Russian Ark will be screened tomorrow, 7:30, at Page Hall.
J. Hoberman, former film guru at the Village Voice, who visited the Writers Institute in December 2012, reviews Russian Ark as one of the key films of the dawning 21st century in his influential book, The Future of Film.
"The ultimate trip, a post-2001 space odyssey, Alexander Sokurov’s "Russian Ark" is the longest continuous take in the annals of motion pictures, a single ninety-six-minute tracking shot in which the invis- ible narrator (Sokurov) and a historical figure, the nineteenth-century French Marquis de Custine (Sergey Dreiden), accompany a lively group of dead souls across several centuries and through thirty-three rooms of the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg."
Larger excerpt here: http://www.indiewire.com/article/exclusive-excerpts-j-hobermans-film-after-film-or-what-became-of-21st-century-cinema?page=3
NYS Writers Institute Classic Film Series here: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/cfs.html#russian
Thursday, November 7, 2013
The Longest Shot in Motion Picture History
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
F. D. Reeve, Poet and Translator Dies
F. D. Reeve, poet, translator of Russian literature, and father of actor and disability activist Christopher Reeve has died.
NYS Writers Institute Director Donald Faulkner, a friend of Reeve, said, "Like the cat that he used as a mask in his later poems, Franklin Reeve had a boundless curiosity, an electric energy, and many lives. As a poet, thinker, teacher, father, and friend he was fearless, fierce in his beliefs and his loyalties. His great, loving spirit abides."
Full obituary in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/books/f-d-reeve-poet-and-translator-dies-at-84.html?ref=obituaries
Reeve visited the Institute to present poetry and jazz in 2008: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/fdreeve_bluecat08.html
Here's a clip from his visit to the Institute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSetkKNZoHA