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Cornel
Wilde's The Naked Prey
“The Naked Prey
offers a subtle but powerful anti-war, pro-diplomacy
argument, for those who look past the film’s
vigorous joys of the chase."
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Werner
Herzog's Grizzly Man
"We
are in the midst of a Werner Herzog renaissance.
It’s not sweeping the obligatory blockbusters
from the neighborhood cineplex, of course, but
we’re talking Herzog here."
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Seijin
Suzuki's Youth of the Beast
"The
plot of Seijun Suzuki’s Youth of the
Beast should be familiar to most viewers,
even if they’ve never heard of the film
or Suzuki. But
most people don’t watch Suzuki for his plots.
They watch him for his hallucinatory action and
surreal spin on the familiar."
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Ingmar
Bergman's Fanny & Alexander
"The
sheer size of Fanny & Alexander also
singles it out from the rest of the Bergman oeuvre:
with some sixty speaking parts and 1,200 extras,
it’s simply enormous when set down next
to his chamber films."
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Guy
Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World
"The
plot of Seijun Suzuki’s Youth of the
Beast should be familiar to most viewers,
even if they’ve never heard of the film
or Suzuki. But
most people don’t watch Suzuki for his plots.
They watch him for his hallucinatory action and
surreal spin on the familiar."
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Re-thinking
Ingmar Bergman in an Irreverent Age
"Why
has Bergman fared so poorly in contemporary popularity,
compared to other great directors of his era like
Fellini, Hitchcock, Welles and Kurosawa? It’s
a complicated issue, actually."
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Ingmar
Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night
"Smiles
of a Summer Night is a languid comedic gem
to linger on not only because it is a seemingly
perfect comedy, but because it stands as a transition
marker in Bergman’s growth as a director."
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Jean-Luc
Godard's Band of Outsiders
"The
tone of Band of Outsiders is so gentle
and charming that casual viewers might be surprised
at Godard’s subversive intentions."
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Oscar
Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest
"Criterion's
release of the original film adaptation of Wilde's
last and greatest play gives us a chance to watch
it in a sharper print than has been available
for decades."
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Lolita:
Variations on an Obsessive Theme
"When
he decided to remake the film version of Lolita,
Adrian Lyne had to face the formidable ghost
of Vladimir Nabokov and deal with the forty-one-year-old
controversy over the original novel's moral value.
But Lyne had one advantage. Or so he thought."
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Goldfinger:
The Set with the Golden Touch
"Goldfinger's
innovative, ultramodern sets and fantastic props
have become so ingrained in the popular mind that
it's hard to understand today how shocking and,
at times, absurd they seemed to the film's original
audience."
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Hitchcock's
Film Interiors: Home is Where the Knife Is
"Can
you name one Hitchcock set designer? Don't worry:
nobody else can either. So ask yourself another
question: can you name an object or a set that
you remember readily from a Hitchcock film?"
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Hitchcock's
Film Sources
"Regardless
of the quality of the original source, Hitchcock
relied primarily on the novel for his building
materials. Of the thirty-seven feature films he
made from 1934 (The Man Who Knew Too Much)
to 1976 (Family Plot), twenty-two were
adapted from novels, four from short stories and
three from stage plays. (A note to English majors
counting on their fingers: that means Hitchcock
made only eight films from original material from
1934 to 1976.)"
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An
Interview with John Landis:
From Animal House to Our House
"I originally thought about
using Jack Webb. I actually had a meeting with him,
and he looked at the script. Then he looked at me,
trying to figure out how long my hair was. I never
heard back from him."
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Appreciation:
Federico Fellini
"I am not a censor, a priest
or a politician. I dislike analyzing. I am not an
orator, a philosopher or a theorist. I am merely
a storyteller and the cinema is my work. I have
invented myself entirely."
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