Tightrope Walker: Dirk Bogarde’s Post-War Rebellion
“Rejection is the purest form of rebellion. Bogarde was never embraced by Hollywood in large part because ambivalence is not a bankable asset. He left too many questions unanswered.”
New Italy, Old Attitudes: Michelangelo Antonioni’s ‘Il Grido’
“‘Il Grido’ is about a man’s utter inability to comprehend the modern world and adapt to it. The end result is a hopeless, pitiful film, and that’s meant as a compliment.”
Crime Scene #20: ‘Tiger Bay’ and the Adolescent Capital
“Tiger Bay as a state of mind may be long gone, but ‘Tiger Bay’ the film remains a document of a place long turned to rubble. And what vital documents.”
Crime Scene #18: ‘Victims of Sin’ – Nightclubbing with Ninón Sevilla
“‘Victims of Sin’ certainly is a product of its time and place in regard to its prescriptivism, but Fernández’s movie far surpasses its simpler elements because of its rather glorious and noirish textures.”
Old Favorites and New Classics: A TCM Classic Film Festival Diary
“My TCM Fest weekend, packed full of classic movies, was not only a fun experience in April 2024, but it made me feel hopeful that film preservation is alive and well, and that these beloved — if occasionally dusty — pictures aren’t going anywhere.”
Crime Scene #3: ‘Bob le Flambeur’ and the Death of Paris
“Melville’s Paris is a poetically insomniac version, one that I’m not sure ever really existed. The City of Light has been written about and filmed so much that one has long since forgotten what is real and what is urban legend.”
Making ‘The Killing’: An Auteur and His Writer
“Kubrick was in many ways the embodiment of a new Hollywood — brilliant, creative and perhaps a bit ruthless, words that could also be used to describe his first great film, ‘The Killing.'”
Crime Scene: ‘Pickup on South Street’ and New York Networks
“‘Pickup on South Street’ is perhaps the quintessential New York noir.”
The Irresistible Bulldozer: Judy Holliday’s Brief Comic Swing
“Holliday’s persona is one of shrewdness in the face of unrelenting condescension; she perfected the art of playing the outwardly ditzy blonde who lulls those around her into taking her lightly.”
A Film Arising from the Sea and the Sand: ‘Araya’ at Cinema Rediscovered
“Given Araya’s small-scale origins in a country without a major film industry, it remains a fascinating testament to both the lives of the peninsula’s inhabitants and the film’s own creation.”
Collecting Movies with Raymond Rea
Raymond Rea Interview: Greg Carlson and the filmmaker/educator discuss movie collecting.
Vagabond Noirs and Tramp Westerns: The Films of Hugo Fregonese at Il Cinema Ritrovato
“Hugo Fregonese is a director ripe for rediscovery.”
An Interview with ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ Author Katharine Coldiron
‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ Interview: Andrew Wyatt discusses the 1957 Ed Wood movie with author Katharine Coldiron.
Nine-to-Five Fellows: The Company Man Comes Home
“The generation that had fought the war was confronting the generation that had overseen it, staging a sub-rosa assault on entrenched power.” – D.M. Palmer on ‘Patterns,’ ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit’ and ‘The Apartment’
‘Gauguin’ and ‘Guernica’: Alain Resnais Comes Unstuck
“If ‘Gauguin’ and ‘Guernica’ shine a light on their respective subjects, they also present a key part of Resnais’ own development as an artist.”
By the Rivers of Babylon: Structure and Setting in Margaret Tait’s ‘Orquil Burn’
“In ‘Orquil Burn,’ an internalised inquiry meets external spaces with a quiet yet insistent beauty.”
Beat Cops: Police Brutality and Film Noir
“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 Disaster Area: From ‘Airport’ to ‘Airplane!’ – Part One
“It is during the 70s that the disaster film’s most pure and admirable entries were made, bookended by two significantly different stories involving air travel fiascos.”
Hollywood Confronts Itself: Cynicism and Self-Doubt in the 50s
“A sense of restlessness began to be addressed tentatively, and was confronted with increasing boldness as the decade progressed. Battles were being waged on multiple fronts of this unacknowledged war, claims were being sought from historically neglected constituents.”
12 Angry Films: Sidney Lumet on Justice #1 – ’12 Angry Men’
“Spaces are key to Lumet’s vision of the justice system; the ideas that bind it together must play out in physical spaces, and in them, Lumet finds the embodiment of all its flaws and virtues.”