Category: Film

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Cocteau, Keaton and Crisp, Kent, Reed, Welles

Dan Seeger

Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau, 1946). Cocteau’s take on the famed French fairy tale is elegant and unsettling, standing as a cunning exploration of the ways in which imagery and mood can reshape a familiar story. Beginning with opening credits written on a chalkboard (and then promptly erased) and an explanatory that calls for the film to be viewed with the appropriate childlike wonder, Cocteau also establishes a terrific playful quality. The resulting mix of the sublime and the goofy gives Beauty and the Beast (or, if you prefer, La Belle et la Bête) an absolute surplus of charm. … Continue reading Cocteau, Keaton and Crisp, Kent, Reed, Welles

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Mike Nichols, 1931-2014

Dan Seeger

I regret that I know the work of Mike Nichols primarily — almost entirely — from the movies he made. That’s no slight on his cinematic output. Nichols signed his name to a multitude of classic films, consistently bringing a distinctive sense of style to his efforts, one paradoxically defined most by its tricky invisibility. Nichols didn’t really have a signature, at least not one beyond a crisp mastery of the visual language of film. There was a spacial airiness to his compositions that made the films feel as though they’d been shorn of clutter. He had the efficiency of … Continue reading Mike Nichols, 1931-2014

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Arms getting heavy, exhaustion’s setting in, waves getting bigger, life’s getting thin

Dan Seeger

The gimmick built into the construction of Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) has every likelihood of sinking it. The not wholly novel story of a desperate actor (Michael Keaton) mounting a troubled stage production in hopes of reviving … Continue reading Arms getting heavy, exhaustion’s setting in, waves getting bigger, life’s getting thin