On the Job

Oct 14, 2014 — What happens offscreen is as important as what’s on- in John Ford’s subtle, elegiac take on the Wyatt Earp–Doc Holliday story.

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...

Sep 23, 2014 — In director Jack Clayton’s hands, Henry James’s tale of the sinister and sensual things hiding behind Victorian decorum becomes one of the screen’s great works of terror.

Jul 29, 2014 — The writer and director is inspired by Lawrence Kasdan’s classic comic drama to consider the joys and disappointments of the baby boomer generation that begot her.

Jul 23, 2014 — Jacques Demy’s miraculous, melancholy musical is the rare film to use pastiche and artifice to go straight for the heart.

Jun 16, 2014 — Georges Franju evokes the surreal silent serials of Louis Feuillade while constructing his own personal cinematic paradise.

May 19, 2014 — As in his other films, the world of Abbas Kiarostami’s latest is one of simulation, not-quite-realness, and unexpected tenderness.

May 5, 2014 — The celebrated divot points manfully toward the crest of the next hill, and the next, and the next, and to the horizon after that. Always forward! Into the sunset! Kirk Douglas is on the move: a wagon train of grimace,...

May 5, 2014 — Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole almost requires an honorary expansion of the term film noir. There are no private eyes in seedy offices or femmes fatales lurking in the shadows of neon-lit doorways, no forces of evil arrayed against...

Apr 22, 2014 — Carl Theodor Dreyer’s spare and modern visual style perfectly complements this comic and soulful domestic comeuppance story.