Violet Glaze

About Violet Glaze

Violet Glaze is a film critic and contributing writer for the Baltimore City Paper. She is also a two-time Emmy award winning producer and video editor at Maryland Public Television, and teaches Film History at Carver Center, an arts and technology high school. Glaze’s writing has also appeared in Opium Magazine, Link, and Radar Review.

Columns

The Director with Roots in Hell

By Violet Glaze

Step right up folks, don't be shy. There's room for even the most sophisticated film fan when it comes to the exploitation excess of grindhouse pioneer Dwain Esper. [28 March 2007]

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A Fistful of Yen

By Violet Glaze

Is there really a link between feudal Japan and the Wild West of a post-Civil War America? Thanks to the films of two famed international auteurs, the connections are closer than you think. [13 February 2007]

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The Most Powerful Woman in Hollywood

By Violet Glaze

At one time, she was the most powerful woman in Hollywood's paternalistic boy's club. So why is Mary Pickford merely a forgotten cinematic icon today? The answer seems, sadly, to be a matter of personal, not professional drive. [18 January 2007]

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Finally, Room at the Inn

By Violet Glaze

Billy Wilder's The Apartment captures the holiday season feeling of those who stand beyond the glow cast by Christmas lights. [11 December 2006]

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There is No Spoon

By Violet Glaze

Trick photography? Optical experimentation? The purposeful playing with the cinematic language? Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov was doing it all, decades before a certain sci-fi film challenged the notion of perception vs. reality. [9 November 2006]

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Or Are You Just Glad to See Me?

By Violet Glaze

This month, our cinematic classicist looks at the human love of firepower, and how one forgotten film noir in particular encapsulated everything good and bad, appealing and appauling, about this obsession with guns. [6 October 2006]

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The Skeleton of My Dead Child

By Violet Glaze

Eric Von Stroheim would have been a fantastic television director, free to spin out 13-hour movies as a full season of edgy, mature, character-driven drama. [31 August 2006]

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Punchin’ in the Rain

By Violet Glaze

Gene Kelly and Bruce Lee were from different generations and decidedly divergent disciplines. Yet they have more in common than one might imagine. [4 August 2006]

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She Thinks She’s Edith Head

By Violet Glaze

With her severe onyx bangs, owly blue-tint sunglasses and mirthless, tightlipped mien, this classic Hollywood costumer was more recognizable than her designs... and that's exactly how she wanted it. [23 June 2006]

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Mechanical Animal

By Violet Glaze

Who's the perfect silent film comedian for our techno-centric age? Here's a hint: he's the classic 'stoneface' who made machines his friends, not his entertainment enemies, during the course of his amazing cinematic career. [26 May 2006]

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Supercalifuckthesystemexpialidocious

By Violet Glaze

Desperate for a symbol other than Fight Club's Tyler Durden to help 'realign your perceptions' on life? Look no further than Walt Disney's 1964 family classic, and a certain subversive nanny who understands rebellion all too well. [19 April 2006]

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Non-Tragic Mulatto

By Violet Glaze

There is perhaps no better example of misguided melodrama than 1934/1959's Imitation of Life, and according to our cinematic scholar, no more culturally defining or disturbing character than its light-skinned, half-breed heroine. [3 April 2006]

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Blonde Persephone

By Violet Glaze

While it may mark the final film for two of Hollywood's legendary icons, our resident classic film connoisseur says there's more to Arthur Miller's 'Eastern Western' than meets the cinematic eye. [7 March 2006]

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‘Monument’ Achievement

By Violet Glaze

When you discuss the classic Westerns of Hollywood, one name immediately comes to mind: John Ford. And when you consider his stunning cinematic masterpieces, one particular desert locale is his iconic trademark. [3 February 2006]

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Ain’t ‘IT’ a Shame

By Violet Glaze

In her debut column, Classic Film Columnist Glaze argues for one forgotten actress's place in the pantheon of legendary leading ladies. [6 January 2006]

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