‘Lady for a Night’ Poked a Stick in the Eye of Southern Censors
Hays Code era Lady for a Night links black American characters with upstart so-called “white trash” to expose corruption and “zombie” hypocrisy from the so-called “quality class”.
film history
Erich von Stroheim Outraged Those Who Lined Up To Be Outraged with ‘Foolish Wives’
In monocle and leather boots, waving a whip, and fetishizing his character into a camp masterpiece, Erich von Stroheim never winks in Foolish Wives, but you see the glint in his eye.
Lars Von Trier’s ‘Europa Trilogy’ Is Spellbinding, Hypnotic Melodrama
The three Lars Von Trier films in Criterion’s Europa Trilogy aim to hypnotize viewers with formal visual styles more important than the story, so they fly in the face of most Art House fare.
The Awe-Inspiring ‘Film: The Living Record of Our Memory’
Film: The Living Record of Our Memory provides an awe-inspiring, expedited survey of film preservation and the urgency of capturing humankind’s visual memories lest we let these precious histories disintegrate.
Life Is Killing Us: Metaphysics of Facts and Form in Michael Haneke’s Films
Michael Haneke’s films partly alienate viewers by demonstrating that his characters feel alienated from their lives, cultures, and themselves, so one form of alienation breeds another.
Suffering in Silents: Two 1922 Melodramas from Frank Borzage
Frank Borzage, king of silent film melodrama, shows how it’s done with Back Pay‘s tale of redemption and the James Oliver Curwood-inspired The Valley of Silent Men.
Fregonese’s ‘Marco Polo’ Traveled a Twisty Road to Production
Hugo Fregonese’s 1962 Italian-French production of Marco Polo is a film whose history is more twisty than the spaghetti Marco Polo discovered in China.
Hitchcock Toys with Filmgoers in ‘My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock’
Filmmaker Mark Cousins’ My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock uses provoking ideas to encourage expanding our understanding of the works of this 20th-century giant of cinema.
The DIY Effect on Self-Funded Director Juleen Compton’s Dramas
Juleen Compton’s little-known ’60s films, Truffaut-effected Stranded and Mekas’-affirming The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean, have been lovingly restored thanks to her work ethic in a completely different field.
Sexuality in ’60s Cinema: ‘Three Films by Mai Zetterling’
Three Films by Mai Zetterling reveal the themes in the controversial director’s work: women’s lives, their fraught and ambiguous relationships with sex and motherhood, and how women interact with each other.
Film-Noir ‘Peking Express’ Is Hollywood’s First Encounter with Red China
The 1951 film-noir Peking Express (not to be confused with Shanghai Express) should be seen as Hollywood’s first attempt to deal with Communist China in the context of the Red Scare.
The 10 Best Classic Films on Blu-ray and DVD in 2022
From gentle satire to something like an anarchist paint bomb tossed into an uptight dinner party, we feature the 10 Best Classic Films on Blu-ray and DVD in 2022 – and we toss in a few more, just for kicks.