396. L’Avventura
With this modernist masterpiece, Michelangelo Antonioni told a story that abandoned its initial plot. Booed at Cannes, it paved the way for a new cinematic form.
Tag Archives: Peter Weir
366. Come and See
Widely regarded as the greatest war picture ever made, Elem Klimov’s Come and See takes its title from The Book of Revelations to deliver a vision of hell.
Persona – After and Before
This short video-essay position Ingmar Bergman’s Persona in terms of what came after it and what went before. It shows how Bergman visualised his central theme of identity.
345. Lost in Translation
Sofia Coppola’s off-beat romance deftly explores isolation, miscommunication and the superficiality of modern media.
330. 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.
297. A Matter of Life and Death
Francois Truffaut once claimed ‘cinema’ and ‘Britain’ were incompatible. Powell and Pressburger proved him wrong.
235. Persona
In a career that spanned over sixty years, forty films and a dozen masterpieces, Persona is the most unusual film in Ingmar Bergman’s canon.
118. Witness
Just how long does it take to write an Oscar-winning screenplay? In the case of Witness, it was 13 years. But how many drafts did it take and how many writers?
114. Robin Williams
Robin Williams was a force of nature the likes of which cinema had never seen. But what drove him to those incredible heights and then to the ultimate depth?
98. Peter Weir – Master and Commander
Peter Weir: 6 Oscar nominations, no wins. No other living director has been so denied the statuette. Does it matter?
89. The Truman Show
The Truman Show may credit its story as an original screenplay, but it is uncannily similar to several sci-fi TV shows from as far back as the 60s.
77. Barry Lyndon
Stanley Kubrick’s most awarded film is the one that Martin Scorsese says was his best. Ridley Scott worships it. So why is it so seldom seen?
72. Dead Poets Society
The students of Welton College carried their English teacher around the yard, shoulder high. Is this a fair reflection of school, or is it another Hollywood fantasy?
