Coen Country
This short video-essay details the recurring thematic concerns explored by the Coen brothers over the last five decades. Intercutting all nineteen their films, the characters appear to talk to one another across the stories.
Tag Archives: sound design
397. Mulholland Dr.
Puzzling audiences ever since it premiered at Cannes in 2001, David Lynch’s dark masterpiece seems to address the abuse of women in the film industry.
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.
395. The Conversation
It is said a film is made three times; writing, filming and editing. In which case, editor Walter Murch deserves enormous credit for this masterpiece.
391. WALL•E
Twenty-one feature films, $14b at the worldwide box-office and 15 Oscars. If you ever wondered about the secret of Pixar’s success, read their mission statement.
390. Cléo from 5 to 7
In Agnes Varda’s classic, Corrine Marchand plays one woman; happy Cléo and anxious Florence, walking about Paris in real time awaiting her medical results.
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.
378. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Cristian Mungiu won the Palme d’Or for his unflinching drama about a single day in the lives of two young women.
372. A Man Escaped
Robert Bresson’s masterpiece is a perfect example of less is more; natural acting, minimal music, off-screen sounds and restricting yourself to a 50mm lens.
371. The Right Stuff
Tom Wolfe’s superb account about the early days of NASA’s space program needed filmmakers who shared a daring similar to the maverick pilots.
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.
364. Das Boot
How did Wolfgang Petersen manage to get audiences to care about a bunch of Nazi sailors trying to destroy the British fleet in the North Atlantic?
360. Waltz with Bashir
Ari Folman’s animated documentary is different from many other films about trauma. But it is only in its final moments that it reveal its most telling truth.
359. Eraserhead
Five years in the making, David Lynch’s film is one of the most compelling, bewildering, original, disturbing and influential debuts in all of cinema.
353. Gravity
For a film that requires so many special effects in order to create the feeling of weightlessness, how did Alfonso Cuarón still keep Gravity so grounded?
345. Lost in Translation
Sofia Coppola’s off-beat romance deftly explores isolation, miscommunication and the superficiality of modern media.
340. Mon Oncle
Writing, producing, directing and starring in his own films Jacques Tati was a true auteur, influencing the likes of David Lynch, Tim Burton and Wes Anderson.
339. No Country for Old Men
While Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed novel broke genre convention, the Coens’ adaptation is a study in audiovisual chaos.
321. Die Hard
What makes a classic film? The plot’s originality, director’s vision, or the star’s magnetism? Paradoxically, any, all, yet none of the above. It’s the audience.
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.
312. Les Diaboliques
Often called the greatest thriller Hitchcock never made, Les Diaboliques is based on a book written to catch the attention of the Master of Suspense.
307. 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.
305. 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.
303. Blowup
Originally titled A Girl, a Photographer and a Beautiful April Morning, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Palme d’Or winner is still as enigmatic fifty years on.
