The Auteurist Stork: Alfonso Cuarón’s Cinema of Deliverance
Roma is the latest edition in what can be considered Cuarón’s prenatal trilogy, preceded by Children of Men (2006) and Gravity. This is a director obsessed with matters of pregnancy,[…]
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Roma is the latest edition in what can be considered Cuarón’s prenatal trilogy, preceded by Children of Men (2006) and Gravity. This is a director obsessed with matters of pregnancy,[…]
Actors & Personalities · Documentaries
As Robert Clift states in the film: “The people in my life who loved Monty lost him twice: in his death, and then again when they couldn’t find him in[…]
Considering Mitchum’s background, it’s forgivable to conflate his cinematic existentialist tough guys with his mythic, often dubious, real-life history. Some things are certain, though: Mitchum lost his father early, crushed[…]
Animation · Animators · Experimental & Underground · Religion & Spirituality
In her two longest works of animation – Sita Sings the Blues (2008) and Seder Masochism (2018, currently on the festival circuit) – Nina Paley turns her sharp wit and[…]
Designers · Horror · Interviews
“We need guilt, Doctor. And shame.” * * * Luca Guadagnino follows up 2016’s A Bigger Splash and 2017’s Call Me by Your Name with 2018’s Suspiria, a remake of[…]
In Sparrow, this sense of melancholia manifests as an abstract nostalgia for the architecture and cultural values of an old Hong Kong that is rapidly disappearing and being replaced by[…]
Horror · Women in Film · Writers & Critics
Despite the fact that Wray had no previous screen credits, Lewton hired her to rework the story of I Walked with a Zombie with only two months to go before[…]
“There’s something that happened, and there’s a kind of ring around that event – or it’s fenced off – and everything else is okay around it, but there’s just something[…]
Directors · Documentaries · Essays
I think that this delicate line between reality, and fact, and truth needs to be more clearly defined. We have to redefine reality.1 – Werner Herzog There are dignified stupidities.[…]
We worked to create a “slow film” aesthetic, with distinct moments where it broke from the rules. Paul planned to use boredom and duration as the method, with longer takes,[…]
If there’s an authorial hand in Trier’s films, it serves only to pull the wings off the fly. * * * In the thirty-five-odd years he’s been active, Lars von[…]
Andrew Stone and his fantastically helpful wife-editor have evolved an entirely different ethos of film-making.… If they want to blow up a train, they blow up a real train. If[…]
Comedy · Directors · Women in Film
American Audiences watched Irma la Douce without discomfort, perhaps because French prostitutes and pimps were performing immoral acts and misdeeds. The same subversion of middle-class values that would later inform[…]
Comedy · Directors · Drama · Essays · Romance · Silents
Excerpted from McBride’s new critical study, How Did Lubitsch Do It? (Columbia University Press, June 2018), with the kind permission of the author. * * * To maintain the admirable[…]
Asian · Interviews · Producers & Studios · Production History
What Third Window’s practices and Adam Torel’s insights provide is a view of the industry that contrasts significantly from current Japanese film research, especially in light of other exhibitors and[…]
This article first appeared in Bright Lights in October 2000. We reprint it as a tribute to the seminal composer on what would have been his 130th birthday. (And frankly, we’re surprised[…]
Designers · Drama · Women in Film
This is the second of two pieces on Phantom Thread. See Sam Ankenbauer’s different take in the previous post. * * * The articulation of female pleasure in The Phantom[…]
Note: This is the first of two reviews of Phantom Thread. Watch for Raymond De Luca’s take later this week. Each viewing paints old interactions in new colors, and the film thrives[…]
Film Crews · Production History
A grip is a jack-of-all-trades: part mover, part roadie, part handyman, part mechanic, and part mechanical engineer. Grips are in charge of lifting, moving, constructing, rigging, pushing, driving, and securing[…]
“There are no waves, there is only the ocean.” – Claude Chabrol * * * From 1968 to 1975 Claude Chabrol directed a dozen films – one of the most[…]