Posts by author
Nicholas Rombes
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Nicholas Rombes’ Art Film Roundup
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…
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Nicholas 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…
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Nicholas 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…
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10/40/70 #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):
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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…
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10/40/70 #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):
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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):
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The Girl with the Hidden Face
I’ve been a professor at the University of Detroit Mercy for over fifteen years, but it wasn’t until last month that I noticed the girl shielding her face from the camera. The photograph hangs in the English Department’s Dudley Randall…
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10/40/70 #25: The Hitch-Hiker
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 The Hitch-Hiker, directed by Ida Lupino (1953):
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Women in Trouble
While we usually classify films in terms of their genre, or their director, or the actors, what if, instead, we looked for visual patterns that linked them? An auteur theory based purely on images, not the director.
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What’s in a Name? JCPenney and The Dunce Cap
A few weeks ago, a slim catalog from JCPenney arrived in our mailbox. It floated around the house for a few days. On its cover are printed these words: littleredbook fall trends 2010 I hadn’t noticed this until just the…
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10/40/70 #23: Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974
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 Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974, directed…