Cineaste articles from June 2008

Cineaste archives from June 2008

Speaking documentrary truth to power.(influence of documentary films about the Iraq War and the United States' anti terrorism stance)(Editorial)
June 22, 2008... Recent Hollywood films dramatizing the Iraq War and America's Global War on Terror--including Home of the Brave, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, Redacted, Grace is Gone, and Stop-Loss--have bombed at the box-office. Moviegoers are...

No Country for Old Men: pro & con reviews of Hollywood's "Best Picture of the Year".
June 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] No Country for Old Men, the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the 2005 book of the same name by critically acclaimed American novelist Cormac McCarthy, generated considerable excitement among critics and...

No exit in Texas.(Joel and Ethan Coen's movie 'No Country for Old Men')
June 22, 2008... It's hard to say that I was actually entertained, at least in the usual sense of the word, by No Country for Old Men. Even with its moments of often dark Coen brothers humor, the film is so unrelentingly bleak that not all that long ago...

Comic dread in the modern frontier.(Joel and Ethan Coen's movie 'No Country for Old Men')
June 22, 2008... These remarks are not driven by any real distaste for Joel and Ethan Coen's film--it may be an important work for all my current reservations--but by the climate of impatience that wants to canonize works with all due haste, to refuse to allow...

A steady gaze: the films of Manoel de Oliveira.(Biography)
June 22, 2008... It's impossible to discuss the work of Manoel de Oliveira without acknowledging his longevity (he hits the century mark this December), or his equally incredible productivity (at least a film a year since 1990). But there's a less-often...

An ethical cinema: an interview with Manoel de Oliveira.(Interview)
June 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It's surely unprecedented for a retrospective organized on the occasion of a filmmaker's centennial, such as the one hosted by the Brooklyn Academy of Music this spring in honor of Manoel de Oliveira, to boast both a...

"Above all ... don't perform!" Playing to the camera of Luis Bunuel.
June 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Luis Bunuel's English biographer, John Baxter, remarks that "From the start, Bunuel had trouble directing actors, a problem he never overcame." Given the laudadory commentaries from a great number of performers who...

Speaking documentary truth to power: an interview with Alex Gibney.(Interview)
June 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When Alex Gibney received the Academy Award in February for Best Documentary Feature for his film Taxi to the Dark Side, discerning viewers will have noticed on his tuxedo lapel an orange ribbon, which he wore that...

First you get the power, then you get the money: two models of film festivals.(Excerpt)
June 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] We've yet to reach the point, as rather trenchantly proposed by Mike Judge in the visionary satire Idiocracy, where the collective film experience consists of sitting in a common space and watching a film called Ass....

A sense of place: an interview with Ramin Bahrani.(Interview)
June 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg once dismissed Willets Point, a chaotic aggregation of junk heaps, garages, and vacant lots in Queens adjacent to Shea Stadium, as "another euphemism for urban blight." For Ramin...

In memoriam--Paul Arthur Cineaste associate editor.(In memoriam)
June 22, 2008... How do you write a love letter to a movie?," Paul Arthur mused in the opening line of his 2001 review of Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love (Cineaste, Vol. XXVI, No. 3). That elegantly direct yet deceptively simple question so perfectly...

Taxi to the Dark Side.(Movie review)
June 22, 2008... Taxi to the Dark Side Produced by Alex Gibney, Eva Orner, and Susannah Shipman; written and directed by Alex Gibney; cinematography by Maryse Alberti and Greg Andracke; edited by Sloane Klevin; original music by Ivor Guest and Robert Logan....

Brick Lane.(Movie review)
June 22, 2008... Brick Lane Produced by Alison Owen and Christopher Collins; directed by Sarah Gavron; screenplay by Abi Morgan and Laura Jones, from the novel by Monica Ali; cinematography by Robbie Ryan; production design by Simon Elliott; costumes by Michael...

Heartbeat Detector.(Movie review)
June 22, 2008... Heartbeat Detector Produced by Sophie Dulac and Michel Zana; directed by Nicolas Klotz; screenplay by Elisabeth Perceval; cinematography by Josee Deshaies; production design by Antoine Plateau; original music by Syd Matters; starring Mathieu...

The Duchess of Langeais.(Movie review)
June 22, 2008... The Duchess of Langeais Produced by Roberto Cicutto, Martine Marignac, Luigi Musini, Ermanno Olmi and Maurice Tinchant; directed by Jacques Rivette; screenplay by Pascal Bonitzer, Christine Laurent and Jacques Rivette, based on the novella The...

Diary of the Dead.(Movie review)
June 22, 2008... Diary of the Dead Produced by Peter Grunwald, Arthur Spigel, Sam Englebardt, and Ara Katz; directed and written by George A. Romero; cinematography by Adam Swica; production design by Rupert Lazarus; costume design by Alex Kavanagh; edited by...

Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File.(Movie review)
June 22, 2008... Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File Produced by Olga Konskaya; directed by Andrei Nekrasov; written by Nekrasov and Konskaya; cinematography by Sergei Tsikhanovich and Marcus Winterbauer; edited by Konskaya and Nekrasov; music and vocals...

Days of Heaven.(Movie review)
June 22, 2008... Days of Heaven Written and directed by Terrence Malick; produced by Bert and Harold Schneider; cinematography by Nestor Almendros, with additional photography by Haskell Wexler; music by Ennio Morricone; with Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam...

Pierrot le fou.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2008... Pierrot le fou Directed and written by Jean-Luc Godard, based on the novel Obsession by Lionel White; produced by Georges de Beauregard; cinematography by Raoul Coutard; editing by Francoise Collin; music by Antoine Duhamel; starring Jean-Paul...

Chameleon Street.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2008... Chameleon Street Directed and written by Wendell B. Harris, Jr.; cinematography by Daniel S. Noga; original music by Peter S. Moore; starring Wendell B. Harris, Jr., Angela Leslie, Amina Fakir and Colette Haywood. DVD, color, 94 mins., 1990....

Walker.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2008... Walker Directed by Alex Cox; screenplay by Rudy Wurlitzer; cinematography by David Bridges; starring Ed Harris, Peter Boyle and Marlee Matlin. DVD, color, 94 mins., 1987. A Criterion Collection release, www.criterionco.com, distributed by Image...

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2008... Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror Directed by F. W. Murnau; written by Henrik Galeen from the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker (uncredited); cinematography by Fritz Arno Wagner and Gunther Krampf (uncredited); art direction by Albin Grau; costume...

The W.C. Fields Comedy Collection, Vols. 1 and 2.(Video recording review)
June 22, 2008... The W.C. Fields Comedy Collection, Vols. 1 and 2 Vol. 1 includes International House (B&W, 69 mins., 1933, with the A&E Biography episode W.C. Fields: Behind the Laughter, 1994), It's a Gift (B&W, 69 mins., 1934), You Can't Cheat an Honest Man...

'Breaker' Morant.(Brief article)(Video recording review)
June 22, 2008... Based on a play (by Kenneth G. Ross) that was produced as the Vietnam era was receding, and entirely relevant to our own times, Bruce Beresford's classic cross-examination of the battlefield and the courtroom succeeds by letting us make the...

Cocalero.(Brief article)(Video recording review)
June 22, 2008... Now--during the corporation-tainted U. S. presidential campaign--is the time to view Cocalero. For this documentary reminds us that, under democracy, grassroots organizers with a committed populist vision and strong candidates can be successful...

Oil, Smoke & Mirrors.(Brief article)(Video recording review)
June 22, 2008... This documentary explores two topical--indeed, vitally important--issues that are nevertheless usually considered taboo subjects among U.S. politicians and corporate-controlled media. After explaining the concept of Peak Oil--the point at which...

The Red and the White.(Brief article)(Video recording review)
June 22, 2008... In the Sixties and Seventies the abstract and stylistically original works of Hungarian filmmaker Miklos Jancso were shown regularly in arthouses, but after that time were rarely revived. One of the best, the utterly bleak The Red and the...

Val Lewton: Man in the Shadows.(Brief article)(Video recording review)
June 22, 2008... Early on in Kent Jones's moving documentary on Val Lewton, one of the most fondly remembered producers in film history, the voice of Martin Scorsese (who provides the voice-over narration and intones Jones's script with understated conviction)...

The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger.(Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would be King)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger by Chris Fujiwara. New York: Faber & Faber, 479 pp., illus. Hardcover: $35.00. Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would be King by Foster Hirsch. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 573 pp.,...

Surrealism and Cinema.(The Unsilvered Screen: Surrealism on Film)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Surrealism and Cinema by Michael Richardson. London and New York: Berg, 2006, 202 pp, illus. Hardcover: $99.95 and Paperback: $24.95. The Unsilvered Screen: Surrealism on Film edited by Graeme Harper and Rob Stone. London and New York:...

Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style and Politics.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style and Politics Edited by Jeffrey Sconce. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. 340pp., illus. Hardcover: $84.95 and Paperback: $23.95. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the introduction to...

Hitchcock's Romantic Irony.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Hitchcock's Romantic Irony by Richard Allen. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 295 pp, illus. Hardcover: $74.50 and Paperback: $24.50. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It's hardly imaginable that Alfred Hitchcock, the subject of now...

Abel Ferrarra.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Abel Ferrarra by Nicole Brenez. Translated from the French by Adrian Martin. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 2007, 210 pp., illus. Hardcover: $50.00 and Paperback: $19.95. The directorial study often succumbs to easy...

Women's Experimental Cinema: Critical Frameworks.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Women's Experimental Cinema: Critical Frameworks Edited by Robin Blaetz. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007. 421 pp, illus. Hardcover: $94.95 and Paperback: $25.95. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Barbara Hammer isn't my favorite avantgarde...

Film Musings: A Selected Anthology from Fanfare Magazine.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Film Musings: A Selected Anthology from Fanfare Magazine by Royal S. Brown. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2007. 422 pp. Paperback: $45.00. It can be argued that Royal Brown has produced the most sustained, lively, and well-informed body of...

To coin a phrase.(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2008... I found Louis Menashe's review of Rosenstone and Youngblood's books on history-films (Cineaste, Vol. XIII, No. 2, Spring 2007) informative and instructive, but was disappointed (though not "hurt") by his anti-intellectualist aside in which he...

Get a sense of humor.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2008... I'm happy to finally subscribe to Cineaste. I especially enjoyed your choice in last issue to publish a piece by Andrew Hedden on Daniel Day-Lewis' entire oeuvre, rather than the one film or the auteur director. As a USC Cinema Production...

Errata for Cineaste, Vol. XXXIII, No. 2.(LETTERS)(Correction notice)
June 22, 2008... In the credits for Michael Bronski's article in our Spring 2008 issue, which reviewed several new books on LGBT film criticism ("From The Celluloid Closet to Brokeback Mountain: The Changing Nature of Queer Film Criticism"), we cited The View...

The Berlin International Film Festival.(COMMUNIQUE)
June 22, 2008... Major film festivals are now much more than venues for screening movies and encouraging camaraderie among cinephiles. Megafestivals such as Cannes, Venice, and Berlin resemble huge, ultrahierarchical corporate entities in which the most...

Fighting for Life.(SHORT TAKES)(Movie review)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... In Fighting for Life, director Terry Sanders interweaves the stories of three groups--enthusiastic and still somewhat naive medical students at Uniformed Services University (the West Point of medical schools), experienced physicians and nurses...

Manufactured Landscapes.(SHORT TAKES)(Movie review)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscapes does precisely what the objects of her film--the large format photographs of Edward Burtynsky--set out to accomplish. It is a well-paced, meditative look at the effects of industrialization on...

A Massacre Foretold.(SHORT TAKES)(Movie review)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Certainly one of the most urgent tasks of documentaries, particularly in this era of lightweight, portable equipment, is to bear witness. Nick Higgins's A Massacre Foretold does so admirably by focusing on the horrifying massacre of forty-five...

Oswald's Ghost.(SHORT TAKES)(Brief article)(Video recording review)
June 22, 2008... Few documentary reports on the JFK assassination have had the good sense to turn away from the incessant repetition of the 'facts' to inquire into the cultural impact of the forty-year-old investigation. Fortunately, Robert Stone has been smart...

The Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind.(SHORT TAKES)(Movie review)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... John Gianvito's award-winning documentary is inspired by Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, but while Zinn's bestseller boldly restores the struggles of American political radicals to historical consciousness, charting their...