Jonathan Rosenbaum's Blog: jonathanrosenbaum.com, page 47

Othello Goes Hollywood

From the Chicago Reader (April 10, 1992); also reprinted in two my collections, Placing Movies and Discovering Orson Welles. — J.R.


OTHELLO
**** (Masterpiece)
Directed and written by Orson Welles
With Orson Welles, Micheal Mac Liammoir, Suzanne Cloutier, Robert Coote, Fay Compton, Doris Dowling, and Michael Laurence.
Sustained until death at 70 by his fame as the prodigy with the [...]

Lonesome

The following was one of a dozen or more profusely illustrated pieces that I wrote for a London periodical in 1982 called The Movie, specifically for issue no. 117; some of these articles were later recycled into a series of coffee-table books devoted to various decades in film history, but not this one, which I’ve [...]

Mixed Emotions (BREAKING THE WAVES)

From the Chicago Reader (December 6, 1996). - J.R.




























































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Breaking the Waves
Rating *** A must see
Directed and written by
Lars von Trier
With Emily Watson, Stellan
Skarsgard, Katrin Cartlidge,
Jean-Marc Barr, Adrian Rawlins,
Jonathan Hackett, and Udo Kier.

Ever since I first encountered Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves in Cannes, where it won the [...]

A Free Man [Clint Eastwood’s WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART]

Posted in Moving Image Source, December 1, 2009. This is the second time I wrote at length about White Hunter, Black Heart, and this essay was reprinted in Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinema; the earlier piece, written 19 years earlier, is available here. — J.R.


“It’s the film of a free man.” Roberto Rossellini’s celebrated defense [...]

Lout of Africa [WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HUNTER]

From the Chicago Reader (September 28, 1990). This is the first time I wrote at length at what is still my favorite Eastwood film; the second time was many years later, and that piece can be found here. — J.R.

WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART
**** (Masterpiece)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by Peter Viertel, James Bridges, and Burt [...]

WILL THE REAL NORMAN MAILER PLEASE STAND UP (1975 review)

From Monthly Film Bulletin, September 1975, Vol. 42, No. 500.

It’s good to see Norman Mailer’s first three features just out in a two-disc DVD set from Eclipse (it would be great if Criterion could eventually do the same for Susan Sontag’s three fiction features), even though I regret that my two favorite Mailer films [...]

The Nasty Woody [ANYTHING ELSE]

From the Chicago Reader (September 26, 2003). — J.R.

Anything Else
* (Has redeeming facet)
Directed and written by Woody Allen
With Jason Biggs, Christina Ricci, Allen, Stockard Channing, Danny DeVito, Jimmy Fallon, and Diana Krall.
The least valuable criticism we have of Charlie Chaplin maintains that he was a tremendously gifted comic until he started taking himself too [...]

STAVISKY (production story)

From Sight and Sound (Winter 1973/4). For a subsequent production story about this film written for Film Comment, devoted mainly to a day of studio shooting, go here. –- J.R.



Since the beginning of October, Alain Resnais has been shooting Stavisky, his first feature since Je t’aime, je t’aime (1968). ‘When Jorge Semprurn first spoke to [...]

Feast From the East [Oshima’s GOHATTO]

This originally appeared in the January 10, 2001 issue of the Chicago Reader. It seems worth reprinting now as a kind of adjunct to my recent overview piece about Oshima, written for Artforum.–J.R.

Taboo
****
Directed and written by Nagisa Oshima
With Beat Takeshi (Takeshi Kitano), Ryuhei Matsuda, Shinji Takeda, Tadanobu Asano, and Yoichi Sai.
By Jonathan Rosenbaum

Mark your calendars. [...]

Review of FILM AS FILM

From Sight and Sound (Summer 1973). – J.R.


FILM AS FILM: Understanding and Judging Movies

By V.F. Perkins


PENGUIN BOOKS, 35p



Responding polemically to some of the more antiquated notions found in Rotha, Lindgren, Manvell, Arnheim and others, the title of Victor Perkins’ short and engaging book carries a sympathetic resonance. A major part of his enterprise is [...]