Category Archives: Film Analysis

By 1962 the American film box office receipts had fallen a great deal since their peak in 1946. This was mainly caused by Americans buying more and more television sets and the fall out of World War II and the Cold War. Many directors, producers and screenwriters were becoming dependent on books, plays and evenContinue reading “The Birds & Hollywood’s Transition Years”

Warning: May Contain Spoilers! Every once in a while, I stumble across a film that I can’t quite get out of my head for a long time and I am stuck thinking about it for weeks after watching it. Sofia Coppola’s 2003 romantic-comedy drama, Lost in Translation is one of those films. While I’ve neverContinue reading “A Shared Language of Love”

WARNING: Contains Spoilers!             It would be quite an understatement to say that Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001) is just a psychological thriller, mainly because it leaves the viewer with the question “what just happened?” at the end of the film. There is a much deeper element to the film than the average psychological thriller.Continue reading “The City of Dreams: Reality or Fantasy?”

WARNING: May Contain Spoilers From 1946-1965 the American film business was in a time of great struggle and despair, but by the 1960’s things were changing for the film industry. Many films were coming out that showed normal narratives on the top, but had deep psychological questions beneath the surface. Alfred Hitchcock was one ofContinue reading “Psycho: The Normal vs. The Abnormal”

WARNING: May Contain Spoilers! The film industry in the 1960’s was known for its psychological horrors and its science-fiction fantasy films, but there is one movie that stands out among those genres and it is called The Graduate (1967) directed by Mike Nichols. This comedy-drama is based on the 1963 book with the same nameContinue reading “Graduated, Now What?”

The spectacular film Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006) is tremendous clash between fantasy and reality. The film parallels both fantasy world and reality through the eyes of a little girl named Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) who is caught between a fairy tale and the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in 1944. Del Toro usesContinue reading “Fairies and Fauns: Pan’s Labyrinth”

WARNING: May Contain Spoilers! While today is May 23rd, it is not a Wednesday but unlike most days this day in particular had an impact on Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) one of the lead characters of the 2009 film (500) Days of Summer directed by Marc Webb. “Most days of the year are unremarkable. They begin,Continue reading “The Days of Summer (Love)”

After World War II many of the countries in Europe experienced great transitions in film, especially France and Italy. Unlike the Italian films of Neorealism, the French films wanted to show that a camera can really capture reality and soon after that the French became completely obsessed with the movies (Mast and Kawin). This leadContinue reading “The Dreamers: The Modern Day French New Wave”

From jump cuts to improvised dialogue, Jean-Loc Godard’s 1960 film À bout de soufflé (also known as Breathless) is the ideal image of a French New Wave film. Godard’s Breathless followed two other major films of the New Wave movement; they were François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and Alain Resnai’s Hiroshima, Mon Amour. The FrenchContinue reading “Breathless and the French New Wave”