Last Takes: Final Films by Great Directors

Critics such as Edward Said have written extensively about the late works of composers and other artists but relatively little light has been shed on the last films by significant film directors. This series will attempt to see if any connecting threads can be drawn between the late films of major cineastes in a number of genres, whether they be art films, westerns, literary adaptations, action pictures or comedies.

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19 January - A Countess From Hong Kong

Charlie Chaplin, UK, 1967, 108 minutes. Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren star in Chaplin’s under-rated shipboard comedy of class and manners, the final work of one of the great figures of the cinema.

26 January - F For Fake 

Orson Welles, France/Iran, 1973/1977, 85 minutes. Part documentary, part con game, and part wizened wrap-up, Welles’ final film retains the dazzling brilliance of Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil in its tale of a pair of notorious frauds.

2 February - The Beaches Of Agnès

Agnès Varda, France, 2008, 100 minutes. What could be the ‘Godmother’ of the French New Wave’s last film – she’s not quite dead yet – is another delightful self-reflexive documentary on her own life and work.

9 February - Saraband

Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 2003, 107 minutes. Mistaken as a mere bookend to his great 1973 TV series Scenes From A Marriage, Saraband is indeed an elegant and stylish update of the turbulent state of Scandinavian domesticity.

16 February - Madadayo

Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1993, 134 minutes. A restrained and luminous portrait of a beloved teacher, Madadayo’s epic timeline is balanced against a warm, tender cinematic intimacy that strays far from Kurosawa’s signature Samurai films.

23 February - The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir, France, 1969, 108 minutes. Three separate stories – one a miniature absurdist opera – sees the greatest of all French film directors still retaining his trademark compassion and humour.

2 March - The Sacrifice

Andrei Tarkovsky, Sweden/UK, 1986, 145 minutes. One of the most moving and mysterious of all European films, The Sacrifice sees the “End of the World” averted through a supernatural dalliance between a literary critic and a witch.

23 March - A Time for Dying

Budd Boetticher, USA, 1971, 67 minutes. The last film of both actor Audie Murphy and legendary director Boetticher, A Time for Dying examines the true cost of the great “Outlaw” myths of the American West.

30 March - The Eagle Has Landed

John Sturges, USA/UK, 1977, 134 minutes. A diabolical plot to kidnap Winston Churchill during World War Two was the subject of Sturges’ last feature; echoes of his action triumphs The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven abound.

6 April - Imitation of Life

Douglas Sirk, USA, 1959, 120 minutes. A remake of John Stahl’s 1934 soap opera, Sirk’s final cinematic fling is a hyper-stylized “women’s film” that daringly examines issues of race in a pre-Civil Rights USA.

13 April - The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse

Fritz Lang, W. Germany, 1960, 103 minutes. Lang’s third Dr. Mabuse film continues his themes of paranoia, fate and the effect of technology, all ideas that drove films such as Metropolis, The Big Heat and M.

20 April - That Obscure Object of Desire

Luis Buñuel, France, 1977, 103 minutes. Sadomasochism and double identities drive the veering narrative of Buñuel’s final feature, which sees the surrealist master in full command of the materials of the cinema.

27 April - Louisiana Story

Robert Flaherty, USA, 1948, 77 minutes. Standard Oil commissioned the iconic documentarian Robert (Nanook of the North, Man of Aran) Flaherty to chronicle the oil industry’s arrival in the Bayou; the result is a lyrical nonfiction film landmark.

4 May - The Dead

John Huston, USA/UK/Ireland, 1987, 100 minutes. The melancholic last story from James Joyce’s collection Dubliners is brought to the screen with deep and loving resonance by the director of such landmark literary adaptations as The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen and The Night of the Iguana.