In approximately a decade’s time, if not slightly longer, Nicholas Ray directed a corpus of artistically successful films comparable to William Wyler’s run of exceptional movies in the 1940s and 1950s, to Yasujiro Ozu’s mature work from 1949 to 1962, and to Jean-Luc Godard’s cinematic Read More …
Appreciation coming. Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard Produced by: Alain Sarde Ruth Waldburger Written by: Jean-Luc Godard Music by: Cinematography by: Julien Hirsch Christophe Pollock Editing by: Raphaele Urtin Release Date: 2001 Running Time: 97 Language: French Arts & Faith Lists: 2010 Top 100 — #94 Read More …
This dark comedy from Joel & Ethan Coen is a distillation of some of the duo’s most potent themes. Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is our Job figure, a physics professor in suburban Minneapolis who finds his life falling apart both personally and professionally. The principle Read More …
Grief is messy. It is also one of the most powerful emotions that we experience as humans. It can cut across racial, political, and religious lines, uniting us in a tragically common experience. Historically, the Arts & Faith Top 100 has tended to privilege films Read More …
The third feature by Colombian director Ciro Guerra, Embrace of the Serpent calls to mind Roland Joffe’s The Mission, with its story of colonial exploitation of South American tribes. Its brink of insanity, hallucinatory vividness is reminiscent of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, the Wrath of God. But Embrace of the Serpent is Read More …
From the first Arts & Faith Top 100 list in 2004, voters have wrestled with and disputed the meaning of “Spiritually Significant.” When discussing what makes a film spiritually significant, seemingly the only constant has been that it means something other than craftsmanship or artistry. Sight & Read More …
As we discuss what makes a film spiritually significant, the concepts of truth and beauty are often at the center of our conversations. Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion is not just a film that presents truth and beauty; it is about truth and beauty. The film appears to Read More …
Jonathan Demme’s 1984 concert film, Stop Making Sense, begins simple enough. Talking Heads front man David Byrne walks onto a bare stage and places a boombox on the ground. “Hi, I got a tape I wanna play you,” he quips. Byrne turns on the stereo and Read More …
Drawing upon a semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, Isao Takahata’s animated masterwork Grave of the Fireflies tells the story of two orphans caught in the middle of the firebombing that decimated the cities of Japan in the final months of World War Two. Seita is in Read More …
Chariots of Fire, based on the story of British Olympians Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell, won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1981. The film stretches the boundaries of both the biopic and sports genres as it presents a series of vignettes from the Read More …