Beautiful! “Dreams of a hovering subterranean room” Source drawings by mathew borrett via socks studio

Sruli Recht

From bloom-magazine.eu

unpalombaro:

Pair of hands from a group statue of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. c. 1350 BCE. Amarna. Neues Museum, Berlin
via Niklas

The Legend of the Surami Fortress (1984) (English subtitles).

This film is in memory of the Georgian warriors of all times who had given their lives for their country. It is based on an old Georgian legend: Preparing to defend their country from the onslaught of foreign conquerors, people started building a fortress, but each time the wall had reached the roof level, it collapsed. “The wall will hold if the most handsome young man is immured in it, ” predicted a fortune-teller. And forward stepped a young man who was ready to sacrifice his life for his country. Thanks to that self-sacrifice, the fortress was erected, and nothing and no one could ever destroy it.

Crew:
Director: Paradzhanov Sergei, Abashidze David
Script: Gigashvili Vazha
Camera: Klimenko Yuri
Music by: Kakhidze Dzhansug

© Georgia-Film Studio, 1984.
==================
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. 
==================
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Suram_Fortress
Internet Movie Database:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087606/
RUSCICO:
http://www.ruscico.com/dvd.php?lang=en&dvd=61

Color of Pomegranates / Sayat Nova (1968) (English subtitles).

Steeped in religious iconography, The Color of Pomegranates is a deeply spiritual testament to director Sergei Parajanov’s fascination with Armenian folk art and culture. It is also a controversial work, which, coupled with another of his films, Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors, led to his arrest and imprisonment in a Soviet Gulag for four years. The Soviets insisted he was guilty of selling gold and icons illegally and committing “homosexual acts.” In reality, his only crime was offending the tenets of socialist realism, both in his daring surrealistic form and in his choice of subject matter. While many of the popular films of this era in Soviet cinema were largely propaganda designed to serve the ideological interests of the regime, Parajanov chose to focus on the ethnography and spirituality of the Ukraine, Armenia, and Georgia. 

====================
Cast:
Directed by Sergei Parajanov
Written by Sergei Parajanov
Sayat-Nova (poems)
Narrated by Armen Jigarkhanyan
Music by Tigran Mansuryan

Cast:
Sofiko Chiaureli as Poet as a Youth / Poet’s Love / Poet’s Muse / Mime / Angel of Resurrection
Melkon Aleksanyan Poet as a child
Vilen Galstyan as Poet in the cloister
Giorgi Gegechkori as Poet as an old man
Spartak Bagashvili as Poet’s father
Medea Djaparidze as Poet’s mother
Hovhannes Minasyan as Prince
Onik Minasyan as Prince

© ARMENFILM, 1968.
====================
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_of_Pomegranates
Internet Movie Database:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063555/
Reverseshot.com:
http://www.reverseshot.com/legacy/spring04/color.html
====================
English subtitles from:
http://subs.com.ru/page.php?id=4909

The Night of the Hunter, 1955

“The film was a collaboration of Charles Laughton and screenwriter James Agee. Laughton drew on the harsh, angular look of German expressionist films of the 1920s. The film’s music, composed and arranged by Walter Schumann in close association with Laughton, features a combination of nostalgic and expressionistic orchestral passages. The film has two original songs by Schumann, “Lullaby” (sung by Kitty White, whom Schumann discovered in a nightclub) and “Pretty Fly” (originally sung by Sally Jane Bruce as Pearl, but later dubbed by an actress named Betty Benson). A recurring musical device involves the preacher making his presence known by singing the traditional hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” Mitchum also recorded the soundtrack version of the hymn. In 1974, film archivists Robert Gitt and Anthony Slide retrieved several boxes of photographs, sketches, memos, and letters relating to the film from Laughton’s widow Elsa Lanchester for the American Film Institute. Lanchester also gave the Institute over 80,000 feet of rushes and outtakes from the filming. In 1981, this material was sent to the UCLA Film and Television Archive where, for the next 20 years, they were edited into a two-and-half hour documentary that premiered in 2002, at UCLA’s Festival of Preservation.” Source: Wikipedia

“The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 American thriller film directed by Charles Laughton and starring Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters.[1] The film is based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Davis Grubb, adapted for the screen by James Agee and Laughton. The novel and film draw on the true story of Harry Powers, hanged in 1932 for the murders of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The film’s lyric and expressionistic style sets it apart from other Hollywood films of the 1940s and 50s, and it has influenced later directors such as David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Jim Jarmusch, the Coen brothers, and Spike Lee.In 1992, The Night of the Hunter was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in its National Film Registry.” Source :Wikipedia

The Night of the Hunter, 1955

Incredible…

Bien-U Bae - Kyung ju, Photo extraite de la série “Sonamu”, 1985

St. Francis Church, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, 1931 by Paul Strand

Assisi 35, marzo, 1935
china su carta Giappone sottile
15,4 x 35,3 cm
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
Copyright:© 2008 ProLitteris, Zürich

Monti 14.6.60, 1960
tempera a olio e uovo su cotone trattato dall’artista
19,7 x 25,4 cm
Archivio Bissier, Ascona
Copyright:© 2008 ProLitteris, Zürich

So raw and inspiring!

Ceramics by Shozo Michikawa