8 years ago
All posts by Omer M. Mozaffar
Violence and the American Man
In the wake of another mass shooting, Omer M. Mozaffar looks at "American Sniper" and "Fruitvale Station" as disparate modern commentaries on American violence.
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Exile into Netherworlds: On “Mediterranea”
Omer M. Mozaffar writes on "Mediterranea" and the history of immigrant-based cinema.
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Prancing Through Spaces in Destiny’s Cracks: “The Apu Trilogy”
Criterion Collection’s new 4K remaster of Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy is a wondrous accomplishment. The Ravi Shankar scores captivate. The depth of the black-and-white shading is enough to leave you gasping. The textures on title cards. The shine on a girl’s ha...
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The Frustrated Escape from Aimlessness: “The Sheltering Sky”
Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1990 film The Sheltering Sky follows Kit Moresby (Debra Winter) traveling with her two male companions through sandy villages across North Africa in the middle of the 20th century. They claim they are not tourists, but travelers—meaning t...
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Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor”: Beneath the Gold Ornamentation
Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987) chronicles the story of a man unable to break out of his destiny. The Chinese Emperor Pu Yi (played as an adult by John Lone) receives the throne as a child. “The son of heaven,” he is the most powerful person in t...
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“Last Tango in Paris”: Basking in the Bowels of Human Discontent
When Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris was first released in 1972, it garnered considerable controversy, with many calling for censure and others praising it for its graphic sexuality. Considering how difficult an experience it is, even now, no wonder....
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History of Film: “Lawrence of Arabia”
All of them. Forget all the other movies ever made. David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia is the reason we go to the cinema. All the great works of art take us somewhere; this movie is one of the greatest objects in the greatest of crafts. Every time we face a scree...
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