Guest post by Seth Mutchler. Our world is messy. Our world is overwhelming. Our world endlessly expands in every direction. Humans have many things that differentiate us, but the world’s incomprehensible totality is universal. Another thing that we have in common is art. Art has many functions but one that many, myself included, find the… Read more »
U.S. pop culture in the postwar era often presented a tidy world. TV moms vacuumed in heels and full skirts. Superman’s hair was always neat and presentable, despite flying around the city faster than a speeding bullet. And media preferred to avoid moral ambiguities. Collage animator Lewis Klahr draws from mid-twentieth-century pop culture –… Read more »
Guest post by Vivian Nun Halloran, associate professor of English and American Studies. In celebrating the visual adaptations of the fictional works of Haitian-born, Quebec-based journalist, novelist, and screenwriter Dany Laferrière through a three-film festival, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies sets out to deepen our collective appreciation of the imaginative richness and political… Read more »
Guest post by Craig Simpson, Manuscripts Archivist at Lilly Library. “For me, McCabe & Mrs. Miller is the standard for a sort of emotional purity, a movie whose feeling permeates you without ever once forcing a thing. Emerging from it, I always feel like the town drunk who attempts a jig on the ice in one… Read more »
At the time of this writing, the 2017 Sundance Film Festival is in full swing in Park City, Utah. One of the things Sundance is known for is helping to launch the careers of talented young filmmakers. Among this prestigious list of talent was a filmmaker whose style, interests and background were slightly different from… Read more »
Guest contributor Michaela Owens extols the virtues of Cary Grant. When you think of The Philadelphia Story, your first thought is likely of Katharine Hepburn. Who can blame you? Hepburn had a stunningly powerful cinematic presence, and The Philadelphia Story is without a doubt her film — playwright Philip Barry wrote it for her, after… Read more »