‘Tis the season for year-end “best of” lists, so we thought we’d play along with a focus on our favorite home video releases of 2017. A few ground rules – we’re valuing the merits of the release, not simply the movie, so there is an emphasis on discs that offer valuable extras and those that…
Author: MidCenturyCinema
50 Years Ago This Week – In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood, an adaptation of Truman Capote’s critically acclaimed and wildly successful book, premiered in New York City on December 14 1967. The book, a milestone in the “true crime” genre (and, even more important, in the accomplished narrative non-fiction genre of the period that includes Norman Mailer’s Pulitzer-prize winning Armies of the Night),…
News and Commentary – Art and Artists: Where We Stand
Can we treasure the work of artists whose behavior we vehemently disapprove of? Our short answer is yes. But keep reading. This is a question that must be reckoned with nowadays, given the recent (and continuing) avalanche of simply horrifying revelations of sexual harassment, and often much, much worse, by prominent, powerful men. Many of…
News and Commentary – Martin Scorsese: The New Hollywood Years
Martin Scorsese turned seventy-five on November 17, a milestone that naturally lends itself to looking back at his remarkable career. (Though, we hasten to add, not in a valedictory way—he is currently working on one film, has another in pre-production, and plans are already taking shape for the one after that.) Given that Scorsese’s overflowing…
50 Years Ago This Week – Scorsese’s Debut Feature
November 15, 1967 marked another milestone for the emerging New Hollywood—the premiere of Martin Scorsese’s first feature film at the 1967 Chicago International Film Festival. Not that this was obvious at the time. The movie, then with the title I Call First, had been shooting in fits and starts over several years as its not-quite-shoestring budget…
News and Commentary – Bob Dylan: Trouble. No. More.
The release of the spectacular Trouble No More provides a fitting moment for our third Bob-post of retrospectives following Dylan receiving the 2016 Nobel Prize for literature. The first included a general overview and guidelines for following his Bob-ness; the second featured our user’s guide to (almost) all of his studio albums; here, as previously…
50 Years Ago This Week – Melville’s Le Samouraï
Le Samouraï, the tenth feature film of Mid Century Cinema favorite Jean Pierre Melville, had its premiere in France on October 25, 1967. Over the years it has come to be seen as the representative Melville film, and for many, their favorite of his thirteen movies. It is indeed a masterpiece; and one that is…
News and Commentary – First Thoughts about Ismael’s Ghosts
This weekend your intrepid correspondent was able to see Ismael’s Ghosts, the most recent offering from Arnaud Desplechin, at the New York Film Festival. An earlier, shorter cut had received mixed notices at Cannes, but we were eager to attend, both in anticipation of the screening and for the promised Q&A with the director that…
News and Commentary – Jean-Pierre Melville 100!
Mid Century Cinema favorite Jean-Pierre Melville would have turned 100 on October 20, and his centennial has led to countless celebratory retrospectives, as well as, it would appear, the forging of The Jean Pierre Melville Foundation. We would say it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy—but that would be wrong of us, as he was,…
News and Commentary – Bookshelf: Truffaut on Cinema
Truffaut on Cinema is nothing short of a treasure for movie-lovers. François Truffaut sat for about 300 interviews between 1959 and 1984, and every last one of them is collected in this book—and presented with a rather ingenious twist. The interviews were compiled and reorganized by Anne Gillain, and as reassembled the book proceeds thematically,…