The Godfather Trilogy
Adapting Mario Puzo’s best-selling novel, Francis Ford Coppola drew up several themes lying dormant within its pages and augmented them in a uniquely cinematic fashion to create a masterful saga.
Tag Archives: Robert Altman
385. Unforgiven
Originally titled Whore’s Gold, Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning western exposes the psychosis, bigotry and misogyny at the heart of the genre’s mythology.
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.
332. Monsoon Wedding
Intersectionality, hyperlink cinema and cinema diaspora are some terms you can apply to Monsoon Wedding. Another is #MeToo.
327. 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.
313. McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Critics have long called Robert Altman’s 1971 picture a revisionist western. Truth is, the western has always been revising itself.
278. The Rules of the Game
Reviled and banned upon its release, then feared lost forever, Jean Renoir’s masterpiece stands today as a victory for liberalism.
276. 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.
275. 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?
269. Great Openings – Part Three
What makes for a great opening? Character? Conflict? Poetry? Hopefully, more than something we’re supposed to just listen to.
263. Cyrano de Bergerac
Why did Edmond Rostand base his play on a real-life historical figure, only to turn his writing talent into a tragedy?
248. Writers
All films begin at a keyboard. But whether the film is about screenwriters, journalists, novelists or composers, how does cinema depict the art of writing?
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.
226. Nashville
Robert Altman’s best films capture cultures in transition. Nashville marked the moment politics and celebrity intermingled to create space for Donald Trump.
210. Adaptation.
If writers are told to write from experience, is Charlie Kaufman’s adaptation of Susan Orlean’s non-fiction book not really Kaufman’s autobiography?
206. Blazing Saddles
We like to think of ourselves as modern and sophisticated, but is the humour of Blazing Saddles too outrageous for anyone in Hollywood to make it today?
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.
112. Dazed and Confused
Belonging to a tradition that dates back to Rebel Without a Cause, Richard Linklater’s early masterpiece also owes some debt of gratitude to Robert Altman.
102. Movies about Movies
Most movies about moviemaking are little more than trite tributes. Are there any that go beyond the surface of the silver screen?
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?
