My introduction to Germaine Dulac many years ago in film school revolved around the surrealists. I learned about her fraught collaboration with Antonin Artaud, which resulted in a group of surrealists rioting at the premiere of The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928). However, Germaine Dulac was so much more than an object of surrealist ire and… Read more »
Video Essays
Phantom Reality in Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht
The Dracula story has been told countless times on film, from F.W. Murnau’s unauthorized 1922 adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel to a surge of re-imaginings and modernizations over the past decade. Werner Herzog’s version, inspired by F.W. Murnau’s film, has long been one of my favorites. It’s both faithful to the story in many ways,… Read more »
Between Neo-Realism and Formalism: Agnès Varda’s La Pointe Courte
La Pointe Courte (1955), Agnès Varda’s first film, is often considered one of the major precursors for the French New Wave, a movement that would begin a few years later with (depending on who you ask) either Claude Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge (1958) or François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959). Varda has been branded the… Read more »
Auntie Mame and 1950s Femininity
Rosalind Russell’s career was somewhat different than other starlets of her era. Getting her start in her mid-20s, later than other women actors of her generation, Russell’s star persona was strongly associated with the “career woman.” When she starred in Auntie Mame (dir. Morton DaCosta, 1958), she was 51 years old, age-appropriate for the role, and… Read more »
Archetypal Hitchcock Women in Strangers on a Train and Rope
There are many notable similarities between Alfred Hitchcock’s two films Strangers on a Train (1951) and Rope (1948). For example, Hitchcock scholars and film critics have written repeatedly about the doubling of the male relationships — particularly since Farley Granger appears in both films — and the implication that Brandon and Phillip (Rope), Bruno and even Guy… Read more »
Unproductive Time in Andy Warhol’s Films
Andy Warhol’s films are infamous for extremely long takes, static shots, and excessive lengths. Though not all his movies fit that mold perfectly, films like Empire (1965) are formative for how audiences and critics have conceived his cinematic works. In this video essay, I look at Warhol’s relationship to time, suggesting that his cultivation of boredom… Read more »