When Pier Paolo Pasolini, the Italian director of The Gospel According to St. Matthew, was asked why his movies so often dealt with religious themes despite his communist leanings and professed atheism, he responded, “If you know that I am an…

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“A human life is so frail, as fleeting as the morning dew.” – the Priest, Rashomon “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” – James 4:14 It was fortunate…

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Ernst Lubitsch’s 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner is a familiar story for many reasons—one being that it is a textbook romantic comedy. The film is “textbook” not because it is a repetition of what came before, but because…

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In order to truly appreciate the beauty and wonder of Prince Achmed, we must acquaint ourselves with Lotte Reiniger—the woman who shaped the destiny of animated films with a pair of scissors. Before Walt Disney could change the world with…

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It’s always a good day when you can dig into Film Noir, and The Third Man is a prime example of the artful genre. Martin Scorsese is said to be a big fan of the film– enough to write a…

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Woah. I’m no stranger to director Alfred Hitchcock’s work, and I have seen Spellbound a few times before this (though it’s been a while), but this movie blew my mind. Not only does it use surrealist ideas and imagery to…

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You will no doubt hear the names Carl Theodor Dreyer and Ingmar Bergman in any and every conversation about iconic 20th-century Scandinavian filmmakers—and rightfully so; perhaps someone will even mention Jan Troell or, more recently, the notorious Lars von Trier…

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This year marks the 60th anniversary of the 1957 film 12 Angry Men, and it is as relevant and captivating as ever. Our current cultural climate is different and much more progressive than the 1950s, but we still face the…

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Henry James’ 1898 novella, “The Turn of the Screw,” is either the greatest ghost story ever written or it is the greatest ghost story without actual ghosts ever written. Critics throughout the years have passionately debated the true nature of…

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From the time World War II began to today’s best picture nominee Hacksaw Ridge, there have been many, many great movies set in and around the second great war. With the sheer number of films in this sub-genre, especially those…

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