It’s a Helluva of a World in Alain Corneau’s ‘Série Noire’
Alain Corneau's Série Noire is like a documentary of squalid desperation, albeit a slightly heightened and sardonic one.
film movement classics
Luchino Visconti’s L’Innocente Lushly Escalates Emotional Intensity and Moral Quagmire
The wealthy, spoiled, entitled, monstrously egotistical male protagonist in Visconti's L'Innocente spends his time in various states of suffering, often sweating profusely and sometimes with eyes puffy and tear-stained.
Romy Schneider Shimmers, Simmers, “Sautets” and “Zulawskis”
Directors Claude Sautet and Andrzej Zulawski turn the camera's gaze on the glorious Romy Schneider in these four drama, romance, and crime films available from Film Movement and Kino Lorber.
Alastair Sim: A Very English Character Actor Genius
Alastair Sim belongs to those character actors sometimes accused of "hamming it up" because they work at such a high level of internal and external technique that they can't help standing out.
Films from the Long War: ‘Their Finest Hour’ Offers Five British WWII Classics
These WWII films from directors Alberto Cavalcanti, Guy Hamilton, Michael Anderson, Leslie Norman and J. Lee Thomson are excellent studies in history, filmmaking, and wartime propaganda.
Great Scots: ‘Whiskey Galore!’ and ‘The Maggie’
Two Scottish comedies from Alexander Mackendrick, Whiskey Galore! and The Maggie, were part of Ealing Studios movies meant for a depressed postwar England to "let off steam".
There’ll Always Be An Ealing: Postwar England’s Little Studio That Could — and Did
The Ealing name has been revived in the new century, but film buffs will always regard its incandescent era as that period when it held up a scrappy and schizoid mirror to postwar England's depressions and aspirations.