“You must have patience, even while people die. Only thus can the whole evil be destroyed. You must let it grow.” I’m a happy member of the ‘Folk Horror Revival’ Facebook group. I bought the ‘Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies’ book and I’ve contributed a poem to the up-coming ‘Corpse Roads’ anthology, but I have…

I’d watched very few Czechoslovakian movies before I started on this, frankly ill-advised, journey in January. I’d seen the American films of Miloš Forman, including the great ‘Amadeus‘ and disturbed myself silly with Jan Švankmajer’s short animations, hunted down his adaptation of ‘Faust’ on VHS, and watched his 2000 fantasy ‘Little Otik’ at the cinema….

“I am 39 years old and already an old man. I feel stupid. More rotten than mature.” ‘Memories of Underdevelopment’, directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea in 1968, is a Cuban drama that focuses on a writer in Havana during the lead up to the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. The writer, Sergio played by…

“What a rotten film. All we meet are crazy people.” ‘Weekend’, directed by Jean-Luc Godard in 1967, is a satirical French comedy. It’s a strange, apparently directionless film that at times seems to seek to dismantle the concept of film itself. It focuses on a couple who are travelling to secure an inheritance, they leave…

“He’s a wounded wolf; now there will be a trail. He must be disposed of quickly.” ‘Le Samouraï’, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville in 1967, is a sparse, minimalist French thriller. Jef Costello, played by Alain Delon, is an assassin who is hired to kill a night club owner. He does so and escapes but leaves…

“I summon the vampires! I summon the werewolves! I summon Viy!” ‘Viy’, directed by Konstantin Yershov and Georgi Kropachyov in 1967, is a rare Soviet-era Russian horror movie. Based on a story by Nikolai Gogol, it focuses on a philosophy student called Khoma, played by Leonid Kuravlyov. Khoma encounters a witch whilst on his way…

“I didn’t want to use real martial arts what we call real kung-fu. I had seen it in tournaments, I didn’t find it very beautiful and I didn’t understand a thing about it; as a matter of fact, I still don’t.” ‘Come Drink with Me’, directed by King Hu in 1966, is a Hong Kong…

“…and the drowned” ‘Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors’, directed by Sergei Parajanov in 1965, is a Ukrainian movie that follows the life of a farmer in a small Hutsul village. Ivan, played by Ivan Mykolaichuk falls for a girl called Marichka who is a member of a rival family. Marichka dies in a tragic accident and…

“Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.” ‘Chimes at Midnight’, directed by Orson Welles in 1965, is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s two Henry IV plays, focusing on the life and misadventures of Sir John Falstaff. Falstaff, played Welles, spends his days in a London tavern getting drunk, sleeping with prostitutes and developing money making…

“An evil old house, the kind some people call haunted, is like an undiscovered country waiting to be explored. Hill House had stood for 90 years and might stand for 90 more. Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there… walked alone.” ‘The Haunting’, directed by Robert Wise…

“I didn’t bring your breakfast, because you didn’t eat your din-din!” ‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’, directed in 1962 by Robert Aldrich, is an American psychological thriller. It follows two sisters from their youth to their old age. One, Baby Jane Hudson, played by Bette Davis, is a psychotically jealous ex-child star who never…

“For a while I was famous for my ‘long takes’, these sequence shots that last several minutes. At that time it was really special. Within these sequence shots there were close-ups and long shots – everything. Film-making is really over that now. With the influence of commercials and music, editing has become snappier. Unavoidably in…

‘Le Sang des Bêtes’ and ‘Judex’, are two French movies directed by Georges Franju in 1948 and 1963 respectively. The former is a short documentary depicting the men working in abattoirs in post-war France, whilst the latter is an adventure movie based on a silent film from 1916. ‘Le Sang des Bêtes’ is a brutal,…

“It’s hard to start a revolution. Even harder to continue it. And hardest of all to win it. But, it’s only afterwards, when we have won, that the true difficulties begin. In short, Ali, there’s still much to do.” ‘The Battle of Algiers’, directed by Gillo Pontecorvo in 1966, is a neorealist war movie set…

“It is the unique power of cinema to allow a great many people to dream the same dream together and to present illusion to us as if it were strict reality. It is, in short, an admirable vehicle for poetry. My film is nothing other than a striptease act, gradually peeling away my body to…

“I don’t know the world, so what can I say about it?” ‘Mother Joan of the Angels’, directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz in 1961, is a Polish psychological drama set in the seventeenth century. A priest visits a convent of nuns who are suffering from a generalised case of demonic possession. Once there he investigates, is…

“She isn’t my wife, really. We just have some kids. No, no kids, not even kids. Sometimes, though, it feels as if we had kids. She isn’t beautiful, she’s… easy to live with. No, she isn’t. That’s why I don’t live with her.” ‘Blow-up’, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni in 1966, is an Italian-British thriller set…

“I’m not a demon! I’m a human being!” ‘Onibaba’, directed by Kaneto Shindo in 1964, is a Japanese morality tale with a disconcertingly hard erotic and horrific edge. It tells the story of a woman and her mother-in-law who murder soldiers in order to sell their armour. One night a samurai in a demon mask…

“Bishop Cauchon: Do your saints hate the English? Jeanne d’Arc: They love what Our Lord loves and hate what he hates. Bishop Cauchon: Does God hate the English? Jeanne d’Arc: Whether he loves or hates them I don’t know. I only know they’ll be driven from France or die here.” ‘The Trial of Joan of…

It is now five months since I finished watching Mark Cousins’ ‘Story of Film’ and decided to increase my knowledge of and exposure to more interesting movies (I’m aware all this makes it sound like a prison sentence). I’ve watched, thought about and written about 133 movies watched which means around 30,000 words or a…

  “You have seen him often” ‘The Round-Up’, directed by Miklós Jancsó in 1965, is a Hungarian prison drama set in the 19th century. Following an attempted revolution in the country, the supporters of Lajos Kossuth are held in brutal prison camps. One, in the middle of the sun-blasted wastes of the Hungarian puszta becomes…

“Mamma, there’s a cuckoo up there!” ‘Ivan’s Childhood’, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1962, is one of his more accessible movies. It tells the story of Ivan, a young orphan during World War II who, after losing his mother, is recruited by the military to undertake reconnaissance missions. The story is told through a mixture…

“Faith doesn’t come to us through reason but through the heart.” ‘The Milky Way’, directed by Luis Buñuel in 1969, is a strange movie that follows two pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela as they encounter episodes from the history of the Catholic Church, priests, prostitutes, nuns, philosophers and soldiers. The pair of…

“We were the leopards, the lions, those who take our place will be jackals and sheep, and the whole lot of us – leopards, lions, jackals and sheep – will continue to think ourselves the salt of the earth.” ‘Il Gattopardo’ (translated as ‘The Leopard’), directed by Luchino Visconti in 1963, is an adaptation of…

“How you end up is your own fault.” ‘Mamma Roma’, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1962, tells the story of an ex-prostitute (who the film is named after), played by Anna Magnani, and her son. Mamma Roma tries to find work for her son in Rome but after finding out what she used to…

“You’re too sharp. That’s your trouble. You’re like a drawn sword. Sharp, naked without a sheath. You cut well. But good swords are kept in their sheaths.” ‘Sanjuro’, directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1962, is a spiritual sequel to the director’s 1961 movie ‘Yojimbo’. Toshiro Mifune plays a charismatic ronin who comes to the aid…

“The movie is just plain funny. And as a parable it is timeless, with relevance at many times in many lands. Remarkable, how often when I learn of a bureaucratic brainstorm I think of the fireman moving the farmer’s chair closer to the flames.” ‘The Fireman’s Ball’, directed by Miloš Forman in 1967, is a…

“Be silent in that solitude, Which is not loneliness—for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In death around thee—and their will Shall overshadow thee: be still.” ‘Spirits of the Dead’, directed by Roger Vadim, Louis Malle and Federico Fellini in 1969, is a portmanteau horror movie made…

“I think the point about ‘Marketa Lazarová’ is that when you first see it you’re confused, and by that I mean you know that the whole story of what you’re looking at is obscured, but it’s still there, but you have to look hard.” ‘Marketa Lazarová’, directed by František Vláčil in 1967, is a long,…

“Paris is small for great passion like us.” ‘Les Demoiselles de Rochefort’, directed by Jacques Demy in 1967, is a romantic musical set in a French southwestern seaside town. Two sisters are looking for love and, through a series of musical interludes, they encounter a host of suitors including an American played by Gene Kelly….