By Teller
M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity – Witty, touching, and illuminating. As we listen to a choice selection of Escher’s words, exuberantly delivered by Stephen Fry, we see – in stills, clips, and animation – how Escher’s ingenious notions and preoccupations become works of art.
“I think it’s in my basement…Let me go upstairs and check.”
― M.C. Escher
By Steve Segal
Maurits Cornelis Escher commonly known as M.C. Escher was an artist who has inspired millions with his unique vision. This is made abundantly clear in the film M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity, a hugely entertaining and informative documentary.
A candid conversation with the film programmers at the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).
BY C.J. Hirschfield
About my home town of Oakland, a recent Washington Post article wrote: “Protesters want to defund the police. Homicides and violence are spiking. In Oakland, ideology and practicality collide.”
It was a wonderful juxtaposition shortly thereafter to watch the excellent new documentary Alice Street, which shows Oakland at its multicultural, peaceful, protesting best.
By Andrea Chase
There is a quiet desperation running through Tom Dolby’s The Artist’s Wife. It creates the sort of cinematic tension that Mr. Dolby and his muse, Lena Olin in the title role, used like a fine chiaroscuro throughout the drama of a genius slowly losing his mind, and the devoted wife who has subsumed her life to his genius for 25 years. With that chapter of her life ending, choices she made in the past are thrown into sharp relief as the prospect of a life lived solely for herself proves a daunting leap into the unknown.
An excerpt from the new book by James Curtis.
Have you ever marveled at the “look” of certain movies? The art direction creates a memorable world. For example, The Son of the Sheik……
William Cameron Menzies’ original rendering of Ahmed’s desert retreat for The Son of the Sheik (1926). Economies scotched the design, a shame considering it would be Rudolph Valentino’s final film and a formidable commercial success. (courtesy of Pamela Lauesen)
