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…

The work of Yasujirō Ozu continues to stand as some of the most impressive in the history of cinema – who else can profess to having as prolific a career as him, and possibly never having produced a film that anyone can call poorly-made? Towards the end of his career, he made a series of…

I’ve written quite a bit about theatre over the past few weeks – screen adaptation of the works of Tennessee Williams, William Gibson and Eugene O’Neill were all subjects of recent conversations, mostly since I’ve been covering years where these kinds of films were in vogue, with nearly every work of major American theatre getting…

It’s been noted that when making La Fille aux yeux d’or, Jean-Gabriel Albicocco was producing a film that existed more on the margins of late-period Italian neo-realism than the French New Wave, a movement he is often considered to be an early pioneer of, albeit one that isn’t particularly celebrated outside of a few films…

It would appear that third time was not the charm for Charlie Kaufman, since his most recent directorial effort was an attempt to adapt Iain Reid’s impenetrable I’m Thinking of Ending Things, a novel that seemed even too abstract for someone who has been making a career out of his penchant for the bizarre side…