The Martyrdom of Lulu: Louise Brooks at 117
Louise Brooks was born November 14, 1906, which means she would be 117 today. We honor the legend by reposting Dan Callahan’s scintillating profile, first published on Brooks’s centenary on[…]
Category: Artists
The Search for André De Toth
André De Toth knew from the very beginning that he had to create a larger-than-life persona for him to be trusted with directing a picture. So he played the European[…]
The Pearls of Pauline (Kael, That Is)
The little film critic who could sort of
Absurdism · Activist & Political · Counterculture · Crime · Experimental & Underground · Fairy Tale · Politics · Writers & Critics
Alice’s Evolution: Chicago 70 and the Revolutionary Awakening of Lewis Carroll’s Victorian Heroine
Abstract Interposing characters, dialogue, and symbols from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland into a contemporary political scenario – the Chicago 7 trial – Kerry Feltham’s experimental film Chicago 70 provides[…]
Directors · Essays · Genres · Horror
Sexual Violence and Female Experience in Roman Polanski’s Apartment Trilogy: Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby, The Tenant
Roman Polanski was born August 18, 1933, making him 89 years old on this day in 2023. We mark the occasion – we won’t say celebrate – by republishing Elise[…]
Directors · Drama · Family · Writers & Critics
Sweat the Technique: Spielberg’s Cinematic Künstlerroman, The Fabelmans, and Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Right before the unnerving camping incident, Sammy has been told by his uncle Boris, who once tamed lions used in movies, that art is a dangerous undertaking and that it[…]
Books · Directors · Writers & Critics
Pulp Nonfiction: Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation
It would be easy – and fun – to focus entirely on the good and to co-sign his [Tarantino’s] praise for films that are also favorites of mine such as[…]
Mary Astor: Prisoner of Kicks
Mary Astor was born May 3, 1906 and died September 25, 1987. In honor of this superb star, who was also a gifted novelist and memoirist and a sexually adventurous free-thinker[…]
Actors & Personalities · French Cinema
Delphine Seyrig: The Eternal Return
“Seyrig is capable of stopping an entire film with one decisive physical gesture, one smile, one glare, one sound from her smoky, murmuring voice.”
Some Like It Not: The Key to Successful Relationships in the Films of Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder (1906-2002) died on March 27, age 95. We honor him by reposting Jason Carpenter’s fine analysis of the master’s work, first published in Bright Lights in 2016. *[…]
Animation · Animators · Designers · Experimental & Underground
Vicious Circle: John Whitney and the Military Origins of Early CGI
John Whitney himself envisioned nothing more and nothing less for the future of CGI than a union of space and time: “Time has become visual.” But all film deals in[…]
Actors & Personalities · Interviews
The Ballad of Stella Stevens: An Interview
In which Stella tells all or at least most
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Feminism · Indies · Interviews · SF & Fantasy
The Secret of Her Success: An Interview with Helen Slater
For me, on Supergirl, I was 100% in. It was the biggest opportunity that ever happened to me, and the process of making the film was very nourishing. I think[…]
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Drama · Women in Film
Ida Lupino: Demon Mother Night
“[H]er favorite expression of strained intensity would be less quickly relieved by a merciful death than by Ex-Lax.”
DIY · Experimental & Underground · Exploitation & Erotica · Film Culture · Impresarios · Outsiders · Programmers
Unsinkable Natural-Born Showman Dennis Nyback Dies at 69: A Testimonial by an Irritating Friend
He told me about when his piano player canceled out of a silent movie performance. “I walked outside during the kiddie matinee and saw some young people loading musical instruments[…]
Biopic · Directors · Experimental & Underground · War · Writers & Critics
Memory, Trauma, and Visualising Poetry in Terence Davies’s Benediction
I’m not interested in what happened next; I’m interested in what happens emotionally next. It’s like memory. Memory isn’t linear. It’s cyclical. A tiny thing can be the thing that’s[…]
Comedy · Communism and Socialism · Directors · Drama · Eastern European · Russia · War · Writers & Critics
Hungarian Plays into American Movies: Billy Wilder’s Five Graves to Cairo and One, Two, Three
Billy Wilder turned to these two plays because they offered the situations, structure, and characters that would allow his imagination to flower and create contemporary stories – a patriotic military[…]
Actors & Personalities · Artists
Extinguishing Features: The Last Years of Richard Pryor
Editor’s Note: Richard Pryor died on this date, December 10, 2005, ten days after his sixty-fifth birthday. We salute this comic genius and cultural game-changer by reposting Julian Upton’s powerful[…]
Fake It So Real: Self-Reflexivity, Theatricality, and Authenticity in Leos Carax’s Annette
Just as Holy Motors simultaneously mourned the loss of physicality from filmmaking while embracing the creative possibilities offered by digital technology, Annette is built on a seeming paradox: it plunges[…]
Actors & Personalities · Hollywood · Politics
Desperate Journey: How a B-Movie Bonzo Climbed into Politics
If only Ronald Reagan had been a better actor, our world might be a brighter place today. * * * Although it’s been thirty-three years and six presidents since Ronald[…]
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