Name: Emile Kusturica
Gender: Male
Birthday: 1954.11.24
Occupation: director, screenwriter, actor
Place of birth: Sarajevo, former Yugoslavia
Keywords: war, Rabelais-esque, idealism, gypsies, animals
Masterpieces: [Do you remember Dolly Bell] (1981), [Daddy goes on a business trip] (1985), [Arizona's Dream] (1993), [Underground] (1995), [Black Cat White Cat] (1998), [Life is a Miracle] (2004), [Maradona] (2008)
Emile Kusturica was born in yugoslavia, a country that has disappeared. This wanderer does not inject elements of sadness into the film. Rather, his work is like an anarchic, full of elements of imagination.
At the Shanghai Film Festival, he came to be the chairman of the jury, and people can't help but look forward to what color the film festival can be painted by him.
▲Come to Shanghai, please give more advice, hehehehehe
1 chicken flying dog jumping zoo
Kusturica likes to plant animals in all corners of his films. His set, also like a zoo, drove the crew crazy.
In [Black Cat White Cat], the great white goose becomes a tool to wipe the body; at the end of [Balkan Punk], the goat eats the newspaper; [underground] as if the world of the suspects is not chaotic enough, elephants and orangutans come to join in the fun.
▲ Of course, this pig in [black cat white cat] is indispensable, and the car is almost gone
Kusturica exalted this "noble expression": "What I want to express is not only nature, animals, antics and fantasy, but also the emphasis on the value of human beings."
2 Never look back on Yugoslavia
Many of his films are set against the backdrop of war, not directly depicting war, but rather showing people wandering in the face of political turmoil. He once said: "The family is the foundation, the mythical factor." "Although his homeland has long been lost.
▲ [Underground], war and homeland are the core themes. The end credits go on to say: "Once upon a time there was a country called Yugoslavia, and its capital was Belgrade. ”
3 Walk-and-go concerts
From 1998's "White Cat Black Cat" to 2004's "Life is a Miracle," for six years, Kusturica didn't have a new work. Guess what this cargo did? Engage in a world tour and play rock and roll to go!
Kusturica is also the bassist of the band Smokeless Zone
However, this gypsy-style wandering performance is also part of his directing practice. He recorded all this with a small video camera he carried with him on the tour and filmed it as [Balkan Punk].
4 Strike back at the right time
In 1997, at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Cannes Film Festival, Francis Coppola said that she had never heard of Kusturica. In 2005, Kusturica became president of the Cannes jury and talked about it unceremoniously.
He said that film education in the United States does have many problems. Columbia University film students don't even know Fellini. And Coppola didn't know him, maybe jealousy. "Because I got two Palme d'Ors, and he only had one and a half."
▲ The Palme d'Or loves me
5 Virulent Remarks Diagnosis
His love of animals also caused trouble. In [Life is a Miracle], there is a scene in which a wild cat raids a dead pigeon. British filmmakers asked him to cut the scene. Kusturica felt inexplicable.
"I love Ken Lodge, your football and the working class, but I don't think great British culture would be buried by a cat from Eastern Europe. I didn't understand, in fact, the pigeon was dead, we found it on the side of the road. What's wrong with you Britons? You killed millions of Indians and Africans, but you were horrified by the death of a Serbian pigeon. Were you raised by pigeons? ”
▲ Shoot [life is a miracle] is not careful, after shooting, you have to force the cut, is it easy?
6 maverick film views
The whimsical director is also unique when it comes to talking about movies. Hollywood directors are busy restoring life and replicating reality, but he shouts "movies have nothing to do with reality, movies are very fake."
He has expressed his fondness for "Big Fish" and "Angel Amelie", and his preference for imagination in the film is also evident. He claims that his script has nothing to do with things in life; and that movies have nothing to do with scripts.
Kusturica takes Audrey Tatoo on a tour of his own town
7 bizarre hobbies
He had an almost insane love of guns, firing hundreds of bullets every day before breakfast. He also loves bombs and gypsies, hobbies that are confusing.
The same goes for the characters in his films, who are incomprehensibly obsessed with their hobbies. In [Arizona's Dream], Alex (Johnny Depp) and Eileen (Fei Donnevi) are bound together by the Dream of Flying, while in Life is a Miracle, engineer Luka (Slavko Stimako) leaves the city to settle in the mountains in order to build a tourist route.
Depp, can you understand this dream of flying?
8 The vigorous maintenance of idols
Such people believe in the existence of miracles. He believed that there were things in the world that science and reason could not explain. His admiration for Maradona is somewhat unexplainable. At that time, Maradona was caught in a bribery scandal, and Kusturica was indignant.
▲ He made a documentary [Maradona] to correct the chaos for the idol
He put it this way: "We can't deny his goal, his hand of God. Few people can be as divine and human as he is. When he said that goal was God's masterpiece, I was convinced. ”
9 Small towns born out of thin air
Kusturica wanted to shoot [Life is a Miracle] in the West Mountain, but was drawn to a nearby wasteland. Because of the strong wind here, others avoid it. But he built the "Wood Town" here. It has also become the only place in the balkans that can be self-sufficient on ticket revenue.
▲ Wood Town has become a film culture town, as well as its own film festival. In 2013, Johnny Depp unveiled his statue at the film festival
He himself lived here. "This is perfectly in line with my understanding of freedom and autonomy." This man who lost his home built a home for himself.
(This article was originally published on the WeChat public account "Watch Movie Magazine")