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Showing posts from September, 2015

183. Russian director Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky’s US film “Runaway Train” (1985): An unusual Hollywood film that intensely deals with philosophy and the choices one makes in life

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Lady Anne:  “ No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity ”  King Richard: “ But I know none, therefore am no beast.”               --a conversation from Shakespeare’s Richard III,                   a ppearing as an end-quote in Runaway Train R unaway Train is a remarkable work from Hollywood.  The film was both a box office success and a critically acclaimed film. It is directed by the Russian maestro Andrei Tarkovsky’s classmate in film school Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky.  Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky was no ordinary classmate of the legendary Tarkovsky—he co-scripted as many as 6 screenplays with Tarkovsky, in including two classics of world cinema directed by Tarkovsky:  Ivan’s Childhood (1962) and Andrei Rublev (1966). He even acted in the former. But Runaway Train ’s original script was sculpted by another giant of cinema, Japan’s maestro Ak...