Ryszard Kaja was a Polish painter, poster artist, stage designer, and costume designer.
Kaja was new to me, but his work seems like it comes straight of the post-war era, the height of the Polish film poster age.
RIP Ryszard Kaja (1962 – 2019)
RIP John McEnery (1943 – 2019)
John McEnery was an English actor and writer. He played the clerk Bartleby in the 1970 film version of Melville’s Bartleby.
You can scroll to 3:06 to hear McEnery utter the immortal words: “I would prefer not to.”
RIP Bibi Andersson (1935 – 2019)
Bibi Andersson was a Swedish actress known for films such as The Seventh Seal (1957), Wild Strawberries (1957) and Persona (1966).
Dick Cavett: “It’s always said that Ingmar Berman [sitting next to her] understands women. Would you say that’s true?”
Bibi Andersson [hesitating, then nodding]: “Eeehh yes.”
RIP Seymour Cassel (1935 – 2019)
Seymour Cassel was an American actor known for his many collaborations with John Cassavetes.
Above is the full version of Minnie and Moskowitz (1971). It’s quite a wonderful film, reminiscent of the film Harold and Maude (1971), which also deals with an unlikely romance.
Grotesques in Antwerp
The Antwerp Plantin-Moretus Museum currently hosts Grotesques. A fascinating fantasy world.
Highlights include four of the Pourtraicture ingenieuse de plusieurs façon de Masques by Cornelis Floris de Vriendt and two prints of caricatures by Philippe de Soye and Hans Liefrinck I after Leonardo da Vinci.
Some photographic impressions can be found below.
One of the four
Pourtraicture ingenieuse de plusieurs façon de Masques by Cornelis Floris de Vriendt
One of the four
Pourtraicture ingenieuse de plusieurs façon de Masques by Cornelis Floris de Vriendt
One of the four
Pourtraicture ingenieuse de plusieurs façon de Masques by Cornelis Floris de Vriendt
One of the four
Pourtraicture ingenieuse de plusieurs façon de Masques by Cornelis Floris de Vriendt
One of the
caricatures after Leonardo da Vinci
One of the
caricatures after Leonardo da Vinci
See also: Flemish fantastique and grotesque
RIP Agnès Varda (1928 – 2019)
Agnès Varda was a Belgian-born French film director.
Her films were popular among critics and directors, giving her the status of a cult director.
This is perhaps not the best of times to rid the world of a minor misconception regarding the work of Varda, but it is what I must do after researching her oeuvre following her death.
Agnès Varda made one film about the Black Panther Party, just one. That film was Black Panthers (1968), a color film which can be viewed in its entirety at Archive.org[1].
Another film from that same year is called Huey! and is directed by a certain Sally Pugh. It can be seen in full on YouTube [below] and has nothing to do with Varda, although the general subject matter as well as some scenes overlap.
RIP Larry Cohen (1941 – 2019)
Larry Cohen was an American film director and screenwriter.
He is best known as a B-movie auteur of horror and science-fiction films such as It’s Alive (1974), God Told Me To(1976), Q (1982), Special Effects (1984) and The Stuff (1985), which were full of satirical social commentary.
Later in his career, he concentrated mainly on screenwriting, most successfully with the very cleverPhone Booth (2002).
RIP Scott Walker (1943 – 2019)
Scott Walker was an American-born British singer-songwriter, composer and record producer.
First active with the band The Walker Brothers, Walker evolved from sappy and catchy recordings with an edge of sadness (“Make It Easy on Yourself“, 1965; and “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore)“, 1966) to more experimental work (Nite Flights, 1978).
He would continue this course of experimentation in his solo work, culminating with albums such as The Drift which was as scary as it was gentle, luckily not at the same time.
RIP Andre Williams (1936 – 2019)
Andre Williams was an American musician best known for the hit records “Jail Bait,” “Greasy Chicken,” “Bacon Fat” (1956) and “Cadillac Jack” (1966).
He was also the co-author of the R&B hit “Shake a Tail Feather”.
Surprisingly, his track “Bacon Fat” can also be found on the DJ Mix album How to Kill the DJ Part 2 (2004).
RIP Dick Dale (1937 – 2019)
Dick Dale was an American guitarist best-known for his 1962 arrangement of the Eastern Mediterranean classic “Misirlou“, the use of which in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction gained him a new audience.
“Miserlou” was originally a hit for Jan August in 1946 …
… but is believed to be first recorded in 1927.