C. Jerry Kutner is a frequent contributor to Bright Lights Film Journal. Visit his website at home.earthlink.net/~cjk5. 
Literature and Film · Writers & Critics
The most substantial changes in Nightmare Alley are between the novel and the screenplay. For example, in the novel, Stan, who covets Zeena and her act, kills the alcoholic Pete[…]
May 5-11, 2014 is both Be Kind to Animals Week and National Pet Week. We at Bright Lights thought it was fitting to tip our hat, and perhaps toss a metaphorical posthumous[…]
Watching the season premiere of American Horror Story Coven and the Soska Sisters’ American Mary back-to-back, I couldn’t help but notice certain … recurrences. Both works feature a scene in[…]
For every filmmaker who is considered an auteur, there is a key work – often a first film like Welles’ Citizen Kane – that expresses in essential form most of[…]
DVD & Blu-ray · Horror · Noir
How do you begin a story? If I told you a story begins with the arrival of a stranger in town, you would probably think I was talking about a[…]
The Worldwide Film Noir Tradition: The Complete Reference to Classic Dark Cinema from America, Britain, France and Other Countries Across the Globe by Spencer Selby. Ames, Iowa: Sink Press, 2013. […]
You might think that everyone knows the Beatles. But you would be wrong. When a couple of weeks ago I asked the clerk at Best Buy if they had the[…]
If film noir is defined by any single image, it is the dark city. Yet a film doesn’t have to take place in the dark city to be noir. Any fallen world[…]
A film noir doesn’t have to have an unhappy ending … but it helps. Here are 10 film noir endings that pack an emotional wallop. I Am a Fugitive from[…]
Vincente Minnelli’s reputation is that of a stylist – someone who did not author his own screenplays, but who directed whatever the studio (usually MGM) assigned to him (usually musicals), and[…]
After having seen the 1949 version of The Great Gatsby directed by Elliot Nugent and the 1974 version directed by Jack Clayton, I concluded that the novel was unfilmable. After[…]
A singular and highly accomplished independent film, Upstream Color is philosophical science fiction in the tradition of the French nouvelle vague, seasoned with a dash of Cronenbergian body horror. Like[…]
My four-word review of To the Wonder: “more of the same.” Which is not necessarily a bad thing … if you like Malick. To the Wonder continues the autobiographical mode of[…]
The directorial personality of Michael Curtiz remains elusive, but his visual talent is indisputable. Look closely at the lighting and composition of these images from Mystery of the Wax Museum[…]
Hungarian-born filmmaker, Michael Curtiz (pictured with Joan Crawford, above), is considered by many to be one of the quintessential Hollywood directors – he is, after all, the man who directed[…]
Notwithstanding the absence of spy plots, murders, or homicidal maniacs, WALTZES FROM VIENNA is very much a film by Alfred Hitchcock. It was co-scripted by his wife, Alma Reville. It displays[…]
Sadly, we report the death of the influential writer, teacher, and film critic, Andrew Sarris (31 October 1928 — 20 June 2012). Sarris will be remembered for bringing the auteur[…]
I was delighted to hear of the premiere at this year’s Cannes film festival of a 269-minute restored version of Sergio Leone’s final masterwork, Once Upon a Time in America (1984). I[…]
For a science fiction film francise to become truly successful, it helps not to be too original. The most successful of these franchises are based on ideas that have been floating[…]
Now playing at the local Arthouse — Can’t you just see it on the marquee?
