Altman’s panorama arguably finds the essence of Americana complete, though crude, in country music—a genre often viewed as representative of low culture. Here country music is the voice of the zeitgeist. The choice to use non-singers in the film was brilliant not only because it makes for better characters but because they simultaneously come off as surrogates for people you have met before and as mediums for the national spirit, warts and all.
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The Baker's Wife 1938
This is a film made for a Christian denomination that likely doesn’t exist, a simultaneous affirmation of key Christian principles of behavior and nudge at the Panglossian righteousness of clerics. Put simply, the film is very humane. Like Marius, it is a fable of an eternal human problem: the clash between personal longings and social commitments. Raimu is remarkable per usual as the affable baker.
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Ieoh Island 1977
Io Island is one of the best Korean films ever made, not to mention how overlooked it often is, and one of the most misunderstood. This is NOT the Korean Wicker Man. This is a vision of humanity at its most animalistic; as if the world truly was an absurdist dystopia and all its organisms followed Darwin’s rules. Kim Ki-Young’s structuring of time is so complex (even more complex than it may initially seem) that it needs multiple viewings to…
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A Woman Under the Influence 1974
There was a moment in A Woman Under the Influence when I realized it was a great film. It was the scene where the doctor and Peter Falk are trying to calm the manic Rowlands, who is yelling up and down the room trying to understand what she has done wrong. The camera cuts over to Falk and his his nose is bleeding from the stress. I’m not sure if this was real or fake, but in whatever case it…
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