Stephen Frears
What is your favorite Stephen Frears film? And why do you think he doesn't get the love and acclaim of some of his contemporaries?
Author: kenmorefield
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The Trial of Joan of Arc (Bresson, 1962)
John Donne once wrote, "I am a little world made cunningly," suggesting that the complexity of the world is contained in microcosm in the human spirit. There is a depth and complexity to Joan that is evoked through her words and transcends the wit or cleverness that might be conveyed were the film to try to show it directly rather than by implication.
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A Man Escaped (Bresson, 1956)
In Notes on the Cinematographer, Bresson appears particularly anxious to remind himself (and us) that film is its own media and does not have as its purpose the reproduction of a theatrical experience or technique: "The truth of cinematography cannot be the truth of theatre, nor the truth of the novel, nor the truth of painting. (What the cinematographer captures with his or her own resources cannot be what the theatre, the novel, the painting capture with theirs)" (20).
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Charlie Chaplin: A King in New York
The nature of a celebrity interview is that it can be hit or miss. Surely it is interesting to hear Chaplin opine in 1957 that this new kid, Marlon Brando, has "something." But that doesn't relate much to the film.
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Persepolis (Paronnaud, 2007)
A lot of films can break your heart--a precious few can enlarge and renovate it.
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Land of the Pharoahs (Hawks, 1955)
Struggle he unquestionably did. He reports both in the audio commentary and in his 1956 interview with Cahiers du Cinema (reprinted in the Andrew Sarris edited anthology Interviews with Film Directors) that he and friend William Faulkner struggled with the story because they had no idea how a pharaoh talked or acted.
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The Tragedy of Hamlet (Brook, 2002)
Peter Brook has forgotten more about Shakespeare than I'll ever know, and Adrian Lester is an underrated and underappreciated actor.
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Bride & Prejudice (Chadha, 2004)
Where to start? Well, I finally understand those singing puppets in the Fandango commercials.
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Up (Docter, 2009)
As such, there has always been something troubling to me about the increasing insistence of Disney and Pixar films that the villains not only be wrong, but incorrigibly evil--not merely defeated but destroyed.
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Nicholas Ray
"You're tearing me apart!" The line--the plaintive cry--is synonymous with Rebel Without A Cause and hence with Nicholas Ray.