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MichaelB wrote:French cult-porn auteur José Bénazéraf.

Unfortunately I have only had a chance to see his film Frustation, but I remember it being quite an impressive little film. The Eurotika episode dedicated to the director is up on YouTube, which gives a great runthrough of his career. Jo Caligula looks particularly interesting! (it goes without saying it is NSFW!)

Something interesting to note is that one of his earliest big successes, Cover Girl, apparently stars Giorgia Moll a year or so after she played the translator in Godard's Contempt.

That piece is also worth watching just for the moment where Bénazéraf rails against the 'dismal' love scenes of his contemporaries, singling out Truffaut and The Last Metro in particular for a scathing! ("When will we be free of these bourgeoisie?")

Albie Thoms, Australian avant-garde filmmaker and founder of the Sydney Filmmakers Co-Op (and also director of a couple of episodes of Skippy). AFI-nominated for the screenplay of his 1980 feature Palm Beach.

Patrick Moore, astronomer and presenter of the BBC's The Sky at Night for over half a century - he was certainly the longest-serving host of a single television programme in Britain, and very possibly the world.

Amazing to think that The Sky At Night began before the first man went into space and even some months before Sputnik!

He was looking extremely frail over the last few years though (from about the mid 2000s Moore was much more the beloved talisman of the show than the main host with perhaps his last really major live outdoors piece during the last total eclipse visible in the UK back in the summer of 1999), but it seems more than likely that The Sky At Night will continue due to there having been a lengthy handover period over the last decade or so, during which Chris Lintott had been handling a lot of the location reports and main pieces to camera. Here's a tribute by Lintott.

Though of course the loss of Moore and the show being produced from his own home (and small observatory in his back garden!) will probably mean that The Sky At Night could lose some of that charming eccentric hobbyist feel.

While The Sky At Night is obviously the main thing here, I should put in a mention for his role on the early 1990s show about computer games, GamesMaster, in which he appeared as an all-knowing disembodied head dispensing hints and tips for the latest games to the latest poor kid who came begging for help! It had a very amusing religious feel to the way that gamers across the nation were seemingly being told to pray to Patrick Moore to play their games better, and I suppose those appearances as much as anything showed how big a personality he was!

GaryC wrote:Albie Thoms, Australian avant-garde filmmaker and founder of the Sydney Filmmakers Co-Op (and also director of a couple of episodes of Skippy). AFI-nominated for the screenplay of his 1980 feature Palm Beach.

Genius:

Then Thoms could pivot and baffle his followers and direct Skippy the Bush Kangaroo episodes. He relished the story of Frank Thring on the set looking at Skippy struggling in a potato sack. ''If that's the star's friggin' dressing room, what's mine going to be like?'' Thring asked.

Thanks, David, I guessed you probably knew him.

Palm Beach isn't on DVD as far as I can tell.

I'm glad to see Angelopoulos listed.

Galina Vishnevskaya, whose contribution to music was far greater than her contribution to cinema, but she did collaborate with Alexander Sokurov on two projects: the documentary Elegy of Life and the feature Alexandra.

MichaelB wrote:Galina Vishnevskaya, whose contribution to music was far greater than her contribution to cinema, but she did collaborate with Alexander Sokurov on two projects: the documentary Elegy of Life and the feature Alexandra.

True -- but she did star in a decent film version of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtensk (among other things).

Oedipax wrote:Ravi Shankar

It might be time to pull out Monterey Pop again and watch his performance there for a little tribute!

colinr0380 wrote:

Oedipax wrote:Ravi Shankar

It might be time to pull out Monterey Pop again and watch his performance there for a little tribute!

... or play closer attention to subtle influences apparent in the Nora Jones tunes being used as non-offensive muzak in your office elevator. I kid, I kid. I'm pretty sure my parents will bring out their old Shankar albums during the holidays.

colinr0380 wrote:

Oedipax wrote:Ravi Shankar

It might be time to pull out Monterey Pop again and watch his performance there for a little tribute!

FWIW, many of the performances are legally streaming for free on-line, including Shankar's.

Andre Jurieu wrote:

colinr0380 wrote:

Oedipax wrote:Ravi Shankar

It might be time to pull out Monterey Pop again and watch his performance there for a little tribute!

... or play closer attention to subtle influences apparent in the Nora Jones tunes being used as non-offensive muzak in your office elevator. I kid, I kid. I'm pretty sure my parents will bring out their old Shankar albums during the holidays.

The East Meets West records are also superb listening.

knives wrote:I'm glad to see Angelopoulos listed.

And Chris Marker.

I had no idea Erland Josephson or Isuzu Yamada died this year. I know I should be above such a thing, but finding out while listening to M83 didn't exactly soften the blow.

I didn't know Josephson had died, either. Time to pull out one of the innumerable Bergman's he starred in.

Lisa Della Casa who appeared in the 1955 Furtwängler/Czinner Don Giovanni film.

Kenneth Kendall, BBC newsreader. the first to be seen onscreen instead of just being heard. He played TV newsreaders or announcers in a few TV plays and films, including 2001.

This hurts so fuckin' bad,the last of the legendary west coast blues men Jimmy McCracklin, died two days ago.