“In this world, a man, himself, is nothin’. And there aint no world but this one.” If you’ve read the blog this past week, you’ll have some idea of why I’ve chosen Terrence Malick‘s The Think Red Line for this week’s CineFile post. There is that crushing illusion in which war between states and armed […]
CineFile: Mothers, Sons, & Political Paranoia
In the 1950s there really was a communist threat. It just wasn’t in the United States, even though there were surely many more American communist supporters and sympathizers then than there are Americans today who are supporters of any form of Islamism. Even then Joe McCarthy claimed that there were communists in the Pentagon, and […]
CineFile – Paths of Glory
Stanley Kubrick‘s first masterwork, an essential artistic consideration of the political nature of war. One of the defining performances of Kirk Douglas’s career. This is the execution scene, of three French soldiers during the First World War chosen at random, yet with bias, for trial on trumped up charges of cowardice because of the failure […]
CineFile: The Birth of Cool Hand
The emblematic performance of Paul Newman‘s career. The scene that gave the character his name. Too little recognized is Stuart Rosenberg‘s directing accomplishment, that gratifying work of assured artistry that only some journeymen get to achieve. Note here how the characters are arranged around the table, where and how Kennedy stands in relation to Newman, […]