Cineaste articles from June 2006

Cineaste archives from June 2006

Facing East: Iranian cinema as revelation.(Editorial)
June 22, 2006... Postrevolutionary Iranian cinema began appearing in international film festivals at a time when the West was just becoming aware of the twentieth-century face of Muslim fundamentalism. The humanism of these Iranian films offered reassurance and...

The screwball social studies of Preston Sturges: laugh it up. With most of his key films now available on DVD, the singular comic artistry of writer-director Preston Sturges has reemerged.
June 22, 2006... Preston Sturges's achievement as a filmmaker is so substantial and lasting, his entrance onto the scene so assured and meteoric, and his production at his peak so feverishly inventive, it's difficult to believe that his career as a director is...

The joys of collaboration: an interview with Nathalie Baye.(Interview)
June 22, 2006... Less interested in projecting star power than immersing herself in her roles and more preoccupied with craft than with the ostentatious display of glamor, Nathalie Baye is indisputably a movie star--albeit one with a somewhat lower profile than...

Fact and fantasy in the making of Point of Order.
June 22, 2006... I read Robert Koehler's first-rate piece on the DVD release of Point Of Order and In The Year of the Pig (Cineaste, Vol. XXXI, No. 2) with some pleasure as well as annoyance over how the truth can get twisted out of its shape. Koehler correctly...

No slave to realism: an interview with Carlos Reygadas.(Interview)
June 22, 2006... At the world premiere of Carlos Reygadas's film Battle in Heaven (Batalla en el cielo, 2005) in Cannes, the Mexican director, already famed for the lyricism of his Japon (2002) received a standing ovation. The audience was moved emotionally by...

Bollywood cinema: making elephants fly.
June 22, 2006... Watching a Bollywood film in an "ice-cream palace of a theater" in Rajasthan, Western India, Baz Luhrmann, director of Moulin Rouge, said it represented a seminal moment in his understanding of cinema. The audience was singing aloud the songs...

The new Bollywood: no heroines, no villains.
June 22, 2006... Mentioning the word 'Bollywood' usually elicits eager claims of familiarity. After all, Monsoon Wedding and Bride and Prejudice were international hits. But even though the directors, Mira Nair and Gurinder Chadha, respectively, pay tribute to...

Three great filmmakers: Haldeman, Ehrlichman & Chapin ... or, Nixon's home movies.(Harry Robbins Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman, Dwight L. Chapin, Richard M. Nixon)
June 22, 2006... The most famous home movie in American history features President Kennedy. But Richard M. Nixon was the home-movie president. Abraham Zapruder's thirty-second threnody made Kennedy an icon. But Nixon starred in more than forty hours of home...

A bed and several dreams: a short history of Iranian Cinema.(A Special Focus on Contemporary Iranian Cinema)
June 22, 2006... Iranian cinema has a turbulent but otherwise fascinating history, one influenced by religion and politics. Iranian cinema originated on August 18, 1900, when Mirza Ebrahim Khan, the special photographer to Mozaffareddin Shah Qajar's royal...

Iranian cinema at the festivals.(A Special Focus on Contemporary Iranian Cinema)
June 22, 2006... Iranian cinema is a quintessential example of what could be called a 'festival cinema,' a term that must be understood in two different but related senses. The first is that it's a national cinema that was first revealed to U.S. audiences...

Making films with an accent: Iranian Emigre Cinema.(A Special Focus on Contemporary Iranian Cinema)
June 22, 2006... In April 1989, the Los Angeles International Film Festival canceled at the last minute the premiere of Veiled Threat (1989), directed by Iranian-American filmmaker Cyrus Nowrasteh, because of a bomb threat--a controversial action that...

In the mix: reality meets fiction in contemporary Iranian Cinema.(A Special Focus on Contemporary Iranian Cinema)
June 22, 2006... It has never been so difficult to tell a documentary from a work of fiction. Lately, as documentarians renew interest in the rhetorical tropes of subjectivity and fabrication, and fiction filmmakers wholeheartedly embrace nonfiction methods and...

Panning out for a wider view: Iranian cinema beyond its borders.(Viewpoint essay)
June 22, 2006... Movies have always provided audiences the chance to see foreign lands and learn vicariously about other cultures. During the early days of cinema, the Lumiere brothers and other early film producers sent camera operators to the far-flung...

The Bangkok International Film Festival.(COMMUNIQUE)
June 22, 2006... When I imagined attending the Bangkok Film Festival, I did not think I would be sitting in a lawn chair in a giant multiplex theater, huddled under a blanket and straining to keep any uncovered extremity out of the way of the air conditioning....

V for Vendetta.(Movie review)
June 22, 2006... Produced by Grant Hill, Joel Silver, Andy Wachowski, and Larry Wachowski; directed by James McTeigue; screenplay by the Wachowski Brothers; cinematography by Adrian Biddle; production design by Owen Patterson; edited by Martin Walsh; costumes...

Thank You for Smoking.(Movie review)
June 22, 2006... Produced by David O. Sacks; directed and written by Jason Reitman, based on the novel by Christopher Buckley; cinematography by Jim Whitaker; production design by Steve Saklad; edited by Dana E. Glauberman; costumes by Danny Glicker; original...

Transamerica.(Movie review)
June 22, 2006... Produced by Rene Bastian, Sebastian Dungan, and Linda Moran; directed and written by Duncan Tucker; cinematography by Stephen Kazmierski; additional photography by Tom Camarda; production design by Mark White; edited by Pam Wise; original music...

Lady Vengeance.(Movie review)
June 22, 2006... Produced by Lee Tae-hun and Cho Youngwuk; directed by Park Chanwook; screenplay by Chung Seo-Kyung and Park Chanwook; cinematography by Chung Chung-hoon; production design by Cho Hwa-sung; edited by Kim Sang-bum and Kim Jae-bum; original music...

Fateless.(Movie review)
June 22, 2006... Produced by Andras Hamori; directed by Lajos Koltai; screenplay by Imre Kertesz based on his novel; cinematography by Gyula Pados; production design by Tibor Lazar; edited by Hajnal Sello; original music by Ennio Morricone; costumes by Gyorgyi...

Duck Season.(Movie review)
June 22, 2006... Produced by Christian Valdlievre; Executive Producer, Alfonso Cuaron; written and directed by Fernando Eimbcke; cinematography by Alexis Zabe; production design by Diana Quiroz; edited by Mariana Rodriguez; costumes by Lissi De la Concha;...

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu.(Movie review)
June 22, 2006... Produced by Alexandru Munteanu; directed by Cristi Puiu; screenplay by Cristi Puiu and Razvan Radulescu; cinematography by Oleg Mutu, costume and production design by Cristina Barbu; edited by Dana Bunescu; original music by Andreea Paduraru;...

Ugetsu.(Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director)(Video recording review)
June 22, 2006... Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. DVD, B&W, 97 mins., 1953. Double-disc special edition also includes Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director, directed by Kaneto Shindo. Color, 150 mins., 1975, A Criterion Collection Release distributed by...

New "web exclusive" DVD reviews.(www.cineaste.com)
June 22, 2006... The digital revolution has become perhaps the dominant issue in twenty-first-century film culture. If many of its consequences, especially the rate at which video is replacing celluloid in the creation, distribution, and projection of motion...

Kind Hearts and Coronets.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2006... Directed by Robert Hamer; written by Robert Hamer and John Dighton; starring Alec Guinness, Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, and Valerie Hobson. DVD, B&W, 106 mins., 1949. A Criterion Collection release distributed by Image Entertainment,...

The Virgin Spring.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2006... Directed by Ingmar Bergman; screenplay by Ulla Isaksson, based on the medieval ballad "Tore's Daughter at Vange"; starring Max von Sydow, Birgitta Valberg, Gunnel Lindblom, and Birgitta Pettersson. DVD, B&W, 89 mins., 1960. A Criterion...

Le Samourai.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville; written by Melville and Georges Pellegrin; produced by Raymond Borderie and Eugene Lepicier; cinematography by Henri Decae; edited by Monique Bonnot and Yo Maurette; production design by Francois de Lamothe;...

The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre by Stephen D. Youngkin. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2005. 613 pp, illus. Hardcover: $39.95. "This man was the most identifiable actor I ever knew," said Vincent Price in his moving eulogy...

Irish Film Censorship: A Cultural Journey from Silent Cinema to Internet Pornography.(Ten Years After: The Irish Film Board 1993-2003)(Irish National Cinema)(The Real Ireland: The Evolution of Ireland in Documentary Film)(Keeping It Real: Irish Film and Television)(Neil Jordan: Exploring Boundaries)(Jim Sheridan: Framing the Nation)(Film History and National Cinema)(National Cinema and Beyond)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Irish Film Censorship: A Cultural Journey from Silent Cinema to Internet Pornography by Kevin Rockett. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004. 496pp., illus. Hardcover: $85.00 and Paperback: $40.00. Ten Years After: The Irish Film Board 1993-2003...

'Ireland into film' series.(The Dead)(December Bride)(This Other Eden)(The Field)(The Informer)(The Quiet Man)(Dancing at Lughnasa)(Ulysses)(Nora)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... The Dead by Kevin Barry. Cork: Cork University Press, 2001. 118 pp., illus. Paperback: $15.00. December Bride by Lance Pettitt. Cork: Cork University Press, 2001.94 pp., illus. Paperback: $10.00. This Other Eden by Fidelma Farley....

New Digital Cinema: Reinventing the Moving Image.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... New Digital Cinema: Reinventing the Moving Image by Holly Willis. London: Wallflower Press, 2005. 144pp., illus. Paperback: $19.50. Trim and copiously illustrated, Holly Willis's New Digital Cinema: Reinventing the Moving Image recalls the...

Guiltless Pleasures: A David Sterritt Film Reader.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Guiltless Pleasures: A David Sterritt Film Reader by David Sterritt. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2005. 281 pp. Paperback: $20.00. David Sterritt has been writing film and culture reviews for The Christian Science Monitor...

Body and Soul: Jazz and Blues in American Film 1927-1963.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Body and Soul: Jazz and Blues in American Film 1927-1963 by Peter Stanfield. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005. 213 pp., illus. Hardcover: $40.00 and Paperback: $20.00. A better subtitle for this book would be The...

Mizoguchi and Japan.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Mizoguchi and Japan by Mark Le Fanu. London: BFI Publishing (Distributed in the U.S. by University of California Press), 2005. 224 pp., illus. Hardcover: $80.00 and Paperback: $25.50. "There is a feeling in the air that [Kenji] Mizoguchi is...

Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir by Sheri Chenin Biesen. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, 219 pp., illus. Paperback: $20.00. Film noir, Sheri Chenin Biesen tells us in Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film...

Brokeback Mountain: good social intentions, but not great filmmaking.(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2006... I read Roy Grundmann's review of Brokeback Mountain with considerable interest. His take was a nice meld of appreciation and criticism, but I sensed a certain unarticulated unease in his writing that reflected my own thoughts. Taking a second...

The film sounds interesting, but what's it about?(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2006... The "Lost and Found" article by Maria San Filippo in your Spring 2006 issue was read with interest, as I had never heard of William Greaves's film, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One. Other than hints of a "film within a film," "tongue in cheek...

Classic Kong vs. CGI-Kong.(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2006... I found Robert Cashill's article ("All Things Kong-sidered," Cineaste, Vol. XXXI, No. 2) interesting probably because I am preparing a paper on King Kong to deliver to the annual Popular Culture Conference next month in Atlanta. I am sixty-one,...

An actress by any name.(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2006... I read with interest Tony Pipolo's article, "Robert Bresson: Fire and Ice," in your Spring issue. In regard to Bresson's film, Le Journal d'un Cure de Campagne and Peter Cowie's commentary on the Criterion Collection DVD, Pipolo states that...

American Chain Gang.(Movie review)
June 22, 2006... In May of 1995, Alabama's prison system reinstituted a practice emblematic of the post-Reconstruction era South: the chain gang. The following year, Arizona did the same with female prisoners. Director Xackary Irving's investigation of this...

Dangerous Living.(Movie review)
June 22, 2006... The arrest and subsequent imprisonment of fifty-two gay men from a party in Cairo, Egypt, was among the third world's first gay rights incidents to receive global attention outside national borders. It's wholly appropriate, then, that Dangerous...

The Devil's Miner.(Movie review)
June 22, 2006... The Cerro Pico mountain in Potosi, Bolivia, was once the site of the richest silver mine in the Americas. Producing two thirds of the world's silver and helping to finance the Spanish colonial regime for centuries, it led millions of enslaved...

Sir! No Sir!(Movie review)
June 22, 2006... "Vietnam" has long been a rhetorical touchstone for the debacle in Iraq. The problem is that for every woeful parallel, there are an equal number of telling divergences. For instance, even with the accelerating prospect of military defeat by...

State of Fear.(Movie review)
June 22, 2006... Many armed leftist revolutionary movements swept over Latin America in the latter half of the twentieth century, but one stood out shockingly for its extraordinary commitment to violence: Peru's Marxist-Leninist-Maoist--and homespun...