Cineaste articles from March 2004

Cineaste archives from March 2004

Editorial.
March 22, 2004... "All I really need to know about history I learned thorn watching movies and television" sums up how most Americans learn about the past. This situation was recently corroborated by the American Historical Association, which in 2000 published a...

The character actor as movie star: an interview with Michael Caine.(Interview)
March 22, 2004... Sir Michael Caine, the embodiment of suave urbanity and an actor who has traded on-screen quips with Noel Coward, Laurence Olivier, and Sean Connery, never allows the public to forget that he was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in South...

The many 50th anniversaries of Salt of the Earth.
March 22, 2004... In March 2003, the College of Santa Fe presented a Salt of the Earth conference, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of that film. Several months later, Harbor Electronic Publishing issued a fiftieth anniversary edition of Herbert Biberman's...

Invaded by memories of Germany's past: an interview with Margarethe von Trotta.(Interview)
March 22, 2004... The most widely recognized German woman director of the past quarter-century, Margarethe von Trotta, began her career as a performer, appearing in several of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's early films, among other works. Her first writing credit...

From the Golden Crescent to Paris ... and back: an interview with Omar Sharif.(Interview)
March 22, 2004... When one hears the name Omar Sharif, one automatically recalls the larger-than-life characters that a young Egyptian actor managed to immortalize and render universally appealing to generations of viewers worldwide. Born Michael Shalhoub in...

Feminist filmmaking without vanity or sentimentality: an interview with Sue Brooks.(Interview)
March 22, 2004... During the 1970s, Australian film culture was completely alive--independent films, avant-garde films, underground films, films made by women, films that represented the counterculture. At the beginning of the Seventies and on through the...

21 Grams.(Movie Review)
March 22, 2004... Produced by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Robert Salerno, Guillermo Arriaga (associate producer), and Ted Hope (executive producer); directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu; screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu;...

My Architect: a Son's Journey.(Movie Review)
March 22, 2004... Produced by Susan Rose Behr, Nathaniel Kahn; directed, written and narrated by Nathaniel Kahn; cinematography by Bob Richman; edited by Sabine Krayenbuhl; and music composed by Joseph Vitarelli. Color, 116 minutes. Distributed by New Yorker...

The Return.(Movie Review)
March 22, 2004... Produced by Dmitry Lesnevsky; directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev; screenplay by Vladimir Moiseenko and Alexander Novototsky; cinematography by Mikhail Kritchman; edited by Vladimir Mogilevsky; production design by Janna Pakhomova; music by Andrei...

Bus 174.(Movie Review)
March 22, 2004... Produced by Jose Padilha and Marcos Prada; directed by Jose Padilha and Felipe Lacerda; cinematography by Marcelo "Guru" Duarte and Cezar Moraes; edited by Jose Padilha; original music by Sacha Amback and Joao Nabuco; sound by Aloisio Compasso...

Inventing historical truth on the silver screen.(Film and History)
March 22, 2004... A Cineaste Supplement published with special support provided by the Academy Foundation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The problem is that we historians have it backwards. Or sideways. At the very least, seriously out...

Cinematic history: an anatomy of the genre.(Film and History)
March 22, 2004... Relatively few Americans got to see The Reagans in late 2003. A barrage of protests from Republicans and conservative groups evidently convinced CBS executives that the controversial dramatic series was more appropriate for a small audience...

Passing for the past: production design and the historical film.(Film and History)
March 22, 2004... In the BBC documentary The Epic That Never Was, an overview of the abortive Alexander Korda production of I, Claudius, costume designer John Armstrong recounts a meeting with director loser von Sternberg about costumes for a group of extras...

Shooting (down) the past historians vs. Hollywood.(Film and History)
March 22, 2004... When it makes films about the past, does Hollywood serve the public interest?" This first question in a live TV interview left me speechless. An arresting notion--Hollywood as a type of cultural TVA! An image of Steven Spielberg came to...

Designing costumes for the historical film.(Film and History)
March 22, 2004... I've been in the film industry since I was a child extra in The Ten Commandments in 1954. That year I spent my summer vacation at Paramount Pictures, dressing as a Hebrew boy for Egyptian crowd scenes, and being fascinated at how a bunch of...

Film and history: questions to filmmakers and historians.
March 22, 2004... Whenever Cineaste has published supplements--such as those in previous issues on Contemporary Spanish Cinema, Contemporary British Cinema, Contemporary Irish Cinema, and Shakespeare in the Cinema, among others--we have always thought it...

The Cineaste editors' choices for favorite, worst, and funniest historical films.
March 22, 2004... Although Cineaste always aims to publish informed and insightful film criticism, we usually hate ranking films, which is why, unlike many other publications, we don't publish Ten Best of the Year lists or Critics' Choice charts. In fact, the...

Film and history resource list.(Bibliography)
March 22, 2004... BIBLIOGRAPHY Aberth, John. A Knight at the Movies: Medieval History on Film. New York, NY: Routledge, 2003. Abrash, Barbara and Janet Sternburg, eds. Historians & Filmmakers: Toward Collaboration New York, NY: The Institute for...

Three must-sees from Thessaloniki.(Communiques)
March 22, 2004... The Thessaloniki International Film Festival has always prided itself on providing a venue for films from the Balkans and the Near East. The 2003 edition of the festival was no exception, featuring forty films from the Balkans, twenty-six from...

Mannheim-Heidelberg: a festival of newcomers.(Communiques)
March 22, 2004... The Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival is one of the oldest in Europe; its fifty-second edition was held in those German cities in late November, 2003. This is an unusual event since it has always been, according to director...

Man of Aran.(Video Recording Review)
March 22, 2004... Man of Aran Written, directed, and photographed by Robert J. Flaherty, in collaboration with Frances Flaherty; edited by John Goldman; music by John Greenwood. DVD, B&W, 77 mins. Louisiana Story Produced and directed by Robert J. Flaherty;...

The American Film Theatre Collection.(Video Recording Review)
March 22, 2004... The American Film Theatre Collection DVD Box Set #1 includes The Iceman Cometh, Butley, The Maids, Luther, and Rhinoceros. DVD Box Set #2 includes A Delicate Balance, The Man in the Glass Booth, The Homecoming, Three Sisters, and In...

Blind Husbands.(Video Recording Review)
March 22, 2004... Blind Husbands Directed and written by Erich von Stroheim. DVD, color tinted, 93 mins., silent. Also on the same DVD is The Great Gabbo, directed by James Cruze. B&W, 96 mins., silent. Foolish Wives Directed and written by Erich von...

Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror.(Video Recording Review)
March 22, 2004... Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror A Special Report by John Pilger. VHS, color, 52 rains. Distributed by Bullfrog Films, P.O. Box 149, Oley, PA 19547. Phone (610) 779-8226, fax (610) 370-1978, www.bullfrogfilmsl.com. ...

The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties.(Book Review)
March 22, 2004... The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties by J. Hoberman. New York, NY: The New Press, 2003. 461pp. Hardcover: $29.95. J. Hoberman's The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties, is filled with...

Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture.(Book Review)
March 22, 2004... Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture by Thomas Doherty. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2003, 328 pages, illus. Hardcover: $27.95. Hide in Plain Sight: The Hollywood Blacklistees in Film and...

From the Atelier Tovar: Selected Writings.(Book Review)
March 22, 2004... From the Atelier Tovar: Selected Writings by Guy Maddin. Toronto: Coach House Books. 2003. 239pp., illus. Paperback: $19.95. In 1978, construction workers in Dawson City, Canada--an old boomtown in the Yukon Territory--discovered 510 reels...

Guy Debord: Complete Cinematic Works.(Book Review)
March 22, 2004... Guy Debord: Complete Cinematic Works Translated and edited by Ken Knabb. San Francisco: AK Press, 2003. 258 pp. illus, Hardcover: $29.00. In one of Franz Kafka's parables, a messenger is dispatched from the emperor's deathbed with a message...

To Change Reels: Film and Film Culture in South Africa.(Book Review)
March 22, 2004... To Change Reels: Film and Film Culture in South Africa Edited by Isabel Balseiro and Ntongela Masilela. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003. 272 pp. illus. Hardcover: $34.95 and Paperback: $27.95. It was with some relief that I...

William Walton: Muse of Fire.(Book Review)
March 22, 2004... William Walton: Muse of Fire by Stephen Lloyd. Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2001. 332pp., illus. Hardcover: $75.00. Sir William Walton (1902-1983) was a middle-of-the-road modernist who, following in the wake of such composers as Edward...

The Invention of the Western: A Cultural History of the Genre's First Half-Century.(Book Review)
March 22, 2004... The Invention of the Western: A Cultural History of the Genre's First Half-Century by Scott Simmon. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 350pp., illus. Hardcover: $85.00 and Paperback: $30.00. At a moment when the...

The Final Dreams of Federico Fellini.(Book Review)
March 22, 2004... The Final Dreams of Federico Fellini Edited by Gianfranco Angelucci. Rimini: Associazione Federico Fellini and Pietroneno Capitani Editori, 1997. Available in the U.S. from Cineaste. 183 pp., illus, Hardcover: $60.00 Now that Cineaste has...

Cineaste's Internet phobia?(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2004... I am writing to you because I have been a fan of your magazine for many years now, and I always look for the next issue with great anticipation. The magazine is my refuge; it validates much of what I feel about film, and rarely see progressive...

Mythic movie.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2004... The mythic dimension of the film Whale Rider, reviewed by Paula Morris in your Winter 2003 issue, invites closer examination, particularly given the film's popular acclaim. The ability to convey emotional congruency is a strength of director,...

Dusan sends his regards.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2004... I found Paul Arthur's article on my early work ("Escape from Freedom: The Films of Dusan Makajevev," Cineaste, Vol. XXVII No. 1, Winter 2001) extraordinary and very important. I have been living for the last few years between Paris and...

Lingua franca, indeed.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2004... Karen Backstein's review of The Dancer Upstairs (Cineaste, Fall 2003) touches on an increasingly disturbing problem in the production of films that are ostensibly non American in origin, cast, or setting. "[I]n dealing with Latin America, U.S....

Kill Bill, vol. 1.(Short Takes)(Movie Review)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... Quentin Tarantino seems bent on ensuring his position as the last great Hollywood auteur. Kill Bill's ad copy informs us that this is "the fourth film by Quentin Tarantino." The arrogance of such promotion needs little comment, particularly...

Monster.(Short Takes)(Movie Review)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... Monster is an actor's film. Charlize Theron, a slender, competent actress, until now best known for being a glamorous adornment in films like The Italian Job, put on extra weight, wore dental prosthetics, removed her make up, had her skin made...

Power Trip.(Short Takes)(Movie Review)
March 22, 2004... Director-producer-editor Paul Devlin doesn't like the term 'documentary,' calling Power Trip a 'non-fiction narrative' instead. Is the 'narrative' part of that label a nod to cinema's inevitable lack of objectivity, or a weasel word masking...

Wrestling with Manhood.(Short Takes)(Movie Review)
March 22, 2004... Media Education Foundation's new release, Wrestling with Manhood: Boys, Bullying and Battering, is a splendid demonstration that an 'illustrated lecture' can be just as powerful and persuasive as one of the Brobdingnagian...