“‘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…”
“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.”
“‘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.”
“Both Lucas and Lynch’s world views allow for the possibility of personal atonement, and for external peace emerging from inner peace.”
“‘Salvatore Giuliano’ is a thoroughly concentrated work of formal conviction.”
“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.”
“Like his characters, Demy’s camera in ‘Lola’ moves everywhere but goes nowhere; it’s a paradoxically headlong hesitation.”
“‘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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“With ‘A Married Woman,’ Godard appears fully devoted to topical bullet points through an essayistic structure, forgoing conventional narrative, character development or expedient pacing.”
“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.”
“‘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.”
“‘Les bonnes femmes’ pushes the boundaries of expectations, leaving the audience in a place of vulnerability.”
“‘The Bride Wore Black’ has a rather deft sense of humor that raises it above many of the other brightly-lit neo-noirs of the 1960s.”
“A sex comedy rooted in inequality, ‘Diary of a Chambermaid’ trades in traditional ideas about power dynamics for a twisted take on the absurdity of desire.”
“‘La Notte’ is a film very much about resignation — resigning to the fate of the monogamy and perhaps the inevitability of death.”
“In the male dominated world of the French New Wave, Catherine in François Truffaut’s ‘Jules and Jim’ stands out as a mysterious and particularly beguiling female presence.”
