Friends of the Armchair Traveller

  "THE BOOK OF JOAN"                                                     This  wonderful short work from Roland Quelven is  a tribute to  Carl Theodor Dreyer's   silent cinematic masterpiece "The Passion of Joan of Arc ".   The Book of Joan from Roland Quelven on Vimeo . The Book of Joan - Odium Theologicum - Napolecitta 28 - Video and Sound collage by Roland Quelven. "The Passion of Joan of Arc" by Carl Theodor Dreyer debuted on April 21, 1928 at the Cinema Palads Teatret in Copenhagen. After a few private screenings, it finally premiered in Paris on October 25, 1928 at the Cinema Marivaux. The film was delayed because of the longtime efforts of many French nationalists, who objected to the fact that Dreyer was not Catholic and not French and to the then-rumored casting of Lillian Gish as Joan. As earl...

ROBERT KRASKER AUSTRALIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER Early this year when I turned 78 my friends John Ruane and Vicky Ryan brought up some gifts. One of their many gifts was a remastered Bluray of "The Third Man" which is a film I have loved since I was about 17 years of age. I already had a DVD of this great work, but the remastered Bluray is vastly superior in image quality, in fact better than any film print I have seen. The other day I shared "The Third Man" with my friend Alexander. I have been showing this film around since I received the beautiful restored Bluray a some months ago. Surprisingly, some of my friends have never seen this masterpiece which I've seen many times since I was 17, mostly very poor copies which did not do justice to the wonderful cinematography. Recently my friend Nigel Buesst informed me about  Robert Krasker , an Australian cinematographer who made it big in world cinema from the late thirties to the sixties last century. Nigel had visited...