herbert ( film )
london film awards winners truly represent the best of the independent film and screenwriting. the london film awards proudly recognizes the gold lion award winners of the 2017 film and screenplay competitions .
herbert (a heavy heart) by director thomas stuber is available as vod now .
mark herbert is joint ceo of sheffield - based warp films, one of the uk’s most critically acclaimed independent film and television production companies .
robert herbert the film programmer at the art gallery of new south wales has died and it' s with some sense of shock for the cinephile community .
chris parsons, partner at herbert smith freehills and chairman of the firm' s india practice and dheer bhatnagar, lawyer and nlsiu alumnus, introduce the herbert smith freehills' community engagement awards in the above video .
and theatre director suman mukherjee achieves this feat with his debut film, herbert. intense, funny, ironic, dark, even macabre, herbert is a rich intricate tableau that depicts the saga of orphaned, neglected, bullied herbert, the most disenfranchised member of a crumbling north calcutta household inhabited by eccentrics and idealists. the film narrative spans several decades, using this typically quirky bengali family as symbol of decadence & apos; cultural, moral, political & apos; of the times. and employs protagonist herbert as a kind of pendulum, swinging back and forth in time, pausing and breaking its linearity. stylistically, too, herbert shuttles between monochromatic classic to multi - coloured kitsch .
the deeply flawed film version of frank herbert' s novel was universally hated when it premiered 30 years ago, but it still successfully brought much of the classic sci - fi novel to life .
the herbert smith freehills' community engagement awards recognises and champions meaningful and high impact community engagement activity led by law students in india .
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● to order ash by james herbert (macmillan) at £18. 99 send a cheque or po payable to express bookshop to: herbert offer, po box 200, falmouth tr11 4wj or phone 0871 988 8367 or visit expressbookshop. com. uk delivery is free. calls cost 10p per minute from uk landlines .
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only james herbert would dare to write a novel that queasily imagines princess diana and her secret son as well as lord lucan, colonel gaddafi and robert maxwell living together in a scottish castle. but herbert – one of britain’s bestselling authors for 41 years – doesn’t care. he thrives on controversy and he loves to shock .
herbert went on to produce the successful spin - off tv series this is england ‘86 which averaged 2. 5 million viewers and set a new record for a debut drama series, this was followed by this is england ‘88. both series’ have received major awards at the baftas, royal television awards, sydney film festival and stockholm film festival .
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your entries will be assessed by the herbert smith freehills' community engagement awards committee, and winners will be selected by a panel made up of members of our india practice .
before his death in 1986, herbert said that he was largely pleased with lynch’s film' s representation of his universe. you can understand why. while it' s hardly a cohesive experience, individual scenes are brought to life with striking power. watching dune today holds the same joy as flipping through an illustrated version of the novel. considering the density and imagination of herbert' s world, that should count as something of an achievement .
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2006. directed by suman mukhopadhyay. screenplay by mukhopadhyay, based on the novel by nabarun bhattacharya. with subhashish mukherjee, bratya basu, sabyasachi chakravarthy, lily chakravarty. herbert tells the kaleidoscopic saga of herbert sarkar, an idiot savant in calcutta who incites the wrath of the international rationalist society with his successful business enterprise ,
dialogues with the dead .
the same year, he produced shane meadows’ this is england. since its release in early 2007 it has gained many awards including the' best film' at the british independent films awards, the special jury prize at the rome film festival and best british film at the baftas in 2008 .
cinematographic images are requisitely varied in tone and texture apt for such a stylised film. and arghya kamal mitra? s flawless editing tightly holds this film? s structure and thus also our attention .
the statesman
in herbert, the film, literature meets theatre meets cinema to lead to a form that' s a delicious carnival - a never - ending series of snapshots that continually push and threaten to rummage the fragile membrane that separates the world we know from what remains unknowable
. chitralekha basu
we plan to present the awards to the winners at a formal event in india. the event will be attended by the winners along with invited herbert smith freehills' partners, employees and guests. this event will present the opportunity for herbert smith freehills to draw the programme to a close for the year, reflect on its goals and achievements, and present other opportunities for students to engage with the firm .
you don’t have to know much about dune, either the 1965 frank herbert novel or the 1984 david lynch film adapted from it, to know that it tells a deeply crazy story. though there are familiar lines and big moments that stand out, the whole can be baffling, especially if you haven’t revisited it for a while. if you don’t believe me, refresh your memory with this info dump from the film :
the herbert smith freehills' community engagement awards programme invites entries from individuals or teams of students across all law schools to showcase outstanding contributions they are making in their communities. there will be two main categories :
so when young herbert goes for movie outing with marxist uncle, and the film turns out to be eisenstein? s battleship potempkin, you cannot cringe. because later in turbulent 70s calcutta herbert (with naxalite nephew) imagines the staircase of presidency college turning into? odessa steps? . and you don? t miss the romance and irony of such ideas. and you don? t grudge the director because by then he wins you over with his style. and you? re ready to see his? take? .
herbert’s heady mix of horror and conspiracy theory has proved hugely successful. his 23 novels have sold more than 54 million copies and he earns a £1million advance per book. now 69, he lives in a mansion in west
herbert’s latest novel is based on the notion that diana went into early labour after throwing herself down the stairs and gave birth to a deformed son who was (unknown to his parents) hidden away with lucan et al .
suman mukhopadhyay, in his complex narrative style, uses herbert brilliantly as the pendulum, which moves back and forth in time, capturing a period and juxtaposing it with its ideology and social ethos. thus, the film not just covers the life of the protagonist, but also the city which has travelled through the times, governed by different ideologies. in this highly stylistic film, suman mukhopadhyay uses some brilliant techniques which gel amazingly well with the narrative
. deepa ganesh
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
charlatan or clown? innocent or insidious? terrorist or trickster? there are indeed many ways of describing herbert sarkar - - a forty year old crank who thinks that he can talk to the dead... . see full synopsis »
stefan pape from heyuguys interviews director mahalia belo and producer casey herbert after they won the award for best short for' volume' at the 2012 british independent film awards. for syndication or usage opportunities please contact syndication @ heyuguys. co. uk. more from heyuguys website ► urltoken follow us on twitter ► urltoken subscribe here! ► urltoken facebook ► urltoken instagram ► urltoken
herbert lived well from his giant body for years, as a boxer since the gdr, nicknamed' pride of leipzig', and now as bouncer and debt collector, while training promising boxers, especially gentle eddy, who got a shot at the title in a much lower weight class. after ignoring symptoms for months, collapsing herbert is diagnosed with the incurable muscular disease als, and is bluntly dropped from all his jobs and the gym. seeking to set straight what went wrong is his life, he mends as good as he can with his daughter - neglected since age six - and deals with girl friend marlene. herbert is lucky with great home assistant steffen, even gets to cheer protege eddy to his title as last sportive achievement .
responsible for producing some of the uk’s most celebrated film and television, mark’s work has found success internationally and has inspired the confidence of highly creative directors working at the cutting edge of film. in 2002 mark produced chris morris’ bafta - winning short film my wrongs # 8245 - 8249 & 117 for warp films. he followed this with his, and warp films, debut feature dead man’s shoes, directed by shane meadows. it was nominated for a record eight british independent film awards and won the hitchcock d’or at the dinard festival .
though not to suggest that a great film adaption is impossible, herbert’s novel was and continues to be powerful because of what it shows through the imagination of the author and the relevance it bears to the reader. no amount of filmmaking technology or budgetary expenditures will ever be able to provide dune with the kind of scope and magnitude of its story, or at least not without sacrificing some crucial part. that’s the thing with book, too. herbert’s carefully constructed ecology of people, plants, animals, politics, cultures, and belief systems is not unlike any ecological system where even the smallest change eventually becomes a vast deviation from the norm .
charlatan or clown? innocent or insidious? terrorist or trickster? there are indeed many ways of describing herbert sarkar - - a forty year old crank who thinks that he can talk to the dead. herbert grew up in north kolkata, feeding on the charity of relatives, and being the butt of local jokes. he declares one day that he has received a message in a dream that has told him where his long dead cousin binus diary is hidden. people are surprised and amused. but when this prediction proves to be true, herbert becomes a local sensation. he sets up a roaring business called
dialogues with the dead
for three years and for the first time in his life, earns money and the respect of others. however, his luck runs out when the international rationalist society declares him a fraud and threatens to turn him over to the law unless he closes shop. this deeply affects herbert and he commits suicide that very night. however, his celebrity power increases to unprecedented levels the day after his ...
overstating the doomed from the outset nadir of lynch’s film is like second nature to the sci - fi hive mind, with whole blogs dedicated to the cause of beating the film equivalent of a dead horse. what’s rarely mentioned—at least without a snort and obscure reference to the fremen doctrine of not giving a fuck about anything but water—is that lynch’s dune is a de facto illustration of what can go horribly awry when desperation is the driving point for making a film, even more so when that film is based on one of the most cherished books of the century .
his father was a drunk and his mother a seamstress. herbert maximised his talents to reinvent himself as the british stephen king. despite his achievements it still rankles with him that – unlike his american rival – only four of his books have been made into films .
when his father died 16 years ago aged 86, herbert scattered his ashes in his garden at the foot of a plum tree. “he loved a drink so i took a bottle of really good single malt – a present from uri geller – and two tumblers .
it is also undeniable that the passion of the cast and the characters created by meadows is second to none. the director told film 4 :
this feature documentary is a portrait of herbert norman, the canadian ambassador to egypt who leapt to his death in 1957. during his remarkable career, norman had been a trusted aide of general macarthur in post - war japan and later played a key role in the suez crisis. but for years, a us senate subcommittee probed his past while the fbi accumulated a huge file on him, refusing to accept an rcmp investigation that cleared him of being a communist spy. interviews with key players and dramatizations help reconstruct herbert norman' s life .
the agnsw remains the only venue, limited as its selections were, where something resembling cinematheque activity occurs in sydney. it can only be hoped that robert herbert has left a legacy of quality presentation, interesting programming and rigourous screening conditions that will be continued in the future .
avant - garde, experimental and largely dialogue - free spanish documentary shot during the making of jess franco' s count dracula, starring christopher lee. the unique look of the film, similar to that of early expressionist horror films, is down to the high contrast black & white film stock used .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
meadows often prefers to work with undiscovered and amateur actors, and for most of the cast in the film this was their first experience of professional acting .
based on bram stoker' s bestseller, the film follows count dracula as an old man who grows younger by feeding on the blood of young maidens .
editor' s note: veteran cinephile barrie pattison has sent in over 150 reviews for the delectation of film alert readers. he is an invet ...
and now for something completely different. “herbert, ” a mad, messy and frequently amazing epic from india, features many of the qualities you expect from bollywood: garish verve, dizzy excess, punishing duration, wild leaps in narrative tone and structure. but that’s the simple part. .
for ardent fans of herbert’s book, the suggestion that paul was a supernatural being able to bless the planet and the fremen with these strange sky tears, was an intolerable and unnecessary addition by way of omission from lynch. the primary issue with the film’s interpretation of paul’s character is that it overstates the heroism to imply the helplessness of the fremen, a point fiercely contrasted by how completely self - sufficient and self - sustaining the arrakeen indigenous culture had been for generations .
for as long as i’ve been in sydney robert was the face and the engine of the agnsw screening program and for that program to be done robert was required to be all things. the gallery theatre has not moved into the 21 st century and its film program was entirely reliant on 16mm and 35mm film. robert’s sources at the various cultural institutions (the nfsa, the cultural departments of the major european governments chief among many) supplied him with film for an extensive near weekly program .
herbert' s book offered a meticulously detailed saga of a dark future where royal houses war for control of the desert planet arrakis and its precious resource, the spice melange. fitting all of that tale into movie length proved comically impossible for jodorowsky. lynch’s film palpably suffers from numerous cuts and recuts to the final edit, which clocks in at two hours and 17 minutes. so instead of showing not telling the story, the movie relies on a flurry of voiceover and breathy exposition. like this :
to be fair, that distorted view of paul by lynch or one of the umpteen screenwriters who had beaten the script out of the novel was far more marketable than herbert’s. he rendered an entire culture who planned to reset the ecology of a desolate, waterless planet by essentially creating a terrarium environment over thousands of years with hidden, underground water reservoirs. never mind the fact that a messianic monsoon would turn their millenniums - long plan into a shitshow: the fremen looked better on film as a sort of primitive culture in need of a savior .
arriving in the middle of what was arguably the most politically and socially divisive time in american history, dune could have very easily been herbert’s attempt to capitalize on that civil unrest with a ham - fisted allegory of the haves versus the have - nots or the always reliable overstated literary exercise in self - righteous grandstanding. instead, herbert’s novel manages to touch on those issues with a subtlety and depth that still reads as a relevant cautionary tale for today’s socio - cultural, political, and environmental issues. the problem, as it relates to translating those concepts into a visual experience, is not unlike the same kind of roadblock that filmmakers had for years in attempts to bring those lord of the rings stories to the screen .
the film' s production is masterful in itself, and it syncs with the themes of the original storyverse. set 10, 000 years in the future, everything looks appropriately streamlined. yet plenty of baroque flourishes (the emperor’s court in the opening scenes looks like a relic of imperial russia) remain, as if to illustrate, as herbert does in his novel, that even as we evolve, certain elements of our existence will remain constant. jodorowsky' s new - age, bright and groovy acid - trip take seemed to miss this point .
the anti - heroism and self - reliance of the fremen people is one of dune ’s most powerful components because it places less importance on the superstitious reductions of fanaticism and on the logical practicality of autonomy. yes, paul is the kwisatz haderach, and sure, the scene with his little scary - as - hell demon - voiced sister declaring him as such is a nice if not overcooked exclamation point to a cinematic run - on sentence. but the elevation of herbert’s completely human paul to lynch’s perfectly conceived and untouchable superman detracts from the story’s overall and most compelling idea that the only perfection is found in nature and environment. for herbert, survival and enlightenment are the closest to perfection the rest of us can ever hope for .
therein lies the beginning of what runs the film aground when compared to the book. the book wastes no time in revealing that paul is the assumed messianic figure, otherwise known as the kwisatz haderach, for the fremen people of arrakis (dune). the film does this as well, and at least in that regard, both film and book run parallel. the synchronicity takes a swan dive, though, once paul’s training, self - awareness, and general sense of being “the chosen one” become a platform for what’s little more than magic or sorcery, à la the force .
the dance of reality, so unlike tusk, is a marvellous film. the late film critic roger ebert called it a work of “wild imagination, ” filled with “awesome things. ” the second part in the series, endless poetry (2016), which is slated for a general release this year, has been hailed by variety (who panned tusk many moons ago) as possibly jodorowsky’s best .
at the beginning of tie 88 meadows gifted every cast member a sony bloggie – a tiny camera the size of a mobile phone that shoots in hd – so that they could film behind the scenes footage .
“he made it up as he went along, ” sathyu said of jodorowsky’s style of directing, and pasha agreed, “we didn’t know what was supposed to happen. ” compare the screenplay with the film and it quickly becomes apparent how far the final product strayed from its plan. in the screenplay, john morrison’s wife does not die in childbirth but is a prominent character for the first part of the film. by the end, elise and cairns marry and have a daughter (whom they also name elise). and throughout, there is only one sadhu, who appears in just a handful of scenes. of course, modifying a script on location is not unusual for any film production. but the extent to which tusk drifts from what was envisioned of it testifies to how thoroughly unprepared jodorowsky was to make a film in india .
one of the most divisive of lynch’s modifications in the film is his treatment of the weirding way, a telepathic form of combat developed by the bene gesserit school of witchcraft and wizardry. in the book, herbert goes to great lengths to describe the fighting method, which is dependent upon the psychokinetic makeup of the mind and consciousness. not satisfied with such a primitive concept, lynch or who the hell knows, really, decided to replace mind - to - mind combat with—wait for it—laser pistols. laser pistols that use sound as their lasers. so instead of “zap! zap! ” it’s “aaaaaa - cha” .
edmund goulding' s version deserves crdit for trying to adapt maugham' s difficult existential movel, but tyrone power is miscast and the film is too melodramatic and verbose, failing to illustrate the novel' s essence .
in 2006 he received the dunhill award at the london film festival and was mentioned by the observer as one of the courvoisier future 500. mark was also nominated by variety magazine as one of 10 producers to watch .
neagle portraying another great lady, this time odette churchill, the french wife of an englishman, who spied for the french resistance during world war ii, was captured and tortured by the nazis, but survived to be awarded the george cross. neagle acquits herself reasonably well, but the whole film is bogged down by a surfeit of respect and patriotism. the kind of film in which you know in advance exactly what will happen next .
with dune, focusing on a few of the most striking differences between film and book would have to begin with what’s arguably the film’s most significant omission. in the novel, paul atreides, the 15 - year - old son and heir to duke leto atreides, is a precocious, albeit emotionally naïve character. paul’s mother is lady jessica, a student of the bene gesserit sisterhood, an exclusively female school for training its students in the highest levels of physical and mental powers. she’s also the concubine, but not wife, of the duke, a decision he expresses throughout both book and film (he is portrayed outstandingly in the movie by actor jürgen prochnow) .
rather than use india just as a backdrop, jodorowsky wanted to make a film about the country’s culture. but in making india his muse, he succumbed to ideas of indian culture that were romanticised and also misconceived. the story of tusk ’s making—which i put together over the last few months through interviews with many members of the film’s crew—traces jodorowsky’s strangely desperate struggle to hold on to those ideas, in the face of india’s incongruent, chaotic realities .
entries may be submitted in the form of a short film (2 - 5 minutes in length), supported by additional information via the entry form. the focus is on key achievements and impact, and therefore, we are not looking to focus on other aspects such as the quality or presentation of the film. we would also like to hear your views on how the prize money would make a difference to your chosen non - profit partner .
kitty herbert died 10 years ago aged 93, 18 years after divorcing her husband at last. her ashes sit on a shelf next to those of his favourite dog. “i’ll scatter my mother’s ashes in the garden one day. not near the old man, though. as for me, i don’t worry so much about death as the manner of death. i just don’t want to be there when it happens. ”
after all that, it probably doesn' t sound like there' s anything worthwhile in lynch' s film. that' s far from the truth. it’s certainly a different kind of sci fi than star wars, which was created to comfort and entertain. dune wanted to challenge, and though its stumbling attempts to pontificate on religion and ecology may have been its downfall, those attempts also produced some of the film' s most resonant moments .
the most groan - inducing example of the gaffe comes at the film’s end, when it’s revealed that in addition to his skills at making modules and tamin’ sand serpents, paul can also bring the rain. literally. lynch’s film, which by that time was a smoldering pile of “what the hell just happened, ” concludes with a robed paul looking upward just as rain begins to pour on the up until then un - rained - upon arrakis. for unwitting filmgoers who’d not read the book and powered through to the bitter end, the film’s denouement seems like a perfectly bizarre conclusion to what had been a two - hour backward time warp into the most incomprehensible levels of bizarre .
when asked why tusk was shot in india when campbell’s story is set in siam (a perfectly suitable location), sathyu shrugged, as if stating the obvious. “they wanted to make a film here, ” he said .
calcutta based screenwriter amitabha roy is traveling to hashimara in north bengal partly to visit his brother - in - law and partly to do research for what will be his third film. en route... see full summary »
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although an awkward francophone fetishisation of india, tusk bears some markings of a trademark jodorowsky film. fantasy, mysticism and anti - colonial protest were familiar territory for jodorowsky, but tusk, from its very conception, was destined to fail. while on the one hand tusk was marketed as a children’s film, it was also labelled in its opening credits as “a panic fable, ” a reference to the panic movement, of which jodorowsky was a founding member .
herbert smith freehills engages with various indian law schools, across several fronts. as a firm, we are also keen on contributing to the social space in india. we believe that volunteering helps to develop well - rounded individuals and helps law students develop the ability to communicate and work with a diverse range of people. this benefits the students' communities and also helps us identify the types of high calibre candidates we aim to recruit .
that’s not to say that lynch failed at bringing to life herbert’s brilliantly imagined world and its still relevant environmental cautionary tale. looking at what the director was in fact able to do with the little he had to work with, the film becomes less a travesty against the sanctity of laser pistol cinema art and more another example in what can go so horribly wrong it’s almost right with movie adaptations of books. it just so happens that this book in particular happened to be densely packed with entire civilizations, religions, mathematics, philosophies, mystery worms, and the entirely imagined ecological makeup of a planet, its inhabitants, and the inhabiting collective consciousness of those inhabitants .
undoubtedly a play off of luke skywalker and the rhetorically challenged prophetic revelations of yoda, the character of paul had to be a familiar sell to audiences. kyle maclachlan plays the part incredibly well, despite being much older than the character, but the safety of keeping him close to an already well - established character for moviegoers ended up being a large part of the film’s undoing. had lynch or any one of the glut of directors attached over the years given the time and freedom necessary to do the story justice, it’s safe to assume that paul’s character, the central point of the book and trilogy, would have been given the necessary depth that herbert intended .
before becoming a novelist herbert was art director of a london ad agency. “but by the age of 28 i thought i’d done it all in advertising so i started writing the rats at weekends. it took me eight or nine months to finish. still, i carried on doing both jobs, working seven - day weeks for five years. but i was killing myself. i never saw my children. something had to give. ”
another key difference between book and film is the larger role given to the collective known as the spacing guild. though significant characters, the spacing guild’s presence in the first of herbert’s dune series is just this side of nien nunb (or catfish co - pilot) from return of the jedi. lynch’s decision to not only include them but to visually construct them in the most lynchian - level disgusting of ways is an interesting if not slightly jarring digression. resembling the love child of a t - rex, sloth from the goonies, and a tube of meat, the guild navigators are absolutely hideous but also weirdly mesmerizing—a dynamic that has worked in the director’s favor for years .
an okay adaptation of maugham. it isn' t a great
returning home
film but maugham' s book does present some real challenges in terms of adaptation. a modern director likely would have been able to do the trick .
ever determined, he organised his own film festival – hiring out a local porn cinema as a venue. there were only 15 seats in the cinema and about 80 people turned up, so they had to show the tapes in batches .
each event provides an opportunity for indian law students to interact with, and learn from, some of the world' s leading lawyers and academics - such as edward walker - arnott, chris parsons, justin d' agostino, other partners at herbert smith freehills, professor timothy endicott (dean - oxford law) and professor james edelman (barrister, fellow at keble college, and lecturer and professor of the law of obligations in the faculty of law) .
but jodorowsky had no idea where exactly he would shoot the film. he only knew he needed a landscape teeming with elephants, for, according to the screenplay, a good - hearted rogue elephant was to be the protagonist. unsure of where to find elephants in india, let alone how to make them act, the film’s french producer enlisted the help of a seasoned local, the filmmaker ms sathyu (best - known for his partition classic garm hava, which released in 1974) .
for all that the book is in terms of its influence and acclaim, dune has the plot structure density of a supermassive black hole. yes, star wars tells a better visual story (for the most part), but taking into account the kind of detailed, non - cursory perspective of every character, setting, background, and thematic narrative down to the subatomic level would make seven films work just as an introduction piece if there was any hope of giving any semblance of justice to the depth of herbert’s book. the simple fact is that in its own strange way, a film’s inability to capture the enormity and grandeur of a book is less a criticism of the filmmaker and more a testament to the book’s incalculable brilliance .
five frustratingly long years after the last offering, this is england 90 is the latest in a series which has taken us on a seven year journey beginning in 1983, with the 2006 film which introduced us to a group of disenchanted youths in the midlands .
space, witches, prophesies, lasers, gigantic worms, hallucinogenics, messiahs, gom jabbars, kyle maclachlan—what could possibly go wrong? if you’re frank herbert, absolutely nothing. if you’re david lynch, universal studios, or one of the millions of confused and horrified moviegoers in december 1984? a metric fuck ton. the complete and total failure of dune as a film has become the stuff of ishtar - level ridicule, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that both films featuring copious use of sand footage. as is the case with many films that flop with the same kind of epic grandeur as the premise of their story, lynch’s dune was the director’s attempt at condensing the story equivalent of the pacific ocean into a solo cup .
plenty of celebrities would have ignored such a request, and others still might have snidely pointed to the film’s wikipedia page. but kyle maclachlan is not plenty of actors, so he offered something else altogether, a gloriously concise synopsis of the plot in 41 emojis :
a story about a simpleton with a golden heart and complex troubled mind. trapped in a desolate existence, he begins to? communicate? with the dead and eventually commits suicide. how does a sad dark tale like this prevent itself from being too maudlin or too morbid & apos; and instead become an exciting inspirational film & apos; with conviction of a director. and a film? s convincing language (treatment) and confident body - language (form); expressed by superb histrionics of actors and rendered with excellent filmcraft of technicians .
the gallery’s policies regarding film presentation are absurdly limited, concentrating almost entirely on films connected to current exhibitions. there are exceptions such as the retrospectives presented by the sydney film festival, but over the years robert worked within a system that required more than a bit of adroitness to get some variety and the odd killer connection. as far as i know, robert booked the films, assembled the programs and then projected them. projections were preceded by the most ferocious demands on the audience, starting with a no admissions after the start of the film and then subjecting the crowd to some serious admonitions as to how to behave during the show. i clapped the series of slides at every screening i attended though there always remained some buffoon or other who thought their phone calls or text messages were more important than everyone else’s enjoyment .
aside from replacing the old standby laser sound with the deadly hazards of a rogue sneeze, lynch’s “complete abortion of a sacred text” is really not so much. if anything, the film pares down the immense complexity of its source material to avoid allowing the film to be (even more) convoluted. for all that it misses, lynch’s dune makes its greatest error in background omission. background of the harkonnens, the atreides, the padishah emperor, his daughter who provides the unnecessary hush - whisper voiceover narration, but most unfortunately, that of the fremen .
titas ekti nadir naam - adaita mallabarman' s novel to utpal dutt' s theatre, ritwik ghatak' s film - three autonomous, extraordinary creations. suman' s teesta paarer brittanto will remain as an instance like that
. (translated from original bengali) ananda bazar patrika
mukherjee employs a range of cinematic, dramatic devices in the film. flashforward - flashbacks (parents, childhood) to brechtian alienation (father behind movie camera). and strong influences of several european masters, especially fellini is clearly evident. but despite such? educated? references, somehow he never lets his ideas or storytelling become? alien? or elitist. maybe because he manages to keep his film grounded, rooted to our own culture - specific milieu, utilising all its banal characteristics, colloquialism and linguistic slang (profanities bit too excessive though) with passion and flamboyance .
mukherjee employs a range of cinematic, dramatic devices in the film. flashforward - flashbacks (parents, childhood) to brechtian alienation (father behind movie camera). and strong influences of several european masters, especially fellini is clearly evident. but despite such' educated' references, somehow he never lets his ideas or storytelling become' alien' or elitist. maybe because he manages to keep his film grounded, rooted to our own culture - specific milieu, utilising all its banal characteristics, colloquialism and linguistic slang (profanities bit too excessive though) with passion and flamboyance
. mandira mitra
this movie sounds very promising, but it wasn' t as good as i expected. the story is very normal, very long, and gets boring eventually. it isn' t a bad movie, it just isn' t the emotional, dramatic, yet entertaining film it could have been .
in transplanting the story to southern india, jodorowsky changes not only the landscape of the story, but also its cultural implications. while campbell’s tale offers no spiritual or cultural commentary, tusk, in its migration to india, introduces a slew of indian motifs, the most obvious being the sadhus and the religious processions, which have no real counterparts in the original book. the film’s screenplay, written by jeffrey o’kelly, an irish writer, drives home that tusk is a film about india. photographs of indian temples and wilderness run through the 258 - page - long document, with the landscape described in variants of “tropical southern indian. ”
here, in india, no one in the unit saw tusk, though they all wondered for decades what became of their work. and no one heard from jodorowsky either—they only heard stories through intercontinental grapevines. nitin sethi, one of the members of the film’s crew, said he ran into jodorowsky some years later on the metro in paris. he reported that jodorowsky looked bedraggled and impoverished. but the story that lasted among those who had tried to track both tusk and its director’s fate was a different one—when jodorowsky returned to paris, he rode to the film’s premiere, past the eiffel tower, on the back of a circus elephant .
and that’s just the back story! no wonder, then, that some fans of kyle maclachlan, who starred in the film as paul atreides, have been left a little confused. that, at least, is presumably what led someone to tweet a query at the actor, asking him to explain it to her :
starting in 1971, the film burned up millions as it passed through the hands of planet of the apes producer arthur p. jacobs, chilean director alejandro jodorowsky, and sci - fi maven ridley scott before landing in the hands of avant - noir director david lynch. jodorowsky’s aborted 10 - hour, salvador dali - starring, pink floyd - scored version is the subject of a new documentary, jodorowsky’s dune. with that project putting dune back on nerdkind’s mind this month, it’s worth looking back at lynch’s film—a deeply flawed work that failed as a commercial enterprise, but still managed to capture and distill essential portions of one of science fiction’s densest works .
on a crisp morning sometime in late february 1978, an elephant waited patiently outside mysore’s hotel metropole to meet with a foreign visitor. alejandro jodorowsky, a chilean - french filmmaker with a cult international following, had requested the meeting. earlier that decade, jodorowsky had shot to fame with the off - kilter hit el topo (1970), which had caught the attention of many in the alternative arts fraternity, including john lennon. lennon even helped fund jodorowsky’s next film, the holy mountain, which released in 1973 to widespread acclaim. five years later, jodorowsky arrived in mysore to start work on his next film, tusk, which was to be based in india .
various things have gone wrong. a whole ten days’ telexes to paris never got through. the stars have arrived a whole week before it was necessary…everyone is cross…the arrangements are ghastly and everyone blames everyone else. shoutings continue… [ gg (the cinematographer) ] has worked all over the world and says this is the worst organised film he has ever been on .
that said, lynch’s vision for turning one of the greatest and most inherently complex science fiction stories ever written into a film was about as valiant an effort as anyone could’ve made in the same circumstances. long before new line cinema were saying “fuck it. why not? ” to peter jackson’s lord of the rings films, directors like lynch were fighting an uphill battle to go past the 120 - minute mark, much less go full godfather and unleash holy celluloid running - time hell. add to that the fact that the previous seven years had been ass and elbows absorbed into a relatively well known and cherished film franchise called star wars, and dune likely felt like the beastmaster did for audiences after seeing conan the barbarian .
as she viewed snippets of tusk on youtube, oriole remembered the sadhus did not dress in real life as they appear in the film. they usually wrapped themselves in layers of fabric but jodorowsky insisted one of them pare down his garb to bare chest and a langot, as if to make the sadhu look like one of those from the fábulas pánicas comic strips .
published in 1965, herbert’s novel received with near universal acclaim, culminating in his being awarded the 1966 hugo award. in the 50 years since, dune has become one of the best - selling science fiction novels of all time. released just a little over a decade after j. r. r. tolkien’s seminal first installment of the lord of the rings series, dune worked as a kind of respite for those readers who preferred their fantastical storytelling with fewer swords and more telepathic, voice - throwing messiah figures. though not at all a slight to tolkien’s masterpiece, dune didn’t simply offer an imaginative world for its characters to inhabit; it offered a world in which the characters didn’t belong .
when dune, the adaptation of frank herbert' s seminal 1965 novel of the same name, was released in december of 1984, it was met with near - unanimous derision. roger ebert hated it, hated it .
it took dune about nine minutes to completely strip me of my anticipation ,
he said .
this movie is a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time .
janet maslin opened her new york times review by stating ,
several of the characters in dune are psychic, which puts them in the unique position of being able to understand what goes on in the movie .
zing !
he has since said that his role in tie was pivotal, saving him from a potential life of crime. his mum died in 2005 and the original film is dedicated to her. the support of meadows and the cast after her death was overwhelming, with andrew shim (milky) and stephen graham (combo) making a “gentlemen’s agreement” that they would always be there for him .
dune was like the anti - star wars, undoing everything lucas' s trilogy did to make sci - fi a friendly place. a new hope took audiences to far away galaxies, sure, but it smoothed the transition into the fantastical with a simple, recognizable tale: a gentle farmhand meets a wise old man and a cowboy, gets himself a sword (of sorts), and goes adventuring. it' s almost baffling, in retrospect, that producer dino de laurentiis, who bought the rights to the notoriously obtuse dune project in 1978, one year after star wars became a hit, could look at herbert' s novel and think that something as warm, friendly, and accessible could be squeezed from its pages .
although he believed his film is sensitive to indian culture (his indians are not savages), he unwittingly made a caricature of it. as he hammered on with anti - colonial comment, he lapsed into cliches to make his point. the indian butler bemoans, “none of us are free here, ” while the sadhus must make the white man one of them to prove their superiority .
if a plot summary of tusk suggests an ungainly arrangement of events, then the film, in its entirety, is twice as convoluted. much of the film is long—though impressively shot—sequences of charging elephants, and groups of people shouting incoherently to either catch an elephant, celebrate an elephant or fight with each other about elephants. there are several minor storylines, half - uttered comic characters, and too many celebratory processions thrown in at periodic intervals. but more interestingly, each of these digressions seems to be a depiction of something “indian, ” be it the singing, spell - casting sadhus, elise sneaking out in a boat at night to meditate in a half - submerged temple, or the publicly anti - indian lord spencer, who is secretly having an affair with his indian maid.
herbert is a 2005 bengali-language film that was directed by veteran theater director suman mukhopadhyay . it was based on nabarun bhattacharya 's 1993 sahitya akademi award winning novel of the same name . 
herbert is a 2005 bengali-language film that was directed by veteran theater director suman mukhopadhyay. it was based on nabarun bhattacharya's 1993 sahitya akademi award winning novel of the same name.
herbert is a 2005 bengali-language film that was directed by veteran theater director suman mukhopadhyay. it was based on nabarun bhattacharya's 1993 sahitya akademi award winning novel of the same name.