Reinventing the Present [10]

From the Chicago Reader (April 11, 2003). — J.R. 10 *** (A must-see) Directed by Abbas Kiarostami With Mania Akbari, Amin Maher, Roya Arabshahi, Katayoun Taleidzadeh, Mandana Sharbaf, Amene Moradi, and Kamran Adl. In my mind, there isn’t as much of a distinction between documentary and fiction as there is between a good movie and a bad one. — Abbas Kiarostami in an interview One way to identify the world’s greatest filmmakers is to determine which ones have found it necessary to reinvent the cinema from the ground up. The names that quickly come to my mind are Antonioni, Bresson, Chaplin, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Godard, Griffith, Kubrick, Mizoguchi, Renoir, Tati, and Welles — a far from exhaustive list of mercurial artists who rethought the nature of the medium not once but repeatedly, most often to their commercial disadvantage. Not all of these figures qualify as “difficult,” though even such crowd pleasers as Chaplin, Griffith, and Kubrick were called that at some points during their careers. Whether people wound up seeing them as old-fashioned or unfashionable, these artists refused to turn themselves into commodities, alienating even their most passionate fans by confounding expectations and changing the rules of the game, and at times scaring off potential investors. Read more

Jun 17, 2025 - 18:45

From the Chicago Reader (April 11, 2003). — J.R.

*** (A must-see)

Directed by Abbas Kiarostami

With Mania Akbari, Amin Maher, Roya Arabshahi, Katayoun Taleidzadeh, Mandana Sharbaf, Amene Moradi, and Kamran Adl.

In my mind, there isn’t as much of a distinction between documentary and fiction as there is between a good movie and a bad one. — Abbas Kiarostami in an interview

One way to identify the world’s greatest filmmakers is to determine which ones have found it necessary to reinvent the cinema from the ground up. The names that quickly come to my mind are Antonioni, Bresson, Chaplin, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Godard, Griffith, Kubrick, Mizoguchi, Renoir, Tati, and Welles — a far from exhaustive list of mercurial artists who rethought the nature of the medium not once but repeatedly, most often to their commercial disadvantage.

Not all of these figures qualify as “difficult,” though even such crowd pleasers as Chaplin, Griffith, and Kubrick were called that at some points during their careers. Whether people wound up seeing them as old-fashioned or unfashionable, these artists refused to turn themselves into commodities, alienating even their most passionate fans by confounding expectations and changing the rules of the game, and at times scaring off potential investors. Read more