Europe and the Mob / Bourgeois Europe (The Long 19th Century)
Voyna i Mir ('War and Peace')
Sergej Bondarchuk (Soviet Union 1967)
SALU/DVD/WAP/SF
Language: RussianSubtitles: English
This is a Russian story as big as the nation itself. Only a Russian as brilliant as Sergei Bondarchuk could understand the complexities of the struggle of the Russian people against a tyrant. We see history unfold through the eyes of a naive Pierre, and as he experiences the torments of war and class struggle, he changes. So will you when you watch this film.
The visuals of battle have never been matched. [...]. This is one of the greatest films ever made.
A gargantuan version of Tolstoy's national epic, approached as a priority as important as the Soviet space program, War and Peace is surely the biggest production ever put on film, with entire armies filling the screen and covering vast landscapes. The recreation of the Napoleonic era in St. Petersburg and Moscow is a wonderment. Director Sergei Bondarchuk makes the story work even better at the intimate level. The romantic adventures and heartbreaks of the story's central trio, Pierre, Natasha and Andrei lead to at least 4 or 5 devastatingly emotional high points.http://www.rususa.com/apf4/store.cgi?Operation=ItemLookup&myOperation=CustomerReviews&ItemId=630274265X#review_1
Krieg und Frieden (War and Peace / Guerre et paix / Guerra e pace / Wojna i pokój)
Robert Dornhelm / Brendan Donnison (Italy/France/Germany/Russia/Poland 2007)
SALU/DVD/KF/SF
Language: German
Subtitles: German
Latest 4-part TV adaptation of Tolstoy's epic with an all-European cast of famous actors, shot mostly on location in St. Petersburg and Vilnius/Lithuania. The film with its great visuals is easily accessible even with little German ...
See also: Krieg und Frieden
Love and Death
(Die letzte Nacht des Boris Gruschenko)
Woody Allen (USA 1975)
SALU/DVD/LD/SF
Language: German, English, French, Italian, Spanish
Subtitles: German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian
Woody Allen plays a Russian {Woody Allen Character} who is caught up in the Napoleonic invasion of his country. Much of the humor comes from the philosophic conversations that people break into in the midst of crisis situations.
When Napoleon threatens to invade the Russian Empire, the coward Boris Grushenko (Woody Allen) is forced to enlist to save his country. He actually captures a group of enemy officers, but the French Army is too strong and soon Napoleon reaches Moscow. Boris thinks that this should put an end to the war, but his young wife (Diane Keaton) wants to murder Napoleon...(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073312/plotsummary)
See also: Love and Death (Wikipedia)
Austerlitz
Abel Gance (France/Italy/Liechtenstein/Yugoslavia 1960)
SALU/DVD/(French Collection)
Language: French
Subtitles: English, Chinese
Epic reconstruction of the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon's greatest victory over the Russians.
Thirty years after his epic "Napoleon," director Abel Gance returned to the life of the Little Corporal with this look at the decisive 1805 conflict between French forces and the armies of Austria and Russia. The international cast includes Rossano Brazzi, Claudia Cardinale, Jack Palance, Vittorio De Sica, Orson Welles and Pierre Mondy as Napoleon. http://www.moviesunlimited.com/musite/product.asp?sku=109321
Goya's Ghosts
Milos Forman (Spain 2006)
SALU/DVD/GG/SF
Language: English, French
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Goya’s Ghosts is a sweeping historical epic told through the eyes of celebrated Spanish painter Francisco Goya. Set against the backdrop of political turmoil at the end of the Spanish Inquisition and start of the invasion of Spain by Napoleon’s army, the film captures the essence of beauty of Goya’s work which is best known for both the colorful depictions of the royal court and its people, and his grim depictions of the brutality of war and life in 18th century Spain. Brother Lorenzo, an enigmatic, cunning member of the Inquisition’s inner circle who becomes infatuated with Goya’s teenage muse, Ines when she is falsely accused of heresy and sent to prison. (Metacritic)
Waterloo
Sergei Bondarchuk (Italy/Soviet Union 1970)
SALU/DVD/WAT/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Chinese
After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, Arthur Welsley was victorious in Spain, but has never faced Napoleon. Welsley stands between Napoleon with a mixed army of Prussians, Mercenaries, Brits and Belgians. Napoleon's victory will plunge Europe back into a long term war. The two meet at Waterloo where the fate of Europe will be decided. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000E1E2N6?tag=dvdmaailm
Klang der Stille (Copying Beethoven)
Agnieszka Holland (Germany/Hungary 2006)
SALU/DVD/CB/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: Chinese
Vienna, 1824. In the days before the first performance of the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven needs help with copying out the charts, so a promising student of composition, Anna Holtz, 23, is sent to assist him. She not only aids the transcription of the notes, she provides guidance from the orchestra pit as Beethoven conducts the work's debut. During the next two years, the final ones of Beethoven's life, Anna provides assistance to the deaf, temperamental, ailing man. In return, he tutors her in composition and explains to her the ideas and principles of Romanticism.(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424908/plotsummary)
Chopin - Pragnienie milosci (Chopin - Sehnsucht nach Liebe / Chopin - The Need for Love)
Jerzy Antczak (Poland 2002)
SALU/DVD/CHOP/SF
Languages: English, German
Subtitles: -
The biography of world famous Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin.
Award-winning Polish filmmaker Jerzy Antczak directed this historical drama which focuses on the meeting of two remarkable minds. Fryderyk Chopin (Piotr Adamczyk) was earning a reputation as both a music genius and an imperious, self-important man when he met Aurore Dupin (Danuta Stenka), a beautiful but strong-willed woman who wrote about issues of gender equality under the pen name of George Sand. Chopin and Dupin entered into a passionate but volatile love affair, and their affection for one another was tempered by Chopin's arrogance and Dupin's unwillingness to compromise. The soundtrack for Chopin: Desire for Love includes performances of Chopin's music from Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, and other noted classical artists.
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/314112/Chopin-The-Need-For-Love/overview
La Certosa di Parma (Die Kartause von Parma / The Charterhouse of Parma)
Mauro Bolognini (Germany/Italy/France 1982)
SALU/DVD/KVP/SF
Languages: Deutsch
Stendhal's epic tale of a young Italian aristocrat in the time of Napoleon and the Restauration of the Ancient Régime, and his aunt - a duchess of legendary beauty and resourcefulness.
sehr romantisch / très romantique !!!
Les Misérables
Tom Hooper (UK/USA 2012)
SALU/DVD/LMIS/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Thai, Korean, Japanese
In 19th-century France, Jean Valjean, who for decades has been hunted by the ruthless policeman Javert after he breaks parole, agrees to care for factory worker Fantine's daughter, Cosette. The fateful decision changes their lives forever. (imdb)
(very bad but popular musical film)
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Peter Weir (Britain 2003)
SALU/DVD/MC/SF
Languages: English, Thai
Subtitles: English, Cantonese, Korean, Putonghua, Thai, Tagalog, Bahasa
During the Napoleonic Wars, a British frigate, HMS Surprise, and a much larger French warship, the Acheron, with greater fire power, stalk each other off of the coast of South America. Russell Crowe brings great intensity to the role of Captain Jack Aubrey. Lucky Jack, as he is referred to by his crew, is well regarded by his men, who trust him implicitly, even after the first devastating battle and an apparent personal vendetta against the French captain. While the naval battle sequences are quite fantastic, the film is successful because director Weir chose to build the story to get to know the men who are locked aboard the tight quarters of a small ship and how they interact everyday. The officers and the mates are well-known by the time the final battle comes. Paul Bettany offers a strong performance as the surgeon and naturalist who balances the violence of his chosen life with the quiet demeanor of the scientist. He is the captain's friend and confidant, the two frequently playing violin and cello duets together. The horrors of the injuries from the war are frequently implied, but vividly depicted in the reactions of the characters. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311113/plotsummary)
See also official film site: http://www.masterandcommanderthefarsideoftheworld.com/
Vanity Fair
Mira Nair (USA 2004)
SALU/DVD/VF/SF
Languages: English, French
Subtitles: French, Spanish
The British Empire flowers; exotic India colors English imaginations. Becky Sharp, the orphaned daughter of a painter and a singer, leaves a home for girls to be a governess, armed with pluck, a keen wit, good looks, fluent French, and an eye for social advancement. Society tries its best to keep her from climbing. An episodic narrative follows her for 20 years, through marriage, Napoleonic wars, a child, loyalty to a school friend, the vicissitudes of the family whose daughters she instructed, and attention from a bored marquess who collected her father's paintings. Honesty tempers her schemes. No aristocrat she, nor bourgeois, just spirited, intelligent, and irrepressible. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0241025/plotsummary)
Wuthering Heights
Peter Kosminsky (UK 1992)
SALU/DVD/WH/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Chinese
The Earnshaws live at Wuthering Heights, a gothic mansion set on the bleak moors in the north of England. Young Cathy Earnshaw is given a playmate when her father adopts a gipsy boy Heathcliff. The two children develop a close friendship which blossoms into love when they come of age. But then Cathy meets a wealthy landowner, Linton, who asks her to marry him. Cathy accepts and Heathcliffe disappears in a rage. Years later, Heathcliffe returns, determined to bring a terrible revenge on his own and Linton’s families… (http://www.filmsdefrance.com/FDF_Wuthering_heights_rev.html)
Mansfield Park
Peter Kosminsky (UK 1983)
SALU/DVD/MFP/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Chinese
1983 BBC series after Jane Austen's famous novel
Jane Eyre
Franco Zeffirelli (France/Italy/UK 1996)
SALU/DVD/JAEY/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Chinese
Jane Eyre, orphaned, is left to live under the charity of her Aunt Reed. After living ten years of mistreatment and segregation in her Aunt's home, she is then sent to Lowood- a boarding school for young girls. Jane grows up both physically and mentally at Lowood and becomes a teacher at age eighteen. She then advertises for the position of a governess and is called upon by Mrs Fairfax at Thornfield. At Thornfield, Jane falls in love with the master, Mr Rochester, and he with her. However, he yields a terrible and dark secret that threatens to tear them apart for good.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116684/plotsummary
Byron
Julian Farino (UK 2003)
SALU/DVD/BYR/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: Chinese
Byron was the ideal of the Romantic poet, gaining notoriety for his scandalous private life and being described by one contemporary as 'mad, bad and dangerous to know'. (BBC)
See also: BBC Drama / Lord Byron (Historical Figure)
Le festin de Babette (Babette’s Feast)
Gabriel Axel (Denmark 1987)
SALU/DVD/(French Collection)
Language: Danish, French
Subtitles: English
In 19th century Denmark, two adult sisters live in an isolated village with their father, who is the honored pastor of a small Protestant church that is almost a sect unto itself. Although they each are presented with a real opportunity to leave the village, the sisters choose to stay with their father, to serve to him and their church. After some years, a French woman refugee, Babette, arrives at their door, begs them to take her in, and commits herself to work for them as maid/housekeeper/cook. Sometime after their father dies, the sisters decide to hold a dinner to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth. Babette experiences unexpected good fortune and implores the sisters to allow her to take charge of the preparation of the meal. Although they are secretly concerned about what Babette, a Catholic and a foreigner, might do, the sisters allow her to go ahead. Babette then prepares the feast of a lifetime for the members of the tiny church and an important gentleman related to one of them.
The guest, a General at the Swedish court, is not related to the sister, but, as a callow young man, was in love with her, but chose his military career over happiness with her. His aunt is a member of the religious community. He is the one who, unknowingly, identifies Babette as the famous chef from Paris' "Cafe Anglais," and provides the catalyst for the enjoyment of the feast.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092603/plotsummary
The Brothers Grimm
Terry Gilliam (UK/Czech Republic 2005)
SALU/DVD/BG/SF
Language: English, Cantonese
Subtitles: Chinese
The film centers around the world famous Grimm Brothers, Jake and Will, played by Heath Ledger and Matt Damon, who are con-men traveling from village to village holding fake exorcisms and vanquishing witches created using cheap tricks and stagecraft. Damon's Will is the dominant one of the two, the consummate charmer who sells snake oil to the simple townsfolk while looking after Ledger's meek, sensitive Jacob, his partner in Crime. The brothers are captured by the Napoleonic Army and sent to a small village to expose similar hoaxes, only to discover a bona fide curse involving 11 kidnapped girls, an axe-wielding lycanthrope, and a haunted forest ruled by a malevolent Queen.
In real life the brothers Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm were academics who traveled through a fractured 19th Century Germany unified only by its language, and recorded the traditional folk tales that had been passed down orally through generations. They were cultural preservationists, whereas in the film they are presented as hucksters who happen to get caught up in a situation that resembles not one but several of the stories in the Grimm canon."
See also: Dreams. The Grimm Brothers
Onegin
Martha Fiennes (Britain 1999)
SALU/DVD/ONG/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: Chinese
In the opulent St. Petersburg of the Empire period, Eugene Onegin is a jaded but dashing aristocrat - a man often lacking in empathy, who suffers from restlessness, melancholy and, finally, regret. Through his best friend Lensky, Onegin is introduced to the young Tatiana. A passionate and virtuous girl, she soon falls hopelessly under the spell of the aloof newcomer and professes her love for him. His refusal of her (in addition to his other amorous intrigues) sets in motion a series of events which culminate in tragedy and thwarted love (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119079/plotsummary)
Russkiy kovcheg (Russian Ark)
Aleksandr Sokurov (Russia 2002)
SALU/DVD/RA/SF
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English
Told in one fluid shot, a tale which floats like a dreamlike journey through the majestic spaces of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, engaging real and imagined characters from Russian and European history. The nameless protagonist, a 19th-century French diplomat, guides the audience through a lost, sumptuous dream that was the Enlightenment period. The film, staged among some of the Western Art tradition's greatest masterpieces, climaxes in a pageant of color, motion, and music. For Sokurov, the Hermitage--home to generations of Romanovs and repository of so much Russian history--is the ark of the Russian soul, guarding it affectionately until the world sees better days. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318034/plotsummary)
Tchaikovsky
Igor Talankin (Soviet Union 1968-70)
SALU/DVD/TSCHAI/SF
Language: German
The majestic music and fascinating life of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky are evocatively presented in this Academy Award-nominated film by writer/director Igor Talankin and celebrated composer Dimitri Tiomkin. Tchaikovsky demonstrates the inseparability of the composer's music from his life, as each moment of happiness and tragedy is expressed through the magnificent ballets, operas, symphonies and love songs that flow from his pen. These masterpieces become an integral part of the film, given cinematic expression through Talankin's sure-handed direction and the lavish resources afforded him by Mosfilm Studios.
Victoria
TV Series / Season 1
SALU/DVD/VIC/1/1-3/SF
The early life of Queen Victoria, from her ascension to the throne at the tender age of 18 to her courtship and marriage to Prince Albert.
Oliver Twist
Roman Polanski (UK/France/Italy/Czech Republic 2005)
SALU/DVD/FL/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Chinese
Oliver Twist (Clark) is an orphan, who is soon kicked out of the orphanage and thrown into a terrible home. The bad treatment Oliver receives, forces him to run off to London. Here, he is soon picked up by the Artful Dodger (Eden) and taken to Fagin (Kingsley). Fagin treats Oliver well, but is it the life Oliver really wants? (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380599/plotsummary)
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Tony Richardson (UK 1968)
SALU/DVD/CHLB/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Chinese
A chronicle of events that led to the British involvement in the Crimean War against Russia and which led to the siege of Sevastopol and the fierce Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1854 which climaxed with the heroic, but near-disastrous calvary charge made by the British Light Brigade against a Russian artillery battery in a small valley which resulted in the near-destruction of the brigade due to error of judgement and rash planning on part by the inept British commanders. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062790/plotsummary
Firelight
William Nicholson (France/Britain 1997)
SALU/DVD/FL/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: Chinese
Swiss governess Elisabeth (Marceau) agrees to bear a child for a wealthy landowner, Charles Godwin (Dillane), whose wife lies in a coma. Elisabeth needs the money to repay her father's debts. She falls in love with Charles, though she has promised to never see him again. After a 10-year search, she's reunited with her daughter when she accepts a job as the incorrigible girl's governess. (Charles's sister was responsible for filling the position.) Charles is outraged when he learns that Elisabeth has violated their agreement, but it doesn't take long before they're groping each other in the halls.(http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0765895.html)
Great Expectations
Mike Newell (UK 2012)
SALU/DVD/GREX/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Great Expectations is a 2012 British film adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel of the same name.
Effie Gray
Richard Laxton (UK 2014)
SALU/DVD/EFGR/SF
Language: English
Based on the real-life scandal that shocked Victorian-era England, the film tells the story of Euphemia "Effie" Gray. At 19, she married the prominent art historian and critic John Ruskin, but Ruskin refused to consummate their marriage. Lonely and frustrated Effie is drawn to pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais, and finds a friend and champion in Lady Elizabeth Eastlake. After five years trapped in a loveless marriage, Effie will defy the rules of Victorian society... (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1605798/)
1864 (Slagtebaenk Dybbol / Slaughterhouse Düppel)
Ole Bornedal (Denmark 2014)
SALU/DVD/SD/1-3/SF
Language: Danish
Subtitles: English
When Germany and Prussia declare war on Denmark, two brothers are called to serve in the bloodiest battle in Denmark's history. (IMDB)
Senso
Luchino Visconti (Italy 1954)
SALU/DVD/SENS/SF
Languages: Italian, English
Subtitles: English, Chinese
In 1866, in the spring of Venice, an underground rebel movement against the Austrian occupation in Italy is getting stronger. The married Countess Livia Serpieri (Alida Valli) sees her cousin challenging the Austrian Lieutenant Franz Mahler (Farley Granger) for a duel in the opera and being arrested and sent to the exile for one year. When she meets Mahler, she first hates him but after a night together walking along the streets in Venice, she falls deeply in love for him, becoming his mistress. When the war starts, she moves to her property in the country missing Mahler. When he visits her during a night, she forgets her principles, decency and betrays her cause with cruel and tragic consequences. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047469/plotsummary)
The Leopard
Luchino Visconti (Italy 1963)
SALU/DVD/LEO/SF
Languages: Italian, EnglishSubtitles: English
The Leopard is one of the truly great Italian films, one of the most beautiful widescreen films ever made, and arguably Visconti's masterpiece.
The story takes place in Sicily during the 1860s and depicts the decline of the aristocracy in light of the changing social and political order during Italy's struggle for unification. Visconti's attention to period detail is nothing short of astounding, and his painterly compositions are truly inspired, and never intrude on the narrative. http://www.rususa.com/apf4/store.cgi?Operation=ItemLookup&ItemId=B00003CWQL
Ludwig
Luchino Visconti (Italy/Germany 1963)
SALU/DVD/L/SF
Languages: German, Italian
Historical evocation of Ludwig, king of Bavaria, from his crowning in 1864 until his death in 1886, as a romantic hero. Fan of Richard Wagner, betrayed by him, in love with his cousin Elisabeth of Austria, abandoned by her, tormented by his homosexuality, he will little by little slip towards madness. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068883/plotsummary)
Effi Briest
Rainer Maria Fassbinder (Germany 1974)
SALU/DVD/EFB/SF
Language: German
Subtitles: English
In the nineteenth century, seventeen year old Effi Briest is married to the older Baron von Instetten and moves into a house, that she believes has a ghost, in a small isolated Baltic town. She soon bears a daughter, Annie, and hires the lapsed Catholic Roswitha to look after her. Effi is lonely when her husband is away on business, so she spends time riding and walking along the shore with Major Crampas. Instetten is promoted to Ministerial Councillor and the family moves to Berlin, where Effi enjoys the social life. Six years later, the Baron is given letters from Crampas to Effi that convince him that they had an affair. He feels obliged to challenge Crampas to a duel and banish Effi from the house. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071458/plotsummary)
see also: http://jclarkmedia.com/fassbinder/fassbinder20.html
Morte a Venezia (Death in Venice)
Luchino Visconti (Italy 1971)
SALU/DVD/DIV/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
In this adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel, avant-garde composer Gustave Aschenbach (loosely based on Gustav Mahler) travels to a Venetian seaside resort in search of repose after a period of artistic and personal stress. But he finds no peace there, for he soon develops a troubling attraction to an adolescent boy, Tadzio, on vacation with his family. The boy embodies an ideal of beauty that Aschenbach has long sought and he becomes infatuated. However, the onset of a deadly pestilence threatens them both physically and represents the corruption that compromises and threatens all ideals. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067445/plotsummary)
L'Innocente (The Innocent)
Luchino Visconti (Italy 1976)
SALU/DVD/LINNO/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Coming after the dissolute wackiness of Ludwig and the cavorting valedictory of Conversation Piece, Luchino Visconti's swan song L'Innocente is something of a genteel and stately affair. Tullio (Giancarlo Giannini) is a jaded aristocrat in late 19th-century Italy, a Byronic brooder whose melancholy both torments him and makes him feel alive: "An ill person who rejoices in his own illness" is how he's described by his neglected young wife Giuliana (Laura Antonelli), who struggles to keep up a cool façade as he casually ditches her at a concert to visit his mistress, the widowed Countess Teresa (Jennifer O'Neill). Tullio's interest in Giuliana is reawakened upon discovery of her fling with a handsome writer (Marc Porel), yet his newfound passion is tested when she gives birth to an illegitimate son. If Burt Lancaster's Prince of Salina in The Leopard was a classical man witnessing his world vanishing into modernity, Giannini's Tullio is a modern man trying in vain to detach himself from classical morals through atheism, hedonism, and a last, monstrous act against innocence. (http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/linnocente/1488)
See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34jUOfkXufk , http://www.videosurf.com/l%27innocente-80769
Oscar Wilde
Brian Gilbert (UK 1997)
SALU/DVD/OW/SF
Languages: German, EnglishSubtitles: German
The story of Oscar Wilde, genius, poet, playwright and the First Modern Man. The self-realization of his homosexuality caused Wilde enormous torment as he juggled marriage, fatherhood and responsibility with his obsessive love for Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed Bosie. After legal action instigated by Bosie's father, the enraged Marquis of Queensberry, Wilde refused to flee the country and was sentenced to two years at hard labor by the courts of an intolerant Victorian society. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120514/plotsummary)
Maurice
James Ivory (UK 1987)
134 min
Languages: English / Deutsch
Subtitles: English
SALU/DVD/MAUR/SF
Director James Ivory brings his subdued, "Masterpiece Theater" style to a forbidden subject -- homosexual love. Maurice is based on E.M. Forster's suppressed 1914 novel that was held back from publication until after his death. The film takes place at Cambridge, before World War I, when homosexuality was outlawed in Great Britain. Clive (Hugh Grant), an aristocratic Englishman with a life of privilege, suddenly shocks his close friend Maurice (James Wilby) by declaring his love for him. Maurice is initially stunned by the pronouncement, but in the end finds himself giving Clive a passionate kiss and telling him that he loves him as well. Clive, in the stiff-upper-lip British manner, considers their love to be more of an intellectual concept, but Maurice becomes passionate about the affair. Clive, afraid of being exposed as a homosexual, backs off and breaks up with Maurice for marriage, family, and politics. Maurice is crestfallen, but then he has a passionate affair with Clive's gamekeeper, Scudder (Rupert Graves), and Maurice and Scudder decide to risk their reputations by openly living together as lovers. (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/maurice/)
Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain)
Hans W. Geissendörfer (Germany/Austria/France/Italy 1982)
SALU/DVD/ZB/SF / SALU/DVD/ZAU/SF / SALU/DVD/ZAU/SF (extended version in 3 parts)
Language: German
SALU/DVD/ZAU/SF (extended version in 3 parts)
Language: German
Subtitles: German
Hans Castorp, orphaned at an early age, is the 24- year old son of a patrician family. After passing his examinations leading to qualification as an engineer, he goes to spend three weeks with his consumptive cousin Joachim Ziemßen in a chic sanatorium in Davos. Initially still alienated by the prevalent "we up here" atmosphere of illness and morbid eroticism, Hans Castorp becomes increasingly willing to acclimatise to the "Berghof". Fascinated by the hermetic enchantment of the place, he himself falls ill. He falls in love with a woman with captivating charisma, the provocative Russian Clawdia Chauchat. At the end of an intoxicating carnival evening shortly before leaving, she allows Hans Castorp one night. He resolves to await her return. In the years of her absence, Hans Castorp's life becomes dominated by the Jesuit communist Naphta, and by the liberal humanist Settembrini. Both enter into a duel on his account, a duel with a fatal outcome. When Clawdia Chauchat returns to the "Berghof", she is unmistakably accompanied by a man of the world Mynheer Peeperkorn, who succeeds in gaining great influence over Hans in just a few days before the Dutchman commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. Hans Castorp's stay of seven years on the "Magic Mountain" is terminated in macabre fashion as a result of being called up to fight in the Great War from 1914/18, "a global festival of death". (GFFP)
Un amour de Swann (Swann's Love)
Hans W. Geissendörfer (France 1982)
SALU/DVD/SL/SF
Language: French
Subtitles: Englisch
Based on Marcel Proust's novel (A la recherche du temps perdu), a period film depicting the obsessive love of Charles Swann -- a Parisian, Jew -- for the fashionable Odette de Crecy. As Swann's jealous passion begins to overpower his rationale, his position in high society begins to deteriorate. When Swann at last obtains the hand of his beloved, his love for her has exhausted itself, leaving him with an empty marriage and social alienation. (rottentomatoes)
Céleste
Percy Adlon (Germany 1980)
SALU/DVD/CEL/SF
Language: German
In 1914, with men gone to war, Marcel Proust hired Céleste Albaret as his attendant. More than eight years later, she was at his side when he died. During this entire time, she only entered his room when he rang for her, sleeping from 9 AM to 3 PM to wait during the night while he wrote. Marcel uses her as more than a servant: she is his muse, telling stories of her childhood to stir his remembrance of things past; she's in cahoots with him as he manipulates those he wants to draw on for his writing; she listens appalled to his descriptions of the underside of Paris. Hers is a life of love and sweet devotion as he races time to finish his work before death. (IMDB)
Klimt
Raoul Ruiz (Austria/France/Germany/UK 2006)
SALU/DVD/KLI/SF
Languages: German, English
A character study and a meditation on art in a time of opulence and syphilis. Gustave Klimt (1862-1918) lies in hospital, dying. In reveries, he recalls the early 1900s: it's fin de siècle Vienna. At the World Exposition in Paris, Klimt meets Georges Méliès, who does a moving picture for him, and Klimt falls under the spell of a woman who may be Lea de Castro. We see Klimt in his studio; we meet his mother and sister, who suffer from mental illness. We watch Klimt the libertine. On his deathbed and as a younger man, he imagines things as well: encounters with ministers and waiters and with women who are willing participants in his pleasures. Is this the source of art? (imdb)
Fitzcarraldo
Werner Herzog (Peru/Deutschland 1982)
SALU/DVD/FIT/SF
Language: Deutsch, English
Subtitles: Deutsch, Englisch
Werner Herzog's "Fitzcarraldo" is one of the great visions of the cinema, and one of the great follies. One would not have been possible without the other. This is a movie about an opera-loving madman who is determined to drag a boat overland from one river system to another. In making the film, Herzog was determined to actually do that, which is more than can be said for Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, the Irishman whose story inspired him.
"Fitzcarraldo" (1982) is one of those brave and epic films, like "Apocalypse Now" or "2001," where we are always aware both of the film, and of the making of the film. Herzog could have used special effects for his scenes of the 360-ton boat being hauled up a muddy 40-degree slope in the jungle, but he believed we could tell the difference: "This is not a plastic boat." Watching the film, watching Fitzcarraldo (Klaus Kinski) raving in the jungle in his white suit and floppy panama hat, watching Indians operating a block-and-tackle system to drag the boat out of the muck, we're struck by the fact that this is actually happening, that this huge boat is inching its way onto land -- as Fitzcarraldo (who got his name because the locals could not pronounce "Fitzgerald") serenades the jungle with his scratchy old Caruso recordings. (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050828/REVIEWS08/508280301/1023)
See also: http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue08/reviews/fitzcarraldo/
Cobra Verde
Werner Herzog (Ghana/Deutschland 1987)
SALU/DVD/COBV/SF
Language: Deutsch, English
Subtitles: English
In the Nineteenth Century, in Bahia, the bandit Francisco Manoel da Silva aka Cobra Verde is feared and respected by the locals. He is hired by the lord Octavio Coutinho to work as henchman in one of his plantations of sugar cane, supervising the slaves and the production of sugar. When the three daughters of Octavio are pregnant of Cobra Verde, he is sent to Almeria, in the West of Africa, to negotiate slaves with the crazy African King Abomey, in times when this trade was prohibited by Great Britain. The loneliness associated to the fact of being the only white man in Almeria drives Cobra Verde to insanity. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094888/plotsummary)
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes
Ken Annikin (UK 1965)
SALU/DVD/MMF/SF
Language: English, Spanish, French
Subtitles: English, Spanish
"Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" is a comic rendering of the famous London-to-Paris air race of 1910, in which the greatest aviators in the world at the time competed. A newspaper put up a £10,000 prize to the winner. Filmed entirely in England and utilizing an international roster of players, "Those Magnificent Men" is part slapstick, part spectacle, and part adventure, but most of all it's sweet, lighthearted fun. (http://www.dvdtown.com/review/Those_Magnificent_Men_In_Their/11789/1977/)
Como Agua para Chocolate (Like Water For Chocolate)
Alfonso Arau (Mexico 1965)
SALU/DVD/LWFC/SF
Language: English, Spanish
Subtitles: English
In Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, the narrator chronicles the life of her great-aunt, Tita De la Garza, who lives in northern Mexico during the early 1900s. The novel's twelve chapters, written one per month in diary installment form, relate details from over two decades of Tita's life, beginning in 1910, when she is fifteen years old, and ending with her death at thirty-nine. Each chapter also includes a recipe that Tita prepares for her family during this period. After her mother refuses to allow her to marry the man she loves, Tita channels her frustrated desires into the creation of delicious meals that often have strange effects on her family. Through the expression of her culinary art, Tita learns to cope with and ultimately break free from..... (http://www.bookrags.com/Like_Water_for_Chocolate)
El amor en los tiempos del cólera (Love in the Time of Cholera)
Mike Newell (USA 2007)
SALU/DVD/LWFC/SF
Language: English
Rather bland Hollywood version of Gabriel García Márquez' famous novel. Mildly entertaining and a good example how Hollywood style can destroy even the best and most romantic of tales ...
At the end of the 19th century in Cartagena, a river port in Colombia, Florentino Ariza falls in love at first sight of Fermina Daza. They secretly correspond and she eventually agrees to marry but her father discovers their relationship and sends her to distant relatives. When she returns some years later, Fermina agrees to marry Dr. Juvenal Urbino, her father's choice. Their fifty year marriage is marked by roughly equal amounts of love and anger. Fermina's marriage devastates Florentino, but his mother throws a willing widow into his bed and he discovers that sex is a very good pain reliever. He begins to number and describe each of his women, beginning with #1, the widow, and eventually has over 600 names and notes. He also decides to be as successful and rich as Dr. Urbino and, when the doctor dies suddenly, immediately renews his courtship of Fermina. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0484740/plotsummary)
Fanny och Alexander (Fanny and Alexander)
Ingmar Bergman (Sweden 1982)
SALU/DVD/FA/SF
Language: Swedish
Subtitles: English
Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander (Bertil Guve), we witness the great delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family, a sprawling, convivial bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-century Sweden, in Ingmar Bergman’s intended swan song, Fanny and Alexander. (criterion)
The title characters are children in the exuberant and colorful Ekdahl household in a Swedish town early in the twentieth century. Their parents, Oscar and Emilie, are the director and the leading lady of the local theatre company. Oscar's mother and brother are its chief patrons. After Oscar's early death, his widow marries the bishop and moves with her children to his austere and forbidding chancery. The children are immediately miserable. The film dramatizes and resolves those conflicts. A sub-plot features Isak, a local Jewish merchant who is the grandmother's lover and whose odd household becomes the children's refuge. (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fanny_and_alexander/)
Der junge Törleß (Young Törless)
Volker Schlöndorff (Germany 1966)
SALU/DVD/YTÖR/SF
Language: German
Subtitles: English
At a boarding school in the pre-war Austro-Hungarian Empire, a pair of students torture one of their fellow classmates, Basini, who has been caught stealing money from one of the two. The two decide that rather than turn Basini in to the school authorities, they will punish him themselves and proceed to torture, degrade, and humiliate the boy, with ever-increasing sadistic delight. As each day passes, the two boys are able to justify harsher treatment than previously given. Torless is a passive member of the group but observes rather than participates and frustrates the tormentors by dryly analyzing their behavior. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060574/plotsummary)
Victoria & Abdul
Stephen Frears (UK 2017)
SALU/DVD/DSGFB/SE
Languages: English, German
Subtitles: English, German
Abdul Karim arrives from India to participate in Queen Victoria's golden jubilee. The young clerk is surprised to find favor with the queen herself. As Victoria questions the constrictions of her long-held position, the two forge an unlikely and devoted alliance that her household and inner circle try to destroy. As their friendship deepens, the queen begins to see a changing world through new eyes, joyfully reclaiming her humanity. (imdb)
Howard's End
James Ivory (UK/Japan 1992)
SALU/DVD/HE/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Encounter of three social classes of the England at the beginning of the century : the victorian capitalists (the Wilcoxes) considering themselves as aristocrats, whose only god is money ; the enlightened bourgeois (the Schlegels), humanistic and philanthropist ; and the workers (the Basts), fighting to survive. The Schlegel sisters' humanism will be torn apart as they try both to softly knock down the Wilcox's prejudices and to help the Basts. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104454/plotsummary
Mr Selfridge
TV Series (UK 2013)
SALU/DVD/MRSELF/1-3/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Centers on the real-life story of the flamboyant and visionary American founder of Selfridge's, London's department store. (imdb)
The Man Who Knew Infinity
Matthew Brown (UK 2015)
SALU/DVD/MKI/SF
In the 1910s, Srinivasa Ramanujan is a man of boundless intelligence that even the abject poverty of his home in Madras, India, cannot crush. Eventually, his stellar intelligence in mathematics and his boundless confidence in both attract the attention of the noted British mathematics professor, G.H. Hardy, who invites him to further develop his computations at Trinity College at Cambridge. Forced to leave his young wife, Janaki, behind, Ramanujan finds himself in a land where both his largely intuitive mathematical theories and his cultural values run headlong into both the stringent academic requirements of his school and mentor and the prejudiced realities of a Britain heading into World War One. Facing this with a family back home determined to keep him from his wife and his own declining health, Ramanujan joins with Hardy in a mutual struggle that would define Ramanujan as one of India's greatest modern scholars who broke more than one barrier in his worlds.
The Impressionists
Tim Dunn (UK 2006)
SALU/DVD/IMP/SF
Language: English
Based on archive letters, records and interviews from the time, the series records the lives of the artists who were to transform the art world. A tale of poverty and of a struggle for recognition, set against a backdrop of war and revolution.
At the heart is the brotherhood of artists, bonded by enduring friendships and their commitment to a new type of art. The story is led by the paintings. Some of the world's most memorable art works are recreated, following the same techniques that the artists used at the time.
The series reveals how Claude Monet took just 40 minutes to paint his seminal work Impression, Sunrise in a race against time to capture the light; why Manet's depiction of Olympia, in which his model brazenly gazes out of the canvas, so outraged Parisian society; and how Cézanne's 60 paintings of one mountain, Montagne Saint-Victoire, laid the foundations for Cubism and modern art.
Julian Glover plays 80-year-old Monet, the "father of Impressionism" and narrator of the series. He undertakes a nostalgic but painful journey as he looks back on his past life in an interview with a journalist at his garden in Giverny. He remembers arriving as a young man in Paris in 1862 full of dreams about a new kind of art. Young Monet, played by Richard Armitage, leads the group of friends with his vision for paintings that capture the images, energy and light of the modern world.
In the drama, Monet describes his fellow artists and supporters with whom he struggled and shared so much: Bazille, the little known genius who died too soon to enjoy the movement's success; Renoir, an irrepressible lover and painter of women; Manet, whose work was Monet's first inspiration, but was censored by society; Degas, who captured the back stage reality of the ballet world; Cézanne, whose innovative work determined the path of modern art, Alice Hoschedé, Monet's great love.
Using quotes from the primary sources, the series depicts the characters' idiosyncrasies—Cézanne's hatred of barking dogs, his mistress Hortense's love of lemonade, Monet's flamboyant dress sense and Degas' irritability (wikipedia)
Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life
David Attenborough (United Kingdom 2009)
Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life is a documentary about Charles Darwin and his revolutionary theory of evolution through natural selection, produced by the BBC to mark the bicentenary of Darwin's birth. David Attenborough asks three key questions: how and why did Darwin come up with his theory of evolution? Why do we think he was right? And why is it more important now than ever before?
David starts his journey in Darwin's home at Down House in Kent, where Darwin worried and puzzled over the origins of life. David goes back to his roots in Leicestershire, where he hunted for fossils as a child, and where another schoolboy unearthed a significant find in the 1950s. And he revisits Cambridge University, where both he and Darwin studied, and where many years later the DNA double helix was discovered, providing the foundations for genetics.
At the end of his journey in the Natural History Museum in London, David concludes that Darwin's great insight revolutionized the way in which we see the world. We now understand why there are so many different species, and why they are distributed in the way they are. But above all, Darwin has shown us that we are not set apart from the natural world, and do not have dominion over it. We are subject to its laws and processes, as are all other animals on earth to which, indeed, we are related. (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/charles-darwin-tree-life/)
Landmarks of Western Art. A Journey of Art History Across the Ages
(USA/Canada 2006)
SALU/DVD/LWA/1-6/DF
Language: English
Vol.6: Post-Impressionism
The six films in this series, Landmarks of Western Art: A Journey of Art History Across the Ages, document the world's great artistic accomplishments from the medieval period to post-impressionism, Botticelli to van Gogh.
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism — The Impressionist School turned the art world upside down. Cézanne, Seurat, and Manet produced inspirational yet controversial works that completely revolutionized thinking in the world of art. This sixth episode of Landmarks of Western Art also features the work of van Gogh and Degas, and explores such masterpieces as Sunflowers, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, and The Dancing Class. Highlights of the film include footage from leading art galleries. (http://www.dickblick.com/products/landmarks-of-western-art-dvds/)