Money Is the Game: The Strange Journey of ‘The Magic Christian’
“‘The Magic Christian’ cries out to be re-visited. For all the cultural specificity of the novel and film, Grand remains a strikingly modern figure.”
World Cinema Project: Persistence of Vision – ‘Dry Summer’ & ‘Law of the Border’
“‘Dry Summer’ and ‘Law of the Border’ remain available as fascinating, engaging documents of a national cinema often forgotten.”
‘A Woman Is a Woman’: Falling in Love with Karina, Godard and the Wave
“It is Karina who embodied the freedom, fascination and the unpredictability that would define the French New Wave. It is Karina who made so many fall in love — with her and with cinema as an extraordinary, exultant medium.”
Interview: Director Noah Lerner on Murray Lerner’s ‘Festival’
Bill Bria Interviews Noah Lerner About Murray Lerner’s 1967 Documentary Festival!
Things Go Wrong: Tony Hancock’s Cinema of Despair
“The Hancock persona tapped into a uniquely British strain of malaise, which manifests itself in a fractious fatalism, a dread of impotence which finds its expression in outlandish displays of petulance, pettiness and pomposity.”
I Sing for Myself: Renée and Judy on Judy Garland
“Judy the Actress and Judy the Icon may have been one in the same after all.”
The Beautiful Brutality of Sergio Corbucci’s ‘The Great Silence’
“‘The Great Silence’ is miles away from the graceful, operatic majesty of Leone’s more famous entries. Corbucci’s cynical vision is fashioned from a style that is brutal and spontaneous…”
Threatened Individualism: On François Truffaut’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’
“Throughout both the foreground and background of ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ Truffaut emphasizes the characters’ self-absorption via a hyper-sexual form of narcissism in a society lacking real love.”
12 Angry Films: Sidney Lumet on Justice #2 – ’The Hill’
“‘The Hill’ charts a path forward for Lumet’s justice films, which increasingly depart from the idealism of ’12 Angry Men’ and reckon deeply with the justice system’s contradictory, irreconcilable principles.”
A Long Time Ago, in Northern California: When David Lynch Met George Lucas
“Both Lucas and Lynch’s world views allow for the possibility of personal atonement, and for external peace emerging from inner peace.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Francesco Rosi’s ‘Salvatore Giuliano’
“‘Salvatore Giuliano’ is a thoroughly concentrated work of formal conviction.”
The Cold Light of Day: On Agnès Varda’s ‘Le Bonheur’
“Nothing in ‘Le Bonheur’ produces lasting unhappiness, and to approach it in a spirit of contemplation, rather than one of judgment, may allow the movie its most favorable terms of engagement.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Jacques Demy’s ‘Lola’
“Like his characters, Demy’s camera in ‘Lola’ moves everywhere but goes nowhere; it’s a paradoxically headlong hesitation.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Mikhail Kalatozov’s ‘I Am Cuba’
“‘I Am Cuba’ is more than a picturesque travelogue. It is a pulsating ethnographic profile, an excavation of sorts, uncovering and unleashing its discoveries with a sweeping scope.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Jean-Pierre Melville’s ‘Le Samouraï’
“Jean-Pierre Melville’s ‘Le Samourai’ is the definition of cinematic precision. Each shot, each cut, each movement is a slice of redolent, provocative and sometimes even banal accuracy.”
The Style, Sins and Sympathies of Robert Bresson’s ‘Au hasard Balthazar’
“Much of Au hasard Balthazar’s transcendental value derives from its explicit openness to theological interpretation, particularly given Bresson’s oft-commented upon Catholicism and some of the film’s more overt symbolism.”
Piecing Together the Fragments of Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘A Married Woman’
“With ‘A Married Woman,’ Godard appears fully devoted to topical bullet points through an essayistic structure, forgoing conventional narrative, character development or expedient pacing.”
Film Beat: Cafe Scene from Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Vivre sa vie’
“After my first viewing of ‘Vivre sa vie,’ I closed my laptop, went out and chopped my waist-length mane to a bob. Movies have always had that mysterious power of making me feel as if I have lived all the lives I see on-screen.”
Chasing Chabrol: ‘Les biches’
“‘Les biches’ remains one of the more elusive and symbolic films of Chabrol’s career, as the narrative adopts a dreamlike structure that often obscures reality and truth.”
Chasing Chabrol: ‘Les bonnes femmes’
“‘Les bonnes femmes’ pushes the boundaries of expectations, leaving the audience in a place of vulnerability.”