Essay

There is, about two-thirds into Yasujiro Ozu’s I Was Born, But…, a cinematic mise-en-abyme: a triangulation of gazes between a father, his two sons, and his boss and coworkers, as they watch a home movie. In the film, a family of four moves to the suburbs as the father, Yoshii (Tatsuo Saito), takes … [Read more...] about I Was Born, But…

See how far yuh can throw it,” suggests the outlaw leader after mulling over what to do with an abandoned newborn. He and his two surviving accomplices from a bank holdup have stumbled across the infant with its dying mother in a lone covered wagon at a dry waterhole. Hell’s Heroes was far … [Read more...] about Hell’s Heroes

The year 1927 was a pivotal time for Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Both were seasoned comedy veterans, each with more than a decade’s experience in films and (in Laurel’s case) the vaudeville stage. Both were now ensconced at the celebrated Hal Roach studio. But 1927 was the year they were first … [Read more...] about The Laurel and Hardy Show!

By 1926, the studio system with its assembly-line like production of celluloid products was firmly in place. Critics and historians love to celebrate visionary, passionate filmmakers, but the studio system thrived for a reason, as Poker Faces demonstrates. It’s a well-crafted, comic programmer with … [Read more...] about Poker Faces

Precious few intertitles in the silent era, and just a handful of lines of dialogue across a near-century of “talkies,” are more portentous and heartrending than this: “François, the youngest son of the Lepic family, was born after the parents stopped loving each other.” And so we are introduced … [Read more...] about Poil de Carotte

“When you’re in New York, you’re in the whole world. There’s nothing you can’t find in New York,” Allan Dwan told interviewer Joe Adamson in 1979. “I always had a great respect for it. It’s a dirty place, it’s this and that, but it’s the place.”  East Side, West Side was Dwan’s valedictory ode to … [Read more...] about East Side, West Side