8 years ago
Second Criterion (10 posts found)
The Second Criterion: “Persona”
Few films have been written about and scrutinized as much as Ingmar Bergman's Persona. With so many elements of the feature ripe for discussion, from the unsettling opening sequence to the perceived merging of two separate women, the film has bewildered and fa...
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The Second Criterion: “Close-Up”
In Abbas Kiarostami's Close-Up, art imitates life. Or perhaps the other way around. Frankly, it's kind of hard to tell, though the film very handily proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the hoary old adage that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. For many, Kia...
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The Second Criterion: “Three Outlaw Samurai”
When we think about narratives woven around samurai, those noble, ornately armored dragoons from Japan's feudal days of yore, we tend to think of them in terms of thematic frameworks. Honor, loyalty, devotion, and servitude; these are just a few of the primary...
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The Second Criterion: “The Double Life of Veronique”
When I wrote a capsule about The Double Life of Véronique, I compared the experience to the oft-quoted line, “talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” Against my better judgment, I’ve decided to push beyond that, and I maintain that the effect ...
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The Second Criterion: “Badlands”
At the age of 27, Terrence Malick created what would be the screenplay for one of finest feature debuts for Badlands. It was loosely-based on the story of Charles Starkweather, a 19-year old warehouse worker who had a taste for murder. In December 1957, Starkw...
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The Second Criterion: “The Phantom of Liberty”
If any single movie in the history of cinema could be described, honestly and without a trace of sarcasm, as "critic-proof", it might be The Phantom of Liberty. Then again, maybe not; consider the source. The film hails from Luis Buñuel, the man most film stud...
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The Second Criterion: “The Last Temptation of Christ”
I was a hardcore Bible kid, growing up. From fourth to sixth grade, I went to a Baptist elementary school. After that, I went to a Baptist middle school. For high school, I was in a Catholic high school, Catholicism being my family's main religion and not near...
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The Second Criterion: “The Great Beauty”
If Italian maestro Paolo Sorrentino had chosen to begin his most recent film, the Academy Award winning The Great Beauty, with the picture’s extended introductory saturnalia, viewers might not have missed a beat; the movie’s very first scene almost feels like ...
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The Second Criterion: “Breathless”
The definitive film of the French New Wave, Breathless set the bar for everything that was to come. Nothing since has drastically changed the way films are concocted quite like this 1960 gem. For all its many accomplishments, the film itself is a miserable aff...
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The Second Criterion: ‘Babette’s Feast’
The first time I watched Babette’s Feast, I must admit I misconstrued its themes. Here was a story that coalesced two opposing ways of living life and I was quick to see one as better than the other, when the film actually builds to something else entirely, a ...
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