The story of an Italian/North Korean action movie joint venture. By Johannes Schönherr. “Amerinda Est. Presents … Frank Zagarino and Mark Gregory in … Ten Zan – The Ultimate Mission … written and directed by Ted Kaplan,” read the movie’s opening credits in bold white letters, superimposed over aerial […]
The Heroism of Disobedience and Deceit: Where Is the Friend’s Home?
By Robin Wood. Introduction Kiarostami’s development has been remarkably swift, each stage marked by radical change. Essentially, he has moved from a traditional ‘realist’ narrative cinema, strongly influenced by Italian neo-realism. through various intermediate stages, to an experimental formalism. The shifts are by no means arbitrary: all his work, […]
My Heart of Darkness (Sweden, 2011)
By Daniel Lindvall. The title of Staffan Julén and Marius van Niekerk’s documentary My Heart of Darkness obviously evokes Joseph Conrad’s nightmare tale of the European colonization of Africa. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (first published as a three-part magazine series in 1899) revealed the brutality of European rule, but it […]
Louise Brooks: The Martyrdom of Lulu
By Dan Callahan. In the long last years of her life, Louise Brooks, isolated in Rochester, New York and utterly tired of living, would end telephone conversations with the order, “Bring a gun.” Her friends were shocked by this macabre request, which must have delighted her. Even as an elderly […]
The Room of One’s Own: An Interview with Tommy Wiseau
By Peter Rinaldi. “What’s the line for?” a middle aged man asks me. It’s 11:30pm on a Saturday night in Manhattan. I’m in the middle of hundreds of people waiting to get into the Ziegfeld Theater. “The Room”, I answer. “What’s that?” he says, surprised to be totally unaware of […]
CFP: Borderlands and Film
April 5, 2011
Call for Papers Border Visions: Borderlands and Film A Joint Conference of Central Connecticut State University and the Literature/Film Association New Britain, Connecticut October 12-14, 2011 The shifting boundaries between languages and national and ethnic identities in the late 20th and early 21st century are changing the notion of borders […]
Against and For Irreversible
By Robin Wood. To call Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible(Irréversible, 2002) controversial would be an understatement. It has had its defenders, but their voices have been largely drowned out by the rage the film has aroused, with horror stories of mass walkouts at the Cannes Festival screening, and subsequent denunciations by critics […]
Dark Shadows around Pinewood and Ealing
By Robert Murphy. The Ever-growing Empire of Film Noir The critical concept of film noir, once confined to atmospheric American thrillers and crime films like The Woman in the Window (1944), Double Indemnity (1944), Out of the Past (1947), Gilda (1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1948) and The Postman Always […]
Claire Denis: Cinema of Transgression: A 2-part article
By Robin Wood. Part 1: Introduction and Chocolat. Introduction: Claire Denis and Nadine Gordimer. The tension between standing apart and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer. That is where we begin. (Nadine Gordimer, Introduction to Selected Stories, 1975*). I discovered the films of Claire Denis and the […]
Permanent State of War: A Short History of North Korean Cinema
By Johannes Schönherr. Like the leading article in the Party paper, the cinema should have mass appeal and should keep ahead of new developments, thus playing a mobilizing role in each stage of the revolutionary struggle. – Kim Il Sung I. 7th Pyongyang Film Festival of Non-Aligned and Other Developing […]