Known for his commentary-laden chronicles of key moments in winter sports history, the late John Jay is considered by many to be the founding father of the modern-day ski film. This installment of the "Classic Ski Films" series presents Jay's coverage of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games in Squaw Valley, Calif., which includes the opening and closing ceremonies, the 90-meter ski jump and the dramatic USA vs. USSR hockey game.
Known for his commentary-laden chronicles of key moments in winter sports history, the late John Jay is considered by many to be the founding father of the modern-day ski film. This installment of the "Classic Ski Films" series presents Jay's coverage of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games in Squaw Valley, Calif., which includes the opening and closing ceremonies, the 90-meter ski jump and the dramatic USA vs. USSR hockey game.
1960-01-01
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A film about three ski-bums (Run Funk, Mike Zuetell and Ed Ricks) that are followed by another ski bum (Dick Barrymore),with a 16mm Bolex camera, who filmed a four-month part of their nomadic and vanishing-breed way of life across four continents. These are four people doing every day what others work fifty weeks of the year to buy for two weeks. They were also becoming a vanishing breed who were becoming unwelcome from Aspen to Val d'Isere.
The story of five skiers, sponsored by K2, who tour the U.S. in a red, white and blue van that matched their skis. They travel like a pack of joyful wolves, devouring powder and looking for challenges. Just 26 minutes in length, the film offers ferocious detail, with ski footage that still holds up today. The film revealed the ski culture as a surrogate family. In an interview years later, skier Charlie McWilliams recalled how people came up to him to explain how they deeply identified with this happygo- lucky skiing clan. He saw the film as a groundbreaking portrayal of skiing as a tribal experience. “It was the first time anybody had gone out and made a film of a group of guys traveling around the country having a great time skiing.”
Famous skier Otto Lang is featured in a short documentary filmed at Mt. Whitney and Mt. Baker, and premiered on 4 February 1938 at Radio City Music Hall with NYC screenings of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
Shot in 1941, this black-and-white instructional film (featuring actor Alan Ladd) serves as a veritable time capsule on the history of the sport, with advice on ski design, schussing, lacquer, wax and toe plates.
Skifully Yours by noted ski film director Otto Lang, offers a charming look at the Sun Valley, Idaho, ski scene of the late 1930s.
A breathtakingly beautiful film loaded with laughs. Travel from the American Rockies to the uniquely picturesque scenery of the European Alps. Catch scenes of the Bugaboo Mountains of British Columbia; Vail, Colorado; Switzerland; Japan; Australia; and Russia. Highlights include Stein Eriksen, Norwegian world Champion skier, performing among the gum trees and irrigation ditches of Australia as well as skiing among the crevasses of the Tasman Glacier in New Zealand.
Before the high-tech advancements of Fiberglas, aluminum poles, release bindings and artificial powder, it was a simpler time in the world of winter sports: It was just you, your skis and the snow that lay ahead. Rounding up works produced in the 1940s, '50s, '60s and '70s by iconic ski-film director John Jay, this retrospective sampler offers a nostalgic look at what's called "the golden age of American skiing."
Beginning in picturesque Taos, New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range Jay continues on a laugh a minute cruise through Vail and Aspen, Colorado; Klosters and Zermatt, Switzerland; Japan; Sun Valley, Idaho; Mount Snow, Vermont; Persia; and New Zealand. Highlights are numerous and include the daring race on an avalanche slope by world champion skier Helli Lantschner as well as the camel safari to ski the Atlas Mountains in Africa.
A journey into the depths of subconscious of a city formed by human beings. The inhabitants of the city undergo the sessions on the couch. Unlocked by questions, e.g. what kind of animal is the city? they begin their journey into the depths of their own feelings and emotions. The city itself is only the starting point and over time, conversations get more and more intimate. The scenes from life, reminiscences and highly emotional moments interlace with the subjectively perceived shots of the city. They are blending together, complementing and interacting with each other. The fears of the film characters, their desires and unfinished affairs become a common fate.
Stephen Lack talks about playing the lead in David Cronenberg's 1981 sci-fi/horror cult classic SCANNERS.
The film highlights legendary Colombian birdwatching guide Diego Calderon-Franco and National Geographic photographer/videographer Keith Ladzinski as they travel through Columbia, a nation that boasts one of the most diverse populations of birds in the world, to capture footage of rare and unique birds, some of which have never been filmed before.
The furnace used to extract rose water in the Sultanate of Oman is known as "Dahjan Al-Ward" (The Rose Distillation). Director Mohammed Al-Ajmi presents his film about the history and details of the rose industry in the Sultanate of Oman.
The Boys of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn is a story of fathers and sons in three generations, their life choices and the consequences that follow. Grandfather, an ex-mobster, father, an ex-gangsta wannabe - now a turban wearing Sikh, and a hot tempered boy who lives across the ocean with his mom. After noticing her son's lack on interest towards his father, mother and son travel to New York to face the situation. After blaming her ex-husband for years she finally discovers the hidden reason why he is incapable of being present in their son's everyday life.
An essay on how could Welles' Touch of Evil and his story about the border between USA and Mexico influence Trump's imagination.
An audiovisual essay on Douglas Sirk's film The Tarnished Angels (1957). Analyzes a central scene 40 minutes into the narrative, and also refers both backward and forward in order to show the film’s richly elaborated logic of part and whole, repetition and stasis, drama and entropy.
"Our analysis of such a rich film should not be a rigid, either/or proposition. It remains for us, almost 55 years on from Contempt’s initial release, to fully grasp Godard’s modernist gestures, poised between a fullness of mythic and classical meaning, and the possibilities of a newly fragmented universe of signs."