Synopsis
A celebration of childhood and cinema
A meticulous essay on the presence and representation of children in the history of cinema, in which cinematographies from all over the world are analyzed.
A Story of Children and Film
2013 Directed by Mark Cousins
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Alternative Titles
Una historia de los niños y el cine, 儿童电影史话, Sinema ve Çocukların Hikayesi, 스토리 오브 칠드런 앤 필름
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France
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France
17 May 2013
- Theatrical
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Mark Cousins presents this fascinating and entirely captivating documentary detailing the many varied parts, characters and emotions that children hold in film. From early Czech and Japanese beginnings through to modern classics including E.T. and Moonrise Kingdom, the film covers a huge amount of ground.
Highly recommended for those with an interest in the history of film. I found this really interesting, despite Cousins' sometimes flat delivery.
[Currently playing on the Criterion Channel]
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One of the sweetest films of the year, Mark Cousins returns with another foray into his romanticized version of film history. Far more abstract than his previous effort, A Story of Children and Film is incredibly poetic in its depiction of children in film. Cousins' offers his customary appreciation for world cinema and only gives two examples of American films; his retrospective is quite balanced in its presentation of all types of cinemagraphed children. I adore Cousins' romantic narration and bubbly poetry, however many audience members in the theatre were annoyed by his accent and abstract approach to the material. This is an excellent companion to his The Story of Film: An Odyssey, and I highly recommend watching this piece as if it were another episode in that monumental work.
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As always, Mark Cousin's passion for film is incredibly infectious. To harvest insights into how children have been portrayed in cinema through Mark's incredibly perceptive and analytic gaze is a real treat. A broad range of films are discussed, with Cousins making direct comparisons between filmmaking as an art form and the playful, inquisitive nature of children.
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A fascinating and peculiar - if slightly repetitive - video essay from critic and filmmaker Mark Cousins. Through filming his niece and nephew playing, he is able to look back throughout the entire history of cinema to find images of children in film that reflect their emotions and personae.
Even if you're turned off by the quirky nature of the film, I guarantee that you'll never look at a film in quite the same way again.
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As anyone who has seen his 15 hour series The Story of Film: An Odyssey can attest, Mark Cousins loves film. While that series had its moments of clumsiness, it never lacked passion and all that passion (plus extra helpings) can be found in the feature-length A Story of Children and Film - Cousins' look at how childhood has been depicted in cinema, particularly world cinema that audiences may not be familiar with.
Is there anyone else as cineliterate as Cousins working in the industry today? Anyone else who can talk about films as well known as E.T. The Extra Terrestrial and The 400 Blows and as little known as Yaaba and Nespatrené with equal authority? Certainly, I can think…
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Boring, pompous twaddle - as pointless as an unsharpened pencil.
The only reason I sat through this self-indulgent bollocks was coz it gave me many films to seek out. -
“Movies are like Kids, and Kids are like Movies”
I love Mark Cousins, I would party with that dude
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very relaxing
i got very exciting when i'd actually seen one of the films he mentioned lol -
Loved A Story of Children and Film. A thoughtful, moving and often inspired look at, well, representations of children in film.
Films I'm dying to see after A Story of Children and Film: Crows, Kauwboy, Hugo and Josephine and Long Live The Republic.
Also loved some of the connections Cousins makes between films, e.g. E.T. and Chaplin's The Kid (adults forcibly separating characters).
It is, of course, impossible to watch Story etc without attempting to talk like Mark Cousins afterwards. They should put up some sort of caption with a warning beforehand.
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Criterion Channel Saturday Matinee February 13. "Children are like movies, movies are like children."
This is a fantastic film essay. Beautiful, charming, happy, sad, there are a wealth of different emotions to be found, all through the lens of children in film. The filmmaker uses this idea to explore how children on the screen make for more interesting and moving scenarios, as well as show various examples of How children are used for cinema
Like any good essay, the film describes one centrality (kids on film) to demonstrate the range of feelings the idea will manifest itself in, with great arguments to justify. Along the way, he uses examples from so many classic films, silent era to contemporary, and from…
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Re-watched this in preparation for 'Women Make Film' and glad that I did so, as it contains the nucleus of the idea for Mark Cousins' latest project. This is a very special film as it not only explores the significant contribution that children have made on-screen throughout the history of cinema, but is also a meditation on the concept of 'film' only being a 100 year-old art-form and therefore representing the 'child' amongst the arts.
At only 100 minutes, this is obviously less comprehensive than either 'The Story of Film: An Odyssey' or 'Women Make Film', but I feel as though the film really benefits from this. While 'A Story of Film' is a brilliant and ambitious attempt at surveying…