“‘The Mysteries of Cinema’ is not really an argument about film’s essential qualities, but a collage of similarities, preoccupations and obsessions that drive not just its filmmakers, but seem to consume the medium itself.”
Brian Brems on ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, ‘Da 5 Bloods’ and ‘Trespass’
“Occupying a middle space between the classicism of Japan’s most well-known filmmakers and the politically charged avant-garde of the New Wave, Suzuki uses the trappings of noir to explore the ramifications of isolation.”
“In Kurosawa’s noir films, characters struggle to move beyond loss — personal, financial and national — only to find that more loss awaits them.”
“For a film about anger — both that of the social movements animated in protest and that belonging to the state which will brook no challenge to its authority — ‘A Grin Without a Cat’ is surprisingly without its own anger.”
“‘The Black Dahlia’ shows De Palma in a reflective mood, considering the impact cinema, especially his own, has had on the lives and suffering of women on screen.”
“Otto Preminger’s ‘Where the Sidewalk Ends’ and Nicholas Ray’s ‘On Dangerous Ground’ gesture towards the difficult conditions under which police labor while turning a critical eye on the brutally violent detectives who abuse their power.”
“The accumulated effect of ‘Find Me Guilty,’ with its litany of absurdities, is that it is better to deliver the accused from continued subjugation than to maintain faith in a system that has lost all claim to its moral authority.”
“In their conversations, Soderbergh and Nichols work together to dismantle the artificial dividing line between art and criticism, neatly moving between the two…”
“In ‘Night Falls on Manhattan,’ Lumet arrives at acceptance — the system is what it is. He is resigned to his inability to chronicle any meaningful change through his work.”
