Ingrid Caven

  • Daniel Schmid – La Paloma (1974)

    Arthouse1971-1980Daniel SchmidDramaSwitzerland
    La Paloma (1974)
    La Paloma (1974)

    This heady exercise in excess mixes the operatic passion of La Traviata, stylish decadence of Stroheim and Sternberg, and the macabre glee of Grand Guignol. Ingrid Caven plays Dietrich-like chanteuse stricken with CamilIe-like wasting disease. The disease seems to be arrested when a plump, wealthy young man (Peter Kern) develops a grand passion for her, but mortality raises its grinning skull again when she falls helplessly in love with another man. Jay Cocks in Time wrote, “La Paloma is a wonderful mad shotgun wedding of high camp movie mythology, bad taste, obsessive, romanticism, and impudent satire… Whatever it is, it certainly is some kind of fantastic movie.”Read More »

  • Bertrand Bonello – Ingrid Caven, musique et voix AKA Ingrid Caven: Music and Voice (2012)

    2011-2020Bertrand BonelloFrancePerformance

    Quote:
    Bonello seized on the idea of making a cinematic tribute to Ingrid Caven when he first heard her sing at the Cité de la Musique in Paris, but the portrait he eventually made finds her exploring a more expansive range of performance styles and moods. A former member of R.W. Fassbinder’s cinematic troupe—the two were married for a brief stretch in the 1970s—and the ostensible subject of a fictional biography by Jean-Jacques Schuhl, Caven spends Bonello’s movie singing a rich repertoire of songs, some of them traditional ballads, others non-verbal, and still others verging on abstract performance art. Ingrid Caven: Music and Voice is a showcase for a truly sui generis musician—a sort of cabaret singer for the 21st century—and a respectful tribute to one artist from another.Read More »

  • Jeanine Meerapfel – Malou (1981)

    Jeanine Meerapfel1981-1990DramaGermanyRomance

    Malou feels that the difficulties she is experiencing in her relationships lie in her past and so she searches out information about her mother. Her mother, a nightclub singer who lived in Germany, France and Argentina, becomes the focus of a series of flashbacks through which we learn of her mother’s stormy life and the difficulty she had in bringing her up. These insights enable Malou to sort out the difficulties in her own life.Read More »

  • Rainer Werner Fassbinder – Das Kaffeehaus AKA The Coffeehouse (1970)

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder1961-1970ArthouseComedyGermany

    KAFFEEHAUS, DAS
    (nach Carlo Goldoni)

    “In Ridolfo’s coffeehouse, citizens meet to talk about money, friendship, love, and honor. This is a modernistic staging for television of a play by Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793), the Venetian playwright whose many works preserve in scripted form the improvisational productions of the Italian commedia dell’arte.”Read More »

  • Rita Azevedo Gomes – A Portuguesa AKA The Portuguese Woman (2018) (HD)

    2011-2020ArthouseDramaPortugalRita Azevedo Gomes

    Synopsis
    North of Italy, the von Ketten dispute the forces of the Episcopate of Trent. Herr Ketten seeks marriage in a distant country, Portugal. After their honeymoon journey back home, Ketten leaves again for the war. Eleven years elapsed… Rumours are running about the presence of that ‘foreign’ in the castle. Some say she’s a heretic. Until one day, the Bishop of Trento ends up dying and, with the signature of peace, falls the background of von Ketten’s life. Will the Portuguese win, where death seems to be moving in?Read More »

  • Rita Azevedo Gomes – A Portuguesa AKA The Portuguese Woman (2018)

    2011-2020ArthouseDramaPortugalRita Azevedo Gomes

    Quote:
    In Rita Azevedo Gomes’ A PORTUGUESA, war and love are the absolute values that define the conflict between man and woman. The film is an adaptation of a short story by Robert Musil, as filtered through the spirit of Agustina Bessa-Luis, frequent collaborator of Manoel de Oliveira. Clara Riedenstein plays the enigmatic, unnamed, obstinate, and intelligent protagonist – a woman who, after marrying von Ketten, travels to his country and spends eleven years waiting for his return from war. A PORTUGUESA is a film about patience, stoicism, and strategy that puts in crisis the very notion of action.Read More »

  • Rainer Werner Fassbinder – In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden AKA In a Year of 13 Moons (1978)

    1971-1980ArthouseDramaGermanyRainer Werner Fassbinder

    Quote:
    Elvira Weishaupt, once a burly working-class butcher named Erwin, has made an enormous sacrifice for love. She has undergone a sex change for a romantic interest who has abandoned her, and she now must struggle to reconcile her past life with her present identity. The emotionally fractured Elvira visits influential acquaintances and old haunts in hopes of putting the pieces of her life back together — and of confronting her lost love.Read More »

  • Pascal Hofmann & Benny Jaberg – Daniel Schmid – Le chat qui pense (2010)

    2001-2010ArthouseBenny JabergDocumentaryPascal Hofmann

    Quote:
    Jaberg and Hofmann’s film takes us on a cinematic journey through the life and work of Daniel Schmid, one of the most unusual artists within Swiss film. Born into a hotelier family of the 1940s in the village of Flims, surrounded by snow covered mountains, visited by exotic guests from around the world, Daniel Schmid always was a dreamer. The young filmmakers offer a mysterious kaleidoscope of people and places related to the director. Even as a child, Daniel Schmid knew that there was a hidden world, caught between reality and imagination.Read More »

  • Daniel Schmid – La Paloma (1974)

    1971-1980ArthouseDaniel SchmidDramaSwitzerland

    Quote:
    When you play with clichés, you have to be very careful that they don’t backfire; the little things have a way of maiming almost everything around them.

    Daniel Schmid’s “La Paloma” — which was shown last night and to be repeated tonight at the New York Film Festival — is intentionally crammed with cultural chestnuts, and also makes a heavy pass at the plots of “Camille” and “La Traviata.” Kitsch and camp collide in this storm of pity and terror and wonder, which seethes with boundless love, burning glances, and unfathomable revenge.Read More »

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