Book review: Searching for John Ford, by Joseph McBride
Searching for John Ford: A Life, by Joseph McBride. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001. Cloth, $40.00. ISBN 0-312-24232-8. John Ford, born Sean Aloysius O’Fearna in Cape Elizabeth, Maine in[…]
Author: Gary Morris
Gary Morris founded Bright Lights Film Journal as a print publication in 1974; it became a web-only magazine in 1996. He is the author of the monograph Roger Corman (Twayne Publishers, 1985) and the editor of Action! Interviews with Directors from Classical Hollywood to Contemporary Iran (Anthem Press, 2009). Documentaries · Historical & Epic
Beauty and the Beast: The Architecture of Doom, a Documentary
The artistic underpinnings of Nazi terror The puzzle of Hitler and the Holocaust continues to twist in and out of the popular consciousness like a particularly hardy virus, most recently[…]
Dionysus in Georgia: Paradjanov on DVD: The Color of Pomegranates; The Legend of Suram Fortress; Ashik Kerib; Hagop Hoynatanian; Paradjanov: A Requiem
Three features, a documentary, and a rare short showcase the peculiar pleasures of the late Russian director “Surrealism,” “incitement to suicide,” and my favorite, “traffic in art objects leading to[…]
Mondo Tranny: Monika Treut’s Gendernauts
This love letter to San Francisco’s tranny community is a little too loving Gendernauts (1999) opens with a curious and none too appetizing image – a mangy old spotted hyena.[…]
Gore Galore: Takashi Miike’s Audition
This is one audition you may want to skip Reports from the front lines of early cinema suggest that many viewers during the ‘teens and before were terrified by the[…]
Documentaries · Experimental & Underground · Music & Musicals
Rave On: Five Indie Music Docs on Four DVDs: Dancin’ Barefoot/Blank Generation; Rage: 20 Years of Punk Rock West Coast Style; Songs for Cassavetes; Better Living Through Circuitry
Every social movement needs a soundtrack, and, despite widespread reports of apathetic youth and political stasis, the twilight years of the twentieth century were rife with both. The indie movements[…]
Festivals & Awards · LGBT & Queer
QFilmistan: The First South Asian LGBT Film Festival (September 2001)
A treasure trove of short queer cinema – and one feature – from cultures where creating it can be a criminal act Despite its status as one of the world’s[…]
Cinemayaat 2001: Fifth Annual Arab Film Festival in San Francisco
More relevant now than ever, this solid fest brings some of the complexity of the Arab world to often uncomprehending western eyes In San Francisco’s cornucopia of film festivals, Cinemayaat’s[…]
Buñuel on DVD: Diary of a Chambermaid and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Murder and dinner – almost – among the upper crust Despite his godlike status as one of cinema’s great artists and rebels, Luis Buñuel has not been well served on DVD.[…]
Experimental & Underground · Reviews
Snapshots from Hell: Richard Kern – The Hardcore Collection on DVD
Kern’s trashy teens fight and fuck their way through an incomprehensible world Transgression seems more like concept than reality in these no-boundaries days, but in the ‘80s and early ‘90s[…]
Experimental & Underground · Horror · Silents
Jean Epstein’s The Fall of the House of Usher
Poe’s favorite story dressed to kill by a legendary surrealist auteur Poe has proven to be one of the more enduring sources for filmmakers, not only because there’s something modern,[…]
Cinematographers · Documentaries
Fear of Darkness: Profiling Sven Nykvist in Light Keeps Me Company
Bergman’s cinematographer found more solace on the set than in real life Cinematographer Sven Nykvist’s work with Ingmar Bergman is considered one of the key collaborations in modern cinema, and[…]
Powell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissus (1947)
The bad boys of classic Brit cinema pull out all the stops, maybe a couple too many In Craig McCall’s short documentary Painting with Light, included on Criterion’s fabulous DVD[…]
Buried Alive: François Ozon’s Under the Sand (2000)
A French angst-fest mostly redeemed by Charlotte Rampling’s nuanced portrait of a woman unhinged François Ozon’s latest film will come as a bit of a shock to seasoned Ozon watchers,[…]
Experimental & Underground · Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
The Girls Can’t Help It: Baise-Moi (2000)
Feminist screed or fetish-screwfest? Flip a coin Female revenge films aren’t exactly an unknown quantity, especially in the exploitation circuit. Pam Grier was one of the genre’s superstars in the[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground · Reviews
Sweet Movies: Four by Dusan Makavejev: Man Is Not a Bird; WR: Mysteries of the Organism; Love Affair, or The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator; Innocence Unprotected
Free-associating with a master of free cinema “Free cinema” has the dull ring of an oxymoron. The extreme level of control required and the mass of pressures that collide in[…]
“Hand Me That 14-Inch Willy!” The Puppet Artistry of Barry Purves
This brilliant Brit’s sleight-of-hand breathes life into wood and wire At a symposium on puppet animation in Seattle a few years ago, Barry Purves, an alumnus of the Aardman Studios[…]
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards · Reviews
San Francisco’s 2001 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
Celebrating activism and exposing some of the more chaotic corners of world politics Despite an avalanche of news and quasi-news programs, tabloid yakfests, and crudities like Cops, Survivor, and the[…]
Shaddup! The 2001 San Francisco Silent Film Festival
All’s quiet on the cinematic front in this seductive survey of the artful ’20s Superman had his Fortress of Solitude; San Francisco has its Silent Film Festival. This annual event,[…]
The 2001 San Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival
Gangbangers, sex robots, and babydykes, oh my! Now in its 19th year, the San Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) has become an increasingly plush and rather important venue for[…]
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