An Unexpected Pleasant Surprise!!!
On Twitter, I’ve been taking part in a quite few Film Challenges, for sometime now (but not regular enough). Yesterday afternoon, I was going through IMDB, checking out films I love, from before 1929, when I came across something unexpected. This was for yesterday’s #MayMovieChallenge, hosted by Gabriela(@noir_or_never) of Pale Writer: Classic and Horror films unite!! The Challenge was, to mention a Film made before 1929, that should have won an Oscar. I actually found FIVE FILMS!!!!! Anyway, I also checked Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) on IMDB. AND Wow!!!! What did I see??? I couldn’t believe my EYES👀, when I saw this.
IMDB (i.e. the famed Internet Movie Data Base) has a poster I created some years ago for a Blog Post of mine, posted on their site; front page of this Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince Documentary from 1888!!! I was like Wowza!!! That’s a lovely compliment! Feel really honoured!! Wonder how long they’ve had it! BUT, wait!!
Hmmmm!! ’twas not with my consent though! My Copyright!!!! Ha!! 😍
My Copyright!!!! Ha!! 😍
Of course, am kidding. After all, my Blog is in the public domain; so anyone can use my content (I think🤔). Anyway, it’s nice to see they’ve used it; and to post it on their site. Which means someone (or more than one person) from IMDB, has come across my BLOG!!!! That means there are more viewers for my Blog than am aware of!! That’s a great honour in itself!! 💗
What’s more surprising is, the fact this poster isn’t that great. I don’t have Photoshop or any other cool tools/Apps to create anything artistic (digitally speaking). I just have the ordinary “Paint” icon, on my Laptop (same with my previous Laptops). So there is nothing great about it. But it’s lovely to see it on IMDB!! PLUS, my printed name is quite noticeably visible on it!! 😊 Also see my Post, Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) – A Two Second Documentary, from October 2014.
Of course, I didn’t select, Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince’s (a.k.a. Louis Le Prince), Roundhay Garden Scene, for the Film Challenge (after all, though it’s the oldest surviving film footage; it was never shown on the Big Screen; the 1st Cinematic release was by the Lumière Brothers’, who had their 1st private screening of a projected motion picture, in 1895, for a select audience of 200 people), but I felt Le Prince deserved a Special Posthumous Oscar Award, for his contribution to the Moving Image. His unsolved disappearance (and maybe murder), on the way to demonstrate his scientific invention, in September 1890, is still a mystery.
Speaking of Twitter, I got this e-mail, last week (screenshot above). Although I’ve got only 661 followers (664 as of today) & am following 2,454 Twitter accounts; 8,769 people have seen my Tweets, within the week before last!! Wonderful! On my Blog here, I have 329 followers so far; and 83,320 views, altogether (yup, just decided to check that as well). Not Bad, eh!! 🙂
Meanwhile the Cannes Film Festival is currently under way; and I haven’t been able to follow that properly this time.
Nuwan Sen’s Film Sense
#NSFS (@Nuwansenfilmsen)
Nuwan Sen (NSFS👁)
What brought about this sudden urge to write about unrealistic romances, portrayed in a realistic style on celluloid? I watched, Her (2013), back in 
Stranger than Fiction (2006), has a similar unreal premise, but am yet to watch it, so I shan’t comment on it further.
If you take classic fairytales, we read as little children, like Beauty and Beast and Princess and Frog, this phenomena of man and beast is nothing new. Yet at the same time, both the ‘Beast’ and the ‘Frog’, are actually human beings, making it somewhat acceptable for children. If you take Greek mythology, there is the famous tale of Minotaur, where the Minotaur is the result of the Queen of Crete mating with a white bull. Added to which there are plenty of tales of Gods and human love stories, as well, in Greek Mythology. Then there is Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights Dream. There have been plenty of movie versions of these classic tales and great old literature. In I, Frankenstein (2014); as I stated on twitter ‘another 21st century ruination of a 19th century classic’; this dull horror movie ends with the hint, that Frankenstein’s monster, a man made being, has found a human companion, after searching for over 200 years. On a lighter vein, in not so great films (yet no where as near as terrible as I, Frankenstein), like the comedy, Hercules in New York (1970), Arnold Schwarzenegger falls from the skies (and not to forget Schwarzenegger’s ridiculous Terminator franchise, from 1984 onwards, with the craziest and cheesiest storylines, ever). Like in Corpse Bride, a man accidentally awakens a goddess, in the near pathetic, Goddess of Love (1988), while in Love-Struck (1997) we see a woman who doesn’t believe in love (Cynthia Gibb) fall for Cupid (Costas Mandylor) and vice versa; and Cupid has to decide if he wants to leave his immortal form, and become human. Similarly in City of Angels (1998), an angel (Nicolas Cage) gives up his human form, for his love for a human being (Meg Ryan). Date with an Angel (1987) is about another union between a man and beautiful angel.
Funny though, how all these Hollywood romances, dealing with unreal love, where the perfect looking lover, be it a mannequin, a fairy, a goddess or mermaid, were all hot white women. What happened to the browns, blacks and yellows? Where are the gays and lesbians? Are they considered less than perfect???? Added to which why is it most of time a man finding the perfect mate? And that too preferably a Blonde one? Even better if the blonde’s in a red hot attire? Like the sequence in The Matrix (1999), where Neo (played by Keanu Reeves), suddenly turns to take a good look at a blonde in a red dress. Why did she have to be blonde? What if he saw an African-American? or an Indian beauty? What if he turned to look at a man? Even in Virtual Sexuality, though it’s creation is a male, the man is a white male, Blond, with a perfect physique. Of course when it came to the Bollywood films, the perfect hero/heroine are both Indian’s, obviously. But United States of America, is a diverse country with all colours and creeds, where the indigenous people of the country are actually Red skinned, not white. Yet the 80’s (and 90’s to a certain extent) target audience, were the straight white American youth. Even though these reached beyond borders. And in a way, 80’s was one of the worst periods for Hollywood, with a load crappy B-movies, being made. Not all, but most, including these fantasy flicks.
The Stepford Wives (1975 & 2004), tells of how an intelligent woman finds it difficult, to integrate into a narrow minded society, when she moves into a new neighbourhood. Of course, all the wives (in the original 75’ film) turn out to be machines (while in the 04’ version, only one husband turns out to be a robot, while the other wives have been brainwashed). This is also symbolical, of how difficult it is, when a lone intellectual person gets trapped in an archaic society, that constantly tries to drag him or her down with them. I personally know how hard is to stay afloat, without changing for the worse, living in an extremist narrow minded country. It’s not easy not to be influenced by negativity. And just like Katharine Ross (in the original), and Nicole Kidman (in the comical remake); I have to fight to stay sane, not to be swayed by the rest.
Then there are people who fall for wordsmiths, that they’ve never met. In Saajan (1991) we see a woman (Madhuri Dixit) fall deeply in love with a poet (whom, nobody knows what he looks like), when a man claiming to be the poet (Salman Khan) seduces her, she falls for him. But does she truly love him? If he turns out not to be the poet, would she still love this man? In the Bengali (Bengali/English bilingual)Art Film, The Japanese Wife (2010) and the Hindi (Hindi/English bilingual) Art Film, The Lunchbox (2013), two people have an entire love affair through letters, without ever meeting each other. In The Japanese Wife, they even get married; through ink.
Set in the early 1900’s, during the Spanish carnival season; a hedonistic period of merry making; the entire story revolves around, a woman who seeks pleasure for the self, with no care for others feelings. At the same time, the men who lust for her are no saints themselves; and they deserve what they get (or rather not get), in return. The Devil is a Woman, is based on a French novel, La Femme et le Pantin by Pierre Louÿs; the English title of which reads as, The Woman and the Puppet.
The Synopsys 
The Dietrich Films
Jack Cardiff was born on the 18th of September, 1914, to a couple of music hall performers. By the age of four, he was already a child artiste, who’d worked in music hall productions as well as a few silent movies. As a child actor he starred in My Son, My Son (1918), Billy’s Rose (1922), The Loves of Mary, Queen of Scots (1923) and Tiptoes (1927). By 15 he started working as a camera assistant, clapper boy and production runner. By 21, Cardiff had graduated to camera operator and occasional cinematographer. Having already worked with Alfred Hitchcock, in The Skin Game (1931), as a clapper boy; soon he got a chance to work with Powell&Pressburger, as a second unit cameraman. Powell&Pressburger were so impressed that they hired him as a cinematographer, and the rest is history.
No Nonsense with Nuwan Sen 