Dp of Kubrick’s most memorable productions.
For his first job in the industry, John Alcott started as a clapper boy; you know, the guy who holds the clapper and clicks it to mark the start of filming. But from this absolute bottom rung of the camera crew Alcott ascended to the ultimate peak, that of an Oscar winner for Best Cinematography, along the way contributing to some of the most important films of the 20th century.
Alcott got his big break while working on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as a lighting cameraman. When the film’s original cinematographer, Geoffrey Unsworth, had to leave the project after two years owing to other commitments, Alcott was promoted — though not credited — and helped Kubrick finish the film, including shooting the entire “Dawn of Man” sequence. Two years later it was Kubrick who gave Alcott his first official job as a cinematographer, and...
For his first job in the industry, John Alcott started as a clapper boy; you know, the guy who holds the clapper and clicks it to mark the start of filming. But from this absolute bottom rung of the camera crew Alcott ascended to the ultimate peak, that of an Oscar winner for Best Cinematography, along the way contributing to some of the most important films of the 20th century.
Alcott got his big break while working on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as a lighting cameraman. When the film’s original cinematographer, Geoffrey Unsworth, had to leave the project after two years owing to other commitments, Alcott was promoted — though not credited — and helped Kubrick finish the film, including shooting the entire “Dawn of Man” sequence. Two years later it was Kubrick who gave Alcott his first official job as a cinematographer, and...
- 4/18/2017
- by H. Perry Horton
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
A man returns home after a business trip and discovers that his wife has disappeared. In the moody drama The Disappearance, directed by Stuart Cooper (Overlord), Jay Mallory (Donald Sutherland) appears to be a successful businessman, living on the top floor of a comfortable residential complex in Montreal. It's the dead of winter and the city is covered in snow. From his apartment, Mallory can look down upon the foggy river(s) below; the season matches his mood. Mallory begins to search for his wife Celandine (Francine Racette). Simultaneously, he is pressed to move on to his next work assignment, for which he has already received a hefty advance. Burbank (David Warner) visits him at home, and it is then that we begin to understand what...
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[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 3/17/2017
- Screen Anarchy
★★★★☆ There is a twin dualism at the heart of Stuart Cooper's Overlord that potentially explain why it has generally been overlooked since its release in 1975. First there is form: a combination of narrative drama and archival documentary footage. Then there's style: a blend of the distinguished nobility of Second World War-era productions, and the pervasive pessimism of the mid-seventies, juxtaposed against each other through a temporally shifting structure. In some ways they make Overlord seem as though it lacks the courage of convictions in what it wants to be, but in truth it is a film of transcendent cumulative power.
- 6/13/2016
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
The Criterion Collection continues to impress through the remarkable range of what it offers cineastes on a monthly basis. Look at the highlights of their May 2014 Blu-ray offerings, all currently available in stores and for online order. What on Earth do “Overlord,” “Like Someone in Love,” and “Red River” have in common?
One is set in World War II, one during the Chisholm Trail, and one in present day. One is British, one defiantly American, and one is Japanese. Abbas Kiarostami really couldn’t have more distinctly different cinematic intentions than Howard Hawks. And yet Criterion wisely understands that film lovers love all different kinds of film. Pick your favorite.
For me, the best film is “Like Someone in Love,” the best release is “Red River.” “Overlord” remains an interesting curiosity, a film that blends archival footage and fictional filmmaking to achieve something unique. Directed by Stuart Cooper and shot...
One is set in World War II, one during the Chisholm Trail, and one in present day. One is British, one defiantly American, and one is Japanese. Abbas Kiarostami really couldn’t have more distinctly different cinematic intentions than Howard Hawks. And yet Criterion wisely understands that film lovers love all different kinds of film. Pick your favorite.
For me, the best film is “Like Someone in Love,” the best release is “Red River.” “Overlord” remains an interesting curiosity, a film that blends archival footage and fictional filmmaking to achieve something unique. Directed by Stuart Cooper and shot...
- 6/5/2014
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Moviefone's Top DVD of the Week
"Her"
What's It About? A sad sack in high-waisted pants, Theodore spends his days writing love letters for other people. When he installs an intelligent operating system named Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), his life takes a turn for the better. Or does it?
Why We're In: A weird, sad, beautiful love story from the delicious brain of Spike Jonze? We're so far in.
Moviefone's Top Blu-ray of the Week
"Overlord" (Criterion)
What's It About? Cineastes and fans of war movies will dig this drama that uses real WWII footage in this tale of a young soldier headed to D Day. Sounds simple, but it's pretty heavy, and the unique use of real war footage adds to the narrative.
Why We're In: With Kubrick collaborator John Alcott as the cinematographer, a spiffy restoration, and loads of extras, "Overload" is a good addition to your collection.
"Her"
What's It About? A sad sack in high-waisted pants, Theodore spends his days writing love letters for other people. When he installs an intelligent operating system named Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), his life takes a turn for the better. Or does it?
Why We're In: A weird, sad, beautiful love story from the delicious brain of Spike Jonze? We're so far in.
Moviefone's Top Blu-ray of the Week
"Overlord" (Criterion)
What's It About? Cineastes and fans of war movies will dig this drama that uses real WWII footage in this tale of a young soldier headed to D Day. Sounds simple, but it's pretty heavy, and the unique use of real war footage adds to the narrative.
Why We're In: With Kubrick collaborator John Alcott as the cinematographer, a spiffy restoration, and loads of extras, "Overload" is a good addition to your collection.
- 5/13/2014
- by Jenni Miller
- Moviefone
Moviefone's Top DVD of the Week
"Her"
What's It About? A sad sack in high-waisted pants, Theodore spends his days writing love letters for other people. When he installs an intelligent operating system named Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), his life takes a turn for the better. Or does it?
Why We're In: A weird, sad, beautiful love story from the delicious brain of Spike Jonze? We're so far in.
Moviefone's Top Blu-ray of the Week
"Overlord" (Criterion)
What's It About? Cineastes and fans of war movies will dig this drama that uses real WWII footage in this tale of a young soldier headed to D Day. Sounds simple, but it's pretty heavy, and the unique use of real war footage adds to the narrative.
Why We're In: With Kubrick collaborator John Alcott as the cinematographer, a spiffy restoration, and loads of extras, "Overload" is a good addition to your collection.
"Her"
What's It About? A sad sack in high-waisted pants, Theodore spends his days writing love letters for other people. When he installs an intelligent operating system named Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), his life takes a turn for the better. Or does it?
Why We're In: A weird, sad, beautiful love story from the delicious brain of Spike Jonze? We're so far in.
Moviefone's Top Blu-ray of the Week
"Overlord" (Criterion)
What's It About? Cineastes and fans of war movies will dig this drama that uses real WWII footage in this tale of a young soldier headed to D Day. Sounds simple, but it's pretty heavy, and the unique use of real war footage adds to the narrative.
Why We're In: With Kubrick collaborator John Alcott as the cinematographer, a spiffy restoration, and loads of extras, "Overload" is a good addition to your collection.
- 5/13/2014
- by Jenni Miller
- Moviefone
Welcome back to This Week In Discs! If you see something you like, click on the title to buy it from Amazon. Her Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) spends his days writing personal letters for customers to give to their lovers, families and friends, but in his own life there’s no one truly special. Still heartbroken and lonely after a recent break-up he pines for a romance he no longer thinks is possible. That negativity changes when he gets a new Os named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) that personalizes itself to the user. She’s witty, sweet and constantly learning about the world around her, and it’s not long before the two are in love. Spike Jonze’s latest is gorgeous, glorious cinema from top to bottom. It’s beautifully shot and scored, marvelously acted and interested in substantive ideas that most Hollywood films willfully ignore in favor of empty flash. This...
- 5/13/2014
- by Rob Hunter
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
If you're a fan of classic cinema and contemporary filmmaking alike, then chances are you're more than familiar with The Criterion Collection, a DVD and Blu-ray distributor that releases polished editions of cinema masterpieces with a slew of exclusive extras in an effort to preserve some of the most important film achievements, Each month, Criterion releases 4-7 new Blu-ray editions of classics that might otherwise never get such treatment.This month, those films include: Howard Hawks's John Wayne western, Red River; Abbas Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love; Stuart Cooper's WWII drama Overlord; Billy Wilder's newspaper drama Ace in the Hole, starring Kirk Douglas; and an update of the always whimsical Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
For full details on all these releases and their extras, read on.
Read more...
For full details on all these releases and their extras, read on.
Read more...
- 5/9/2014
- by Lex Walker
- JustPressPlay.net
Above: Sophia Loren, this year's Guest of Honor, in Vittorio De Sica's Marriage Italian Style
The following films comprise this year's slate of Cannes Classics:
Marriage Italian Style (Vittorio De Sica)
A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone)
Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders)
Regards sur une revolution: Comment Yukong déplaça les montagnes (Marceline Loridan & Joris Ivens)
Cruel Story of Youth (Nagisa Oshima)
Wooden Crosses (Raymond Bernard)
Overlord (Stuart Cooper)
Fear (Roberto Rossellini)
Blind Chance (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
The Last Metro (François Truffaut)
Dragon Inn (King Hu)
Daybreak (Marcel Carné)
The Color of Pomegranates (Sergei Parajanov)
Gracious Living (Jean-Paul Rappeneau)
Jamaica Inn (Alfred Hitchcock)
Les violons du bal (Michel Drach)
Blue Mountains (Eldar Shengelaia)
Lost Horizon (Frank Capra)
La chienne (Jean Renoir)
Tokyo Olympiad (Kon Ichikawa)
8½ (Federico Fellini)
Two Documentaries about Cinema:
Life Itself (Steve James)
The Go-Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films (Hilla Medalia)
None of these films will be presented on film.
The following films comprise this year's slate of Cannes Classics:
Marriage Italian Style (Vittorio De Sica)
A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone)
Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders)
Regards sur une revolution: Comment Yukong déplaça les montagnes (Marceline Loridan & Joris Ivens)
Cruel Story of Youth (Nagisa Oshima)
Wooden Crosses (Raymond Bernard)
Overlord (Stuart Cooper)
Fear (Roberto Rossellini)
Blind Chance (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
The Last Metro (François Truffaut)
Dragon Inn (King Hu)
Daybreak (Marcel Carné)
The Color of Pomegranates (Sergei Parajanov)
Gracious Living (Jean-Paul Rappeneau)
Jamaica Inn (Alfred Hitchcock)
Les violons du bal (Michel Drach)
Blue Mountains (Eldar Shengelaia)
Lost Horizon (Frank Capra)
La chienne (Jean Renoir)
Tokyo Olympiad (Kon Ichikawa)
8½ (Federico Fellini)
Two Documentaries about Cinema:
Life Itself (Steve James)
The Go-Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films (Hilla Medalia)
None of these films will be presented on film.
- 5/1/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Sophia Loren named guest of honour and Kieslowski returns to Cannes Film Festival. No 35mm prints to be screened for the first time.
The Cannes Classics line-up of film masterpieces, presented in restored prints, has been announced. The programme comprises 22 features and two documentaries, screened in either 2K or 4K. But for the first time no 35mm print will be screened at Cannes Classics “with regret for some or with celebration for others”, according to a statement.
Guest of honour will be Sophia Loren, who won the award for Best Actress at Cannes in 1961 and was president of the jury in 1966. She will be present at the screening of La Voce Humana (2014), directed by Edoardo Ponti, which marks her return to movies.
That same evening, a 4K restoration of 1964 film Marriage Italian Style (Matrimonio all’italiana) by Vittorio De Sica will be screened.
Loren has also accepted to give a masterclass - a conversation which will take...
The Cannes Classics line-up of film masterpieces, presented in restored prints, has been announced. The programme comprises 22 features and two documentaries, screened in either 2K or 4K. But for the first time no 35mm print will be screened at Cannes Classics “with regret for some or with celebration for others”, according to a statement.
Guest of honour will be Sophia Loren, who won the award for Best Actress at Cannes in 1961 and was president of the jury in 1966. She will be present at the screening of La Voce Humana (2014), directed by Edoardo Ponti, which marks her return to movies.
That same evening, a 4K restoration of 1964 film Marriage Italian Style (Matrimonio all’italiana) by Vittorio De Sica will be screened.
Loren has also accepted to give a masterclass - a conversation which will take...
- 4/30/2014
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Blu-ray Release Date: May 13, 2014
Price: Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Brian Stirner goes to war in Overlord.
Directed by Stuart Cooper, who seamlessly interweaves archival war footage and a fictional narrative, the 1975 war drama Overlord is an immersive account of one twenty-year-old’s (Brian Stirner) journey from basic training to the front lines of D-day. Along the way, the film brings to life all the terrors and isolation of war with jolting authenticity.
Impressionistically shot by Stanley Kubrick’s late, great cinematographer John Alcott (A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon), Overlord is both a document of World War II and a dreamlike meditation on human smallness in a large, incomprehensible machine.
This Critierion Blu-ray edition of Overlord ports over the bulk of the bonus features included on Criterion’s previously issued DVD edition.
Here’s a complete list of features:
• Restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Stuart Cooper, with uncompressed...
Price: Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Brian Stirner goes to war in Overlord.
Directed by Stuart Cooper, who seamlessly interweaves archival war footage and a fictional narrative, the 1975 war drama Overlord is an immersive account of one twenty-year-old’s (Brian Stirner) journey from basic training to the front lines of D-day. Along the way, the film brings to life all the terrors and isolation of war with jolting authenticity.
Impressionistically shot by Stanley Kubrick’s late, great cinematographer John Alcott (A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon), Overlord is both a document of World War II and a dreamlike meditation on human smallness in a large, incomprehensible machine.
This Critierion Blu-ray edition of Overlord ports over the bulk of the bonus features included on Criterion’s previously issued DVD edition.
Here’s a complete list of features:
• Restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Stuart Cooper, with uncompressed...
- 2/26/2014
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Criterion has announced their lineup of new releases for May 2015 and leading the way is Howard Hawks' Red River (5/27) starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift. I've only seen Red River once and it was not an impressive transfer so I'm really looking forward to seeing what Criterion has done with this new 4K digital restoration of the original theatrical release version, plus a 2K restoration of the longer version, though the original is said to be Hawks' preferred cut. Additionally the release includes new interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, critic Molly Haskell and western scholar Lee Clark Mitchell and more. Get the full details here. The next release I'm most interested in is Stuart Cooper's 1975 film Overlord (5/13), which is getting a Blu-ray upgrade after being released on Criterion DVD back in 2007. The film apparently interweaves archival war footage and a fictional narrative as it follows one twenty-year-old's journey from...
- 2/18/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
The Criterion Collection has announced two new titles and three Blu-ray upgrades set for release in May. Check out the new cover art along with a full list of extra features for each in the gallery viewer below! Debuting in the collection are both Howard Hawks and Arthur Rosson 1948 western classic Red River and Abbas Kiarostami's 2012 drama Like Someone in Love while HD upgrades of earlier Criterion releases include Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole , Stuart Cooper's Overlord and Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (the only film left from the director that hasn't been issued in HD). Special features for the new releases are listed as follows: Red River - New 4K digital restoration of the rarely presented original theatrical release version, the...
- 2/18/2014
- Comingsoon.net
Brooklyn Close-Up, a monthly series at BAMcinématek, opens tonight with The Warriors (1979) and James Hughes spoke with Walter Hill recently for the Voice. Hill: "[T]his vaguely futuristic, science-fiction movie — why was it so audience-friendly? I don't exactly have the answer. I wish I did." Hughes: "Disturbing to admirers of the film is the specter of a remake, which was at one time attached to director Tony Scott, who planned to move the action to contemporary La. Its future remains unclear. 'I have no idea what the studio plans are,' Hill says. 'They don't call me. The producer tells me they've spent five times as much in developing a sequel as we did to make the movie. I made my version. Somebody else wants to take a shot at it, good luck.'"
On Saturday, Hill will be at MoMA for a screening of another of his landmark works: "His most underappreciated and airtight film,...
On Saturday, Hill will be at MoMA for a screening of another of his landmark works: "His most underappreciated and airtight film,...
- 10/31/2011
- MUBI
Long before The Life of Brian, George Harrison funded an award-winning film stuffed with British talent – so why has it taken 40 years to surface?
In 1979 George Harrison purchased, almost on a whim, what Terry Jones would later call "the most expensive movie ticket of all time". After a single reading of the script of Monty Python's Life of Brian, he mortgaged his own luxury mansion and sank the resultant funds into a project that had been abandoned, days before shooting started, by its original backer, Bernie Delfont of Emi. Why did he do it? "Because I liked the script and I wanted to see the movie," said Harrison later. A Beatle can do that.
From that almost informal exchange of favours between good friends sprang arguably the most interesting British production company of the 1980s, Handmade Films, backed by Harrison and his producing partner Denis O'Brien. Handmade gave us Brian and Withnail & I,...
In 1979 George Harrison purchased, almost on a whim, what Terry Jones would later call "the most expensive movie ticket of all time". After a single reading of the script of Monty Python's Life of Brian, he mortgaged his own luxury mansion and sank the resultant funds into a project that had been abandoned, days before shooting started, by its original backer, Bernie Delfont of Emi. Why did he do it? "Because I liked the script and I wanted to see the movie," said Harrison later. A Beatle can do that.
From that almost informal exchange of favours between good friends sprang arguably the most interesting British production company of the 1980s, Handmade Films, backed by Harrison and his producing partner Denis O'Brien. Handmade gave us Brian and Withnail & I,...
- 10/31/2011
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
Insomuch as I've yet to be disappointed by a BFI Flipside release, I thought it only fitting that I keep on passing along the good news when a new one is announced. This one has perhaps the best title of the lot, Little Malcolm & His Struggle Against the Eunuchs. Directed by Stuart Cooper (Overlord) and shot by John Alcott (The Shining, A Clockwork Orange), the film is filled to the brim with talent, not least of whom are stars John Hurt and David Warner. That is about the extent of my knowledge about the film, however, so I'll let the press release take you the rest of the way. Little Malcolm is scheduled for release on 24 October.George Harrison presentsLittle Malcolm and his Struggle...
- 9/9/2011
- Screen Anarchy
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