The Immovable Man: The Big Lebowski and the Philosophy of Not Changing
The Coen Brothers have made a film about a man who cannot be made to become the story that other characters, and the genre itself, keep trying to impose on[…]
Category: Satire
Directors · Satire · Scandinavian Cinema
You’ll All be Crying by the End, Ha! The Question of Sincerity in Breaking the Waves
Our prevailing moviemaking ethos calls for emotion to be tempered through a kind of ebb and flow structure, for an emotion to be slowly built toward and quickly moved away[…]
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Comedy · Military and Paramilitary · Nazism · Satire · War
The Great Dictator: Stink, Sacrifice, and Private Power in Hynkel’s Speech
Chaplin is not merely parodying how a dictator sounds. He is anatomizing how fascism recruits, extracts, degrades, appropriates, scapegoats, and lies. * * * Charlie Chaplin’s opening Hynkel speech in[…]
Counterculture · Crime · Cult Cinema · Directors · Drama · Satire
The Kubrick Production: How Stanley Kubrick Stage-Managed Reality
Every aspect of his professional life was stage-managed with the same precision he brought to a tracking shot. The results were remarkable. Total artistic control achieved at a young age.[…]
Central and South America · Colonialism · Imperialism · Marxism · Politics · Satire
On Political Filmmaking and Alex Cox’s Walker (1987)
Alex Cox’s Walker (1987) is an instructive example of how to make a film about modern political issues without becoming overly burdened by the present moment. In telling the story[…]
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,[…]
Historical & Epic · Politics · Religion & Spirituality · Satire · Sex & Relationships
Horny Abbess, Empty Relic, Open Fortress, Public Toilet: Reconnecting with Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971)
Russell’s principal avatar in this film is Louis XIII, the Carnival King and Lord of Misrule. Devoted to ersatz relics and to his “tacky stage farce,” he quietly uncovers not[…]
Body Horror · Cults · Feminism · Horror · Satire
Original vs. Remake: Feminism in The Stepford Wives, 1975/2004
The lead actress of the 1975 film, Katherine Ross, later stated that she herself would rewrite this ending to have Joanna “fight harder”– a sentiment that the 2004 adaptation seems[…]
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