This year’s New York Film Festival greets us with newly released films by two of the most renown filmmakers of the 20th century, Orson Welles and Raúl Ruiz. Recently these two late directors have been surprisingly prolific, with Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind, having spent decades in post-production hell over disputes of its ownership, receiving a belated release by Netflix in 2018; meanwhile, Ruiz, who passed away in 2011, had his final film Night Across the Street posthumously distributed in 2012 while his widow Valeria Sarmiento supervised a reconstruction of his lost picture The Wandering Shadow (2017).
Continue reading “NYFF: Hopper/Welles (2020) & The Tango of the Widower and its Distorting Mirror (2020)”Woyzeck (1979)
Werner Herzog’s adaptation of Georg Büchner’s unfinished 19th century play is an often beguiling if muddled character drama. Continue reading “Woyzeck (1979)”
Fantômas (1913 – 1914)
A legendary cinematic achievement of early silent cinema, Louis Feuillade’s hefty Fantômas serial is a cultural touchstone of a pre-WWI France. Continue reading “Fantômas (1913 – 1914)”
Hell in the Pacific (1968)
John Boorman’s magnificent follow-up to Point Blank centers on two unnamed WWII soldiers (Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune) stranded on a remote Pacific island who must put aside their nationalistic ideologies to survive. Continue reading “Hell in the Pacific (1968)”
Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974)
Jacques Rivette’s tribute to Frank Tashlin, Hollywood musicals, and Alfred Hitchcock, Céline and Julie Go Boating is a plethora of comic raucousness, a surreal, uproarious three-hour farce that celebrates exuberance and the human spirit. Continue reading “Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974)”
Phenomena (1985)
I’ve often struggled with the films of Dario Argento; like Brian De Palma, Argento is a technically proficient director with a knack for Hitchcockian visuals and self-conscious camp often at the expense of character nuance and depth, downplaying story in favor of sheer and empty spectacle Continue reading “Phenomena (1985)”
Auto Focus (2002)
Paul Schrader has often cited his strict Calvinist upbringing as the key influence of his film career, going as far as to base George C. Scott’s evangelical crusader in Hardcore off of his own father. Continue reading “Auto Focus (2002)”
A Brief Word on Max von Sydow (1929 – 2020)
It’s difficult to overstate how significant of an actor Max von Sydow was, not solely to the European arthouse scene of the late 50s and 60s but to international cinema in general Continue reading “A Brief Word on Max von Sydow (1929 – 2020)”
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)
Werner Herzog is rather frenetic and instinctive in his approach toward filmmaking. He uses the camera in the same fashion Jackson Pollock uses a paint can, relying upon impulse and coincidence rather than deliberation. Continue reading “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)”
Chinese Roulette (1976)
This drama by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, featuring the late Anna Karina, centers on a wealthy Munich husband and wife who simultaneously discover that their partner is having an affair. Initially somewhat farcical before transitioning into a psychological thriller, Chinese Roulette is one of Fassbinder’s most stylish features; his camera frequently zooms and glides past his ensemble of tortured souls and his fascination with mirrors, doorways, and staircases is taken to its logical conclusion. Continue reading “Chinese Roulette (1976)”
