Tag: Film / Documentary

Film school, Italian style

Guest post by Joseph Luzzi On November 3, 1993, a throng of fifteen thousand poured into St. Mary of the Angels Basilica in Rome and the adjoining piazza to bid farewell to the recently deceased Federico Fellini, while millions more watched a live telecast of the ceremony. To many, it wasn’t just the funeral of…

Film school, Italian style

Guest post by Joseph Luzzi On November 3, 1993, a throng of fifteen thousand poured into St. Mary of the Angels Basilica in Rome and the adjoining piazza to bid farewell to the recently deceased Federico Fellini, while millions more watched a live telecast of the ceremony. To many, it wasn’t just the funeral of…

Blues, smoke, and shadows: jazz in “musical” noir films

Guest post by Sheri Chinen Biesen The Society For Cinema & Media Studies hosts Sheri Chinen Biesen for presentation on this topic at the 2015 SCMS annual conference. Jazz music flourished in “musical” noir films, which were distinctive for showing smoke, shadows, and bluesy nightclub performers. The music recalled Harlem’s Cotton Club, where, according to…

Blues, smoke, and shadows: jazz in “musical” noir films

Guest post by Sheri Chinen Biesen The Society For Cinema & Media Studies hosts Sheri Chinen Biesen for presentation on this topic at the 2015 SCMS annual conference. Jazz music flourished in “musical” noir films, which were distinctive for showing smoke, shadows, and bluesy nightclub performers. The music recalled Harlem’s Cotton Club, where, according to…

Should we bring historians to the movies?

Guest post by Thomas Leitch Why do otherwise intelligent and discriminating people routinely come away from movies like Selma, American Sniper, The Imitation Game, and The Theory of Everything under the impression that their fictionalizations of history are true? Can’t they tell the difference between real life and the movies? In a word, no, they…

Should we bring historians to the movies?

Guest post by Thomas Leitch Why do otherwise intelligent and discriminating people routinely come away from movies like Selma, American Sniper, The Imitation Game, and The Theory of Everything under the impression that their fictionalizations of history are true? Can’t they tell the difference between real life and the movies? In a word, no, they…

A passion for film noir and cinema heritage

Guest post by Sheri Chinen Biesen I’m a bit of a nerd. I like digging around in Hollywood studio archives investigating classic cinema like you see on Turner Classic Movies with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. I specialize in film noir, a series of 1940s–1950s American crime pictures noted for their moody, shadowy visual style…

A passion for film noir and cinema heritage

Guest post by Sheri Chinen Biesen I’m a bit of a nerd. I like digging around in Hollywood studio archives investigating classic cinema like you see on Turner Classic Movies with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. I specialize in film noir, a series of 1940s–1950s American crime pictures noted for their moody, shadowy visual style…