Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Werner Herzog’s hallucinatory telling of a Conquistador’s search for El Dorado etches a landscape of greed on the human face.
Tag Archives: cinematography
Nosferatu
Long before it was revered as a masterpiece, F.W. Murnau’s radical reimagining of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire novel had to be saved from the furnaces.
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.
Pather Panchali
Pather Panchali translates into English as Song of the Road, but the production was so arduous and fortuitous it should be called Song of Miracles.
Munich
Upon its release, Munich was attacked for historical inaccuracy, political naivety and moral equivalency. But it is one of Spielberg’s greatest works.
Y Tu Mamá También
Alfonso Cuarón’s drug fuelled tale of two oversexed youths and an older woman on a road trip in search of a mythical beach results in a thesis on social connectivity.
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.
Cries and Whispers
Cries and Whispers was Ingmar Bergman’s fourth colour film but with a palette of just black, white and red, he still painted deep emotions and vivid dreams.
Battleship Potemkin
Sergei Eisenstein devised montage for black and white and silent film. How have the elements of sound, colour and digital cinema extended his theories?
The Cook the Thief his Wife & her Lover
First seen as an eviscerating critique of Thatcherism, 30 years on it belongs with the MeToo and Time’s Up movements.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Released in 1971, critics bracketed Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller as a revisionist western. Truth is, the western has always been revising itself.
Easy Rider
Upon its release, it seemed that Easy Rider typified the spirit of the nineteen-sixties. But it really should be viewed as the first film of the seventies.
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.
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.
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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
