Oscar History
Film Bitch History
Welcome

The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team.

This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms. 

Powered by Squarespace
DON'T MISS THIS

Follow TFE on Substackd 

COMMENTS

Oscar Takeaways
12 thoughts from the big night

 

Keep TFE Strong

We're looking for 500... no 390 SubscribersIf you read us daily, please be one.  

I ♥ The Film Experience

THANKS IN ADVANCE

What'cha Looking For?
Subscribe

Entries in 10|25|50|75|100 (433)

Tuesday
May312022

Judy Garland @ 100: “The Wizard of Oz”

Team Experience is revisiting a dozen Judy Garland movies for her Centennial. Here’s Brent Calderwood to kick us off...

The Wizard of Oz is more than an insanely watchable film—it’s a gateway to a lifelong appreciation of Judy Garland.

“It was a place. And you and you and you and you were there.” Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale took us along with her to Oz, and we believed. It was more than the glorious art direction—head-high hibiscus, an acre of artificial poppies, and real birds in the forest including cranes and a peacock. It was Judy Garland’s performance. No, not her performance—it was Garland inhabiting Dorothy. The then sixteen-year-old became a nine-year-old girl. This woman-child made us feel her vulnerability, and revealed a heart as big as a farmhouse. (One of my personal favorite moments is when Dorothy is trapped in the Wicked Witch’s castle, trembling with fear, and Toto escapes. “He got away! He got away!” she cries, with real tears of joy and empathy for her terrier streaming down her cheeks amid the terror.) ...

Click to read more ...

Tuesday
Apr122022

Hou Hsiao-Hsien @75: New Millennium (2001-2022)

The conclusion of a four part series by Cláudio Alves

In the cinema of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, the 21st century started with a neon dream. The camera follows Shu Qi's Vicky as she runs through a Taipei tunnel, lights flickering above. Everything happens in slow-motion, flickers turn into waves and the actress's movement makes a strange unnatural dance. She looks back at us, hair flying in a cloud of black tendrils, her eyes asking us to follow her down the tunnel, like Alice down the rabbit hole. It's a hypnotic sight, made more seductive by the music of Lim Giong, house beats and techno dronings that transform the screen into a pulsing heart.

2001's Millennium Mambo fulfills the formalistic promise of Daughter of the Nile, transcending Goodbye South, Goodbye's tethering to material truth. Like its protagonist, the film looks back at its director's history while moving forward to an unknown future. It's the start of a new chapter for Hou Hsiao-Hsien…

Click to read more ...

Monday
Apr112022

Hou Hsiao-Hsien @ 75: International Acclaim (1987-1998)

by Cláudio Alves

In contrast with their critical acclaim abroad, the Taiwanese reception of Hou Hsiai-Hsien's films was less enthusiastic. Dwindling box-office returns and accusations that his films were too uncommerciable led the director to attempt bridging the popular and the artful. 1987's Daughter of the Nile returns to the realm of modern Taiwan's youth, abandoning the midcentury narratives that had characterized the autobiographical films. It's also notable for its more significant urban setting and single-minded focus on a female protagonist. 

After this project, he wouldn't pay much attention to commercial appeal while his ambitions grew. At the end of the 80s, we encounter a peak of international recognition, the ascension of Hou Hsiao-Hsien to the pantheon of modern-day masters of cinema. All it took was a landmark film that, in 1989, earned the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and kickstarted a trilogy of historical reflections…

Click to read more ...

Saturday
Apr092022

Hou Hsiao-Hsien @ 75: Independent Auteur (1983-1986)

by Cláudio Alves

After abandoning studio moviemaking, Hou Hsiao-Hsien became more evident in his cinematic references. Some of his post-1982 films even featured excerpts from De Sica's Bicycle Thieves and Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers. Fellini's I Vitelloni was never as obviously showcased, but 1983's The Boys from Fengkuei owes much to that Italian classic. The film portrays the aimless wanderings of bored teenagers from a small shipping island. Before the boys are called for their obligatory military service, they travel to the big city of Kaohsiung, finding new independence, new loves, and new woes.

Instead of forcing an artificial structure unto his character's existence, Hou Hsiao-Hsien follows their insouciance with patience, making the film in their likeness...

Click to read more ...

Friday
Apr082022

Hou Hsiao-Hsien @ 75: The Studio Films (1980-1982)

by Cláudio Alves

His films are poems, lyrical examinations of the mundane that live in the moment but look backward to a past out of reach but still tangible. Master shots are his preference, whether standing still through mnemonic patterns or roving in idyll movement. Form and emotion are synonyms in this cinematic imagination, indissociable ideas that repudiate traditional storytelling norms. Indeed, many of his works are constructed from the transitory passages other filmmakers leave on the cutting room floor.

For these reasons and more, I have long loved the cinema of Hou Hsiao-Hsien. So, to celebrate his 75th birthday, I ask you, dear reader, to join me on a trip down memory lane, a multi-part odyssey through this master of cinema's filmography…

Click to read more ...

Page 1 ... 2 3 4 5 6 ... 87 Next 5 Entries »