The Spirit of Revolution: How World Cinema Defined the 1920s
“There is a danger and dynamism to 20s cinema which was gradually eradicated by the standardisation of production processes.”
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.”
Vague Visages Short Stories: Only the Names Have Been Changed by D.M. Palmer
Vague Visages Short Stories #15: Only the Names Have Been Changed by D.M. Palmer (Sheffield, UK)
VVIBES: Martin Scorsese and Marvel
VV’s D.M. Palmer, Peter Bell and Q.V. Hough on Martin Scorsese and Marvel
Peter Lorre: The Foundations of the Stranger
“Lorre brought to his strangers the psychological wounds carried by the exile.”
Gaspar Noé: From Extremity to Sensation
“Noé’s work has always been concerned with errant self-expression, what happens when we are wrenched from sensation and how we adjust to the comedown.”
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.”
The Western Enters the 70s – Part 4: The Iconoclast’s Dilemma
“Faced with the death of its utopian hopes, the remnants of America’s counterculture split into two tendencies: the pastoral and the criminal. Its despondency was turned inwards and outwards; one side sought to build alternative structures in line with a higher authority, while the other strove to rearrange the wreckage of the existing order.”
The Western Enters the 70s – Part 3: Expansion Pains
“The cowboy is an emissary of civilisation, enduring all the hardships the elements can throw at him to create a space in which civilised values can flourish unhindered. The symbolism of the cowboy is so potent that it continues to be invoked for political gain.”
The Western Enters the 70s – Part 2: Kicking Down the Doors
“With the Acid Western, the genre had once again proven itself capable of assimilating new grievances and anxieties.”
The Western Enters the 70s – Part 1: Sam Peckinpah’s Lonely Cowboy
“With his concern for the outsider, and his reorienting of the West’s perception in the American mind, Peckinpah helped to birth the Acid Western.”
The Path to Nirvana: The International Pop Underground on Film
“What is perhaps most remarkable about the rise of Nirvana — and the industry’s hastily assembled appellation “alternative rock” — is the belief by many at the time that it had come from nowhere…”
A Waning Arcadia: Early 80s Punk Cinema
“The characters in ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains,’ ‘Smithereens’ and ‘Suburbia’ find in punk rock a convenient shorthand for authenticity, a posture which presages its eventual absorption into the very mechanisms it sets out to oppose.”
A Divine Madness: Gregory La Cava’s ‘Gabriel Over the White House’
“There is little doubt that ‘Gabriel Over the White House’ was a test balloon of sorts, priming the audience for a discussion on the merits of the strongman leader, asking them what they would be willing to sacrifice in order to ameliorate the national plight.”
Vague Visages Short Stories: iamdifid: by D.M. Palmer
Vague Visages Short Stories #13: iamdifid: by D.M. Palmer (Sheffield, UK)
What Makes a Man: Wounded Masculinity in William Lustig’s ‘Maniac’ Cycle
“In its own histrionic way, the ‘Maniac’ cycle presages a wave of reaction that would draw its power from the patriarchal fear of dispossession.”
ArteKino Festival 2018 Review: Babis Makridis’ ‘Pity’
“What saves ‘Pity,’ and the ‘Greek Weird Wave’ as a whole, from tipping into nihilism is the humanism at its core; it is the pessimism of thwarted hopes rather than the negative drive of cynicism.”
Vague Visages Short Stories: Beaming by D.M. Palmer
Vague Visages Short Stories #11: Beaming by D.M. Palmer (Sheffield, UK)
In Real Life: ‘Slender Man’ and the Clash of Media
“Just as the internet unleashed the Slenderman, it is culpable in bringing forth another seductive monster who uses this technology to warp minds and sow division…”
Welcome to the War: Power Politics in the ‘Predator’ Franchise
“The ‘Predator’ franchise is a repository of the fears that plague the powerful. The context changes, but the fear persists — the fear that the conqueror may one day become the conquered.”