America, America (1963; Elia Kazan) GRADE: C By Daniel Barnes Throughout his long career, Elia Kazan was often defined by his work with actors. A professional stage actor and director before becoming an award-winning Hollywood filmmaker, Kazan was one of the foremost cinematic proponents of the “Actor’s Studio” […]
Shock Corridor (1963; Samuel Fuller) GRADE: A By Daniel Barnes In his 1963 film Pierrot le Fou, Jean-Luc Godard cast B-movie deity Sam Fuller as a Fuller-esque partygoer who declares, “Film is like a battleground: love, hate, action, death…In one word, EMOTION.” It’s ostensibly a Godard line, but […]
Love in the Afternoon (1972; Eric Rohmer) GRADE: B+ By Mike Dub In each of his Six Moral Tales, Eric Rohmer presents a character at a different stage in his life, in various evolving stages of a relationship. Though basically unrelated, his films follow the evolution of a single love life […]
Claire’s Knee (1970; Eric Rohmer) GRADE: B+ By Daniel Barnes In my review of La Collectionneuse last week, I made this admission about French auteur Eric Rohmer, a director whose work I had never seen before this festival: “Rohmer makes movies that I want to kick off my […]
La Collectionneuse (1967; Eric Rohmer) GRADE: B+ By Daniel Barnes Two-thirds of the way through Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales series, I feel that I know exactly what to expect from the French filmmaker, and yet still remain utterly mystified. In writing about his movies, I often feel like […]
My Night at Maud’s (1969; Eric Rohmer) GRADE: B+ By Mike Dub In describing Eric Rohmer’s My Night at Maud’s, the third and probably best-known of his Moral Tales, it is tempting to use terms that might sound somewhat condescending, or make the film seem trivial. “Novel,” “refreshing,” […]
