Film Persona

  Reinaldo Marcus Green's "King Richard" "King Richard" is a sports biopic about the father of two tennis champions, Venus and Serena Williams. Green's vision is that of a traditionally shot sports biopic. However, one important thing to note is that the typical framework of a sports biopic consists of a 'downfall' for the protagonists that ultimately challenge them to go the extra mile to make them great. However, the atheletes never take a tumble, and are ultimately ascended to the top with no skirts along the way, other than their destructive father. Even though his plan 'worked,' the protagonist, played brilliantly by Will Smith, is both the hero and villian of this story.  At times you cheer on his unyielding determination, other times you curse him for his meddeling. It is an interesting examination of the protagonist, as the viewpoint of the film seems to shift between how he is holding the girls back, and how he is ensuring their succ...

  Josef von Sternberg's "Blonde Venus" "Blonde Venus" was the fifth of seven collaborations between Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich. Sternberg had difficulties getting the film made, especially through the new Motion Picture Production Code. The script was originally written by Marlene Dietrich in collaboration with Sternberg. However, through the newfound censorship codes, their story was watered down to satisfy the sensors. After writer Jules Furthman completely reworked the script, Dietrich and Sternberg no longer held interest with the story, as it was completely transformed into something else. That being said, this attempt by the two appears as more of a confusing piece, with the characters not making logical decisions and story beats not hitting. 

Josef von Sternberg's "Shanghai Express" Josef von Sternberg's "Shanghai Express" is about a group of international passengers making their way to Shanghai on the Shanghai Express that is eventually highjacked by radical Chinese revolutionaries. The plot of the film minutely matters to the artistic expression of light, shadow, reflection, surfaces, etc.  It becomes readily apparent at the beginning of the film that the primary artistic confection of the film is that of artifice. All of the characters are well-to-do passengers who are all unique. They all appear to be from varying countries. However, this variance is what displays the artifice of their personas. The rich woman who pretentiously denigrates the 'less respectable" members of the train is just an example of the feigned sense of ego and pretention that permeates the high class passengers. All of the characters are like warped personas of actual people, all adhering to strict beliefs and w...

  Kenneth Branagh's "Belfast" Kenneth Branagh's most personal film in his oeuvre, "Belfast" seems to take inspiration from Alfonso Cuaron's 2018 masterpiece "Roma." Both films are about existential issues that plague a character during a period of civil unrest while they are coming of age in their home country. "Belfast" is a love letter to Branagh's home town, his childhood, and his family. The film is filled with brief respites of love and community in between moments of harsh conflict between neighborhoods. Branagh chooses black-and-white cinematography (much like Cuaron's Roma) to enhance the feeling of this picture being a memory.  In Branagh's onscreen childhood, he is constantly watching films, either on the big screen or on television. And it's hard not to have the rest of the film filtered through this perspective of film tropes. Whether it be the dramatic moment his mother uses a shield to protect them agains...

  Josef von Sternberg's "Morocco" After the success of "The Blue Angel," Josef von Sternberg took Marlene Dietrich to Hollywood to become Paramount's newest acting sensation. The first film that American audiences saw of Dietrich was 1930's "Morocco." The film would go on to have critical and commercial success and even saw von Sternberg getting nominated for Best Director and Dietrich for Best Actress. The film itself is known for having taboo sequences, including a scene in which Dietrich dresses as a man for a performances and even kisses another woman. The film would go on to make Dietrich the newest Hollywood 'it' girl. Morocco was also well known for its accurate depiction of the North African country. The Moroccan government even ran ads in the New York Times inviting American tourists to come and be seduced by the great country just as Gary Cooper did in the film.  Morocco tells the story of a world weary Chanteuse named Amy Jol...

  Rebecca Hall's "Passing" Rebecca Hall's directorial debut is a 2021 feature that has been adapted from Nella Larsen's 1929 novel of the same name. Hall employs very specific directional techniques to orchestrate a quiet, contemplative piece that stirs in its own complexity.  The black and white approach is interesting for the subject matter. We find that our characters, on the surface, are living in a black and white world. However, as the story progresses you find that things are not black and white at all. Things are rather grey. All of the characters have very complex emotionality, and can't quite pinpoint exactly what they want out of life, except that they just want to feel safe. Also, the black and white really presents everyone's skin tone with a varying degree of grey. This makes the petty difference between characters seem that much more absurd.  The lack of a score is interesting as well, as we are more in a meditative state of the comings and ...

  Josef von Sternberg's "The Blue Angel" Adapted from Herman Mann's 1905 novel, "Professor Unrat (Professor Filth)," "The Blue Angel" is a 1930 masterpiece directly by Josef von Sternberg. Many of Mann's narratives were abandoned by Sternberg, as he kept only the story involving a high-class authoritarian bourgeois professor falling for a cabaret singer. During filming, Sternberg altered dialogue, added scenes, and modified characterizations that gave the script an entirely new dimension. He was formally requested by Berlin's UFA Studios and by the film's attached star, Emil Jennings - who Sternberg worked with previously on his 1928 film, "The Last Command." Sternberg also personally casted the role of the cabaret singer after extensive searching. He settled on Marlene Dietrich, who was a complete unknown at the time. After her performance in this film, her and Sternberg went to Hollywood together and created a run of 6 films...

  Michael Showalter's "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" Michael Showalter's newest film projects finds him adapting the 2000 documentary "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" into feature film. The protagonist, Tammy, is played ingeniously by Jessica Chastain. Tammy's story is essentially a rise and fall story. We experience her rise to megachurch stardom, followed by her downfall brought about by her husband's money laundering. Chastain plays Tammy as being pure of heart - trying to find acceptance from others through accepting others themselves. Showalter demonstrates the negatives and positives that come with Tammy's unabashed acceptance. Through her acceptance of her husband and the church's deceptions, she ends up taking advantage of her viewers, funnelling their donations to afford her affluent lifestyle. However, her acceptance also allows her to be a good role model, as she fights for acceptance for the gay community suffering from the AIDs epidemic. Micha...

  Chloe Zhao's "Eternals" With Chloe Zhao's very distinctive directing style, you would not think her vision would fit a Marvel movie. You would be partially correct. Eternals is a very ambitious film and does some great things. However, it still is stuck in the confines of a big-budget blockbuster with the purposes of crowd pleasing.  One thing Zhao does well in all her films is ground the characters in their own unique environmental vistas. There are touches of this happening in Eternals. The locations that surround the protagonists are varied both in location and in style. Between the action, Zhao allows us to take a moment to soak in the naturalism surrounding the characters.  One noteworthy aspect of the film and Zhao's script is the exestential theme. The characters reach a point in the story where their entire purpose has been revealed to them. This purpose is to essentially be used as a tool for a God's grand scheme. Upon learning of their own inconseq...

  Cate Shortland's "Black Widow" Cate Shortland's "Black Widow" tells the story of Natasha reuniting with her long lost family. Although they are not her biological family, they were the closest thing. Even if the structural framework and dialouge of the film is true to the Marvel format, there are a couple of interesting things Shortland does.  The film seems to lean more into a typical 'action' film. One particular scene, the fight and chase sequences in Budapest, resemble something more akin to a Jason Bourne film. This is done with action occuring in tight spaces while a handheld camera is used. The only detraction to this (as well as for the rest of the film) is that both Natasha and her 'sister' Yelena appear invincible as they are falling great lengths and crashing their car without taking much damage. Other scenes, like the prison rescue scene, seem to resemble a sort of 90s action style, with big set pieces, a helicopter, and stylist...

  Josef von Sternberg's "The Docks of New York" Josef von Sternberg's "The Docks of New York" tells the story of a coal stoker named Bill who spends the night in a bar on a New York dock while he awaits works the next day. There, he saves the life of a prostitute named Mae who tries to drown herself. For the rest of the night, the two of them fall in love and even get married. Sternberg creates a lurid atmosphere for the film, providing dark and eerie lighting and mise-en-scene for the dock scenes. These scene directly contrast with the bright and light atmosphere of the inside of the bar, where everyone is partying and having a good time. The darkness and fog of the dark outside is used by Sternberg to illustrate a dark and troubled world. This troubled world deeply affects the characters who inhabit it. Bill spends his days slaving away shoveling coal and Mae spends her days prostituting herself. The use of lighting provides the necessary landscape in orde...

Josef von Sternberg's "The Last Command" After the major success of 1927's "Underworld," Josef von Sternberg was given free reign by Paramount to make whatever picture he liked. With this free reign, he chose a script by Lajos Biro entitled "The General." This particular script was loosely inspired by true events. Renouned German director Ernst Lubitsch had met a General in the Imperial Russian Army named Theodore A. Lodigensky during a visit to Russia. He met this General once again in New York, where Lodigensky had opened a Russian restaurant after fleeing the communist revolution. Lubitsch encountered the General a third time in Hollywood, where Lodigensky appeared in full uniform looking for work as an extra for $7.50 a day. Lubitsch later told this anecdote to Lajos Biro, who wrote the screenplay about it. Sternberg took the script and adapted it to the screen with significant additions and alterations to the plot.  The plot consists of a form...

  Pablor Larrain's "Spencer" Pablo Larrain's "Spencer" explores three days in the life of Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales. Larrain's films presents the viewer with a more subjective experience of its protagonist. Her experiences never seem to extend beyond her own state of mind. This state of mind seems to be that of a hostage, as she intimately feels the suffocation of the expectations laid on her. Minute experiences continue to chip away at her emotional state, which is constantly on the verge of breaking. The staff and her children are the only characters that provide an element of humanity in an environment that seems to be lacking it.  Through this subjective experience, we see her being haunted by ghosts of the past, like Anne Boelyn. The arcaic tradtions of the past becomes their own ghosts of the present. And eventually, we see Diana become her own ghost of the future, as she is trapped by her circumstances just as Boelyn was. Her restlessness i...

  Josef von Sternberg's "Underworld" Josef von Sternberg worked as an assistant director in the film industry from 1919 to 1926. In 1926, Sternberg was hired to do reshoots of Frank Lloyd's 'Children of Divorce.' His reshoots were considered so outstanding that Paramount offered the director a project of his own. This project, "Underworld," would go on to be a major commercial and critical success. It would also ensure Sternberg's continued work in the studio system. The film is also considered by many film historians to be the ignition point for the 'gangster' genre.  The film is about a boisterous gangster named Bull who rehabilitates a former lawyer who has fallen into alcoholism and is now down on his luck. Bull nicknames him "Rolls Royce" and the two become confidants. Rolls Royce, now a lawyer for Bull, falls for Bull's girlfriend, Feathers. A rival gangster named Buck begins muscling in on Bulls' territory. Things...

  Wes Anderson's "The French Dispatch" Wes Anderson's 2021 film "The French Dispatch" is a series of vignettes that illustrate the last edition of the fictional newspaper 'The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun.' The newspaper's editor, Arthur Howitzer, has died. Arthur has expressed in his will that following his death, one final farewell issue will be published that contain three articles from past editions of the paper, along with an obituary. The first of the three articles centers on the life of an artist and mentally disturbed prison inmate. The second focuses on a student revolution. The third, a heist story. All these stories illustrate the theme that news and publications are similar to art itself. The similarity being that all come from a particular perspective and all have their own aesthetics, based on the person writing the article.  In his review of the film, New Yorker critic Richard Brody states that in 'The Fr...

Edgar Wright's "Last Night in Soho" Edgar Wright is a director in the business of making stylish, rhythmically driven films. All these stylistic films always seem to be half-comedies and half-'genre' films. Those 'genre' films could be anything from action to horror. His 2021 film, "Last Night in Soho" is no different. Half comedy-half thriller/horror, the film takes you on a colorful ride through London's Soho district throughout different points in time. Wright seems to infuse the film with themes of anti-nostalgia and the dangers of using the fashion and music of the past as a crutch to comfort yourself in modern times.  The film is about Ellie, who moves to London to go to fashion school. Ellie seems to have some sort of psychic gift. She is able to see ghosts and spirits, including her dead schizophrenic mother who killed herself when Ellie was 7. Like her mother, Ellie is obsessed with the fashion and music of the 1960s. After only a fe...

King Vidor's "War and Peace" It can be said that the prevailing directing style of King Vidor is that of the 'epic.' With his epics, Vidor crafts mechanisms of storytelling that place characters in a world of vast scale or scope. The grandness of scope is used by Vidor to elevate the more intimate aspects of the story. With his adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's dense 1869 novel War and Peace, Vidor executes his mastery over the cinematic language of the epic.  The story takes place during the early 1800s in a time of war in Russia. Napoleon's forces control much of Europe. Russia takes necessary preparations to defend their homeland against the French invader. The protagonist of the film, Count Pierre Bezkhov, is not interesting in joining the army as he views himself an as intellectual and pacifist. He watches as his dear friend Prince Andrei Bolkonsky leaves for battle. In the meantime, he is left a vast inheritance after his father's death. He is attracte...