My Year with Gunnar Björnstrand

My first film class at school had me studying under Professor Herbert Cohen. We covered the basics (Kane, Potemkin, etc), yes, but we also watched a whole heck of a lot of Ingmar Bergman films -- especially those with Gunnar Björnstrand.

I'm not sure when I realized it, but Cohen was writing a book about Bergman (Ingmar Bergman: The Art of Confession) and using our class as a bit of an excuse to re-watch/study a number of Bergman's films, focusing quite a bit on movies with Gunnar Björnstrand, one of Bergman's stock players.

I'm going to take a page from Cohen's book. Not the one about Bergmen but I'm going to do the same thing in the coming months/weeks. I've been asked to come aboard as a writer at DailyGrindhouse.com and I'm going to be reviewing some movies that I've been wanting to write about in a larger context:

• The films of Alfred Sole
• The films of Oldrich Lipsky
• The films of Jean-Pierre Melville
• Elliot Gould/Donald Sutherland '70s films
• The films of Greydon Clark
• Films related to the above
• Stuff I've been wanting to write about

I'm also going to be delving into some horror spoofs from the early '80s. Wish me luck.

More than anything, I'm hoping this kicks my butt into gear with some writing I've been wanting to do outside of Cashiers du Cinemart #16. I'm off to the races.