Lately it’s becoming more common that I learn my body can do all sorts of neat things. Usually these things involve intense physical discomfort and/or pain. As the band struck up “As Time Goes By” and the screen faded, I found myself with a smile I’ve never smiled before, one that I cannot recreate, oneContinue reading “film: Curtiz: Casablanca (1942)”
Category Archives: film
film: DeMille: The Cheat (1915)
I would expect that my introduction to a director whose name I’ve so long known I’d be far more impressed. Or impressed at all. As it is, I have almost no recollection of this film at all. And I’m pretty sure that I watched it just this morning. Now, let’s see–aside from DeMille, it wasContinue reading “film: DeMille: The Cheat (1915)”
film: Hitchcock: The 39 Steps (1935)
I was thankful that The 39 Steps was not actually a thriller, not in the later Hitchcock sense of the word. Of course it had many of his later elements, and much of his humor, and most notably: an otherwise anonymous woman opens her mouth to scream, and a train whistle blares forth, from theContinue reading “film: Hitchcock: The 39 Steps (1935)”
film: Feuillade: Les Vampires, Le Cryptogramme rouge (e3, 1915)
Finally, the first evidence of burning sexuality in film. 1915. The gang sits backstage, and one of the men walks across the room, looking like Marlon Brando, very self-assured, he turns around and whistles, and a woman follows his path and right as she reaches him he roughly grabs her the hair atop head andContinue reading “film: Feuillade: Les Vampires, Le Cryptogramme rouge (e3, 1915)”
film: Huston: The Maltese Falcon (1941)
If you didn’t know, I studied film during my first year in college, and finding myself, after one year, too emotionally unstable to continue its pursuit, I switched to studying something else. I didn’t watch another film until 2007–and this was it. Watching it, I suddenly understood many things I hadn’t as an artsy filmContinue reading “film: Huston: The Maltese Falcon (1941)”
film: Feuillade: Les Vampires [e2] : La Bague qui tue (1915)
Midway through a scene, a shot, that looked almost identical to one from Fantomas. The film was carried heavily by letters and newspapers, as in Fantomas, and…surprise, the same director, Feuillade. I could not get my hands on episode 1, so I began with 2, and it was short enough to maintain some of myContinue reading “film: Feuillade: Les Vampires [e2] : La Bague qui tue (1915)”
film: Wegener: Der Student von Prag (1913)
Der Student von Prag I was looking forward to because I’d read it was a modern adaptation of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus. If that’s the case, then so is Crossroads about Robert Johnson. Really, if there’s only one significant figure in history who sold his soul to the devil, then Christians should assume they’ve pretty muchContinue reading “film: Wegener: Der Student von Prag (1913)”
film: Carol Reed: The Third Man (1949)
Walking out the door each day and ten steps later reaching the doorway through which Graham Greene passed daily for years filled me with some sort of awe. I also had to walk out of the theatre during End of the Affair because it made me so miserable, I left and cried. As much asContinue reading “film: Carol Reed: The Third Man (1949)”
film: Mankiewicz: Guys and Dolls (1955)
2 may 07 I’ve began to wonder if the Good old films are as witty as they are because the people who made them built themselves up from roles in the production of silent films, from writing the stories to the intertitles, perhaps even the unheard dialogue, these are people who understand an element ofContinue reading “film: Mankiewicz: Guys and Dolls (1955)”
film: Griffith – The Birth of a Nation (1915)
I could never figure out how a film could possibly turn the KKK into heroes–I could never imagine that someone really could make a film so sympathetic to the South. Knowing that this film is greatly responsible for the KKK’s second rise (or so I’ve read), I do wonder how much of it has influencedContinue reading “film: Griffith – The Birth of a Nation (1915)”
arts & fetters 