Great Movies
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Don't Forget Your Place: On Joseph Losey's The Servant
A closer look at Joseph Losey's 1963 film, which has just been given a 4K release by the Criterion Collection.
A closer look at Joseph Losey's 1963 film, which has just been given a 4K release by the Criterion Collection.
Deborah Kampmeier on "Hounddog"; Today's reductive emotional landscape; Not a reboot, a repackaging; Riding tall on a rebellion frontier; When brown actors play white characters.
Marie writes: Widely regarded as THE quintessential Art House movie, "Last Year at Marienbad" has long since perplexed those who've seen it; resulting in countless Criterion-esque essays speculating as to its meaning whilst knowledge of the film itself, often a measure of one's rank and standing amongst coffee house cinephiles. But the universe has since moved on from artsy farsty French New Wave. It now prefers something braver, bolder, more daring...
The 60s were a rough transition for America. Major shifts seemed to be occurring in every fabric of society from civil rights to sexual mores. The worsening course of the Vietnam war fueled distrust in political institutions. Women's rights highlighted a breaking from oppressive traditions. The old seemed to be fading away more radically than ever before.
Like the era it was made in, "Hud" was a key shift. As film critic Emmanuel Levy correctly puts it, it is "a transitional film between the naive films of the early 60s and the more cynical ones later in the decade." Though it plays as a compelling drama of small town life and family tribulation, through its lens of father-son conflict, it also captures the angst in the loss of authority, the gap between of two different generations, and an elegy for the good ole' days.
The Chicago International Film Festival turns 21 in 1985, and as its birthday approaches, these are some memories from its long coming-of-age:
James Wong Howe settled himself into a swivel chair on the stage of the Carnegie Theater, looked around, and asked it they could turn the house lights up. That's Jimmy Howe for you: Before you shoot a scene, you light it first.
