By Tony Williams. Critic-director Stig Bjorkman, well known for his studies on directors such as Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman, has made an intriguing documentary on this well-known star to which he has also collaborated on the screenplay. Most documentaries either concentrate on abundant clips from films already well known […]
Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane by Patrick McGilligan
A Book Review by Tony Williams. I must admit that I approached this book with hesitation. Although the author has edited excellent interviews with blacklist victims and screenwriters from Hollywood’s Golden Age to the 1990s, his biographies have sometimes tended to go into National Enquirer territory distracting from a more […]
Reframing Realism in My Beautiful Laundrette
February 9, 2016
By William Repass. “You’re dirty. You’re beautiful.” “What is it that the gora Englishman always needs? Clean clothes!” In the world of Stephen Frears’ and Hanif Kureishi’s 1985 cult classic, My Beautiful Laundrette—a world meant to recreate, in-miniature, a South London turned upside down by Thatcherism—cleanliness is not only a […]
Shakespeare on Film – The Bard’s Big Screen Odyssey
February 9, 2016
By Cleaver Patterson. A cold and blustery January morning at London’s BFI Southbank, saw the launch of Shakespeare on Film, the BFI’s latest themed season which promises to be their biggest and most ambitious to date. Shakespeare, often referred to as England’s national poet, is one of cinema’s most filmed […]
The Apu Trilogy: Satyajit Ray’s Masterpiece
By Christopher Sharrett. I usually begin a review of a piece of neglected film history with a tirade about the state of film culture, as the New Hollywood rides roughshod over the past, while pretending (at least a few of its prominent personnel) to have preservationist concerns, when in fact […]
“Like a Runaway Train”: Ariel Kleiman on Making Partisan
February 1, 2016
By Paul Risker. Partisan (2015) is the directorial feature debut of Australian filmmaker Ariel Kleiman, who already has a humorous take on the filmmaking process. Ask him about how the experience of making a film changes you and he will list a series of statements of no more than a few […]
The Languid Approach of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin
January 30, 2016
By Cleaver Patterson. In 8th century, Tang Dynasty China, Nie Yinniang (Qi Shu) has lived for many years, isolated from her family in a remote temple, where she has been trained in martial arts, becoming one of the country’s most feared assassins. Only when she is sent by her teacher […]
I, Shakespeare by Anonymous and Last Will. & Testament
By David Ryan. Rewriting history is a common academic enterprise, and crafting Elizabethan history – particularly Shakespearean biography – is composed recursively. Though Anonymous (2011) is neither a serious effort at literary biography nor historical drama, Roland Emmerich and John Orloff’s speculative work about Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of […]
(((1973)))
January 27, 2016
Kurt Vonnegut Hunter Thompson Norman Mailer Tom Wolfe William Burroughs Jonathan Miller William Burroughs Jr Jacob Bronowski Robert Hughes Bob Woodward Carl Bernstein Peter Maas Germaine Greer Ray Connolly Geoffrey O’Brien Pauline Kael Grover Lewis Leonard! Bernstein! “There was a point in ’73 where I knew it was all over,” […]
Traces of Postindian Survivance: Two Short Films by Jeff Barnaby
By John Garland Winn. Jeff Barnaby, a Mi’kmaq First Nations director, was four years old when the Quebec Provincial Police raided his Restigouche Reservation to restrict salmon fishing rights. The events of the raid are explored in Alanis Obomsawin’s documentary Incident at Restigouche (1984) and, as Barnaby recalls, are forever […]