By Christopher Sharrett. To Part 1. L’Humanité Bruno Dumont’s second film has been termed by certain commentators a “remake” of La Vie de Jésus. The notion is bewildering. Yes, both films are shot in Bailleul, both films deal with often everyday, banal actions of characters, but to fail to note […]
Bruno Dumont and the Revival of the Human, Part 1
March 21, 2014
By Christopher Sharrett. Bruno Dumont is among our most important filmmakers, a fact that has gone mostly unnoticed outside Europe. His particular significance seems unrecognized in the US. There are very few critical essays about him of any depth and intelligence, except for a couple of notable contributions in Senses […]
Grand Piano (2013)
March 20, 2014
By Danny King. In the press notes for Grand Piano, director Eugenio Mira states the following: “Having been raised by wolves like Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, Brian De Palma and the Master of Masters Sir Alfred Hitchcock, when I first heard of Grand Piano’s premise, the feral infant film-geek in […]
The Spartans Meet The Muppets, or 300: Rise of an Empire
March 18, 2014
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. It would be a mistake to dismiss director Noam Murro’s sword and sandal “historical” pageant 300: Rise of an Empire (2014) entirely, if only because mainstream pop culture films can often tell us more about the times we live in than so-called “quality” films, since they […]
Surviving the Monster Mom: Child’s Pose
By Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. “I hope it’s like a mirror.” (Călin Peter Netzer on Child’s Pose) “They fuck you up, your mum and dad / They may not mean to, but they do.” (Philip Larkin, “This Be The Verse” [1971]) If a toxic abusive mother raised you, be forewarned. Child’s […]
The Films of Jim Krell
March 10, 2014
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. One of the most original and iconoclastic personalities of the New American Cinema, Jim Krell created work that is simultaneously so important, and yet so unknown, that the news that his complete works are now being archived by Anthology Film Archives constitutes a major event, closing […]
The Selfish Giant: Greetings from History
March 10, 2014
By Axel Andersson. Oscar Wilde’s tale about the selfish giant who built a high wall around his garden can be thought about as a story in which all directions meet, the up and down of transcendental rewards and punishments and the side to side of earthly goings-on. A giant returns […]
The Narcissistic Sociopathology of Gender: Craig’s Wife and The Hitch-Hiker, Part 2
March 9, 2014
By Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. To Part 1. While Dorothy Arzner’s Craig’s Wife (1936) revolves around a pathological female who is undone by her desperate attempts to conform to the norms of patriarchy during the depression era, Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker (1953) presents us with a male serial killer, another malignant […]
After the Dark: The Wonderful Imagination of John Huddles
By Tom Ue. After the Dark, written, produced, and directed by John Huddles (originally titled The Philosophers), tells the story of a group of philosophy seniors who had to choose, in hypothetical situations, which ten of them would seek refuge underground and repopulate the human race in the event of […]
Hollywood Nomad: Andrew Dominik’s Aussiewood
March 8, 2014
By Stephen Gaunson. “I live here now and I don’t like going home.” (Andrew Dominik qtd. in Sperling 2012) “I wouldn’t mind shooting again in Australia but I have no particular Australian story I want to tell right now. America is home at the moment.” (Andrew Dominik qtd. in Gray […]