It takes, to use a precise technical term, chutzpah, for a filmmaker to adapt the same source material as Stanley Kubrick. Yet that’s exactly what director Florian Frerichs (The Last Supper) has done with Traumnovelle, his film based on Arthur Schnitzler’s classic 1926 novella that also inspired Kubrick’s final film, 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut. Frerichs offers a cinematic take on the story that’s more faithful than Kubrick’s, and also more erotic. (Kubrick, for all his brilliance, tended toward chilliness in his work, even when dealing with racy themes). Nonetheless, it’s hard to avoid making comparisons, which inevitably color your opinion of this film receiving its world premiere at the Oldenburg Film Festival.

The story has been updated to modern-day Berlin, which allows the opportunity for such eyes-wide-opening touches as the one in the first scene, when two beautiful women come on to a man in...

Sometimes, an interview subject surprises you with something you didn’t see coming at all. “This film is one of the first films to incorporate a fully AI-generated sequence,” Florian Frerichs (The Last Supper), director and co-writer of Traumnovelle, a new adaptation of the Arthur Schnitzler novella that inspired Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, mentions during our Zoom chat.

Nikolai Kinski, the star of the film, about an upper middle-class couple that gets drawn into a secret world of erotic fantasy, which opens the 31st Oldenburg Film Festival on Wednesday, wasn’t fully prepared for the revelation either. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“I think it’s one of the first films that did it,” Frerichs explains, sharing that AI was used for a dream sequence in the movie when the protagonist Jakob, played by Kinski, finds out from his partner Amelia, portrayed by Laurine Price, about her dreams.

Remember Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick’s exploration of marriage and relationships starring Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise? Of course you do!

Now, get ready for Traumnovelle, a new adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s famed erotic short story that inspired Eyes Wide Shut and that opens the Oldenburg Film Festival on Wednesday.

The drama, from German director Florian Frerichs (The Last Supper), stars Nikolai Kinski (Vikings: Valhalla, Masters of the Air) and Laurine Price (Phoenix, American Crime Story) as a respectable upper-middle-class couple that gets drawn into a secret world of erotic fantasy. The film also stars Detlev Buck, Bruno Eyron, and Nora Islei, with cameos from Sharon Brauner and Sharon Kovacs. Produced by Warnuts Entertainment and Studio Babelsberg, the movie will hit German cinemas in early 2025, courtesy of Apollo Film.

Before walking the red carpet in Oldenburg, Frerichs and Kinski took time out for a Zoom chat with THR about the film,...

This is not your father’s Traumnovelle.

Florian Frerichs’ new adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s famed erotic novella — the work that inspired Stanley Kubrick‘s Eyes Wide Shut — promises to be a much more explicit version of the story. The trailer for the film, which opens this year’s Oldenburg Film Festival on Sept. 11, is heavy on the hot and heavy (see below).

Nikolai Kinski (Barbarians) and Laurine Price (Phoenix) star a respectable upper-middle-class couple living in Berlin who get drawn into a secret and dangerous world of erotic fantasy. Detlev Buck, Bruno Eyron, and Nora Islei co-star with cameos from Sharon Brauner and Sharon Kovacs. Warnuts Entertainment and Studio Babelsberg produced.

Frerichs’ Traumnovelle follows many of the plot beats as Kubrick’s adaptation. After his wife, Amelia (Price) confesses to having sexual fantasies about another man, Jakob (Kinski), a doctor to the city’s rich and famous, becomes intrigued...

The Oldenburg International Film Festival, often dubbed Germany’s Sundance, will this year pay tribute to one of the country’s most revered filmmakers, Dominik Graf, with a special retrospective.

The 31st edition of the festival, running from Sept. 11 to 15, will spotlight Graf’s prolific career, as one of Germany’s few masters in genre filmmaking.

Graf, 71, began his career in the 1970s, inspired by American indie directors like Sam Fuller and Robert Aldrich and French auteurs such as Jean-Pierre Melville, using arthouse techniques and storytelling for crime, comedy and other genre tales.

The festival’s retrospective will showcase six of Graf’s most influential films, including thrillers Die Katze (1988) and Die Sieger (1995/2018 director’s cut), both of which have become genre-defining in German cinema and exemplify Graf’s distinctive, taut, economical approach to plot and character.

Alongside his feature film work, Graf is credited with setting new standards for...

Traumnovelle, a new adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s famed erotic short story that inspired Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, will open this year’s Oldenburg Film Festival, premiering on Sept. 11.

The drama, from German director Florian Frerichs (The Last Supper), stars Nikolai Kinski and Laurine Price as a respectable upper middle-class couple who get drawn into a secret world of erotic fantasy. Detlev Buck, Bruno Eyron, and Nora Islei co-star with cameos from Sharon Brauner and Sharon Kovacs. The producers are Warnuts Entertainment and Studio Babelsberg.

Originally published in 1926, Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle got its most-famous adaptation courtesy of Kubrik’s 1999 feature starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The production famously shot over a record-breaking 400 days. Shortly after finishing the film, and just six days after screening his cut for Kidman and Cruise, Kubrick died.

Frerichs and his cast will attend the Traumnovelle world premiere in Oldenburg on Sept. 11. The...

Die Weltpremiere von Florian Frerichs‘ Schnitzler-Adaption „Traumnovelle“ mit Nikolai Kinski und Laurine Price in den Hauptrollen wird am 11. September das Internationale Filmfest Oldenburg feierlich eröffnen.

Nikolai Kinski und Laurine Price in „Traumnovelle“ (Credit: Internationales Filmfest Oldenburg)

Mit der „Traumnovelle“ von Arthur Schnitzler wagt sich der Filmemacher Florian Frerichs an eine cineastische äußerst spannende Adaption eines Buches, dessen Bekanntheit vor allem auf „Eyes Wide Shut“, der Verfilmung von Stanley Kubrick aus den 1990er-Jahren beruht. Frerichs‘ „Traumnovelle“ mit Nikolai Kinski und Laurine Price in den Hauptrollen, wird als Weltpremiere am 11. September das Internationale Filmfest Oldenburg feierlich eröffnen.

Nikolai Kinski und Laurine Price verkörpern das bürgerliche Ehepaar Jacob und Amelia. Als Jacob von seiner Frau erfährt, dass in ihren heimlichen sexuellen Träumen ein fremder Mann eine Rolle spielte, will er sein eigenes sexuelles Verlangen erforschen. Eine bürgerliche Fassade voller Einengung und unterdrückter Sehnsüchte bricht in dieser Nacht zusammen.

Nachdem niemand geringeres als Stanley...

It has been 25 years since Nicole Kidman uttered the last word in the final film of legendary director Stanley Kubrick, the posthumously released exploration of the mysteries of marriage and relationships, Eyes Wide Shut.

Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, the actress looks back on working with the filmmaker on the 1999 drama, which she calls “a career in itself,” and its record-breaking production length.

Eyes Wide Shut, based on the 1926 novella Traumnovelle by Arthur Schnitzler, took 400 days to shoot in the late 1990s and began while Kidman was still in her 20s; her co-star and then-husband Tom Cruise was arguably Hollywood’s hottest star. The shoot began, as Kidman recounts in the new interview, with the couple spending a lot of time with Kubrick — a living legend but one who demanded they not “put him on a pedestal.” The three became comfortable enough with one another that the two actors...

At the end of Eyes Wide Shut, Dr. Bill Harford and his wife Alice come together in that most normative of spaces: an Fao Schwarz toy store. As they watch their daughter look at potential presents, Bill feebly tries to explain his sexual sojourn through the city we just watched, one prompted by Alice’s confession of lust for a random sailor. Upon the completion of Bill’s story, Alice declares, “There is something we need to do as soon as possible.” What’s that, her husband and the audience asks? Fuck.”

The camera holds on her face for a beat or two and then cuts to black. End of movie.

Between Nicole Kidman’s percussive line delivery, Tom Cruise’s bewildered expression, and the sudden cut to credits, Alice’s statement feels definitive. Yet, like every other part of Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick’s final film, the word is both precise and beguiling,...

Director Stanley Kubrick is known for his perfectionist tendencies while on set. His commitment to getting the shot technically and artistically right has resulted in some of the best films of all time such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barry Lyndon, Paths of Glory, Full Metal Jacket, and The Shining among others.

Kubrick passed away before the release of his final film Eyes Wide Shut, which starred Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, who were then married. While the psychological thriller drama has been regarded as one of Kubrick’s best and is considered to be one of the greats, the filmmaker himself reportedly did not like the film and especially hated working with Cruise and Kidman.

Stanley Kubrick Reportedly Hated Working With Tom Cruise And Nicole Kidman A still from Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut

After working with newcomers and unknown actors for a long time, Stanley Kubrick reportedly...

Max Ophüls’s 1950 tale of dalliances in early-20th-century Viennese cafe society is a tantalising waltz of licentiousness and emptiness

Seamless, frictionless and pretty much flawless, Max Ophüls’s 1950 movie version of Arthur Schnitzler’s racy 1900 play is rereleased as part of a campaign to save London’s Curzon Mayfair cinema; it takes its audience on a dizzying swirl, like a waltz, or a champagne-induced headspin.

The film is an ensemble or portmanteau movie set in early-20th-century Vienna, composed of 10 scenes and 10 couples, connected in a daisy chain of sex. A bighearted streetwalker has sex (for nothing) with a soldier who then dates a shopgirl, who then gets a job as chambermaid and is seduced by her employer’s grownup son, who then has an affair with a married woman, and so on, up the social class – until a bleary count is confronted by the prostitute we saw at the beginning,...

Edward Berger's Academy Award-winning film "All Quiet on the Western Front," based on the celebrated novel by Erich Maria Remarque, is as dour, bleak, and emotionally devastating as its source material. Following a young man named Paul Bäumer into the trenches of WWI, "All Quiet" is a litany of desperation, death, mud, and horror, meant to show the true Hellish nature of war. The young Paul is battered into the ground on day one, and rarely manages to stagger to his feet again. He is hungry, filthy, and constantly exposed to violence. Nothing is real but pain now.

As Paul, actor Felix Kammerer made his feature film debut. Prior to "All Quiet," the Austrian actor attended the performing arts-centered Ernst Busch Academy in Berlin, and would go on to be a repertory player at the celebrated Burgtheater in his native Vienna. It was here that Sabrina Zwacht saw Kammerer perform for the first time.

Co-production forum marks 20th anniversary this year.

Laurynas Bareisa, winner of the 2021 best film prize at Venice’s Orrizonti section for his debut Pilgrims, is among the directors presenting new projects at the 20th edition of the Sofia Meetings co-production forum (22-26 March).

The Lithuanian director is bringing Drowning Dry to Sofia where it is one of five projects in a section dedicated to second feature films.

The section’s line-up also includes The Last Slap by Italian director Matteo Oleotto whose debut feature Zoran, My Nephew The Idiot premiered in Venice’s Critics Week in 2013.

The Last Slap’s...

There was a fragile consensus about "Eyes Wide Shut" when it debuted back in 1999: that it was a bit of a letdown. Audiences had expected to see married co-stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman play out erotic fantasies and were disappointed to experience Stanley Kubrick's oneiric odyssey instead. But while the effect of that disappointment still lingers, as with all Kubrick films, time has seen "Eyes Wide Shut" gain more respect as a multi-layered exploration of sexual desire and naivety.

The film defies precise definition with its mix of dark humor, drama, and erotic imagery. It's based on Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella "Traumnovelle" ("Dream Story"), shifting the events of the book from early 20th-century Vienna to late-'90s New York City. Tom Cruise plays Dr. Bill Harford whose wife, Alice (Nicole Kidman), sends him reeling into the New York night after revealing she'd considered having an affair. The...

Stanley Kubrick's 1999 film "Eyes Wide Shut" was based on a 1926 novella by Arthur Schnitzler called "Traumnovelle" or "Dream Story."  True to the title, Kubrick's film plays out like a dream. Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise), upon learning that his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) had an aggressively detailed sexual fantasy about a soldier she saw in a hotel, drifts out into the world in a sexual haze. He experiences an episodic phantasmagoria seemingly constructed of half-memories and surreal, self-contained scenarios, each of which is marked by a sexual element. Bill is tempted to have sex with other women, but doesn't ever complete an affair. In dream-like fashion, sexual encounters are persistently denied. 

"Eyes Wide Shut" is about, among many other things, an adult coming to realize that he lives in a sexual world. Bill has sexual desires -- he and Alice are intimate early in the movie -- but his sexuality seems weirdly tamped down,...

For all his originality, Stanley Kubrick sure loved using other people's work. Almost all his films are based on pre-existing stories, which, rather than undermining his talent as a director, simply formed a part of his specific filmmaking method. Kubrick sought out inspiration like it was his life-source — which, in a way, it was. The legendary auteur needed a good story to get him excited enough to make a film. And without films, who knows what would have become of the bookish boy from the Bronx.

Back in 1987, just as the director's celebrated Vietnam War drama "Full Metal Jacket" was opening in theaters, the New York Times noted how Kubrick would use the time before starting work on his next project to "catch up on 18 months of missed movies, good and bad, and read as ever with the hope of finding another story." That story would be one he'd been...

The dog days of summer are upon us, where it’s impossible to do much besides crank the air condition and plop down on the couch.

This is actually an okay option, especially considering how great the lineup of new movies is on Netflix. While there aren’t any truly terrific Netflix original movies this month (although Jamie Foxx’s vampire-hunting buddy comedy “Day Shift” almost made the list), there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to new library titles on the streaming service.

In August there’s something for everyone on Netflix, from Keanu Reeves as a paranormal detective (“Constantine”) to a controversial Tom Cruise classic (“Eyes Wide Shut”) to a 1980s favorite that only gets better with age (“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”). Plus so much!

“Constantine” Warner Bros.

If you’ve watched the new Netflix adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman,” you undoubtedly took...

Photo: ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ The late and undoubtedly great Stanley Kubrick passed away on March 7, 1999. This was a fact that was well established in Kubrick’s mind and something which he gave major thought to as he started to write his last film, ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, with Frederic Raphael based on the novel Traumnovelle by Arthur Schnitzler. With this loose adaptation of a cryptic novel, Kubrick strove to create without a doubt his darkest film in an already dark filmography with films like ‘The Shining’ that are full of blood, murder, and sexual assault. Things to do: Subscribe to The Hollywood Insider’s YouTube Channel, by clicking here. Limited Time Offer – Free Subscription to The Hollywood Insider Click here to read more on The Hollywood Insider’s vision, values and mission statement here – Media has the responsibility to better our world – The Hollywood Insider fully focuses on substance and meaningful entertainment,...

In film history, the anthology genre is the most challenging. Episodic films often have several directors and screenwriters which gives them an inconsistent tone and quality. But the genre’s pitfalls haven’t stopped such filmmakers including Akira Kurosawa (“Dreams”), the Coens (“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”), Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez (“Sin City”); Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese (“New York Stories”); and Joe Dante, John Landis, George Miller and Steven Spielberg (“Twilight Zone: The Movie”).

Wes Anderson joined them with his latest film “The French Dispatch,” which received a nine-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. The comedy brings to life three stories from an American magazine published in a fictional French city and features his stock company of actors including Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson.

If you are a fan of the genre, here are the best anthology movies that...

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is a series on Production Design.

Thursday marks 100 years since the birth of iconic French actress Simone Signoret. But how to celebrate? By my count, she was in three films nominated for Best Production Design. One of them, Is Paris Burning?, I covered way back in 2016. Another, Ship of Fools, also nabbed Signoret her second nomination for Best Actress. Unfortunately, it’s something of a bloated and maudlin mess.

That leaves us with La Ronde, a film made shortly before Signoret really burst into international stardom. She’s barely in it, playing a Viennese sex worker who bookends the meandering narrative. Even so, it’s her movie star quality that makes the whole thing work - that and the magic of Jean d’Eaubonne’s Oscar-nominated production design, of course. The film is Max Ophüls’s adaptation of an Arthur Schnitzler play, a circular jaunt that slips from paramour to paramour.

Editor’s Note: We wanted to take a moment to acknowledge some of the terrible events in the news recently. Our guest, Bilge Ebiri, is a staffer at New York Magazine, and the editors there have assembled a great resource via The Strategist entitled 61 Ways to Donate in Support of Asian Communities. Please take a look and donate if you can. Be kind to each other, always.

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Today we’re trying something new – again!. This is the second episode of what we are calling The Final Frame. Here we will dissect the final film of a great, well-respected filmmaker, wrapped in the context of said filmmaker’s entire career. Our subject today: the insurmountable Stanley Kubrick. His final film: Eyes Wide Shut,...

Stanley Kubrick’s last film, starring Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise as a warring, sexually obsessed couple, is fascinating and disquieting

Eyes Wide Shut, now on rerelease, is fascinating, flawed late Stanley Kubrick, his final film before his death in 1999 at the age of 70. It was adapted from Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle, or Dream Story, published in 1926 and originally set in Vienna. The film is a tale of sexual obsession among modern-day Manhattan’s wealthy and powerful classes and I originally valued it for its satirical potency, formal control and dreamlike self-possession, all of which are bound up in a certain kind of deadpan absurdity and soft-porn seriousness.

Tom Cruise plays Bill Harford, a well-off New York doctor with a fashionable clientele and a magnificent apartment in Central Park West, happily married to beautiful Alice (Nicole Kidman) a former art gallery director, now a stay-at-home mum to their young daughter.

The German festival runs from June 28 to July 7.

The Munich Film Festival opens on Thursday (June 28) with the world premiere of Joachim A. Lang’s Mackie Messer – Brechts Dreigroschenfilm, starring Lars Eidinger as Bertold Brecht.

The film is inspired by Brecht’s 1928 play The Threepenny Opera and Kurt Weill’s song Mack The Knife, which was written for the play.

The German premiere of Andrew Niccol’s Anon, starring Clive Owen as a detective who finds a young woman with no identity, played by Amanda Seyfried, will close the festival on July 7. The sci-fi thriller is produced by Germany’s K5 Film.

La Ronde has a lot to answer for. Arthur Schnitzler's classic play depicting a series of interconnected sexual liaisons has been adapted innumerable times since its 1920 premiere. It also has inspired an equally countless number of film, theater and literary works, including Michael John Lachiusa's 1993 musical that debuted at Lincoln Center. That work has now been adapted into a film version directed by Tom Gustafson featuring an array of veteran theater talents. But while Hello Again has been brought to the big screen, it has not been brought to anything resembling cinematic life. The movie does, however, offer...

Quick takes from the 25th Raindance Film Festival, with public screenings in London through October 1st, 2017.

In Another Life

British filmmaker Jason Wingard went to the Jungle, the refugee camp in Calais, intending to make a documentary about life there. But after befriending those living in squalor out of desperation, he decided to make a narrative based on their stories instead, shot in the Jungle and with some of them playing versions of themselves. The result is an astonishingly moving film that rehumanizes people who have been dehumanized in public discourse, putting faces to the still-ongoing refugee crisis and inescapably reminding us that those we’ve Othered are not very different from us. “In another life,” Syrian refugee Adnan (French actor Elie Haddad) tells us in the touching narration through which we follow his journey, “I was a teacher.” His new friends in the Jungle are other middle-class people from such far-flung places as Sudan,...

Chicago – The second-oldest Lgbtq+ international film festival in America, Reeling (Reeling17), launches its 35th edition in Chicago at the historic Music Box Theatre on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017. The opening-night film will be the musical “Hello Again” with appearances by featured cast members Tyler Blackburn (“Pretty Little Liars”) and Jenna Ushkowitz (“Glee”) along with director Tom Gustafson and screenwriter Cory Krueckeberg.

‘Hello Again’ Opens Reeling2017 on September 21st at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago

Photo credit: Reeling2017

“Hello Again” is a movie adaptation of Michael John Lachiusa’s celebrated 1994 Off-Broadway musical, which in turn was inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s stageplay “La Ronde” (written in 1897, with the first public performance in 1920). The 2017 film explores ten fleeting love affairs, across ten periods of New York City history, through ten lust-fueled episodes. It’s guaranteed to be saucy.

Reeling2017, the Chicago Lgbtq+ International Film Festival is in its 35th year, and has an incredible line-up of films,...

There is a very niche swath of Broadway lovers and lesbians who will be over the moon to see Audra McDonald and Martha Plimpton share a seductive scene in “Hello Again,” a film adaptation of Michael John Lachiusa’s 1993 musical which released its steamy new trailer today.

Read More: Why the ‘Swiss Army Man’ Directors Backed the Psychedelic Comedy-Musical ‘Snowy Bing Bongs’

“Hello Again” tells ten love affairs set in each decade of the 20th century, following the sexual escapades of characters with names like The Whore, The College Boy, and The Young Thing. Lachiusa is best known for writing “The Wild Party,” which developed a cult following in the years since its Broadway debut in 1999. “Hello Again” is based on “La Ronde,” the 1897 play by Arthur Schnitzler which caused an uproar when it first played Berlin and Vienna in 1920.

Read More: ‘Dirty Dancing’ Review: ABC Musical Event Is Decidedly Not Worth Your Time

The movie stars six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald, as well as similarly lauded theater actors Martha Plimpton, T.R. Knight, Cheyenne Jackson, and Rumer Willis. “Hello Again” is directed by Tom Gustafson from a screenplay by Cory Krueckeberg, the same pair behind the 2012 musical comedy “Mariachi Gringo.”

How many Broadway stars can you find?

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Exclusive: Here’s a first look at Hello Again, the film adaptation by Tom Gustafson (Mariachi Gringo) of composer-lyricist Michael John Lachiusa's acclaimed 1994 musical. A new riff on La Ronde, the scandal-causing Arthur Schnitzler play from 1897 (first filmed by Max Ophüls in 1950 and subsequently by Roger Vadim with 1964’s Circle of Love and Otto Schenk with Der Reigen in 1973) about series of sexual assignations across boundaries of class and status that seem…...

Mubi is showing Max Ophüls' Liebelei (1933) from November 9 - December 8, 2016 in most countries around the world.While the primary players in Max Ophüls’ 1933 film Liebelei may be introduced at the same opera house, seeing the same performance of Mozart’s “The Abduction from the Seraglio,” the real drama is produced away from the stage, though it is rarely any less histrionic. As secretive private passions and illicit romances are revealed, so softly and elegantly in what would become the presentational norm for Ophüls, a genuinely pure, ultimately heartbreaking, relationship emerges from the scandalous furor. When philandering German Lieutenant Fritz Lobheimer (Wolfgang Liebeneiner) meets and falls for Christine Weyring (Magda Schneider), the daughter of an opera musician, he is commendably quick to break off his essentially lustful involvement with the adulterous Baroness von Eggersdorff (Olga Tschechowa). Unlike Arthur Schnitzler’s source play (Schnitzler, who would also provide the foundation for Ophüls’ excellent 1950 film,...

Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.

A Mike Nichols documentary, Dazed and Confused with live commentary by Richard Linklater and Jason Reitman, and more have been added to the Sundance 2016 line-up.

As Heat turns 20, Michael Mann discusses the making of a crime drama classic with Rolling Stone:

One of the biggest scenes was the shoot-out at the end, and one of the big challenges about it is that we couldn’t do it consecutively. We could only get downtown on Saturday and Sunday. So it was six days of shooting, but we had to do it on a Saturday and Sunday, then do something else and then come back the following Saturday and Sunday to do the next section.

Once upon a time, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were supposed to be Jewish.

Bill and Alice Harford, the decidedly gentile married couple that the actors portrayed in 1999's Eyes Wide Shut, are about as kosher as a bacon milkshake. But when Stanley Kubrick first conceived of adapting Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Traumnovelle in the Seventies, the filmmaker allegedly envisioned the male lead as Woody Allen, a man so Jewish that Shabbat practically observes him.

Kubrick's initial casting idea, which is all but inconceivable to anyone who's seen the finished film,...

Each week, the fine folks at Fandor add a number of films to their Criterion Picks area, which will then be available to subscribers for the following twelve days. This week, the Criterion Picks focus on eight delightful French films.

Three decades of exceptional French cinema in the service of that most intoxicating, unpredictable and stubborn of muscles, to which laws of convention and commitment prove no barrier: the heart.

Don’t have a Fandor subscription? They offer a free trial membership.

Children of Paradise by Marcel Carne

Poetic realism reached sublime heights with Children Of Paradise, widely considered one of the greatest French films of all time. This nimble depiction of nineteenth-century Paris’s theatrical demimonde, filmed during World War II, follows a mysterious woman loved by four different men (all based on historical figures): an actor, a criminal, a count, and, most poignantly, a mime (Jean-Louis Barrault,...

The Little Death Magnolia Pictures Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes. Grade: C+ Director: Josh Lawson Screenwriter: Josh Lawson Cast: Josh Lawson, Bojana Novakovic, Damon Herriman, Kate Mulvany, Kate Box, Patrick Brammall, Alan Dukes, Lisa McCune, Erin James, T.J. Power, Kim Gyngell, Lachy Hulme Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 5/12/15 Opens: June 26, 2015 As sex comedies go, nothing has come up since 1897 that can match Arthur Schnitzler’s “Reigen,” also known as “La Ronde.” Schitzler’s roundelay of sexual encounters features people from all walks of society both before and after their sexual congress. Granted, Josh Lawson’s “The Little Death” is not trying to approach the [ Read More ]

The post The Little Death Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine' 1938: Jean Renoir's film noir (photo: Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine') (See previous post: "'Cat People' 1942 Actress Simone Simon Remembered.") In the late 1930s, with her Hollywood career stalled while facing competition at 20th Century-Fox from another French import, Annabella (later Tyrone Power's wife), Simone Simon returned to France. Once there, she reestablished herself as an actress to be reckoned with in Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine. An updated version of Émile Zola's 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine is enveloped in a dark, brooding atmosphere not uncommon in pre-World War II French films. Known for their "poetic realism," examples from that era include Renoir's own The Lower Depths (1936), Julien Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937), and particularly Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939).[11] This thematic and...

Marie Dubois, actress in French New Wave films, dead at 77 (image: Marie Dubois in the mammoth blockbuster 'La Grande Vadrouille') Actress Marie Dubois, a popular French New Wave personality of the '60s and the leading lady in one of France's biggest box-office hits in history, died Wednesday, October 15, 2014, at a nursing home in Lescar, a suburb of the southwestern French town of Pau, not far from the Spanish border. Dubois, who had been living in the Pau area since 2010, was 77. For decades she had been battling multiple sclerosis, which later in life had her confined to a wheelchair. Born Claudine Huzé (Claudine Lucie Pauline Huzé according to some online sources) on January 12, 1937, in Paris, the blue-eyed, blonde Marie Dubois began her show business career on stage, being featured in plays such as Molière's The Misanthrope and Arthur Miller's The Crucible. François Truffaut discovery: 'Shoot the...

• Boardwalk Empire actor Jack Huston will take the chariot reins as the title role in the upcoming remake of Ben-Hur. Previously, Tom Hiddleston had been in talks for the role of slave Judah Ben-Hur in the Paramount and MGM picture. Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) is directing the film adapted by John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) and Keith Clarke (The Way Back) that is said to be based more on Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ than the 1959 film that starred Charlton Heston. Morgan Freeman has already been cast as Ildarin, the teacher who helps make the slave Ben-Hur into chariot racer champion.

“It’s impossible to tell you what I’m going to do except to say that I expect to make the best movie ever made.” – Stanley Kubrick, Oct. 20, 1971.

There are few unrealized projects in the history of cinema more tantalizingly fascinating than Stanley Kubrick’s planned feature about Napoleon. Even in 1967, at the time of its initial pre-production (the first time around), it seemed like a potentially great idea. But now, looking back with Kubrick’s entire body of work as a reference point, it truly does stand as a project this legendary filmmaker should have been destined to make. Thanks to a mammoth and comprehensive collection of materials fashioned into Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made, edited by Alison Castle and published by Taschen, we can for the first time see how Kubrick prepared for the film and what he had in mind for its ultimate big-screen presentation.

Zweig peeled back the veneer of Austro-Hungarian culture to expose sexual repression and the nature of love – no wonder he inspired Anderson's latest film

Why read Stefan Zweig? It is wonderful that Wes Anderson has cited him as an inspiration for his latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, but there have been quite a few people who would rather you didn't. Most famous of these were Hitler and Goebbels, for the very simple reason, at the same time both boring and terrifying, that Zweig was a Jew, on top of being the most translated author writing in German at the time. Being both was an intolerable affront, and if Hitler or his agents never laid hands on him, it was because they didn't have to: not only would burning all copies of Zweig's works have been a time-consuming exercise, he and his wife killed themselves, in exile in Brazil in...

DirecTV premiered its first original scripted series "Rogue," an undercover cop drama starring Thandie Newton, on April 3. Now the satellite provider is upping its original programming game with "Full Circle," another scripted series, this one the television debut of Neil Labute. DirecTV's ordered 10 episodes of "Full Circle," a high concept half-hour series Labute created, is writing and will co-executive produce to air on DirecTV's exclusive Audience Network in the fall of 2013. The show is based on Arthur Schnitzler's classic play "La Ronde," which daisy-chained ten pairs of lovers up and down the social classes in ten scenes, starting and ending with the Whore. "La Ronde" has been much abused in recent film, with Fernando Meirelles' "360" and Alexis Lloyd's "30 Beats" attempting none-too-successfully to use the narrative format in a contemporary setting. Read More: Why Everyone Wants a Premium Drama: DirecTV's Chris Long Talks About Getting Into the Game With.

The final installment of the First Time Fest… The First Time Fest’s closing night was held on March 4th. Hosted by Academy Award winner Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist), the Players Club lit up with flashes of cameras and smiles of the first time filmmakers anxiously awaiting whose film will win the grand prize- the chance to have their film distributed by Cinema Libre Studios.

Johanna Bennett and Mandy founded the festival after noticing there wasn’t a venue for where new filmmakers can get their film viewed and appreciated. In attendance at the closing night ceremony were Tony Bennett and Jack Huston, as well as Martin Scorsese, who presented the First John Huston Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinema to Darren Aronofsky, who was also in attendance. Anthony Rapp presented the awards as guests ate food from Chef Diane Dimeo and drank champagne by Nicolas Feuillatte. Also in attendance...

One of the Most Amazing Silent Movies (or Movies of Any Era, Period) Ever Made Tops the List of Best of Movies Released in 1921 Rex Ingram’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Metro Pictures' film version of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s epic novel -- from a scenario by the immensely powerful writer-producer June Mathis -- catapulted Mathis’ protégé, the until then little known Rudolph Valentino (photo, left), to worldwide superstardom, as The Four Horsemen became one of the biggest box-office hits of the silent era. Ingram’s wife, the invariably excellent Alice Terry (right, dark-haired in real life; a light-haired in her many movies), played Valentino's love interest. Ninety-two years after its initial launch, the Four Horsemen remains a monumental achievement. Released by MGM, Vincente Minnelli's 1962 remake of this Metro Pictures production featured an all-star cast: Glenn Ford, Ingrid Thulin (dubbed by Angela Lansbury), Charles Boyer, Lee J. Cobb,...

Stars: Lethia Nall, Eric Yves Garcia, Rob Hollander, H.R. Britton, Olivia Horton, Jenny Grace, Michele Cesari | Written and Directed by Max Weissberg

The First Time Fest is a proud sponsor of first time filmmakers, and thus the festival sponsors a friendly competition among twelve first time filmmakers which involves a screening of their films which will be reviewed by five judges, including the audience counting as a judge. The winner will receive the benefit of having their film distributed among theaters worldwide, as well as the bragging rights that come along with winning such a special honor.

One of the screenings was a witty tale of trying to be a working actor in New York City called Summertime. The story revolves around first time actress Julia, who is in the running for a part in a new movie. The plot follows not only the actress as she interacts with several...

Director Fernando Meirelles made one of the strongest directorial debuts of the last twenty years with his film City of God and followed this up with the equally well received The Constant Gardener in 2005. He then went on to direct the film Blindness which despite having a neat central idea was less than the sum of its parts. Hopes were high for his next film as he was collaborating with screenwriter Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon) on a truly international stage.

360 is loosely based on a play by Arthur Schnitzler written in 1897 called La Ronde. The original play is a study of the morals and ideology of people of various classes and the role that sex plays in their lives. The point of this is that Schnitzler is saying that sex crosses all boundaries and classes. The play has been loosely adapted into film thirteen times over the last sixty years and 360 is the latest version.

In director Fernando Meirelles' sprawling drama, the paths of a procession of loosely linked, damaged characters - including Rachel Weisz's cheating wife, Jude Law's lonely businessman and Sir Anthony Hopkins' recovering alcoholic father - overlap in a series of interlinked stories. The swerving narrative switches between cities including London, Vienna and Denver. Inspired by Arthur Schnitzler's classic La Ronde, the script was written by Peter Morgan, screenwriter of Frost/Nixon and The Queen.

A starry cast and a knowing air can't add depth to Peter Morgan's tale of blackmail, infidelity and dodgy deals

Peter Morgan made his reputation with remarkably perceptive screenplays about British people, mostly real-life ones, going through bad patches in their careers at home (The Damned United, The Queen) and abroad (Frost/Nixon, The Last King of Scotland), and encountering some rather odd people. More recently, however, he's moved on to a larger canvas involving the mystical and metaphysical, and the results have been less satisfactory. Hereafter, which Steven Spielberg produced and Clint Eastwood directed, began with an astonishing re-creation of the south-east Asian tsunami, then proceeded with flat-footed banality to tell the parallel stories of three people from different countries (a French TV reporter, an American blue-collar worker and a south London schoolboy) mysteriously linked by their near-death experiences.

His new film, 360, directed by Fernando Meirelles, takes him...

This all-star Us-Europudding of a film about interrelated lives is so wildly unconvincing, it feels as if it was directed by Alan Partridge, writes Peter Bradshaw

Screenwriter Peter Morgan and director Fernando Meirelles have proven themselves mighty talents in the past, but they've come a catastrophic cropper with this bizarre film, an all-star multinational Us-Europudding, lurching along in a wince-making series of tonal misjudgments and false notes. 360 is a portmanteau film, a daisy chain of interrelated lives; the title promises a panoptic view. It's perhaps inspired by the multi-stranded movies of Alejandro González Iñárittu, and the cyclical structure is taken loosely from Arthur Schnitzler's stage-play Le Ronde but with a hopelessly shallow pseudo-sophistication that made me think it had in fact been written and directed by Alan Partridge. Anthony Hopkins is a troubled soul in Colorado, searching for the truth about his vanished daughter; Jude Law is a businessman in Berlin,...

Coming just a few years too late to cash in on the “We’re all connected!” genre craze exemplified by Crash and Babel, director Fernando Meirelles and writer Peter Morgan’s 360 is a perfect example of how structure can completely bulldoze humanity and character in a narrative. Supposedly inspired in part by the feverishly exacting romantic roundelays of Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler, 360 hops among a diverse (or “diverse”) set of characters all trying to establish, or re-establish, human connection, often of the sexual or romantic kind. How odd then that a film all about human connections manages to make none of its own.Much like Schnitzler’s La Ronde (which was more often about sex than not), the story begins and ends with a prostitute. In this case, it’s newcomer Mirka (Lucia Siposova), a Slovak émigré in Vienna who when we meet her is being interviewed by her prospective pimp.

Arthur Schnitzler's landmark play "La Ronde" has inspired any number of revivals and knock-offs due to its structure where Character A meets Character B, who in turn encounters Character C, and so forth until Character M winds up back with Character A. Paul Haggis' dreadful movie "Crash" has inspired any number of ripoffs in which it turns out that Character A is Character D's neighbor after Character L saves Character E's life in an airport. Put both of these tired tropes together, and you've got "360," a movie that thinks it's...

This weekly column is intended to provide reviews of nearly every new indie release, including films on VOD. Specific release dates and locations follow each review. Reviews This Week: "360" "Assassin's Bullet" "The Babymakers" "Celeste and Jesse Forever" "Craigslist Joe" "Dreams of a Life" "Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film" "Girlfriend Boyfriend" "Mosquita y Mari" "[Rec]³ Genesis" "Sushi: The Global Catch" "You've Been Trumped" "360" Whatever possessed three of Britain's most talented actors (Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law and Rachel Weisz) to join the ensemble cast of this discombobulated drama? Whatever the reason, the result is embarrassing. Another in a long line of variants on Arthur Schnitzler's 1897 play "La Ronde,'' the film,...

Other than that movie about the grown man in a bat suit who does stuff... The Condola Rashad (or I should say Tony Nominee Condola Rashad) ensemble drama we told you about earlier this year, titled 30 Beats, that's inspired by Arthur Schnitzler's play La Ronde, was picked by Roadside Attractions for Us and Latin American territories. On the VOD, DVD, TV side, Lionsgate acquired those rights. Roadside had previously assigned the film a June 1 theatrical release, simultaneously with its VOD debut. But that date has been changed to July 20 instead - which is Today. Here's a recap of the film from my previous post. First, its...