Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne

• Belgian filmmakers.

• Brothers that write, produce, and direct their films together.

• Jean-Pierre was born in 1951. Luc was born in 1954.

• Born in the French-speaking part of Belgium. 

• In 1975 they established their own production company and produced roughly 60 documentaries before branching out into feature films.

• These films covered topics such as Polish immigration and World War II resistance.

• They came to international attention in the mid-1990s with La Promesse (The Promise) (1995), it was their first major success.

• They won their first major international film prize when Rosetta (1999), a film about the philosophical, spiritual, and psychological burdens of unemployment, won the Palme d'Or at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.

•  In 2005, they won the Palme d'Or a second time for their film L’Enfant (The Child), At the time, there were only six other winners that had accomplished that.

• These are the only two Belgian films to earn that honor.

• Their latest film, The Kid with a Bike, won the Grand Prix at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

• Most of their films are realistic dramas about lower class life in Belgium, they show young people at the fringes of society, the immigrants, the unemployed, and the inhabitants of shelters. They have used first-time actors in multiple films and often use handheld cameras and available light.

Films

• Chant du rossignol (1978)
• Lorsque le bateau de Léon M. descendit la Meuse pour la première fois (1979)
• Pour que la guerre s'achève, les murs devaient s'écrouter (1980)
• R... ne répond plus (1981)
• Leçons d'une université volante (1982)
• Regarde Jonathan/Jean Louvet, son oeuvre (1983)
• Il court... il court le monde (1987)
• Falsch (1987)
• Je pense à vous (I Think of You) (1992)
• La promesse (The Promise) (1996)
• Rosetta (1999)
• Le fils (The Son) (2002)
• L’Enfant (The Child) (2005)
• Dans l'Obscurité (Darkness) (2007)
• Le silence de Lorna (Lorna's Silence) (2008)
• The Kid with a Bike (Le Gamin au vélo) (2011)

Awards

• 1999 Palme d'Or
• 2005 Palme d'Or
• 2005 Grand-Cross of the Order of the Crown (Belgium)
• 2008 Film Award Cologne within the Cologne Conference
• 2011 Grand Prix (Cannes Film Festival)

Blog Post #2 - Film Noir

        "For me the great noir films are films about fall guys; a person who finds himself caught in a net, the more he struggles, the deeper and deeper he becomes entwined in nightmare." This quote by Errol Morris describes Walter Neff's journey in Double Indemnity perfectly. He started off as just a regular insurance salesman but then he became involved in a murder plot. Once things started going wrong and he tried getting out of the net, he just got caught in it deeper and deeper.

         "She's very smart, she's very powerful and she's extremely sexual. She uses her sexuality to get what she's after and what she's after is not the man in the picture. He's another tool. What she's after is something for herself." Janey Place's description of a femme fatale fits Phyllis's character in Double Indemnity very well. She uses her intelligence and sexuality to seduce and manipulate Walter into helping her kill her husband. She wasn't really after Walter, he was just another tool she used to get what she wanted.

              I've always liked watching movies. When I was a kid I would watch all of the animated Disney movies countless times. My favorites were The Lion King, Toy Story, and Hercules. I also liked to watch live action films like The Sandlot, The Little Rascals remake, and The Neverending Story. Once I got a bit older I started to get into more mature films like Jurassic Park, Robocop, and Terminator 2. But it wasn't until around the end of middle school that I really started to become more interested in films as more than just a source of entertainment.
              It was a film titled Se7en directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman that inspired me to look into film as a hobby. Something about the movie just clicked with me; the twists, the suspense, and the grittiness fascinated me. After that I started looking into top ten lists on the internet and worked my way through a bunch because I use to have a lot of free time when I was younger. My taste has changed and evolved throughout the years and I've now explored "deeper" into art-house and foreign films. I would like to start directing short films just as a hobby but I still haven't really made anything yet because I haven't had the time or money yet but hopefully I will soon.