At this hour on this day, here in order of preference are my choices for the ten best films of the 1920s: 1. BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (Serge M. Eisenstein, U.S.S.R., 1925). One would never guess that Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein heralded from the stage. Thrilling and kinetic, his Battleship Potemkin is purely cinematic. The film re-creates the […]
Daily Archives: November 18, 2009
The late Stan Brakhage slandered Ingmar Bergman by saying that the Swedish filmmaker made his films to elicit approval from U.S. art-house audiences and critics. Envious, the U.S. filmmaker expanded this lie by adding that Bergman admitted this publicly. Of course, Bergman never did such a thing or said such a thing; those of the […]
London-born Kent MacKenzie’s The Exiles begins with Edward S. Curtis photographs: the Native American Past. Cut to the present, on a Bunker Hill, Los Angeles street; through this shot, which initially appears to be another photograph, a trolley moves. This first, unexpected bit of motion establishes a tension with the preceding stasis, motionlessness: moving in […]
Dennis Grunes 