Despair (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978) Martyn Bamber April 2021 CTEQ Annotations on Film Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s first English language film Despair (1978) is a fascinating entry in his filmography: while it is set in Germany, it is his first film in English, with iconic English actor Dirk Bogar...
Murder, Mystery & Music: “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” in Gumnaam (1965) Martyn Bamber October 2020 Pop Music in Film Seeing the murder mystery thriller Gumnaam (The Unknown, Raja Nawathe, 1965) for the first time this year, the film’s opening song and dance number is a standout pop music sequence. Gumnaam starts with two murd...
A Man from the Boulevard des Capucines (Chelovek s bulvara Kaputsinov, Alla Surikova, 1987) Martyn Bamber October 2020 CTEQ Annotations on Film While the Western is primarily known as an American cinematic institution, this has not stopped other countries from enthusiastically embracing the genre, the most notable being Italy with the ‘Spaghetti’ Weste...
Les Enfants Terribles (Jean-Pierre Meville, 1950) Martyn Bamber July 2020 CTEQ Annotations on Film Writing about Les Enfants Terribles in mid-2020 during a global pandemic, it is tempting to draw parallels between the seclusion of real-world citizens in their homes and the self-imposed isolation of the film’...
Solitary Cinéastes: Filmmakers and Filmmaking in Isolation Martyn Bamber July 2020 Cinema in the Age of COVID “A repetition of identical days, the only variant of which is the cinephile menu”. – Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle (Just Don't Think I'll Scream, Frank Beauvais, 2019) “Si les temps sont durs et mauvais...
Kiss Me, Stupid (Billy Wilder, 1964) Martyn Bamber April 2020 CTEQ Annotations on Film Skewering celebrity vanity, the allure of success and the obsession with fame, Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) takes a long, hard look at these subjects and is simultaneously fascinated and appalled, amused and aghast a...
The Servant (Joseph Losey, 1963) Martyn Bamber April 2020 CTEQ Annotations on Film The subject of The Servant (1963) is the English class system and its tensions in swinging sixties London. The battleground for this class struggle is mainly confined to a single location, a house owned by Tony...
The Old Dark House: Cinemagoing in the age of streaming Martyn Bamber October 2019 This is what defined cinema in the 2010s How has cinema changed over the last 10 years? This question is not about the art or business of cinema; it refers to the cinemagoing experience itself. Arguably, the movement that has had – and continues to ha...
The Terence Davies Trilogy (Terence Davies, 1976/1980/1983) Martyn Bamber October 2019 CTEQ Annotations on Film The autobiographical films of Terence Davies are not simply nostalgic journeys into the director’s past; they are piercing insights into the filmmaker’s turbulent early life. While Distant Voices, Still Lives (...
A New Leaf (Elaine May, 1971) Martyn Bamber July 2019 CTEQ Annotations on Film Elaine May’s film directing debut, A New Leaf (1971) is a pitch-black comedy centred on Henry Graham (Walter Matthau), an affluent, self-absorbed bachelor, who finds his expensive lifestyle in jeopardy due to h...
Early Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, 1956) Martyn Bamber March 2019 CTEQ Annotations on Film Sōshun (Early Spring, 1956) follows Yasujirō Ozu’s classic Tōkyō monogatari (Tokyo Story, 1953) in continuing to develop the director’s characteristic themes, including the demands of family life, the maintenan...
Moontide (Archie Mayo & Fritz Lang, 1942) Martyn Bamber October 2018 CTEQ Annotations on Film Emerging from a troubled production history, Moontide seems overlooked in the annals of film history in general, and the story of 20th Century-Fox in particular. For instance, the entry on Moontide in The Films...