In the Name of the Father Produced and directed by Jim Sheridan Screenplay by Terry George and Jim Sheridan Based on the autobiography of Gerry Conlon Released by Universal Pictures Franz Kafka was right about metamorphoses. The usual direction is from the human condition to something lower, the cockroach or whatever insect it was that...
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Theater of Cruelty
True Romance Produced by Samuel Hadida, Steve Perry, and Bill Unger Directed by Tony Scott Screenplay by Quentin Tarantino Released by Warner Brothers Hard Target Produced by James Jacks, Sean Daniel, Chuck Pfarrer, and Terence Chang Directed by John Woo Screenplay by Mr. Pfarrer Released by Universal Pictures Because of my enthusiasm for the verve...
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Metaflicks
Jurassic Park Produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Gerald R. Molen Directed by Steven Spielberg Screenplay by Michael Crichton and David Koepp Released by Universal The Fugitive Produced by Arnold Kopelson Directed by Andrew Davis Screenplay by Jeb Stuart and David Twohy Released by Warner Brothers Robert Warshow, one of the best critics of film we...
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La Condition Humaine
Zoo Produced and Directed by Frederick Wiseman Released by Zipporah Films Much Ado About Nothing Produced by Kenneth Branagh, David Parfitt, and Stephen Evans Direction and Screenplay by Kenneth Branagh Released by The Samuel Goldwyn Company Frederick Wiseman’s rigorous documentary style disdains the unctuous narrator’s voice-over explanations to the audience of what it ought to...
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Horse Plays
Ulzana’s Raid Produced by Carter De Haven Directed by Robert Aldrich Written by Alan Sharp Released by Universal, 1972 Dances With Wolves Produced by Jim Wilson and Kevin Costner Directed by Kevin Costner Written by Michael Blake Released by Orion, 1990 No, I haven’t lost my mind, or at least that’s what I choose to...
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Saintly Thugs
Reservoir Dogs Produced by Lawrence Bender Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino Released by Miramax Films The Bad Lieutenant Produced by Edward Pressman Written by Abel Ferrara and Zoe Lund Directed by Abel Ferrara Released by Aries Films The way the camera turns an actor’s body into an objet d’art is wonderful. Some faces—Bogart’s, for...
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Biggies
Bram Stoker’s Dracula Produced by Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Fuchs, and Charles Mulvehill Written by James V. Hart Directed by Francis Ford Coppola Distributed by Columbia Pictures A Few Good Men Produced by David Brown, Rob Reiner, and Andrew Scheinman Written by Aaron Sorkin Directed by Rob Reiner Distributed by Columbia Pictures There are advantages...
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A Charming Film
Husbands and wives is a slight but charming film, and, had it not been for the inability of the press to distinguish between life and art, it would have opened in the usual eight theaters to reviews that were mildlv favorable if not quite ecstatic. Husbands and Wives is not a Shadows and Fog disaster,...
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Christmastime in Hollywood
Batman Returns Produced by Denise di Novi and Tim Burton Directed by Tim Burton Screenplay by Daniel Waters Released by Warner Brothers Monster in a Box Produced by Jon Blair and Renee Shafransky Directed by Nick Broomfield Written and Performed by Spalding Gray Released by Fine Line Features Not only had I not planned to...
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Gaiety Follies
Edward II Produced by Steve Clark-Hall and Antony Root Directed by Derek Jarman Screenplay by Derek Jarman, Stephen McBride, and Ken Butler Based on the play by Christopher Marlowe Released by Fine Line Features Howards End Produced by Ishmail Merchant Directed by James Ivory Screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Based on the novel by E.M....
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Gift: The Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte
Not merely a strange place, but the home of strangeness, the land stretching away west to vertiginous spaces beyond the imagination. Philadelphia first, then New York, where Nancy is living. The Grahls have done well, chemists, merchants, physicians. Lorenzo and Nancy cross the river, settle in Jersey, open a grocery store in Elizabeth. He writes...
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The Year in the Novel, 1991
What we have here—not even the President has had the effrontery to deny it—is an intellectual recession. I cannot think of a year in which more; bad books received more serious attention. These weren’t just lapses but a pattern, and one need not be paranoid to look for explanations. What people do is, mostly, what...
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Star Turns
Bugsy Produced by Mark Johnson Written by James Toback Directed by Barry Levinson Released by Tri-Star Pictures Meeting Venus Produced by David Puttnam Written by István Szabó and Michael Hirst Directed by István Szabó Released by Warner Brothers Gangster movies show us an are, the parabolic rise and fall of a career where ambition comes...
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Endangered Species
Billy Bathgate Produced by Arlene Donovan and Robert F. Coplesberry Directed by Robert Benton Written by Tom Stoppard Based on the book by E.L. Doctorow Released by Buena Vista Pictures Advance word was that this film was troubled, which helps it, I think. With lowered expectations, one comes hoping only for an engaging Dustin Hoffman...
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A Great Novelty
My Father’s Glory My Mother’s Castle Produced by Alain Poire Directed by Yves Robert Written by Lucette Andrei and Yves Robert Released by Orion Classics At a certain point, maybe two-thirds of the way through the pretentious nonsense of Barton Fink, I began to despair of finding anything interesting enough to write about, even in...
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Creations Great and Small
Impromptu Produced by Stuart Oken and Daniel A. Sherkow Directed by James Lapine Screenplay by Sarah Kernochan Distributed by Hemdale Films Terminator 2: Judgment Day Produced and directed by James Cameron Screenplay by James Cameron and William Wisher A Carolco Picture Released by Tri-Star Sumer was icumen in. The air conditioners were humming and the...
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Intimations of Mortality
The Silence of the Lambs Produced by Kenneth Ull, Edward Saxon, and Ron Bozman Directed by Jonathan Demme Written by Ted Talley From the novel by Thomas Harris Released by Orion Open Doors Produced by Angelo Rizzoli Directed by Gianni Amelio Written by Vicenzo Cerami and Mr. Amelio From the novel by Leonardo Sciascia Released...
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Antecedents
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead Produced by Michael Brandman and Emanuel Azenberg Written and directed by Tom Stoppard Released by Cinecom Scenes From a Mall Produced and directed by Paul Mazursky Written by Roger L. Simon and Mr. Mazursky Released by Buena Vista Pictures It is usually a reliable rule that when moviemakers decide to...
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Returns
The Godfather Part III Produced by Francis Ford Coppola Written by Mario Puzo and Mr. Coppola Directed by Mr. Coppola Released by Paramount Pictures Awakenings Produced by Walter F. Parkes and Lawrence Lasker Written by Steven Zaillian Directed by Penny Marshall Released by Columbia Pictures Alice Produced by Robert Greenhut Written and directed by Woody...
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The Vessels of His Meaning
“There is nothing so likely to hand down your name as a poem: all other monuments are frail and fading.” —Pliny the Younger To say that O.B. Hardison, Jr., who died last August at the age of 61, was a poet is in some respects to diminish his memory. “Poet” has become a hollow accolade,...
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Playing With Wickedness
Henry and June Screenplay by Philip Kaufman and Rose Kaufman Directed and produced by Philip Kaufman Released by Miramax Tune in Tomorrow Screenplay by William Boyd Directed by Jon Amiel Produced by John Feidler and Mark Tarlov Released by Cinecom Entertainment Reversal of Fortune Screenplay by Nicholas Kazan Directed by Barbet Schroeder Produced by Edward...
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Dreams, Ideals, and Jokes
Dreams Produced by Hisao Kurosawa and Mike Y. Inoue Written and directed by Akira Kurosawa Released by Warner Brothers Man Without Pigs Produced and directed by Chris Owen The Women Who Smile Produced and directed by Joanne Head The plan was terrific—as many plans are. I’d go up to New York to see selected films...
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Dick Tracy and the Bad Guys
I wanted to check out Dick Tracy mostly because the Disney stock had gone down four points and a fraction on the Monday after its first weekend’s disappointing grosses of only $22.5 million. That news was not encouraging to investors, but I saw it as an indication that perhaps some of those enthusiastic reviews I’d...
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Crimes and Punishments
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover Produced by Kees Kasander Written and directed by Peter Greenaway Released by Miramax Films The Plot Against Harry Produced by Michael Roemer and Robert Young Written and directed by Michael Roemer Released by King Screen Lust, greed, betrayal, murder, and revenge are not at all unusual...
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Good Books That Sell Good
Gore Vidal’s “American chronicle” is a roman fleuve that looks beyond Powell’s The Music of Time to Roger Martin du Card’s Les Thibaults series of the 1920’s and 30’s, and what it demonstrates is that our assumptions about popular culture are incomplete, if not actually wrong. The notion that commercial success varies inversely with quality...
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One Wiseman of Gotham
The distinguished documentaries of Frederick Wiseman presuppose two things. First of all, there are the technical advances in film and cameras that allow him to shoot with less cumbersome equipment than would have been possible a generation ago and to do so in available light. Second, and rather more important, is Wiseman’s discovery of one...
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The Aesthetics of Ruins
Archaeology is an academic discipline different from most others in that it attracts tourists. Most laboratories and library carrels don’t get busloads of vacationers dropping by in season, hoping for something entertaining to do between visits to the beach and forays into the bazaar. But the ruins of ancient temples—or stadia or theaters or whole...
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Epistles From the Master
What an inspiring book this is! Even though the trials of the literary life are notorious and banal, there are few of us who are sufficiently hardened to the blows that we don’t at least on occasion allow our guard to fall and make the mistake of taking the kicks and pricks personally. Old pro...
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A Cultural Cincinnatus
There are passages, even whole poems in Fred Chappell’s new collection for which there are clearly precedents in, or one might say kinships to, the work of other poets. The urbane chattiness of “Subject Matter,” for instance, makes no bones about it. It is nice to imagine how Auden would open a poem about the...
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Pound Foolish
The question arises very early on and looms ever larger as one progresses through this thousand-page-long life: how did Humphrey Carpenter stand it? Pound’s range was from loathsome or contemptible at the beginning to hateful at the apex of his career, and finally to pitiable at the end. To have continued with this distasteful project,...
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Inspiration and Craft
“Take these two books,” is an entirely arbitrary prompting by an editor who happened to have them around on a shelf. Willy-nilly, here they are together, and one looks at them, shuffling through the poems, some familiar and some not. And there is a moment when the rightness of the conjunction seems wonderful! A piece...