In a genre dedicated to telling stories, communicating emotions, and enthralling an audience, documentaries ostensibly represent a chance to tell a truth to that audience. They give filmmakers a chance to show the world as it is and try to tell the story of that world in a true way.
Author’s note: I have forgone the usual reviewing format to write a more personal piece. I saw it as simply the only way to come to terms with the experience I had with Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) when I watched it for the first time. Therefore, although there will be some critical […]
Once or twice a year, sometimes more if the heavens are smiling down on us, a film critic will see a movie, leave the theater, and ask him or herself one very important question. And no, it is not the commonly posited, “what else could that money have gone to?” because films create jobs, and […]
The film noir genre is easily recognized by a dark mood, a high-contrast setting, or a protagonist with a tight tongue and a loose code of ethics. It reeks of doom and stale cigarettes, and is always about a bad idea, a bad guy, a bad girl, and a bad outcome. It is insistently pessimistic. […]
In his book The Open Road, author David Campany puts forth the question: “is America imaginable without the road trip?”[1] Particularly within the world of photography, the curiosity of the road is boundless. Motels, buses, cars, diners and gas stations are now iconic images thanks to landmark photographic works by artists such as Ed Rushca, […]
When one thinks about Africa, it isn’t film that first springs to mind. Indeed, the first impression might be that large sections of the continent are either too poor or too unstable to support a film industry, let alone one that thrives as thoroughly as Nollywood, Bollywood, or Hollywood. The impression might be that, outside […]
What makes Akira Kurosawa’s “Throne of Blood” (1957) so appealing is that it is both an adaptation and a period piece. This take on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” has been infused with Noh Theater, a famous Japanese art form, and set during the time of medieval Japanese civil wars that decimated the country (Prince). In the end, […]
During their first impromptu date, Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) and Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) trade awkward exchanges over a glass of wine, all the while trying to mask their inner thoughts about self-consciousness and sexuality. However, whether it was the alcohol or a Freudian slip, at one point during this scene Annie labels Alvy, with […]
