film criticism Archives - Public Seminar

Film

La Chimera‘s Tomb Raiders Unearth the Intersections of Past and Present

Do the souls of the dead miss what we have taken and sold?

October 16, 2024 • by Taylor Stout

One setting in Alice Rohrwacher’s 2024 film, La Chimera, collapses two thousand years of Italian history: an Etruscan gravesite in the shadow of a power plant. Here, where polluted ocean water laps at ancient dirt, the film’s merry band of tomb raiders (tombaroli) discover an untouched tomb brimming with artifacts—most ...

<em>La Chimera</em>‘s Tomb Raiders Unearth the Intersections of Past and Present

Film & Performing Arts

What Are We to Make of Lars von Trier?

The Idiots, the controversial Danish director’s most controversial film, reconsidered

December 19, 2023 • by Emma Slack-Jørgensen

In Denmark, von Trier is both ridiculed and cherished—at best he is terminally misunderstood and at worst a national laughing stock. Yet the Danish director meets his most critical audience within the very film festivals that have showcased his work. ...

Film & Performing Arts

On “Slow Cinema”

Does this contemporary movement represent a gentle resistance to the values of contemporary society—or a surrender to elitist aesthetics?

December 18, 2023 • by Bella Okuya

A thoughtful reflection on the unique allure of "slow cinema", its impact on audiences, and the intriguing debate it sparks about cultural representation and elitism. ...

Film & Performing Arts

Netflix Revives the Genre of the “Blaxploitation” Film to Attract Black Subscribers

They Cloned Tyrone tries to turn the colonization of Black Americans into a LOL comedy

December 18, 2023 • by Zenzelé Soa-Clarke

As a genre, Blaxploitation films were often morally ambiguous: though made for and by Black filmmakers and audiences, and sometimes depicting a kind of dead-end domestic colonialism, the films often normalized misogynistic treatment of Black women and uncritical ideals of Black capitalism....

film criticism

La Chimera‘s Tomb Raiders Unearth the Intersections of Past and Present

Do the souls of the dead miss what we have taken and sold?

What Are We to Make of Lars von Trier?

The Idiots, the controversial Danish director’s most controversial film, reconsidered

On “Slow Cinema”

Does this contemporary movement represent a gentle resistance to the values of contemporary society—or a surrender to elitist aesthetics?

Netflix Revives the Genre of the “Blaxploitation” Film to Attract Black Subscribers

They Cloned Tyrone tries to turn the colonization of Black Americans into a LOL comedy

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