American Me

Apr 14, 2015 — Preston Sturges revealed a lot about himself and the movie business in this hilarious and socially committed comedy.

Apr 14, 2015 — Before he turned Vienna into a labyrinth of shadows with The Third Man, Carol Reed brought film noir to Belfast for this stylishly fatalistic tale of a man caught up in political violence.

Mar 30, 2015 — The astonishing intimacy and scope of this remarkable, aesthetically captivating epic ushered in a new era of narrative documentary filmmaking.

Mar 19, 2015 — The author recalls his encounters and correspondence with the filmmaker.

Mar 16, 2015 — Director and star Robert Montgomery suffuses his moody 1947 New Mexico–set noir with palpable postwar anxiety and expressive fatalism.

Feb 24, 2015 — Federico Fellini’s fragmentary and picturesque tale of death and debauchery in ancient Rome is a surreal take on reality.

Dec 11, 2014 — The opening installment of Terry Gilliam’s “Trilogy of Imagination” reminds us we’d be better off if we paid more attention to the kid’s-eye view of things.

Oct 30, 2014 — Tati’s witty visual comedy also functioned as satire of a rapidly modernizing postwar France.

Oct 21, 2014 — As breakup songs go, “Dreaming My Dreams with You,” written by country stalwart Allen Reynolds, is a tear-jerking doozy. It first appeared on the 1975 Waylon Jennings album Dreaming My Dreams. And while it’s been covered pretty frequently, by singers...

Oct 2, 2014 — The following is a chapter on The Innocents from cinematographer Freddie Francis’s memoir, The Straight Story from “Moby Dick” to “Glory.” It is reproduced here courtesy of Scarecrow Press. The last picture I worked on as a cinematographer in my...