Endlessly fascinating, dark and bright, The Red Shoes (1948) employs every branch of the cinematic arts to sweep the audience off its feet, invigorated by the transcendence of art itself, only to leave them with troubling questions. Representing the climax of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger 's celebrated run of six exceptional feature films, the film remains a beloved, if unsettling and often divisive, classic. Pamela Hutchinson 's study of the film examines its breathtaking use of Technic...
Nov 08, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 133
The definitive story of Hollywood's most famous couple. He was a tough-guy Welshman softened by the affections of a breathtakingly beautiful woman; she was a modern-day Cleopatra madly in love with her own Mark Antony. For nearly a quarter of a century, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were Hollywood royalty, and their fiery romanceoften called "the marriage of the century"was the most notorious, publicized, and celebrated love affair of its day. For the first time, Vanity Fair contributing e...
Nov 04, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 132
Author of The Nolan Variations and Martin Scorsese, Tom Shone is one of the best film writers out there and a great friend of the podcast. He returns to cast his eye over the releases this year and to talk Oppenheimer and the films of Paul Greengrass, who will be the subject of his next book. Please like, leave a review, subscribe etc. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Oct 25, 2023•1 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 131
Buy a copy of Carol's book here . Go behind the scenes with the producer of Father of the Bride to learn all the skills necessary to be a top Hollywood producer As former co-president of Dolly Parton's production company, Sandollar, and as a successful independent producer, Carol Baum is an expert in the art of film production . Creative Producing provides a crash course in the frequently misunderstood producer's role and the many skills needed to survive and thrive in Hollywood. Readers receive...
Oct 18, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 130
1971 was a great year for cinema. Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Dario Argento, Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, Sergio Leone, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Roman Polanski, Nicolas Roeg and Steven Spielberg, among many others, were behind the camera, while the stars were also out in force. Warren Beatty, Marlon Brando, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Sean Connery, Faye Dunaway, Clint Eastwood, Jane Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Vanessa Redgrave all featured in fi...
Oct 11, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 129
Mean Streets was Martin Scorsese's third feature film, and the one that confirmed him as a major new talent. On its premiere at the New York Film Festival in 1973, the critic Pauline Kael hailed the film as 'a true original of our period, a triumph of personal film-making'. The tale of combative friends and small-time crooks is set amid the bars, pool halls, tenements and streets of Manhattan's Little Italy. Scorsese has said of his childhood neighbourhood, 'its very texture was interwoven with ...
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 128
Clint Eastwood is Hollywood’s elder statesman and its conscience. He is the standard by which other films and filmmakers are judged. He represents both classical Hollywood and an entirely modern, uncompromising and unfussy directorial presence. There are those who adore him as a cowboy, a superstar, the rugged, unyielding yet introspective face of American machismo. There are those who read him as a great American auteur fashioning uncompromising, fascinating, intellectual films about his countr...
Sep 27, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 127
Friend of the podcast and cultural historian Chris Yogerst critically celebrates the century of Warner Bros by looking at the family behind the studio The Warner Brothers. You can buy your copy here (among other outlets). And Chris recommended Sam Wasson's The Big Goodbye and Scott Eyman's upcoming Charlie Chaplin biography. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Sep 20, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 126
Jem Duducu talks Hollywood v History. Buy his new book here. And listen to hi s podcast here. Here's the blurb of his book: There is no shortage of Hollywood films about historical events, but what do the movies actually get right, and why do they get so much wrong? Hollywood loves a story: good guys versus bad guys, heroes winning the day, and the guy gets the girl. But we all know real life isn’t exactly like that, and this is even more true when we look at history. Rarely do the just prevail ...
Sep 13, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 125
Lawrence Grobel is a freelance writer who has written 31 books and for numerous national magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, Newsday, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Reader's Digest, American Way, Parade, Details, TV Guide, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Penthouse, Diversion, Writer's Digest, and AARP. He has been a contributing editor at Playboy, Movieline, Hollywood Life, Autograph, New Zealand's World, Bulgaria's Ego, and Poland's Trendy magazines. Playboy called him "the Int...
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr 26 min•Season 1Ep. 124
Molly Haskell is a legend of film criticism. A critic for the Village Voice, she also is one of the earliest most powerful voices in feminist film criticism, with her ground-breaking work From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies as well as books on Spielberg and Gone with the Wind . Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Aug 30, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 123
James Peaty and John Bleasdale talk about the summer release and particularly the success of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Peaty has written for publishers including Marvel Comics, DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics in the US as well as Rebellion Publishing and Titan Comics in the UK. During that time he has written for titles including The Batman Strikes!, X-Men Unlimited, Green Arrow. Supergirl, Justice League Unlimited and Doctor Who. For 2000AD he wrote and co-created Skip Tracer (with artis...
Aug 26, 2023•1 hr 31 min•Season 1Ep. 122
Clint Eastwood called her “Truly one of my favorite people.” Her former students include Michael Bay, Joss Whedon, Laurence Mark, Akiva Goldsman, Paul Weitz, Marc Shmuger and Alex Kurtzman. She's written a dozen books and recently co-authored Hollywood: An Oral History with Sam Wasson (friend of the podcast, read his essay on Jeanine here ). Jeanine Basinger is legendary and it is a true honor to have her on Writers on Film. Buy here books here. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See ...
Aug 23, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 121
Josh Winning is a writer and film critic. Bur the book here . The BlurbABOUT BURN THE NEGATIVE In this incendiary mash-up of horror and suspense, a notorious slasher film is remade…and the curse that haunted it is reawakened. Arriving in L.A. to visit the set of a new streaming horror series, journalist Laura Warren witnesses a man jumping from a bridge, landing right behind her car. Here we go , she thinks . It’s started. Because the series she’s reporting on is a remake of a ’90s horror flick....
Aug 17, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 120
Nothing To Fear: Alfred Hitchcock And The Wrong Men To buy click on this link. Alfred Hitchcock is not often associated with a social justice movement. But in 1956, the world’s most famous director focused his lens on an issue that cuts to the heart of our criminal justice system: the risk of wrongful conviction. The result was The Wrong Man , a wrenching and largely overlooked drama based on the real-life arrest of Queens musician Christopher “Manny” Balestrero for two robberies he did not comm...
Aug 09, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 119
Who wrote Citizen Kane? Orson Welles and Herman Mankiewicz or Herman Makiewicz and Orson Welles? Or David Fincher. Scholar and film writer Warren Buckland turns to the evidence and away from the prejudice to resolve the question once and for all. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Aug 04, 2023•56 min•Season 1Ep. 118
The Alien films are perceived to be a fractured franchise, each one loosely related to the others. They are nonlinear, complicated, convoluted: a collection of genre movies ranging from horror to war to farce. But on closer examination, the threads that bind together these films are strong and undeniable. The series is a model of Catherine Keller’s cosmology as a cycle of order out of chaos, an illustration of her concept of evil as discreation. When viewed through the lens of Keller’s Face of t...
Jul 29, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 117
Kaleem Aftab talks about his career as a high flying journalist, publishing in The Independent and Variety among many others. He also talks about his authorship of a 'As told by' biography of Spike Lee: That's My Story and I'm Sticking to it . And gives his book recommendation. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jul 22, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Get the book here . “Matt Pais deserves four stars for reintroducing us to many of the greatly talented but often unsung heroes of 1990s film. This is a terrific read.”—RICHARD ROEPER “Even if you’re drowning in pop culture nostalgia, Pais’ book is a fun, insightful and informative life raft.”—ROBERT K. ELDER, author of The Film That Changed My Life “Matt Pais captures an entire era succinctly and vividly. A fascinating read.”—GABRIELLE ANWAR “A love letter to my wonder years, and goes far beyon...
Jul 20, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 116
The second part of my report on Karlovy Vary with conversations featuring Karel Och, artistic director of the festival, Ben Dalton of Screen, Deadline writer Damon Wise and Ben Nicholson from The Verdict. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jul 17, 2023•53 min•Season 1Ep. 115
From the noted Hollywood biographer and author of The Contender comes this celebration of the great American love story—the romance between Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart—capturing its complexity, contradictions, and challenges as never before. In Bogie & Bacall, William Mann offers a deep and comprehensive look at Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, and the unlikely love they shared. Mann details their early years—Bogart’s effete upbringing in New York City; Bacall’s rise as a model and actr...
Jul 12, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 114
John Bleasdale talks to a host of great writers attending the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. It includes Wendy Ide, Leigh Singer, Hugo Emmerzael and Marcus Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jul 06, 2023•39 min•Season 1Ep. 113
John Bleasdale talks to Alan Dean Foster, the poet laureate of the novelisation as well as a novelist of original fantasy and science fiction. He has recently published his memoirs The Director Should've Shot You available her e. For more information and updates visit his website . Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jun 27, 2023•1 hr 30 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Joseph McBride returns to Writers on Film to talk about his new book on the films of Billy Wilder. But this wide-ranging discussion doesn't stop there. Billy Wilder: Dancing on the Edge is available here . The director and cowriter of some of the world's most iconic films―including Double Indemnity , Sunset Blvd. , Some Like It Hot , and The Apartment ―Billy Wilder earned acclaim as American cinema's greatest social satirist. Though an influential fixture in Hollywood, Wilder always saw himself ...
Jun 21, 2023•1 hr 36 min•Season 1Ep. 112
Happy Pride Month: Writers on Film talks with Kyle Turner on his amazing book The Queer Film Guide: 100 Great Films the tell LGBTQIA+ Stories " Kyle Turner has selected 100 of cinema’s greatest queer films that are often overlooked but foundational to the art form and the wider culture. Starting in early cinema with trailblazers like Making a Man of Her and Different from Others , the list progresses through the eras, from Hitchcock’s Rope to cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show to today’s...
Jun 14, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 111
Joseph Aisenberg is a writer and novelist. His book on Carrie is available in a new updated version here . Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jun 07, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 110
Writers on Film hits the Croissette, talking to David Marquand of EuroNews; Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian; Jo-Ann Titmarsh of The Evening Standard and Ed Potton of The Times. My own reviews can be found at Cine-Vue here and Next Best Picture here . I also wrote a couple of pieces for Variety, which can be found here . Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
May 31, 2023•58 min•Season 1Ep. 109
We talk Life Above the Clouds : Steven DeLay's expansive collection of essays in this anthology proves that the subject of Malick is far from exhausted, and continues to affirm this filmmaker as an arousing artist of aesthetic, philosophical, and cinematic intrigue "In Life Above the Clouds: Philosophy in the Films of Terrence Malick , DeLay curates both established and emerging Malick contributors who keenly prove that illuminating conversations surrounding his work keep us returning to Malick ...
May 24, 2023•1 hr 36 min•Season 1Ep. 108
Jim Colvill is an editor based in New York City. He is also the publisher who along with Jake Perlin established Film Desk Books, a NYC based small press and online bookseller dedicated to books on cinema. He also edited The Press Gang, a collection of work from New York Press, with critics Godfrey Cheshire, Matt Zoller Seitz and Armond White. Here's a link to the site of Film Desk. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad...
May 17, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 107
Al Clark comes back to the podcast to talk the second half of his career. Having left London and Virgin, Al embarked on a massively influential career in the Australian film industry. His films launched many an Australian star both in front of behind the camera. Here's the blurb from his second memoir: "Time Flies Too is the sequel to 2021’s beguiling and absorbing memoir Time Flies by Al Clark, who in its last paragraph married and settled in Australia after a Spanish village childhood, a Scott...
May 10, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 106
