Jean Eustache – Malick + Gordon Parks

Jean Eustache was born on Nov 30 which he shares with a bunch of interesting characters – Terrence Malick, Gordon Parks, David Mamet, Mark Twain and Winston Churchill.
He was an inspirational figure who is only known in France and for this reason among many others, Jim Jarmusch dedicated his recent film “Broken Flowers” to Jean Eustache. (From here.)

Jean Eustache
“The Mother and the Whore” on the right and Jean Eustache on the left.

Desire and despair: the films of Jean Eustache (from Senses of Cinema)

Of Flesh, of Spirit: The Cinema of Jean Eustache (Harvard Film Archive)

“There are few directors who were masters at this kind of scale: Tarkovsky, Melville, and, I grudgingly admit, Eustache” (Waggish on Eustache)

The Santa Clause has blue eyes”
“Made with leftover film given to him by Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Eustache interwove the stock from the former director’s ‘Masculin/Feminin’ with his own 52-minute study of a group of young men in a small French province and their attempts to earn money and meet girls. Jean-Pierre Leaud (who starred in both films) is Daniel, the protagonist/narrator. As in the Doinel films by Truffaut, Leaud acts as a sort of alter ego figure for Eustache.”

“With his death, which was possibly a suicide, we lost one of the purest and original directors of contemporary French Cinema.”
(From “A Man with a Camera” by Nestor Almendros)

Nestor Almendros who shot “Mes Petites Amoureuses” for Eustache
went on to shoot “Days of Heaven” for Terrence Malick two years later. Nestor received an Oscar for cinematography.

Days of Heaven in
German titleTerrence MalickT. Malick
“Your eyes… Your ears… Your senses… will be overwhelmed.” The tagline for Days of Heaven (from Senses of Cinema)

Nestor is the link to two original filmmakers who share a birthday today (Nov 30).
Unlike tragic Eustache, Malick continues to enrich us with his vision and originality.

His new film ” The New World” is here at Yahoo. “Why is Colin Farrell in this film?” asked a reader in the comment section. (Christian Bale is in the film. )
Reverse shot’s review of “The New World” is here.
“So subjectively complex and structurally rich, Terrence Malick’s undoubtedly great new film deserves more space and consideration than this mere sneak preview can afford…”

The flicks of Terrence Malick, a webpage by a fan with interesting photos and trivia of Malick. Malick launched the career of Jim Caviezel with his “The Thin Red Lines”. Jim’s best film of his career, since then he has repeated Christ like figure in Gibson’s passion and now he has lost his freshness, has become a boring actor.

Flavio Gordon Parks Photo by Gordon Parks

Not related to Rosa Parks, like her he led an extraordinary life with his works as a photographer, filmmaker and a composer.. Read his biography and get inspired.