Michel Piccoli - a life in pictures
The prolific actor Michel Piccoli, who has died aged 94, acted in dozens of films for virtually every major French director across seven decades, including Godard, Malle and Rivette; here are some of...
View ArticleBuñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles review – animated odyssey
Film-maker Luis Buñuel’s surreal journey to a deprived region of Spain in the 30s is recreated in a gently engaging animationHere is an engaging if somewhat demure animation, bordering occasionally on...
View ArticleBuñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles review – intriguing animation
A depiction of the making of Luis Buñuel’s documentary Las Hurdes is striking, but casts the director in an unflattering lightThe career of director Luis Buñuel was very nearly over before it had even...
View ArticleJean-Claude Carrière, screenwriter of Cyrano de Bergerac and Belle de Jour,...
Hailed as France’s finest screenwriter, Carrière won many awards in a six-decade movie career – and for the stage penned a memorable Mahabharata for Peter BrookCelebrated French screenwriter...
View ArticleJean-Claude Carrière obituary
French screenwriter best known for Diary of a Chambermaid, Belle de Jour and The Discreet Charm of the BourgeoisieOne of the tenets observed by the screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, who has died aged...
View ArticleRifles, bears and Buñuel: Thomas Adès on his new never-ending opera
The Exterminating Angel is a surreal classic about the dinner party from hell. Now Thomas Adès has turned Buñuel’s film into an opera stuffed with stars – and live sheep“I’ve been eating a lot of...
View ArticleThe Exterminating Angel review – Adès delivers unmissable operatic adaptation
Haus für Mozart, SalzburgThe composer-conductor offers some of his most powerful orchestral writing in this pared down but magnificent take on Luis Buñuel’s surrealist film Creating an opera out of The...
View ArticleMoonlight; The Lego Batman Movie; Harmonium; The Exterminating Angel and more...
A repeat viewing enhances Barry Jenkins’s masterly Oscar-winning drama about a gay man growing up in Miami, while on a lighter note, Chris McKay’s Dark Knight parody almost matches up to its...
View ArticleBelle de Jour review – Catherine Deneuve is extraordinary in a secret theatre...
Luis Buñuel’s elegantly surreal film about a bored housewife and part-time sex worker offers a shrewd, scabrous commentary on social and gender relationsLuis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour is 50 years old and...
View ArticleCity of Ghosts; Berlin Syndrome; I Am Not Madame Bovary and more – review
Matthew Heineman’s Syria documentary is hard but essential viewing, while Cate Shortland’s psychological horror grips you to the lastThe documentary market has, inevitably, been flooded of late by...
View ArticleFrom Blow-Up to Bonnie and Clyde – why the 1960s is my favourite film decade
Rebellion against ‘le cinema de papa’ was the rallying cry of new waves worldwide in this golden era of studio-funded oddness•Read the rest of My favourite film decadeThe 1960s was when everything was...
View ArticleFrom Don't Look Now to The Godfather – why the 1970s is my favourite film decade
While Jaws and Star Wars spawned the blockbuster, groundbreaking film-makers pushed cinema to the limits with edgy drama and sparkling comedyFirst, the bad news. The 1970s found Hitchcock and Lean...
View ArticleCatherine Deneuve is selling her Yves Saint Laurent wardrobe – but that look...
The designer dressed the actor on and off-screen for decades. Although Deneuve is auctioning those outfits at Christie’s, they continue to inspire the likes of Versace and BurberryParis fashion week...
View ArticleFrom bombs to Benidorm: how fascism disfigured the face of Spain
As dictator, Franco built a cemetery with slave labour and orphanages for his murdered enemies’ children. Then Spain discovered tourism – and the lager louts flew in The Basilica at Arantzazu in the...
View ArticleElectra, Oresteia and an execution: the daring designs of Hildegard Bechtler...
The theatre designer on creating a family dinner at Agamemnon’s, an election night Oedipus and the night Fiona Shaw got stuck‘You never know anything, you can only do your best.” Hildegard Bechtler is...
View ArticleFists of fear: severed hands in films – ranked!
With the imminent release of the French animation J’ai Perdu Mon Corps – in which a hand tries to reconnect (literally) with its body – we hail some of the great severed appendages of cinemaThe year is...
View ArticleArt books to self-isolate with, from Patti Smith to Lucian Freud – the week...
Picasso’s inner beast, a sizzling take on Bacon and Buñuel’s last breath are among our art biographies to curl up with – all in your weekly dispatchCoronavirus and culture – a list of major...
View ArticleLucia Bosé obituary
Italian actor who appeared the films of Antonioni, Buñuel and FelliniThe Italian actor Lucia Bosé, who has died aged 89, having contracted coronavirus, was much admired in two landmark films of the...
View ArticleMichel Piccoli, renowned French acting veteran, dies aged 94
Actor best known for his collaborations with Luis Bunuel and other major directors was a stalwart of French art cinema•Peter Bradshaw on Michel Piccoli: a fierce, strong performer who became the object...
View ArticleMichel Piccoli: a fierce, strong performer who became the object of cinephile...
From Godard’s Le Mépris to Nanni Moretti’s We Have a Pope, Piccoli’s prolific career saw him evolve into a legend of European cinema•Michel Piccoli dies aged 94•A life in picturesIn his 70-year career,...
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