June 11, 2013

This blog has moved

This blog has moved!

Please visit my newly created blog at http://filmfantomes.wordpress.com. I have moved all of my posts to this new site and will continue to post there from now on.

May 21, 2013

Return to Oz (1985, Walter Murch)

 
Return to Oz
1985|Walter Murch

Dorothy Gale follows the crumbled remnants of the yellow-brick road to the Emerald City of Oz. Shot from a low angle that foregrounds the disturbed bricks, she is a solitary figure dwarfed by the ruins around her, a subject in her own fractured fairy tale. This troubling sight is only a hint at the horrors Dorothy will find as she makes her second journey through the magical land. It’s an Oz quite unlike the one she (or the viewer) remembers, one bereft of color, music, and cheer.

April 9, 2013

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Theodor Dreyer)

 
The Passion of Joan of Arc
1928|Carl Theodor Dreyer

Renée Falconetti’s tear-streaked face held in intimate close-up. This image has become a cinematic icon worthy of the sainted Jeanne d’Arc herself. It is not, however, Jeanne’s sainthood that director Carl Theodor Dreyer is probing. Here she is separated from legend, neither God’s messenger nor a warrior, but a complicated woman of flesh and blood. All of her devotion, devastation, her stubbornness before her crafty judges, and her acceptance of her imminent death emanate from Falconetti’s expressive face, which is laid bare in a seemingly endless series of close-ups through which Dreyer brings us agonizingly close to Jeanne’s physical and emotional being.

February 11, 2013

West of Zanzibar (1928, Tod Browning)

 
West of Zanzibar
1928|Tod Browning

Lon Chaney slithers across the floor, his legs paralyzed from a fall, his heart blackened by betrayal. Eighteen years earlier, he was Phroso the Magician, a successful performer with a beautiful wife. But she left him for another man, only to die the following year after giving birth to a daughter. He has spent every day since then setting into motion a vicious revenge on the man and child who ruined his life, and now, gazing at the hence-grown girl, his hatred boils over.

January 22, 2013

The Bad Seed (1956, Mervyn LeRoy)

 
The Bad Seed
1956|Mervyn LeRoy

The little girl examines her reflection in the mirror, both pigtails neatly braided, her dress spotless and wrinkle-free. Outwardly, she presents the perfect image of a well-mannered 1950s schoolgirl. Perhaps a little too perfect. Look closer and you may notice the slight scowl in her brows, the subtle grimace on her face, or the cold gleam in her eyes when she espies something she desires. Before long, her carefully maintained façade melts away and reveals an eight-year-old sociopath, devoid of sympathy for other human beings and driven only by her own selfish whims.