Film
The Gospel According to St. Steven
Past Masters
Hope From The Past?
What's going to happen in film? The question recurs--and not only in this column--for assorted reasons, econommic and cultural. It's not arbitrarily a gloomy question: possibly, in the long run, we're just going to have to ask it under different aspects, toward different ends. But in a shorter long-range view, we ask it in terms of directors. Just as the question about the state of the theater usually means: "What important new playwrights are there?" so the question about film implies: "What important new directors are there?" READ MORE >>
Exteriors
Arts and Lives
The Films in My Lifeby Francois Truffaut(Simon & Schuster, $12.50) READ MORE >>
TNR Film Classic: 'Dog Day Afternoon' (1975)
Dog Day Afternoon (Warner Bros.) At least once a week there's something in the newspapers that is believable only because it actually happened. And in the current strained relation between fact and fiction in our culture, fictionmakers of prose and film sometimes let life do the inventing for them, then use fictional techniques of conviction on the nearly incredible material. The producer Martin Bregman sponsored Serpico (TNR, Jan. 19, 1974) which was made in that impulse; out of the same impulse he now presents the much-superior Dog Day Afternoon. READ MORE >>
Monty Python and the Holy Grail Cinema 5 The Invitation Janus READ MORE >>
TNR Film Classics: ‘Gone With the Wind’ (January 25, 1975)
Why I'm Not Bored
TNR Film Classics: ‘The Exorcist’ (February 9, 1974)
I dragged my feet about going to The Exorcist because of the gimmicky subject, and the adverse reviews I saw made me purr at my prevision. But this film about the diabolic possession of a 12-year-old girl has become such a huge hit that I thought I ought to grit what’s left of my teeth and investigate. I’m glad I did. In this case, anyway, vox populi vox diaboli. READ MORE >>
