Bright Lights Film Journal

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    • The Last Airbender: The Most (Incomplete) Fantastic Journey

      30 Comments

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    • Latest Stories

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    • A Mindscape of Mirrors: Persona and the Cinema of Self-Perception

      March 22, 2016

    • Rethinking Historical Responsibility Through Art: The Role of Film in Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing (2012)

      March 18, 2016

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      Mind over Mother: Ecstasy and Cruelty in Brian De Palma’s Carrie

    • THREE MEN IN THE…DARJEELING LIMITED – Movies n' chill on:

      “Filled with Ritual”: Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited

  • 3-22-16-persona-head

    Drama

    0

    A Mindscape of Mirrors: Persona and the Cinema of Self-Perception

    • March 22, 2016

    Like Sylvia Plath’s mirror, which promises then imperils her ideal self, the gaze of the other in Persona is a double-edged sword: a threat to pure subjectivity but also the[…]

  • "Our office? That's where we killed people."

    Activist & Political · Crime · Historical & Epic · War

    0

    Rethinking Historical Responsibility Through Art: The Role of Film in Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing (2012)

    • March 18, 2016

    The killers were more than willing to help and, when we filmed them boastfully describing their crimes against humanity, we met no resistance whatsoever. All doors were open. Local police[…]

  • 3-11-16-disney-head

    Activist & Political · African American · Animation

    1

    “Yeah, but look how far we’ve come”: Disney and the Depiction of Blackness in The Princess and the Frog

    • March 11, 2016

    Is it inconceivable that instead of taking on the forces of the underworld, the title character, Princess Tiana, do battle with the very real racist prejudice and legal injustice that[…]

  • Hail, Caesar!

    Comedy · Directors · Historical & Epic · LGBT & Queer

    2

    Camping Out in Hollywood: The Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar!

    • March 5, 2016

    Hail, Caesar! is not one of the Coens’ better films, but, because of its grab-bag of Hollywood silliness, it is perhaps the best at illuminating one of the main reasons[…]

Most Recent

Phyllis Dietrichson, Walter Neff, and Barton Keyes: Double Indemnity

Directors · Essays

2

Some Like It Not: The Key to Successful Relationships in the Films of Billy Wilder

  • February 29, 2016

Within his mise-en-scène and competing thematic fronts, Wilder makes a case that true partnership – born of respect, admiration, and genuine affection – finds actual sex dispensable or, simply, fleeting.[…]

2-23-16-lastman-head

Horror · Philosophy

2

The Last Man on Earth: Drama of a Lifeless Ordinary

  • February 23, 2016

“… the living being is only a species of the dead.” – Nietzsche  * * * http://brightlightsfilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2-23-16-lastman-head.jpg Dead Man. Dead Man’s Curve. Dead Man on Campus. Dead Man Walking (1988).[…]

More

Activist & Political · War

1

Death and Rebirth: Revisiting Ryszard Bugajski’s Masterpiece Interrogation (Poland, 1982)

  • February 19, 2016

One member of the meeting, Bohdan Poremba, called Interrogation a “premeditated lie” and, in perhaps the strangest criticism of the film, expressed his disappointment that it only showed a few[…]

2-12-16-jp-head

Directors · SF & Fantasy

2

Jurassic Parks: Stevie and the Dinosaurs

  • February 13, 2016

Spielberg, like many film directors, appears to be far more interested in film than life – interested in film, and interested in audiences, and how to move them through film.[…]

2-8-16-nanook_igloo

Directors · Documentaries · Silents

0

Nanook and Robert Flaherty: Father of Documentary Film – and More

  • February 8, 2016

Robert Flaherty and Alice Nevalinga (aka Nyla, the smiling one) were romantically involved  –  or as McLane modestly puts it, “he had an Eskimo female companion.” * * * In[…]

2-2-16-dylan-window

Counterculture · Documentaries · DVD & Blu-ray · Music & Musicals

2

Take What You Have Gathered from Coincidence: D. A. Pennebaker’s Dont Look Back (1967)

  • February 2, 2016

“BOB: Well, you always know who you are. I just don’t know who I’m gonna become.” – Sam Shepard. True Dylan: A One-Act Play as It Really Happened One Afternoon in[…]

“In these machines is contained the Dream.” The mad scientist and the piano-tuner.

Essays · Experimental & Underground · SF & Fantasy · Writers & Critics

1

Time and the Image: The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

  • January 28, 2016

These things never happen but are always. – Sallust The dead love the most, love the longest. – Malvina von Stille * * * INTRODUCTORY Centuries of thought and imagination,[…]

Treat Williams in Prince of the City

Crime · Directors

0

Dramas of Morality and Corruption: Sidney Lumet’s Police Quartet – Serpico, Prince of the City, Q&A, Night Falls on Manhattan

  • January 25, 2016

Taken as a quartet, these films shift from lauding the exposure of police corruption to struggling futilely against its pervasiveness. In Serpico and to a lesser extent Prince of the[…]

Kurt Russell as John "Hangman" Ruth, Jennifer jason-Leigh as Daisy Domergue, and Samuel L. Jackson as Major Marquis Warren

African American · Essays · Historical & Epic · Westerns

1

The Hateful Eight: History’s Dark Bounty

  • January 19, 2016

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will[…]

Gueros

Drama · Reviews

0

Mexican Roadtrips: Güeros, Sicaros, and the Search for Mexico

  • January 16, 2016

Güeros is the story of a search without an object, and it offers an approach to making political art that dwells not in the illusion of authenticity, but in the[…]

Rey and Finn on Jakku

Historical & Epic · SF & Fantasy

6

Star Wars: The Force Awakens: An Archetypal Review

  • January 10, 2016

Critics and fans love the film, but complain that it is less “mythic” than its predecessors. The myth is still there; it is just harder to see because it is[…]

1-2-16-force-stormtroopers

Essays · SF & Fantasy

3

Synthetic Mythology: George Lucas, Disney, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens

  • January 2, 2016

The marriage of Disney and Lucasfilm is a match made in heaven. Disney – the man and the company – spent the better part of a century trying to homogenize[…]

Is Ava simply a machine wearing a human mask?

Philosophy · SF & Fantasy

1

A Good Game of Chess: Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2015)

  • December 29, 2015

“Ava was a rat in a maze, and I gave her one way out. To escape, she’d have to use self-awareness, imagination, manipulation, sexuality, empathy, and she did.” * *[…]

Doris Day

Actors & Personalities

6

Not the Girl Next Door: Doris Day Reconsidered

  • December 18, 2015

Doris Day is so fused with her archetypal image that it’s easy to miss what a damn good actress she was. * * * I was about eleven movies into[…]

Network

Activist & Political · Counterculture · Essays

0

All the World’s a Stage and Every Revolutionary a Commodity: Network and Its Progeny

  • December 11, 2015

The challenge is to convince the suits who kept recycling dramas about state-legitimized violence to get on board with the notion that counterculture or revolutionary violence can also sell. When[…]

12-7-15-kumiko-head

Drama · Essays

0

A Regular Film: Deluded or Clear-sighted? (When artist and critic are one)

  • December 7, 2015

Regular or otherwise, interesting films famously have the power to take us inside other people’s heads. * * * In the 2014 film Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter, director/co-writer David Zellner[…]

Katharine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story

Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Drama

1

The Erotic Persona of Jimmy Stewart: From Visionary to Voyeur

  • November 26, 2015

You would never guess either from looking at him or from the “aw shucks” way in which he’s remembered that Stewart is responsible for some of the most erotic romantic[…]

11-21-15-assassin-2shot

Asian · Directors · Historical & Epic · Interviews

5

“A Different Space and Time”: Hou Hsiao-Hsien on The Assassin (2015)

  • November 21, 2015

Hou on The Assassin: I don’t believe we should blindly obey masters. Nie Yinniang is ordered by her master Jiaxin (Sheu Fang-yi) to kill a high-ranking official, but – once[…]

Screenshot from Manhattan

Comedy · Directors

1

“A much more thoughtful and (is it possible?) more mature director”: Woody Allen at Eighty

  • November 14, 2015

Years from now, there will be little question as to his place in film history – a prominent seat at the grownups’ table, with a place card highlighting his run[…]

11-8-15-ripley-head

Crime · LGBT & Queer · Writers & Critics

1

The Complex Art of Murder: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

  • November 8, 2015

Someday someone will tease apart the many layers of Damon’s performance: the charming Ripley, the frightened Ripley, the exposed Ripley, his voice subtly betraying him even as face remains serene.[…]

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