Theory is dead. Well, so I am told. Since the 1990s critics, authors and writers such as David Bordwell, Murray Pomerance and many others have stressed the need to steer film theory in a new direction, whether it be film-philosophy, neo-formalism or another approach (if not theory altogether). Thankfully, if theory is not completely dead […]
Posts by: nsf223
Finding the Beauty–Book Review: The Language and Style of Film Criticism Edited by Alex Clayton and Andrew Klevan
July 14, 2011 at 11:36 am
Book Review: Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of An American Director by Patrick McGilligan
July 3, 2011 at 8:53 pm
For many cinephiles, cineastes, filmmakers and Frenchmen Nicholas Ray was a titan—a man who thrived with a remarkably independent vision in the grind of the studio era. Almost exactly a year ago Criterion released Ray’s classic (and my favorite of his films) Bigger Than Life on DVD. Here, in a review, Rob Ribera commented, “the […]
Masters Adapting Masters: Jean-Luc Godard’s King Lear
April 18, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Godard’s King Lear (1987) oscillates between being both a mess and a masterpiece. Shunning any straight-reading of the Shakespeare play, Godard, as he did throughout the 1960s, raises questions about the instability of language and the very meaning of art in a society driven by the culture industry. There is no real plot to Godard’s […]
Locating the Infinite: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
April 12, 2011 at 11:46 am
How do you describe the indescribable? Such a question, lies at the heart of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s latest film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Continuing the trend of so many masters, from Godard and Herzog to Fuller and Hitchcock, Weerasethakul combines both high and low art, in charting the final days of one […]