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| Vincente
Minnelli |
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| Director |
| 1903 - 1986 |
| Born February 28,
Chicago, Illinois, USA |
| Key
Production Country: USA |
| Key Genres:
Drama, Musical, Musical Romance, Romance, Comedy, Family Drama, Melodrama, Musical Fantasy, Psychological Drama, Musical Comedy |
| Key
Collaborators: Cedric Gibbons (Production
Designer), Arthur Freed (Producer/Composer), Preston Ames (Production Designer),
Adrienne Fazan
(Editor), Pandro S. Berman (Producer), Ferris Webster (Editor), Judy Garland (Leading Player), Gene Kelly (Leading Player),
John Houseman (Producer), Albert Hackett (Screenwriter) |
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Highly Recommended: The
Bad and the Beautiful (1952), The
Band Wagon (1953), Some Came Running (1958), Home from the Hill (1960), Two Weeks in
Another Town (1962) |
| Recommended: Meet
Me in St. Louis (1944), The Clock (1945), Undercurrent (1946), The
Pirate (1948), Father of the Bride (1950), An American in Paris (1951),
The Cobweb (1955), Tea and Sympathy (1956), Lust for Life (1956), Gigi
(1958) |
| Links: [
IMDB ] [ All-Movie
Guide ] [ Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference ]
[
Queer Modernism: The
Cinematic Aesthetics of Vincente Minnelli ] [ Derek
Malcolm's Century of Films: The Band Wagon ] [ Henry
Sheehan Interview ] [ Chicago
Reader Article ] |
| Books: [
The
Films of Vincente Minnelli ] [ I
Remember it Well ] [ Directed
by Vincente Minnelli ] |
| DVD's:
[ Amazon
] |
| 1,000
Greatest Films: Meet
Me in St. Louis (1944), An
American in Paris (1951), The Bad
and the Beautiful (1952),
The Band Wagon
(1953), Some Came Running (1958), Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) |
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250 Quintessential Noir Films:
Undercurrent (1946) |
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"Minnelli's
career presents great problems as soon as one looks beyond that
initial fondness. Do the fragments come together? Do those
melodious camera movements, the most inventive conception of
background action, and such ceaseless use of color, costume, and
sets make him a major director? Or is he a stylist, unconcerned
with subject matter, for years content to film whatever material
MGM assigned him. Certainly, the loyalty to one studio seems to
have been borne without the agonies that beset, say,
Nicholas Ray." -
David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002) |
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"We
must certainly categorize Minnelli as something more than a
decorative artist, for the stylistic devices of his films are
informed with a remarkably resilient intelligence. Even if we
are finally to conclude that, throughout his work, there is a
dominance of style over theme, it ultimately serves only to
confirm his contribution to the refinement of those techniques
by which Hollywood translates meanings into style and presents
both as entertainment." -
Ed Lowry (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers,
1991) |
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"If
he has a fatal flaw as an artist, it his his naïve belief that
style can invariably transcend substance and that our way of
looking at the world is more important than the world itself.
Critic-film-makers like Godard
and Truffaut pay lip service
to these doctrines, but they don't really believe them. Only
Minnelli believes implicitly in the power of his camera to
transform trash into art, and corn into caviar. Minnelli
believes more in beauty than art." - Andrew
Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968) |
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"A brilliant director of musicals who brought a unity of song
and drama to the screen in the 1940s, Minnelli is also adept at
garish, frequently penetrating dramas. He has one of the best
moving cameras in Hollywood." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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"Having
started as a designer I have a lot to do with settings and
costumes, because I think they relate to the story and
character, explain it." -
Vincente Minnelli |
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