My Most Inspiring Film-Makers

3 Replies to “My Most Inspiring Film-Makers”

1. Nell,
   Great choices! Love these videos.
   Keep it up.

2. I love these choices, Nell. Capra was great, even if he did go too far at times. In fact, he was probably great because he wasn’t afraid to go too far. “It’s a Wonderful Life,” was my favorite movie for many years (until I saw it too many times) and I also love “It Happened One Night,” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
   You are so right about “Sullivan’s Travels,” too. It has taken me years to realize that doing small things well can be just as important as doing really big things.
   One movie that I was really inspired by (though it is also really sad) in the last 20 years was “Martha and I.” I’m not sure if you have ever seen it because it is currently unavailable on DVD, and was only released in this country for something like one week in the mid-1990’s. I saw it at the old Biograph Theater in Georgetown, and it was a beautiful film written and directed by Jiri Weiss and starring Marianne Sagebrecht and Michel Piccoli.
   It is an incredibly humanistic story about Emil, a young boy in pre-WWII Germany who is sent to live with his Uncle Ernst, a Jewish Gynecologist, after Emil is seduced by the family maid. The story is told from Emil’s point of view as he grows to manhood. His Uncle Ernst is married to a beautiful young woman whom he discovers is unfaithful to him. He casts her off and marries his lower-class German Christian maid, played by Sagebrecht. This film is a coming-of-age story and a love story, but being also a Holocaust movie, it is a tragedy. If you ever have the chance to see it, you’ll need a whole box of kleenex to get through it.

3. Great stuff … As you probably know, the one of those I love the most is Gondry … What he can do with colors alone is amazing

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