Bright Lights Film Journal

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Strangers on a Train

Celebrity Culture · Drama · Essays

0

Doubles, Anyone? Celebrity Stalking in Strangers on a Train and The King of Comedy

  • March 16, 2020

While Rupert isn’t interested in a crisscross murder, he certainly wants Jerry to spot him a segment on Jerry’s show. This is more than a favor..And he appears to go[…]

Edge of Democracy

Activist & Political · Documentaries · Essays

0

Lost Dreams of Brazil: Petra Costa’s The Edge of Democracy (2019)

  • March 11, 2020

E em cada paso dessa linha / pode se machucar. Azar! / A esperança equilibrista / sabe que o show de todo artista tem que continuar. And on each step[…]

Aeon Flux

Animation · Essays

0

“You Have Only Half the Picture”: Syzygies in Æon Flux

  • March 7, 2020

“Revolutionaries need an oppressive establishment to thrive, just as governments need hidden enemies to justify stricture.” – Peter Chung, creator of Æon Flux * * * From 1991 to 1995,[…]

Joker

Comedy · Drama · Essays

0

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Joker: Laughter Without an Echo Chamber

  • March 4, 2020

In Joker, we see a reversal of Tarantino’s aesthetic, where a patently comic character, a joker with a clown face, is, by degrees, rendered tragic, or as near tragic as[…]

Canterbury Tale

Drama · Religion & Spirituality · War

1

A Canterbury Tale: A Very British Spirituality . . . and European Too

  • March 1, 2020

Overt spirituality is often undermined in this film by bizarrely comic episodes from everyday life. Certainly the most bizarre plot element concerns the Glue Man – someone who attacks young[…]

Portrait of Jennie

Drama · Essays · Women in Film

0

The Love That Needs to Be, Needs to Be: David O. Selznick’s Portrait of Jennie

  • February 27, 2020

Show me one who loves; he knows what I mean. – St. Augustine * * * I’m sharing my favorite places with her outside my alma mater: bald, rolling fields[…]

Uncut Gems

Designers · Drama · Interviews

0

Uncut Gems: Talking with Production Designer Sam Lisenco

  • February 24, 2020

We were really careful in coming up with the look of Howard’s world to make assumptions about how old he was when he would’ve formed his taste, and what that[…]

Directors · Experimental & Underground · Interviews · LGBT & Queer

1

“How Stupid the Whole World Is!” An interview with Paul Morrissey

  • February 22, 2020

“There was no movement! I was not part of a movement, I. Made. My. Own. Films. They. Were. Not. Part. Of. Any. Movement. You’re incapable of understanding that, aren’t you? I have to be in a category. First I’m in ‘Andy Warhol films,’ then I’m an ‘independent.’ I like good films that are worth watching, OK?”

Little Women

Costume Drama · Literature and Film · Women in Film

0

Greta Gerwig’s Little Women Is Great; It’s Just Not Little Women

  • February 19, 2020

Before seeing Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, I knew I’d be in for a more avant-garde adaptation – in interviews, Gerwig has talked openly about wanting to “strip away” the story’s[…]

women directors

Directors · Festivals & Awards · Interviews

0

Women in Film: Interviews with Mati Diop, Marie Kreutzer, Haifaa al-Mansour, and Zoé Wittock at Berlinale, Toronto, and Sundance Film Festivals

  • February 16, 2020

Our globe-trotting correspondent Amir Ganjavie spoke with four emerging women directors at the 2019 Berlinale and Toronto International Film Festivals and the 2020 Sundance Festival. Collectively, they represent France (via[…]

Taxi Driver

Drama · Essays · Urban Conflict

0

Watching Taxi Driver with John Hinckley

  • February 13, 2020

Our nation has persisted in this state for so long that when we watch Taxi Driver, we always watch it with John Hinckley. It is a film that forces us[…]

Tarantino

Comedy · Counterculture · Crime · Historical & Epic · Hollywood · Movies · Westerns

0

At Spahn Ranch: The Tragic Heart of Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood

  • February 7, 2020

Who are these people? Watching Cliff try to figure it out is painful, because we know the future, but such knowledge is not power. Within its imagined boundaries, Once Upon[…]

Gorchilin

Drama · LGBT & Queer · Russia

0

Alexander Gorchilin’s Acid (2018): Putin-Friendly Arthouse

  • February 4, 2020

My point here isn’t to suggest that Gorchilin and Pecheykin are government lackeys bent on pleasing Vladimir Putin. They’re young filmmakers working in a totalitarian country and have constraints that[…]

IMDB

Movie Databases · Societal Trends · Statistics

0

Tracking Mass Ideology on IMDb’s Top 250: How Shifts in Societal Values Appear in the Popular Film Canon

  • January 27, 2020

No film on the list embodies a retreat into populist myth as totally or as troublingly as Forrest Gump (1994). Though critically and popularly lauded at its release (winning the[…]

Lighthouse

Essays · Horror

2

To the Lighthouse: Cinematic Lighthouses in Shutter Island, Annihilation, and The Lighthouse

  • January 19, 2020

Through their own fragmentary narratives, which resemble Poe’s stream-of-consciousness diary, Shutter Island, Annihilation, and The Lighthouse mount challenges to our own perceptual abilities as viewers. They locate us in the[…]

Irishman

Crime · Family

0

“An Act of the Will”: A Review of The Irishman

  • January 14, 2020

The Irishman is delicate and full of restraint — ironic for a gangster flick. The heart of the film is sorrowful, in mourning for the spiritual emptiness of a materialist[…]

Star Wars

Franchises & Series · Myth and Archetype · SF & Fantasy

0

“One Last Look at My Friends”: An Archetypal Review of Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker

  • January 8, 2020

Now, there is no reason or way to lay blame for this clash of styles, since Abrams devotees can fairly claim that Johnson started the revisionary process, and the Johnsonians[…]

Alice

Drama · Women in Film

1

Monterey Dreamin’: 45 Years of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

  • January 2, 2020

In striving toward “that level of being real,” Burstyn handpicked much of the film’s eventual cast from her Actors Studio cohort – a decision that meshed well with both Scorsese’s[…]

Welles

Directors · Literature and Film · Production History · Writers & Critics

1

At Sea, In Port, Up the River: Orson Welles’s Conrad Adaptations

  • December 27, 2019

Conrad was more than a mere influence. He was also a direct source of story material. Welles considered himself “made for Conrad” and frequently returned to Conrad’s original stories. Adaptation[…]

Birdman

Absurdism · Essays

0

A Human Noise: On Rebirth and Birdman (2014), Five Years After

  • December 23, 2019

“They had no song. Their calls were harsh and ugly. But their soaring was like an endless silent singing. What else had they to do? They were sea falcons now;[…]

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