Wolverine in San Sebastián

Hugh Jackman arrived in San Sebastián and wooed all of us. He is much younger than the actors who are usually presented with the Donostia Award – a lifetime-achievement award – but he is talented and charming so who else can outdo him? At the age of forty-four and thanks to a wide variety of  roles throughout his career, he has shown us that he is able to sing, dance, play a superhero, host the Oscars ceremony and perform on stage, in brief, he is a very versatile actor.

He has very good looks but perhaps what is more remarkable is that he usually comes across as a very easy-going person in interviews. Sometimes film stars appear to be arrogant, distant and whimsical but Hugh Jackman is just the opposite. Maybe he´s just pretending to be a nice guy but cinema is about pretences and make-believe so if he is so good at pretending, obviously, he deserves to be presented with the Award, don´t you think?

What do you think about Hugh Jackman? Have you seen any of his films? Do you know any other actors who were presented with the Donostia Award?

It´s time for festivals

As summer comes to an end, we must go back to our daily routine. It´s time to go back to normal and it´s also time to embark on new experiences but above all, it´s time for festivals: film festivals!!

This year the Venice film festival has been full of English-speaking cinema. Most media have drawn their attention to two British films: Philomena and Under the Skin.

Philomena tells us the story of an elderly Irish woman – Judi Dench – whose child was taken away from her by nuns many decades earlier. An initially sceptical journalist played by Steven Coogan helps her to track down the identity of the child. The film, which has had very good reviews, has been directed by Stephen Frears.

Set in the Scottish Highlands, Under the Skin is Jonathan Glazer´s film adaptation of the Dutch-Scots writer Michel Faber´s 2000 novel. The plot of the novel is about an alien who masquerades as an alluring woman in order to kidnap hitch-hikers and sell them back home for food, consequently the film attempts to portray the story of that alien.

There have been very different reactions to the film but it has not been received with critical acclaim as far as mainstream industry voices are concerned. Maybe one of the reasons why this film has hogged the limelight is that its protagonist is played by Scarlett Johansson, who attended the Venice premiere along with Jonathan Glazer.

 As you can in this photo Scarlett Johansson looks very different in Under the Skin.

 It is also worth mentioning another English-speaking film: Kill Your Darlings. This film is about the early years of the beat generation, a generation which has already become familiar in cinematic terms thanks to Kerouac´s On the Road, which was adapted for the screen in 2012. In Kill Your Darlings Daniel Radcliffe plays the role of Allen Ginsberg and by doing so he makes it clear that he has left behind the character of Harry Potter.

Far away from the decadently beautiful city of Venice, another film festival overlaps the Venice festival: the Toronto film festival. The Canadian city has hosted the world premiere of The Fifth Estate, which is a portrayal of the life of WIKILeaks founder Julian Assange. The part of Assange is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, a British actor who has become famous for his performance of Sherlock Holmes in the modern BBC TV series. Cumberbatch has been regarded as “the man of the festival” as he appears in three of the festival films: The Fifth Estate, 12 Years a Slave and August: Osage County.

Cumberbatch at the press conference held on the morning after the premiere of the film.

The film is directed by Bill Condon and Dan Stevens, who is famous both sides of the Athlantic for his role of Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey, plays the role of a journalist who is well-known in Britain: Ian Katz.

As Venice and Toronto bid us farewell, the beautiful city of San Sebastian takes the baton since it hosts another film festival in September. It´s a bit early to guess which films will be held in high regard but we do know that the 61^st edition of the San Sebastian Festival has chosen Hugh Jackman to be presented with its Donostia Award on 27^th September prior to the screening of his latest work: Prisoners. The Australian actor is said to be one of the most versatile actors of our time who has won the Golden- Globe and Tony Awards as well as being nominated for an Academy Award.

Apart from Hugh Jackman, Carmen Maura will also be presented with the Donostia Award on 22^nd September as a tribute to one of the most outstanding careers in Spanish cinema over the last decades. Carmen Maura has become a household name all over Europe where she has won numerous and prestigious awards throughout her career.

As you can see, September is a good month when it comes down to watching films as there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy this wonderful industry.

So, what do you think about film festivals? Do you like to keep up-to-date with the latest news related to these events? Have you already heard about any of the films that I have mentioned? Do you feel like watching any of them?

In the summertime ...

It´s summertime and you´ve probably wondered what´s on at your local cinema because when the day is a scorcher, a cinema turns out to be one of the most welcoming places in the world.

This summer we have a wide range of films that cater for cinemagoers with very different tastes. If you are interested in love relationships, you can watch Before Midnight or Writers / Stuck in Love whose title also tells us that the plot of the film is related to being a writer. Besides, the soundtrack of this film is really remarkable. Before Midnight stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy and takes us to the beautiful scenery of Greece to tell the story of Jesse and Celine, a story which started two decades ago when the protagonists met on a train bound for Viena. This film may be regarded as some sort of trilogy together with Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004).

One of the best films that has also been released this summer is The Best Offer, a film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore who became very famous in the late eighties thanks to his beautiful film Cinema Paradiso (winner of the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film in1989). On this occasion Tornatore, who has also written the script of The Best Offer, deals with the concepts of art and beauty and the role they play in human relationships. The Best Offer is an enjoyable film that reminds the viewer of old films and enables us to learn about human nature by teaching us that that “there is always some authenticity in every fake” or, at least, there should be so that all of us can be happier.

Another film that is worth mentioning is The Green Bicycle, which was released at the Venice Film Festival last year although it wasn´t in the main competition. This film is claimed to be the first one to have been entirely shot in Saudia Arabia and has been directed by Haifaa Al Mansour, the first female film-maker in Saudia Arabia, a kingdom where cinemas are illegal. The Green Bicycle tells us the story of Wadjda, a ten-year old girl who just wishes to ride a bike to race against a male friend. But in a conservative country where women are deprived of basic rights which are taken for granted in Western societies, her wish clashes with the social barriers and taboos that Arab women face in their everyday lives.

If you are interested in this inspiring story, you can watch this video and learn more about this film.

All of these films offer you the opportunity of watching good stories which are also very entertaining. However, you may be interested in a different type of film because you just want to kill time or because you really enjoy the so-called commercial cinema; don´t worry, as I have said, this summer there are films for every type of viewer and that´s what makes cinema so special: it appeals to very different people because it deals with diverse themes, stories, styles and genres. So, if you feel like having a good time while you are told a story of a hero with superpowers, TheWolverine 2 is your film. In this film Hugh Jackman reprises the role of the Marvel Comics character Wolverine in an attempt to garner the same critical acclaim and financial success as on previous occasions.And if you´re into sci-fi films, Elysium can be the right choice for you.  The story is set in the year 2154 when the population of the world is divided into the wealthy, who live in a man-made space station, and the rest of the people who live in the polluted and apocalyptic Earth. As usual, sci-fi films or novels envisage a futuristic scenario but in doing so they aspire to depict our present-day situation and the dangers that it entails for humankind.

Have you seen any of these films? What do you think about them? Would you like to suggest watching a film which has been released this summer? Why would you recommend it?

This year´s Cannes Film Festival

The last time I wrote about reviews and the way we feel moved by the experience of watching a film, which is one of the most personal experiences of our life. On that post I focused on the film The Great Gatsby to illustrate that idea and I would like to point out that it was this film that became the centre of the opening gala of this year´s Cannes Film Festival. As times goes by, it may be difficult to remember which films were released “at the end of the red carpet”, however, there is an ingredient which is always inherent in any film festival: the poster of the film festival and, on this occasion, the poster of the 66^th Cannes Festival has been paid a lot of compliments thanks to the indelible image of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward as eternal kissers.

The Cannes Film Festival is famous for its official posters as every year the Festival decides on posters that rely on iconic images related to the world of cinema. According to the official sources, the reason for choosing Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward was that they were “a couple who embody the spirit of cinema like no other”. The choice of this poster is a way of paying tribute to the memory of both actors who were in Cannes in 1958 – the year they got married – for the official competition of The Long Hot Summer, the first film in which they appeared together.

Is there any image or images which you always associate with films? What kind of image comes to your mind when you think about cinema?

Film reviews versus our love of films

On my previous post I told you about the literary works that have been made into films lately and among them, I drew your attention to a film that was about to be released: The Great Gatsby. So if you´ve watched this film, I´d love to read your opinion about it.

I think that the way you feel moved by a film based on a book varies a great deal depending on whether you are acquainted with the original story or not because if you are not familiar with the plot or the characters on which the film is based, you are likely to understand and react to the film in a very different way. I must admit to being a lover of the story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and despite the spectacular, glittering, dazzling production which may also have made the story become devoid of its depth or subtlety, I enjoyed watching this film.

I feel that Baz Luhrmann is wonderful at creating the vivid 1920s atmosphere in which all the singing, the dancing and Jay-Z´s music play a very important part. In addition, Luhrmann is also very good at depicting the special relationship – full of tenderness and sweet moments – between Gatsby and Daisy when their love is rekindled. Nevertheless, the viewer who is aware of the plot of the novel resents the fact that some of the most important parts of the novel go unnoticed. To put it in a nutshell, if someone tried to describe this film, that person could easily use the proverb: “you can´t see the wood for the trees” which is a rough way of saying that Luhrmann´s film can be regarded as shallow in the sense that he has paid a great deal of attention to lots of details that are part of the depiction rendered by Fitzgerald´s novel but he has not devoted the same attention to the nuances of the story.

Anyway, I don’t wish to tell you more about those details because this blog should be a space to share opinions, views and experiences but it is not my desire to pontificate on any of them. That´s why, I would like to make clear that if you really love watching films, you ought to watch the film so that you can form an opinion for yourself. Regardless of reviews, critics or news coming from the various mass media, my piece of advice is that you should go to the cinema. No matter what experts on films tell you from the digital or traditional papers or from the specialised magazines, if you are a real filmgoer you ought to go to the pictures because watching a film – just like reading a book or watching a painting or any other type of cultural or artistic manifestation – is one of the most personal and pleasant experiences, therefore don´t let anyone take that away from you: go to the cinema and enjoy the film you watch and rejoice in your choice or hate yourself for two hours (only for two hours) for making the wrong decision – but hey, life is about making decisions – but even then, you are bound to get or learn something from that experience …

Please, don´t let film reviewers discourage you from going to the cinema, a film reviewer may be more knowledgeable about cinema than you are but he / she can´t dictate what you enjoy or what should move you. Read, gather and exchange information and learn but feel free to differ, to discuss, to think differently and have your own opinion.

Books and films

As I pointed out  on  the World Book and Copyright Day, the link between books and films is so close that we can´t help thinking about books when we discuss films as there is a high number of films whose existence relies on the story of a novel, a play or any literary work. Both books and films are created out of our urge to tell stories and to be told stories and from this point of view, we feel moved by those stories in a similar way regardless of whether the images created in our minds come from the words written in a book or from the moving pictures on a screen.

It cannot be denied that the relationship between films and books has always been a fruitful one despite the frequent controversy that arises when a film based on a book is released. Very often, films are based on well-known books which have become very successful and therefore it´s difficult for them to live up to our expectations. As a result,  a great deal of viewers who have read the book will feel disappointed by the film but at other times, there are also reviews that emphasise the fact that the story on the screen manages to make the original story look even better thanks to the cast of actors, to the way the director was able to envision the story or maybe, thanks to an inexplicable factor that is difficult to describe, that is, the translation from the written page into the screen is not always easy or straightforward and there is not a magic trick to achieve it, otherwise, everybody would make use of it.

Over the last months, we´ve had the opportunity of watching several films whose story has been borrowed from the literary work of famous writers: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Neither of them was the first adaptation of the novel: Anna Karenina had already been made into a film thirteen times and Great Expectations is the seventh film adaptation of the novel by Dickens.

Anna Karenina got quite a lot of hype because it starred Keira Knightley, Jude Law and a promising young actor Aaron Johnson (he played the role of John Lennon in Nowhere Boy, a 2009 biopic about the British musician.)

Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter played the parts of Magwitch and Miss Havisham respectively in Great Expectations but perhaps the rest of the cast wasn´t so well-known beyond the British screen and as a result, this film has gone unnoticed by the audience in countries where the plot of a literary work – even it is a classic of British literature – doesn´t turn out to be such an interesting perk.

In short, both stories have previously been made into films but the fact that these literary works are regarded as classics make directors, producers and screenwriters continue to resort to them as sources of inspiration to create new films.

 What do you think about the fact that the industry of film-making resorts to literary works so often? What conclusions can you reach about the close tie that exists between books and films?

These days a new film based on another important literary work is about to be released The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby (1925) was written by the American author  F. Scott Fitzgerald  and is a wonderful depiction of an era that the writer dubbed “the Jazz Age”: an era full of glitter which seemed to disguise the moral emptiness and hypocrisy of the “Roaring Twenties”.

The novel had been made into a film four times but perhaps, the most memorable adaptation was the one that starred Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby and Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan in 1974. Baz Luhrmann is responsible for the fifth adaptation of the novel; he has already shown us his ability to translate famous written stories – Romeo and Juliet – and impressive productions – Moulin Rouge – into screen versions so there is reason to believe that we should wait for the new film with an air of expectancy.

I heard on the grapevine which – these days – means that I read on the social network sites that the following song is inspired by the story of The Great Gatsby and I think that it really reminds you of the story depicted in this outstanding novel.

In case you don´t know what the novel is about, here you can see the trailer of the new version of The Great Gatsby. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the part of Gatsby and Carey Mulligan plays the part of Daisy Buchanan.

Films and books

Today is a red letter-day: we celebrate the World Book and Copyright Day. This date- 23^rd April – was chosen by UNESCO to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright.

I will elaborate on this idea on another occasion but I´ve felt that I needed to draw our attention to this fact because films and books are closely linked.