1: TO 1968By Jeremy Mark RobinsonThere's no one else quite like Jean-Luc Godard, one of the most significant and inspiring filmmakers of recent times. Where the flood of movies globally now runs into many thousands, Godard's works stand out as original, acerbic, romantic, ironic, controversial, humorous and explorative. This book considers all of Godard's works in cinema, from his early short films and the important success and cultural impact of Breathless through the remarkable series of movies of the 1960s to the latest feature films. The book is split into two volumes: Jean-Luc Godard: The Passion of Cinema/ La Passion deuCinema: Volume 1: To 1968Jean-Luc Godard: The Passion of Cinema/ La Passion du Cinema: Volume 2: From 1968Volume 1 includes a biography of Godard; an exploration of aspects of his cinema; and chapters on movies such as Breathless, Vivre Sa Vie, Contempt, A Band Apart, Pierrot le Fou, Alphaville, One Plus One, Weekend, Two or Three Things I Know About Her, La Chinoise, A Married Woman and Masculine/ Feminine. EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 2: "GODARD BIOGRAPHY"With Bout du Souffle, Godard produced one of the first, great French New Wave movies, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, and written by, among others, Fran ois Truffaut. Bout du Souffle, with its cool Parisian milieu, its filmic and film noir allusions, handheld camera, direct sound, startling editing and self-conscious performances from Belmondo and Seberg, established Godard as one of the major voices of postwar cinema, a reputation which Godard built on in subsequent early films such as Le Petit Soldat (1960), Une Femme Est Une Femme (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le M pris (1963), Bande Part (1964), and Une Femme Mari e (1964).In these films of the early to mid-1960s, Godard developed a radical, polemical series of films as film-essays which confronted issues such as late consumer capitalism, prostitution, labour, politics, ideology, gender, marriage, music, popular culture, Hollywood and not forgetting cinema itself.Fully illustrated. Bibliography, filmography, Godardisms and notes.

MIRRORANDREI TARKOVSKYPOCKET MOVIE GUIDEBy Jeremy Mark RobinsonA new study of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) and the 1975 film Mirror. Tarkovsky directed seven feature films, including Mirror, Andrei Roublyov, Solaris and The Sacrifice. Mirror (a.k.a. Zerkalo or The Bright, Bright Day) is Andrei Tarkovsky's beloved project. It remained his favourite film, and closest to his concept of cinema. Mirror is loosely autobiographical, and combines many elements, ranging from poetry read in voiceover by the director's father, to dream sequences, flashbacks, newsreel and memory devices. The movie is a poetic exploration of childhood. Film as personal psychogeography, self-reflexive, even indulgent. This study of Mirror explore aspects of Andrei Tarkovsky's output, including scripts, budget, production, shooting, editing, camera, sound, music, acting, themes, symbols, motifs, and spirituality. Mirror is analyzed in dept. The second half of the book comprises an exploration of the movie scene-by-scene (sometimes shot-by-shot). Andrei Tarkovsky is one of the most fascinating of filmmakers. He is supremely romantic, an old-fashioned, traditional artist - at home in the company Leonardo da Vinci, Pieter Brueghel, Aleksandr Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoievsky and Byzantine icon painters. Tarkovsky is a magician, no question, but argues for demystification (even while films celebrate mystery). His films are full of magical events, dreams, memory sequences, multiple viewpoints, multiple time zones and bizarre occurrences. As genre films, Andrei Tarkovsky's movies are some of the most accomplished in cinema. As science fiction films, Stalker and Solaris have no superiors, and very few peers. Tarkovsky happily and methodically rewrote the rules of the sci-fi genre: Stalker and Solaris are definitely not routine genre outings. They don't have the monsters, the aliens, the visual effects, the battles, the laser guns, the stunts and action set-pieces of regular science fiction movies. Contains illustrations, of Andrei Tarkovsky's films, Tarkovsky at work, his favourite painters, and many images from Mirror. Bibliography, filmographies and notes. Illustrated. 172pp. www.crmoon.com