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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 6d

The severed faces of ancient statues always make me look longer and harder. For a classically handsome face - usually notable for its symmetry - this chap has a wonderfully skewy nose.

From the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Bodrum, Turkey), c350 BCE. Now in the British Museum.

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Reposted by Robin Baker

Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 10d

Last night I watched the marvellous The Cranes are Flying, a 1957 Soviet movie that I wish Vladimir Putin would watch. Here's my Letterboxd review, and a short thread of stills to show how superbly constructed a movie it is. (They won't show how ALIVE it is: it's a film that delights in movement.)

Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 10d

Thanks to those on here who recommended this. An absolute stunner of a film! I can't think of a film that's more comprehensively alive to the possibilities of the frame offered up by the camera/screen. Such movement! Total control, absolute grace, like watching a ballet.

A ★★★★★ review of The Cranes Are Flying (1957)

Watched while recuperating from/with a mild bout of Covid after seeing recommendations from friends on social media. What a fantastic piece of cinema! There's barely a minute of it that isn't thrillin...

boxd.it

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 11d

That sounds very compelling. The painting appears to show a subterranean cinema, so the info that this was a former wine cellar makes sense.

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 11d

3/3. I wondered if the film on screen was an invention of Roberts, or whether it was based on an actual film? It looks very much like a western. Other than that, there appear to be very few clues.

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 11d

2/3. Tate's catalogue states that the painting is "based on a small cinema in Warren Street which is now used as a television studio." But this map of London's silent cinemas - www.map.londonssilentcinemas.com/dhp-projects... - shows no evidence of a cinema on Warren Street. Any thoughts?

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 11d

1/3. The Cinema (1920) by William Roberts - on display at Tate Britain. I love this painting, especially some of the details such as the pianist glimpsed through a gap in the curtains. But it posed a couple of questions that maybe silent film friends might be able to help answer.

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 11d

2/2. There's a vein of surrealism running through Jennings' films as he seeks strangeness in the everyday - such as the sequence of the kazoo band in SPARE TIME, also made in 1939. But today was the first time that I had seen one of his surrealist paintings. It's on display at Tate Britain.

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 11d

1/2. Swiss Roll by Humphrey Jennings, 1939.

The man who gave us some of the most potent and poetic wartime propaganda films also gave us a sponge cake juxtaposed by the Matterhorn.

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 12d

The first half was full of richness and complexity that set up so many expectations. The second half was a chase film, albeit an exceptionally good one.

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 12d

I loved ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025), but spent the second half wishing that the film was the potential masterpiece I thought it might be during the first half.

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 12d

Do!

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 12d

I did a lot of 'ooohing' when watching it last night

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 12d

You must! I found it hugely rewarding to watch it side-by-side with Kalatozov's THE CRANES ARE FLYING (see previous post) and am planning a rewatch of SOY CUBA.

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 12d

3/3. There's a superb, recently restored transfer on YouTube uploaded by production company Mosfilm www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPSc...

Letter never sent | DRAMA | FULL MOVIE

YouTube video by Mosfilm

www.youtube.com

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 12d

2/3. Sergey Urusevsky's cinematography is remarkable, especially the tracking shots across the inhospitable landscapes. I would love to find out more about the production. What the actors must have endured on location makes Lillian Gish's experience on an ice floe in WAY DOWN EAST (1920) look tame.

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 12d

1/3. Figures in a landscape - LETTER NEVER SENT (Mikhail Kalatozov, USSR, 1960). My second Kalatozov of the week. It's a 'survival' film - 4 young geologists battling the elements in a remote part of Siberia - driven as much by a sense of impending terror as by the dangerous beauty of the landscape.

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 14d

2/2. I'm hugely grateful to @jacquiwine.bsky.social for the recommendation. It was a film that I thought I had seen years ago - but clearly hadn't! It's unforgettable.

There's a great transfer of the film posted by production company Mosfilm on YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rIN...

The Cranes are Flying | DRAMA | FULL MOVIE

YouTube video by Mosfilm

www.youtube.com

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 14d

1/2. THE CRANES ARE FLYING (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957) comes highly recommended. It has the energy of nouvelle vague with the poetry of Jean Vigo. This is one of many sequences that show the brilliance of Kalatozov, cinematographer Sergey Urusevsky, editor Mariya Timofeyeva and star Tatiana Samoilova.

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 14d

😬 I did it once, too. Not a good feeling. My commiserations.

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 16d

The line-up for 2025's Channel 4 South Asian Film Season has just been announced. Highlights include Guru Dutt's MR AND MRS '55 (1955) and JOYLAND (Saim Sadiq, 2022). Nasreen Munni Kabir has been programming the season since the 80s. It's a remarkable achievement www.channel4.com/4viewers/blo...

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Reposted by Robin Baker

Bridport Arts Centre @bridportarts.bsky.social · 16d

We love this poster by @sparklymouse.bsky.social designed for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's classic melodrama, THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT (West Germany, 1972).

The film shows at BAC on Sat 1 Nov, 7.30pm bridport-arts.com/event/the-bi...

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 17d

Erich von Stroheim was born 140 years ago today, which is more than sufficient excuse to post this publicity still of him taken to promote FOOLISH WIVES (1922).

It's a shame that more actor/directors don't don silk shirt, knickerbockers, girdle, stockings and suspenders for the camera.

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Reposted by Robin Baker

Bridport Arts Centre @bridportarts.bsky.social · 19d

Maria's dance performed by Brigitte Helm in METROPOLIS (Fritz Lang, 1927) - music by Palooka 5. Few films are packed with so many extraordinary, iconic moments.

Palooka 5 will be accompanying METROPOLIS live at BAC on Fri 10 Oct, 7.30pm bridport-arts.com/event/metrop...

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 20d

Delighted to be participating in the Film Heritage Foundation's Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop. I'll be teaching the sessions on programming archive film.

12–19 Nov, Bhubaneswar, India
Applications close on Sep 26

filmheritagefoundation.co.in/film-preserv...

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Robin Baker @robinalexbaker.bsky.social · 23d

Robert Redford enjoys a pint under Waterloo Bridge, London, 1973.

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