Jørgen Leth

Det Danske Filminstitut wrote:
A razor, a hand, some white foam, a neck, a man talking, piano notes. A shaving is closely followed.
The title refers to a social democratic slogan.Read More »

Det Danske Filminstitut wrote:
A very special TV production: In the studio, Leth reads from several of his poetry collections, while a subtitle – as in ‘Life in Denmark’ – meticulously, but double-bound, records observations and describes the process. The subtext thus seems to function as a medium for the director’s reflections as the TV film progresses. (…) Alternating with the poetry reading in the studio, the second part of the film consists of snapshots from the 1970 Tour de France stage race, including the cobblestone roads of northern France, Mont Ventoux and the cathedral sprint in Rouen, which is shown three times.’Read More »

Det Danske Filminstitut wrote:
An experimental portrait of American jazz pianist Bud Powell. In most of the film, Powell walks the streets of Copenhagen, but there are also excerpts from ‘… a concert recording from Montmartre, where Powell’s fingers and face are studied in a series of beautiful, dark settings while he plays, but without synchronous sound. On the soundtrack, Bud Powell is heard playing, and Dexter Gordon tells a few stories at the beginning and end about Powell and his innovative impact on jazz’Read More »

Det Danske Filminstitut wrote:
This film was shot in the autumn of 1967 among European and American hippies in Nepal. We observe the way of life these hippies have chosen to live »outside of society« in the light of the everyday rites and ceremonies of the Nepalese. We see that the hippie movement is not just a caprice of fashion, but a religion. »We have to be here. To meditate. To pray. This way we can turn the atomic bomb into a flower«.Read More »

Quote:
In Per Kirkeby’s set with a blue backdrop beside a woodland lake Lene Adler Petersen pronounces Ophelia’s madness monologue from Hamlet, but she is constantly interrupted by the sound of two wooden blocks and has to start again: “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance …” The words thereby rapidly lose their meaning and our interest turns to the specific sounds emerging from Adler Petersen’s lips and the choreographed ways she touches her face. The film starts and ends classically with a zoom in from an establishing shot and a zoom out onto a concluding tableau in which Ophelia throws herself into the lake, but in between the film is experimental, with two cameras on tracks abiding by a carefully conceived but highly impenetrable system. The frame thus changes apparently according to signals from Leth, and occasionally the camera seems to track right off the set into the sylvan wilderness. At its premiere at the Carlton it was shown before Roman Polanski’s Dance of the vampires.Read More »

Det Danske Filminstitut wrote:
Per Kirkeby og Jørgen Leth om filmen: “Det skal være en smuk film, som helt reelt skildrer naturen, og som også udnytter associationer, der er knyttet til Dyrehaven som begreb. Skelettet er årstidernes skiften, skildret i billeder. Med “billeder” menes enkelte billeder uden anden indbyrdes kontinuitet end den, som selve rammen, årstidernes skiften, giver. Ind i dette skelet bygger vi rent romantiske billeder som et associationsfelt, der ligesom rummer den historiske side af Dyrehaven. Dyrehaven er jo ikke en hvilkensomhelst skov, men en skov, som optager en stor plads i landets kunstneriske bevidsthed.”Read More »

imdb:
An insight into the work by composer and pianist Herman D. Koppel with the American Cantilena Quartet before the first performance of his piano quartet ‘opus 114’ in 1986. The film is shot at Louisiana, the museum of modern art north of Copenhagen, which serves as a setting literally rich in images. The director and founder of the museum, Knud W. Jensen, talks briefly about Louisiana and what art means to man. Herman D. Koppel also plays a piano piece by Carl Nielsen – conveyed in the film as a study in fingers dancing on the keys.Read More »

From: IMDB
With a slow introductory zoom onto Leth in a TV studio and a corresponding zoom out at the end Eddy Merckx in the Vicinity of a Cup of Coffee may be structured in the classical style but an extremely unusual TV production is involved: in the studio Leth reads from his poetry while a subtitle – like in Life in Denmark – pedantically but ambiguously presents observations and describes what is going on. The subtitles seem to serve as a medium for the director’s deliberations as the TV film progresses, starting with the following manifesto: “I have no desire to save you or admonish you or get to know you. But I would like to try to entertain you for a while with words, sounds, and images”. Alternating with poetry readings from the studio the second half of the film consists of moments from the 1970 Tour de France, including the cobbled roads of Northern France, from Mont Ventoux, and from the cathedral dash in Rouen… Written by AnonymousRead More »

Quote:
Ophelia’s Suicide soliloquy is staged by a forest pond against the backdrop of a stretched piece of blue fabric gently quivering in the accidental breeze. A few years earlier, Jørgen Leth and Per Kirkeby had put on a highly stylized production of “Hamlet” at the Svalegangen theatre in Aarhus and from there comes the idea of Ophelia’s soliloquy literally “going to pieces” according to this principle: when Leth in the wings, strikes two wooden blocks together, the actress halts her reading and starts over. As the actress is halted again and again, the soliloquy breaks up according to the accidental principle, which is unpredictable and enervating. Read More »