Bright Lights Film Journal 59 just went live.

from the editor

Because we care . . .

features foyer

The Double Standard: The Twins of Two-Faced Woman and Sylvia Scarlett — "She is both sentimental and shameless."

Peter Watkins and the Politics of Expression: On Edvard Munch (1974) and The Freethinker (1994) — "Watkins' filmmaking bravely seeks an insistence on personal truth — his own and the viewer's."

False Consonances and False Consciousness: Contrarian Notes on the Ideology of Film Music — "Defenseless against music, I must submit to its despotism and, depending on its whim, be god or garbage." — E. M. Cioran

articles antechamber

Naomi Watts: Cinema's Postmodern Mother of Mirrors — "We're home free in the new mediated womb of the Naomi persona — which is to say, trapped, by our own desire."

Only the Pictures: We're All Editing, Ed — But about this audit

Hillbilly Hustle: The Thin Line Between Hillybilly Sexploitation and Blaxploitation in Trash Cinema — "How you gonna keep um' down on the farm after they seen all this?" — voiceover from the trailer for the 1972 sexploitation film Sassy Sue

Wes's World: Riding Wes Anderson's Vision Limited — Paging crackle, energy, and wit. Come in, please.

Presence and Absence: Towards a Working Conception of Screen Characters — "A basic consistency on the actor's part remains uniquely convincing as character, no matter how simplistic that character's definition."

little stabs

Little Stabs of Happiness (and Horror): Random Short Reviews of the Worthy and the Worthless in Recent and Old-School Cinema — "Don't snatch! Don't grab! They're ugly!"

recent cinema roundabout

Stunted Lives: On 4 Months, 3 Weeks, & 2 Days — Unsettling and unmissable

A Boy and His Dog: On Will Smith, Apocalypse, and I Am Legend — "Neville remains wholly oblivious, falling into each trap the ferals set . . ."

When Virtue Sleeps: The Moral World of Denys Arcand's L'Âge des Ténèbres — "We are asked to think morally: is the happiness these characters seek possible or desirable?"

The Foxy, the Dead, and the Foxier: Re-Visiting Death Proof — "He's old enough to be my dad!"

interrogation alcove

Rebel, Rebel: Gregg Araki Reflects on The Living End and His Totally F***ed Up Career at Sundance 2008 — "My whole thing, all my life, was march to your own drummer."

the empty guest room

On the Walkabout: Remembering Heath Ledger (1979-2008) — "Wasn't he just there, standing right in front of us?"

Nuts to the Squirrels and Roués Redeemed: The Discreet Charm of Charles Boyer — "In Boyer, self-belief and theatrical technique are seamlessly fused together."

documentary dormer

Innocence Lost or Regained? The Clear-Eyed Vision of Jesus Camp — "Real things happening to real people"

film festival flying buttress

Onward and Inward: On the 2007 Thessaloniki International Film Festival — "Each work limns a moral dilemma that has no discernible answer."

Tickets to the Dark Side: The 43rd Chicago International Film Festival — "We will see whose heart is sharpest!"

revival room

Downward Mobility: On Roger Corman's Bloody Mama — "You never could make a decent living . . . you never did mount me proper."

Communication Breakdown: Reboarding Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train — "You only need one leg to get around. Sure helps to have two."

Thank God for Uncle Tom: Race and Religion Collide in The Green Pastures — A kinder, gentler condescension

Ode to Lili: And Leslie Caron — "This MGM movie is studio-system filmmaking at its most protective, and it's designed entirely to showcase Leslie Caron . . ."

bright sights

Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: Our Hitler, Sawdust and Tinsel, Black Sun, Marketa Lazarova, Battleship Potemkin, Nosferatu, Automatons — An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases

Issue 58 of Bright Lights Film Journal is now live.

features foyer

Covering the Cinema: On Wallpaper in Some Films — "Wallpaper is a cut-rate imitation of reality based on an equation of repetition and pattern, but so is Hollywood . . ."

The Wages of Skin: The Irrepressible Rise of All-American Smut — Linda Lovelace meets the Forty Thieves

Oh What a Lovely Jail: Crime Is Old, Crime Is New — Just Like Those Mind-Forged Manacles Blues

articles antechamber

IMAX: The Bigger Picture: Everything New Is Old Again — Superman, we need you!

"Ode to a Nectarite Harvest": On Brand Upon the Brain! — Maddin at his most masochistic — and magical

Whose Noir Is It, Anyway? Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly — Mike Hammer deconstructed, or Mike Hammer disrespected?"

"Give My Love to the Sunrise": The Lady from Shanghai — Welles bids farewell to Hayworth and Hollywood

The Searcher: On Ethan Edwards and John Ford's Masterpiece — "Ride away . . . ride away . . ."

Still, Life: Looking at Jia Zhang-ke's Recent Masterpiece — "Present-day society doesn't suit us because we're too nostalgic."

The Poisoned Story: The Myth of Magic in Wait 'Til You're Older — "Even the least imaginative people are incredulous about aging: surely this isn't the only story, the only body I get to inhabit."

recent cinema roundabout

The Devil Wears a Fatsuit: John Travolta in Hairspray — "Even if the new Hairspray seems a welcome return to camp for Travolta, his mock-seriousness is as frozen as ever."

"What Is Beauty Worth?" On Perfume: The Story of a Murderer — (And an Artist)

Too Gay, or Not Gay Enough? Greg Mottola's Superbad — The urge to merge with a splurge — story of my life

vale of video

Imagine a Man in a Box: Berlin Alexanderplatz on DVD — "As the twig is bent, so grows the tree."

Will the Shark Bite? G. W. Pabst and The Threepenny Opera — "Macheath: I'm not asking you to put on an opera." — Bertolt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera, Act 1, scene 2

bright sights

Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: The Valentino Collection (The Young Rajah, Moran of the Lady Letty, Stolen Moments, Society Sensation), True Heart Susie, She, The Call of Cthulhu, El Bruto — An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases

cellar of silence

Looking at Charlie — The Gold Rush: An Occasional Series on the Art and Life of Charlie Chaplin — Hats off, dudes! A masterpiece!

Colleen Moore Comes Back: On the Rediscovered, Restored 1927 Rarity Her Wild Oat — "Go sit on a flagpole!"

documentary dormer

The Passion of the Auteurist: On Man of Cinema: Pierre Rissient — "It's not enough to like this movie"

interrogation alcove

Beyond the Fifth Generation: An Interview with Zhang Yimou — "I know myself, and know that I can't really be separated from the land where I grew up."

Made in China: Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky on Their Travels Across Manufactured Landscapes — "We've created a world that buffers us from nature."

Monsters, Inc.: An Interview with Ray Harryhausen — "I wrecked Washington, and I wrecked New York, and San Francisco. That got rather tiresome after a while."

revival room

Bergman vs. Bergman: Ingrid Dearest in Ingmar's Autumn Sonata — "Ingmar can't fully follow his own gloomy party line as he stares at this simple, oblivious, wondrous creature."

Mother to the Man? Rethinking Luc Besson's Léon — Age is just a number

film festival flying buttress

How Did History Happen? The 2007 Melbourne International Film Festival — "Each stranger is a figure of seemingly infinite potential, pinned down to a changing series of points."

Safety First: The 45th New York Film Festival — The 2007 NYFF's more cautious than courageous this year

Issue 56 of Bright Lights Film Journal just went live with 28 articles.

features foyer

Extinguishing Features: The Last Years of Richard Pryor — A genius self-destructs, with a little help from Hollywood

Across the Great Divide: Canadian Popular Cinema in the 21st Century — Indigenous film, global dreams

articles antechamber

Fashion and Dunst: The Substance of Marie Antoinette — "The Coppola ideal is a young girl trapped in fustiness: she can be an object of voyeurism without a trace of lewdness, and remain spiritually intact even when accessorized."

The Mothering of Evil: In Several Hitchcock Films — "She is so enthralled by her boy, the loving product from her own body, that she remains blind to his true nature."

Fear of Fishing: Closets and Product Placement in Hawks' Man's Favorite Sport? — Bwaaaaah!

Digitizing the Cold War: Olympic Wish Fulfillment in Tron — "The blue Tron team delivers the red team the drubbing the Americans were never able to deliver the Soviets . . ."

Sovereign Remedies: Queen of Hearts to President — A Progress

cellar of silence

Of Sexual Hate and Lonely Death: The Mysteries of Pandora's Box — "When what you write about is what you see/What do you write about when it's dark?" (Charles Wright)

recent cinema roundabout

Moanin' Low: On Craig Brewer's Black Snake Moan — Stick to the trailer

Will Ferrell on Ice! Speck & Gordon's Blades of Glory — No Betty White, but funny!

Billy Ray's Breach: At Last, a Film as Boring as DC! — The evil that men do in a Fairfax County regional park

Uncovering the Romantic Bond: Thoughts on Casino Royale — "By describing a conscience for James Bond the character, the story has provided a subconscious for James Bond the movies

Being John, Seeing Stanley: John Malkovich in Brian Cook's Colour Me Kubrick: A True . . . ish Story — "Plot keywords: drugs, glamour, party, rent boy, sex, bisexual, celebrity, con artist, male model"

No Exit: On Matthias Glasner's The Free Will — "It's a critique that's one step away from excusing Theo (the 'woman was asking for it' defence) . . ."

In Like Clint! Letters from Iwo Jima Is Excellent — With one, yeah, pretty major caveat

Isn't It Romantic? Hugh and Drew in Marc Lawrence's Music and Lyrics — The King of the Backseat Blowjob gets mildly post-ironist on your ass

Lost World: Michael Haneke's Time of the Wolf Reconsidered — "What we're given is a sense that the structures of our civilisation have broken down . . ."

Man in the Dark: On David Fincher's Zodiac — "A brutal, slick game"

tv land

Tight Pants in Paradise: Tom Selleck Is Magnum, P.I. — Keats, Shelley, and firm, manly thighs

interrogation alcove

Nearer My Corman to Thee: Roger Corman Remembers, and Roger Corman Remembered — Give us another naked nurse and some more explosions!

Our Time of Troubles: Ken Loach on War, Irish History, and The Wind That Shakes the Barley — "But I was accused of enjoying walking up and down the red carpet! Their rage knew no bounds."

the empty guest room

Uneasy Living: The Insecure Charm of Jean Arthur — "Funny, tender, a little neurotic, a little erotic, and always spontaneous . . ."

documentary dormer

Treed by the Family: On 51 Birch Street — For boomers, "the idea that Mom and Dad are flawed human beings with complicated histories and real feelings can be hard to accept."

temple of the body

Anorexic Logic: On American Psycho — "I should like to keep that out of me"

"Pity Poor Flesh": Terrible Bodies in the Films of Carpenter, Cronenberg, and Romero — "We are always already in a state of being on the cusp of an unraveling, a violent deconstruction, an explosive discharge of disruption and freeplay . . ."

film festival flying buttress

Secrets of the European Union: Chicago's Tenth Annual EU Film Festival — They saw what you did!

On the Border of the Thermian Gulf: The Ninth Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival — "The documentaries that most stood out have a near fictional flair, blurring the border between reality and fable."

bright sights

Bright Sights: Recent DVDs: Mouchette, 1900, Siberiade, Oyster Princess, I Don't Want to Be a Man, King Lear, Another Sky — An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases

Issue 54 of Bright Lights Film Journal just went live.

from the editor

It's a Bright Lights world after all!

features foyer

Routes to the City: The Ways of the New Black Films — "It's independent thinking without the protection of an 'indie' label."

Falling Angels, Rising People: A Brief Look at Sex-and-Spirituality in Cinema — Wings not desired

Selma: Or the Absence of God — "It is a face that has 'glimpsed into the abyss' and never recovered from it.

What Time Now? Catching Up Hours in Tsai Ming-liang — "Despite their loneliness, Tsai's characters often appear to be living in relation to someone else: a stranger who hovers around them."

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S P E C I A L

Now online: noir and neo-noir from issue 12 (Spring 1994) of our discontinued print edition

Film Noir's Knights of the Road — "The black sheep of the family, noir's tramps are the tin-age antithesis to Chaplin's golden-age thesis."

Noir Country — Alien nation

Faulkner and Film Noir — Faulkner: "Some good pictures come out of Hollywood. God knows how, but they do."

Beyond the Golden Age: Film Noir Since the 'Fifties — "There is only Noir!"

Mike Leigh's Naked — "Oh, that is excessive"

John Dahl's Red Rock West — "Cage's Michael is a model of the terse, slightly wasted working- class guy who acts as a punching bag for malevolent Fate."

Neo-Noir on Laser: Point Blank, Chinatown, The Long Goodbye — All the colors of darkness

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articles antechamber

Capsized: A Tale of Two Poseidons — Society overboard!

Suspicious White Powder: Bad Actors in an Age of Bad Equality — Please dispose of all reality at the back of the theatre

Steele Vision: The Face of Italian Cult Cinema — "Again the camera shows how the imperfection of Asa's face does not present an insurmountable obstacle to her being ultimately attractive."

Who Owns Norman Bates? On Psycho IV, III, II, I, and More — "Look at yourself," she says, "that's not who you are anymore."

Following the Blind Swordsman: The Zatoichi Movies — "He is an itinerant hero, a lone samurai whose mask is his blindness, a mask that hides his many strengths."

cellar of silence

The Sweet Smell of Asphalt: Discovering Joe May's 1929 Masterwork — "Amann's sexuality in Asphalt has little in common with the chilled porcelain passivity of stars like Dietrich and Garbo . . ."

the empty guest room

The Martyrdom of Lulu: Louise Brooks at 100 — "If I ever bore you, it'll be with a knife."

documentary dormer

Cultural Equity: On the Documentary Lomax the Songhunter — "Every smallest branch of the human family at one time or another has carved its dreams out of the rock on which it has lived." (Alan Lomax)

film festival flying buttress

Less Is Less: The 44th New York Film Festival — Past trumps present in this unremarkable fest

Chicago, je t'aime: The 42nd Chicago International Film Festival — "There are things you shouldn't sell"

On the Prowl with MadCat: On the 2006 MadCat International Women's Film Festival — Provocative and visionary!

camp corner

Trailer Trash: Dumpster Diving with Jenni Olson — High camp in three minutes or less

interrogation antechamber

Cruising with Camille: An Interview with Camille Paglia — "Please note that even Margo Channing, threatening a 'bumpy night' for her hapless guests, merely fumingly forecasts. It's a gesture of mind, not body."

Returning to Life: Talking with Almodovar, Penelope Cruz, and Carmen Maura at Cannes — "I do not have the serenity of women. But I admire it."

What's Wrong with Fast Food? A Conversation with Richard Linklater and Eric Schlosser on Fast Food Nation — With additional comments by Catalina Sandino Moreno and Ethan Hawke

recent cinema roundabout

The Ant Bully: 3-D to the IMAX — When ants got big, and kids got small

The Departed: Crime All the Time — Scorsese gets all Irish on our asses, and it works

Doug McGrath's Infamous: The Best Truman Capote movie I've Seen All Year! — If you must see only one Truman Capote movie in your life, let it be this one

Hating Marie: Why the French Still Don't Like Her — Bring us the head of Sofia Coppola, 'k?

No Tobacco Juice, but Funny! Monster House, Rockin' in 3-D! — Bob Zemeckis and Stephen Spielberg want your money. Give it to them.

"We Still Have to Work Just as Hard as Before": Michael Glawogger's Workingman's Death — "The tourist says that it's a lot to carry and the worker agrees, then gets on with his work."

O Superman

Superman Returns I: Superheroes for the New Millennium — "This new millennium hero lives in a fortress of solitary and alienated hyper-masculinity."

Superman Returns II: Superman . . . Bush . . . Perry White . . . Karl Rove . . . — It's all here, including the "Mission Accomplished" moment

revival room

Train to Nowhere: On Renoir's La Bête Humaine — "Now it is a world of studio sets and the precise control of the effects of light and shadow."

Hairy on the Inside: Surrealism and Sexual Anxiety in Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves — "If there's a beast in men, it meets its match in women too."

Just Another Guy on the Lost Highway: Revisiting Two-Lane Blacktop — "It's not some metaphorical struggle between two mighty kings of the road. It's more like a self-deceiving ritual carried out by two of its prisoners."

vale of video

From Aaron Spelling's Vault of Horror: Charlie's Angels on DVD! — "I expect to be erect any time now."

Game Over, Curtains Close: The Creative Failure of Videogame Movies — Lost in translation