Le Blog de Zazie: agosto 2013

venerdì 30 agosto 2013

The Zazie Alphabet

While on holiday, I was reading some cinema blogs when I stumbled upon a very nice idea, the one of a cinema alphabet.
The rules were quite simple:

Alphabet Rules:
1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.
2. The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of a film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don't know of any films with those titles.
3. Return of the Jedi belongs under "R," not "S" as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with "S." Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under "R," not "I" as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the Lord Of The Rings series belong under "L" and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under "C," as that's what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release.
4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under "T."

I immediately started to write down some titles, but it wasn't easy. For some letters, I had at least 4 or 5 movies I was thinking about. It was somehow frustrating, and so I stopped.
When I looked back to my list, after a few weeks, it was clear that I had to take a decision about all those titles. And I did. I just decided to follow the instinct of the moment, understanding that probably, another day, I would have picked up some other titles.
But in the end, it all made sense: many of my favourite film-makers and actors are there, there are at least three Truffaut's movies (surprise! surprise!), films are coming from different countries that I love and from different periods that inspire me, and each title reminds me of a story, of a particular moment of my life.
So, basically, if an unknown person should learn my own particular cinema language, this is the alphabet to understand the Zaziesque:

A
Les Amours Imaginaires
by Xavier Dolan (Canada, 2010)