A running theme throughout the career of theater director and actor André Gregory is proving that the seemingly impossible is actually possible. It might seem impossible to direct a production of Alice in Wonderland (1970) in which six people play all of the most iconic characters from Lewis Carroll’s two Alice books, transforming into different… Read more »
Entries by Jesse Pasternack
I Used to Go Here and the Processing of Failure
Failure is an underexplored subject in American cinema. The struggles and joys of achieving success are portrayed in blockbuster after blockbuster, while the unique phenomenon of processing failure and tentatively beginning the process of moving beyond it is less common to encounter in a mainstream American movie. Thankfully, Kris Rey’s new film I Used to Go… Read more »
Thank You, Jon
At the end of this month, IU Cinema will be saying goodbye to our founding director, Jon Vickers. His presence and leadership will be sorely missed, but we will forever be grateful for everything he has done to make IU Cinema the place for film. The following is a tribute written by regular blog contributor… Read more »
The Undeniable Power of Come and See
Why do people watch Come and See (1985), Russian director Elem Klimov’s film about a young man trying to survive World War II in what is now Belarus? The events of the film are so disturbing that they age its teenage protagonist Flyora and turn his hair white. The images that Klimov, his co-writer Adamovich,… Read more »
A Different Listen Every Time: Morricone’s Mournful Music for Once Upon a Time in America
Like a lot of people who love music and cinema, I was so sad to hear about the death of legendary composer Ennio Morricone. Even though he died at the age of 91, the idea of the death of someone who had created so many of the scores that I loved still hurt. As I… Read more »
Masterpiece in the Morning: Watching The Leopard at 8 am
During an episode of the Pure Cinema Podcast from April, recorded remotely with guest Edgar Wright, the 1963 Italian film The Leopard came up in conversation. Co-host Elric Kane joked that this 3-hour-plus epic would be a great film to watch early in the morning. Since the coronavirus pandemic has made my schedule very flexible,… Read more »