Letter from Nile Southern on his father, Terry Southern’s, contribution to Easy Rider. And, Bernard Eisenschitz’s letter alerts us to more of value on Eric Rohmer.
IN THIS ISSUE:
On the evidence of this absorbing and articulate interview alone, Dominik Graf is worthy of being better know outside the borders of the German speaking world. He not only offers insights into his own filmmaking practice and aesthetic, but also a range of fascinating observations covering the last forty or so years of German cinema and cultural history.
In their our words a number of individuals closely associated with the Berlin School offer a informed panorama of ideas regarding the history, aesthetics and cultural politics of a ‘movement’ that offers much to a new understanding of contemporary German cinema.
With a long and distinguished body of writing to his name, Thomas Elsaesser is justly recognised as one of the foremost film historians and critical theorists of his generation. Drehli Robnik examines the rich tapestry of ideas that informs his work.
An apartment, several women, and much angst make up the elements to one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s most alluring and contentious films.
Above all the body, in all its carnality, grotesqueness, obsceneness and pain, informs Reygada’s films, but so too the spirituality, religiousness and poetry of the cinema of Carl Dreyer, Robert Bresson and Andrei Tarkovsky.
The DVD Men of Israel has put gay porn magnate Michael Lucas on the map in a major way, and as Max Cavitch argues, “It’s a DVD that tempts viewers to peer across the porn/non-porn audience divide precisely because it rivets attention to other kinds of boundaries—especially those that define the contemporary Middle East and the lives of its sexual minorities and of gay men in particular.”
Essentially a film about failure, Arthur Penn’s 1975 film comes closest to best capturing the haunting malaise that descended on post-Watergate America. Bruce Jackson takes a fresh look at a detective film without ultimate answers.
Pedro Blas Gonzalez discusses Ray Bradbury’s novel and François Truffaut’s 1966 film in equal measure, and argues that as “studies of a type of human temperament that revolves around an anti-humanism that prides itself in destruction” they remain as prescient as ever.
Ironically enough, Louise Brooks’ real fame arrived many years after abandoning her acting career. Robert Farmer analyses the life, the films and the screen persona of an actress who was turned into an icon of modernity.
What is the particular dynamic at play in films featuring movie-going? Adrian Danks explores the film-within-a-film mode in range of movies, everything from Sullivan’s Travels to Vivre sa vie and more.
Can a producer be considered an auteur? Possibly not, but Tom Stempel offers insights in to how Zanuck’s personal view of American history stamped the many films he produced during his reign as a studio mogul.
A few issues back Senses published Tag Gallagher’s exhaustive career study of producer/director/actor Francis Ford. Picking up the thread, Charles Barr offers a discussion on his acting roles in brother John’s films.
Jane Mills makes a number of telling observations about some shared traits between the art of maps and the cinema, and furthermore, dissects the narrative, cultural and ideological function of the many maps in Baz Luhrman’s film.
