Dirk Sanders Movies
A talented actor and filmmaker who got his start in the entertainment industry as a dancer, innovative choreographer, and ballet creator, Dirk Sanders thrilled theatergoers with his creative moves before moving into film with such efforts as White Nights (1957). Born in Djakarta, Java, Sanders studied dance in 1950s Germany under Kurt Jooss before relocating to France to begin a successful career on-stage. Soon mixing modern and academic techniques in such original efforts as Recreation, Sanders reached the apex of his early career with a successful performance of Maratona di Danza at the Berlin Festival in 1957. Performing under the name Dick Sanders, he continued on-stage with adaptations of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), entitled L'Echelle, and Hopop in London during the early 1970s. After meeting Muriel Belmondo (brother of popular French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo), Sanders would appear in Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le fou (1965). A television director and collaborator of Jean-Christophe Averty in his later years, Sanders took the helm of features including 1967's Gentle Love and a television performance of Tosca (1982), in addition to a pair of dance documentaries. In July 2002, the dancer and filmmaker who had collaborated with such screen legends as Brigitte Bardot and Marcello Mastroianni died in Paris. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide- 1995
Life? Love? Sex? Art? These questions are explored in this semi-autobiographical drama by debut filmmaker Evan Unruh. There are four primary protagonists in the film. Trish, a man-hater; Max who longs for a middle-class family life, Lisa who wants to change, and Jake a frustrated poet who longs to write the perfect sentence. The film is storied as a therapy session focusing on each pair. Title cards present the questions they seek to answer in their conversations. The film's primary focus is upon the relationship between Lisa and Jake who is too buy being an artist to pay much attention to Lisa who gets even by refusing to sleep with him. This causes Jake to have worse writer's block than before. Max, a painter, would gladly give up art for love. He tried with Trish, but he was rejected. She is busy bashing men in her comedy routines. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Choreographed by Roland Petit, ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov teams up with ZiZi Jeanmaire in this 1980 version of Carmen. Interestingly enough, Petit starred along side Jeanmaire in the original 1949 ballet performance with great success.
~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- 1969
In this French drama, an aspiring photographer leaves his wife and daughter to seek his fortune in the City of Light. After three years, the wife grows tired of country life and also moves to Paris, but instead of looking for her husband, she becomes a model. Fortunately, by the story's end, she and he reconcile and happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1968
A couple with a teenage daughter separate after failing to reconcile their marital discord. The moody husband goes off to Paris to try and find work as a photographer. Three years later, the wife and daughter come to Paris where the wife begins a highly successful career as a fashion model, and their daughter is wild and willing to become experienced in the world of love. The couple reunites over concern about their potentially wayward girl. Their meeting sets the stage for an eventual reconciliation and renewal of their love for each other in this comedic drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karen Blanguernon, Frederic de Pasquale, (more)
Pierrot le fou (1965) is Jean-Luc Godard's sixth film staring Anna Karina, his first wife. It is the story of Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Marianne (Karina). They meet when Ferdinand's wife hires Marianne as a baby-sitter. As he drives Marianne home, Ferdinand decides to run away with her. The couple get caught up in a mysterious gun-running scheme involving Marianne's brother (Dirk Sanders). With Pierrot le fou Godard returns to the story of A bout de souffle (Breathless): the tale of a couple on the run. But in the six years between the two films Godard developed a more complex and often difficult style. Pierrot le fou incorporates musical numbers, references to the history of cinema and painting, and quotations from literature. The film features Godard's most extended use of color to that point, as the shots are filled with blocks of bright primary colors. Pierrot le fou is a catalogue of cinematic inventions and of gestures made by couples in love. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina, (more)
- 1962
Louis Malle directed this drama about the toll fame takes upon a women pursuing a May-December romance. Jill (Brigitte Bardot) is a lovely 18-year-old girl who lives with her mother on a comfortable estate in Lake Geneva. Jill has dreams of some day becoming a ballet dancer, but her immediate concerns often focus upon Fabio (Marcello Mastroianna), a attractive older man who publishes a magazine and has married one of Jill's closest friends, Carla (Ursula Kubler). In time, Jill decides Fabio will never love her, and she runs away to Paris to study dance. While her career in ballet never pans out, she becomes an immediate success as a fashion model, and goes on to become a top film star. Five years after leaving home, Jill has become weary of fame, and comes home to her mother's home to rest. Jill discovers that Fabio and Carla have divorced, and he now takes a very keen interest in her. While stardom has now made Jill desirable to Fabio, it also attracts the attention of the world's press when word gets out that the screen goddess is dating a man almost fifteen years her senior. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brigitte Bardot, Marcello Mastroianni, (more)
Black Tights is a filmed ballet anthology divided into four all-dance episodes. "The Diamond Cruncher" spotlights Ziza Jeanmaire as a lady mobster who gives up her life of crime for the love of a good man. "Cyrano de Bergerac" stars Roland Petit (who also choreographed) as Cyrano and Moira Shearer as Roxanne; its music was composed by Marius Constant, of Twilight Zone fame. "A Merry Mourning" finds Cyd Charisse flittering her way into a deadly romantic triangle. And "Carmen," starring Jeanmaire once more, is the old story, danced rather than sung to the music of Bizet. Both the French and English-language versions of Black Tights are narrated by Maurice Chevalier. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Zizi Jeanmaire, Moira Shearer, (more)
