Film Criticism & Articles

[wilberfan]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454557/casablanca-75th-anniversary-film-rebukes-auteur-directors

One of the greatest movie directors of all time held that you should never notice the director.  “He should be invisible,” said Billy Wilder. “You should notice the characters,” Wilder insisted.  What about the extravagantly showy mode that became known as German Expressionism? Even Lubitsch had made films along these lines back in Europe. Wilder scoffed. “Yeah, sure. They did all those angles and that lighting because they couldn’t afford sets. When they got money, in Hollywood, they dropped all that stuff.

Today, with directors having picked up the dropped stuff and sometimes dropping other stuff like storytelling in the effort, film nerds tend to rank directors on sheer visibility. The films of, say, Paul Thomas Anderson (dubbed the best filmmaker today by The Guardian five years ago) may not quite add up. But there’s no denying he directs the crap out of them.

[ono]

Orson Welles would like to have a word with you.

Or, different strokes.

PTA would be the first to acknowledge the people who help, but he can't help his fingerprint being on things because he's that undeniable.

[wilberfan]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/movies/saturday-night-fever-at-40-you-should-still-be-dancing.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/nyregion/saturday-night-fever-disco-brooklyn.html

[Gold Trumpet]

Opinions vary. I'm sad there isn't a critic alive I follow with any enthusiasm. I used to have many.

However, I still love going back and living in the world of criticism was at its heyday and seeing what their top ten lists were and how personalized the choices were and how, if put together, they were a better gage of what was great that given year many more times than what films stood the test of time. Sometimes that test separated the greater and sometimes it separated the more entertaining only.