Bicycle Thieves
Many films enjoy exaggerated reputations, but it is almost impossible to underestimate the beauty, truth and importance of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves.
Tag Archives: cinematography
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.
The Gospel According to Matthew
How did a blasphemous, homosexual, Marxist, atheist manage to make the greatest film about the life of Jesus Christ?
Festen
William Shakespeare, Sigmund Freud, Ingmar Bergman and John Cassavetes are just some of the disparate influences on view in Thomas Vinterberg’s masterpiece.
A Matter of Life and Death
Francois Truffaut once claimed ‘cinema’ and ‘Britain’ were incompatible. Powell and Pressburger proved him wrong.
Ida
In ancient Greece, all violence took place off stage. How can filmmakers show the violence of the Holocaust without exploiting the memory of the victims?
A Clockwork Orange
Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ novel is still relevant today because the Ludovico Technique is conversion therapy: Pray Away The Gay.
Babette’s Feast
In adapting Karen Blixen’s short story, Gabriel Axel chose to omit the politics and focus on the religious parable. But really, it works best as a recipe for life.
Meet Me in St. Louis
This hit from 1944 delivered one of the all-time classic Yuletide songs – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – as well as redefined the musical genre.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
With his Palme d’Or winning masterpiece, Jacques Demy wove more than a musical. He delivered a story worthy of tragic opera.
Reds
As Hollywood found the formula for the modern blockbuster, Warren Beatty embarked on a project examining the origins of American communism.
The Leopard
All countries have troubled histories they would rather forget. The Leopard is a masterpiece that admits to those troubles as well as the failure to fix them.
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.
The Rules of the Game
Reviled and banned upon its release, then seemingly destroyed and lost forever, Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game stands today as a victory for liberalism.
Le Mépris
When it comes to making movies about making movies, many directors choose to venerate the medium. Not Jean-Luc Godard. He treats it with contempt.
Deliverance
When we think of American cinema in the seventies, all too often we all too quickly think of the great directors. But what of the cinematograph-auteurs?
Day for Night
Francois Truffaut created the auteur theory, and with Day for Night he delivered a tribute to the art form without which he felt his life could not make sense.
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.
Dunkirk
All boring films are alike; every great film is great in its own way. Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk belongs not just to the latter but amongst the greatest ever made.
Great Openings – Part One
What makes for a great opening? Character? Conflict? Poetry? Hopefully, more than something we’re supposed to just look at.
Le Samouraï
Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece is so influential, even if you haven’t seen it… you have seen it because you’ve seen dozens of films influenced by it.
Walkabout
If you need three things to make a good film; a good script, a good script and a good script, how did Nicolas Roeg make a masterpiece from just fourteen pages?
Lawrence of Arabia
David Lean’s most enduring masterpiece is the rarest of breeds. An epic that is also a portrait, it somehow avoids all temptations to explain its enigmatic subject.
The Killers
Ernest Hemingway hated what Hollywood did with his novels. The only film of his work he liked was this classic adaptation of his celebrated short story.
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Steven Benedict (StevenBenedict2)
Award-winning filmmaker. Podcaster, broadcaster, author and lecturer. I'm downloading the universe one app at a time.
Dublin, Ireland
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Tweeting since August 22, 2012
