Film
David Thomson on Films: ‘Jane Eyre’
TNR Film Classic: 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' (1958)
For about half the picture, the hero of The Bridge on the River Kwai is a British Colonel (Alec Guiness) whose depth of courage and sense of duty is at once touching, magnificent, and comic. Part of the success of The Bridge is that its courageous hero is shown from all angles, in all kinds of mirrors. He is strong, stubborn, fallible, maniacal, silly, and wise; and in the end he is pathetic, noble, and foolish. READ MORE >>
David Thomson on Films: ‘The Conspirator’
TNR Film Classic: 'A Sea of Grass' (1947)
I find my feeling for Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn is a mixture of personal respect and professional regret. I’ve admired them for years, and would still rather watch them than any other team on the screen, but in The Sea of Grass it seems wasteful to let two such good, attractive actors wander through a lavish production like thoroughbred somnambulists. READ MORE >>
Remembering Sidney Lumet (1924-2011)
Prolific American film director Sidney Lumet died late last week at the age of 86. He was nominated for five Oscars and won an honorary award from the Academy in 2005. His first film, directed in 1957, was 12 Angry Men; his last, from 2007, was Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. Over five decades, The New Republic's film critic Stanley Kauffmann reviewed dozens of Lumet's films. Here, we present four of those reviews. READ MORE >>
