We return to the work of Youssef Chahine, spurred on by by MUBI’s decision to screen a selection of his works, in what turns out to be marvellous copies. We focus on two of his films, Daddy Amin (1950) and The Devil of the Desert (1954), we compare the visual quality of the MUBI versions to those we saw previously, confirm our admiration for Youssef Chahine’s skills as a director, José takes a dig at the arrogance of a British film culture that assumes one can just move from writing or directing for the stage to directing a movie, and not even Richard can stop José from sighing over Omar.

The podcast my also be listened to on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

A comparison of the quality of Daddy Amin from the version we saw to the MUBI version:

The version we saw previously:

The MUBI version:

Omar’s introduction in The Devil of the Desert:

The Battle Sequence in The Devil of the Desert as an example of cinematic staging:

The introduction of Omar Sharif in The Devil of the Desert:

You may also be interested in our previous podcast on Daddy Amin:

The Youssef Chahine Podcast No. 18: Baba Amin (Youssef Chahine, Egypt, 1950)

…annd on our previous podcast on The Devil of the Desert/ aka Devil of the Sahara aka The Desert’s Devil:

The Youssef Chahine Podcast: No. 21 – Devil of the Sahara/ The Desert’s Devil/ Devil of the Desert

The Tom Stoppard article Richard refers to may be accessed here.

Also. You might be interested in this:

José Arroyo