This special issue recognizes the work and legacy of Agnes Varda (1928-2019), a Belgian-born film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist whose work was part of the French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the wake of Varda's passing in March 2019, contributors offer reflections on the continued relevance of her work. ......
Winner, Best First Monograph, British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies In the 1980s and 1990s, John Hughes was one of Hollywood's most reliable hitmakers, churning out beloved teen comedies and family films such as The Breakfast Club and Home Alone, respectively. But was he an artist? Hughes, an adamantly commercial filmmaker ......
Werner Herzog's protean imagination has produced a filmography that is nothing less than a sustained meditation on the modern human condition. Though Herzog takes his topics from around the world, the Americas have provided the setting and subject matter for iconic works ranging from Aquirre, The Wrath of God, and Fitzcarraldo to Grizzly Man. ......
Ben Hecht had seen his share of death-row psychopaths, crooked ward bosses, and Capone gun thugs by the time he had come of age as a crime reporter in gangland Chicago. His grim experience with what he called "the soul of man" gave him a kind of uncanny foresight a decade later, when a loose cannon named Adolf Hitler began to rise to power in ......
Fans and critics alike perceive Wong Kar-wai (b. 1958) as an enigma. His dark glasses, his nonlinear narrations, and his high expectations for actors all contribute to an assumption that he only makes art for a few highbrow critics. However, Wong's interviews show this Hong Kong auteur is candid about the art of filmmaking, even surprising his ......
Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, True Grit - Joel and Ethan Coen make movies. They make movies that matter. But do these movies matter for religion? Coen is a masterful response to this question of religious significance that neither imposes alien orthodoxy nor consigns the Coens to religious insignificance. The ......
The classic study on the director of Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil, in an updated, revised edition
Prodigy. Iconoclast. Genius. Exile. Orson Welles remains one of the most discussed figures in cinematic history. In the centenary year of Welles's birth, James Naremore presents a revised third ......
Acclaimed as one of the most influential and innovative American directors, Francis Ford Coppola is also lionized as a maverick auteur at war with Hollywood's power structure and an ardent critic of the postindustrial corporate America it reflects. However, Jeff Menne argues that Coppola exemplifies the new breed of creative corporate person and ......
Called the most important British filmmaker of his generation, Terence Davies made his reputation with modern classics like Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, personal works exploring his fractured childhood in Liverpool. His idiosyncratic and unorthodox narrative films defy easy categorization; though they would seem to exist ......
