Dir. Ingmar Bergman. Starring Julia Dufvenius, Liv Ullmann, Borje Ahlstedt Image links back here Music is a discipline too often taken for granted, I think; there’s a sense in the popular imagination that all musicians are either Mozart reborn, effortlessly cranking out the hits, or teetering on the edge of personal collapse à la Johnny… Read More Saraband (2003)
Dir. Roberto Rossellini. Starring Nazario Gerardi, Severino Pisacane, Esposito Bonaventura Federico Fellini worked with Rossellini on several of his movies as a writer. Whether or not one prefers his neorealist period to his baroque one is up for contention, but it’s a pleasure in either event to see the off-kilter characters who would populate his… Read More The Flowers of St. Francis (1950)
Dir. Steve McQueen. Starring Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez Widows begins with a long take of Liam Neeson and Viola Davis kissing. There’s a lot of tongue. It’s 2018, and it’s the first time I’ve seen an interracial kiss onscreen with that much tongue involved. I have said it many times, and I have… Read More Widows (2018)
Dir. Steven Soderbergh. Starring Andie MacDowell, James Spader, Laura San Giacomo Soderbergh’s camera sidles up to its targets in sex, lies, and videotape, like a bold young boy putting an arm around a girl whose name he doesn’t know. Perpetually on edge, always a little antsy, given to slow approaches into a character’s face from above or… Read More sex, lies, and videotape (1989)
Dir. Peter Ustinov. Starring Terence Stamp, Peter Ustinov, Robert Ryan There are women in Lawrence of Arabia, even if one hears little of them and sees even less. Billy Budd, released in the same year, is genuinely devoid of women. They are a foreign presence at sea, though “foreign” may be too weak a word; “alien” would… Read More Billy Budd (1962)
Dir. Spike Lee. Starring Edward Norton, Rosario Dawson, Barry Pepper What makes a teacher kiss his seventeen-year-old student? What leads a father to contemplate a new life for his son bound for a seven-year prison term, fantasizing about going on the run together? What makes a Wall Street analyst look himself in the mirror after… Read More 25th Hour (2002)
Dir. Asghar Farhadi. Starring Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti, Farid Sajadhosseini Asghar Farhadi is a hypnotic talent. His movies have an undertow capable of sucking us in when we have surrendered ourselves too fully to the waves. Scenes first unfold realistically; a husband stays behind after a show to talk to a censor, and his wife… Read More The Salesman (2016)
Dir. David Lean. Starring Brenda De Banzie, Charles Laughton, John Mills David Lean plays two tricks on us in the first two minutes or so of Hobson’s Choice. The first has to do with the shoes. Hobson’s is a shop for boots, shoes, and clogs, proclaims the sign, and in a tracking shot we see… Read More Hobson’s Choice (1954)
Dir. David Hand. Starring Paula Winslowe, Bobby Stewart, Peter Behn Dir. Edgar Wright. Starring Ansel Elgort, Lily James, Kevin Spacey The gentle young man who loses the mother who protected him and raised him is a common enough trope, but what makes Bambi and Baby stand out is that they have the dumbest names of… Read More Bambi (1942) and Baby Driver (2017)
Dir. Spike Lee. Starring John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace BlacKkKlansman begins with the famous crane shot from Gone with the Wind, where Scarlett, desperate to pass off the responsibility for delivering Melanie’s baby, looks for Dr. Meade. It pulls further and further and further away from what must be hundreds of men lying… Read More BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Seeing Things Secondhand 