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Early morning in the wonderful Glendalough Valley located in the Wicklow Mountains National Park. It stretches across almost 23,000 hectares south of Dublin. The largest of Ireland’s National Parks and the only one in the East Wicklow, it features wide-open vistas, winding mountain roads and fast-flowing streams that descend into the deep lakes of the wooded valleys, including St Kevin’s monastic settlement at Glendalough.
Ochre-coloured mountains, hauntingly beautiful forests, gushing streams and placid lakes – the Wicklow Mountains in County Wicklow boast some of the most striking landscapes on the island of Ireland.
Situated surprisingly close to Dublin city, and yet with an otherworldly atmosphere, the mountains’ unique landscapes have been an inspiration for poets and painters, as well as filmmakers, with major productions including Braveheart, Barry Lyndon, The Green Knight and Disenchanted all filmed here.
A true flavour of Ireland’s ancient wilderness awaits you in the park. Come visit Ireland
#animation film director
#Vladimir Petkevich
#animation for adults
Vladimir's work, example: How to become a person:
archives 2011
By the way, the premiere of the Detroit documentary "Burn" was awesome. If it happens to make it to your town, I hope you check it out and support the kickstarter for the film. Hats off to the filmmakers for a great piece.
1000 pictures. Woo!
Thanks to everyone whose comments and suggestions have encouraged me to continue my love of photography. It's been an awesome ride, and I hope that every picture I have taken you have liked, and is better than the last. Which means this one is awesome :D
Él Matt
Making fun of those meaningless film titles of movies that usually get nominated for a bunch of awards but nobody watches. “A new film by master filmmaker Wannabe Veryarti, starring a very quirky actress and a hunky monosyllabic dude with a deeply mysterious mystery that will be revealed in interminable closeups of a single tear, not quite explaining dude’s inability to form sentences. Shot in the mandatory high contrast film noir style by academy award winning Italian cinematographer Ionlyshoota Monochroma in the mists and gloom of some oddly unpopulated European location.” I kid. Sometimes I even enjoy such films. Sometimes not.
A few weeks back I took a much needed break from work to travel out west, visit family in British Columbia and then meet up with some friends for hiking and photography in Zion NP. It was a really terrific trip and very re-energizing.
I had a couple of hours before a flight from Seattle so I stopped by Snoqualmie Falls on a very foggy day. The colder weather caused the falls to be surrounded in mist, to the point where autofocus would not work so I had to try to manually dial in the focus as best I could. I had hoped to get lower down along the river to shoot some fall foreground against the misty waterfall backdrop but the river access was closed so I was stuck with the overlook shot. At the time I honestly thought these shots wouldn’t amount to much as there was just too much water suspended in the air (pretty common for the Seattle/Vancouver area). However, with a bit of work in post I quite liked the abstract feel to this. This should be the first of a set of posts to come to break my recent drought on Flickr.
The ever present moisture in the Pacific Northwest makes for scenes and moods that are very rare or non-existent in the rest of the continent. I could really spend months traveling around Oregon, Washington and BC, and shooting their many incredible sights. And some day I intend to do this. For now, I’ll have to satisfy myself with small targeted doses.
"Allora io raccolgo i chilometri di pellicola della mia vita, mi ci avvolgo come nelle spire di un serpente e alla fine trovo quel pezzo di racconto. Cerco di togliere via il troppo dolore, e la futilità, e i particolari superflui, tanto so che torneranno poco alla volta."
Filmmaker and a dear friend from Brazil, she just visited NYC for a few days. We lived in Cuba in film school together for 2 years, in the middle of the countryside 24/7, in 2002. I hadn't seen Joana in 7 years, but we are forever family. The best life experiences bond you for good with the people you shared them with.
New York City,
November 2012.
© Sion Fullana
All Rights Reserved
At the 97th Academy Awards, it received nominations for Best International Feature Film (the third animated film to do so) and Best Animated Feature, becoming the first Latvian film to be considered for multiple awards and nominations from major ceremonies.
Photographer and Filmmaker @larssteenhoff uses our Nikon G to Leica L-Mount lens adapter to mount Nikon lenses on his Panasonic S1.
German postcard in the series Die Leidenschaften des Rosa von Praumheim by Gebr. König Postkartenverlag, Köln (Cologne), no. 10/10. Photo: Michael Oblowitz. Divine and Tally Brown in Tally Brown, New York (Rosa von Praunheim, 1979).
Harris Glenn Milstead, better known by his stage name Divine (1945-1988), was an American actor, singer, and drag queen. He was closely associated with the independent filmmaker John Waters. Divine became the international icon of bad taste cinema.
Harris Glenn Milstead was born in 1945 in Baltimore, Maryland to a conservative middle-class family. His parents were Harris Bernard Milstead and Frances Milstead (née Vukovich). Their only child, his parents lavished almost anything that he wanted upon him, including food. He became overweight, a condition he lived with for the rest of his life. Divine preferred to use his middle name, Glenn, to distinguish himself from his father, and was referred to as such by his parents and friends. When he was 17, his parents sent him to a psychiatrist, where he first realised his sexual attraction to men as well as women, something then taboo in conventional American society. In 1963, he began attending the Marinella Beauty School, where he learned hair styling and, after completing his studies, gained employment at a couple of local salons, specialising in the creation of beehives and other upswept hairstyles.
Milstead developed an early interest in drag while working as a women's hairdresser. He eventually gave up his job and for a while was financially supported by his parents, who catered to his expensive taste in clothes and cars. They reluctantly paid the many bills that he ran up financing lavish parties where he would dress up in drag as his favourite celebrity, actress Elizabeth Taylor. By the mid-1960s he had embraced the city's countercultural scene. His friend from high school, John Waters gave him the name 'Divine' and the tagline of 'the most beautiful woman in the world, almost'. Waters later remarked that he had borrowed the name Divine from a character in Jean Genet's novel Our Lady of the Flowers (1943). Along with his friend David Lochary, Divine joined Waters' acting troupe, the Dreamlanders (which also included Mary Vivian Pearce and Mink Stole), and adopted female roles for their experimental short films. The first was Roman Candles (John Waters, 1966), which was shown 'triple projected' on three 8mm projectors running simultaneously but was never released commercially. Divine starred in drag as a smoking nun. Other short films were Eat Your Makeup (John Waters, 1968), and The Diane Linkletter Story (John Waters, 1969), filmed on Sunday afternoons. Again in drag, he took a lead role in Waters' first full-length film, Mondo Trasho (John Waters, 1969) Divine as an unnamed blonde woman who drives around town and runs over a hitchhiker. In their review of the film, the Los Angeles Free Press exclaimed that "The 300-pound (140 kg) sex-symbol Divine is undoubtedly some sort of discovery." In 1970, he travelled to San Francisco, California, a city which had a large gay subculture that attracted Divine, who was then embracing his homosexuality. Divine played the role of Lady Divine, the operator of an exhibit known as The Cavalcade of Perversion who turns to murdering visitors in Waters's film Multiple Maniacs. The film contained several controversial scenes, notably one which involved Lady Divine masturbating using a rosary while sitting inside a church. In another, Lady Divine kills her boyfriend and proceeds to eat his heart; in actuality, Divine bit into a cow's heart which had gone rotten from being left out on the set all day. At the end of the film, Lady Divine is raped by a giant lobster named Lobstora, an act that drives her into madness; she subsequently goes on a killing spree in Fell's Point before being shot down by the National Guard. Due to its controversial nature, Waters feared that the film would be banned and confiscated by the Maryland Censor Board, so avoided their jurisdiction by only screening it at non-commercial venues, namely rented church premises. Multiple Maniacs was the first of Waters's films to receive widespread attention, as did Divine; KSFX remarked that "Divine is incredible! Could start a whole new trend in films." Following his San Francisco sojourn, Divine returned to Baltimore and participated in Pink Flamingos (John Waters, 1972). Designed by Waters to be an exercise in poor taste, the film featured Divine as Babs Johnson, living in a pink trailer with her egg-eating grandmother, chicken-loving son and voyeuristic daughter. Babs claims to be 'the filthiest person alive' and she is forced to prove her right to the title from challengers, Connie (Mink Stole) and Raymond Marble (David Lochary). In one scene, the Marbles send Babs a turd in a box as a birthday present, and in order to enact this scene, Divine defecated into the box the night before. The final scene in the film proved particularly infamous, involving Babs eating fresh dog feces; Divine later told a reporter, "I followed that dog around for three hours just zooming in on its asshole," waiting for it to empty its bowels so that they could film the scene. The scene became one of the most notable moments of Divine's acting career, and he later complained of people thinking that "I run around doing it all the time". The film proved a hit on the U.S. midnight movie circuit, became a cult classic, and established Divine's fame within the American counterculture.
Divine returned to San Francisco, where he and Mink Stole starred in a number of small-budget plays at the Palace Theater as part of drag troupe The Cockettes, including Divine and Her Stimulating Studs, Divine Saves the World, Vice Palace, Journey to the Center of Uranus and The Heartbreak of Psoriasis. In 1974, Divine returned to Baltimore to film Waters's next motion picture, Female Trouble, in which he played the lead role. Divine was unable to appear in Waters's next feature, Desperate Living (John Waters, 1977), despite the fact that the role of Mole McHenry had been written for him. This was because he had returned to working in the theatre as the scheming prison matron Pauline in Tom Eyen's play Women Behind Bars and its sequel, The Neon Woman. While in London in 1978, Divine attended as the guest of honour at the fourth Alternative Miss World pageant, a 'mock' event founded by Andrew Logan in 1972 in which 'drag queens' – including men, women and children – competed for the prize. The event was filmed by director Richard Gayer, whose subsequent film, entitled Alternative Miss World, premiered at the Odeon in London's Leicester Square as well as featuring at the Cannes Film Festival, both events which were attended by Divine. Continuing his cinematic work, he starred in Polyester (John Waters, 1981) as Francine Fishpaw. Unlike earlier roles, Fishpaw was not a strong female but a meek and victimized woman who falls in love with her dream lover, Todd Tomorrow, played by Tab Hunter. The film was released in 'Odorama', accompanied by 'scratch 'n' sniff' cards for the audience to smell at key points in the film. In 1981, Divine embarked on a career in the disco industry by producing a number of Hi-NRG tracks, most of which were written by Bobby Orlando. He achieved international chart success with hits like 'You Think You're a Man', 'I'm So Beautiful', and 'Walk Like a Man', all of which were performed in drag. The next Divine film, Lust in the Dust (Paul Bartel, 1985), reunited him with Tab Hunter and was Divine's first film not directed by John Waters. Set in the Wild West during the nineteenth century, the film was a sex comedy that starred Divine as Rosie Velez, a promiscuous woman who works as a singer in saloons and competes for the love of Abel Wood (Tab Hunter) against another woman (Lainie Kazan). A parody of the Western Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946), the film was a moderate critical success. Divine followed this production with a very different role, that of gay male gangster Hilly Blue in Trouble in Mind (Alan Rudolph, 1985), starring Kris Kristofferson and Keith Carradine. The script was written with Divine in mind. Although not a major character in the film, Divine had been eager to play the part because he wished to perform in more male roles and leave behind the stereotype of simply being a female impersonator. Reviews of the film were mixed, as were the evaluations of Divine's performance. The he reunited with John Waters for Hairspray (John Waters, 1988), which represented his breakthrough into mainstream cinema. Set in Baltimore during the 1960s, Hairspray revolved around self-proclaimed "pleasantly plump" teenager Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) as she pursues stardom as a dancer on a local television show and rallies against racial segregation. As he had in Female Trouble, Divine took on two roles in the film, one of which was female and the other male. The first of these, Edna Turnblad, was Tracy's loving mother; the other was the racist head of the station that airs the Corny Collins show. Hairspray was only a moderate success upon its initial theatrical release, earning a modest gross of $8 million. However, it managed to attract a larger audience on home video in the early 1990s and became a cult classic. Divine's final film role was in the low-budget comedy horror Out of the Dark (Michael Schroeder, 1989), produced with the same crew as Lust in the Dust. Appearing in only one scene within the film, he played the character of Detective Langella, a foulmouthed policeman investigating the murders of a killer clown. Out of the Dark would be released the year after Divine's death. On 7 March 1988, three weeks after Hairspray was released nationwide, Divine was staying at the Regency Plaza Suites Hotel in Los Angeles. He was scheduled to film a guest appearance the following day as Uncle Otto on the Fox network's television series Married... with Children in the second season wrap-up episode. Shortly before midnight, he died in his sleep, at age 42, of an enlarged heart (according to Wikipdia or respiratory failure caused by sleep apnea (according to IMDb). It was probably a combination. Described by People magazine as the 'Drag Queen of the Century', Divine has remained a cult figure, particularly within the LGBT community, and has provided the inspiration for fictional characters, artworks, and songs. Various books and documentary films devoted to his life have also been produced, including Divine Trash (1998) and I Am Divine (2013), written by Divine's manager and friend Bernard Jay. Frances Milstead subsequently cowrote her own book about Divine, entitled My Son Divine (2001), with Kevin Heffernan and Steve Yeager. His mother's continued relationship with the gay community was later documented in a film Frances: A Mother Divine (Tim Dunn, Michael O'Quinn, 2010)
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
Swiss-German-British postcard by News Productions, Baulmes / Filmwelt Berlin, Bakede / News Productions, Stroud, no. 56501. Photo: Collection Cinémathèque Suisse, Lausanne.Brigitte Bardot and Yves Robert in Les Grandes Manoeuvres / Summer Manoeuvres (René Clair, 1955), produced by Filmsonor and Rizzoli Films.
Beautiful French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she established herself as an animal rights activist and made vegetarianism sexy.
Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying a modeling career and found herself in May 1949 on the cover of the French magazine Elle. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand/Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953 she attended the Cannes Film Festival where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956 she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. She made her first US production in 1953 in Un acte d'amour/Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.
Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme/...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smashing success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. Woman's immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the shooting of Et Dieu créa la femme/And God Created Woman (1956), directed by her husband Roger Vadim, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at that time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.
Et Dieu créa la femme/...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped her international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten' and fascination of her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad, or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theaters like lemmings.BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne/La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957) which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur/Love is my profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "this Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defense attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre is able to shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960 postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.
Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957 and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre/Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career. Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée/Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at Films de France: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the highpoint of her career when she agreed to make this film with high profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names, was based on an actual incident and is a resonant image of a celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterward Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.
Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men including Sami Frey, her co-star in La Vérité/The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris/Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963). She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres/Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires/Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses/Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury, and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.
Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973 just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976 she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewelry and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990's she became also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France, and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal is a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularizing bikini swimwear, in early films such as Manina/Woman without a Veil (1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photoshoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (Films de France), Films de France, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Dutch collectors card, 1987. Photo: Robert Redford in Legal Eagles (Ivan Reitman, 1986).
With his all-American good looks, Robert Redford (1936) was one of the biggest Hollywood stars of the 1970s. In classics as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting (1973) and All the President's Men (1976), he was the intelligent, reliable, sometimes sardonic good guy. He received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime Achievement in 2002. In 2010, the actor, director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival was appointed Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in France.
Charles Robert Redford Jr. was born in Santa Monica, California in 1936. His parents were Martha W. (Hart) and Charles Robert Redford, Sr., a milkman-turned-accountant. Redford's family moved to Van Nuys, California, while his father worked in El Segundo. He attended Van Nuys High School and was interested in art and sports. After high school, he attended the University of Colorado for a year and a half. He travelled in Europe but decided on a career as a theatrical designer in New York. Enrolling at the American Academy of Dramatic Art he turned to acting. In 1959, Redford's acting career began on stage, making his Broadway debut with a small role in Tall Story. It was followed by parts in The Highest Tree (1959) and Sunday in New York (1961). On TV, he appeared as a guest star on numerous programs, including Maverick (1960), Perry Mason (1960), The Twilight Zone (1962), and The Untouchables (1963). Redford earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (1962). Redford made his screen debut in War Hunt (Denis Sanders, 1962), set during the last days of the Korean War. This film also marked the acting debut of director Sydney Pollack, with whom Redford would collaborate on seven films. His biggest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963). After this smash hit, he was cast in larger film roles. In the war comedy Situation Hopeless ... But Not Serious (Gottfried Reinhardt, 1965) with Alec Guinness, he played a soldier who has to spend years of his life hiding behind enemy lines. In Inside Daisy Clover (Robert Mulligan, 1965), he played a bisexual movie star who marries starlet Natalie Wood. It won him a Golden Globe for the best new star. A success was This Property Is Condemned (Sydney Pollack, 1966), again with Nathalie Wood. The same year saw he co-starred with Jane Fonda in The Chase (Arthur Penn, 1966), also with Marlon Brando. Fonda and Redford were paired again in the film version of Barefoot in the Park (Gene Saks, 1967) and were again co-stars much later in The Electric Horseman (Sydney Pollack, 1979).
After this initial success, Robert Redford became concerned about his stereotype image of the blond 'All American'. At the age of 32, he found the property he was looking for in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969), scripted by William Goldman. For the first time, he was teamed with Paul Newman and it was a huge success. The film made him a major bankable star. Other critical and box office hits were Jeremiah Johnson (Sydney Pollack, 1972), the hugely popular period drama The Way We Were (Sydney Pollack, 1973) with Barbra Streisand, and the blockbuster crime caper The Sting (George Roy Hill, 1973), the biggest hit of his career, for which he was also nominated for an Oscar. Between 1974 and 1976, exhibitors voted Redford as Hollywood's top box-office name with such hits as The Great Gatsby (Jack Clayton, 1974) and Three Days of the Condor (Sydney Pollack, 1975) with Faye Dunaway. The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976), directed by and scripted once again by Goldman, was a landmark film for Redford. Not only was he the executive producer and co-star, but the film's serious subject matter—the Watergate scandal—and its attempt to create a realistic portrayal of journalism, also reflected the actor's offscreen concerns for political causes. He also appeared in the war film A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977) before starring in the prison drama Brubaker (Stuart Rosenberg, 1980), playing a prison warden attempting to reform the system, and the baseball drama The Natural (Barry Levinson, 1984). With his enormous salaries, he acquired Utah property, which he transformed into a ranch and the Sundance ski resort. In 1980, he established the Sundance Institute for aspiring filmmakers. Its annual film festival has now become one of the world's most influential.
Robert Redford continued his involvement in mainstream Hollywood movies, though with a newfound focus on directing. The first film he directed, Ordinary People (1980), which followed the disintegration of an upper-class American family after the death of a son, was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning a number of Oscars, including the Academy Award for Best Director for Redford himself, and Best Picture. His follow-up directorial project, The Milagro Beanfield War (1987), failed to generate the same level of attention. Out of Africa (Sydney Pollack, 1985), with Redford and Meryl Streep, became an enormous critical and box office success and won seven Oscars including Best Picture. It was Redford's biggest success of the decade and Redford and Pollack's most successful film together. Redford continued as a major star throughout the 1990s and 2000s. His third film as a director, A River Runs Through It (1992) with the young Brad Pitt was a mainstream success. Then, he starred in Indecent Proposal (Adrian Lyne, 1993) as a millionaire businessman who tests a couple's (Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson) morals. It became one of the year's biggest hits. His film Quiz Show (Robert Redford, 1994), starring Ralph Fiennes and Rob Morrow, earned him yet another Best Director nomination. He co-starred with Michelle Pfeiffer in the newsroom romance Up Close & Personal (Jon Avnet, 1996), and with Kristin Scott Thomas in The Horse Whisperer (1998), which he also directed. Redford also continued work in films with political contexts, such as Havana (Sydney Pollack, 1990), playing Jack Weil, a professional gambler in 1959 Cuba during the Revolution, as well as the caper Sneakers (Phil Alden Robinson, 1992), with River Phoenix. He reteamed with Brad Pitt for Spy Game (Tony Scott, 2001). Redford stepped back into producing with The Motorcycle Diaries (Walter Salles, 2004), a coming-of-age road film about a young medical student, Ernesto 'Che' Guevera, and his friend Alberto Granado. He reteamed with Meryl Streep 22 years after they starred in Out of Africa, for his personal project Lions for Lambs (Robert Redford, 2007), which also starred Tom Cruise. The film disappointed at the box office. Recently, he starred in All Is Lost (J.C. Chandor, 2013) about a man lost at sea. He received very high acclaim for his performance in the film, in which he is its only cast member and has almost no dialogue. Next, he appeared in the Marvel Studios superhero film Captain America: The Winter Soldier playing Alexander Pierce (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, 2014). More recently, he appeared in such films as A Walk in the Woods (Ken Kwapis, 2015) with Nick Nolte and Emma Thompson, Truth (James Vanderbilt, 2015) with Cate Blanchett, The Discovery (Charlie McDowell, 2017) with Mary Steenburgen, and Avengers: Endgame (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, 2019) with Robert Downey Jr. Between 1958 and 1985, Robert Redford was married to Lola Van Wagenen. The couple had four children: Scott Anthony (1959 - he died of sudden infant death syndrome, aged 2½ months), painter Shauna Jean Redford (1960), writer and producer David 'Jamie' James (1962), and director, and producer Amy Hart Redford (1970). Redford has seven grandchildren. In 2009, Redford married his long-time partner, German painter Sibylle Szaggars. In 2011, Alfred A. Knopf published 'Robert Redford: The Biography' by Michael Feeney Callan, written over fifteen years with Redford's input, and drawn from his personal papers and diaries.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
"Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all."
(Stanley Kubrick - American filmmaker, 1928-1999)
This is a portrait of Abdul Zainidi who is a Bruneian filmmaker, writer and actor.
Abdul studied his craft in Paris.
In 2013 he became the first Bruneian to be selected into the Cannes film festival short film corner with "TELUKI", a film he wrote. produced and shot which is a sort of Peter Piper dark fairy tale from Brunei.
In 2014 he made a full length feature film called "OSTRICH" which is Brunei's first low budget psychological horror film and it's prequel, a short film called "TELUKI", premiered at Alliance Francaise Brunei in February.
Abdul Zainidi has since been diverse in his film genre, branching out into expérimental, comedy,horror and even LGBT themed short films.
In 2013 he made Brunei's first short film about cross dressing called "GAGAK dan MERAK" and in 2014 he made a very controversial short film about the drag queen scene in Brunei, called "HARAM QUEEN".
His current theatrical projects include a short play about a parallel universe called "ANGGUR" which he collaborated with Alliance Francaise Brunei and was staged in February 2014.
This year apart from promoting his films he plans to shoot a horror film in Paris and a short play as well.
He is also the creator of the BRUNEI IN PARIS surreal webseries and working on a children’s book.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClLyoAOlY5c
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jSYgAM-19A
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXmP0nButWo
This picture belongs to a series where Abdul has been showing his acting skills through a wide palette of colourful and soulful expressions.
It was a very pleasant and creative photo shoot.
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© All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved.
Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.
Thanks Kathleen for reminding me about the short video that Amy Ellison put together on my work in 2010. Here Amy is gathering footage at another exhibition in the Carlson Tower Gallery of North Park University.
"I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick." - Maya Deren (1917–1961)
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A tribute to the experimental filmmaker, dancer, choreographer, writer and Haitian voudou priestess — the amazing Maya Deren.
"I try to photograph people's spirits and thoughts. As to the soul-taking by the photographer, I don't feel I take away, but rather that the sitter and I give to each other.
It becomes an act of mutual participation."
(Yousuf Karsh - Armenian–Canadian portrait photographer, 1908-2002)
This is a portrait of Abdul Zainidi who is a Bruneian filmmaker, writer and actor.
In 2013 he became the first Bruneian to be selected into the Cannes film festival short film corner with "TELUKI", a film he wrote, produced and shot which is a sort of Peter Piper dark fairy tale from Brunei.
In 2014 he made a full length feature film called "OSTRICH" which is Brunei's first low budget psychological horror film and it's prequel, a short film called "TELUKI".
He has since been diverse in his film genre, branching out into expérimental, comedy,horror and even LGBT themed short films.
In 2013 he made Brunei's first short film about cross dressing called "GAGAK dan MERAK" and in 2014 he made a very controversial short film about the drag queen scene in Brunei, called "HARAM QUEEN".
His current theatrical projects include a short play about a parallel universe called "ANGGUR" which he collaborated with Alliance Francaise Brunei and was staged in February 2014.
This picture belongs to a series thought for the Cannes film festival where Abdul will show "JENTINGKAI", his new film in May 2015.
Join the photographer at www.facebook.com/laurent.goldstein.photography
© All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved.
Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4132/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Greta Garbo in The Mysterious Lady (Fred Niblo, 1928).
Swedish Greta Garbo (1905-1990) was one of the greatest and most glamorous film stars ever produced by the Hollywood studio system. She was part of the Golden Age of the silent cinema of the 1920s and was one of the few actors who made a glorious transition to the talkies. She started her career in European cinema and would always stay more popular in Europe than in the USA.
She was born as Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm. When she was 14 her father died, leaving the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and work as a clerk in the department store PUB, where she also would model for newspaper ads. She photographed beautifully. Her first film aspirations came when she appeared in two short film advertisements, Herr och fru Stockholm (Ragnar Ring, 1920) and Konsum Stockholm Promo (Ragnar Ring, 1921). They were seen by director Erik Arthur Petschler who gave her a small part as a bathing beauty in his comedy Luffar-Petter (Erik A. Petschler, 1922). From 1922 to 1924, she studied at Dramaten, the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. She met Mauritz Stiller, who was Sweden's foremost filmmaker in the early 1920s. He trained the 18-year-old in cinema acting techniques and gave her the stage name Greta Garbo. Stiller cast her in a major role opposite Lars Hanson in Gösta Berlings Saga (Mauritz Stiller, 1924). This dramatisation of a novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf was internationally successful and made Greta a minor star. On the strength of Gösta Berling, she was cast in the German prostitution and depression melodrama Die Freudlose Gasse (G.W. Pabst, 1925), in which she co-starred with the legendary Danish star Asta Nielsen.
And then Hollywood called. Louis B. Mayer invited Stiller to work for MGM when Gösta Berlings Saga caught his attention. On viewing the film, Mayer admired Stiller's direction but was unimpressed with Garbo's acting and screen presence. Stiller insisted on bringing his protégé to Hollywood, thus, Mayer contracted her as well. Garbo’s relationship with Mauritz Stiller came to an end as her fame in Hollywood grew and he struggled in the studio system. In 1928 Stiller was fired by MGM and returned to Sweden, where he died soon after. Garbo retired in 1949 after making some screentests for a never realised film project. She abandoned Hollywood and moved to New York City. She would jet-set with such personalities as Aristotle Onassis and Cecil Beaton, and spent the rest of her time gardening flowers and vegetables. In 1954, she was given a special Oscar ‘for her unforgettable performances, and in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked her as the fifth greatest female star of all time.
Sources: AllMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
This unique piece above is a First Day Cover issued on March 23, 1977, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Thomas Edison's phonograph invention. The envelope features a striking custom Langer cachet, depicting the Statue of Liberty with the inscription "In God We Trust," and the official 13-cent US stamp showing Edison's original device. The cover is personally autographed by the renowned Chinese-American actress Nancy Kwan, celebrated for her iconic roles in films such as The World of Suzie Wong and Flower Drum Song. The official postmark from Washington, D.C., confirms its first day of issue status. This collectible item is a wonderful cross-collectible, appealing to both philatelists and celebrity memorabilia enthusiasts.
A Langer Cachet is a type of cachet (a design or inscription on an envelope) created by Ernest "Ernie" Langer, a notable figure in philately (stamp collecting). These are found on First Day Covers and commemorate a postal or philatelic event.
E. Langer Cachets in Philately:
Definition: In philately, a cachet is a printed or stamped design or inscription, other than a cancellation or pre-printed postage, used to commemorate a specific postal event, such as the release of a new stamp. An "E. Langer Cachet" or "Langer Cachet" refers to a cachet produced by Ernest Langer.
Active Period: His work is most commonly seen on United States First Day Covers from the late 1970s and 1980s. His cachets are typically printed designs that provide historical context or thematic illustrations for the specific stamp being issued.
The Centennial of Sound Recording commemorates Thomas Alva Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877, the first practical device capable of recording and playing back sound.
Significance of the Centennial of Sound Recording:
The stamp and FDC were issued on March 23, 1977, to mark the 100th anniversary of this invention.
Invention: While working on improvements to the telegraph and telephone, Edison discovered that a stylus rubbing against a tinfoil-wrapped cylinder could record sound vibrations. His first recorded words were "Mary had a little lamb."
Impact: This led to the development of the entire recording industry. The stamp itself Scott (#1705) depicts a later model tinfoil phonograph and honors the broader development of the recording industry.
Controversy: The official issue date was chosen to coincide with an award dinner for the Recording Industries Association of America, rather than the exact date of Edison's discovery in December 1877, which caused some philatelic discussion at the time.
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Nancy Kwan (born May 19, 1939) is a pioneering Chinese-American actress, filmmaker and activist who was instrumental in breaking racial barriers in Hollywood and increasing the acceptance of actors of Asian descent in major film roles.
Career Highlights:
Breakthrough Role: Kwan's career launched when producer Ray Stark cast her in the lead role of the 1960 film The World of Suzie Wong, where she played a free-spirited Hong Kong prostitute opposite William Holden. For this role, she won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer.
Major Films: She followed this success with a starring role in the 1961 musical film Flower Drum Song, notable for being one of the first major Hollywood films with an all-Asian cast. Other significant films include Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. (1966) with Dick Van Dyke and The Wrecking Crew (1969) alongside Dean Martin.
Versatility: While often typecast in "Oriental" roles early in her career, she also took on non-Asian characters, playing Italian, French, and even Native American roles in various films produced in America and Europe.
The "Kwan Cut": In 1963, her iconic, sharp bob haircut for the film The Wild Affair, created by hairstylist Vidal Sassoon, became widely famous and was known as "the Kwan cut".
Later Work and Activism:
Behind the Camera: In the 1970s, Kwan returned to Hong Kong to care for her ailing father and founded her own production company, Nancy Kwan Films, which produced and directed numerous commercials.
Advocacy: Kwan is a political activist and serves as a spokeswoman for the Asian American Voters Coalition, a political organization established to support Asian actors and promote better representation in the media industry. She has received recognition for her advocacy and contributions to cinema, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Asian Hall of Fame.
Memoir: In recent years, she has written and produced films with her husband, Norbert Meisel, focusing on Asian-American characters, and has also penned a memoir about her life and career.
LINK to video - The Truth About What Really Happened To "Chinese Bardot" NANCY KWAN - www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTkeSaBFwFs
LINK to video - The World of Suzie Wong' actress Nancy Kwan on Asian representation in Hollywood - www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usrcybr3bhk
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Thomas Edison: The Architect of Modern Progress
Thomas Edison remains one of the most towering figures in global history, often described as the man who "invented the modern world." Beyond his technical achievements, he was a cultural icon whose tireless work ethic and optimism captured the heart of the American public.
Key Contributions to Society
The Gift of Light: Edison developed the first commercially viable incandescent light bulb and the electrical grid system to power it.
Preserving Sound and Motion: Through the phonograph and motion picture camera, he laid the foundation for the global entertainment industry.
The Invention Factory: He established the industrial research laboratory at Menlo Park, proving that innovation could be a collaborative, disciplined process.
A Folk Hero Loved by the Public
During his lifetime, Edison was a national hero known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park". The public loved him because he personified the American Dream—a self-taught man who rose to fame through "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". His optimism and resilience made him a symbol of grit; even after his lab burned down, he remained undeterred.
"I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it." — Thomas Edison
Images of myself as Darla Chandler, a 1960s British pop singer/secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
See videos of Darla and other "Absolutely Smashing" characters here:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTv55UM19WdGqjz_6nZGU-4FpW...
This video is a slideshow of images of myself as Darla Chandler, a 1960s British pop singer/secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
See more slideshows of myself as Darla and other "Absolutely Smashing" characters here:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTv55UM19WdGqjz_6nZGU-4FpW...