The pure poetry lingering beneath Wild River is not to be underestimated, and should be addressed almost immediately when discussing a film that seems to be far more overpowering than we’d expect from looking at it on a purely superficial level. By the time he made it, Elia Kazan didn’t really have to prove anything…

When it comes to Aaron Sorkin, you normally get exactly what you pay for – by-the-numbers stories that are heavily focused on political or other highly-resonant cultural situation, with predictable plot points and an array of interesting characters that are very often portrayed by actors who are giving performances that belong in much better productions….

Seemingly without realizing it, Patricia Highsmith created one of literature’s most enigmatic figures in the form of Tom Ripley. What is even more bewildering is how he has rarely been cited as such, normally being a figure that many people adore, but not on the same level as many of the great literary antiheroes of…

“I wonder, will we really be able to, in dozens of years, to laugh and shed senile tears over these days? Then the earth will swallow us up, and our names will be obscured with fog” There are many ways to describe An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (Russian: Неоконченная пьеса для механического пианино) –…

When he set out to make his bold trilogy of films that touched on the human condition, Krzysztof Kieślowski was quite right in realizing that the path towards this isn’t through overly ambitious explorations of every aspect of our existence, but rather intricate, intimate dramas that centre on ordinary people living their lives and coming…

The trouble with trying to work through the careers of your favourite artists is that you’re bound to find some failures here and there, which can be quite a disconcerting experience if you’re not careful. This applies very heavily to John Cassavetes, a true iconoclast of independent cinema, so much that his early career was…

As one of the most insightful and thought-provoking directors of his era, there’s never a bad time to celebrate Jacques Rivette, whether looking at some of his towering masterpieces, or the works that have somewhat been neglected over time. If we launch ourselves right to the beginning of his career as a filmmaker, we see…

Martin Scorsese is something of an enigma, which is certainly a new way to look at an artist who has come to be seen as one of the definitive voices in the history of cinema. He has somehow managed to both perfect certain genres, which have often come to be his most distinctive, as well…

Farewell My Concubine (Chinese: 霸王別姬) is one of those films that has been consolidated as such a masterpiece of arthouse cinema, it’s almost a rite of passage to eventually watch it. Chen Kaige’s exploration of Chinese culture in the early 20th century has received its fair share of acclaim and adulation throughout the years, and…

If you knew your death was only a moment away, what would your final thoughts be in that brief space between life and demise? This is the fundamental concept explored in Ambrose Bierce’s classic short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, which was adapted into an incredible film by Robert Enrico, who captured the…