Some topics — slavery, war, genocide — are so massive in scope that attempts to represent them in a single work of art risks coming across as … hubristic … naive …. maybe even scandalous. But it is the eternal struggle of art and artists Read More …
Money, not sex, is the great seducing idol of contemporary civilization. The most profound epiphany of Lauren Greenfield’s masterpiece is how often wealth and privilege weaken rather than empower us. What could easily have been a wry satire about excess begins with David and Jackie Read More …
Here is what most depictions of late-twentieth-century religion get wrong. They tend to try to frame the story of health-and-wealth gospels and televangelists within traditional, even ancient, tropes. The materialist Christians are swindlers or conmen, like Harry Powell (Night of the Hunter), Elmer Gantry, or Read More …
Despite its sobering themes, Hoop Dreams is a deeply inspiring film. The movie is ostensibly a documentary about two young men’s pipe dream to reach the NBA, but it’s really a movie about the importance of perseverance and faith in the face of adversity. Throughout Read More …
Like Leni Riefenstahl’s better-known Triumph of the Will, this is a war film commissioned by the director’s government. Unlike Riefenstahl, though, John Houston make a film the government didn’t care for, and Let There Be Light was suppressed for several decades. Its portrayal of Post Read More …
If life is what happens while you are making other plans, great documentaries are often those that result from sudden and unexpected navigational shifts. Nowhere is that more evident than in the films of Barbara Kopple. A profile of the Dixie Chicks takes on new Read More …
Were I to be catapulted one hundred years into the future, I would not be surprised to find the critical history of the twentieth century bookended by Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis and Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet. The critical reputation of both works is propelled by Read More …
Based on Ernest Gordon’s Through the Valley of the Kwai (which also served as a basis for Lean’s The Bridge over the River Kwai), To End All Wars directly engages the spiritual battles faced by Japanese prisoners of war. The film asks–in the most extreme of examples–what forgiveness really means Read More …
Like the Bible itself, Franco Zeffirelli’s epic, ambitious made-for-television Jesus of Nazareth is often experienced in bits and pieces over the years, and is commonly better known in isolated parts than in its lengthy whole. Viewed as a whole, Jesus of Nazareth may or may not be the best Read More …
