Three Masters: Spielberg, Anderson, Haneke, and Their Audience
Is the filmmaker tyrant, aesthete, ringmaster, or hermit? For whom does an artist create? It is a question frequently put, perhaps more to writers than to others, and perhaps the[…]
Category: Artists
Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews · Writers & Critics
Could You Spare Me a Nightmare? The World of Confessions of an Opium Eater (1962)
In honor of Vincent Price’s birthday (May 27, 1911-October 25, 1993), we present Sean Nortz’s thrilling exegesis of one of the actor’s most intriguing and downright bizarre films. (After this piece[…]
John Krokidas’ Kill Your Darlings: An Origin Story of the Beats
“[Jack] Kerouac declared in his preface to Galloway that the young artist ‘is colored by his symbols. His hue is vivid: he postures.’ This because the artist is in growth,[…]
Her Brilliant Career: Honoring Katrin Cartlidge (1961-2002)
Katrin Cartlidge, born May 15, 1961, died on September 7, 2002 at age 41. Julian Upton’s tribute to this remarkable actress first appeared in Bright Lights in November 2003. *[…]
BLFJ News · Interviews · Writers & Critics
Bright Lights, Big Cine: Interview with Bright Lights Editor Gary Morris
In the shameless self-promotion department (and because it’s his birthday), we decided to retrieve this interview with Bright Lights’ head honcho Gary Morris. Our favorite interviewer, Matt Sorrento, talked to him in[…]
Mary Astor (1906-1987) Birthday Tribute: A Lady’s a Lady
Mary Astor was born May 3, 1906 and died September 25, 1987. In honor of this superb star, we present Imogen Sara Smith’s profile, which originally appeared in Bright Lights in[…]
Activist & Political · Actors & Personalities · Asian
“A Certain Slant”: A Brief History of Hollywood Yellowface
This article originally appeared in slightly different form in the March 1997 issue of Bright Lights. While limited to the history up to that time, it remains sadly relevant. *[…]
Interview: Editor Joe Walker on 12 Years a Slave, Hunger, Shame, and More
Joe Walker gives us the skivvy on working with the acclaimed director of 12 Years a Slave, editing for TV versus films, music and editing, and much more. In November[…]
Interview: Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt on Working with Steve McQueen and More
Sean Bobbitt talks about changes in the industry, shooting news and documentary versus dramatic features and shorts, and working with the acclaimed director of 12 Years a Slave. Sean Bobbitt[…]
Hollywood Daedalus: The Robert Wise of Audrey Rose
Befitting a great film architect, Robert Wise gave good prologue. The beauty of a prologue well executed is in more than setting a mood or tone or offering simple backstory[…]
The Taste of Greasepaint: On Bergman’s Sawdust and Tinsel and Ozu’s Floating Weeds
The Bergman film is much darker, and examines – with sadistic, Strindbergian zeal – the cruelties that men and women inflict on one other when love is distorted by power.[…]
The Greatest Beauty: The Imaginary Journey of Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza), 2013
Sorrentino’s award-winning drama opens with a quote from Céline‘s Journey to the End of the Night: “To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and[…]
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals
Easter 2014, Part Deux: Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade, in which Fred and Judy celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ
In part “deux” of Bright Lights’ tribute to Easter, we present that devout duo, Fred and Judy, offering spiritual and musical solace on this day of reflection. Remember how it[…]
Activist & Political · Directors · Documentaries
Recovering The New-Ark: Amiri Baraka’s Lost Chronicle of Black Power in Newark, 1968
In 1968, famed Black Power poet, playwright, and filmmaker Amiri Baraka, who died on January 9, 2014 at the age of 79, made a documentary in and around Spirit House,[…]
Actors & Personalities · TV & Streaming
Kutcher Punk’d Wozniak and Brogrammed Jobs to Hide the Women
Ashton Kutcher, producer and star of MTV’s celebrity prankster series Punk’d, played a prank on Steve Wozniak in the film Jobs, where he stars in the title role. The prank[…]
On the Walkabout: Remembering Heath Ledger (April 4, 1979-January 22, 2008)
“Wasn’t he just there, standing right in front of us?” Actors are known to be complicated beings. Because the successful ones loom so large in our vision, their deaths are[…]
Going to Extremes #2: Cymbeline (Sometimes in Britain)
Where all this takes me is to the thought that fiction frequently presents human personality as something lost or imprisoned – by self-ignorance and suspicion if by nothing worse. “We’re[…]
Books · LGBT & Queer · Producers & Studios
Inside the Dreamboat Factory: The Fairy Godfather of Hollywood
“He won’t be gay when I get through with him!” Revisiting legendary gay agent Henry Willson via Robert Hafler’s biography Henry Willson, The Man Who Invented Hollywood * * *[…]
Mickey Rooney – Seriously! (R.I.P.)
Mickey Rooney died on April 6, 2014. We offer Jim MacEachern’s profile of him in tribute. * * * “A great man is only the reflection of a great boy[…]
Directors · Documentaries · Interviews
Inside New York’s Subway Secret: Talking with the Makers of La Voz de los silenciados (The Voice of the Voiceless)
When a film screening is greeted first with silence, it is certainly not easy on the director. “It was so scary, everybody was so silent in the theatre we were[…]
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