Frame by Frame

Nostalghia is the Tarkovsky film that, over the years, has always felt the most personal to me. Something indescribable deep within the well of its meditation on depression, alienation and sensory numbness resonates with me even beyond the fathomless power of his other stunning works. It’s so wonderful to see that this movie’s lingering reputation as his least successful work is beginning to thaw- because Nostalghia has always been one of the most special works in my lifetime as a lover of cinema. I hope the post below can help open the window as to why. 

Andrei Tarkovsky is my favourite film-maker and it’s always a pleasure to re-visit his landmark first feature. It’s a true testament to the man’s extraordinary artistry that this sublime work of groundbreaking filmic poetry feels more like a prelude to the profound genius to follow than a defining peak of his oeuvre- but I love it all the same. At a little over 90 minutes, this has always been my vote for the perfect entry point into the director’s work. Part of what makes Ivan’s Childhood so fascinating as the debut film by one of cinema’s most iconic auteurs is that it was essentially a director-for-hire job: With the Soviet authorities seeking to replace a young film-maker whose had already spent half(!) the budget on work they considered sub-par. Tarkovsky agreed to take on the project with this majorly restricted budget and schedule provided he was allowed creative freedom, which the studio granted. The rest, as they say, is history.  

Few contemporary films have accumulated the same warped shape of cult snowball that Mulholland Drive has managed to amass. From its opening frames, David Lynch’s magnum opus announces itself as something wholly singular- and spends the next two hours fucking with the fabric of the medium with delirious vision, delicious wit- and the impossible magnetism of a witching-hour séance that simply cannot be resisted. While I loved the movie from the moment I first saw it as a teenager, it’s still grown on me massively over the years- and I want to stress that this is not because I ‘understand’ it better. If anything, this film’s fathomless depths have only further opened up into a mercurial sea of endless emotive readings- netting over all past ideas until each moment is rendered inexplicable by the sheer multitude of things it might express. This truly is an inexhaustible work, comparable to the modernist literature of the 20 th century at its most playfully wicked- and I expect that f...

  Taxi Driver is just one of those magical movies that just seems to get almost everything right. Instead of feeling like the work of one or more creative visions, it blurs away the artifice of film-making to form the purest kind of cinema.  Schrader’s script is mortifyingly incisive, De Niro utterly disappears into its now legendary lead character, Bernard Herrmann’s (final) score ranks among the finest in film history, editor Thelma Schoonmaker makes it flow like a dream, DoP Michael Chapman shoots New York like a neon-dipped nightmare- and Scorsese’s once-in-a-lifetime direction elevates it to seamless transcendence.  To sum it up: Taxi Driver is one of the most profound works of art we have- and a one of a kind cinematic world I will love getting lost in for as long as I live...

Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid has always been special to me because of my dad- and how it helped open up classic cinema for me. He introduced me to it in my early teens when I was still a fussy little prick when it came to only watching ‘modern’ movies- and never told me it had come out in 1969. This film became an instant favourite- and when I found out how ‘old’ it was I instantly saw how ridiculous my prejudice against older movies was. I’ve known a hell of a lot of people who have this arbitrary hatred towards “old” films because they assume they won’t like them- and my experience with Butch & Sundance taught me just how tragic this perspective is. If you think like this- then you could be cheating yourself out of some of your absolute favourite new films for no reason at all. Get over yourself, ignore the numbers- and enjoy some classic cinema. All your modern favourites will be old someday too- and that doesn’t make them any less special...

  I first saw Thief at an all-night movie marathon dedicated to its director, Michael Mann- and it floored me. After years championing uber-modern classics like Heat and The Insider I was smacked in the face with another film that could stand up to even their genius. It’s just as cutting-edge, viciously incisive and disarmingly human as anything he’s made since- and demands to be seen and loved by anyone with even half an eye on great crime cinema...