Marc Allégret: From André Gide lover to Simone Simon mentor (photo: Marc Allégret) (See previous post: "Simone Simon Remembered: Sex Kitten and Femme Fatale.") Simone Simon became a film star following the international critical and financial success of the 1934 romantic drama Lac aux Dames, directed by her self-appointed mentor – and alleged lover – Marc Allégret.[1] The son of an evangelical missionary, Marc Allégret (born on December 22, 1900, in Basel, Switzerland) was to have become a lawyer. At age 16, his life took a different path as a result of his romantic involvement – and elopement to London – with his mentor and later "adoptive uncle" André Gide (1947 Nobel Prize winner in Literature), more than 30 years his senior and married to Madeleine Rondeaux for more than two decades. In various forms – including a threesome with painter Théo Van Rysselberghe's daughter Elisabeth – the Allégret-Gide relationship remained steady until the late '20s and their trip to...
- 2/28/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
From April to May, the UK is being treated to a retrospective Jiří Trnka’s animation, through a collaboration by the Czech Centre London, the Czech National Film Archive and specialist cinemas in London, Bristol, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Known as ‘The Walt Disney of the East’, Trnka was the father of Czech animation, which really only came into existence after World War II. Although he was initially influenced by Disney’s animated cartoons, it was in puppet animation that Trnka ultimately developed his own style and became influential in his own right. He founded his puppet film studio in the 1940s and his first feature film, The Czech Year (Špalíček, 1947) was immediately successful with both domestic and international audiences.
Typically containing no dialogue, Trnka’s films are easily accessible to viewers young and old, all over the world. Although animation is popularly associated with children’s entertainment, most of Trnka...
Typically containing no dialogue, Trnka’s films are easily accessible to viewers young and old, all over the world. Although animation is popularly associated with children’s entertainment, most of Trnka...
- 4/30/2012
- by Alison Frank
- The Moving Arts Journal
"It would be hard to meet a Czech whose childhood was not touched (perhaps unconsciously) by the art of Jiří Trnka, a painter, puppeteer, illustrator and above all, the founding father of Czech animated film." So begins Ruth Fraňková's 2007 profile for Radio Praha, for which she spoke with several of the innovator's admirers and colleagues. "His poetic drawings brought immortality to books that would otherwise be long forgotten. And his animated films bestowed dozens of puppets and drawings with life."
Trnka was born in Pilsen 100 years ago today and died in 1969 at the age of only 57; to here Fraňková tell it, he more or less worked himself to death. In 2010, Paul Gallagher posted a few clips at Dangerous Minds, adding that, having drawn since he was a child, Trnka "wanted to bring his pictures to life. So, he started making puppets and opened a wooden puppet theatre on Prague's Wenceslas Square.
Trnka was born in Pilsen 100 years ago today and died in 1969 at the age of only 57; to here Fraňková tell it, he more or less worked himself to death. In 2010, Paul Gallagher posted a few clips at Dangerous Minds, adding that, having drawn since he was a child, Trnka "wanted to bring his pictures to life. So, he started making puppets and opened a wooden puppet theatre on Prague's Wenceslas Square.
- 2/24/2012
- MUBI
In our new take on Shakespeare's comedy, Puck becomes a film director who wreaks subconscious revenge on the lives of his pampered actors while he sleeps
Putting on A Midsummer Night's Dream is a daunting prospect. As one of Shakespeare's most beloved comedies and the basis for so many seminal productions, it provides any prospective director with many sleepless nights. The converse of this anxiety is the play's inimitable allure: beautiful verse, brilliant characters and beguiling cases of mistaken identity. It's a play that has always held my imagination in thrall.
When planning a new touring production for Headlong theatre I knew I wanted to share both the insomnia and the imaginative thrill with the designer Tom Scutt, with whom I've frequently collaborated. Dream poses many quandaries, not least the fact that it takes place in three seemingly distinct worlds – Theseus's royal court, Titania and Oberon's fairy land, and that...
Putting on A Midsummer Night's Dream is a daunting prospect. As one of Shakespeare's most beloved comedies and the basis for so many seminal productions, it provides any prospective director with many sleepless nights. The converse of this anxiety is the play's inimitable allure: beautiful verse, brilliant characters and beguiling cases of mistaken identity. It's a play that has always held my imagination in thrall.
When planning a new touring production for Headlong theatre I knew I wanted to share both the insomnia and the imaginative thrill with the designer Tom Scutt, with whom I've frequently collaborated. Dream poses many quandaries, not least the fact that it takes place in three seemingly distinct worlds – Theseus's royal court, Titania and Oberon's fairy land, and that...
- 2/14/2011
- by Natalie Abrahami
- The Guardian - Film News
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