Sam Rasnake

@samrasnake.bsky.social

1777 Followers 1220 Following

Scribbler of words... Fallen Leaves (Ballerini Book Press, forthcoming), Like a Thread to Follow (Cyberwit), Cinéma Vérité (A-Minor Press), World within the World (Cyberwit), Inside a Broken Clock (Finishing Line Press).

Terence Fisher remains an underrated filmmaker though he was a master of gothic horror. He characterized his own works with Hammer Studios as fairy tales for adults. Two of his films, The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula, revolutionized the horror genre. Fisher, The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula
Ruth Stone, from “Always on the Train”
According to actor Frances McDormand, Chloé Zhao, director of Nomadland, Hamnet, The Rider, “draws a razor-sharp line between sentiment and sentimentality.” Favorite filmmakers? Terrence Malick, Agnes Varda, Christopher Nolan. Favorite film? Malick’s The New World. Zhao, Varda, The New World
William Matthews, from “Well. You Needn’t” Note: For those who don't know jazz, "Well, You Needn't" is a composition written by the great Thelonious Monk.
Alain Resnais, director of Last Year at Marienbad, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Night and Fog, was a master of blending starkness with detailed beauty. Favorite filmmakers? Agnès Varda, Chris Marker, Sacha Guitry. Films? Renoir’s The Southerner, Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People. Resnais, Varda, Cat People
Federico García Lorca Green I want you green green wind green branches Boat on the sea and horse on the mountain Shadow on her waist she dreams at her railing green flesh green hair eyes of cold silver [Tr. Sarah Arvio]
Luis Buñuel, director of Viridiana, Un Chien Andalou, The Exterminating Angel, challenged the boundaries of cinema. His favorite director? Charles Chaplin. Favorite films? Von Sternberg’s Underworld, Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, and De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves. Buñuel, Chaplin, Underworld
Jamaica Kincaid, from “I See the World”
Lynne Ramsay, director of You Were Never Really There, Ratcatcher, We Need to Talk About Kevin, a filmmaker of “jagged tales of human complexity” (BFI). Favorite directors? Ingmar Bergman, David Lynch, Andrei Tarkovsky, Robert Bresson. Favorite film? Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Ramsay, Bergman, Stalker
David Wagoner, “The Words”
Werner Herzog, a pioneer of New German Cinema, directed Aquirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man. Favorite directors? Abbas Kiarostami, FW Murnau, Akira Kurosawa. Films? Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s Home, Browning’s Freaks. Herzog, Kiarostami, Rashomon
“For a word to be spoken, there must be silence. Before, and after.” Ursula K. Le Guin,
David Cronenberg, a master of the strange, directed Videodrome, A History of Violence, Spider, The Fly. Favorite directors? Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Roger Corman, Masaki Kobayashi. Films? Godard’s Weekend, Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf, Ridley Scott’s Alien. Cronenberg, Godard, Alien
Kevin Young, from “Eulogy” To allow silence To admit it in us always moving Just past senses, the darkness What swallows us and we live amongst What lives amongst us
Charles Chaplin, the first major filmmaker to direct and star his/her own movies: The Gold Rush, City Lights, The Great Dictator. Favorite directors? Buster Keaton and David Lean. Movies? The General and The Passion of Joan of Arc. Chaplin, Keaton, The Passion of Joan of Arc
Janet Frame, from “I Write Surrounded by Poets” The sweet daily bread of language Smell it rising in its given warmth taste it through the stink of tears and yesterday and eat it anywhere with angel in sight
Carl Theodor Dreyer, Danish director of The Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr, Ordet, focused his works on the “clash between individual desire and social expectations” (Criterion). Favorite filmmaker? Mauritz Stiller, a silent film director. Favorite film? Sir Arne’s Treasure (Stiller).
Jorge Luis Borges, “To the One Who Is Reading Me” [Tr. Tony Barnstone]
Favorite filmmakers: Satyajit Ray Ray, director of Pather Panchali andThe Music Room, focused much of his work on the tensions created by the modern world. Favorite directors? Jean Renoir, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa. Favorite films? Bicycle Thieves. Ray, Renoir, Bicycle Thieves
Daphne du Maurier, from “The Birds” On December the third, the wind changed overnight, and it was winter. Until then the autumn had been mellow, soft. The leaves had lingered on the trees, golden-red, and the hedgerows were still green. The earth was rich where the plow had turned it.
Chris Marker, the most unorthodox filmmaker of the French New Wave, directed La Jetée, Sans Soleil, and A.K. His favorite directors? Alain Resnais, Andrei Tarkovsky, Akira Kurosawa, Agnès Varda. His favorite movie? Aelita, the Queen of Mars (1924), Yakov Protazanov, dir. Marker, Resnais, Aelita
Wallace Stevens, “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock”
Ida Lupino was gifted talent, both as performer (High Sierra, They Drive By Night) and as director (The Hitch-Hiker, Outrage, The Bigamist). Favorite director? Raoul Walsh. She never listed a favorite film but was influenced by Italian Neorealism. Lupino, Raoul Walsh, Rossellini’s Rome, Open City
Bresson, a minimalist style director, one who used mostly non-professional actors in creating films which explored spiritual and existential themes. Favorite directors? Charles Chaplin, Sergei Eisenstein, David Lean. Favorite film? Chaplin’s The Gold Rush. Bresson, Eisenstein, The Gold Rush
A favorite: Guillermo del Toro Del Toro's favorite directors? Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa, and James Whale. His favorite films include Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock), Casanova (Fellini), Freaks (Browning), and Frankenstein (Whale). Images: del Toro, Hitchcock, Frankenstein
Adrienne Rich, from “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning” "Themes, written under duress."
Favorites: Jean Vigo Vigo, dying at 29, is perhaps cinema’s greatest loss. He completed one feature film, L’Atalante (1934) and Zero for Conduct (1933), a critically acclaimed mid-short film (44 mins.). In the 2022 Sight & Sound poll, critics listed L’Atalante as the 34th greatest film ever made.
E. E. Cummings as freedom is a breakfastfood or truth can live with right and wrong or molehills are from mountains made —long enough and just so long will being pay the rent of seem and genius please the talentgang and water most encourage flame
From my list of favorite filmmakers: F. W. Murnau Murnau, who died tragically at 42, created some masterpieces: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922), Faust (1926), The Last Laugh (1924), and Tartuffe (1925). A powerful storyteller with action and landscape.
Lucille Clifton, from “1994” "you know that the saddest lies are the ones we tell ourselves"
From my list of favorite filmmakers: Barbara Kopple Kopple’s film Harlan County, USA is a magnificent documentary. Her favorite filmmakers? Albert and David Maysles, D.A. Pennebaker, Lucy Jarvis. Her favorite film? Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers. Kopple, A&D Maysles, The Battle of Algiers
Jimmy Santiago Baca “Oppression” Is a question of strength, of unshed tears, of being trampled under, and always, always, remembering you are human.
A favorite: Terrence Malick A camera with a poet’s eye. Malick’s favorite films: The Seventh Seal, The Battle of Algiers, Au hasard Balthazar, Mirror, The Searchers, Tokyo Story, Wild Strawberries, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Sunrise: A Song for Two Humans, 2001: A Space Odyssey
Eavan Boland, from “Moths” “Apples rust on the branches”
A favorite filmmaker: Wong Kar-Wai Wong’s favorite filmmaker? Patrick Tam. His favorite films? Spring in a Small Town (Fei Mu), Apu Trilogy, 1955-1959 (Satyajit Ray), Vertigo (Hitchcock), Breathless (Godard), The End of Summer (Ozu). Wong, Tam, Pather Panchali (Apu Trilogy)
Jesse Graves, “Mossy Springs” “looking for the lost / kingdom”
From my list of favorite filmmakers: R. W. Fassbinder Fassbinder, who died at 37, made 40 feature films. His favorite filmmakers? Luchino Visconti, Max Ophüls, Douglas Sirk, Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Nicholas Ray. His favorite film was Sirk’s Written on the Wind.
Elizabeth Alexander, from “Narrative: Ali” Two photographs of Emmett Till, born my year, on my birthday. One, he’s smiling, happy, and the other one is after. His mother did the bold thing, kept the casket open, made the thousands look upon his bulging eyes, his twisted neck, her lynched black boy. I couldn’t sleep for thinking, Emmett Till. Note: Emmett Till was 14 in 1955 when he was murdered.
Happy birthday, Dad. [A poem I wrote for Dad two months before his death, published in fwriction : review several years ago. I’m including an audio recording.] Some Last Things
Jalal al-Din Rumi, from “The Guest House” “This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. [Tr. Coleman Barks] Image: Rumi text, the Schoyen Collection
Tarkovsky is one of cinema’s 3 or 4 greatest directors, certainly in my world. His favorite filmmakers? Ingmar Bergman, Luis Buñuel, Robert Bresson, Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi. His favorite film was Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest. Images: Tarkovsky, Mizoguchi, Diary of a Country Priest.
Amy Gerstler, from “Lost in the Forest” “I found myself in / a clearing”
One of my favorite filmmakers: Claire Denis Denis’s favorite directors? Jim Jarmusch, Chantal Akerman, Yasujirō Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, Robert Altman. Favorite films? Thief (Mann), Dead Man (Jarmusch), An Elephant Sitting Still (Hu Bo), Cemetery of Splendour (Weerasethakul) Denis, Altman, Thief
Paul Celan, “Ars Poetica 62” The Big Secret — there it stood, next to the club moss, in the meadows. I could have plucked it, easily, with two toes. But I was busy; I was teaching Hyperion the language we hymn-makers have come to expect. [Tr. Rita dove and Fred Viebahn]
A favorite director: Martin Scorsese Scorsese’s favorite filmmakers? Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger. His favorite films? Diary of a Country Priest, Vertigo, The Shining, The Red Shoes. Images: Scorsese, Powell & Pressburger, Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest
Diane Seuss, “Self-Portrait with Sylvia Plath’s Braid” “a word weapon / a poem-sword”
Favorite filmmakers: Jean-Luc Godard Godard’s favorite directors were Samuel Fuller, Alfred Hitchcock, Roberto Rossellini, Shirley Clarke, John Cassavettes. His favorite film, the one he mentioned more than others, was Bresson’s Pickpocket. Photos: Godard, Fuller, Pickpocket
Favorite filmmakers: Wim Wenders Wenders’s favorite directors are Andrei Tarkovsky, Yasujirō Ozu, and François Truffaut. Any film by Ozu would be among his favorites: Tokyo Story or I Was Born, But… or Good Morning or A Story of Floating Weeds or… Wenders, Ozu, Late Spring (my favorite Ozu)
Mary Oliver, from “The Summer Day” "what is it you plan to do"
From my list of favorite filmmakers: Maya Deren Deren was an incredibly independent and imaginative filmmaker, ahead of her time. Her favorite directors were Dziga Vertov, Jean Cocteau, and Luis Buñuel. Her favorite film? Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929). Images: Deren, Buñuel, Man with a Movie Camera
Jack Gilbert, “Summer at Blue Creek, North Carolina” "never the sound of me"
From my list of favorite filmmakers: Ingmar Bergman Bergman’s favorite director? Andrei Tarkovsky. Favorite films? Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau, 1927), Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950), The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Dreyer, 1928) Ph: Bergman, Tarkovsky, Sunrise
“Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at anytime and be yourself.” Hermann Hesse The meeting of stillness and the wolrd. Like TS Eliot’s still point in Four Quartets: the spiritual and the physical. Or George Harrison: within you, without you.
From my list of favorite filmmakers: Alfred Hitchock Hitchcock’s favorite director was D. W. Grifith, and his favorite films were Cecil B. DeMille’s Forbidden Fruit (1921) and Les Diaboliques (1955), directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. Photos: Hitchcock, Griffith, Les Diaboliques
Gary Snyder has long been a source for me... as a reader, writer, thinker. Here's a poem, "My Hollows," published in @bendinggenres.bsky.social a couple of years ago (thank you, @rgvaughan.bsky.social). Link: https://bendinggenres.com/my-hollows/
From my list of favorite filmmakers: Abbas Kiarostami Kiarostami’s favorite filmmaker was Yasujirō Ozu, a director’s director. His favorite films? A Simple Event (1973), The Mongols (1973), La Dolce Vita (1960), Duel (1971), The Godfather (1972) Photos: Kiarostami, Ozu, Duel
“What an odd thing a diary is: the things you omit are more important than those you put in.” Simone de Beauvoir