Essential Cinema

Acknowledgments = ix Introduction = xi Ⅰ. Classics Fables of the Reconstruction: The Four-Hour Greed p. 3 Fascinating Rhythms: M = 13 The Color of Paradise: Jour de fete = 19 Backyard Ethics: Hitchcock's Rear Window = 26 Songs in the Key of Everyday Life: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg = 32 A Tale of the Wind: Joris Ivens's Last Testament = 38 Kira Muratova's Home Truths: The Asthenic Syndrome = 43 The Importance of Being Sarcastic: Satantango = 48 Blush = 53 The Ceremony = 58 Thieves = 62 True Grit: Rosetta = 67 Ⅱ. Special Problems Malick's Progress = 75 Improvisations and Interactions in Altmanville, with an Afterword: Nashville = 80 Mixed Emotions: Breaking the Waves = 95 Fast, Cheap & Out of Control = 101 The Sweet Cheat: Time Regained = 105 James Benning's Four Corners = 113 Overrated Solutions: L'humanite = 119 The Sound of German: Straub-Huillet's The Death of Empedocles = 123 Beyond the Clouds: Return to Beauty = 130 Reality and History as the Apotheosis of Southern Sleaze: Phil Karlson's The Phenix City Story = 136 Is Ozu Slow? = 146 The Human Touch: Decalogue and Fargo = 152 Ⅲ. Other Canons, Other Canonizers Life Intimidates Art: Irma Vep = 163 Stanley Kwan's Actress: Writing History in Quicksand = 170 Critical Distance: Godard's Contempt = 179 Remember Amnesia? (Guy Maddin's Archangel), with an Afterword: Ten Years Later (Please Watch Carefully: The Heart of the World) = 187 Ragged but Right: Rivette's Up Down Fragile = 194 Critic with a Camera: Marker on Tarkovsky = 199 Riddles of a Sphinx: From the Journals of Jean Seberg = 204 International Harvest: National Film Histories on Video = 210 International Sampler: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai = 216 Not the Same Old Song and Dance: The Young Girls of Rochefort = 223 Flaming Creatures and Scotch Tape = 230 Ruiz Hopping and Buried Treasures: Twelve Selected Global Sites = 236 Ⅳ. Disputable Contenders Back in Style: Bertolucci's Besieged = 251 The Young One: Bunuel's Neglected Masterpiece = 257 In Dreams Begin Responsibilities: Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut = 262 The Best of Both Worlds: A.I. Artificial Intelligence = 271 Under the Chador: The Day I Became a Woman = 280 Chains of Ignorance: Charles Burnett's Nightjohn = 285 Good Vibrations: Waking Life = 291 Hell on Wheels: Taxi Driver = 295 Meat, John, Dough: Pretty Woman = 302 Tashlinesque = 306 Weird and Wonderful: Takeshi Kitano's Kikujiro = 313 Corpus Callosum = 317 Ⅴ. Filmmakers Mann of the West = 321 Otto Preminger = 326 Nicholas Ray = 334 Exiles in Modernity: Films by Edward Yang = 338 Hou Hsiao-hsien: Becoming Taiwanese = 346 The Countercultural Histories of Rudy Wurlitzer = 351 Samuel Fuller: The Words of an Innocent Warrior = 357 The Mysterious Elaine May: Hiding in Plain Sight = 364 Visionary Agitprop: I Am Cuba = 370 The Battle over Orson Welles = 376 License to Feel: Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Neon Bible = 386 Death and Life: Landscapes of the Soul--The Cinema of Alexander Dovzhenko = 399 Appendix: 1,000 Favorites (A Personal Canon) = 407 Index = 427

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