F for Fake is ostensibly a film about Elmyr de Hory, an art forger who produced paintings soseemingly authentic that they fooled the best art critics in the West. His paintings, director Orson Welles claims, are still featured in certain unnamed museums. The film also Read More …
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 like 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 …
Amidst the wash of imagery and sound in Terrence Malick’s film is a portrayal of humanity’s search for meaning and grace. The parallels between the journey of Christian Bale’s Rick through the bacchanalia of contemporary America and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress are stated quite clearly, but Read More …
A quote attributed to Chesterton, although heavily paraphrased from his original words, reads: “Fairytales do not tell children that dragons exist; children already know dragons exist. Fairytales tell children that dragons can be killed.” Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro’s fairytale for adults, reminds us of the Read More …