Clapperboard Chats

As this blog has already illustrated, I am a big fan of classical cinema. Nothing (except Inception ) can beat it in my eyes. So when I was in need of a quick 90 minute film last night I turned to Mr reliable Orson Welles and his follow up to Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons . To say I was disappointed was an understatement, so much so that I thought I would have a little vent about it. This film follows the wealthy Amberson family as inner turmoil within the family threatens their relationships as well as their wealth. It is well documented that Welles lost control of the edit of this film. The studio took over which resulted in an hour of footage being cut and a more lighthearted ending being added instead of Welles’ darker vision. This is where the problems begin. For example, scenes cut to black seemingly in the middle of conversations and even during lines of dialogue. This is particularly evident at the beginning of the film in which two scenes, the opening long shot of th...

The second film in Tarkovsky’s filmography is the expansive medieval epic, Andrei Rublev. Attempting to explore this film in a (hopefully) coherent and digestible blog post is an impossible feat. Yet, here I am.  Andrei Rublev is split into eight chapters along with a prologue and an epilogue. Immediately, this makes the three hour runtime much more digestible for modern audiences. So don’t let this put you off viewing Tarkovsky’s first career masterpiece. Each of these chapters explore a different aspect of Rublev’s character as well as a differing view on humanity through the people he contacts within each individual chapter. This style of film structure alone allows Tarkovsky to effortlessly glide through what it means to be human and leave the audience with questions about their own humanity as well as that of the characters on screen. Despite acting as a biopic for real life medieval painter Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky doesn’t always provide our protagonist with centrality withi...

To start this blog of mine, I am going to explore the work of one of the greatest auteurs of all time, Andrei Tarkovsky. His work is very much new to me so I am going to use these reviews to portray my raw reactions to his work. I will work through his filmography in chronological order, starting with his debut feature, Ivan’s Childhood (Tarkovsky, 1962). I will put a spoiler warning here as I do cover a couple of crucial plot points in this discussion. These are also very subjective readings of the film so you may analyse it completely differently to me. Feel free to discuss these opinions in the comments. Now, let's try and process Ivan’s Childhood . This deeply tragic, yet poetic film follows a 12 year old protagonist, Ivan, who acts as a scout for the Russian military as a way of seeking revenge on the Nazi’s who killed his family. Immediately, Tarkovsky juxtaposes the innocence of childhood with the horrors of war through one of several dream sequences within the film. Ivan ca...

Welcome to clapperboard chats. My tiny corner of the internet to chat all things film and TV. I will be using this blog to offer my views and opinions on all things film and TV, from currents trends to all time classics. Hopefully this will be a safe and fun place to share all of our conflicting opinions. I look forward to hearing from you all in the comments and seeing how our opinions vary.