The dense and austere film melodramas of Douglas Sirk pose a problem of interpretation to their viewers, a problem which strikes me as being founded on cultural paradox and compounded by misleading appearances. Sirk, who began his artistic career as a leftist playwright in pre-Nazi Germany and who finished his career as a studio filmmaker… Read more »
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) opens to Emmi Kurowski (Brigitte Mira), a German cleaning woman, timidly entering a bar one night on her way home to get out of the pouring rain. Fassbinder’s frame composes her at a distance; she is isolated and alone and by the looks of it, lonely…. Read more »
I have always been a Disney kid. Yet it wasn’t until a few years ago that I began watching the studio’s live-action fare from the ’60s. The movies, I’ll admit, aren’t always gems — for every Blackbeard’s Ghost, there is a The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. My favorite discovery so far, though,… Read more »
The Trouble with Angels (1966) was the last film that Ida Lupino directed, coming at the tail end of her long period as a television director. In many ways, it represents a sharp departure from the socially conscious noirs that she’s best known for, and yet for fans of the film, it feels like an… Read more »
Robert Altman is known for eliciting nuanced performances from his actors. His 1977 film, 3 Women, is no different. In it, Sissy Spacek plays the inscrutable Pinky Rose, a childlike woman who is infatuated with Shelley Duvall’s character, Millie Lammoreaux. Pinky morphs over the course of the film, eventually adopting Millie’s persona, much to Millie’s confusion.
“I feel my time has run out. […] The movies I want to make are movies the studios don’t want. What they want to make, I don’t.” — Robert Altman, in an interview with The New York Times, 1981 “Norman Levy (president of 20th Century-Fox) and the rest are scum. […] They’re not interested… Read more »