‘Atlantic City’: Malle’s Nostalgic Juxtaposition of Deterioration and Renewal
When acclaimed French New Wave director Louis Malle was approached by producer Alexandre Mnouchkine with the idea for a Canadian production certified by the CRTC…
Filmmaking
Take It to the Limit One More Time: Michael Mann’s ‘Miami Vice’
Michael Mann’s 2006 big screen revamp of 1980s groundbreaking TV show Miami Vice (Brandon Tartikoff, NBC’s entertainment president scribbled “MTV cops” on a cocktail napkin;…
‘Ride the High Country’: The Seed from which Peckinpah’s Revisionist Approach to the Western Genre Would Ultimately Grow
During the making of Ride the High Country in 1962, director Sam Peckinpah was ordered by MGM to stop filming on location (Mammoth Lakes, near…
‘Goodfellas’: Martin Scorsese’s Anthropological Goodlife Through a Lens
As far back as I can remember, director Martin Scorsese has been synonymous with wiseguys, mooks, goombahs, and spin-on-a-dime funny-how guys delivering a gut punch…
‘The Tree of Life’: The Soul-Shaking Beauty and Pain of Terrence Malick’s Intimate Epic on Family, Nature, and Memory
There are things we say to strangers, there are things we say to family and friends, and, finally, there are things we say, privately, to…
Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Hard Eight’, AKA ‘Sydney’: “It’s Always Good to Meet a New Friend”
Paul Thomas Anderson’s debut film Hard Eight (working title Sydney, preferred by Anderson, thwarted by his backers) arose from the performance of a veteran actor…
God’s Lonely Funny Man: Martin Scorsese’s ‘The King of Comedy’ and America’s Pathological Obsession with Fame
In this age of television wannabes and quick fix celebs, it is fitting to look back at The King of Comedy, Martin Scorsese’s dark comedy…
Empire’s End: John Huston’s ‘The Man Who Would Be King’
On the occasion of John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King screening at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2010 to mark star Sean…
‘Mise-en-Scène’ and Fritz Lang: The Invaluable, Short-Lived Magazine’s Article on the Master of Darkness
In 1979, Case Western Reserve University Film Society started publishing a magazine called Mise-en-Scéne, a 70-plus-page cinephilic treasure chest with a series of high-quality articles…
‘Magnolia’: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Absorbing Mosaic of Compassion, Humanity and the Importance of Forgiveness
In 1997, an ambitious 26-year-old called Paul Thomas Anderson made Boogie Nights, his sophomore directing effort that dazzled the film loving community. The commercial and…