Stonewalling: Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka’s Portrait of a Young Woman in Perpetual Crisis
Stonewalling is the third and final panel in a trilogy that includes Egg and Stone (2012) and The Foolish Bird (2017), all films about what it means to be a young woman in contemporary China.
Dial M for Murder (1954): Hitchcock’s 3-D (and then 2-D) Thriller, Starring Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings–What Yo Need to Know
Hitchcock directed Dial M for Murder, a taut, sophisticated, chillingly sinister crime thriller starring Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, Anthony Dawson, and John Williams.
Film Theory: Screen Types–Heroes and Villains (Notes)
Research in progress, March 22, 2024 The attempt to create a hero for mass audience isa major challenge. On the Waterfront: Terry Malloy is alienated, a bum who must develop consciousness and responsibility in order to become a real man. American heroes are simpler than European ones. In Europe, they are more human, weak, wise, […]
Barbie: Photo
Margot Robbie plays the title character, a Mattel doll who takes on toxic masculinity as she discovers a world outside her own.
Death in Hollywood: Oscar Winner Regina King on Suicide of her Only Son, Ian Alexander Jr–“He Didn’t Want to Be Here”
Speaking with Robin Roberts in interview that aired on Thursday, King opened up about both Alexander Jr.’s “choice” to die and the “journey” she’s experienced as she grieves her only child.
Film Theory: Bazin, Andre (French Film Theorist and Critic)–“Genius of the System”
“The American cinema is a classical act, so why not then admire in it what is most admirable–i.e. not only the talent of this and that filmmaker, but the genius of the system.”
Film Theory: Individualism
The idea of individuality draws on the intellectual and political thought of the Enlightenment and Romanticism, both of which stressed the primacy of the individual. Individualism is the basic tenet of the American Way f Life and Classic American Cinema. From Here to Eternity: Prewitt says: “If a man don’t go his own way, he’s […]
Film Theory: Characters–Villains
Film Theory: Characters–Villains Hollywood Types Villains In film noirs of the 1940s, malevolent image of seductive femininity In films of the 1950s, communists The two malevolences combine in the representation of dark-haired exotic Soviet agent 1949: I Married a Communist The Woman on Pier 13 he Red Menace Villains in the 1970s tended to be […]
Movie Criticism: David Bordwell, Influential Film Scholar, Dies at 76
David Bordwell, an influential film scholar and longtime professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, died Feb. 29 after fighting a long with cancer. He was 76.
Masterpieces of World Cinema: Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City” (1945)
A masterpiece of Italian neorealism, Rome, Open City is the first of a neorealist trilogy by director Roberto Rossellini.