Seeing the Giallo Truth in Dario Argento’s ‘Four Flies on Grey Velvet’
“Above all, Argento is a visual and aural stylist, and the style that would carry him into his later films deepens here, with flourishes of freewheeling experimentation.”
Brian Brems
Small Tokens of Faith in John Ford’s ‘The Fugitive’ and Martin Scorsese’s ‘Silence’
“In between Ford’s wide shots and Scorsese’s close-ups, there is an effort by each filmmaker to make faith real.”
Days of Future Past: History and ‘Blade Runner 2049’
“As ‘Blade Runner 2049’ suggests, perhaps the way forward into a future of possibility is through a deeper investigation of the past’s secrets.”
Bertolt Brecht, Fritz Lang and German Expressionist Fury
“Lang’s film becomes a committed act of social justice advocacy, raging against its enforced limitation, and striving to break the formal apparatus that could often be employed to constrain Classic Hollywood cinema.”
War and Domestic Violence in Fritz Lang’s ‘Human Desire’
“‘Human Desire’ points a hopeful, if naïve, way forward for men returning home from war.”
The Tattoos Tell the Story: Viggo Mortensen’s Painted Body
“Mortensen uses his body to display his characters’ essential tensions, as they ride the line between truth and lies, loyalty and betrayal, chaos and control.”
The Haunted House Heartbeat in Dario Argento’s ‘Inferno’
“Argento builds upon his work in ‘Suspiria’ to create an unnerving, discomfiting experience.”
Why I Wear the Mask: Tom Hardy’s Performances of Limitation
“Behind the mask, lurking within the timbre of the vocal choices, buried beneath the shaped physique, there is truth.”
Adrenaline and Virtuosic Filmmaking: Hal Ashby’s ‘8 Million Ways to Die’
“It’s not the edge of the knife — it’s the business end of the blade.”
Action Hero Vulnerability and Shocking Comedy in John Frankenheimer’s ‘Dead Bang’
“The action hero has to be capable of vulnerability because it calls the outcome, however prescribed by genre conventions, into question.”