306. Bicycle Thieves
Many films enjoy exaggerated reputations, but it is almost impossible to underestimate the beauty, truth and importance of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves.
Tag Archives: Alfred Hitchcock
305. Blow Out
Rear Window, Vertigo, Blowup, Weekend, the Zapruder film and The Conversation are all to be seen and heard in Brian De Palma’s Blow Out.
303. Blowup
Originally titled A Girl, a Photographer and a Beautiful April Morning, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Palme d’Or winner is still as enigmatic fifty years on.
302. Festen
William Shakespeare, Sigmund Freud, Ingmar Bergman and John Cassavetes are just some of the disparate influences on view in Thomas Vinterberg’s masterpiece.
301. Alien
We are told we watch horror films because they offer a vicariously thrilling, and thus safe experience. I don’t believe that. I believe horror films are instructive.
300. The Wages of Fear
Described as the most evil film ever made, Henri George Clouzot’s masterpiece resembles Hemingway, Hitchcock, neo-realism and Casablanca.
297. A Matter of Life and Death
Francois Truffaut once claimed ‘cinema’ and ‘Britain’ were incompatible. Powell and Pressburger proved him wrong.
296. Un Chien Andalou
This film lasts seventeen minutes, features mutilation, insects and dismemberment. Yet it is one of the most influential ever made.
291. Does Plot Matter?
For thousands of years, drama theorists from Aristotle to Robert McKee have been telling writers that plot is everything. But is that all there is to drama?
279. Vertigo
Is Hitchcock’s Vertigo really the greatest film ever made? Certainly, it is a compilation of his many themes and tropes, as well as a critique on cinema itself.
274. Day for Night
Francois Truffaut created the auteur theory, and with Day for Night he delivered a tribute to the art form without which he felt his life could not make sense.
267. Great Openings – Part Two
What makes for a great opening? Character? Conflict? Poetry? Hopefully, more than something we’re supposed to just look at.
260. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’s influence is so great it reaches far beyond horror and into sci-fi, thrillers, and historical romances.
253. Walkabout
If you need three things to make a good film; a good script, a good script and a good script, how did Nicolas Roeg make a masterpiece from just fourteen pages?
252. Freeze-Frame
Once considered avant-garde, freeze-frame is now common place in every genre. Here are some of landmark and innovative uses of the technique.
250. Slow-Motion
Once considered avant-garde, slow-motion is now the mainstay of every action film. Here are some of the best and most innovative uses of the technique.
249. All About My Mother
Once dismissed as The King of Kitsch, this masterpiece proved Pedro Almodovar was really a laureate of liberalism.
246. Dreams
If the dream sequence is a crutch for many dull thrillers, horrors and mysteries, what makes a good one? One that challenges and stretches cinematic language.
245. Touch of Evil
Orson Welles is often referred to as a glistening talent who wasted his early promise. Touch of Evil, the last film he made in America, proves otherwise.
243. Great Sounds – Part Two
The world is so noisy, we unconsciously filter out all that we don’t want to hear. Much of film sound operates in the same way.
242. Great Sounds – Part One
The world is so noisy, we unconsciously filter out all that we don’t want to hear. Much of film sound operates in the same way.
239. Three Colors
Is Krzysztof Kieslowski’s trilogy only about liberty, equality and fraternity? Look again and you’ll find it also addresses fate, coincidence and co-existence.
237. Tokyo Story
On the surface Yasujiro Ozu’s examination of family life in post-war Japan may sound simple, but what he delivered is one of cinema’s supreme achievements.
235. Persona
In a career that spanned over sixty years, forty films and a dozen masterpieces, Persona is the most unusual film in Ingmar Bergman’s canon.
