The Turning of the Earth: Elia Kazan’s Wild River Adrian Danks March 2018 Cinémathèque Annotations on Film Issue 86 Although Elia Kazan is most well known for films such as A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), On the Waterfront (1954) and East of Eden (1955) that feature heightened, often hyper-masculine and definitively...
Before On the Beach: Melbourne on Film in the 1950s Adrian Danks December 2017 Screening Melbourne Issue 85 “City images are historical creations, and are often more resistant to change than the modernisers anticipate, although the resistance may be stronger at some times than others.”- Graeme...
1985: Come and See (Elem Klimov) Adrian Danks December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema Issue 85 Come and See (1985 Soviet Union 142 mins) Source: AFTRS Prod, Dir: Elem Klimov Scr: Klimov and Ales Adamovich Phot: Alexei Rodionov Mus: O. Yanchenko, Mozart Cast: Alexei Kravchenko, Olga Mironova,...
The Light on the Chemical Plant: Raoul Walsh’s White Heat (1949) Adrian Danks September 2017 Cinémathèque Annotations on Film Issue 84 The careers of Raoul Walsh and James Cagney were never quite the same after White Heat (1949). As various commentators have suggested, this propulsive, machine-tooled, sardonically funny and often-brutal crime...
All Boxed Up: Barton Fink (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1991) Adrian Danks March 2017 Cinémathèque Annotations on Film Issue 82 Barton Fink (1991), the Coen brothers’ fourth feature, represents a departure from their earlier excavations of classical American genre cinema, Blood Simple. (1984) and Miller’s Crossing (1990), as well...
The Man in Black: The Night of the Hunter (1955) Adrian Danks March 2017 Cinémathèque Annotations on Film An earlier version of this article first appeared in CTEQ: Annotations on Film published in Metro 109 (1997): 49-50. The Night of the Hunter is a film that I am little frightened to write about; scared that...
Fever Dream: Combat! – “Survival” (Robert Altman, 1963) Adrian Danks March 2016 Cinémathèque Annotations on Film Issue 78 Although Robert Altman is now widely regarded as one of the key figures of New Hollywood cinema, he was also a significant director of mainstream US television in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Altman has a...
All the Histories: A Companion to Jean-Luc Godard by Tom Conley and T. Jefferson Kline (eds) Adrian Danks September 2015 Book Reviews Issue 76 In the opening paragraph of their introduction to A Companion to Jean-Luc Godard, Tom Conley and T. Jefferson Kline situate a particular cinephilic response to the great Swiss filmmaker’s work in terms of...
The Cost of Living: Philippe Garrel’s J’entends plus la guitare Adrian Danks September 2015 Cinémathèque Annotations on Film Issue 76 Philippe Garrel’s J’entends plus la guitare (1991) is an intimate, unadorned roman à clef quietly but intensely covering an expanse of years in the relationship between Marianne (the extraordinary Johanna...
The Sound of Silence: Jean Pierre Melville’s Le silence de la mer Adrian Danks April 2015 Cinémathèque Annotations on Film Issue 74 This is a revised version of an article that first appeared in CTEQ: Annotations on Film published in Metro, no. 199, 1999, pp. 96-97. “For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon...
“Keep the coffee hot, Hugo”: A Celebration for John Flaus (1) Adrian Danks October 2014 John Flaus Dossier Issue 72 This special tribute dossier is devoted to one of the true legends of Australian screen culture, the inimitable and mercurial John Flaus. It marks a little over 60 years since the start of John’s involvement...
Elsa la rose Adrian Danks June 2014 Cinémathèque Annotations on Film Issue 71 In 1965, Agnès Varda made a short, intense documentary on the then almost 40-year relationship between the French writers Louis Aragon and Elsa Triolet. Her film predominantly and characteristically focuses...