The Godfather Trilogy
Adapting Mario Puzo’s best-selling novel, Francis Ford Coppola drew up several themes lying dormant within its pages and augmented them in a uniquely cinematic fashion to create a masterful saga.
Tag Archives: Alfred Hitchcock
The Dark Side of the Screen
Although it can be traced to German Expressionism and French Poetic-Realism, Film Noir is quintessentially an American idiom. Not a genre but a mood, it centres on fatalistic dread.
401. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
For my final podcast, I look at how Steven Spielberg effectively remade his first feature, Firelight to deliver a message of hope.
The Hitchcock Gallery
This short video-essay compares various themes and techniques that Alfred Hitchcock developed over his career. With 40 titles, it includes every feature film Hitchcock made from 1934 through to his retirement in 1976.
397. Mulholland Dr.
Puzzling audiences ever since it premiered at Cannes in 2001, David Lynch’s dark masterpiece seems to address the abuse of women in the film industry.
396. L’Avventura
With this modernist masterpiece, Michelangelo Antonioni told a story that abandoned its initial plot. Booed at Cannes, it paved the way for a new cinematic form.
393. City Lights
Four years after the advent of sound in cinema, Charlie Chaplin insisted on making a silent movie the entire plot for which hinged on not being able to see.
390. Cléo from 5 to 7
In Agnes Varda’s classic, Corrine Marchand plays one woman; happy Cléo and anxious Florence, walking about Paris in real time awaiting her medical results.
383. Notorious
Forget Vertigo. Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest film is Notorious. With his usual McGuffin, he wrapped a paranoid love story inside an espionage thriller about genocide.
378. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Cristian Mungiu won the Palme d’Or for his unflinching drama about a single day in the lives of two young women.
372. A Man Escaped
Robert Bresson’s masterpiece is a perfect example of less is more; natural acting, minimal music, off-screen sounds and restricting yourself to a 50mm lens.
369. North by Northwest
If small details are the important, this is really about a woman’s quest for significance and a man’s need for a make-over.
367. Kind Hearts and Coronets
How do you make a film about a sociopath who murders his entire extended family and still get the audience to root for him?
356. Hidden
Michael Haneke asks audiences difficult questions yet never provides easy answers. When he calls his film Hidden, can we expect anything different?
Persona – After and Before
This short video-essay position Ingmar Bergman’s Persona in terms of what came after it and what went before. It shows how Bergman visualised his central theme of identity.
347. Full Metal Jacket
Many great auteurs use similar styles to explore similar themes as lesser filmmakers. The only real difference is that great auteurs are more consistent and precise.
344. The Double Life of Veronique
Krzysztof Kieślowski avoids all the clichés of doppelgängers, doubles and lookalikes to deliver a meditation on freedom.
339. No Country for Old Men
While Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed novel broke genre convention, the Coens’ adaptation is a study in audiovisual chaos.
333. Zodiac
When a film breaks with tradition, it is often rejected by audiences. Which may be why Zodiac was not initially recognised as the groundbreaking masterpiece it is.
327. The Godfather
Regarded as the greatest gangster picture of them all, the passing years continue to reveal new layers and meanings in Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece.
322. Yi Yi
As the title to Edward Yang’s masterpiece indicates, Yi Yi is a series of doubles; narrative, thematic, visual and aural, that deliver a subtle family portrait.
312. Les Diaboliques
Often called the greatest thriller Hitchcock never made, Les Diaboliques is based on a book written to catch the attention of the Master of Suspense.
311. Peeping Tom
Reviled upon its release and long out of circulation, the influence of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom is now to be found in the most unexpected places.
309. The Ladykillers (1955)
Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom may star, but Katie Johnson gives one of cinema’s greatest comedic performances.
