The career of Frank Capra coincided with the golden age of Hollywood, and many of his films are recognized as classics. Still, most critics seem not to have noticed that Capra’s work reflects a profoundly Catholic vision of reality, a vision framed by the Sermon on the Mount. Because his cinema does not have an … Read more
The work of Frank Borzage — more than 100 films in forty years — is one of the best kept secrets of the American cinema. The director himself, in the words of critic Andrew Sarris, remains an elusive figure in film history. A contemporary of John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, King Vidor, and Frank … Read more
If there is a name that stands out bright in the history of American cinema, it is that of director John Ford (1894-1973). A complex and talented artist, working in a popular medium based on the collaborative efforts of writers, actors, craftsmen, and producers, Ford achieved in fifty years of filmmaking a unique stature in … Read more
The career of Frank Capra coincided with the golden age of Hollywood, and many of his films are recognized as classics. Still, most critics seem not to have noticed that Capra’s work reflects a profoundly Catholic vision of reality, a vision framed by the Sermon on the Mount. Because his cinema does not have an … Read more
If film aspires to be part of culture, it should do the things great literature, art and music do: elevate the spirit, help us understand ourselves and the life around us, and give people the feeling they are not alone.” During an interview with the Los Angeles Times a year before his sudden death in … Read more
“A religious education and surrealism have marked me for life.”     ~Luis Bunuel A man sharpens a razor and slits the eyeball of a young woman; a bomb, planted by the Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus, explodes in Paris. These two scenes—aiming at the jugular of the spectator—open in 1928 and close in 1977 the … Read more
The work of Frank Borzage—more than 100 films in forty years—is one of the best kept secrets of the American cinema. The director himself, in the words of critic Andrew Sarris, remains an elusive figure in film history. A contemporary of John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, King Vidor, and Frank Capra, working during the … Read more
The phenomenal box-office and artistic success of The Godfather and The Godfather—Part II in the early 1970s made Francis Ford Coppola, a young writer/director of Italian-American descent, the wonder boy of American popular culture. He was the first major director to break into the Hollywood studio system from a university program in filmmaking. This represented … Read more
The work of Alfred Hitchcock has to this day an enduring fascination for a wide range of viewers. More so than any other filmmaker in the century-long history of the cinema, the British director is capable of evoking both an enthusiastic response from popular audiences—for whom Hitchcock is the unsurpassed “master of suspense”—and the passionate … Read more
If there is a name that stands out bright in the history of American cinema, it is that of director John Ford (1894-1973). A complex and talented artist, working in a popular medium based on the collaborative efforts of writers, actors, craftsmen, and producers, Ford achieved in fifty years of filmmaking a unique stature in … Read more