With the exception of the early films of Alfred Hitchcock, British silent film often gets short shrift when discussed in comparison to the pantheon of other Western cinemas. And it is true that British film heavily borrows from the other cinematic traditions – many directors from the silent […]
Fritz Lang had one of the longest and most unique careers of any German filmmaker to come out of the silents. Unlike some of his fellows, he made the transition from silents to talkies almost seamlessly, mixing the visual aesthetics of silent Expressionism with the possibilities of sound […]
Based upon an informal poll on my Twitter, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are enough people who have not seen The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to make this one of my recommendations. Because not only is it an essential work of cinema, a historically significant film […]
When we discuss Nazi propaganda films, we usually talk about only two: Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia and Triumph of the Will. Those films are recognizably propaganda—supposed documentaries meant to showcase the power and pomp of Germany under the Nazis. Riefenstahl’s work has become the only mode by which many […]
Just as Douglas Sirk used melodrama as a vehicle (and a partial blind) for social commentary, writer/director Samuel Fuller utilized hardboiled noir and hallucinatory imagery to interrogate the ugly underpinnings of the American psyche. His films are full of sharp-witted prostitutes and strippers, nasty newspaper men, racists and […]
During the holidays, we tend to talk about certain classic films: White Christmas, Holiday Inn, Miracle on 34th Street, Christmas in Connecticut. But let’s also count Douglas Sirk’s fantastic melodrama All That Heaven Allows as a holiday film, not just because a piece of it depicts some chilly […]
French director/comedian Jacques Tati is often mentioned in the same breath as Chaplin and Keaton, though he occupies, for the most part, a different period of history. Tati’s work spans the 1950s to the 1970s, substantially later than Chaplin and Keaton’s work, but he’s operating from much the […]
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