I think Hollywood in general lost its connection to the classicism of the golden age studio era after the 90s. You can still feel the living tissue in movies of the 80s and 90s, but CGI swept it away later
Basically it's Christopher Tolkien's world now and we all have to live in it
Caught up with THE LACEMAKER, Isabelle Huppert's debut lead last night. In her early 20s, she's already riveting playing someone painfully ordinary. The final shot is a killer youtu.be/5TA9TBAkFkc?...
The book IS big. It’s the shelves that got small…
Interesting. But I also feel like his focus on technique sometimes makes his cinema a bit distanced and involuted. And the existentialists, or at least the ones I like, were generally direct and human
You're making a lot of assumptions. I live in France, I'm half-French, I have studied some philosophy (including Kierkegaard). So not as "pragmatic" as you might think
Thank you ! Lots of angst in the air, what can you say ?
Well, I don't own a turtleneck, or smoke Gitanes heavily, so I've obviously got some way to go ... I'm not sure how you would categorise explicitly "existentialist" film-makers though ? Antonioni fits that bill more for me, but I'm uncertain about Godard (as I say in the piece)
The day I publish a piece about the return of the existentialist void, I almost fall down a manhole on my morning walk. Maybe God isn't dead after all www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ap...
In awe of what a great film-maker Park Chan-wook is now.
He meandered after the VENGEANCE trilogy, up to STOKER. But THE HANDMAIDEN and DECISION TO LEAVE were outstanding; with NO OTHER CHOICE he's out-Bonged Bong Joon-ho.
No idea what it meant, but the cello bit at the end was spine-tingling.
Dr Ian Kelson in the 28 YEARS LATER films is the greatest franchise character since Michael Fassbender's David in PROMETHEUS/ALIEN COVENANT. I love his gentleness
Loved this Stygian bit from Stuart Jeffries on the film of Robert Macfarlane's UNDERLAND bit.ly/3Pj87tS
Did you buy into that moment? I suppose people do have abrupt breakthroughs - but I struggled with it on a dramatic level
But I'm struggling to pinpoint how WOWS creates that distance, despite also inviting us along for the ride with a bunch of reprobates. I think it's something to do with the satire or grotesquerie that isn't there in MARTY SUPREME
I feel like MARTY SUPREME totally lacks distance on its protagonist in a way that, say, WOLF OF WALL STREET doesn't. It's dynamically directed, sure, but in a way that aligns and stumps for its character like how actors must do - rather than seeking distance or perspective
The three stages of cinephilia:
1) I am curious and want to devour everything;
2) everything is an unfeasible amount, so I am refocusing my bandwidth to what I am likely to appreciate best;
3) if I’m not writing about it, I won’t have time to watch it until at least after I have retired…
Forbidden Planet premiered 70 years ago today!
If you've never seen it, don't miss this Star Trek ancestor.
My interview with 70-year-old Oscar nominee Florence Miailhe, dipping into her short film PAPILLON – about French-Jewish swimming champ Alfred Nakache – and her miraculous over-painting technique www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...
My main takeaway from HAMNET is that Shakespeare had great abs. And, oh, that Jacobi Jupe deserves to have a great career here on in
Me on how European cinema is getting its hands dirty in the countryside and loving the loam www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...
Also cut from the piece: the fact that he auditioned for Luke Skywalker. Adore the thought of him in STAR WARS, maybe he would've tried to fuck Yoda
My obituary of HAROLD AND MAUDE star Bud Cort - where I wasn't allowed to say how much he looks like Simon Pegg www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...
Everyone knows about David Lynch's "art life". But what about the business life that made it possible? My Sight & Sound piece about his "indie empire", speaking to his collaborators, is online now www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...
Watched Blaxploitation classic SLAUGHTER last night. He looks to me weirdly like Michael Shannon, but I had little knowledge of Jim Brown's cultural importance. This is an excellent primer: www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/m...
What a gulf that it's close to a decade without a new film from Lars von Trier
A piece of Lynchphernalia for the great man's birthday, which I wrote a few years ago: how his Jimmy-Stewart-from-Mars sensibility went mainstream www.theguardian.com/film/2023/ja...
Average running time hasn’t increased significantly since the 1960s. What has changed is the amount of the box-office pie taken by longer movies. The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough short movies. It’s that audiences prefer long ones.
