Perfect Stranger

Quel Prix Pour Ces Diamants?

The time has come to stop supporting tribal warfare, genocide, and acts of terror. The time has come to end the manipulation and brainwashing that the corrupt De Beers company has enacted these last eighty years. The time has come to stop buying diamonds. Completely. No diamond rings. No diamond earrings. No diamond necklaces or bracelets or watches. When we wanted to stop elephants from being poached, the world had to stop buying ivory. If we want to end the wholesale slaughter and exploitation of Africans, we must stop buying diamonds. And, we must do it now.

The Best Things In Life Aren't Things

What If Mom Was An Artist

Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?

Photo Shoot: hotmilkfromthewhiterabbit

Model: Korhan Topaloğlu
Photographer: Zuleyha Yenice
Video is directed by me...
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Michelangelo Antonioni

God really works in mysterious ways... First Bergman... And now Antonioni... Two o my all time favorite directors passed away within the last two days. May them rest in peace...

Antonioni was born in Ferrara, Emilia Romagna. Upon graduation from the University of Bologna with a degree in economics, he started writing for the local Ferrara newspaper Il Corriere Padano in 1935 as a film journalist. In 1940 Antonioni moved to Rome, where he began to cooperate with Cinema, official Fascist film magazine directed by Benito Mussolini's son Vittorio, but was fired a few months later. That very year he enrolled at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia for a program in film technique. In 1942 he co-wrote the scenario for Un pilota ritorna together with Roberto Rossellini and worked as assistant director on Enrico Fulchignoni's I due Foscari. In 1943 Antonioni travelled to France to assist Marcel Carné on Les visiteurs du soir. Antonioni started shooting short films in the 1940s with Gente del Po, a story of poor fishermen of the Po valley on which he worked from 1943 to 1947. In 1985 Antonioni suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak. Michelangelo Antonioni died on July 30, 2007 in Rome around 8 pm, the same day that another great film director, Ingmar Bergman, died.
Antonioni's first full-length feature film, Cronaca di un amore, appeared in 1950. In 1952, Antonioni made "I Vinti" ("The Vanquished"), a trio of stories, each set in a different country (France, Italy and England), about juvenile delinquency. "La Signora Senza Camelie" ("The Lady Without Camellias," 1953), "Le Amiche" ("The Girlfriends," 1955), and "Il Grido" ("The Outcry," 1957) partake in a similar deeply introspective mood. Each includes indelible images that anticipate the director's later works. Antonioni's first international success was L'avventura (1960), which was followed by La notte (1961) and L'eclisse (1962). These three films are commonly referred to as a trilogy because they are stylistically similar and all concerned with the alienation of man within the modern world. His first color film, Il deserto rosso (1964), deals with similar themes, and is sometimes considered the fourth film of the "trilogy". Actress Monica Vitti appears in all four. He signed a three-picture deal with producer Carlo Ponti. Each film had to be in English and was to be released by MGM. The first, Blowup (1966), which was set in England, was a major success. Though it dealt with the challenging theme of the impossibility of objective standards, it was a successful and popular hit with audiences, no doubt helped by its sexually explicit (for the time) scenes. It starred David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave. The park scenes from the film were set in Maryon Park, Charlton, London. The second film, Zabriskie Point (1970), his first film set in America, was much less successful, even though its soundtrack incorporated such popular artists as Pink Floyd (who wrote new music specifically for the film), the Grateful Dead, and the Rolling Stones. The third, The Passenger (1975), which starred Jack Nicholson, received critical praise as well. After long being out of circulation, The Passenger had a limited theatrical run in October of 2005 by Sony Pictures Classics and has subsequently been released on DVD.

In 1972, at the invitation of the Chinese government in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, Antonioni visited China and made the documentary Chung Kuo/Cina (China). However, it was misunderstood and severely denounced by the Chinese authorities as anti-Chinese and anti-communist for presenting their country in an allegedly wrong way.[1][2]

Il mistero di Oberwald (The Mystery of Oberwald) (1980) was an experiment of electronic treatment of color, recorded in video and then translated to film, featuring Monica Vitti once again. It is based on Jean Cocteau's story L'aigle à deux têtes (The Eagle Has Two Heads) and has more to do with Visconti's themes and obsessions than Antonioni's.

Identificazione di una donna (Identification of a Woman, 1982), filmed in Italy, deals one more time with the recursive subjects of Italian trilogy.

Wim Wenders filmed interludes for his Beyond the Clouds (1995), but they were mostly rejected by Antonioni at the editing stage. The beach sequence and the last sequence, however, remained in the final cut.

In 1996, Antonioni was given an Academy Award for lifetime achievement. It was presented to him by Jack Nicholson. Months later, the statuette was stolen by burglars. Previously, he was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Director and for Best Screenplay, for Blowup.

Eros (2004) - segment "Il filo pericoloso delle cose" ("The Dangerous Thread of Things")- was filmed when Antonioni was at his 90s. The short film's episodes are framed by dreamy paintings and the song "Michelangelo Antonioni", composed and sung by Caetano Veloso. Critics, however, considered this film plainly bad.[3] The U.S. DVD release of the film includes another short film by Antonioni: In Lo sguardo di Michelangelo (The Gaze of Michelangelo) (2004) - we can see Michelangelo Antonioni as an actor for the first time.

Among Antonioni's most prolific collaborations composer Giovanni Fusco, cinematographers Enzo Serafin, Gianni di Venanzo and Carlo Di Palma, screenwriter Tonino Guerra, actress Monica Vitti should be named.

Ingmar Bergman

Legendary Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman has died at the age of 89. Bergman won three Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film, for The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly and Fanny and Alexander. He also won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented at the 1971 Oscars ceremony. Eva Bergman said that her father had passed away "peacefully."For many movie buffs, Bergman was the greatest of the authorial film-makers of the 1950s and 1960s, outranking even such figures as Federico Fellini, Luis Bunuel or Jean-Luc Godard.The demanding nature of his work, in particular the gravity of his themes, was such that the general public found him remote, and he was accused in his homeland of being partly responsible for Sweden being presented as a country of neurotics.Born in 1918 in Uppsala to a Lutheran minister, Bergman became interested in theatre and cinema after leaving Stockholm University, where he never completed his course in literature and art. Bergman started making films soon after the Second World War. An early film to catch international attention was Summer with Monika (Sommaren med Monika). The nude scenes in the film were controversial abroad, and were credited by some with giving Sweden its reputation as a sexually liberated country.A number of Swedish actors worked repeatedly with Bergman, including Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Erland Josephson, Gunnar Björnstrand and Liv Ullmann.Commenting on his death on Monday, Bibi Andersson told tabloid Aftonbladet that she would "miss him enormously."Known in Sweden mainly as a dramatist, Bergman obtained poor reviews for work that was considered dark and incomprehensible, with its focus on love, loneliness, anguish and relations with God.Women also occupied a central role in his work, which often dwelt on the mysteries of the female soul. He had loved his mother intensely as a child, and when a doctor advised her to set him aside or he would be damaged for life, he felt the loss deeply.Mother-son relationships featured prominently in his work, as did his experiences from five marriages. Bergman made profoundly personal films following his intellectual and spiritual preoccupations and tracing his loss of faith in God.Bergman's films tended to be low-budget, with Cries and Whispers (1973) costing only $200,000. Aside from the Oscar winners, Bergman received widespread critical acclaim for films including The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet - 1957) Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället -1957) and his 1973 television series Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett Äktenskap).Fanny and Alexander (1984) was his last major feature, and is regarded as one of his best. He kept working well into old age, producing his last television series, Saraband, in 2003. Bergman was also an accomplished stage director, and managed and directed both the Malmö City Theatre and the Stockholm Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten). He was also director of the Residenz-Theater of Munich between 1977-84, a period that coincided with a dispute with the Swedish authorities over alleged tax evasion. Four of Bergman's marriages ended in divorce. His last wife, Ingrid, died in 1995. He had nine children, including one, daughter Linn Ullmann, from his relationship with actress Liv Ullman.

hotmilkfromthewhiterabbit

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Le Tourbillon de La Vie

My Personal DNA

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Gianfranco Ferre

Fashion Designer Gianfranco Ferre passed away today after he was hospitalised yesterday in the intensive care unit at a hospital in Milan. May he rest in peace...

Ferre was born on 15 August 1944 in Legnano, in northern Italy. He received a degree in architecture in 1969. Ferre began his fashion career in 1970 by designing accessories, then worked as a raincoat designer in 1972-74. He started his own company in 1974 (Baila-label) and launched his signature collection for women in 1978. His first men's collection appeared in 1982, followed in 1986 by his first couture collection in Rome. Ferre became Stylistic Director of Christian Dior in Paris in 1989, when he was chosen by owner Bernard Arnault to replace Marc Bohan. In 1996, it was announced that Ferre would end his engagement with Dior with the Spring 1997 collection for the label. His own label is more relaxed and practical than Dior, with functional pockets and no big hats. Ferre appeared to be extremely critical of trends and fashion gimmicks. He dealt with his demanding schedule, being responsible for a French top fashion brand and his own Italian label by commuting between Milan and Paris in his private plane. Ferre had a lakeside home in beautiful Lake Maggiore, near Milan.

Being Boring

Since the day I began loving music, videos...etc. (let's say the arts); this video has always been the video I've ever considered as the best. Directed by Bruce Weber for the song by Pet Shop Boys here's the video...

Turkish Blog

I've just started a new blog in Turkish on the stupidity of this planet. Click here to view.

The Kiss

They say a kiss is just a kiss. I couldn't disagree more. The kiss speaks a language all of its own. It can ask a question, or answer one. It can reveal insecurity or offer up reassurance. It has the power to bring a blind date crashing to earth, or to launch it into blissful, unending orbit. It is the epicenter of sexual intimacy and the harbinger of fading love. It is a refuge for rich and poor, black and white, deaf and blind. No, a kiss is definitely not just a kiss. It is the human experience reduced to the space where your lips meet mine.