By James Knight. This August will see the US theatrical release of She’s Funny That Way, the latest feature from Peter Bogdanovich. Since his directorial debut in 1968, Bogdanovich has been a man who has lived cinema to its fullest, experiencing everything the medium has to offer. He’s been a […]
Mise-en-scène and the Rebirth of Film
By Tom Silva. Film is a living thing and so it faces an unending series of deaths. Like the mythic hero in Joseph Campbell’s magisterial book The Hero of a Thousand Faces, if film is to experience a long survival, it must be continually reborn. As Campbell wrote, it requires […]
Fair Game: Democratic Principle in Hollywood Romances, from Tracy and Hepburn to the Present
By Robert K. Lightning. Lovers that demonstrate both spiritual affinity and spiritual equality have long been popular in middle-class entertainment. Repartee has often expressed that equality: one thinks of Shakespeare’s Beatrice and Benedict, Austen’s Emma and Knightley, Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Rochester. Romantic relations defined by repartee are inherently democratic, […]
Can We Do It Ourselves?
By Elizabeth Mizon. Why, in our democracy-obsessed society, do we balk at the idea of economic democracy in our workplaces? Why do we – the majority of us wage-reliant labourers, working in organisations we have no influence in – so willingly defend and trust the capitalist business model, “the most […]
(Im)mortal Sherlock: Bill Condon’s Mr. Holmes
July 21, 2015
By Jude Warne. With the recent onslaught of on-screen Sherlocks, one might wonder why a filmmaker would bring another interpretation into the mix. Why indeed. Well, with Bill Condon’s new Mr. Holmes, the why seems to be this: to present Sherlock Holmes as a regular person, i.e. a mortal human […]
Revisiting the ‘Hard to Swallow’ Morality Tale of Tod Browning’s Freaks
July 21, 2015
By Cleaver Patterson. In today’s age of anything goes splatterfests and in-your-face CGI, it’s perhaps hard to appreciate the full effect Tod Browning’s infamous horror classic Freaks (1932) had upon its first release. At the time, the film that was banned in many countries—it would remain unseen in Britain for […]
Tough Talk from the Heart: A Conversation with Joe Mantegna
July 20, 2015
By Matthew Sorrento. Veteran actor Joe Mantegna has all the wisdom that a life before the camera could provide. And yet he possesses an innocence long lost by most in his cadre. Looking back on a varied acting career – “I’ve done it all” from him sounds completely factual and […]
Out of the Clouds (1955): Ealing Headed to Grandeur
July 17, 2015
By Paul Risker. From horror to comedy by way of black humour, this list reads like a roll call of honour that reiterates the importance of the Ealing canon in British cinema: Dead of Night (1945), Passport to Pimlico (1949), Whisky Galore (1949), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) […]
Bollywood: Gods, Glamour and Gossip (2012)
July 16, 2015
A Book Review by Alison Frank. It is difficult for a book of just over 100 pages to cover any topic in sufficient detail; a decent overview of one director’s career, perhaps, or an in-depth reading of a single film. Nevertheless, Wallflower’s Short Cuts series has the ambitious aim of […]
Film Scratches: the Surrealist Ritual Dramas of Tzuan Wu
July 15, 2015
Film Scratches focuses on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. A Review by David Finkelstein. Tzuan Wu is a Taiwanese filmmaker based in New York, and his recent shorts are surrealist ritual dramas in which symbolic […]