Writing the Reconciliation Scene
As a teacher of screenwriting I’m always amazed that in the scripts of my students, after setting up dramatic conflicts between characters, characters will often suddenly and abruptly reach a “new understanding," defusing whatever dramatic tension the script has been building up to. This occasionally happens in actual films as well, such as in River’s […]
Jean-Isidore Isou (1925-2007): Venom and Eternity
It is sometimes hard to remember that there was a time when Bosley Crowther routinely used to attack any novel or daring new film release, such as Cassavetes’ Shadows, or that Hilton Kramer had the final say about what passed as art in the New York Times. So it takes a certain cultural adjustment now […]
A Skeptical View of YouTube
Last week a number of folks on the "filmies" listserv tried to goad me into uploading my early films on YouTube as a way of gaining additional visibility. Karina Longworth at SpoutBlog only yesterday wrote: "Right now, YouTube is the closest thing we have to a comprehensive online archive of 20th century culture." Since virtually everyone seems […]