CITIZEN KANE (1941) There’s no enjoyment in reverence. The scholar who’s forced into study, be it of War and Peace or Creamy Juggs Quarterly, is pressing upon himself an innate resistance to the material and an assumption of its superiority. Citizen Kane has held such an alienating authority for so long that the best it …
YOJIMBO (1961) Kurosawa had wanted to do a film like Yojimbo for a long time. A story not of good vs. evil, but of evil vs. evil with a hero stepping in and wiping out both sides. He finally settled on a story clearly inspired by Dashiell Hammet’s Red Harvest and The Glass Key. Since …
El Gran Calavera was Bunuel’s second film he directed in Mexico. The film was written by Janet and Luis Alcoriza based on Adolfa Torrado’s stageplay, produced by Oscar Dancigers and Fernando Soler, and photographed by Ezeuquiel Carassco. This comedy of manners is a step-up from Bunuel’s previous film, Gran Casino, and introduced some of the …
THE BAD SLEEP WELL (1960) Kurosawa had reached a point where he had been given the opportunity to form his own production company. This development carried with it enormous responsibility, particularly financial, but Kurosawa didn’t want to make a squarely commercial film right out of the gate. He wanted to make something of social significance, …