At least in the States, it looks like you can watch on Netflix or rent/buy from Amazon Prime:
Seems to be a new article, but for a documentary that came out in May, so not sure what’s going on there.
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Watched Azor the other day.
I’m going to have to watch it again because I’m not sure I knew what was going on a lot of the time. You’re not meant to, how could you? You don’t know what the world of “private banking”, particularly in Switzerland is like. Slow burn, but it’s just as bad as you could imagine. This film reminds me of Paolo Sorrentino’s Consequences of Love which I loved when it came out and watched the same day I went to a Thomas Demand exhibition - the same empty, liminal, commercial spaces with an aching emptiness.
The main characters are cosmopolitan, moving seamlessly between French, Spanish, and English (though the subtitles, and I’m not claiming to be an expert in any language here, are obviously dodgy in parts - amazingly common) in the midst of the luxury of old money in Argentina. The disappearances, executions, and tortures are far off stage. The only hint of them is the checkpoints and police “protecting”. Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse now casts a shadow over this film too with the search for the old partner, and what is it like up the river explicitly referenced. As bags full of, what? are arranged to be brought to Switzerland the nature of what “private banking” is reveals itself, just as the details of their life “we have a chalet on lake… we have a castle from the family outside…”
The title refers to their private codewords (Azor means stop talking) and I look forward to discovering more on a second viewing. It’s a brisk hour and a half so I think I’ll get to it.
Last night we watched Spencer
which is hard to watch without recalling Lorrain’s Jackie which we also enjoyed. While Jackie was for me a pretty vicious attack on the autogenerative myth of the Kennedy’s and Jackie Onasis (the scene in the hearse where they talk about whether an assassinated president will be remembered tips the hat on that) this is much more nuanced. The outstanding parts for me were when they took me by surprise with moments of tenderness and sympathy, with the chef (King Arthur in the Green Knight and Ian Curtis in 24 hr Party People), and with Sally Hawkins as her dresser who brings all her empathy and relatability to the role). I had no emotional investment in her so tugging my heartstrings was a surprise to me.
I think a lot of films relating to “royalty” are hugely influenced by The Favourite so this is in no sense tied to a sense of realism. Anne Boleyn turns up to talk about being accused of adultry while your king is an open adulterer and what might happen… The description at the beginning as a “fable based on real events” works for me and it’s all the better for it. I know a lot of negative criticism in the UK relates to the lead actor and how her version isn’t as “good” as the one in the Crown. Mimicing is the absolute least interesting thing in acting so I have absolutely no opinion nor shits to give about whether her performance is more “accurate” - it’s more real than the Crown in the sense that it isn’t an imitation (frame for frame in some cases) of mediated performances by the subject but rather an imagination from ground up. But “accurate”? No care. It’s drama. Stewart’s performance made me care about the character, the one in the Crown reminded me of the mediated character.
Watch 'em both is my advice.
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There is also an episode of Psych where they did this.
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Thanks, I started Azor but haven’t gotten back to it for that reason. You’ve encouraged me to try again. 
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These silent movies guys were crazy creative daredevils.
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And Buster Keaton could give them all a run for their money…
Doing a stunt filming Sherlock jr (IIRC) he had a bad fall, got up, did a new take - years later during a check-up the x-ray showed that he broke a cervical vertebra that day.
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I’m not familiar with this director’s work, so I hope this film does justice to its subject:
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Woah, right? That could be glorious, but it could so easily fall far short…
Thanks for the heads up though, fingers crossed!
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Pedant alert:
The Library of Congress is required by law to preserve everything written in the U.S. They even have small company brochures and odd stuff like that.
If they’ve expanded the 18th century requirement to include videos (which have written scripts, after all), then they won’t pick and chose, they’ll save everything they can.
This is just a ‘best of’ list that they compile every year. They preserve a lot more than just the the films on that list.
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Nope, I hereby deem that info entirely non-pedantic.
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Have I ever mentioned their Chronicling America project, where they have digitized virtually every newspaper printed in the States since the late 1700’s? There are some holes – the full newspaper directory goes back to 1690 but the CA project currently spans 1777-1963 – but it is amazingly impressive how much scanning has already been done:
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On the other hand, they love to remake our comedies.
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Radio drama:
AFAIK BBC Sounds works worldwide.
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Pinko Xmas.
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The film supposedly had Communistic tendencies
Well when you get right down to it, don’t we all?
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