THE MISSING PICTURE
Media: 31.media.tumblr.com/d32a74289b4f1a9b564cf30733754742/tumblr_inline_n2k2ztaYZp1qz8ufy.jpg
Cambodia, France 2013
Directed by Rithy Panh
Running time: 92 minutes

There is a certain widely held misconception about the nature and usefulness of poetry: that it belongs primarily to the overrefined, the froufrou, and that trivial lot whose cotton candied hands haven’t seen a hard day’s work. The lie is a convenient one; it excuses its perpetrators from engaging with the modes of representation that chisel their very reality – as if there were only…

Hell’s harrower bore a cross. Orpheus brought a lyre. Christ’s solution was more final than Orpheus’s, if less diplomatic. After despoiling Sheol of its righteous, so the story goes, Christ escorted those upright to Heaven’s banquets, leaving the tarnal to their tarnation. While Orpheus’ dulcet bargain moved Hades’ hand to relinquish his bride, the couple didn’t make it very far before the underworld swallowed her up again. Eurydice’s absence swelled as result of this second catastrophe; Aether condensed into perfume,…

THE RIVER
France, India, United States 1951
Directed by Jean Renoir
Running time: 99 minutes
Format: 35mm

The first technicolor film to be shot on the Indian subcontinent. The first of Jean Renoir’s color pictures. The first time arc-lights, generators and other specialized production equipment crossed Bengalese borders. The film that united Desi auteur, Satyajit Ray, with Jean Renoir, ultimately resulting in Ray’s first film, the masterful PATHER PANCHALI (1955). These are a few of the firsts manifested during the…

JOHNNY GUITAR
United States 1954
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Running time: 110 minutes

“If you’re filming anything as bizarre as this story, of rivalry between Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge (her performance was ‘straight sulfuric acid’), then there’s no point in going less than all out.” – Nicholas Ray, Sight and Sound 1961

JOHNNY GUITAR was misunderstood by audiences and critics alike in 1954. It was one in a string of poor receptions for Republic Pictures, which shut down only a…