Category Analysis
Some Fresh Glory: A Critical Analysis of David Thompson’s Critical Analysis
My first exposure to David Thomson was reading the booklet included with my Criterion Collection of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai. His essay, entitled Death in White Gloves was every bit as evocative as the title suggests. You will forgive me, I’m sure, for including such a large excerpt: “He is an icon out of his time. He is […]
Foreboding and Symbolism in Hitchcock’s Psycho
As seen in my personal blog, littlefilmthings The parlour scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s famous thriller film, Psycho (1960), is rife with foreboding; something that can only be truly noticed if you know what’s to come and you’ve seen the film before. The dialogue is the most obvious vehicle for the dark sense of imminence that is abundant from the […]
Otherness in the Hand Over of Marie Antoinette
Sofia Coppola is well know for her eye for the aesthetically pleasing in terms of her cinematography – possibly stemming from her experience in painting, modelling, and photography – as well as inconclusive plot lines and struggling young woman in coming-of-age narratives, all which are present in her film starring Kirsten Dunst, Marie Antoinette (2006). Here […]
Billy Wilder, Auteur
The term ‘auteurism’, coined in the Cahiers du Cinéma in 1951, details the change of cinema from simple entertainment into an art form and a mode of self-expression. Literally translated to ‘author’, the auteur moves cinema away from just the ‘how to’ of filmmaking, the mise-en-scène, to creating deep and intertextual connections between each of […]
Mise-en-Scène in Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
In his well-loved and esteemed film, Rebel Without A Cause (1955) starring famed James Dean, director Nicholas Ray uses his extensive knowledge and intellect to manipulate and use the elements of mise-en-scène as well as sound to execute and explain both the plot and the larger narrative meanings of the film to the audience. All of […]
Advertising the American Dream
‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’ is a stunningly direct and rapid entry into the 1960s world of Mad Men (Taylor, 2007), where the search and struggle for the “American Dream” is still in earnest swing. Instantly in the opening credits we are immersed in the style and advertising – the angular and minimalistic imagery juxtaposed […]
Me on Ebert on Miyazaki
“Here is a children’s film made for the world we should live in, rather than the one we occupy,” Roger Ebert opens with on his review of My Neighbor Totoro directed by esteemed director Hayao Miyazaki (1993), “a film with no villains… no fight scenes… a world where if you meet a strange towering creature in the forest, […]
Judge The Wolverine?
Judge The Wolverine? Written by: Jenna De Bono I remember reading a quote somewhere that read something along the lines of, “There is no such thing as a bad film just bad analysis”. What an interesting and difficult concept. Is there no such thing as a ‘bad’ film? Could I read The Spice Girls Movie […]
Disobeying the Faun
Disobeying the Faun It is a common theme in films within the fantasy genre to contrast the fantastic with harsh realities. Young, innocent children are often transported by some unknown magic to a world of fantasy where they unlock a power denied to them in their real lives. The Pevensie children in The Lion, the […]
The Italian Job: Italian Neorealism and The Bicycle Thieves
The Italian Neorealist movement was a cathartic reaction to the horrors during the Second World War in Italy and widespread resulting poverty experienced by millions of Italian people. Mussolini’s fascist regime had tasked many of Italy’s directors to producing propaganda films throughout the war, and the majority of other films being produced at this time […]
Behind the Fourth Wall
Jenna De Bono
junebullet
Brendan O'Callaghan
SB
Behind the Fourth Wall 