Django Take #3: (Re)chained
Villains
Django is not a movie with “villains.” Instead, the movie itself is villainous.
Posts by: Nicholas Rombes
Emily, Eyes Shut
Emily understands already that looking through the microscope has changed her, reaffirmed what she always felt: that the visible world is not as it appears… To look inward, at the smallest of things—this is what novels do. And now microscopes.
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The Supreme Court School of PoMo Theory
On June 27, 2011 the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a California law that would have banned the sale or rental of violent video games to minors
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Total War: A Film Reminiscence
In those days, the only way to see David Lynch’s early, short films was to start or join a film club, pool resources, and rent them from some place like Facets in Chicago.
Some Notes on Paranormal Activity 3 as a Structural Film
Earlier this year, I made a case for Paranormal Activity 2 as an avant-garde film,
Donnie Darko and the Tyranny of the Franks
Perhaps the most enduring movies are those that tempt us into deep interpretation even as they resist all efforts to impose meaning on them.
10/40/70 #37: Marnie
This ongoing experiment in film writing freezes a film at 10, 40, and 70 minutes, and keeps the commentary as close to those frames as possible. This week, I examine Marnie, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1964):
Lucy’s Profound Restoration: The Trailer for Sleeping Beauty
The trailer for Sleeping Beauty (directed by Julia Leigh, 2011) clocking in at just over one minute and 30 seconds,
Running Around Being Clones of Ourselves: The Random Topic Interview with Megan Boyle
On the evening of July 27 I interviewed Megan Boyle over gchat. Rather than prepare questions or focus on a specific topic, we used Wikipedia’s “random article” link to go to pages to generate content for our conversation.
Note: This is the final installment of a three-part series. Here are parts Spooky Action at a Distance: David Lynch, Split Edit Realism, and Other Mysteries
There is a moment in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990) that cuts from Lula’s (Laura Dern’s) feet stomping in excitement on a bed to those same feet stomping in dance mode in a bar to the sound of the song “Slaughterhouse” by Julia Kristeva’s Face
In the winter of 1989 I had finished my first semester of graduate studies in English at Penn State University and received, in my campus mailbox, the comments from my professors for the “Introduction to Graduate Studies” class.
There Is a Head Rolling Over the Platform: The Strange Case of George Lippard’s The Quaker City
On July 12, 1849, a man appeared at the offices, in Philadelphia, of the Quaker City, a newspaper. He was despondent and wearing only one shoe, and was seeking the editor and writer George Lippard. When he found him he said.
The Dark Mystery of Emily Dickinson’s “Master” Letters
One of the enduring mysteries of American literature is a series of three letters drafted by Emily Dickinson to someone she called “Master.”
Nicholas Rombes’s Art Film Roundup #6
Beyond the Black Rainbow (Panos Cosmatos, 2011) has the feel of a slow march through a black swamp. There is a majesty and a tar-pit trap power in the wordless matching of moving images and music.
I am obliged to wonder what are the “penalties—very heavy penalties” mentioned in this trailer for Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh, 2011).
...more10/40/70 #36: I Shot Andy Warhol
This ongoing experiment in film writing freezes a film at 10, 40, and 70 minutes, and keeps the commentary as close to those frames as possible. This week, I examine I Shot Andy Warhol, directed by Mary Harron (1996):
10/40/70 Contest
This coming Wednesday, March 30, a new 10/40/70 experimental film column will be published here at The Rumpus.
In the spirit of the absurd beauty of spring, if you can identify the film I’ll be writing about from this single frame, e-mail me at nrombes AT hotmail.com with your address and I’ll mail you a frame from a mysterious 16mm film I discovered recently in an archive, as well as a short note typed on interesting letterhead.
...moreNicholas Rombes’s Art Film Roundup #5
Not usually a fan of these mash-ups, but this one—the great museum sequence from Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill (1980) set to Brian Eno’s song “Third Uncle”—works just fine. Oh Angie! (The music kicks in at around 40 seconds.):
...more10/40/70 #34: Alien
This ongoing experiment in film writing freezes a film at 10, 40, and 70 minutes, and keeps the commentary as close to those frames as possible. This week, I examine Alien, directed by Ridley Scott (1979):
Nicholas Rombes’ Art Film Roundup
In at least two of his novels, Thomas Pynchon mentions a Porky Pig cartoon from the 1930s.
Here is the reference from The Crying of Lot 49 (1965), as Oedipa Maas listens to an old man named Thoth, whose grandfather was an Indian killer: “Did you ever see the one about Porky Pig and the anarchist?” he asks her.
...moreNicholas Rombes’ Art Film Roundup
Before the fiasco of the “rock musical” Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Julie Taymor worked in smaller savageries, especially Titus (1999), her adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.
The movie was a bit of an easy target. It was released after Richard III (1995) with Ian McKellan, and Romeo + Juliet (1996) directed by Baz Luhrmann, both of which scrambled time and place and tone in ways that seemed to reflect the shallow, ahistorical excesses of postmodernism.
...moreNicholas Rombes’ Art Film Roundup
Speaking of Egypt. The Yacobean Building (2006), directed by Marwan Hamed. The film shifts stunningly and beautifully between hard-core melodrama, sadness, and comedy. There are, eerily, some scenes that seem to predict the uprising against Mubarek.
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Another clip from Polish director Andrzej Zulawski’s masterpiece Possession (1981), starring Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill.
The movie piles on one outrageous, tornado-like scene after another, but it is often the quiet, in-between moments that are more deeply eerie. In this scene such a moment occurs at around 1:50, just after the cars fall off the truck.
...moreNicholas Rombes’ Art Film Roundup
A few years ago, when I was finishing up the final edits on Cinema in the Digital Age, a colleague and I got into a heated debate about a section of the book where I argued that some of the images and sequences in The Ring (Gore Verbinksi, 2002) were as visually radical and avant-garde as, well, so-called avant-garde films.
...moreNicholas Rombes’ Art Film Roundup
The 2010 Sundance Film Festival Shorts came through town for a one-night only showing, which I caught earlier this week at the grand old Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor.
The jury prize winner in international filmmaking, The Six Dollar Fifty Man (New Zealand, 15 minutes) was supposed to be poignant and funny and a little scary, and it was all of those, but not in a good way.
...more10/40/70 #30: Machine Gun McCain
This ongoing experiment in film writing freezes a film at 10, 40, and 70 minutes, and keeps the commentary as close to those frames as possible. This week, I examine Machine Gun McCain, directed by Giuliano Montaldo (1969):
Field Notes: Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone / Thank You All Very Much
I’ve had the book for about a year. Margaret Drabble’s Thank You All Very Much, originally published in 1965 as The Millstone.
My copy, a Signet edition from 1969, was given a new title, I think, to coincide with a 1969 film adaptation of the book called A Touch of Love, which was re-titled Thank You All Very Much.
...more10/40/70 #29: Duel in the Sun
This ongoing experiment in film writing freezes a film at 10, 40, and 70 minutes, and keeps the commentary as close to those frames as possible. This week, I examine Duel in the Sun, directed by King Vidor (1946):
10/40/70 #27: Shadow of a Doubt
This ongoing experiment in film writing freezes a film at 10, 40, and 70 minutes, and keeps the commentary as close to those frames as possible. This week, I examine Shadow of a Doubt, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1943):