oldhollywood:

Stills from La Jetée (1962, dir. Chris Marker)

“La Jetee’s fans insist that it’s the finest science fiction film ever made, and why not? It’s truly unique, implementing a series of hundreds of unmoving pictures, beautifully edited together to tell a mind-bending story of time travel that doubles as a melancholy fable about memory, loss, childhood, and destiny. Only for a moment is there any action on screen (besides the implied action in the cuts from shot to shot), and that motion is one of the cinema’s most profound. It’s no exaggeration, finally, to say that La Jetée may represent film’s closest approach to poetry.”

-Bryant Frazer, Deep Focus

The 26-minute film, which inspired Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys (1995), tells the story of post-apocalyptic, nuclear war-ravaged Paris, where underground commanders run time travel experiments on prisoners. The film can be seen here.

I was mesmerised the first time I saw it. Still am. I think it’s on DVD now too, woot!

oldhollywood:

Faye Dunaway & Steve McQueen explore the erotic possibilities of chess in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968, dir. Norman Jewison) (via filmandmusicfashion.com)

The movie’s major romantic scene takes place over a chessboard.

“Do you play?” Crown asks.

“Try me,” she answers.

After those two sentences, the script had a three-word description about what should follow: “Chess with sex.” No dialogue, just a man and a woman, a chessboard, chess pieces, and a charge of sexual tension.

Steve & Faye radiate spontaneity in the scene, but in fact they were responding to my directions: “Faye, you’re playing chess, but another game is going on…Without thinking, your right hand goes up your left arm & lightly caresses your throat…Steve, let your eyes follow Faye’s hand…Faye, look up and catch Steve watching. You’re embarrassed. You smile & look down…Faye, stroke the bishop…Steve, what’s she doing? Masturbating the bishop? My God, she’s throwing you off your game…” And so on for six minutes of screen time.

“Check,” Vicki says. The silence is broken.

Crown stands up, studies the board, confirms he has lost. He roughly pulls Vicki to her feet.

“Let’s play something else,” he says.

They kiss. Not a brief, tender kiss. I was going for the all-time longest kiss in screen history. Not a hint of bare skin, but the kiss was far sexier than a shot of two nudes. It lasted for 80 seconds of screen time. If you can believe it, that kiss earned the movie a Mature Audience rating, and most newspapers would not reproduce our open-mouth kiss ad for the film.

-excerpted from This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me by Norman Jewison.

The chess scene can be seen here.

They seriously are so hot together. <3