By Jacob Mertens. A SWAT team skulks up a staircase in a rundown tenement, shrouded in the unnatural glow of dim fluorescents. Their movements are precise and silent, and they strain their ears for the faintest sound. Loud speakers are attached to the stairwell and the hallways, begging for a […]
That Hurtful Mask – in memory of Erland Josephson (1923-2012)
By Jonathan Rozenkrantz. As I watch Fanny and Alexander (1982) for the first time since childhood, I am caught not so much in the grip of Ingmar Bergman’s “cinemagic” filmmaking (which, in my opinion, is at its weakest in this particular film). Rather, I find myself in an uneasy clinch […]
Abel Gance’s Magnificent Napoléon
By Janine Gericke. On March 24, 25, 31 and April 1, 2012, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival proudly presented Abel Gance’s five and a half hour epic Napoléon at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre presented by film historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow, along with the British Film Institute, American Zoetrope, the Film Preserve, and Photoplay Productions. Brownlow’s love of this film began in the 1950s, when […]
Le Havre
By Celluloid Liberation Front. Outside the gentrified humanism for ‘members only’ and the gated communities of meritocracy, in the suburbs of a neglected humanity is Le Havre, the latest film by Aki Kaurismäki. When European stars could not fly yet they would sail to Hollywood from the port of Le […]
Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist – A Closer Look
By Peter Lavetti. Michel Hazanavicius is a brilliant filmmaker, an equal to Murnau and Hitchcock in his ability to compose images that propel a story forward. There is no “fat” here. It is obvious that not a filmic second is wasted or ill-placed. The film plays out with the terseness […]
$ellebrity (2012): A SXSW Review
By Jacob Mertens. The concept of celebrity and fame has existed for ages. As a society, we seek to hold individuals up as an ideal, something tangible and attainable. We try to live vicariously through another’s natural talent and beauty, we construct an image of grace and vulnerability, and we […]
Interview with Sharon Badal, Tribeca Film Festival
April 13, 2012
By Gary M. Kramer. Sharon Badal is the Head Shorts Film Programmer at the Tribeca Film Festival, which unspools April 18-29, 2012. Badal started with Tribeca in 1999, she said in a recent phone interview, “Since before Day One.” She was one of the first three employees of TFF back […]
On Stifling Families, Diana Lynn, and a Killer Cat
By John Bredin. Track of the Cat, a 1954 early Cinemascope offering—produced, curiously enough, by John Wayne—had an unhappy childhood to say the least. It was thoroughly rejected by both critics and the public alike. So said Brooklyn College film professor Foster Hirsch, while presenting this odd alchemy of family […]
55th San Francisco International Film Festival, April 19-May 3, 2012
By Janine Gericke. This year’s San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) has an astounding lineup, including a wide array of narrative features, documentaries, short films, and special presentations. Special Events Two of the SFIFF’s former directors have passed away in the last year and, to honor them, two of this year’s tentpole events […]
Rob Byrne and the resurrection of Abel Gance’s Napoléon
By Michael T. Toole. For the last two weekends of March in Oakland’s Paramount Theater, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) presented Abel Gance’s, thrilling, sweeping epic, Napoléon (1927). This showcase had the air of a once in your lifetime happening, and for many of us that very well […]