23,607

Dec 30, 2009

Paris, France

United Kingdom

Great Japanese classics (Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse, Kurosawa, Kinoshita, Kobayashi, Ichikawa), any movie with Hara Setsuko, Takamine Hideko, Tanaka Kinuyo, Arima Ineko, Mori Masayuki, Saburi Shin, Yamamura Sô; Ishihara Yûjirô's films; jidaigeki and especially anything with 錦ちゃん (Nakamura Yorozuya Kinnosuke). Then Hollywood's Golden Age (1930-1950): Charlie Chaplin, Ernst Lubitsch, Frank Capra, Orson Welles; Barrymore family (John, Lionel and Ethel), Melvyn Douglas, Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Greer Garson, Olivia de Havilland, Margaret Sullavan, Jimmy Stewart, Leslie Howard, Charles Boyer, Hedy Lamarr, Joseph Cotten, Jean Arthur, Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis... A part from some rare exceptions I stopped watching contemporary US "movies" (or let's call them by the name they deserve: trash) and got rid of the telly years ago. I appreciate European cinema (French, Italian, Spanish, German, Polish, Russian), Native American productions, Chinese movies especially with Gong Li. I adore Argentinian cinema which produced real treasures such as La historia oficial, Sur, Kamchatka, Un lugar en el mundo, El hijo de la novia, Luna de Avellaneda, El segreto de sus ojos and many others. Some of my favorite directors are: Wim Wenders, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, James Ivory, Ang Lee, Claude Lelouch, Bertrand Tavernier, Éric Rohmer, François Truffaut, Costa Gavras, Pino Solanas, Juan José Campanella, Daniel Burman and Woody Allen.

My favorite artists are: Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Arthur Rubinstein, Alexis Weissenberg, Vladimir Askenazy, Martha Argerich, Murray Perahia, Emanuel Ax, Grigory Sokolov, Mitsuko Uchida. Conductors I admire most: Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Georg Solti, Ricardo Muti, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta et James Levine. Favorite composers: Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninov, Debussy, Ravel, Fauré. Where opera is concerned my heart belongs to Puccini, though I admire Verdi as well. Favorite voices: Maria Callas, Beniamino Gigli, Franco Corelli, Mario del Monaco, Plácido Domingo, Montserrat Caballé, Mirella Freni, Kiri Te Kanawa, Elena Obraztsova, Waltraud Meier, Sherill Milnes, Ingvar Wixell, Piero Cappuccilli, Boris Shtokolov, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Boris Christoff. A part from classical music I often listen to: Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Eva Cassidy; Misora Hibari, Ishihara Yûjirô, Enka; Buffy Sainte Marie, Leonard Cohen, Tanita Tikaram; Barbra Streisand; Yiddish songs; Vangelis, Ennio Morricone, Jean-Michel Jarre, Kitaro, Japanese traditional music especially played on the shakuhachi; j'adore la chanson française en général et surtout Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, Serge Lama, Véronique Sanson, Michel Berger et France Gall, Particia Kaas; Lucio Battisti; Mercedes Sosa, Facundo Cabral, Roberto Goyeneche, Astor Piazzolla.

Racine, Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Marcel Proust, Colette, Albert Camus, Romain Gary; Dostoievsky, Tolstoi, Tchekov; Natsume Sōseki, Yoshimura Akira, Oe Kenzaburo, Mishima Yukio, Murakami Haruki; Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Stefan Zweig, Erich Maria Remarque; Jane Austen, Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, Katherine Mansfield, Gerald Durrell, Stephen Fry, Bill Bryson; Carlos Ruiz Zafón; Elsa Morante, Alberto Moravia, Susanna Tamaro; James Oliver Curwood, Jack London, Helen Keller, Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Benjamin Hoff, May Sarton, William Wharton, Sarah Ban Breathnach; Karen Blixen; Jostein Gaarder; L.M. Montgomery; H.C. Andersen; J.K. Rowling