Archive for the ‘culture’ category
The MadMen of TCM: A Greatest Hits Mix-Tape
Classic film fans have, over the past several years, embraced an emerging, and vibrant, niche community. This is highly evident right here in the blogosphere where, if I do say so myself, the very finest blogs on the interwebs are those manned by classic film fans (Shameless plug for Hollywood Revue, Backyard Fence, Out of the Past, True Classics, MovieStar Makeover, Sales on Film, Filmoria, and so many many many more amaaaaazing blogs — all of these and many more will rock your black and white world.) But the unsurpassed leader of this long-surpressed niche, is the cable network Turner Classic Movies.
What Makes A Classic Film Classic…?
That was the question once asked by writer Ted Elrick, his answer coming in the form the essay Classic is in the Eye—and Mind—of the Beholder (as published in DGA News Magazine, Feb. 1992). Elrick gave the daunting task of defining that elusive quality which differentiates a good movie from a classic film to over 100 people working in the entertainment industry. Many of them were veterans of the classic silver screen themselves– still with us when the story went to print back in 1992.
Below are a few of the highlights from this most insightful piece, written at the height of the industry’s first major rally in Washington on the issue of film preservation, and I hope it provides much food for thought…and discussion. Read more ►
Hot Town, Summer in the (New York) City
I’m a Los Angeleno by birth, a Londoner by heart, and an aspiring New Yorker.
Having just returned from another whirlwind trip in the City That Never Sleeps, that honeymoon glow is still warm enough to post some of my favorite street view snaps from the City that I’m falling more, all the more, head over heels in love with.
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The Red Shoes: Art for Art's Sake
David Thomson is one of my favorite film critics, if for no other reason than he’s not above throwing film theory out the window to say, in effect, “I like it because I like it SO THERE.”
I’m always game to read a good shadowplay soapbox from Thompson’s lovably cantankerous pen. The fact that when we differ, oh boy how we differ, makes moments of complete accord all the sweeter.
In his book Have You Seen…?, Thomson calls the production of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s THE RED SHOES a case of “art for art’s sake.”
He hit the nail squarely on the head on this one.
Jack Cardiff‘s decadent cinematography, Moira Shearer‘s elegant dancing, surreal art direction, combined with Powell and Pressburger’s powerful vision… it is an extraordinary, singular, everlasting piece of “art for art’s sake.”
How else do you account for film credit titles quite this beautiful?
