Lisa Lieberman's Blog, page 7

Dinner at Eight

The film features Jean Harlow as the sexy, manipulative, and cheating wife of a crooked businessman. You won’t believe what a bad girl she is!

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Holiday

“Holiday” was made in 1938, the same year as the much better known Grant and Hepburn film, “Bringing Up Baby.” This one’s a romantic comedy too, but it’s got an edge.

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Rome Open City

But for all of the picture’s authentic, documentary feel, despite the deaths and betrayals, and notwithstanding the brutal scene of torture that we, along with Don Pietro, are made to witness, “Rome Open City” is a surprisingly uplifting film. Its message, in Rossellini’s own words, was that the German Occupation brought out the best in Italians, purifying them of the taint of collaboration with an evil regime...

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Albert Camus on Algeria

The NYT Book Review published a wonderful review of Camus's Algerian Chronicles, a collection of his writings on the intractable battle between the French government and Algerian nationalists in his native country -- and on all those trapped between the warring factions.

Here's an excerpt:

Even more eloquent, perhaps, are his remarks on the responsibility of intellectuals in times of hatred: “It is to explain the meaning of words in such a way as to sober minds and calm fanaticisms.” Great writer that he was, Camus placed hope in the calming power of language carefully used, and of reason; in the preface, he asks his readers to “set their ideological reflexes aside for a moment and just think.”

My own essay, Dirty War, explores Camus's dilemma in the context of postwar French history.

Stagecoach

John Wayne, where are you when we need you?

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The Maltese Falcon

In Appreciation of Roger Ebert...

Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet: I love those guys! Bogey playing the hard-boiled-on-the-outside

The Battle of Algiers

In honor of "Dirty War," my new title on Now and Then Reader.

The shock value of “The Battle of Algiers” did not reside in its revelation of French brutality, difficult as the scenes of torture are to view. I think it was the film’s glorification of revolution...

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Enfants du paradis

The screenwriter of “Enfants du paradis,” poet Jacques Prévert, claimed that cinema and poetry were the same thing. After last night’s Oscar ceremony, that may seem hard to believe.

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A Touch of Evil

When I heard that today is Zsa Zsa Gabor’s 96th birthday, I was motivated to finish my review of “A Touch of Evil,” Orson Welles’s fascinating swan song as a director. You can understand why this was the last film he was allowed to direct...
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Love

“Love” is such a quiet, private film, you’d never guess it was a political statement — and a dangerous one at that. So dangerous that the Hungarian government would not allow the director...
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