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: Brian De Palma
384. Gomorrah
Matteo Garrone’s adaptation of Roberto Saviano’s book on the Neapolitan camorra smacks down the innumerable movies that have marketed the Mafia mythology.
344. The Double Life of Veronique
Krzysztof Kieślowski avoids all the clichés of doppelgängers, doubles and lookalikes to deliver a meditation on freedom.
338. Man with a Movie Camera
Once “too revolutionary”, Dziga Vertov’s avant-garde masterpiece is now felt in Man on Fire, Ratatouille and Inception.
318. Battleship Potemkin
Sergei Eisenstein devised montage for black and white and silent film. How have sound, colour and digital extended his theories?
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.
305. Blow Out
Rear Window, Vertigo, Blowup, Weekend, the Zapruder film and The Conversation are all to be seen and heard in Brian De Palma’s Blow Out.
303. Blowup
Originally titled A Girl, a Photographer and a Beautiful April Morning, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Palme d’Or winner is still as enigmatic fifty years on.
295. The Silence of the Lambs
Jonathan Demme’s film is a classic because its Little Red Riding Hood plot mines the moral depths of its central characters.
Vikings – Ivar the Boneless and His Rise to Power
This is a short video-essay examining the power shift in Vikings’ Season 5. Which of Ragnar’s sons will succeed him to the throne?
281. Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver was written in ten days by first-time screenwriter, Paul Schrader as a means to exorcise his festering, masochistic, narcissistic anger.
265. Great Openings – Part One
What makes for a great opening? Character? Conflict? Poetry? Hopefully, more than something we’re supposed to just look at.
236. Great Shots – Part Two
What makes for a great shot? Beauty? The lens? Lighting? Combine them and you have more than just an image.
204. The Most Influential Films Ever Made – Part Two
The films that really changed the course of cinema are often ones few people have seen.
173. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
How do you make a film about a character who can neither move nor speak, but can only blink his left eye?
137. Fatal Attraction
Earning 5 Oscar nominations and $600m around the globe, the success (and controversy) of Fatal Attraction should be squarely laid at the feet of its producers.
85. The Untouchables
The studios didn’t like the script and no one wanted to play the heroic Treasury Agent, Eliot Ness. So how did The Untouchables turn out to be such a success?
62. Angel Heart
Some films generate controversy, but Alan Parker’s Angel Heart was creating quite a stir even before it was released. Was it worth the trouble?
59. The Breakfast Club
By no means the first teen-drama, The Breakfast Club is not just a landmark film for teenagers. It’s essential viewing for adults and teachers as well.
25. Scarface
The original Scarface was released in 1932. In 1983, Brian De Palma directed Al Pacino in an update scripted by Oliver Stone. Are ‘remakes’ always bad?
9. Ennio Morricone
With over 400 film scores, Ennio Morricone has worked across many genres and with many of directors, yet has maintained his own inimitable sound.
