Films That Shaped: Anderson, Godard, Schrader, Eisenstein

Sergei Eisenstein, Jean-Luc Godard, Lindsey Anderson, Paul Schrader – these directors, stretching from the early twentieth century up to its close, can seem worlds apart. Their connection? All four were film critics and theorists, writing on the works of others even as they produced their own masterworks. For their latest Passport to Cinema season at the BFI Southbank, the National Film and Television School will screen works that inspired the above directors. A guest speaker will introduce each screening.

Anderson & Vigo
Lindsey Anderson is best-known for his Malcolm McDowell-led ‘Mick Travis’ trilogy, beginning with the brutal boarding school satire If…. In tribute, the BFI will show She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) by John Ford, described by Anderson as “one continual visual delight.” The poetic realism of Jean Vigo inspired Anderson’s own style, which subtly blends the everyday with the fantastical. Vigo’s two masterpieces – anarchic schoolboy romp Zero de conduite (1933) and dream-like romantic feature L’Atalante (1934) – will be screened as a double-bill.

Godard
Godard will be represented by one of his own masterworks, Bande a part (1964), amongst the most delightful films in his brilliant 1960s run. It will be followed by Bigger Than Life (1956), starring James Mason as a schoolteacher turned raving by cortisone therapy. Godard famously described its director, Nicholas Ray, as “cinema” itself. Ingmar Bergman’s Summer With Monika (1953), which Godard called “the most original film by the most original of filmmakers”, follows two working class lovers as they flee to the seaside. Part-social realism and part-romance, it seems a clear precursor to Godard’s wild journeys and overt sensuality.

Schrader
American Gigolo (1980), Schrader’s first hit film, recasts Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket in glossy Los Angeles. Bresson appeared alongside Dreyer and Ozu in Schrader’s book Transcendental Style in Cinema, and one film each from these two maestros – The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and Late Spring (1949) – will be shown.

Eisentsein
Finally, the season covers Eisenstein, the ultimate theorist of early cinema. After screening his seminal Battleship Potemkin (1929), there will be an outing for Disney’s extravagantFantasia (1948), which Eisenstein believed contained “the most secret strands of human thought, images, ideas, feelings…” The series concludes the D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), which inspired Eisenstein’s use of montage and love of spectacle.