What Hides in Plain Sight? Against the Backdrop of Tár
In Tár, Field fashions an improbable representation of power (Hernández, “Top Orchestras”) to advance the idea that power is faceless. But the idea is only to be believed if the[…]
Category: Drama
Drama · Restorations · Satire
Darling, John Schlesinger’s Ever Relevant Relic: The British New Wave Classic Turns Sixty
Who is this minx with the thirty-kilowatt smile? Christie is phenomenal here, creating an archetype of the modern neurotic. The extraordinary geometry of her face, depending on angle and lights,[…]
Class System · Drama · Exile and Displacement · French Cinema · Road Movies · Women in Film
Jeunes Mères (Young Mothers): Little Women – and Their Babies
For the Dardenne brothers, “social conditions” come down to the common denominator of cold cash – having it, lacking it, getting it, some disposing of it more than others. It’s[…]
Drama · Essays · Feminism · French Cinema · Men & Masculinity · Sex & Relationships · Women in Film
Tango Redux: Complicity
Last Tango in Paris is a case study in how a culture processes shame – who bears it, who survives it, who escapes it entirely. Maria Schneider, long ignored, is[…]
A Poetics of Grief: Relation Through the Lens of Relationship in Celine Song’s Past Lives
In the screenplay for Past Lives, Song’s scene descriptions are acutely sensitive to the way in which identity lives in the distance between self and Other, between knowing and mystery.[…]
Books · Drama · Indies · Women in Film
Book Review: Ida Lupino, Forgotten Auteur: From Film Noir to the Director’s Chair
Alexandra Seros, Ida Lupino, Forgotten Auteur: From Film Noir to the Director’s Chair. Texas University Press, 2024. 227 pages. $45.00. * * * Most readers of this journal recognize Ida[…]
Drama · Interior Monologue · LGBT & Queer · Men & Masculinity
Giving up the Ghost: A Meditation on All of Us Strangers
The song continues to play as the camera moves farther and farther away from the spooning lovers and higher and higher into the night sky that cradles them. Having proceeded[…]
Directors · Drama · French Cinema · Nouvelle Vague
Games of Logic and Longing: The Quiet Radicalism of Éric Rohmer
In an age of clickbait politics and algorithmic attention spans, there’s something quietly revolutionary about refusing to manufacture drama. Rohmer’s refusal to manipulate emotion – to cue violins or insert[…]
Brat Facts: Why St. Elmo’s Fire (1985) Still Attracts an Audience After 40 Years of Bad Reviews
For anyone who was coming of age during the eighties, St. Elmo’s represented the height of hubris. It represented the height of yuppiedom and suburban sprawl. It represented the height[…]
Drama · Essays · Film Crews · Hollywood · News · Production · Production History · Stuntwork
The Silver Screen Is Rusting: Why Rust Can’t Happen Again
Even if Rust is defined as professional by its crew, the danger that allows a crew member to die cannot coexist with the description of professional. If that is professional,[…]
The Body Embarrassed: “Cringing” as Empathetic Response to American Beauty and The Talented Mr. Ripley
As American Beauty deals with visualized and thematic pleasure by giving us “beauty” in both sexualized and desexualized forms, and Ripley makes us feel like a voyeur alongside its protagonist[…]
Drama · Historical & Epic · War · Women in Film
The Feminist Undercurrents of The Brutalist: Women as the Backbone of Power and Legacy
In contrast to the patriarchal norms that dominate “American” family values, The Brutalist quietly insists on the indispensable role of women in guiding not just familial stability but broader legacies[…]
Class System · Documentaries · Drama · Eco
Class, Capitalism, and Freedom: Connecting Jorge Furtado’s Ilha das Flores and Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite
At first glance, Ilha das Flores and Parasite, separated by thirty years, appear to have little in common. Despite their many surface-level differences, however, they bear striking similarities. Both are[…]
The Myth of Los Angeles’ (Fiery) Destruction and the People Who Tell a Different Story: From Souls for Sale (1923) to Model Shop (1969)
You need the virus to build the antidote, and so it should come as no surprise that movies made in Los Angeles are among the most powerful remedies to the[…]
“Look Closer”: The Life Behind American Beauty
“Death is the mother of beauty.” – Wallace Stevens “I choose the ugly as well as the beautiful, knowing it will all be beautiful soon enough.” – Marvin Bell *[…]
Directors · Drama · Religion & Spirituality
The Secret of Creativity: The Inspirations of Paul Schrader’s First Reformed
“That’s the secret of creativity. You have to steal around. If you keep going back to that same 7-Eleven, they’re going to catch you. So you go over to the[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · Westerns · Women in Film
Tea in Monument Valley: On Vera Miles and The Searchers
An excerpt from Vera Miles: The Hitchcock Blonde Who Got Away, to be released March 25 by University Press of Kentucky, exploring Miles’s impressive career and her relationships with the[…]
Leaving Las Vegas Turns 30: A Savior-Less Portrait of Liquor-Soaked Love and Despair Not for the Faint of Heart
“I don’t know if I started drinking ‘cause my wife left me or my wife left me ‘cause I started drinking but fuck it anyway.” – Ben Sanderson, Leaving Las[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · Essays
In Magnolia, Tom Cruise Far Outperformed Real-Life Andrew Tate
Cruise’s performance as Mackey offers a unique opportunity to make sense of a Tate, and to see what all really lies right under the surface of this ongoing phenomenon. *[…]
Aging · Class System · Drama · Hollywood
The Right Picture: Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow, the So-Called Most Depressing Movie of All Time
We are grateful that Bark and Lucy and what they represent are able to exist. That such people have gone before, even if it meant going before in a work[…]
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