#174 – The World of Apu, (অপুর সংসার), 1959, Satyajit Ray
Apu is a jobless ex-student dreaming vaguely of a future as a writer. An old college friend talks him into a visit up-country to a village wedding….
Tag: 1959
#233: Floating Weeds
#233 – Floating Weeds, (浮草), 1959, Yasujirō Ozu
A troupe of travelling players arrive at a small seaport in the south of Japan. Komajuro Arashi, the aging master of the troupe, goes to visit his old flame Oyoshi and their son Kiyoshi, even though Kiyoshi believes Komajuro is his uncle. The leading actress Sumiko is jealous and so, in order to humiliate the master, persuades the younger actress Kayo to seduce Kiyoshi.
#243: Rio Bravo
#243 – Rio Bravo, 1959, Howard Hawks
The sheriff of a small town in southwest Texas must keep custody of a murderer whose brother, a powerful rancher, is trying to help him escape. After a friend is killed trying to muster support for him, he and his deputies – a disgraced drunk and a cantankerous old cripple – must find a way to hold out against the rancher’s hired guns until the marshal arrives. In the meantime, matters are complicated by the presence of a young gunslinger – and a mysterious beauty who just came in on the last stagecoach.
#250: Hiroshima Mon Amour
#250 – Hiroshima Mon Amour, 1959, Alain Resnais
The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film, considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of World War II, the couple – lovers turned friends – recount, over many hours, previous romances and life experiences. The two intertwine their stories about the past with pondering the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on the city.
#260: Pickpocket
#260 – Pickpocket, 1959, Robert Bresson
Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother’s neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft. With a police inspector keeping an eye on him, Michel also tries to get a straight job, but the temptation to steal is hard to resist.
#478: Ben-Hur
#478 – Ben-Hur, 1959, William Wyler
Judah Ben-Hur, a Palestinian Jew, is battling the Roman empire at the time of Christ. His actions send him and his family into slavery, but an inspirational encounter with Jesus changes everything. He finally meets his rival in a justly famous chariot race and rescues his suffering family.
#609: Anatomy of a Murder
#609 – Anatomy of a Murder, 1959, Otto Preminger
The film pits a humble small-town lawyer against a hard-headed big city prosecutor. Emotions flare as a jealous army lieutenant pleads innocent to murdering the rapist of his seductive, beautiful wife.
#823: Imitation of Life
#823 – Imitation of Life, 1959, Douglas Sirk
Lora Meredith, a white widow who dreams of being on Broadway, has a chance encounter with Annie Johnson, a black single mother. Annie becomes the caretaker of Lora’s daughter, Susie, while Lora pursues her stage career. Both women deal with the difficulties of motherhood: Lora’s thirst for fame threatens her relationship with Susie, while Annie’s light-skinned daughter, Sarah Jane, struggles with her African-American identity.
#884: Fires on the Plain
#884 – Fires on the Plain, (野火), 1959, Kon Ichikawa
In the closing days of WWII remnants of the Japanese army in Leyte are abandoned by their command and face certain starvation.
#918: Good Morning
#918 – Good Morning, (お早よう), 1959, Yasujirō Ozu
A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of intergenerational relationships, Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse to buy a television set. Ozu weaves a wealth of subtle gags through a family portrait as rich as those of his dramatic films, mocking the foibles of the adult world through the eyes of his child protagonists. Shot in stunning color and set in a suburb of Tokyo where housewives gossip about the neighbors’ new washing machine and unemployed husbands look for work as door-to-door salesmen, this charming comedy refashions Ozu’s own silent classic I Was Born, But… to gently satirize consumerism in postwar Japan.
Jumbo Cactuar Film Index 