272. 8 1/2
Fellini’s masterpiece is often described as a film about not being able to make a film. But really it is about responsibility, liability, lying, loving and living.
Tag Archives: Cannes Film Festival
264. if….
Despite being labelled fascist and an insult to Britain, if… won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1969. Almost half a century later, it still retains much of its power.
244. Great Sounds – Part Three
The world is so noisy, we unconsciously filter out all that we don’t want to hear. Much of film sound operates in the same way.
239. Three Colors
Is Krzysztof Kieslowski’s trilogy only about liberty, equality and fraternity? Look again and you’ll find it also addresses fate, coincidence and co-existence.
227. Blue is the Warmest Color
Blue is the Warmest Color generated controversy with its love scenes. But at three hours long, there’s more to it than that.
220. City of God
Adapted from Paolo Lin’s non-fiction novel, director Fernando Meirelles cast non-actors to capture life, death and everything in-between in Rio’s favelas.
211. Dangerous Liaisons
Chodleros De Laclos’ novel has inspired plays, operas and ballets. But none match the debauched panache of Stephen Frears’ film.
205. Fargo
When released in 1996, Fargo was seen as the Coen brothers’ breakthrough film. As the years roll by it has increasingly become a lynch pin in their canon.
200. Apocalypse Now
Francis Ford Coppola’s radical adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novella is one of the most astonishing achievements in the entire history of cinema.
198. Reel Space/Time – Part Two
In his Poetics, Aristotle wrote that drama needs a unity of space, time and action. How does cinema deal with such restrictions?
181. In the Mood for Love
Mixing social history, European art film and a British melodrama, Wong Kar-wai delivered a masterpiece of aching beauty.
156. The Apartment
With six Oscars, five WGAs, a DGA and the Palme d’Or, Billy Wilder’s career was so blazing you’d be forgiven for saying, “Well, somebody’s perfect.”
138. Network
When Paddy Chayefsky set out to write Network, his aim was to satirise the medium that had given him his start. What he gave cinema was a tragic opera.
128. Paris, Texas
Although Wim Wenders’ picture won the Palme d’Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, a lot of American critics thought little of it. Has time proven them wrong?
113. The Crying Game
Neil Jordan won an Oscar for his script, but only after every studio had turned him down saying his story was uncommercial, offensive and the characters unsympathetic.
91. The Piano
Writer-director, Jane Campion made history in 1993 when she became the first woman to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
84. Days of Heaven
Regarded as a poet of cinema, Terrence Malick’s films have rarely connected with audiences. Has he been ahead of his time or is he now running out of it?
Blade Runner
This video-essay on Blade Runner examines how Ridley Scott visualizes the film’s numerous and seemingly disparate themes of urbanity, ecology, identity and mortality.
29. Barton Fink
The Coen Brothers won the Palme d’Or at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival with this sardonic look at Hollywood. But is that what it is really about?
10. Robert Altman
Robert Altman was one of the great mavericks of American cinema. But even iconoclasts have to stand for something, so what did Altman believe in?
