Author Tag Gallagher

Elder brother to John Ford, Francis Ford had a long and distinguished career – as actor, director, writer, producer – in his own right. His influence on the younger, and more famous, Ford was far more complex than first imagined.

The recent DVD release of White Dog gives Tag Gallagher cause to take stock of Fuller’s career and ponder what exactly it was that set him apart of other directors.

“Are the characters responsible for the emotions which destroy them? This is a secret that belongs to the heart and is the constant wonder of Day of Wrath.” With remarkable precision, Tag Gallagher extracts the passions that lie at the heart of Dreyer’s films.

Tag Gallagher notes that Pedro Costa describes his film on Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub, Où gît votre sourire enfoui?, as “anti-Straubian”. Gallagher offers a vibrant discussion of Costa’s cinema via the Straubs, and the Straubs’ cinema via Costa’s.

Illuminating discussion of the æsthetic and philosophical connections between King Vidor and the renowned American painter Andrew Wyeth.

Three legendary classical directors are put under the spotlight, and the results of Gallagher’s analysis are always illuminating and surprising.

Noted Ford scholar Tag Gallagher casts his gaze over this well worn 1939 classic and discovers further treasures in Ford’s poetic vision.

An exploration of the Straubs' majestic œuvre, countering much of the received dogma that has surrounded perception of their work.

An insightful reappraisal of the æsthetics of the great Hollywood director.

For Renoir, “first love” is an attitude toward life, in all its beauty and complexity.

The “amazing grace” of Rossellini's historical TV films.

“The essential Ford composition is a person acting freely within a geometric space,” writes Gallagher in this close look at the first half of a great and complex career.