Hands Up!

Jun 12, 2014 — The filmmaker’s latest offering at the film festival reaffirms the author’s faith in him.

Jun 9, 2014 — Your vigilance as an artist is an amorous vigilance, a vigilance of desire.—Roland Barthes to Michelangelo Antonioni, 1979 It’s lamentable that Michelangelo Antonioni, one of the most fashionable vanguard European filmmakers during the sixties, has mainly been out of fashion...

May 14, 2014 — The author recalls his meetings and correspondence with the uncompromisingly independent British director.

May 12, 2014 — The Italian cinema expert describes the immense popularity of Dino Risi’s film in its home country, and the way it deepened the commedia all’italiana genre.

May 6, 2014 — This humorous magazine piece from 1970 sheds some light on the meaning of the title of Il sorpasso, along with the way Vittorio Gassman comports himself behind the wheel in it.

Apr 21, 2014 — A real-life prison uprising inspired this two-fisted tale directed by Don Siegel, who would go on to make many more films about men in extreme situations.

Jan 6, 2014 — Critics commonly describe Throne of Blood (1957) as Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation of Macbeth. While this description is certainly not untrue, the film is much more than a direct cinematic translation of a literary text. Kurosawa’s movie is a brilliant synthesis...

Nov 25, 2013 — He massages, he gambles, and he’s great with a blade. Who is this blind swordsman, anyway?

Oct 24, 2013 — In John Cassavetes’s personal cinema, the director was always trying to break away from the formulas of Hollywood narrative, in order to uncover some fugitive truth about the way people behave. At the same time, he took seriously his responsibilities...

Oct 23, 2013 — If there’s one quality that separates John Cassavetes’s movies from almost everybody else’s, it’s the density of detail in the storytelling. His films need to be read closely, from beginning to end. There are no lulls with Cassavetes, no lapses...