Film History - - Page 19

THIS MONTH IN FILM HISTORY:
Miloš’ Mozartifacts

September 1, 2009

Miloš Forman has focused on one theme: How society grinds down the individual and is basically corrupt and hypocritical.

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Frankly, Selznick Did Give a Damn

November 1, 2009

Why David O. Selznick feared a tombstone epitaph as the man who made Gone with the Wind (1939) is mysterious. This film was his Tara as much as it was Miss Scarlett’s.

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John Landis’ ‘Animal House’

November 1, 2009

My father, the late actor/director Ray Danton, was a gifted man. He was handsome, had a baritone voice, stood over six feet and weighed a chiseled 190 pounds in his prime.

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Barry Levinson’s ‘Rain Main’

January 1, 2010

Starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, Rain Man opened 21 years ago this December. It made a lot of money and won a lot of awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.

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La Dolce Vita. For 50 years, since the Federico Fellini movie was released in January 1960, those three words have been synonymous with delicious deca- dence among a jet-set mix of expatriate movie stars, high-society types and jaded Italian aristocrats based around Rome.

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Hollywood’s ‘Skilled Surgeon’

March 1, 2010

Viera’s fine history provides an insightful look into this legendary producer.

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THIS MONTH IN FILM HISTORY: O Brothel, Where Art Thou?

May 1, 2010

Of all his creations, ‘The Apartment’ is Billy Wilder’s most influential and greatest film.

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Lost in Translation

September 1, 2010

Roberto Rossellini’s Open City (Roma, Cittá Aperta), which premiered in Italy 65 years ago in September 1945, revolutionized the perception and marketing of foreign films in America when it opened in New York just five months later.

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Eisenstein on the Breach

November 1, 2010

The Battleship Potemkin, or Potemkin as it is generally known, galvanized filmmakers around the world because of the audacity of its film editing––especially in the iconic Odessa Steps massacre. Its impact on editors and directors since its premiere in Moscow on Christmas Eve, 1925 is immeasurable.

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David Lean’s ‘The Bridge on The River Kwai’

November 1, 2010

Unlike many of my colleagues, I did not grow up a film nut. I was a sports nut, particularly baseball, and following my parents’ lead, a Gershwin, Sinatra and Broadway musical nut. For me, movies were fun, but nothing like watching the Yankees lose (a rare occurrence) or pretend- ing I was Frank, or Oscar Levant playing “Rhapsody in Blue” before a rapt audience at Carnegie Hall.

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