Tag: film
Don’t Look Back: Five Classic Wall-Breaking Endings
It’s not uncommon for characters to break the fourth wall in film. It’s usually implemented as a narrative technique and used throughout a work, most famously in Annie Hall (1977), Funny Games (1999), Netflix’s House of Cards (2013) and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). These common uses seek to involve the audience more closely with…
Jim Jarmusch: Only Indie Left Alive
Early on in Jim Jarmusch’s first feature film, Permanent Vacation (1980), its vagabond hero Allie reads aloud a passage from Les Chants de Maldoror, and quickly announces he is bored by the meandering surrealistic narrative. Toward the end of Jarmusch’s eleventh and latest feature, Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), vampire hero Adam watches a talented…
Art and the Movies: The Shadow of Perfection
“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection,” said Michelangelo back in the day. In today’s high-end art world, where astronomical auction sales are now commonplace, there’s an impetus to maintain that exalted status for superstar artists both present and past. In this current state of affairs, where paintings can…
The Wrongs of Protocol: Movie Screenings and the Right to Complain
I talk at the movies. I also grumble, murmur, whisper, chuckle, snort, roll my eyes and shake my head. Muttering under my breath isn’t out of the question, either, nor is sighing so loudly that anyone within three rows of me can hear it. The good news is a flick’s got to be bad enough…
Game of Thrones: The Responsibilities of Female Representation
Last week I read a fiery debate on the Swedish website Moviezine regarding how women are represented in the TV-series, Game of Thrones. The debate was mainly between two members of the website and touched on topics of gender equality, something which also served to lay bare how the concept is often perceived. It was…