Tag Archives: David Lean

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.

387. The Third Man

The Palme d’Or winner in 1949, Carol Reed’s masterpiece drew on covert sources and unexpected styles and techniques to deliver a melancholic mystery.

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?

345. Lost in Translation

Sofia Coppola’s off-beat romance deftly explores isolation, miscommunication and the superficiality of modern media.

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.

318. Battleship Potemkin

Sergei Eisenstein devised montage for black and white and silent film. How have sound, colour and digital extended his theories?

284. Belle de Jour

Long thought to be a satire on bourgeoise marriage, Luis Buñuel’s masterpiece is really a study of the traumas suffered by a sexual assault victim.

268. 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.

251. Lawrence of Arabia

David Lean’s enduring masterpiece is a rare breed; an epic but also a portrait that refuses to explain its enigmatic subject.

231. Rashomon

Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon is celebrated for asking what is truth. Which is more than a little ironic, because that’s not what it is really about.

228. The Magnificent Ambersons

Orson Welles is celebrated for Citizen Kane but it was this adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s novel that defined his career.

223. Pan’s Labyrinth

Guillermo del Toro says he is “in love with monsters.” In Pan’s Labyrinth, set in the Spanish Civil War, he uses them to navigate history and the world.

209. Raiders of the Lost Ark

Thirty-five years old, Spielberg’s classic was inspired by more than just the Saturday matinee serials he watched as a child.

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.

178. Brief Encounter

Once dismissed as parochial and passé, the influence of David Lean’s classic can be seen in such unlikely places as The Third Man, The Godfather and Carol.

171. Three Days of the Condor

Adapting James Grady’s straight forward thriller, Sydney Pollack delivered a commentary on dehumanising institutions.

150. The Bridge on the River Kwai

With this Oscar winning classic, David Lean stopped being an ‘English filmmaker’ and became an ‘international star director’.

144. The Searchers

The Searchers is both a cinematic monument and an extremely unsettling depiction of the racism that lies at the heart of America’s own mythology.

141. Once Upon a Time in the West

Sergio Leone’s masterpiece doesn’t only reference American westerns. He also drew inspiration from an English film.

Fifty Shades of Hate

This video-essay addresses the abuse inflicted by men against women in cinema. The films are critically acclaimed, Oscar winners and box-office hits. WARNING: It features scenes of extreme graphic violence.

American Trailers

This extended video-essay charts the development and possible future of the America movie trailer. Beginning in 1912, taking in the coming of television and suggesting where it might go in the age of the internet.

Moving Pictures: From Hollywood to Silicon Valley

This extended video-essay examines the innovations at the heart of cinema, focusing on how cinema is coping with the move from Hollywood to Silicon Valley.

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