La Haine

  

La Haine, a French black and white film which translates in English to Hate is about 3 teenage friends struggles to live in the banlieues (ghetto) of Paris. This 1995 features a younger Vincent Cassel who has recently gone on to the American hit Black Swan. 

The black and white style of this film is effective and adds well to the dark and dramatic tone of the film, as you can see in the screens below the cinematography is very powerful with an excellent combination of framing, camera angles and composition.

The Deer Hunter

 

Michael Ciminos war epic about three men and their time spent in the Vietnam war. The movie can be broken up into three different segments, before the men go to war which includes an almost hour long wedding sequence, the mens time at war and then their arrival home and how they were effected by the war. This movie is truely a classic with incredible depitions of human emotions, amazing dialouge and a tour de force of acting. The film will always be proceeded by its now infamous Russian roulette scene but it's so much more than that, this film also had quite a cultural impact being one of the first to show a less than glamourous Vietnam War and paved the way for movis like Apocalypse now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. 

 

 

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

A documentary on Francis Ford Coppola's famous Apocalypse Now detailing the troubled and lengthy production of the film, captured by Francis's wife Ellanor Coppola offering a very personal perspective.

In some ways this documentary is better than the film it is about, and that is saying something considering the film it is about, Ellanor Coppola captures a rare insight into the making of the film particularly the troubles her husband encounters in the making of the film.

"We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane."