Category: Masterpiece
Krzysztof Kieślowski: Three Colours, 54 Moments, A Thousand Times Goodbye
As a young screenwriter, impressionable and ambitious, I was capable of soaking up inspiration like a sponge. Beyond the passion for writing and watching and…
Masterpiece Memo: Trois couleurs: Rouge / Trzy kolory: Czerwony / Three Colours: Red (1994), Krzysztof Kieślowski)
Family Plot, Eyes Wide Shut, A Prairie Home Companion, F For Fake, Gertrud, Not Yet, Saraband… Whilst the final films of major directors tend to…
Around the World in 80 Films: Picnic at Hanging Rock
Next stop in my Around the World adventure was to Australia. I was keen to see Picnic at Hanging Rock, after reading Robin’s great piece…
Masterpiece Memo: Alice et Martin (1998, directed by Andre Techine)
Following her Oscar win for The English Patient, Juliette Binoche returned to her native France and acted in Alice et Martin. This reunited her with…
Around the World in 80 Films: L'Avventura
How have I never seen L’Avventura? This was the question I found myself asking after finishing the 1960 classic film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. As…
Masterpiece Memo: The Greek Blues With Rembetiko
Costas Ferris’ extraordinary, sinfully under-seen, Rembetiko from 1983, begins and ends with the music. Literally. Your ears are in for a real Greek treat – baglamas,…
Citizen Welles
On the 6th May, it will be Orson Welles’ 103 birthday. There’s a very high chance that you have heard the name Orson Welles, and…
Masterpiece: Milos Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest opens and closes with a tranquil setting, open land at near-dark, mountains, that stirring Jack Nitzsche score – emotively…
Masterpiece Memo: Raging Bull
When the opening credits begin in Raging Bull and we see a distant, hooded figure in the smoke-filled ring in warm-up sparring mode – presented in cosmic slow motion and set to the celestial “Intermezzo” from Cavalleria rusticana and the pop of flashbulbs – we sense that we are entering untrod territory.
Masterpiece Memo: The Age of Innocence
Whenever asked about my favorite Martin Scorsese film, I typically went with the usual, more generally acceptable suspects across Scorsese film geeks. Movies like Goodfellas…
Masterpiece Memo: Spielberg's 'Close Encounter' With Greatness
Da. Da. Da. Da. Daaa. Those five notes are perhaps some of the most iconic in cinematic history. After all of the human drama and…
Masterpiece Memo: The Social Network
To begin with I think The Social Network is a masterpiece. It’s a film that I really love, and ever since I first saw it…
Masterpiece Memo: Le salaire de la peur (Wages of Fear)
The Fifties, that squeaky-clean decade of that saw the birth of the suburbs, strict morality and, the McCarthy era, also had the misfortune to precede…
Masterpiece Memo: Barfly
Barfly is a film that I have loved for a long time. I can’t remember how old I was when I saw it, or what…
