Telephones are an economical source of tension in cinema (who's calling?), and are intrinsically mysterious (who's calling?). Look at the faces of characters on the telephone and they usually wear a worried expression, for they are confronting the mystery or trying to avert a threat. Notable...
Read MoreFollow @DistractedFilm Timepieces in cinema, like offices, are prisons. Mental prisons rather than physical, the mental prison as a deadline. They bind and squeeze the protagonist's soul. They are reminders of his mortality, and they are a source of tension against which filmmakers measure the character's...
Read MoreFollow @Distractedfilm Offices. In cinema they tend to be private places where power is exercised on the unfortunate. Or, they're grim, formal prisons where the schmuck, the schnook, the schmo, is locked in spiritual chains, his individuality sublimated by the will of the mighty employer. In...
Read MoreFollow @distractedfilm Staircases. They're sort of netherworlds, transient spaces we move through in order to get from one world to another, connecting those worlds. They're spooky. People fall down them. People get thrown down them. They creak. Hitchcock loved them. Thanks again to everyone who made suggestions....
Read MoreFollow @Distractedfilm Pipes. They imply erudition, contemplation, concentration and quiet authority. They are a touch eccentric. It's no surprise then, that many of cinema's greatest filmmakers smoked them. The list is in no particular order, and thanks to everyone who made suggestions. [caption id="attachment_175660524" align="aligncenter" width="583"] Robert Bresson....
Read MorePeter Sellers' performance in Hal Ashby's 1979 film, Being There, is quite brilliant. It's one of eye-watering precision and discipline, and, like all great performances, it feels inevitable; the role could not be played any other way nor by any other actor. It came as...
Read MoreFollow @distractedfilm This list came about because I was piqued by the pairing of Ingrid Thulin and Robert Mitchum in Sheldon Reynolds' Foreign Intrigue. We associate them with different cinematic cultures - Thulin with European arthouse, Mitchum with classical Hollywood. This differential creates a gap in...
Read Morehttps://vimeo.com/74585515 I want the audience to have a peaceful, poetic experience when watching Noirish Project. The film rejects the bombast of so much contemporary cinema, the bombast of content and style, the bombast that seeks to control what we think. I don't want the film to...
Read MoreMonocles. They are other-worldly, eccentric, subversive. They imply a certain erudition as well as add mystery - people who wear monocles seem to know something we don't. Anyway, thanks again to everyone who made suggestions. [caption id="attachment_175660365" align="aligncenter" width="1278"] Fritz Lang. Nominated by @eliza2854, @Mara1937 and @lintlvieno.[/caption] [caption...
Read MoreThe number of responses for this one was overwhelming, and I found it almost impossible to narrow it down to ten titles, and actually impossible to select only one image for each. Further, filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard and Jim Jarmusch merit a list of their...
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