Umberto Dominico Ferrari, a retired bureaucrat who can’t survive on his meager pension and is about to be evicted from his room by an unsympathetic landlady. He reaches out unsuccessfully to former colleagues for help but as the film progresses we realize that Umberto’s only real emotional connections in the world are with his dog …
Vittorio De Sica’s Humanism in Umberto D, Film Analysis Read More »
Italian neorealist filmmakers approached cinema as a vehicle for truth, they sought to portray everyday reality with all its beauty and ambiguity. In this sense, Italian Neorealism stands opposite to mainstream cinema, in which stories and film style are created in order to assist the audience to escape from reality. Cesare Zavattini, a renowned neorealist …
Starting this week and for the next two weeks, I’ll be writing about Italian Neorealism, its directors, and my favorite films from this ground-breaking cinema movement. The films and auteurs from Italian Neorealism have had an enormous influence on filmmakers to-date. Recently, the films Roma, by Alfonso Cuarón, Tangerine by Sean Baker, and 2021 award-winning …
2020, despite its many challenges to the film industry, was a particularly good year for film. In honor of the incredible women who helmed the best films of the year, here’s my list. Hope it inspires you to watch more movies directed by women. Narrative Fiction ‘First Cow’Directed by Kelly Reichart A fable about friendship …
2021 Awards Season: Best Films Directed by Women Read More »
Les Quatre Cents Coups (400 Blows, 1959) is François Truffaut’s debut feature, and one of my favorite films for its beautiful simplicity. 400 Blows is an autobiographical film co-written by Truffaut and Marcel Moussy, a childhood friend. The film is loosely structured around the theme of a child’s freedom from a callous adult world. Antoine …
Hiroshima mon amour is a 1959 romantic drama directed by Alain Renais and written by French novelist Marguerite Duras. The film stars Emmanuelle Riva (2012 Oscar nominee for Amour) and Eiji Okada (Woman in the Dunes, The Ugly American). This lyrical film belongs to an exciting era when a group of French filmmakers transformed and …